Donald III of Scotland

When Malcolm III died at the 2nd Battle of Alnwick, his eldest son died with him (and his wife died a few days later after hearing the news), but he had other sons who could succeed him. That did not happen, however, as another man swept in and seized the throne.

This other man was actually Malcolm's brother, Donald. Donald's activities for years prior to claiming the throne is unknown, because he was hiding in Ireland. Donald's father was Duncan, King of Scotland from 1034 to 1040 when he was killed (and succeeded by) Macbeth; yes, that Macbeth. Shakespeare has the boys old enough to manage this themselves:

Malcolm: “What will you do? Let’s not consort with them: To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy. I’ll to England.”

Donalbain:* “To Ireland, I; our separated fortune shall keep us both the safer: where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles: the near in blood, the nearer bloody.” [Macbeth, III,3]

Both the boys were very young in reality (Donald about seven). It is more likely that Duncan, when he was about to face Macbeth's rebellion, sent his sons away for safety himself.

Donald would have been 25 years old when Malcolm killed Macbeth and took the throne back into the family. Even with the family back in charge, we do not know exactly what Donald was doing or if he returned to Scotland. After the 1093 Battle of Alnwick and the death of the king and queen and immediate heir, he was able to come forward and present himself as the obvious choice for kingship.

This may not have been as radical a "coup" for Scotland as we might think. Although Malcolm and Margaret had a very successful marriage, Margaret may not have been the favorite of Scotland. She worked to change the Scottish church to bring its practices closer to what she grew up with on the continent. She was one of the last Anglo-Saxon princesses, and gave refuge at court to Anglo-Saxon exiles fleeing the Normans who had taken over England. She also broke tradition and gave Anglo-Saxon names to her children, rather than Scottish names.

John of Fordun (1360 - 1384, so not a contemporary) wrote that Donald came to Scotland "at the head of a numerous band" and besieged Edinburgh with Malcolm's sons inside. He adds that Edgar Ætheling (Malcolm's brother-in-law) took the sons to England. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Donald expelled all the English from his court.

So Donald was King of Scotland. It's a nice job...if you can keep it. Let's see how well he did at that. See you tomorrow.

*Donalbain = "Donald the Fair"

The Oldcastle Revolt

When Sir John Oldcastle escaped from the Tower of London to avoid execution for the heresy of Lollardy, he fled to Cooling Castle and became the center of an attempt to revolt against King Henry V. Oldcastle sent messages to Lollard friends, many of whom were wealthy and could afford to outfit followers with weapons.

One group started rebelling prematurely on 26 December 1413 in North Lincolnshire, but ended it to head to London, where they were all supposed to meet on 9 January 1414. There were many priests among the Lollards who believed in the need for reform in the Church. They helped organize groups in Derbyshire, Essex, Leicestershire, Bristol—everywhere in England, in fact.

They were not numerous enough to make a difference, however. Two yeomen spied on the rebels and found Oldcastle's hidden location. Oldcastle, learning that he was found out, decided to move ahead and destroy churches, ultimately hoping to overthrow the king.

Henry gathered troops the evening of the 9th to confront the group that was assembling in London, and sent troops on the roads to stop any others from joining the rebels. Dozens of Lollards were taken into captivity after a (not surprisingly) brief battle of two very unmatched armies. On 10 January trials were held for the heretics/traitors.

Oldcastle had managed to evade capture for a few days, but was caught—badly wounded in the process—and brought to London on a horse litter. As a heretic he should have been burned at the stake. As a traitor who turned against his king, he merited hanging (and drawing and quartering). They decided to do both. The illustration in this and yesterday's posts show him burning in the gallows. If he were lucky, then the hanging killed him before he could suffer the agonizing torture of being cooked in the flames. (It is possible that Henry—mindful of their earlier friendship—arranged this so that he would die from hanging first, saving him some suffering.)

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Oldcastle was the subject of an anonymous Elizabethan play that was likely the source material for Shakespeare's treatment of Falstaff. I also said Oldcastle's family would become important later. In fact, when Shakespeare's Henry IV appeared on stage in 1597-98, the character we know as Sir John Falstaff was called "Sir John Oldcastle." In Henry IV, Part 1, Prince Hal calls Falstaff "my old lad of the castle." In an early text of Henry IV, Part 2 in 1600, one of Falstaff's lines is preceded by "Old." instead of "Fals." And the iambic pentameter is thrown off in some lines that include "Falstaff" that would scan properly if "Oldcastle" were substituted.

The truth is, in the Elizabethan Age Protestantism had changed England and the world, and executed Lollards were seen as holy martyrs. Moreover, the Cobhams were very powerful. Objections to their famous ancestor being portrayed in this light caused the change in the Henry plays.

So what ideas was Lollardy promoting that were so threatening to the established order? Let's go into that next.

Sir John Oldcastle

Thinking of King Henry V of England often brings to mind the play by Shakespeare and the characters within. Shakespeare probably learned about them from an anonymous Elizabethan play, The Famous Victories of Henry the fifth: Containing the Honourable Battel of Agin-court: As it was plaide by the Queenes Maiesties Players. The play describes Prince Henry as an irresponsible youth who later becomes king and takes a completely serious turn, turning his back on his earlier lifestyle and the friends he had then. Its first printing was 1594; Shakespeare's first of the Henry plays, Henry IV, Part 1, came out in 1597.

One of Henry's friends was Sir John Oldcastle, the model for the Shakespeare's character of Falstaff. His family was well-to-do (this becomes important tomorrow). He was involved in the Welsh campaigns against Owain Glendower, and was made a captain of some of the Welsh castles. It was probably around this time that he came to know young Henry. Sir John was in parliament in 1404 as a Knight of the Shire for Herefordshire. He was later High Sheriff of Herefordshire and justice of the peace. When he married Joan, heiress of Cobham (an important Kent family), his financial fortunes rose: he came to own several manors as well as Cooling Castle. From then on his title in Parliament was "Lord Cobham."

He had another trait, however, that did not aid him in advancement. He was a Lollard.

Lollards were "proto-Protestants," a movement that was sparked by the ideas of John Wycliffe who wanted reform in Western Christianity. Lollards were considered heretics and dealt with accordingly when confirmed in their ideas. When the churches on his (wife's) estates engaged in unlicensed preaching, Sir John was accused of Lollardy. Henry was informed of this, but refused to take action against his friend until firm proof could be found.

It was. Something he had written was discovered that confirmed his Lollard beliefs. Again, Henry would not condemn his friend until he had spoken to him personally. Oldcastle was willing to offer up to the king "all his fortune in this world," but would not change his beliefs. He fled from Windsor and the king's presence to Cooling Castle. At this point, Henry had to let the wheels of justice run their course. Oldcastle refused the summons by the archbishop to appear before court, but Oldcastle obeyed when Henry issued a Royal Writ. Oldcastle was sentenced to burning as a heretic.

Henry ordered a reprieve of 40 days in the Tower of London to allow Oldcastle to repent. In that time, he escaped the Tower. At that point, with nothing else to lose, he decided to strike back.

How? I'll tell you tomorrow, as well as why I wrote that parenthetical note in the first sentence of the second paragraph.

Amleth, Prince of Denmark

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) drew inspiration from history, and not just for his Henry plays. His best-known play was no different. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark has been endlessly retold and adapted for 400 years. Shakespeare himself probably got the story from a 1514 Paris printing of Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum. (The illustration here is from a 17th-century Danish printing.) The Amleth story is told in Books three and four of the Gesta.

In the Danish original, Amleth (Amlóði in Old Norse) is the grandson of a Danish king. Amlóði is a term for a fool or simpleton, reflecting the character's pretense of helplessness to fool his victim. Amleth's father, Horvendil, married Gerutha (Gertrude), daughter of the king of Denmark, after slaying the king of Norway, but Horvendil's brother Feng (Claudius) kills him out of jealousy. Feng convinces Gerutha that her husband hated her and that he, Feng, had saved her from this marriage and that she should marry him. This is in Jutland.

Amleth, afraid of sharing his father's fate, acts like an imbecile, but Feng is not satisfied with this. Feng tries to occupy him with a young girl who is being fostered at court (this character becomes Ophelia in Shakespeare's play). Amleth, while speaking in his mother's chambers, slays an eavesdropper (Polonius), and disposes of the body. Feng now knows he cannot trust Amleth, and sends him to Britain with a letter asking the king of Britain to put the bearer to death.

Amleth learns of the letter's content and alters it to instead execute the attendants with him (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) and give the king's daughter to Amleth in marriage. Amleth marries the princess and returns to Denmark a year after he left. He shows up in time to see a funeral—his own, since Feng assumed his death had taken place as intended. After encouraging everyone at the feast to drink a lot of wine, he weighs them down with the heavy tapestries from the hall and sets it all on fire, including his mother. He kills Feng with Feng's own sword.

He makes a long speech to his people, who proclaim him king. He then goes to Britain to bring his wife home, but learns that Feng and the king of Britain had a pact to each avenge the other's death. The king is reluctant to kill Amleth, and so sends him on a dangerous task: proxy to woo a Scottish queen who has executed all those who tried to woo her. This queen falls in love with Amleth and returns with him to Britain, where his first wife warns him of her father's intent to kill him. Amleth wins the battle that follows.

He returns to Jutland with his two wives, but Wiglek, the successor of his maternal grandfather, seeks revenge for the death of Gerutha. Wiglek kills Amleth.

From the photo-story of a character with whom we are all familiar, we turn next in the Gesta to a famous hero who is completely unknown outside of Scandinavia, Starkad. See you tomorrow. 

Edward I - King

Lord Edward returned from the Ninth Crusade to a country that had not had a king in residence for a couple years. His father, Henry III, had died 16 November 1272. Word reached Edward in Sicily while he was recuperating from an assassination attempt in the Holy Land. Instead of traveling directly to England, however, Edward made a "good will" tour.

He went through Italy, visiting Pope Gregory X, whom he had known as Teobaldi Visconti on Crusade. He visited his uncle, Philip I, to receive homage from him. He in turn traveled through France and paid homage to Philip III for Edward's domains there. He spent time in the Duchy of Gascony, suppressing a rebellion and taking stock of his feudal possessions.

He arrived in England on 2 August 1274, almost two years after Henry's death. He had already been proclaimed king upon his father's death, so the coronation on 19 August was a formality. Once he was officially crowned, he removed the crown, announcing his intention not to don it again until he had reclaimed all the lands that his father had lost.

As in Shakespeare's Henry V, "the courses of his youth promised it not." The stories of a callow teen gave way to an able administrator and a devoted and gentle family man, though not without bouts of temper and intimidating behavior. He was a good and chivalrous soldier, and a pious churchgoer with particular devotion to the Virgin Mary and Saint Thomas Becket. Despite his piety, however, he still clashed with the archbishops of Canterbury and with the popes over the question of taxing the churches.

He had a particular interest in the legend of King Arthur, visiting the "grave" of Arthur and Guinevere at Glastonbury Abbey to underscore to the Welsh that Arthur was not returning to lead them. He held two Round Table events with feasting and tournaments.

He maintained correspondence with the Mongol Empire—still smarting from their overthrow in the Middle East by the Mamluks—promising to go on Crusade again with them if the pope approved. Further Crusades were also inhibited by potential wars on the continent, in which Edward took a hand in negotiating truces. When a Tenth Crusade might have been implemented, news came of the fall of Acre in 1291, and crusading fever abated.

Mindful of the unrest during his father's reign that led to rebellions and the Second Barons' War, he undertook an overhaul of the administrative systems, and ordered an inquest of the entire country, inviting complaints about abuse by royal officials. The resulting records, called the Hundred Rolls, were like a second Domesday Book, and became a foundation for deterring what rights and possessions were held by others, and which should revert to the Crown. (This was not without controversy, since it seemed to be done largely to increase Edward's possessions.)

Because these posts are supposed to be short and digestible snacks rather than feats, things like a constitutional crisis, war with Wales, disputes with Scotland, expelling the Jews, and overhauling the coinage can all be left for their own self-contained posts. To wrap up this drawn-out biography of Edward I, I will tell you that on 6 July 1307, suffering from dysentery while traveling northward to deal with Robert the Bruce, he was awakened by his servants to rise for the day, and died in their arms. He was 68 years old.

If only he had someone who could have used the royal touch on him, he might have been healed. I will explain that reference tomorrow.

Andrew Wyntoun, Scot

When Robert Burns published his Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (1786), no one knew that it would become such a success that the reading public would be eager to lap up anything old and Scottish. But 1790 saw the publication of the Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, by Andrew Wyntoun.

Wyntoun (c.1350-c.1425) was an Augustinian canon of St. Sers Inch, a religious house  of Loch Leven, as well as a poet. The Chronicle is very pro-Scotland, especially regarding Edward I and his treatment of William Wallace and Scotland.

The Chronicle starts in the distant past (Alexander the Great, ancient Britons) and ends in 1420. It contains a number of "firsts": it is the earliest extant document in the Scottish dialect; it has the first use of the word "Catholic"; also, it contains the first mention in print of Robin Hood that ties him to a particular time (1283) and an area just south of the Scottish border in Carlisle. Tales of an outlaw who hides out in the woods and harasses the English king were of interest to the Scots, especially after William Wallace et alia did the same after Dunbar and Falkirk. It also includes the earliest version of MacBeth and the three witches.

Medieval Cannabis

Cannabis sativa from the 6th-century
De Materia Medica of Dioscorides

I was contemplating a post about Easter, which takes place this Sunday. Since Easter takes place on the date 4/20, however, and since "4/20" is a counter-culture reference for smoking marijuana, I started wondering about the use of marijuana in history, specifically (of course) in the Middle Ages.

One website tells us that:

... cannabis use was reintroduced into Europe after the Dark Ages, when the Knights Templar, founded by Hugh de Payns (“of the Pagans”) around the beginning of the twelfth century, became involved in a trade of goods and knowledge with the hashish ingesting Isma’ilis. [Source]

Another explains its uses:

In the Middle Ages cannabis was used for its psychoactive effects as well as commercially. Its use as a mind-altering drug was widespread in Egypt and seems to date from around the 13th century. In medieval Europe cannabis appears to have been employed as a folk medicine, particularly for the treatment of toothache and rheumatism, and in childbirth. [Source]

Dioscorides in his De Materia Medica [Concerning Medical Materials] describes and illustrates cannabis sativa:

Kannabis; is a plant of much use in this life for the twisting of very strong ropes, it has leaves like to the Ash, of a bad scent, long stalks, empty, a round seed, which being eaten of reduces sexual activity, but being juiced when it is green is good for the pains of the ears. [Book III]

Here we recognize the lethargy that accompanies cannabis use.

Use of the plant for its fibers seems to have been very important to the Medieval and Renaissance eras. Henry VIII decreed in 1533 that "for every sixty acres of arable land a farmer owned, a quarter acre was to be sown with hemp." (Henry wanted to make sure he had plenty of source material for the rope that was vital to a strong naval effort.) A BBC report in 2001 presented the claim that pipes dug up in the backyard of Shakespeare's Stratford home had the remains of burned cannabis seeds. The investigation was in response to a reading of Sonnet 76 which mentions "invention in a noted weed." (Note: the pipes could not be traced definitively to Shakespeare's time at that address.)

Knowledge of cannabis was certainly available to the Middle Ages, but there is no evidence that it was used in a manner similar to its contemporary recreational use.

Parochial School

One of the decrees that came out of the Fourth Lateran Council of Pope Innocent III was that "every cathedral or other church of sufficient means" was to have a master or masters who could teach Latin and theology. These masters were to be paid from the church funds, and if the particular church could not support them, then money should come from elsewhere in the diocese to support the masters. The interest of the Roman Catholic Church in providing education has a long history.

This did not start in 1215, actually: the Third Lateran Council of 1179 (called by Pope Alexander III) had already declared that it was the duty of the Church to provide free education "in order that the poor, who cannot be assisted by their parents' means, may not be deprived of the opportunity of reading and proficiency."

One wonders how carefully churches complied with this. Because the school was integral to the church it was attached to, records are not as abundant as they might be if the school were a separate legal entity with its own building, property taxes, et cetera. We have to look for more anecdotal and incidental evidence.

Among Roger Bacon's unedited works is a reference about schools existing "in every city, castle and burg." John of Salisbury (c.1120-1180), English author and bishop, mentions going with other boys as a child to be taught by the parish priest. (Note that this is long before the Lateran Council decrees; it seems they may have simply affirmed and extended a long-held practice.)

Schools for young boys stayed attached to churches for a long time. A late-medieval anecdote of Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire (pictured here; believed to be the alma mater of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII) tells that a visiting clerk (priest) complained that the noise of the boys being schooled was so great that it disturbed the services taking place. And Shakespeare's Twelfth Night acknowledges these schools with the line "Like a pedant that/Keeps a school i' the Church." It would be a long time before schools for the young were deemed to need their own buildings.

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.

Thorkill of Arden

When Leofric, Earl of Mercia, died in 1057, his estate of Kingsbury passed to his widow, the Countess Godgifu, better known to later generations by the Latin version of her name, Godiva. The Domesday Book, compiled on King William's orders in 1086, lists her as a landowner as of the Conquest in 1066, but no longer. So where did her property go?

Prior to William of Normandy's attack in 1066, Edward the Confessor had been inviting Normans over the Channel as councilors; several of them had already been given lands. After 1066, Normans were put into all positions of power, and Saxon nobles were demoted to lesser landholders. Two Saxons, however, had chosen to support William in 1066. One of these was Thorkill of Arden (also called Turchill).

Early Heraldry for Arden

Thorkill's father, Æthelwine, was a nephew of Leofric and the Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1066. Perhaps Thorkill saw supporting William as a way to enhance his own standing. Perhaps he truly believed that William was the rightful ruler; reasons why he might were discussed here. Perhaps he just didn't like Harold. In any case, he was confirmed as Sheriff after his father's death.

At some point—the simplest explanation is the death of the Countess Godiva, whose date we do not know—King William gave Kingsbury and its 700 acres to Thorkill. This made Thorkill the sole member of the pre-1066 Saxon nobility to hold an estate of any significance at the time of Domesday.*

Thorkill held Kingsbury for several years; he is listed as the landowner in Domesday. King William's third son was crowned William II on 26 September, 1087 by Bishop Lanfranc. William II was in many ways a successful king, although not universally popular; perhaps confiscating people's lands had a role. William took Kingsbury away from Thorkill. That was not the end of the Arden family's prosperity, however: they remained prominent in Warwickshire politics. A descendant, Mary Arden, was the mother of Shakespeare.

*That is, of the nobility; Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester was, technically, the most powerful Englishman in 1086.

Words from Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1342-1400) and William Shakespeare (1564-1616) are both credited with increasing English vocabulary. There is no proof that either of them actually invented the words we find in their works. All we can say for certain is that the words appeared for the first time in their works; it is likely that many of these words were in common use on the streets of London.

While Shakespeare is usually the first to come to mind when the subject of contributions to the English language comes up, Chaucer actually gets credit for having more words we know now appear in his works first. Of course, since he had a two-century head start on Shakespeare, maybe it isn't a fair contest.

Chaucer gets the credit if you can:

check the galaxy called Milky Way
bear a corrosive test
observe an oriental Persian
foster a superlative rumour
clasp a dagger
be victorious
varnish a convertible
muse on femininity
amble the equator
preen, murmur, vomit, fart, strangle, commit, retain, oppress, create a mystery, or replenish material.