Tag: Literary London

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Sounds of Medieval London

If you and I were to go for a stroll through the streets of London—let’s say, one summer afternoon in 1392—what kinds of sounds would we hear?

City of London with Tower Bridge and Tower of London, Royal 16 F II, f. 73r; poems by Charles, due of Orléans, Bruges, third quarter of the 15th century, courtesy of the British Library

According to William Langland’s late fourteenth-century poem Piers Plowman, we might hear a cacophony of street cries including the shouts of cooks and tavern-keepers: “Hote pyes, hote! / Goode gees and grys! Ga we dyne, ga we!” (Prol. 228-35). (Incidentally, London’s street cries have been featured in musical compositions from Renaissance madrigals to twentieth-century composer Luciano Berio’s “Cries of London.”) But if we happened to be in London at just the right moment, we might hear something remarkable—the arresting sounds of a procession.

Religious procession at Saragossa, Royal 16 G VI, f. 32v, Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, Paris, after c. 1332 and before c. 1350, courtesy of the British Library

A procession–broadly defined as a group of individuals moving along a specific route to a certain destination–would capture our attention in numerous ways. As Kathleen Ashley has written, processions offered a “fusion of sensory experiences, or synaesthesia” (13). Indeed, they were both visually compelling, featuring canopies, torches, reliquaries, crosses, and flowers, and also aurally compelling, with singing voices, ringing bells, and the sounds of lutes, drums, and cymbals.

London would have seen many different kinds of processions—all of them with distinctive sounds. There would be royal processions creating an atmosphere of splendor and pomp.

Queen Isabel entering Paris; Harley 4379, f. 3r; Jean Froissart’s Chroniques; Bruges, between c. 1470 and 1472, courtesy of the British Library

Often (as in the image below) musicians would accompany these regal processions, and sometimes dancers would also perform.

King in a cart escorted by mounted musicians, Harley 4372, f. 79v, Valerius Maximus’s Les Fais et les Dis des Romains et de autres gens, trans. by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse, Normandy, c. 1460-1487, courtesy of the British Library

Religious processions would also pass through the streets, celebrating various holy days (e.g., Christmas, Easter, and Corpus Christi). These often featured ringing bells and chanting voices, and such sounds were thought to ward off demons and elicit divine grace.

Corpus Christi Procession with a Bishop carrying the monstrance under a canopy, Harley 7026, f. 13r, Lectionary, England, c. 1400-1410, courtesy of the British Library

Of course there were funeral processions, where corpses were carried through the streets as mourners wailed and bells tolled–undoubtedly an almost constant sound during the time of the plague. As the popular medieval philosopher Boethius wrote, “The cause for weeping might be made sweeter through song” (8).

Funeral procession of Queen Jeanne, Royal 20 C VII, f. 200r, Chroniques de France ou de St Denis, Paris, last quarter of 14th century, courtesy of the British Library

Like Langland, Chaucer infuses his writing with the sounds he experienced in London, and in the Prioress’s Tale, he specifically incorporates the sounds of processions.

In the beginning of the story, the clergeon sings the antiphon Alma redemptoris mater as he walks to school and back home: “Ful murily than wolde he synge and crie” (553). It is a kind of solo procession.

[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/kIXNIZxXwoI” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
Later, we find a foreshadowing of the clergeon joining a heavenly procession of virgin martyrs where he will follow “The white Lamb celestial” and “synge a song al newe” (581, 584).

Towards the end, the clergeon’s body is carried through the streets to the abbey “with honour of greet processioun” (623). Miraculously, he continues to sing the Alma, serving as the musician at his own funeral.

It seems fitting that such a series of processions should take center stage in the Prioress’s Tale since the Prioress herself would have come from a nunnery where processions formed a significant part of life. In fact, we have medieval documents (e.g., the Barking Ordinal) that provide instructions for nunnery processions. As the image below suggests, these processions would have been aurally compelling. Notice the one nun pulling the bell rope and the others singing from books with musical notation.

Illustration of a Procession and (above) Mass in a Nunnery, Yates Thompson 11, f. 6v, “Traité de la Sainte Abbaye,” France, c. 1290, courtesy of the British Library

We can add a new dimension to our understanding of life in the Middle Ages by reconstructing some of the sounds of the streets of medieval London. Such sounds have not altogether died away. In closing, here is a performance from the 2015 Mummer’s Parade in Philadelphia — a parade with roots reportedly dating back to the Early Modern period.

[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/n0w0MiATTF8″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen]
Ingrid Pierce
PhD Candidate
Department of English
Purdue University

Sources

Ashley, Kathleen and Wim Hüsken. Moving Subjects: Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wadsworth Chaucer, formerly The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed.
Ed. Larry D. Benson. Boston: Wadsworth, 1987.

Langland, William. Piers Plowman: A New Annotated Edition of the C-text. Edited by
Derek Pearsall. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2008.

Reynolds, Roger. “The Drama of Medieval Liturgical Processions.” Revue de Musicologie   86.1 (200): 127-42.

Yardley, Anne Bagnall. Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval
English Nunneries. New York: Palgrave, 2006.

 

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Richard II’s P.R. Disaster: Depictions and Characterizations of the King

King Richard II would not be considered a widely popular king. Coming to power in 1377 when he was ten years old, advised by councils though influenced most notably by his uncle John of Gaunt with whom he later had a falling out, the king’s power and ability to rule remained suspect throughout his reign. What power he did wield was often put to the test by such events as the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, the threat of plague, and political upheaval, all of which led to frequent characterizations as a boy hampered by his youth and unfit to rule effectively.[1] Medieval depictions and illustrations of the king demonstrate how many people after his reign may have seen him: young, naïve, unmanly, and stupid. And after Richard II was eventually deposed in 1399 when he was 32 years old, a certain amount of relish and schadenfreude seeped into illustrated post facto portrayals of the king.

A quick survey of these depictions reflects the king’s public image as it was held after his deposition. Images of a young Richard II characterized him in keeping with the knowledge of the coming debacles that England was to experience during his reign.

Historiated initial ‘R’ with Richard II, combined with a full foliate bar border, at the beginning of his statutes; England, c. 1436; BL, Harley 5233, f. 141r

Seen here, the king peers over his own statutes with droopy, disinterested eyes, perhaps with a hint of uncertainty. A large forehead, exaggerated ears, a sallow face, and a weak chin each underlines the not-so-subtle caveat to these statutes: take them with a grain of salt, and proceed with caution.

Detail of a miniature of King Richard II of England banishing the Earl Marshall and the Earl of Derby; Jean Froissart, Chroniques, Bruges, c. 1470-1472; BL, Harley 4380, f. 148r

The second image portrays the young king banishing two earls, and we observe his features – a round face, slight frame, dull eyes – set against the prominent features of the earls, seen here to have more pronounced jawlines and chins. Though the eyes of the court are fixed on the king, the faces register blank expressions; the scribes, on the other hand, look dreadfully miserable.

Such characterizations carry over to scenes of the king in action as well.

Detail of a miniature of Richard II knighting Henry of Monmouth in Ireland; Jean Creton, La Prinse et mort du roy Richart, Paris, c. 1401 – c. 1405; BL, Harley 1319, f. 5r

As Richard knights Henry of Monmouth of Ireland, the king’s regal attire and armor dwarf his frame, his protruding lips frown, and though the new knight leans respectfully over his horse, the horse itself glares obstinately at Richard’s horse, who has adopted a pose of weakness or subservience with eyes closed and knee bowed.

Miniature of Richard II giving instruction to the earl Marshal and another man, with a partial border; Jean Froissart, Chroniques, the Netherlands, last quarter of the 15th century; BL, Royal 14 D VI, f. 303r

We see the king’s slight frame again when he instructs an earl and another man, two figures who side with one another, one firmly clutching a staff between them and the king, and the other with hands raised in a possible protest or confrontation.

The next three images depict Richard II in disguise and captivity, his power wrenched away from him.

Detail of a miniature of Richard II at Conway, disguised in a priest’s cowl; Jean Creton, La Prinse et mort du roy Richart, Paris, c. 1401 – c. 1405; BL, Harley 1319, f. 19v
Miniature of Richard II being delivered to the citizens of London; Jean Creton, La Prinse et mort du roy Richart, Paris, c. 1401 – c. 1405; BL, Harley 1319, f. 53v
Detail of a miniature of Richard II being placed in the Tower of London; Jean Froissart, Chroniques, Bruges, c. 1470 – 1472; BL, Harley 4380, f. 181v

In each scene here, the king’s head is hanging low, bowed down and resigned to the fate that had befallen him. Though every illustration in this post date after Richard II’s deposition, these last three portrayals of the king carry a hint of gravitas to color these images. Although the king’s poor reputation held a long legacy, the images of his fall from the throne perhaps indicate that, regardless of his disastrous reign, public opinion of what befell him took into account his misfortune with at least a small amount of empathy–not as a king but as another mere mortal, subject to the same bad strokes of chance or fate as those he ruled, incompetence and all.

[1] Christopher Fletcher. Richard II: Manhood, Youth, and Politics 1377-99. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2008), 2.

Jacob Schepers
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University of Notre Dame

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Walking at Night: Scribal Variants, Poverty, and Prostitution in a Piers Plowman Manuscript

In one of the most moving additions to the C-text of Piers Plowman, Langland highlights the plight of impoverished mothers, who are some of the most vulnerable and underrepresented figures of his society:

And hemsulue also soffre muche hunger
And wo in wynter-tymes and wakynge on nyhtes
To rise to the reule to rokke the cradel,
Bothe to carde and to kembe, to cloute and to wasche. [1] (77-80)

Mary of Egypt
Saint Mary of Egypt, a reformed prostitute saint, is depicted outside the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois in Paris. Photo credit © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

Though these lines form only a part of Langland’s snapshot of working-class women, they poignantly convey the life of a working mother as she sacrifices her own well-being to feed her children, obeys the regulation of an infant’s nocturnal feeding schedule, and takes in domestic labour to make ends meet.

The passage excerpted above has been passed down through the Pearsall edition of the C-Text, but a little digging into the scribal variants across different manuscripts opens up a realm of possibilities for additional layers of meaning that could be added to the text. The scribe of the Cambridge University Library Dd. 3. 13 manuscript invokes a particularly intriguing possibility when he writes that these women were not “wakynge on nyhtes,” but “walkynge on nyhtes.”

‘Walking at night’ was associated with all sorts of immorality in medieval England, summed up in Chester Mystery Cycle when Jesus declares that “whosoever walketh abowte in night, hee tresspasseth all agaynst the right.”[2] Night-walking is specifically associated with sexual immorality by the Wife of Bath when she excuses her own desire to walk at night by saying that she is doing so to see the “wenches”[3] that her husband sleeps with (III l.397-398). Religious and secular legal discourses indicate that there was little distinction made in medieval England between women of “loose morals” and those who were involved in prostitution.[4]

In the Cambridge manuscript, then, there is a possibility that at least one scribe allowed for a moving portrayal of women forced by economic necessity into prostitution, even if he retain associations of immorality. Canon law made no allowances for such a thing, as the church viewed extreme poverty as a condition that led a woman into a life of prostitution, but not a mitigating factor.[5] On the level of the particular scribe, however, the addition of a single letter pushes us to consider the possibility that at least some readers could understand shades of complexity in a practice that is otherwise condemned, even by Langland himself.

When it comes to a poem with such a complex and enigmatic textual tradition as Piers Plowman, each manuscript bears an important witness to the text. Each scribal variant might get us a little closer to an authorial reading, but it also might give us insight into the ways the text could be misread or misunderstood by scribes and readers. Even if the reading in the manuscript bears little or no resemblance to Langland’s poetry, it may be the product of a scribe “elucidating the sense and significance in a text according to the priorities of their own period and culture.”[6] Even when a misreading is simply an error on the scribe’s part, it provides an example of how some medieval readers might have encountered and interpreted the text in ways that complement or contradict the authorial sense of a passage.

Leanne MacDonald
PhD Candidate
Department of English
University of Notre Dame

References:

[1] William Langland, Piers Plowman: A New Annotated Edition of the C-Text, ed. Derek Pearsall (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2008)

[2] “The Glovers Playe” from The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. R.M. Lumiansky and David Mills (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 244.

[3] From The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry Benson (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987). Ruth Mazo Karras argues that though Alysoun is not a prostitute per se, she uses language of commerce to talk about her sexuality and the practicalities of marriage. See Karras, “Sex, Money, and Prostitution in Medieval English Culture” in Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler and Jacqueline Murray (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 202.

[4] Karras, “Sex, Money, and Prostitution,” 211.

[5] James Brundage, “Prostitution in the Medieval Canon Law,” Signs 1, no. 4 (1976): 836.

[6] M. B. Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008), 68.