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On Valentines Day: Four Tales of Medieval Devotion

14/2/2015

One
The Tale of the Lovers of Teruel

In the town of Teruel in Spain, there is a story of a young couple whose love for one another is the source of legend, a romantic story of doomed love.

Isabela's and Juan's story begins at the beginning of the thirteenth century in the Spanish town of Teruel. Juan Diego was poor and Isabela’s father was rich and refused permission for them to marry, with a sad heart Juan went off to war. The tearful Isabel promised to wait for him for five years saying that she would marry no other, seeing her determination Isabela’s father agreed but when the five years were up he forced her to marry another man. That very same day Juan Diego arrived home to Teruel going straight to Isabela’s house only to find that she was married. Broken hearted Juan died where he stood and was laid to rest in the Church of San Pedro covered only in a shroud. To see her lover one last time Isabela visited the church, and raising the linen shroud from his face she kissed Juan, but as soon as their lips touched Isabela fell dead to the floor.

The names of the lovers were not known until a document entitled The History of the Lovers was found in 1619 by one Don Juan Yague de Salas, a Teruel town councillor. This document named the lovers as Isabela de Segura and Juan Diego de Marcilla who had lived in the town in 1217. Even after this find the story was considered to be a myth, the story was told and retold until two bodies were found in the Church of San Pedro that were thought to be those of the medieval lovers.

In recognition of the strength of their love the town had them buried together, and it is their tomb that you see here.

In 1998 an organization called the Foundation of the Lovers of Teruel was formed with the "aim of upholding and promoting the traditions based on the love story involving Isabel de Segura and Diego de Marcilla" and every year on Valentine’s Day, their love story is reenacted .

Two
Concocting a Medieval Love Potion

"If a woman places feathers from a capon that has hatched young chickens in her husband's ear as well as hair from the right leg of his dog and from the tip of his cat's tail, he would never forget his love for her."

1425 - 1430 The Walters Museum of Art

"The trials and games of love can be disheartening, but nothing is more rewarding than finally winning someone's affection. Here, two lovers have dispensed with the games and tenderly embrace. As they hold each other tightly, flowers and golden leaves seem to spring from their very bodies, celebrating the blossoming of love within them. Although it may seem inappropriate to pair lovers with an image of Christ's death, they may be intended to remind us of the eternal joy resulting from that event."

Three
A Love Poem

Fortunes Wheel

Ah, mercy, Fortune, have pity on me,
And think that thou hast done greatly amiss
To part asunder them which ought to be
Always one. Why hast thou done thus?
Have I offended thee? I? Nay! iwisse.
Then turn thy wheel and be my friend again,
And send me joy where I am now in pain.

And think what sorrow is the parting
Of two true hearts loving faithfully,
For parting is the most sorrowful thing,
In my opinion, that ever yet knew I.
Therefore I pray to thee right heartily
To turn thy wheel and be my friend again,
And send me joy where I am now in pain.

For, till we meet, I dare well say, for truth,
That I shall never be in ease of heart.
Wherefore I pray you to have of me some ruth,
And release me of my pains so smart,
Now, since thou know'st it is not my desert.
Then turn thy wheel and be my friend again,
And send me joy where I am now in pain.

Four
A Love Letter

Image and Text Via The British Library

This love letter that is thought to be the oldest surviving Valentine's letter in English, it is dated to 1477.
It is a letter written by Margery Brews to her fiance John Paston.

"Unto my right well-beloved Valentine John Paston, squire, be this bill delivered. Right reverent and worshipful and my right well-beloved valentine, I recommend me unto you full heartedly, desiring to hear of your welfare, which I beseech Almighty God long for to preserve unto his pleasure and your hearts desire. And if it pleases you to hear of my welfare, I am not in good health of body nor of heart, nor shall I be till I hear from you. For there knows no creature what pain that I endure, And even on the pain of death I would reveal no more. And my lady my mother hath laboured the matter to my father full diligently, but she can no more get than you already know of, for which God knoweth I am full sorry. But if you love me, as I trust verily that you do, you will not leave me therefore. For even if you had not half the livelihood that you have, for to do the greatest labour that any woman alive might, I would not forsake you. And if you command me to keep me true wherever I go, indeed I will do all my might you to love and never anyone else. And if my friends say that I do amiss, they shall not stop me from doing so. My heart me bids evermore to love you truly over all earthly things. And if they be never so angry, I trust it shall be better in time coming. No more to you at this time, but the Holy Trinity have you in keeping. And I beseech you that this bill be not seen by any non earthly creature save only yourself. And this letter was written at Topcroft with full heavy heart.Be your own Margery Brews.

Margery describes John as her

"'right well-beloved valentine', she tells him she is 'not in good health of body nor of heart, nor shall I be till I hear from you.' She explains that her mother had tried to persuade her father to increase her dowry - so far unsuccessfully. However, she says, if John loves her he will marry her anyway: 'But if you love me, as I trust verily that you do, you will not leave me therefore.' There was a happy ending to the story, as the couple would eventually marry."

A Happy Valentines Day To All Lovers Everywhere

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2015: Its all about the Magna Carta.

13/2/2015

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Wurts 1940

You've heard of the Magna Charter
As were signed at the Barons' command
On Runningmead Island in t' middle oft' Thame
By King John, as were known as 'Lack Land'.

Some say it were wrong of the Barons
Their will on the King so to thrust,
But you'll see if you look at both sides of the case
That they had to do something, or bust.

For John, from the moment they crowned him,
Started acting so cunning and sly,
Being King, of course, he couldn't do any wrong,
But, by gum, he'd a proper good try.

He squandered the ratepayer's money,
All their cattle and corn did he take,
'Til there wasn't a morsel of bread in the land,
And folk had to manage on cake.

The way he behaved to young Arthur
Went to show as his feelings was bad;
He tried to get Hubert to poke out his eyes,
Which is no way to treat a young lad.

It were all right him being a tyrant
To vassals and folks of that class,
But he tried on his tricks with the Barons an' all,
And that's where he made a faux pass.

He started bombarding their castles,
And burning them over their head,
'Til there wasn't enough castles left to go round,
And they had to sleep six in a bed.

So they went to the King in a body,
And their spokesman, Fitzwalter by name,
He opened the 'ole in his 'elmet and said,
Concil-latory like, 'What's the game?'

The King starts to shilly and shally,
He sits and he haws and he hums,
'Til the Barons in rage started gnashing their teeth,
And them with no teeth gnashed their gums.

Said Fitz, through the 'ole in his 'elmet,
'It was you as put us in this plight.'
And John having nothing to say to this 'ere
Murmured 'Leave your address and I'll write.'

This angered the gallant Fitzwalter;
He stamped On the floor with his foot,
And were starting to give John a rare ticking off,
When the 'ole in his 'elmet fell shut.

'We'll get him a Magna Charter,'
He said when his face he had freed;
Said the Barons, 'That's right and if one's not enough,
Get a couple and happen they'll breed.'

So they set about making a Charter,
When at finish they'd got it drawn up,
It looked like a paper on cattle disease,
Or the entries for t' Waterloo Cup.

Next day, King John, all unsuspecting,
And having the afternoon free,
To Runningmead Island had taken a boat,
And were having some shrimps for his tea.

He had just pulled the 'ead off a big 'un,
And were pinching its tail with his thumb,
When up came a barge load of Barons, who said,
'We thought you'd be here so we've come.'

When they told him they'd brought Magna Charter,
The King seemed to go kind of limp,
But minding his manners he took off his hat
And said 'Thanks very much, have a shrimp.'

'You'd best sign at once,' said Fitzwalter,
'If you don't, I'll tell thee for a start
The next coronation will happen quite soon,
And you won't be there to take part.'

So they spread Charter out on t' tea table,
And John signed his name like a lamb,
His writing in places was sticky and thick
Through dipping his pen in the jam.

And it's through that there Magna Charter,
As were made by the Barons of old,
That in England today we can do what we like,
So long as we do what we're told.

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Elizabeth Barton: Saint or Deluded Heretic?

12/2/2015

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When I look at the two images below I see a vulnerable young woman at the mercy of those who wish to further their own ends.

This poor girl is Elizabeth Barton, Maid of Kent.

It is difficult to believe that a naive nineteen year old country girl was a threat to Henry VIII alone isn't it?

We have to ask ourselves, was she used to further the purposes of others?

It was probably Edward Bocking who first saw Elizabeth 'potential' as a weapon against Protestantism suggesting that she enter a convent, a place where he knew her visions would intensify. Then there's Fisher and More, did they believe in her or was she used by them to intimidate the king. Cromwell and Cranmer also used her as a means to an end.

Whilst lying in her sick bed, Elizabeth Barton had a vision telling her that it was the will of God that King Henry VIII should not marry Ann Boleyn. It was 1525, Elizabeth was nineteen years old and a servant in the small village of Aldington in Kent. She had been ill, and it was during this time that she was said to fall in and out of a trance like state. Her local priest who was convinced that her visions were genuine, informed William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent a three clergy, including Edward Bocking to examine her.

When Elizabeth's suddenly recovered her health after a prediction that the Virgin Mary would cure her, she began a journey that would ultimately end her life.

Elizabeth was sent into the Convent of St. Sepulchre in Canterbury where she later became a nun. Over the following ten years her visions increased, she was also becoming increasingly vocal, she had written to the pope and been interviewed by the most eminent men at court including Bishop John Fisher and Cardinal Wolsey, even the king himself was said to have spoken to her. By 1533 Elizabeth's reputation as an opponent of Henry's divorce had grown, so much so that both Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer took her seriously. By 1534 she was becoming a real threat and Elizabeth was arrested along with those who had first seen her in 1525. Many of her followers and both Fisher and More were also arrested.

This document lists charges against Elizabeth Barton (SP 1/80, f.118) National Archives

During her incarceration, Elizabeth admitted to have lied about her visions, but this was only made under torture. After a trial, Elizabeth, thirteen of her followers, Bocking, and the parish priest plus the two clergy were sentenced to death, More managed to escape any form of punishment and Fisher was imprisoned.

Elizabeth Barton was beheaded at Tyburn on the 20th April, 1534 . Her head was put on a spike on London Bridge, she was the first woman in history to be degraded in this way.

She is buried at Greyfriars.

Of Elizabeth herself, she was a young girl with no education, a sincere, faithful innocent. She believed in her visions but at the hands of the unscrupulous became a deluded hysteric.

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1674: The Remains of the "Princes in the Tower"

9/2/2015

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When ever the subject of the Princes in the Tower comes up, there are always lots of interesting responses regarding the find of skeletal remains of two children under a set of steps in the Tower of London which many still consider to be that of the two sons of Edward IV who disappeared in 1483.

These remains eventually ended up in an urn in Westminster Abbey with the following inscription

'Here lie interred the remains of Edward V King of England, and Richard, Duke of York, whose long desired and much sought after bones, after above an hundred and ninety years, were found by most certain tokens, deep interred under the rubbish of the stairs that led up to the Chapel of the White Tower, on the 17th of July in the year of our Lord 1674. Charles the second, a most merciful prince, having compassion upon their hard fortune, performed the funeral rites of these most unhappy princes among the tombs of their ancestors, anno domini 1678.'

But it is the remains found under a stair case by workmen in 1674 that are still thought to be that of the two princes Edward and Richard of Shrewsbury.

Why is that?

What is interesting is the intense focus on this set of remains, they are only one, among a number of children's remains, that have been found in the Tower of London over the years that are said to be of Edward and Richard. Others include remains found when Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower, remains found when the tower's moat was drained in the mid nineteenth century and in 1789 the two small child size coffins that were found walled up in a 'hidden space' next to the vault holding the coffins of Edward V and his Elizabeth his queen.

The real answer to this question is quite simple and pretty straight forward.
Sir Thomas More's in his The History of Richard III says it was so.

More writes

....."About midnight (the sely children lying in their beddes) came into the chamber, and sodainly lapped them vp among the clothes so be wrapped them and entangled them keping down by force the fetherbed and pillowes hard vnto their mouthes, that within a while smored and stifled, theyr breath failing, thei gaue vp to god their innocent soules into the ioyes of heauen, leauing to the tormentors their bodyes dead in the bed."

but here's the interesting bit......

..... "Whiche after that the wretches parceiued, first by the strugling with the paines of death, and after long lying styll, to be throughly dead: they laide their bodies naked out vppon the bed, and fetched sir Iames to see them. Which vpon the sight of them, caused those murtherers........... to burye them at the stayre foote, metely depe in the grounde vnder a great heape of stones....... Than rode sir Iames in geat haste to king Richarde, and shewed him al the maner of the murther, who gaue hym gret thanks."

Thomas More is not only responsible for the fact that Charles II and everybody else considers these remains to be that of the two princes but that King Richard III from then on was the princes murderer.

The 'story' that the remains are of Edward and Richard, stems partly from the work of Professor William Wright and Dr George Northcroft who published their findings in ‘The Sons of Edward IV. A re-examination of the evidence on their deaths and on the Bones in Westminster Abbey’ This work ought be treated with caution, DNA aside, I wonder how it can be suggested that they were, in life, the princes, if they never established the sex of the skeletons? In 1986 it was pointed out that a couple of important facts from the study were not mentioned. Firstly, there were indications in "existing and unerupted teeth" that suggested that one of the skeletons was a female and secondly the age gap between the two remains were less than three years of the princes.

IF these two boys they met their deaths at the Tower, who in their right minds would place the bodies under the noses of all who were in the present at the time, without being seen and within a limited time frame? Others feel the same, suggesting there were better ways to get rid of the bodies than to hide them somewhere in the Tower itself.

I don't know why More wrote what is written here, or what his motives were, I don't know what happened to the two princes in the summer of 1483, they may well have been murdered, but equally they might not have been.

What I do know is that it has never been proved that the two sons of Edward IV were dead at all.

I also don't believe it is their remains at Westminster Abbey.

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Elizabeth Stuart: Death of a Princess

5/2/2015

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After the execution of their father in the January of 1649, both Charles and James, later Charles II and James II fled to France, the two younger children guardianship were given to noble families, families who really didn't want them, who accepted money granted for this purpose and then fobbed them off on someone else.

King Charles I was executed in 1649 on the order of the English parliament for crimes against the state, that is his refusal to abide by government policy, and his total belief in absolutism. The English government may have solved their problems by murdering a king with the full backing of the law but what where they to do with his children?

Elizabeth Stuart, Charles's second daughter's story was a sad one indeed.

On their last meeting before his execution Charles told Elizabeth not to "grieve and torment herself for him" but this fell on deaf ears. Distraught at his death, Elizabeth asked for permission to travel to Holland to be with her sister Mary, the wife of the Dutch prince, William of Orange, but this request was denied. Along with her brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester they were sent to live in the care of the Earl of Northumberland's son, Lord Lisle. The next year saw Elizabeth and Henry pass from one family to another. Lord Lisle didn't want them, neither did the Harringtons, finally they were sent into the care of the Earl of Leicester, Robert Sidney and contrary to the instructions from parliament that they were 'not be indulged' they were treated kindly, but it was here, at Penhurst Place, that Elizabeth became sick.

Elizabeth's next placement was probably not due to the fact that she was unwanted but that she was a useful pawn in the latest saga of parliament versus monarchy. Elizabeth's brother Charles was heading for Scotland in the hope that the Scots would aid in the restoration of the English monarchy and poor Elizabeth was forced move to the Isle of Wight to be used as a hostage, this last journey cost her her life.

In 1649 Elizabeth had requested that she be sent to live with her sister Mary in Holland and had sent a letter to this effect. She arrived on the Isle of Wight but she was already sickly, she quickly developed pneumonia and died on 8 September 1650, she was just fifteen years old. Sadly, only two days after her death a letter arrived granting Elizabeth's request so her mortal remains where interred where she died.

With just the initials E S to mark her tomb at St Thomas's Church, Newport, her grave lay unnoticed and uncared for for just over two hundred years, but when Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 and made Osborne House on the Isle of Wight her home she commissioned Carlo Marochetti to sculpt a monument in memory of Elizabeth.

As you can see, not only is it a beautiful representation of a daughter of a king but also poignant reminder of abandonment. Elizabeth lies with her cheek on a bible open to Gospel of Matthew just as, it is said, she was found, clutching the book her father had given her the last time he saw her.

Victoria had the following words carved in black marble on the side of her tomb:

"To the memory of The Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Charles I, who died at Carisbrooke Castle on 8
September 1650, and is interred beneath the chancel of this church, this monument is erected as a token of
respect for her virtues and of sympathy for her misfortunes, by Victoria R., 1856."

Not only did Queen Victoria want us to read of Elizabeth's misfortunes, she wanted a visual representation too, caved above the stature is a grate which tells us Elizabeth was held against her will, but they are broken, so we can see that at last Elizabeth, is free.

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Sweyn Forkbeard and the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough

2/2/2015

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The 3rd of February 1014 was the last day of the reign of Sweyn Forkbeard, he holds the title of England's shortest reigning King.

On Christmas Day 1013 Forkbeard was declared king of England, and it was in our Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough that became his capital. It was here that he began to organise his new kingdom, but died this day one thousand and one years ago, having ruled England for only forty days. With the support of his son Cnut, he waged war on the English people.
He is said to have been a brutal man, burning people alive and impaling them on lances. Historian Darron Childs says of Forkbeard brutality

"It is perhaps one of the reasons why he has been largely forgotten. It's hard to make a big thing of someone so bad. It's a difficult thing to try and overcome."

It is more than likely that the main reason this man is forgotten is because of lack of evidence.

There is one fortification in Gainsborough, on the site of what is now the Old Hall, that is thought to have been where Forkbeard made his centre of his operations. Mr Child's believes that Gainsborough could have been where Forkbeard's son, Cnut, attempted to hold back the waves, not on the coast like we all imagine but at the Trent Aegir, a tidal bore, which takes its name from the Viking God of the Sea.

After Forkbeard's death his embalmed body was returned to Denmark and the council of England sent for the deposed Aethelred to return as king. He arrived in the spring of 1014 and drove Cnut out of England.

Cnut soon returned to became King of England in 1016.

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On Valentines Day: Four Tales of Medieval Devotion

2015: Its all about the Magna Carta.

Elizabeth Barton: Saint or Deluded Heretic?

1674: The Remains of the "Princes in the Tower"

Elizabeth Stuart: Death of a Princess

Sweyn Forkbeard and the Lincolnshire town of Gainsborough

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