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 Medieval Parental Love

25/9/2016

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The love that we give our children is unconditional and unchanging, it has no bounds, this love creates for them a foundation on which to build their own lives. The path that a modern child takes is, on the whole, that of its own choosing, and when those steps are eventually taken our children know that they have been, and still are, loved. 
Picture
The path that the medieval child took was one that was forced on them by their parents, often for the benefit of that families
 wealth and status. As soon as they could pick up a sword, sons were dispatched to learn the art of war, and the female child, who was betrothed in the cradle was married as a teenager, often to someone who was old enough to be their father. I wonder, did these medieval parents show any emotion when they used them as pawns, when one child was out of the door, were they planning how best they would benefit from the next?

Does this mean that the medieval parent did not care for, or show love to, their children?

In the medieval world the infant mortality rate was high, a parent could lose their baby at birth, a child could die from an awful illnesses such as the plague, their grown up sons could face an early death in battle, their teenage daughters could die in childbirth, with all this, it is easy to see why these parents would have hearts of stone.
Picture
The concept of love is totally different today than it was then, I think that the more realistic view of life in the medieval era comes across to us as indifference. Where we encourage our children, they promoted theirs. Where our young choose to live the single life, our elderly often a lonely one, and the rest of us conform to the 2.5 children average, the medieval family were an extended family. Kinship was formed through family ties, so perhaps we might use the term close or strong bond instead of love. This bond led to a sense of duty, responsibility and loyalty, all the things we come to expect from the medieval person. Although we respect these three things, they are not of paramount importance to us today. 

We should look no further than Margaret Beaufort for an example of a medieval parent. History tell us she was a devoted mother, she plotted and schemed and let nothing stand in the way of getting her beloved Henry on the throne of England.
​
​What was her motivation, was it the promotion of the Lancastrian cause or was it just the love of her son ?  
Another good example is William de la Pole.
​
William de la Pole was an English commander and is remembered and blamed for the loss of French territories of Maine and Anjou, these lands formed part of the marriage contract of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou that Pole had arranged. Pole was blamed for much, a scapegoat, who was exiled and murdered on route to Calais on the 2nd May 1450. Three days before, at the family home of Wingfield in Suffolk, William de la Pole prepared himself for exile, in doing so ​he wrote a heartfelt and moving letter to his eight year old son.
Picture
Effirgy of John de la Pole at Wingfield Church, Sussex
My dear and only well-beloved son,

I beseech our Lord in Heaven, the Maker of all the World, to bless you, and to send you ever grace to love him,
and to dread him, to the which, as far as a father may charge his child, I both charge you, and pray you to set all your spirits and wits to do, and to know
his holy laws and commandments, by the which ye shall, with his great mercy, pass all the great tempests and troubles of this wretched world.

And that also, weetingly, ye do nothing for love nor dread of any earthly creature that should displease him. And there as any frailty maketh you to fall, beseech his mercy soon to call you to him again with repentance, satisfaction, and contrition of your heart, never more in will to offend him.

Secondly, next him above all earthly things, to be true liegeman in heart, in will, in thought, in deed, unto the king our aldermost high and dread sovereign
lord, to whom both ye and I be so much bound to; charging you as father can and may, rather to die than to be the contrary, or to know anything that were against the welfare or prosperity of his most royal person, but that as far as your body and life may stretch ye live and die to defend it, and to let his
highness have knowledge thereof in all the haste ye can.


Thirdly, in the same wise, I charge you, my dear son, alway as ye be bounden by the commandment of God to do, to love, to worship, your lady and mother; and also that ye obey alway her commandments, and to believe her counsels and advices in all your works, the which dread not but shall be best and
truest to you. And if any other body would steer you to the contrary, to flee the counsel in any wise, for ye shall find it naught and evil.


Furthermore, as far as father may and can, I charge you in any wise to flee the company and counsel of proud men, of covetous men, and of flattering
men, the more especially and mightily to withstand them, and not to draw nor to meddle with them, with all your might and power; and to draw to you
and to your company good and virtuous men, and such as be of good conversation, and of truth, and by them shall ye never be deceived nor repent you of.

Moreover, never follow your own wit in nowise, but in all your works, of such folks as I write of above, ask your advice and counsel, and doing thus, with
the mercy of God, ye shall do right well, and live in right much worship, and great heart’s rest and ease.


And I will be to you as good lord and father as my heart can think.

And last of all, as heartily and as lovingly as ever father blessed his child in earth, I give you the blessing of Our Lord and of me, which of his infinite
mercy increase you in all virtue and good living; and that your blood may by his grace from kindred to kindred multiply in this earth to his service, in
such wise as after the departing from this wretched world here, ye and they may glorify him eternally amongst his angels in heaven.

Written of mine hand,
The day of my departing fro this land.

Your true and loving father 
So did the medieval parent love their children?

I think the fact that William de la Pole sat down to write such a letter to his son is proof enough that they did.








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Death of Charles the Bold

24/9/2016

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Following a number of victories in Belgium, Burgundy turned their attention eastward to Switzerland. The Burgundian Wars,
as they have come to be known, were a number of battles that took place between 1474 and 1477 between Burgundy
and a Swiss Confederacy. The first altercation, the Siege of Neuss at the end of July 1474 was followed by the Battle of Hericourt in the November. Three years later in 1477, the last of these battles would take place outside the walls of the
French town of Nancy between the forces of Rene, Duke of Lorraine and Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. 
​
Picture
The Battle of Nancy, an attempt by Charles the Bold to retake the town from the Duke of Lorraine, who had held it since
the end of 1476, 
was fought in the winter of 1477. The weather was severe, many of Charles's men died due to the cold and
the rest fled when they realised that the advancing army outnumbered them, but Charles stood firm at the head of his remaining army. Suffering much the same blow as his brother in law, Richard III would eight years later, Charles was struck
​by a halberd and died outside the town walls.
Picture
Charles the Bold found after the Battle of Nancy by Auguste Feyen-Perrin 1865
The poor man's frozen and mutilated body was found a few days later in a river. Out of his body were protruding a number
of lances, his is head was cut in two by the halberd and his face gnawed at by wild animals. He was only identified when
​his doctor noticed his old battle scars.


Charles the Bold's grisly death on the battle field of Nancy ended the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy. Charles's only
daughter Mary would eventually marry the future Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Maximilian became co ruler on their
marriage eight months later on the
16th  August 1477.
Picture
"Rene takes the town of Nancy" by Pierre Jacobi
Charles the Bold's wife was Margaret of York, the daughter of Richard Duke of York. She was sister to England's king
Edward IV and following her husbands death, Margaret proved, in her support of her step daughter, to have a strong a
​character as that ​of her father and brothers.
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Henry  Earl of Leicester and Lancaster

22/9/2016

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The 22nd of September 1345, saw the death of Henry, Earl of Leicester and Lancaster. Henry was the grandson of Henry III and the son Edmund Crouchback by his second wife Blanche of Artois. 

Henry may have suffered from a condition known as Torticollis, where the muscles of the neck cause the head to twist to  one side leading him to be nick-named Wryneck, the same name as a bird who can turn its head almost 180 degrees. ​
Picture
Seal of Henry of Lancaster from the Barons' Letter 1301,
In 1310, Henry was one of the Lords Ordainers, a body of twenty one men chosen to oppose King Edward II and force him to make changes to both his household and his kingdom. The nobles of the realm had become discontent with Edward and his reliance on favourites such as Piers Gaveston. Henry's brother Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, whose title Henry would later receive, was involved in another rebellion against King Edward in 1321, he was executed at Pontefract Castle in 1322. Henry received, along with the title, his brothers lands.
In 1330, at the age of fifty-nine, Henry became blind and spent the remainder of his life at Leicester Castle. It maybe due to his own medical afflictions and the reliance on his son and others that in 1331 he founded an infirmary for the poor of the City of Leicester. 
The infirmary, known today as Trinity Hospital, was built as an extension of the castle bailey. It was here at Leicester Castle that Henry died in 1345 and where he was buried. 
Picture
Henry's remains were later reinterred by his son, Henry of Grosmont, in his newly built Collegiate Church of the Annunciation 
of Our Lady of the Newarke. ​If you remember, it was in this very church that the body of King Richard III would lay on show before being thrown into his grave at Grey Friars.
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Richard Duke of York

21/9/2016

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On the 21st September 1411 Richard, Duke of York,  the second son of Richard of Conisbrough and Anne Mortimer was born. ​
Picture
Matthew Lewis in his much needed biography of the Duke of York shows us, what history has failed to do,
a real man who 

                          "harboured dreams, desires, fears, insecurities, love and hated as any real person today" 

P A Johnson in his 1988 biography of the duke writes he turned from politics to violence, but I ask what other option was
there, all the talking had been done. 

York was a man who was prepared to stand up and fight for what he believed in, a man loyal to his king but who had
been pushed too far, he was not, as he has been called,

                                                     ‘the most successful failure of the middle ages.’

Richard, Duke of York did not deserve to end up wearing a paper crown.

Matthew Lewis's Richard Duke of York: King by Right is available here:
www.amazon.co.uk/Richard-Duke-York-King-Right/dp/1445647443


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Thomas More and Family by Rowland Lockey

15/9/2016

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My photograph of the painting Sir Thomas More and His Family (after Hans Holbein the younger) by Rowland Lockey
​was taken last year on a visit to Nostell Priory, Yorkshire.
Picture
The painting is the last item on show before you leave the building, it is placed at the bottom of a set of stairs and runs
parallel to them so you cannot see it until you are right in front of it. My jaw literally dropped when I saw it, I knew it was
held at Nostell but I had forgotten it was there.

It is a massive painting, I cannot describe how I felt when I saw it, it's simply wonderful......... I had to be dragged away
with the promise of visiting again.

Apart from it being a brilliant piece of art, it is full to bursting with symbolism. The question asked by many is

"Who is the young man in the far right hand corner"?

Matthew Lewis in his blog writes

"The figure at the back marked 'Johanes heresius Thomas Mori family Anno 27' has long been believed to represent John Harris, Sir Thomas More's long standing secretary (Jack) Leslau, however, uncovered several interesting anomalies that he believed pointed to a different occupant for third position, and the unravelling of Engands great mystery. Leslau believed that this figure was, in fact, Dr John Clement, the husband of Margaret Giggs, Sir Thomas More's adopted daughter, and, more controversially, that Dr John Clement was the assumed identity of .....................????? "
​

Click on the link below to find the answer.

mattlewisauthor.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/leslau-holbein-more-and-clement/

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