Posts

Posted on

From Grendelkin to the NorthFolk NightMarket: Storytelling, Wintering and an Immersive Dramatization of Beowulf

My newly formed theater company, FaeGuild Wonders, having successfully organized two RenFaires last year, Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire (annual) and Wyndonshire Renaissance Faire (year one), was ready to pursue one of my bucket-list items, an immersive and interactive full scale theatrical production of Beowulf.  We pitched this idea for a winter festival centered on medieval literature to our partnering venue, Red Apple Farm, and the NorthFolk NightMarket was born. This event, to take place February 22-23, 2025 (from 3-9 PM EST), while expanded and redesigned, is in a sense a development of an older project, Grendelkin, which I began to conceive during my graduate studies as the University Notre Dame. With support from the Medieval Institute, Grendelkin debuted at Washington Hall in 2017, bringing together scholars, artists, dancers, musicians and storytellers to create an avant-garde interpretation of Beowulf centered on issues of monstrosity and heroism in the poem.

Al and Nancy Rose, owners of Red Apple Farm, the partnering venue for the NorthFolk NightMarket. Image by Rajuli Fahey (2025).

So far as creative director, I have only done fantasy theatrical medievalism at this scale: the “Wyndonshire Wedding” at Wyndonshire and “Seeds of Wonder” at Enchanted Orchard. And don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably mostly (or always) do fantasy in my theatrical medievalism. But in the NorthFolk NightMarket, I get the opportunity to explore some of my favorite works of medieval literature in a playful, interactive and public facing way. In many ways it’s anachronistic, and as my intention is to follow certain works of literature, the fantastic is imbued into the story and the spirit of the event.

My approach to authentic medievalism expressed in public theatrical events is not to focus on historical accuracy but to bring works of medieval literature to life for modern audiences and ways that are engaging, relevant and exciting. I also feel that the performances and music which is incorporated into the event, add layers to the NorthFolk NightMarket shows. For example, there are two songs included in the Beowulf show, one sung by Frank Walker, and another by Melegie (Melanie Long) that come from my translation or paraphrase of sections of farewell. In particular, the “Lay of Sigmund” is a versification of my translation, while Hildeburh’s song is an abbreviated redaction of her experience versified and accompanied by harp.

The main plot of the NightMarket’s theatrical production is the story of Beowulf, and a dream of mine realized. Beowulf is of course the subject of my dissertation, as well as much of my published scholarship, which centers on the Old English poem and the intersection between Anglo-Latin learning and Germanic lore, as well as tensions between Christian and pre-Christian ethos and worldviews in Beowulf. I composed an original script for the poem, some of which comes directly from my translation of Beowulf, and which imbues some scholarship as well as my own critical reading in this adaptation of the story. I also strove to elicit the humor I perceive in Beowulf, though irony in the poem is a topic of much scholarly debate and discussion. The cast includes the protagonists, Beowulf (Dave Fournier), Hroþgar (Gary Joiner), Wealhþeow (Leanne Blake) and Wiglaf (Mitchell Long), as well as supporting roles and characters from stories within the story, such as Hunferth (Dan Towle), Wulfgar (Devon Barker), Hondscio (Sezo Veniche), Æschere (Bryan Fallens), Hroþulf (Jack Praino), Hildeburh (Melegie: Melanie Long), Modthryth (Sylvia Sandridge), Hygd (Elizabeth Lassy-Glazier) and the Beowulf-burglar (Richard Goulette).

The Green Sash: Sezo Veniche (Hondscio), Gabrielle Emond (Sif), Andrew Hamel (Thor), Gary Joiner (Hroþgar), Christopher Lassy-Glazier (Weland), Brawn Beserker (Tyr), and Sara Hulsberg (Freya). Image by Rajuli Fahey (2025).

The story starts with Hroþgar’s boast and the terror of Grendel, until Beowulf arrives to slay his Danish demon in Act I. Ironically, and unwittingly, the hero performs a handshake exorcism upon the monster, inspiring Grendel to flee and rip off his own arm in his terrified retreat. Grendel’s mother is in Act II, and her story is centered on the horror of maternal experience in the heroic world of Beowulf and the sorrow of mothers within poem, in particular, how Wealhþeow, Hygd, Hildeburh and Grendel‘s mother all lose their sons (or will soon lose their son) throughout the narrative, and this dread and trauma frames the act as a prominent theme in the story. By the time we get to Act III, featuring the Beowulf-burglar’s theft of the treasure-cup and Beowulf’s wrath in the dragon battle, the focus is on hoarding and the plunder economy. In this way, I emphasize my psychomachic reading of Beowulf, especially his encounters with the monsters, into a performance that highlights the ironic comedy that underpins my reading.

The Green Sash, our Viking troop for the NightMarket, celebrating a raid on Orchard Town. Image from Enchanted Orchard (2024).

The NorthFolk NightMarket is about storytelling and wintering—entertainment while holding up in a hall or homestead in the north in order to survive the harsh, cold winter season. As an event designed to become an annual tradition, the plan is to center a different medieval literature every two years, and so we selected a story frame that would be consistent each year: witches from different literary and folkloric contexts, who are together plotting an Imbolc Sabbath while they observe, interact, and tell whatever medieval tale is being told that year.

Mt. Wichusett Witches in front of the Brew Barn at Red Apple Farm. Image from the GALA Music Festival (2024).

The Witches’ Sabbath includes well-known magic women from myth and legend, including Baba Yaga (Jessa Funa), Gryla (Katharine Taylor), Befana (Kellie Carter), Grimhild (Davyn Walsh), Morrigan (Chelsea Patriss), Medea (Lauren Robinson) and the Norns (Siobhan Doherty, Chrissy Brady & Kate Saab). The story frame is the organization of the Sabbath, and especially the tensions between these witches, who wish to invoke spring, and the Snow Queen (Jen Knight) and her frost fairy court, who wish to preserve the winter. In addition to our cast of character actor witches, a local performance group is also integrated into the theatrical show, the Mt. Wichusett Witches, and they have organized two dances for the Sabbath at the end of each day, which is Act IV, the final scripted act of the event.

Nikolaus Chagnon-Brauer, assistant playwright who scripted and organized the Yule Lad skits. Image from Enchanted Orchard (2024).

Accompanying Gryla are the Yule lads, from Icelandic folklore and cultural tradition, who promise to bring a bit humor to the event. This group has a number of immersive skits right in Red Apple Farm’s store, and a high school student and my assistant playwright for the event, Nikolaus Chagnon-Brauer, has taken lead on scripting these scenes. One of the joys of organizing this event has been collaborating with Nikolaus on this aspect of the winter festival, as doing so has allowed FaeGuild to carry out part of its mission to engage young people creatively and to build a team that is multigenerational.

Skeleton Crew Theater with a green dragon. Image from Enchanted Orchard (2024).

In addition to wandering witches, fairies and Yule lads, there will be marauding trolls, thanks to the puppetry of Skeleton Crew Theater another local partnering theatre company, as well as the Celtic goddess-made-saint, Brigid (Micayla Sullivan), the German demon Krampus (Sasha Khetarpal-Vasser), and Old Norse gods and goddess, including Odin (Richard Fahey), Freya (Sara Hulsberg), Tyr (Brawn Beserker), Thor (Andrew Hamel), Sif (Gabrielle Emond ), Loki (Tom Fahey), Bjorn (Lee Mumford), Weland (Christopher Lassy-Glazier) and Hel (Kerri Plouffe), many played by members of the live theater group the Green Sash.

Our Art Team for this event, led by Art Director Rajuli Fahey, and including Sylvia Sandridge (Costume Coordinator), Micayla Sullivan (Stagecraft Coordinator), Dave Fournier (Groundskeeper), and Gary Joiner, has endeavored to construct a world derived primarily from Beowulf and folklore. There will be the mead hall of Heorot, a haunted barrow, a path of exile, a monster mere, snow queen court and a witches’ den, in addition to many other set pieces based on myths and legends surrounding characters featured at the event.

Music Director Leanne Blake (front) with FaeGuild singers (Alex Deschenes, Chelsea Patriss, Sylvia Sandrige). Image from Wyndonshire Renaissance Faire (2024).

The NorthFolk NightMarket, as with Enchanted Orchard Renaissance Faire and the first year of Wyndonshire Renaissance Faire, has been a community effort. We are blessed to have so many exceptional and creative organizers as part of the FaeGuild Wonders team. One example is our Music Director, Leanne Blake, and the FaeGuild singers, who have put organized an incredible show that weaves together all the threads of the NightMarket, and which is sure to be a highlight of the events.

Immersive Director, Michael Barbosa-MacLean, who organized the FaeGuild Players, with Jack Praino (Hroþulf) and Ayden Mel (Yule Lad: Sheepcote Clod). Image from Enchanted Orchard (2024).

Additionally, for this event, we have added a new component, organized by our Immersive Director, Michael Barbosa-MacLean and the FaeGuild players, who will be on the streets of the NightMarket to bring patrons directly into the world of the faire. Other event organizers include our Jessa Funa (Community Coordinator), Amy Boscho (Fairy Court Coordinator), Tom Fahey (Sound Manager), Tal Good (Administrative Assistant) and Siobhan Doherty (Administrative Assistant). Without such an incredible team of creative partners, this inaugural event would not be possible.

The Harlot Queens, who will be performing as Danish Women in Heorot at the NorthFolk NightMarket. Image by Harlot Queens (2024).

The NorthFolk NightMarket features a market of artisan vendors, and an array of other performers including the Harlot Queens, Shank Painters, Winds of Alluria, Dead Gods Are the New Gods, the Iconic Daring Divas, the Phoenix Swords, the Warlock Wondershow, fire spinners and more. Additionally, there will be several historical demonstrations, including two historical combat groups, Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) and Bayt Al-Asad: Middle Eastern Combat Arts (House of the Lion), which will educate festival goers on different historical sword-fighting traditions. There will also be specialty ciders, historical cooking and blacksmith demonstrations as part of the event.

Map made with Inkarnate, designed by Rajuli Fahey (2025).

In carrying on our tradition from previous faires, our focus is on community building and sustaining the arts, and we are honored to have been supported by so many community sponsors. In particular, we would like to thank Atlantic Tent Rental (for the discount and donated tent rentals), Market Basket (for use of their parking lot), the Armenian Church of Haverhill (for the beautiful wood donated to build the Hrothgar’s meadhall, benches and throne), Central Mass Tree Inc. (for providing firewood to keep everyone warm in the cold night), Eastern Propane (for providing gas for heat lamps needed in vendor tents), Killay Timber Company (for the wood for signage), Belletetes Lumber (for wood to build the set) and Magnolia Studio (for providing the cozy rehearsal space).

Organizing public medievalism events like this has been a dream come true. And I can say with certainty that the theatrical production of Beowulf at the NorthFolk NightMarket will be unlike any theatrical adaptation of the poem, and far from the usual treatments of the poem in popular culture, as it is derived from my own criticism and scholarship (and including others’ scholarship that has influenced mine as well). As such, the NorthFolk NightMarket presents the story of Beowulf as an ironic critique of heroism rather that a glorification of a warrior ethos (especially the desire for fame, vengeance and wealth) those very aspirations that so frequently continue haunt our modern world.

Further Reading

“The Wyndonshire Wedding: Theatrical and Community Medievalism.‘” Medieval Studies Research Blog. Medieval Institute: University of Notre Dame (September 4, 2024).

“Crafting a New Kind of Renaissance Faire: Theatrical Medievalism and the Aesthetic of Wonder.‘” Medieval Studies Research Blog. Medieval Institute: University of Notre Dame (August 14, 2024).

Fahey, Richard. “Grendel’s Shapeshifting: From Shadow Monster to Human Warrior.” Medieval Studies Research Blog. Medieval Institute: University of Notre Dame (October 27, 2021).

—. “Enigmatic Design & Psychomachic Monstrosity in Beowulf.” Dissertation: University of Notre Dame (2019).

—. “The Lay of Sigemund.” Medieval Studies Research Blog. Medieval Institute: University of Notre Dame (March 22, 2019).

Griffith, Mark. “Some Difficulties in Beowulf, Lines 874-902: Sigemund Reconsidered.” Anglo-Saxon England 24 (1995): 11-41.

Gwara, Scott. Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2009.

O’Brien O’Keeffe, Katherine. “Beowulf, Lines 702b-836: Transformations and the Limits of the Human.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 23.4 (1981): 484-94.

Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1995.

Schulman, Jana K. “Monstrous Introductions: Ellengæst and Aglæcwif.” In Beowulf at Kalamazoo: Essays on Translation and Performance, 69-92. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2012.

Vinsonhaler, N. Chris. “The HearmscaÞa and the Handshake: Desire and Disruption in the Grendel Episode.” Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 47 (2016): 1-36.

Posted on

Medieval Golden Goose Fables: Eggs, Greed, and Demanding Too Much

Getty Museum, MS. Ludwig XV 2, f. 25v.

In the fable of The Goose with the Golden Eggs (Perry Index 87), the titular bird is killed by her foolish owner. This fable warns against seeking great, immediate gain over more modest, long-term gain—particularly when doing the former destroys a valuable, otherwise sustainable resource. The first extant version of this fable is that of Avianus, ca. 400 CE; earlier versions may have featured a hen rather than a goose, as fable scholar Francisco Rodríguez Adrados has argued on metrical grounds.1 But in Avianus, the creature is a goose, and so the tale was transmitted through the Middle Ages and beyond, becoming essentially proverbial.

As is the case with fable in general, medieval versions of The Goose with the Golden Eggs aim at providing a moral lesson to humans through a memorable extended metaphor. The plight of the bird who is killed in this story is not supposed to be the point. Nevertheless, below, I consider the real creatures behind the unrealistic analogy. Can we read the fable somewhat more subversively, as an admonition about the dangers of pushing animals beyond their physical limits?

British Library, Additional MS 42130 (The Luttrell Psalter), f. 166v.

Medieval and Modern Poultry

Chickens have long been kept for their eggs, at least as much as for their meat. Domestic geese, on the other hand, were valued in the Middle Ages mostly for their meat and feathers.2 Their flight feathers were used for quill pens and arrow fletching, amongst other things, while their down was used for insulation.3 When goose eggs did go on the market in the Middle Ages, though, they could be several times more expensive than hen eggs.4 Goose eggs are harder to come by; geese lay fewer eggs than chickens, and their strong pair-bonds make it infeasible to keep a flock with a very large ratio of laying females to males.5 Domestic geese nowadays might lay between 10 and 40 eggs a year, with the yield likely being somewhat lower than this in the Middle Ages;6 a medieval hen, however, might have laid as many as 100 eggs a year, or even more, “not far behind the level attained in the early twentieth century.”7

While domestic geese are still bred and raised for the resources their bodies provide, it is now predominantly chickens, “the most scientifically engineered of livestock,”8 whose eggs are the basis of an industry worth billions. A chicken bred for egg production can lay 300 eggs a year9—triple the rate of medieval chickens, or even early twenty-first century chickens. This high lay rate may be a cause for osteoporosis in the birds, exacerbated further by their inactivity when kept in “conventional” cages.10

The majority of the over 300 million “commercial laying hens” in the United States are housed in “conventional cage environments,” also known as battery farms. These birds are confined exclusively indoors, in tiers of stacked wire cages, several individuals in each cage, with eggs and waste collected via conveyor belts.11 This “convention” has only been widely implemented since the 1950s.12 Such systems were famously criticized by Ruth Harrison in an influential 1964 book, Animal Machines: The New Factory Farming Industry,13 and since then, “factory farming” has only become further entrenched as a normative practice. In 2009, about 95% of commercial laying hens in the US were in “conventional” cages.14 That percentage has dropped to around 66% as of 2022,15 and is continuing to drop; battery cages were outlawed in the European Union in 2012, and are being outlawed in a growing number of US states, because of animal welfare concerns.

Bibliothèque Municipale de Chalon-sur-Saône, MS 14, f. 67v.

Medieval Fables of Golden Geese

Medieval versions of the fable of The Goose with the Golden Eggs imagine that there are firm natural limits to the bird’s production of precious gold eggs, which cannot be exceeded. “Nature had fixed this law for the magnificent bird, that she was not permitted to bear two gifts at the same time,” says Avianus’s Latin verse version (fixerat hanc volucri legem Natura superbae, / ne liceat pariter munera ferre duo, lines 3-4).16 In Avianus’s telling, the goose’s owner is portrayed as impatient and calculating—he is concerned that the “gifts” won’t last and eager to maximize profit from her body:

sed dominus, cupidum sperans vanescere votum,
non tulit exosas in sua lucra moras,
grande ratus pretium volucris de morte referre,
quae tam continuo munere dives erat. (lines 5–8)

(But the master, expecting the greedy offering to disappear, did not endure odious delays to his profits, and thought to withdraw from the death of the bird great value, who had been so continuously rich with gifts).

Upon killing the bird and finding her body devoid of treasure, he considers himself deservedly punished by the gods for his own avarice; the fable’s moral concludes:

sic qui cuncta deos uno male tempore poscunt,
iustius his etiam vota diurna negant. (lines 13–14)

(So, to those who wrongly demand from the gods everything at once, they deny even daily prayers more justly.)

A late medieval Middle English prose version of the fable, in William Caxton’s Aesop (1484), tells the story somewhat differently: the goose’s greedy owner verbally commands her to lay two eggs a day instead of one, and kills her, out of anger, when she protests that she can’t. Caxton’s moral is less pithy, but still expresses the sentiment that the man has only hurt his own interests by killing the goose.

The man of auaryce or couetousnes commaunded and bad to her/ that euery daye she shold leye two egges/ And she sayd to hym/ Certaynly/ my mayster I maye not/ wherfore the man was wrothe with her/ and slewe her/ wherfore he lost that same grete good/ of the whiche dede he was moche sorowful and wrothe/ how be it that it was not tyme to shette the stable whan the horses ben loste/ & gone/ And he is not wyse/ whiche dothe suche a thinge/ wherof he shalle repente hym afterward/ ne he also/ whiche doth his owne dommage for to auenge hym self on somme other/ For by cause that he supposeth to wynne al/ he leseth all that he hath17

(The man, out of avarice or covetousness, commanded and ordered that every day she must lay two eggs. And she said to him, “Truly, my master, I cannot,” and so the man was angry with her and killed her, and so he lost that same great benefit, of which deed he was very sad and angry. Nevertheless, it is too late to shut the stable when the horses are lost and gone, and he is not wise who does something that he will regret afterward, nor is he wise who does himself harm to avenge himself on someone else. For, because he intends to gain everything, he loses all that he has.)

Authors like Avianus and Caxton did not foresee the drastic “improvements” that domesticated birds would undergo through breeding, or the battery farms that would house them nearly immobile in tiny cages, with the aim of maximizing profit. “Today,” says Margaret E. Derry, “we use chickens in a more mechanistic way than all other farm livestock. We follow practices that are not good for the birds and do not necessarily reflect well on us, in spite of the obvious benefits of such practices” (i.e., cheap eggs for human consumption).18 The morals to the two medieval versions of The Goose with the Golden Eggs that I considered above ultimately frame the bird’s violent demise in terms of how this impacts the human killer financially; we are encouraged to view the slaughter as, above all, unwise, because the goose was profitable to her owner, rather than as an act of cruelty or injustice toward the victim. But despite these mercenary morals, the fables’ authors nevertheless presciently suggest that human greed can demand more of animals than they can provide us, and that this is destructive, to them and to us.

  1. Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, The History of the Graeco-Latin Fable (Brill, 2003), vol. 3, p. 113. ↩︎
  2. Philip Slavin, “Goose management and rearing in late medieval eastern England, c.1250–1400,” The Agricultural History Review, vol. 58, no. 1 (2010), p. 4. ↩︎
  3. Dale Serjeantson, “Goose husbandry in Medieval England, and the problem of ageing goose bones,” Acta zoologica cracoviensia, vol. 45 (2002), p. 43. ↩︎
  4. Slavin, “Goose management and rearing,” p. 8. ↩︎
  5. Serjeantson, “Goose husbandry in Medieval England,” p. 41. ↩︎
  6. Slavin, “Goose management and rearing,” p. 16. ↩︎
  7. D. J. Stone, “The Consumption and Supply of Birds in Late Medieval England,” in Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition, ed. C. M. Woolgar, D. Serjeantson, and T. Waldron (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 154. ↩︎
  8. Margaret E. Derry, Art and Science in Breeding: Creating Better Chickens (University of Toronto Press, 2012), p. 4. ↩︎
  9. United Egg Producers, “Facts & Stats,” accessed January 4, 2025. ↩︎
  10. C. C. Whitehead et al., “Osteoporosis in cage layers,” Poultry Science, vol. 79, 7 (2000), 1033–1041; A. B. Webster, “Welfare implications of avian osteoporosis,” Poultry Science, vol. 83, 2 (2004): 184–92. ↩︎
  11. United Egg Producers, “Hen Housing Diagrams,” accessed January 4, 2025. ↩︎
  12. B. Yilmaz Dikmen et al., “Egg production and welfare of laying hens kept in different housing systems (conventional, enriched cage, and free range),” Poultry Science, vol. 95, 7 (2016), p. 1564. ↩︎
  13. Ruth Harrison, Animal Machines (Vincent Stuart Publishers, 1964). Reprinted with new commentaries 2013 by CAB International. ↩︎
  14. Sara Shields and Ian J. H. Duncan., “A Comparison of the Welfare of Hens in Battery Cages and Alternative Systems” (2009), Impacts on Farm Animals 18, WellBeing International, accessed January 4, 2025. ↩︎
  15. United Egg Producers, “Facts & Stats,” accessed January 4, 2025. ↩︎
  16. Latin text from J. Wright Duff and A. M. Duff, eds., Minor Latin Poets, Volume II: Florus, Hadrian, Nemesianus, Reposianus, Tiberianus, Dicta Catonis, Phoenix, Avianus, Rutilius Namatianus, Others, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934), p. 732. All modern English translations in this post are my own. ↩︎
  17. Middle English text from R. T. Lenaghan, ed., Caxton’s Aesop, Edited with an Introduction and Notes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 190. ↩︎
  18. Derry, Art and Science in Breeding, p. 9. ↩︎
Posted on

Epithets, Epistles, and Erasmus, Oh my [most serene king of Britain]!

In his treatise on the writing of letters, the De Conscribendis epistolis,[1] Dutch humanist and prolific letter-writer Desiderius Erasmus emphasizes the importance of the opening section of the letter. Going wrong here in the salutatio, the writer will, he says,“…like a poor helmsman…run aground right in the harbour.”[2]  His advice is to keep things simple, adopting the “new” Ciceronian style:

I approve the simplicity of the ancients; I only wish that we could emulate it everywhere amid the corrupt practices of our age, so that we might greet one another by the mere mention of names, as in: ‘Pliny gives his Calvus greeting!’ What could be truer or simpler? When you hear a man’s name pronounced you hear all his good qualities in a nutshell.[3]

Here and throughout his treatise, Erasmus makes a point of attacking the “corrupt practices of our age,” that is to say, medieval dictaminal practice. Erasmus’ friend and correspondent, the younger scholar Juan Luis Vives, who wrote a De Conscribendis Epistolis of his own, agrees that in medieval practice the use of epithets had spiraled out of control. Vives suggests that they should instead be employed as sparingly as possible, their use restricted to legitimate titles derived from the office of the addressee: “senator, consul, quaestor, bishop, priest, curate.”[4] He underscores the fact that a badly placed epithet might tarnish honor instead of enhancing it, suggesting that a name like Erasmus of Rotterdam carries its own distinction with no need for titles:

Other titles, originating from a debased custom, produce laughter or annoyance rather than confer distinction. Is it not more flattering to be so highly thought of that there is no need of epithets, as in the case of Guillaume Bude, Erasmus of Rotterdam, or Thomas More? In the lustre of such names expressions like “most learned in both tongues,” “consummate theologian,” “gentleman of greatest renown” are superfluous.[5]

Detail, Two Studies of the Left Hand of Erasmus of Rotterdam; Study of the Right Hand Writing. Silverpoint, black crayon and red chalk on grey-primed paper, 20.6 × 15.3 cm, Louvre, Paris. Christian Müller; Stephan Kemperdick; Maryan Ainsworth; et al, Hans Holbein the Younger: The Basel Years, 1515–1532, Munich: Prestel, 2006. Erasmus holds a pointed italic quill, suited to the purposes of his humanistic hand.

Erasmus ostensibly agrees, directly criticizing the customary pleonastic manner of addressing royals and nobles:

The king of the French alone is called “most Christian,” the king of Spain alone “Catholic,” the king of England “most serene,” the emperor alone “ever august,” dukes “most illustrious,” other members of the lesser nobility “illustrious,” and others “most noble.” Who introduced this superstition about titles into the world? … By the constant repetition of phrases like “most reverend lordships,” “Catholic majesties,” and “magnificent fatherhoods” we fill up a large part of a letter, and ruin the gracefulness of the Latin tongue. I pardon those who use them against their will; I do not pardon those who devise them, or who insist upon them as a serious matter.[6]

Despite this ideal, as with so many rules and regulations meant to govern the rules of prose, humanistic or otherwise, theory does not always accord with practice. Vives certainly uses flattering epithets in his own letters, despite his counsel to the contrary.[7] But although Erasmus begins by praising the “mere mention of names,” in practice his treatise goes on to linger on the salutatio for nearly a dozen sections, recommending the use of essential titles and the use of an apt—but not sycophantic—epithet (he suggests over 100 as suitable).[8]

Moreover, for the 1515 dedication to his Senecae Lucubrationes, Erasmus composes a salutation that hardly appears to follow his own advice: “To the most distinguished Father D. Thomas Ruthall,” he writes, “Bishop of Durham, Secretary of State of the Most Serene King of Britain, Erasmus of Roterdam sends greeting.[9] Though he does give himself merely his two names Erasmus Roterodamus, he is not content to give his friend Ruthall the single epithet amplissimo—he goes on to add his titles as well as those of Ruthall’s master, the “Most Serene King of Britain.” Leaving aside the elevated diction Secretarius Magnus and the choice of Britanniae instead of Angliae, Erasmus appears to fall right into the very “superstition about titles” he criticized above: calling the king of England “most serene.” As Erasmus cannot be imagined to here use epithets “against [his] will, in our charity we must conclude that he simply does not “insist upon them as a serious matter.” Indeed, we might imagine this apparent “do as I say, not as I do” as part of a game among friends. A glance at the letters of another friend of Erasmus, fellow correspondent Sir Thomas More, reveals that More uses titles only rarely in his salutations—rare exceptions include the high-flung salutation of Henry (that same most serene king of Britain) as Britanniae Galliaeque Regi and a 1506 letter addressed to Regio apud Anglos Secretario, our very own Thomas Ruthall. In the year 1506, Erasmus was staying in More’s house at Bucklersbury, and the two were engaged in the translation of Lucian’s dialogues. More’s almost overly learned letter to Ruthall offers some “first fruits” of these Greek studies. More and Erasmus engage here in a game of language and words, breaking their own rules, offering their efforts to a mutual humanist friend they knew would delight in their linguistic play.

Despite living the most fruitful parts of his adult career after the conclusion of what is generally considered the medieval period, Desiderius Erasmus never really attempted to avoid or evade the Middle Ages. Both in his return to the Classics and his agitations for a new humanistic approach to writing and scholarship, Erasmus continues to engage with medieval thinkers and medieval ways of thinking. In responding to and helping drive the dramatic shift away from the centuries-old medieval dictaminal tradition designed for the mass production of documents essential to the court of every Christian kingdom to a humanistic model grown out of the fourteenth-century Renaissance and Francesco Petrarcha’s rediscovery of the personal letters of Cicero to his friend Atticus, Erasmus engages in a humanistic game that plays off of tension with the near medieval past.

Rebecca West, PhD
Literature Core Faculty
University of Dallas

[1] Erasmus was already writing an early version of this text for his student Robert Fisher by about 1498 (Epistularum scribendarum ratio).⁠ A pirated version of his treatise was published at Oxford in 1521 by Siberch,⁠ more or less forcing Erasmus to come out with an expanded, corrected official version in 1522. The standard edition of the treatise is Charles Fantazzi, ed., “On the Writing of Letters / De Conscribendis Epistolis,” in The Collected Works of Erasmus: Literary and Educational Writings, 3 and 4, by J. K. Sowards, ed., 25 (University of Toronto Press, 1985). Hereafter abbreviated as CWE 25/3.

[2] CWE 25/3:50. The ars dictaminis aimed at organizing the letter—a form largely meant for public declamation of official communications—according to standardized models following a set of rules derived from ancient Ciceronian oratory. Erasmus devotes significant portions of his treatise to the proper way to frame the opening of a letter, the portion corresponding to the salutatio and captatio benevolentiae of a letter written according to the terminology of the medieval dictaminalmodel.

[3] CWE 25/3:51

[4] Charles Fantazzi, ed., J.L. Vives: De Conscribendis Epistolis: Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation and Annotation, trans. Charles Fantazzi (Leiden: Brill, 1989), 47.

[5] Vives: De Conscribendis Epistolis, 47.

[6] CWE 25/3:61.

[7] See the introduction to Fantazzi’s edition for the use of flattering epithets in Vives’ own corpus of letters.

[8] CWE 25/3:50-62.

[9] Amplissimo patri D. Thomae Ruthallo Episcopo Dunelmensi Serenissimi Britanniae Regis Secretario Magno Erasmus Roterodamus S. D. Text from Elizabeth Frances Rogers, ed., The Correspondence of Sir Thomas More, (Princeton: University Press, 1947), letter 5.Translation from Clarence H. Miller, Leicester Bradner, Charles A. Lynch, and Revilo P. Oliver, eds., The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, Volume 3, Part II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 1:2–8.