The Wool Trade in England

Wool is different from hair in that it has a natural "crimp" to it that allows the fibers to bind together. This, and the fact that it can be found in abundance on the backs of sheep, made it an excellent source for textiles. Anyone with a plot of grass could have sheep, and anyone with sheep could learn the steps to make it into cloth.

The Low Countries, such as Flanders, did not have as much land to give over to grass instead of other human-based edibles, but they became excellent weavers whose textiles were in demand all over Europe. They needed the raw material, however, and England was an excellent source.

Wool as in such demand that it became the backbone of the English economy from the second half of the 13th century to the second half of the 15th. Everyone kept sheep for this purpose. Abbeys and monasteries often had large tracts of land given to them, and they became major sources of raw wool.

Wool was so popular a commodity that Edward I (1239 - 1307) realized it was a source of revenue for the crown as well. He instituted a tax on every bale and bag of raw wool that went out of the country. The beauty of taxation for the historian is that it means records are kept, so we know a lot about how much wool was exported. From 1281 to 1300, about 26,000 sacks of wool. How much was that, really? The English "sack," used for wool and coal, equalled 224 pounds. That equates to about 2900 tons of wool annually. In the first couple decades of the 1300s, the annual output averaged 35-40,000 sacks.

Edward III (1312 - 1377) needed a lot of revenue to manage expenses during the Hundred Years War, and raised the tax on wool. He promoted the wool trade by establishing the Woolsack, a large cushion of wool on which the presiding officer of the House of Lords sat.

Edward would make decisions that ultimately lessened the value of wool for his economy. He invited weavers from Flanders to relocate to England. Perhaps he though he could bring another source of revenue closer to home. His high taxes, however, started to discourage people from sending wool abroad, and they started making their own woolen cloth. An influx of skilled Flemish weavers meant less raw wool leaving the country to be taxed. The annual export started decreasing in the final years of his reign, and dropped below 20,000 sacks in the decade following. From 1400 to 1430, it didn't exceed 15,000 sacks, and after 1430 it fell below 10,000.

There was another reason: quality. English wool reigned supreme for generations, but experiments in cross-breeding in the Iberian Peninsula produced something else: Merino wool. The best guesses are Spanish ewes being bred with English and North African rams in the 12th and 13th centuries, and then increased stock over the years, produced a much finer wool that became all the rage for cloth. You can learn more about it in this post.

This web article opened with the following:

Wool as a raw material has been widely available since the domestication of sheep. Even before shears were invented, wool would have been harvested using a comb or just plucked out by hand.

I thought the second sentence was pretty superfluous, but then I asked myself: "Well, when did shears come into the picture?" So I did some looking, and now I know, which I will shear...excuse me, share tomorrow.

Emma of Normandy

Emma of Normandy (c.984 - 6 March 1052) was queen of England, Denmark, and Normandy. As the daughter of Richard the Fearless of Normandy, she was a desirable marriage prospect for King Æthelred to form better relations between England and Normandy. Æthelred hoped the union would help stave off Viking raids on England, which were often staged from Normandy.

Her wedding gift included properties in Devonshire, Oxfordshire, Rutland, Suffolk, and Winchester, as well as the city of Exeter. Her children by Æthelred were sons Edward the Confessor and Alfred Ætheling, and daughter Goda of England. Upon her husband's death in 1016, she remained prominent in politics.

This made her a valuable prospect for marriage when Cnut of Denmark went looking for a bride. Actually, Cnut was looking to conquer England, and Emma may have had a hand in saving her sons' lives by agreeing to marry Cnut. She became Queen of Denmark and England with Cnut starting in 1018. When Cnut conquered Norway in 1028, she became queen likewise of Norway.

She was not, however, just a pretty face or a way to link kingdoms peacefully through matrimony. As the richest woman in England in her time, she also held significant authority over ecclesiastical offices in the lands she owned. She is also one of the first medieval queens to have her likeness portrayed in documents. Pictured here is a page from the Encomium Emmæ Reginæ, or "Praise for Queen Emma." The title is clearly meant to flatter her, since the three-part history within discusses the conquest of England by Sweyn Forkbeard, the defeat of England by Cnut and his reign, and the events after Cnut's death (which do involve Emma's seizing of the royal treasury to keep it safe from Earl Godwin of Wessex, who disputed the choice of Cnut's successor).

She was buried alongside Cnut in the Old Minster in Winchester, but parliamentary forces during the English Civil War disinterred and scattered the remains. They were eventually recovered; Winchester has a mortuary chest that contains the remains.

Emma's life was eventful and influential, which may have been luck or a trait she got from her mother, Gunnor. We'll take a look at Gunnor next.

Foot of Fines

Parchment from 1303 showing the three-part,
Final Concord. [source]

The word "fine" has many meanings, several of them deriving from the Latin finis, "end." With that in mind, one can easily guess that a "fine" in the sense of a payment necessary to end some disagreement is the "end product" of the process.

In fact, late 12th century England is where we find the legal practice of creating a "final concord" (shortened to "fine") entering the legal system. The final concord was an agreement between two parties that started as a way to resolve a dispute, but quickly evolved as a way to create any agreement. Fines were originally written up by the Exchequer (because they usually involved money), but by the end of the 14th century they were being handled by the Court of Common Pleas (partially because they became so popular that the Exchequer could not handle all the business).

The physical structure of the Fine can be seen in the illustration. The details were written out three times on a single parchment, twice alongside and once at the "foot" of the document. The parchment was then cut, separating the three pieces. Each party had one of the parts, and the "foot" was kept by the court. Note the wavy lines with characters written on them: proof that a party held the proper documentation was given by fitting the two (or three) irregularly-cut pieces back together!

Because of the security of having the "Foot of Fines" preserved in the records of the court, later disputes were prevented. This became a popular method for married women to make arrangements for the transfer of property, ensuring proper ownership of her own in the case of her husband's death.

The process was abolished by the Fines and Recoveries Act of 1833.

http://www.medievalgenealogy.org.uk/fines/index.shtml

Crisis in Portugal

Ferdinand I, son of Pedro the Cruel

Inheritance is never more complicated than when a throne is involved. The stakes are too high for anyone to let slip by the chance that he can convince the world that he should rule the country involved. When Peter I of Castile (who ruled both Castile and Portugal) died in 1369, it seemed natural that his eldest surviving son, the 24-year-old Ferdinand I, would inherit the throne.

Except that Peter did not have the Castilian throne to pass along. His illegitimate half-brother, Henry of Trastámara, had taken it in 1369 after defeating Peter in the (First) Castilian Civil War. Wanting to oust Peter wasn't a big surprise to much of Europe, since at the time he was more commonly known as "Pedro the Cruel" because of a ruthless administrative style that did not sit well with the aristocracy. Henry had the support of the papacy as well as France and Aragon. France was happy to get involved on the side opposing Peter because of the larger global issues: France was still in the Hundred Years War with England, and England's John of Gaunt (son of King Edward III) was married to Peter's daughter Constance.

Ferdinand was now King of Portugal, but he wanted Castile as well.

Just because Henry sat the throne, however, did not mean his legitimacy was incontrovertible. (He had a son who was not yet a teenager.) Upon Peter's death, King Peter IV of Aragon and King Charles II ("the Bad") of Navarre put forth claims to Castile, as did Peter I's son-in-law, John of Gaunt. (John would have liked a kingdom of his own, since the assumption was that England would go to his older brother, Edward the Black Prince).

Military engagements followed. In order to avoid an unending conflict, all parties appealed to the pope. Pope Gregory IX got everyone to accept a treaty in 1371, agreeing that Peter's son Ferdinand would ascend the throne and would marry Leonora of Castile, Henry's daughter. This would link the thrones of Portugal and Castile by marriage, and everyone would be satisfied.

The next difficulty was created by Ferdinand himself. Although he accepted the treaty, he fell in love with someone else: Leonor Telles de Meneses, the wife of one of his courtiers! He managed to get her forcibly divorced from her husband so that Ferdinand could marry her.

With Henry's daughter spurned, he had no incentive to allow Ferdinand to become king in Henry's place. John of Gaunt plotted with Ferdinand to remove Henry from Castile, and brought an English army to help—to no avail, however, and a treaty in 1373 calmed everyone down again.

Henry died in 1379, and John of Gaunt once again made a claim for the throne. Ferdinand, however, made his own treaty without English help. If Ferdinand's daughter Beatrice were to marry Henry's son John, then the two kingdoms could be joined by marriage to everyone's satisfaction.

When Ferdinand died on 22 October 1383, he left no male heir. Beatrice's marriage to John would have taken care of Castile, but what of Portugal? The treaty was tossed away—popular sentiment was that Portugal would be annexed by Castile; Portugal needed its own king, not that of Castile!—and Ferdinand's illegitimate brother John claimed the throne, sparking a two-year period of war and political uncertainty with the French helping John of Castile and the English helping John of Portugal. When the dust settled, Portugal had gained control of many towns that were originally Castilian, and the two kingdoms were ruled separately.

In 1387, John I of Portugal married Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt. The alliance between Portugal and England was and remains very strong.

Letter to Mellitus

St. Mellitus, converter of Anglo-Saxons

We have the story, handed down from Bede, that Pope Gregory I sent a mission to England in 597 to convert the population to Christianity. The 40 missionaries were allowed by Æthelbert of Kent to preach there, and the conversions began. Æthelbert himself converted some time prior to 601.

The story goes that the pope wrote letters to England in July of 601, with what was considered extraordinary advice at the time. He had written to Æthelbert , asking him to destroy pagan shrines, but a separate letter to the missionaries took a different approach. Rather than engage in forcible conversions, which usually required converting the ruler first and then having him force his entire nation to convert en masse, Gregory advised them to use persuasion and a gradual conversion process.

Rather than destroy pagan shrines and temples, Gregory suggested converting them. Instead of stopping pagan sacrifices, they should be made into Christian festivals. He suggested that the pagan Anglo-Saxons be considered as if they were the early Israelites, and introduced to early  Jewish practices, like building huts during the Jewish festival of Sukkot. Gregory thought they could be "gradually" introduced to Christianity this way.

The source of this advice is the Epistola ad Mellitum ["Letter to Mellitus"]. Mellitus was head of the missionaries in a second group in 601 (the first group was headed by Augustine). He brought a great number of books and other religious materials with him. Mellitus was made the first Bishop of London. Mellitus' patron was King Sæberht of Essex (Æthelbert's nephew, whom Mellitus baptized), but after Sæberht and Æthelbert died in 616, Mellitus was exiled by Sæberht's three pagan sons, and went to Gaul. Æthelbert's successor converted to Christianity a few years later, however, and Mellitus returned to become the third Archbishop of Canterbury.

As archbishop, he is supposed to have performed a miracle: after a fire started in the town and threatened the cathedral, the wind changed direction when Mellitus entered it and saved the building.

Mellitus died on 24 April in 624 and was buried in St. Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. He was considered a saint from shortly after his death. Bede tells us that Mellitus suffered from gout, and gout sufferers used to be brought to his shrine looking for a cure.

Æthelred the Unready

From a 14th century manuscript

Since Æthelred keeps getting mentioned here (most notably the past two days, due to the contested inheritance of the English throne between him and his half-brother, Edward the Martyr), I thought maybe we should mention a little more about him—or at least explain his not-very-flattering nickname.

When his father, King Edgar, died Æthelred was only about 10 years old. His half-brother, Edward, was a few years older. Edward was illegitimate, whereas Æthelred was the legitimate son of Edgar's last wife, Ælfthryth. Ælfthryth and others fought to have Æthelred succeed Edgar, but others fought for the older Edward, who wound up ruling for three years.

It is highly unlikely that the then-13-year-old Æthelred had anything to do with Edward's death on 18 March 978. Æthelred was crowned a month later.

One of the chief problems faced by Æthelred was attacks by the Danes. About a year after Æthelred became king, small groups of Danes began making raids on the English coast; these happened for a couple years. Then, after a six-year span of peace, a Danish incursion caused a battle between them and the nobles of Devon. England was able at this time to successfully defend itself, but there was an interesting side-effect of these raids, and that was the connection to Normandy.

Upon occasion, the Danes would leave England and cross the Channel to Normandy to give themselves time to rest and recuperate. The Normans ("North Men"), being of Scandinavian extraction originally, "took the side" of the Danes and started viewing England as a rival. Relations between England and Normandy started becoming hostile, so much so that Pope John XV decided to step in and broker a peace treaty between the two nations, in 991. A couple generations later, relations between England and Normandy would change radically, in 1066.

991 also saw the Battle of Maldon, in which the Danes did terrible damage to parts of England and the English nobility. After Maldon,  Æthelred decided that England should pay the Danes to stay away. This started a dangerous precedent: paying off one group of Danes was no guarantee that another (or the same group) wouldn't come back and attack your shores in 997, 998, 999, 1000, and again in 1001. There were more payments, but they were followed by more invasions.

This is a runestone in Sweden,
set up to commemorate a man
who received Danegeld three
times due to raids in England.

Were the payments a good idea? This idea of Danegeld ["Dane gold"] wasn't new: even King Alfred the Great had seen fit to use money to ensure peace. It was a way to get a marauder to go away and leave lives and crops and property intact. Still, it marred Æthelred's reputation, and may have led to his nickname.

"Unready" suggests to modern readers that he was not prepared for the problems that beset his reign. His Anglo-Saxon name and nickname were Æthelred Unræd, which we translate today as "Æthelred the Unready." The ræd element means "counsel" or "advice." The name Æthelred Unræd would be a pun meaning "Noble advice, no advice." The "blame" (if that is what we should assign due to his nickname) may be imputed to his councilors, who gave him bad advice. It is the modern English understanding of the word "Unready" that makes us condemn him personally for not being prepared for what befell England while he was on the throne.

Battle van Damme

A naval battle, from a ms. dated late 13th/early 14th century

We are accustomed to summing up the reign of King John (1199 - 1216) as a failure. His rebellious barons forced him to sign the Magna Carta; he lost the crown jewels; he gained the nickname "Lackland" [Johan sanz Terre] when he lost Normandy. As it happens, however, his reign was  not without successes.

At the end of May in 1213, King Philip II of France (mentioned here) was fighting in Flanders (someday I will get to that story). It was known that France thought John weak, and was planning an invasion of England.  John decided it was prudent to send his forces to Flanders and try to deal with Philip there, while he was already busy in conflict with someone else.

So John sent 500 ships and 700 knights, along with mercenaries and all the extra servants and other non-combatant personnel that a military campaign requires. His fleet made for the estuary of the river Zwyn on 30 May, where they encountered Philip's fleet, anchored at the town known as Damme. The French fleet was over three times the size of England's; rather than present a problem however, the fleet was manned by a skeleton crew, the military all having gone shore to march to Ghent for their battle.

The English captured a few hundred ships, burned a hundred more; the following day, they did it again, as well as disembarking and attacking the town. Unfortunately, Philip returned to Damme that day, and the English had to flee. They were in possession of hundreds of French ships, however, as well as all the goods that the French nobles carried with them while traveling. One writer of the period claimed "never had so much treasure come into England since the days of King Arthur."*

The damage to the French fleet was considerable, and not just from the deliberate actions of the English: there was so much debris from destroyed ships that the estuary was blocked, and the remaining French fleet could not sail out to open water. Philip had to abandon or burn the remainder of his ships.

*The biographer of William Marshall, in L'Histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal ["The History of William the Marshall"]

Regarding the Burning of Heretics

In 1401, during the reign of King Henry IV of England, Parliament passed a law known by the phrase, De heretic comburendo ["Regarding the burning of heretics"]. Heresy was always a concern, going back to Pelagius and Arius, but England had a new threat in the Middle Ages, in the form of John Wycliffe, whose attempts at reforming the church and politics did not sit well with those establishments.

True, by 1401 Wycliffe (c.1324-1384) had been dead for years, but his ideas had inspired a movement called Lollardy, and his plan to bring the word of God into the hands of the masses via his English-language Bible ran the risk (according to Church authorities) of leading the faithful astray by giving them the chance to read Scripture without the proper learning to understand its precise meaning. Something had to be done; something proper and legal—after all, England was a country governed by law, not whim.

Hence the De heretic comburendo, which described the Lollards as:

...divers false and perverse people of a certain new sect...they make and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform people...and commit subversion of the said catholic faith. [link]

The law states further

...and they the same persons and every one of them, after such sentence promulgate shall receive, and them before the people in an high place cause to be burnt, that such punishment may strike fear into the minds of others, ...

This statute stayed on the books in England until 1677.

Viking Urban Renewal

When we think of the Viking invasions of England, we usually think of the destruction of villages and people's lives. This is understandable, since the Vikings were coming for land and plunder, not to make friends. Ironically, however, the Vikings were responsible for a significant expansion of urban centers in England at the end of the 9th century and beginning of the 10th.

Archaeological excavations of prominent towns in England show that many of them experienced a  surge in growth during the above-mentioned half-century span. York, Cambridge, Stamford, Lincoln and Norwich are just a few of the cities that show the features that characterize this expansion:

They came to form separate urban nuclei of a distinctive but hitherto unrecognized topographical type, which show common characteristics: they usually developed as linear settlements on low-lying ground along existing routeways leading to earlier centres, many of them at bridging points of major rivers. All of them occupied areas with easy access to river and estuarine navigation. [Jeremy Haslam, Early Medieval Towns in Britain, 2010, Shire Publications]

The assumed catalyst for this change from the British settlements to the more robust Viking towns is the opportunities for trade opened up by the new Viking inhabitants. The Vikings had more advanced ships, capable of longer trips, and they traded not only with Europe and the Scandinavian markets, but also with Asian markets.

There is an additional curious feature shared by many of these settlements. Many of them include churches dedicated to St. Clement. This is no coincidence, but that's a story for another day.

Medieval Prices

Marketplace, from 16th c.
Les Livres du gouvernement des Princes

Yesterday we talked about the gold bezant and the difficulty in understanding what it was worth. We only know what things were worth in history when someone records what they paid for something. We know, for instance, that Cécile Dorel was "worth" 10,000 bezants. Thanks to the efforts of others, however, we have some idea of the purchasing power of certain currencies.

Here is a page that lists several prices, gleaned from medieval records in England. It offers the different years those prices were recorded, so that one can try to account for changing value over time.

First let us look at relative value:
1 pound = 20 shillings
1 shilling = 12 pence
1 pence/penny = 4 farthings

Also, an English groat was worth 4 pence. Keep in mind that Marco Polo considered a bezant to be worth 20 groats, or 80 pence; this would make a single gold bezant the equivalent of 6.66 shillings, or one-third of a pound.

Let's say we found three gold bezants while we ransacked Constantinople in 1204 as part of the Fourth Crusade. (This was alluded to here; some day I will decide to tackle that complex story.) We take them back to England, and we decide to spend them. We have a whole pound to spend. What shall we do?

According to the above webpage, if we wanted to buy livestock we could get 10 pigs, or we could buy about 500 chickens. Chickens came two to a penny, but if we just wanted eggs, that penny could get us two dozen. If we wanted to enjoy the country life but didn't want to farm, we could rent a cottage for four years (5 shillings/year). That's going to be a one- or two-room affair. In town, renting a merchant's house (which would have several rooms for personal and commercial use) would require about 10 bezants, not the three we have.

If we bequeathed the bezants to our descendants (and assuming they maintained their worth), our great-great-grandsons could have bought three peasant-quality swords for joining the Hundred Years War.

If, however, we just wanted to spend the money on a feast for our neighbors, we could provide a real Babette's Feast.
Good wine (2 gallons) = 20 pence
Sheep to roast = 17 pence
Pig to roast = 24 pence
10 chickens = 5 pence
80-pound cheese wheel = 40 pence (this will last far beyond the fast date)
Salted herring (20) = 15 pence
Dried fruit (raisins, dates, figs, etc.) =  20 pence (1-4 pence per pound; let's be lavish)
Spices (cinnamon, sugar, cloves, etc.) = 20 pence (1-3 shillings per pound; we won't get too much)
Let's get a couple ceramic cooking pots = 1 pence

At this point, we've spent just over 160 pence of our 240.

Alternately, we could probably forgo all of this materialistic pleasure and buy a book. One book. If we were lucky, we'd have three pence remaining and could buy 2 pounds of tallow candles by which to read it.

The Bezant

Coins from Kingdom of Jerusalem in British Museum
(l. to r.) dinar (1162-75), Arabic bezant (1140-80),
Christian bezant (1250-) [source]

Yesterday's post mentioned 10,000 bezants being paid as a bride price. Let's discuss the bezant.

Discussions of items of currency in history break down into two parts: "Where did it come from?" and "What is it worth?" The first part is far easier to deal with. You might guess that the name bezant comes from its relationship to its place of origin: Byzantium.* Gold coins could be called after a particular place because they were not that common: few places minted them, silver and bronze being the more common metals used (hence, of course, the traditional use of gold, silver, and bronze for medals in competition). Gold coins were used for special occasions or for attention-getting: gifts, tributes, awards or, as we saw yesterday, impressing your fiancé's guardian.

Gold coinage started in antiquity in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean and slowly spread westward as trade increased. Of European merchants, those from Italy had the most familiarity with eastern gold coins from the east and used the term bezant to refer to gold coins from Egypt (the dinar in the above picture); Marco Polo used bezant to refer to the gold coins he saw in East Asia.

What was a bezant worth? That depended on a lot of factors, and there was no "gold market" like we have today that monitors fluctuations in price. The best we have in most cases is a comparison to other coins. Marco Polo describes one bezant as worth 20 groats or 133.33 tornesel. This tells us only that gold coins were proportionally far more valuable than other metals. The gold coins that were minted in England in the 10th and 11th centuries were decreed to be worth nine times the value of a similar-sized silver coin. Suffice it to say that any gold coin had much more purchasing power than most coins in circulation that the average person would be likely to use on a daily basis. Unfortunately, we do not have lists of prices of everyday items or services from history...but we do have some, which we will look at tomorrow.


*Byzantium was re-named Constantinople in 330CE; later, of course, it became Istanbul in 1930. Enjoy the song.

The Oldest Political Alliance

King John I of Portugal weds Philippa of Lancaster, 1386
(Chronique de France et d'Angleterre, Jean Wavrin, 15th c.)

When Edward III is mentioned in this blog, it is often in connection with the Hundred Years War between England and France. Expanding his "little island's" authority was an important feature of his long reign. So it might come as a surprise to learn that he was responsible for a non-aggression treaty with another European power—a treaty that has been in effect for almost 600 years!

It didn't hurt Edward to have a friend on the continent. It gave him a potential place to land ships if he needed to march through (or against) Spain for any reason. The alliance helped Portugal as well. During political troubles in the 1380s, John the Good (called João in Portugese) defeated his rivals; England recognized him as the rightful king of Portugal right away. Spain would not recognize his right to rule until decades later. England reinforced the 1373 treaty in 1386 with the Treaty of Windsor, as a result of which King John I of Portugal married Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, Edward III's 4th son.

Does the treaty have any real significance in the modern world, considering the United Nations, NATO, etc.? Well, it is said that during World War II, Portugal refused to join the Axis powers in order to stay loyal to a 550-year-old document!

In the first paragraph, I said the treaty had been in place for "almost" 600 years, but wouldn't the date of 1373 mean it was in place for 640 years? Or, given that the treaty wasn't ratified until 1386, couldn't I have said "over" or "more than" 600 years? Well, I must be honest: the treaty wasn't always in effect during that time. From 1580-1640, due to marriages between the royal families of Spain and Portugal, Portugal was obligated to drop the treaty with England, Spain's enemy at the time.

St. Helena

Yesterday's post mentioned a nail from Christ's cross that had been possessed by the Emperor Constantine (c.272-337), the first Christian Emperor of the Byzantine Empire. We are told he had been given the nail by his mother, Helena.

Flavia Julia Helena (246-330) was born in Drepanum in Asia Minor (re-named "Helenopolis" after her death by Constantine). There is a tradition in England that says she came from Colchester, a town that nowadays has schools named for her and a road named for Constantine, but since Colchester was Rome's capital city in Britain at the time, perhaps this tradition has a more mundane and municipal explanation.* Much has been made of Constantine's conversion to Christianity and his decree that it become the official religion of the Roman Empire, but his mother did something that would help to bring focus on the new religion.

How she first came into the Roman picture isn't clear. One story tells that Constantine's father, Constantius, met her in Asia Minor while stationed there on behalf of the Emperor Aurelian. Constantius met a woman wearing a silver bracelet identical to one he was wearing, and took it as a divine sign that they should be together. Some contemporary historians call her Constantius' wife, some his concubine (but those were rivals of Constantius who were trying to de-legitimize Constantine). St. Jerome (c.347-420), with perhaps an attempt at some sort of fairness rather than a historian's lens, refers to her as both.

She had a checkered career, taking part in many acts that may have been politically convenient but would not now be considered proper Christian behavior. She also had a reputation, however, for acts of charity to the poor, and for worshiping in humble attire. Her greatest contribution to Christianity came when Constantine gave her unlimited resources to find relics connected with the new religion. She set out for the Holy Land. Eusebius of Cæsarea (c.263-339) credits her with establishing the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (commemorating Christ's birthplace), the Church of the Mount of Olives (commemorating Christ's ascension into heaven), and she may have been responsible for a church in Egypt that commemorates the burning bush of Moses.

According to legend, she began an excavation...somewhere...and lo and behold, unearthed three crosses. The story of the Crucifixion immediately sprang to mind, but she wanted empirical (pun intended) evidence. With the help of Bishop Macarius, each of the three crosses was brought into contact with a local woman who was deathly ill. Contact with the first two produced no effect, but contact with the third caused the woman's health to return immediately. They realized that they had located the True Cross on which Christ had been crucified. (The illustration is a 1380 painting by Agnolo Gaddi.)

The true era and business of holy relics could now begin...and did it ever!

*This is from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ [History of the Kings of Britain], and makes Helena the daughter of Coel of Colchester, the "old King Cole" of nursery rhyme fame.

Provisions of Oxford

Henry III (1207-1272) spent much of his reign of 56 years dealing with fallout from the reign of his father, King John. For one thing, the Barons who pushed the Magna Carta on John were always looking for ways to increase their power. In 1258, they got their chance.

Henry had fought a military action against Sicily on behalf of Pope Alexander IV, and subsequently was out of money. So he summoned Parliament in the spring of 1258 to discuss a grant of revenue. The Barons agreed, with the provision that Henry would, in exchange, submit to a list of reforms. This Parliament is alternately called the Easter Parliament and the Mad Parliament. Henry (reluctantly) agreed, and on June 10th the 24-man commission created to develop the reforms (half appointed by the king and half by the Barons) submitted its report. The changes within were called the Provisions of Oxford.

Although considered by some to be the first written constitution in England (and the first published in English: copies were circulated to all of England in French, Latin, and Middle English), the Provisions were actually very short-lived, being superseded by the Provisions of Westminster in 1259. (In fact, they were only supposed to exist for 12 years, as a temporary measure while further reforms were being studied and put in place.) As a consequence, we are not sure that we have a complete record of the Provisions, relying instead on references to them found in contemporary and later documents. Still, we know enough to know that they attempted a series of regulations and "checks and balances" in government.

For instance, Parliament was to meet three times a year, not just when the King wanted them. All high officers were to swear loyalty to the king. Many positions (such as the chancellor, the chief justice, the treasurer) were appointments of only one year—helping to prevent the amassing of power and the temptation to long-term corruption—at the end of which the officer was to give an accounting of his actions while in office. A system was put in place for addressing grievances against sheriffs. Sheriffs were to be loyal landholders who would receive no fees for their work, but be subsidized by the exchequer for their expenses.

Ruins of Kenilworth, where it ended

Attempt to curtail royal power persisted, and the conflict see-sawed. Pope Urban IV annulled the Provisions in 1261 and 1262. The Barons restored and reinforced them in 1263, then modified them in 1264. Finally, the Barons took over England in 1264, Henry defeated them at the Battle of Evesham in 1265 and killed their leader, Simon de Montfort; some Barons held out at Kenilworth, and the siege that started by Henry was curtailed by the intervention of the pope, who suggested reconciliation. The resulting Dictum of Kenilworth allowed the rebels to have their estates back (at prices dependent on how rebellious they had been!), and many of the statutes in the earlier Provisions were overturned. Henry agreed to reconfirm Magna Carta, but the appointment of royal officers was re-recognized as a royal prerogative. The reconciliation between the levels of power lasted through Henry's reign and into that of his son, Edward I (1239-1307).

Tornado Surprise

Tornadoes usually form when masses of warm, moist air and higher altitude cooler air meet. The cooler air descends, the warm air ascends, and the action creates a vertical funnel of swiftly rotating air. The majority of tornadoes in the world are created in the North American mid-west, when cool air coming over the Rocky Mountains meets the warm air rising from the Great Plains. With these geographical features, North America has what is called "Tornado Alley." Without these geographical features, tornadoes have a more difficult time forming; when they do, they are usually very weak. In fact, in the 1000 years prior to the 20th century, only about 2 dozen tornadoes were recorded in all of Europe.

Artist's impression of St. Mary le Bow being destroyed

Which makes it all the more interesting to learn that a tornado—the earliest known in England and perhaps the biggest ever experienced by that country—hit London in 1091. Once again, London Bridge fell down. The church of St. Mary le Bow was flattened, and four of its 26-foot-long rafters were driven into the ground with such force that only 4 feet remained showing. Several other churches were damaged or destroyed, as well as 600 houses. Estimates of the force of the tornado seem foolish, but people have tried, and they rate it an F4 on the Fujita Scale (F0-F5), with winds at 200 miles per hour or more. If that is true, then it is truly remarkable that there were only two deaths reported.

A tornado like that hitting London now would be striking a city of more than 8 million, but in 1091 estimates for London's population range from as few as 10,000 to as many as 20,000. In October of 1091, actually, there were even fewer people in London than usual. Thanks to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we know that King William II was up north with his retinue and army fighting King Malcolm Canmore of Scotland (1038-1093). William prevailed, and was out of town when disaster struck. All things considered, it was probably the luckiest military campaign he ever undertook.

The Templars in England

In 1307, on Friday the 13th of October, King Philip of France ordered the head of the Knights of the Temple, Jacques de Molay, arrested along with scores of other Templars. That wasn't the intent outside of France, however. Philip's motive for crushing the Templars was his indebtedness to them, but his opportunity came when Pope Clement V asked the King's help in investigating charges made two years previously by an ex-Templar. Philip used this request as a reason to arrest them and appropriate their property. This is usually considered the "end of the Templars" and the start of their disgrace.

The Templars' Church in London

Under torture, many Templars confessed to heresy, idolatry, corruption and fraud, homosexuality. With that "evidence," the Pope had to issue a bull on 22 November 1307 demanding the seizing of the Templars and their property all over Europe.

In England, however, the Templars found refuge for a time. This was partially due to England being busy with other things. Edward I had died in July 1307, after illness and constant military engagements in order to keep Scotland under control. His successor, Edward II, was a disappointment on many levels, one of which was his lack of interest in administration. Worrying about giving orders for mass arrests was not on his agenda. He focused instead on sport and entertainment, gave up the Scottish campaign, and recalled his banished best friend (with whom he was considered to have an "unnatural" relationship). His hand on the Templar matter was probably forced when he accepted an alliance with France by marrying the daughter of King Philip—a woman in whom he showed no interest.

Once the marriage was arranged, Philip started urging Edward to respect the papal bull (and support Philip's personal prejudices) and arrest Templars. A trial in England was a much more mild approach than the French torture chambers, and the few Templars subpoenaed were made to admit that their order was in error on the subject of the order's master being able to give absolution. The trial lasted until March 1310, by which time the Templars were thoroughly discredited. Rather than arrests or executions for heresy, however, Templars in England generally just transferred to other monastic orders, such as the Order of Hospitallers (which happened to receive much Templar property) and the Cistercians. The Templars in France may have ended with stake-burnings and torture, but in England they simply faded away.

Clumsy King John

The Wash, with Norfolk on right and Lincolnshire on left

King John of England (1166-1216) has so many misfortunes attached to him that it is unlikely he will ever be "rehabilitated" in the eyes of most historians. Fighting with his Barons (which led to being forced to sign the Magna Carta—good for England, bad for the King), arguing with Pope Innocent III, which led to his excommunication (meaning he was not allowed to take the Sacraments) from 1209 to 1213, disagreements with King Philip of France (causing the loss, through military misadventure, of his territories in northern France—he had a difficult time getting any respect from his contemporaries.

It was a confrontation with French forces that would lead not only to his death, but to perhaps his greatest embarrassment as a king: the loss of the Crown Jewels—not through actions of the enemy, but through lack of caution or proper planing ahead. Some of the Barons, once again fighting with John, invited Prince Louis of France to lead them: he had a slim claim to the throne because of his marriage to a granddaughter of Henry II (John's father). Louis landed with his army at Kent and proceeded to take over parts of the southeast.

There was fighting all over. John ended a siege on Windsor Castle and moved toward London to clear out the rebels, then north to end a siege at Lincoln, then to Bishop's Lynn* in Norfolk (see the graphic above). While there, he contracted dysentery; this was in late September. As if that weren't enough, King Alexander II of Scotland (1198-1249) took advantage of the turmoil in England to head south, conquering as he came and intending to swear loyalty to Prince Louis in exchange for holding England.

John, still very ill, headed west from Norfolk with his troops, but sent his baggage train across the lowlands of The Wash, the square-shaped estuary marked in yellow in the above graphic. While traversing the causeway and ford during low tide, the slow-moving wagons got caught in the sand, and were overtaken by the cold North Sea waters. The Crown Jewels, and who knows how many other goods and men, were lost in The Wash on 12 October 1216. A week later, John lost his life. He was succeeded by his son, King Henry III, who reigned 56 years until 1272.

*Now renamed "King's Lynn" thanks to Henry VIII.

The Great Vowel Shift

Why it happened, and why it happened the way it did, are still hotly contested. Also, there are no images for it that don't themselves require an essay to explain, so this post could make a dull subject even duller. Let's begin.

Starting about 1350, pronunciation of English started to change. Not all pronunciation; mostly the long vowels that were stressed in the word. Pronunciation of vowel sounds depends on the relative positioning of the tongue and lips and palate (remember, I am simplifying). To put it another way: how your mouth forms the space in which the sound resonates determines pronunciation of the vowel sound. What happened during the Great Vowel Shift is that the pronunciation of those vowels moved upwards and backwards in the speaker's throat.

What did this sound like? Without teaching you the International Phonetic Alphabet*, we will try a few examples. The Modern English name would have been pronounced by Chaucer to sound like "na-ma" and by Shakespeare as "neem"; Modern English root would have been "ro-ta" to Chaucer and "rowt" to Shakespeare.

There were exceptions. For instance, "ea" took a different path, depending on the consonants around it. It was long, but it shortened when followed by consonants such as "d" and "th"; so we have "ea" sound like short "e" when "ea" shows up in Modern English dead, head, breath and wealth instead (<—there it is again) of sounding "longer" as in great and break.

Consonants stayed the same, although "silent letters" did develop later. Chaucer would have pronounced "knife" something like "ka-nife"; that is, both consonants would have been pronounced; it was later that we got lazy and stopped bothering with the "k" in "knife" and "knowledge."

(Okay, here's a picture)

So why did it happen? The most common theory is that social mobility after the Black Death brought people from all over England together in the London area where changes were caused by people organically blending the many dialects. There may also have been an attempt to distance England culturally from France. 1359-60 saw a major military conflict between the two, and in 1362 the law courts of London decided to switch from French to English. The original pronunciation of the long vowels was very "continental." The GVS took pronunciation further away from that similarity with the continent (remember that much of the English vocabulary at this time had come in with the Norman Invasion).

The sad part is that England had become a literate culture before the GVS was done. Printing was standardizing spelling even as pronunciation was going through its evolution. Therefore, the pronunciation of words moved well beyond their original spelling, creating issues for schoolchildren and non-native speakers for centuries to come.

*Which, to be honest, would require me to learn it first.

William of Malmesbury

In the 12th century in England, the practice of writing histories was becoming relatively common. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and the Chronicle of Melrose were ongoing, and Orderic Vitalis and the prolific Eadmer were writing their histories. Since I cast doubt on William of Malmesbury (1095-c.1143) in yesterday's post, however, I thought he deserved some attention.

William of Malmesbury's aim was not simply to write a history, but to produce a great literary work that was worthy of the greatest historian England had yet known. His Preface begins:

The history of the English, from their arrival in Britain to his own times, has been written by Bede, a man of singular learning and modesty, in a clear and captivating style. After him you will not, in my opinion, easily find any person who has attempted to compose in Latin the history of this people. Let others declare whether their researches in this respect have been, or are likely to be, more fortunate; my own labor, though diligent in the extreme, has, down to this period, been without its reward.

Bede (673-735) was universally respected, so much so that it was rare to see his name without the modifier "Venerable" before it. After praising Bede's singular position in English literature, William attempts to produce a work that equals or surpasses it. The result was the Gesta Regum Anglorum (Deeds of the Kings of the English).

And according to many scholars, he succeeded. In the opinion of Milton, William was "both for style and judgment by far the best writer of all." He included anecdotes and detailed descriptions of important figures—far more historically valuable information than the often terse Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Like Bede, and unlike other historians, he showed the cause and the effect of historical events and the actions of kings. His account of the First Crusade is detailed and colorful.

He followed this work with Gesta Pontificum (Deeds of Pontiffs), a history of abbeys and monasteries in England. About the year 1140, he revised both works, updating them, and began an addendum to the first, his Historia novella (History of new[er] things). His patron in all this was Robert, Earl of Gloucester. As a son of King Henry, Robert was fairly powerful; it is thought that Robert would have made William the abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, but William preferred to concentrate on his learning instead of administrative duties.

That learning certainly contributed to his writing. It is believed that some of his information, such as what he has to say about Wulfstan, the Bishop of Worcester, comes from the account by Wulfstan's contemporary, Coleman. But that is how medieval scholars managed: they took from available works, and providing attribution was not as important as making your own work as complete as possible. William's works remain the best accounts we have of life in England in the first few generations after the Norman Conquest.

The Two Kings Henry

Henry, the young king.

For a time, the Capetian Dynasty in France had the habit of naming and actually crowning the king's heir in the old king's lifetime. King Stephen and King Henry II of England adopted this policy. In June 1170, King Henry II crowned his 15-year-old son Henry. Watching the ceremony would have been the 13-year-old Richard (later King and Lionheart), 12-year-old Geoffrey, and 3-year-old John (later "Bad King John").

"Young King Henry" (1155-1183) was considered handsome, charming, and popular; however, he showed no apparent skill or interest in politics, military skill, or even ordinary intelligence. For these reasons, it is probably good that his father never entrusted him with any authority. In fact, Henry II seems to have used his son as a political tool.

• Henry was betrothed to Margaret, daughter of Louis VII of France, on the condition that her dowry would be the Vexin, the border region between the England-held Normandy and France itself. (A nice expansion of England's property on the continent.)
• Because Pope Alexander III needed help dealing with Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, he acquiesced to Henry's request to allow the children to be married in 1160, giving England the Vexin. (There was no ceremony until 1172.)
• Henry had the royal wedding officiated by the Archbishop of York instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as was customary. This was likely an attempt to put the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, in his place. (He would be dead six months later.)

The benefit of naming your heir early was to avoid disputes at the senior king's death over the succession. In this case, however, since young Henry would inherit vast lands with the throne, he was given a house and staff and large income—and even one of the most respected men of the age, William Marshal, as a tutor in arms—but not provinces and territories like his younger brothers. Consequently, his brothers had more power than he. This would have rankled the young king while his father lived on...and on.*

In 1173, Henry the young king led a rebellion with his brothers, his mother,  the kings of France and Scotland, the Count of Flanders, et alia, against his father (this really was the most turbulent family in the Middle Ages). The same qualities and actions that brought Henry II rivals and enemies, however, also brought him great wealth, and he was able to hire sufficient mercenary forces to put down what was later called the Great Rebellion. (It was the English opposition to all the foreign mercenaries on England's soil that prompted Henry to create the Assize of Arms.)

Young Henry rebelled again in 1183 against his father and his brother, Richard, over Richard's iron-fisted rule of the Duchy of Aquitaine. Henry had the help of his brother Geoffrey and Aquitaine locals who were willing to throw off Richard's rule, but the sudden death of the young king on June 11, 1183, ended the attempt. He was a little over 28 years old. King Philip of France, the brother of Margaret, lost little time in asking for the return of her dowry, the Vexin.** Instead of the land, France accepted an annual payment from Henry II.

Because he never ruled, he is not counted in the list of Kings of England. He is neglected by history in favor of his younger brothers, but he is not without fans: a recent website is devoted to him.


*Queen Elizabeth should be glad that the House of Windsor does not appear to have any of the Plantagenet temper.
**The 1967 movie The Lion in Winter is a highly fictionalized—and highly entertaining—account of this meeting.