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Home , 1120s, 1130s, 1150s, 1180s, 12th century

French chivalry in twelfth- Britain?

John Gillingham

he year 1066 – the one universally remembered date in English history, so well-known that Tbanks advise customers not to choose it as their PIN number – opened the country up to French influence in spectacular fashion. During the ‘long twelfth century’ (up to King John’s death in 1216) that followed the Norman Conquest, English society was transformed while one French dynasty after another came to power: the in 1066, the house of in 1135, and the house of (the Plantagenets) in 1154. England received a new francophone ruling class and a new culture. The new elite kept their estates in Normandy where their well-established connections across the porous land frontier gave them easy access to the Ile de , the Loire valley, and the Rhineland. They sent their sons to be educated on the tournament fields and in the schools of northern France, many of them in , ’s leading university. Until John lost Normandy and Anjou in 1204 the king of England, as duke of the and Aquitanians, count of the Angevins, ruled a territory four times the size of that ruled by the king of France. A series of ‘southern’ French queens, , Isabella of Angoulême, Eleanor of , stimulated the royal court to make purchases of sugar, rice and almonds, and of oriental spices such cumin, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg and saffron. Cultural, commercial and political contacts with the Mediterranean world, as well as with France and the Rhineland, were now on a scale not seen since the days, seven earlier, when Britain had been a province of the Roman Empire. Some of the developments of this period are well known. Castles and cathedrals, still prominent in the landscape today, exhibit design features which reveal the inspiration of continental models, mottes for example, A depiction of mêlée at a tournament in the Codex Manesse. and the shift from Romanesque to

6 The Historian – Summer 2014 Rochester Castle with its keep, shown from the north-west. The photo clearly shows its proximity to . Photo courtesy of Clem Rutter

Gothic in church architecture. Well- century, the language of the learned; known too, and plainly a result of French the lingua franca of the princely French influence, is the transformation courts of Europe, a cosmopolitan world of English. The new elite, calling their which stretched as far as the crusader vernacular romanz (i.e. roman), initially states in Outremer, ‘the land beyond looked upon English as a barbarous the sea’. ’s language. French by contrast was, as History of the Kings of Britain, composed one author put it, the language ‘de gentil at Oxford in the , established the home’. But their grandchildren came to court of King Arthur as the setting for think of themselves as English, and spoke some of the finest works of European English as well as French. No doubt this secular literature. It was immediately was the consequence of ordinary day and turned into French verse by Geoffrey night contact between a ruling minority Gaimar at the request of Constance fitz and the English-speaking majority, Gilbert of Lincolnshire. Gaimar’s version above all English women as mothers was soon overtaken by a better one by and nurses. But the ability to speak Wace, a poet for the royal court, who French offered so many advantages that composed his Roman de Brut in the it did not remain exclusive to the ruling . Wace not only added the Round class and wannabes. The syntax and Table to the Arthurian mix, he also vocabulary of English was dramatically had Sir Gawain proclaim that ‘it’s for altered in a way that is explicable only love and for their beloved that in terms of widespread bilingualism. In do knightly deeds’ – words unlike any some fields such as law, administration heard in earlier European literature. and war a whole new vocabulary was The imagined world of rulers such as created. The acquisition of over 10,000 King Arthur or Mark of was French words in the centuries after the the setting for a new kind of literature: Conquest meant not only a doubling the prose romance. The romance, of the size of the English lexicon, it also with its emphasis on elegant manners created a language more receptive to and polished speech, leading to the further borrowings from French and coining of words such as courtoisie, Latin in subsequent centuries. In this offered models of behaviour for men sense one of the victors of the Battle of and women in peace as well as war. The Hastings was English. central theme was not the old one of In the shorter run one of the great war and conquest, but the individual’s consequences of the use of French in search for personal fulfilment through England was to make an insular society prowess, courtesy, loyalty and love – much more open to a Europe-wide values which could be, and sometimes aristocratic culture. Before 1066 works were, in tension as in the famous cases had been written in English across an of Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and impressively wide range of genres. But Isolde. As the genre in which passionate they were not read outside England. love became the moving force in Literature in Latin and French, by the hearts of individuals this was an contrast, had a much greater reach. Latin enormously influential literary genre, the Tapestry of King Arthur, c. 1385, bearing the coat of arms was, and remained until the seventeenth forerunner of the novel. usually attributed to him: three gold on blue.

The Historian – Summer 2014 7 Slavery and it was as a package which included their supply other forms of labour became a enslavement families and the ground on which they more attractive proposition. Lawrence In other ways too, both men and were tenants; slaves could be separated of Durham, writing in the 1130s, noted women were to find their lives from their families and bought and sold slavery’s passing in England: transformed during the next century. as individual items. Slaves, moreover, Most fundamentally this was as a unlike serfs, were often acquired as part After England was ruled by Norman consequence of the dying out of slavery. of the plunder seized during the raids lords the English no longer suffered Remarkably this post-1066 social change which made up the terrifying bread-and- from outsiders that which they had has been almost entirely forgotten, butter routine of war in almost all early endured at their own hands. In this partly because at the time it went very human history. The dying out of this respect they found that foreigners largely unrecorded, and partly because form of total war, a change we might call treated them better than they had it was followed by serfdom, a condition the rise of ‘chivalry’, is another of these themselves. Meanwhile in Scotland which in the eyes of many subsequent unnoticed changes. Can these profound and , where the natives are still historians was almost as bad. But while social changes also be ascribed to French the lords, the old custom of slavery it is true that serfs could in effect be sold, influence? Or were they home-grown, continues, though on a lesser scale. generated out of internal developments within English society? Outside England too rulers who Take the case of slavery. Slaves wanted to be regarded as modern came made up about 10% of the population under pressure to end enslavement. To recorded in Domesday Book (1086). all appearances slavery had died out Enslavement was the punishment for throughout Britain and Ireland by c.1200. some offences. At times of , the In Ireland and , as on the threat of starvation led to parents selling continent, the process went entirely children into slavery. War remained a unrecorded. But for Scotland, one major source of slaves. Domesday Book English writer, Richard of Hexham, records the toll to be paid on each slave provides a little evidence. In his sold at Lewes (Sussex) market. In France description of a Scottish invasion of by contrast slavery, although as such England in 1138 we read: never legislated against, had died out by 1066. The Norman Conquest was the They carried off their plunder and the first in the history of Britain that did not women, both widows and maidens, result in more slaves for sale. For a while stripped, bound and roped together many new French lords retained the they drove them off, goading them slave work-forces they took over from with spears on the way. After their their English predecessors, but it is clear captives had been shared out with from the Domesday Book entry for Essex the rest of the spoil, some Scots which, uniquely, records slave numbers were moved to pity and freed some, for both 1066 and 1086, that slavery giving them to the church of St Mary was declining. English-born churchmen in . But the Galwegians and had long opposed the export of slaves many others took their share away but it was the foreign archbishop whom with them. These bestial men think imposed on the nothing of adultery, incest and portrait of Lawrence of Durham as writer. English church, Lanfranc of Canterbury, other crimes. After they had tired formerly of St Stephen’s Caen, who of abusing them in the manner of persuaded the king to ban the trade. The brute beasts, they either kept them as last council of the English church to feel slave girls or sold them on to other the need to prohibit the slave trade met in barbarians in exchange for cattle. 1102. For William of , who lived through the change, slavery had The powerful propagandistic strain been a detestable part of English society here makes it tempting to dismiss on the eve of the Norman Conquest. Richard’s account, but evidence from other parts of Europe indicates that The common people were oppressed for as long as societies found slavery by the powerful, some were even sold acceptable, so they also accepted the abroad. One particularly unnatural slave raid, and the terrifying military practice was that many of them got logic of a type of warfare in which their female slaves pregnant and then, human beings were regarded as desirable having sated their lust, sold them to items of plunder. In Richard’s words: public prostitution or into slavery abroad. ...they killed husbands in front of wives, the sick on their beds, women Slave-owners, especially when who were pregnant or in labour, contemplating death, continued the babies in their cradles or at their ancient charitable practice of freeing mothers’ breasts, and sometimes their human property, and the decline they killed the mothers too. They The c.1175; solid yellow of the slave trade made it increasingly slaughtered worn-out old men, shows Angevin possessions, checked hard to find replacements. At a time of feeble old women, anyone who was yellow Angevin hegemony. rising population and increasing labour disabled.

8 The Historian – Summer 2014 In practice if women and children Alberic, former abbot of the great believed that the English people of were to be seized and rapidly removed to monastery of Vézelay, met King David his day were more humane and more places where they could be held securely, and the Scottish magnates at Carlisle. civilised than their pre-Conquest it was necessary to kill not only everyone There those who had captured women ancestors had been. This he ascribed who put up a fight, hence the slaughter and children promised that they would to the influence of and the of men, but also anyone who got in the free them, and all promised that in example of French models. way – those categories of persons who future wars they would spare women, could not be turned to profit but whose children, the infirm and elderly; they Chivalry lamenting, clinging presence would would kill only those who fought against By 1200 slave-raiding in Britain and have slowed down and endangered the them. King David’s encouragement of Ireland had ended. In propagandistic operation. Anglo-Norman immigration and his English narratives of later Scottish and The English and the Scots, it should policy of ‘modernising and civilising’ Welsh raids, slaving goes unmentioned. be remembered, had been Christian Scottish society meant that Alberic’s After this transition – and for the for many hundreds of years before this. view of right conduct in war was shared first time in history – non-combatant Disturbing as the thought be, it by some of the most influential men in immunity existed in the sense that appears that in Britain and Ireland, Scotland, including the king himself. although enemy soldiers might intend to just as in ancient Greece, people could None the less a French papal legate, ruin civilians economically by destroying combine a sense of belonging to a especially one prepared, as Alberic was, or taking their wealth, they no longer common culture (whether Christian to prostrate himself at the feet of the risked going out of their way in order to or Hellenic) with a readiness to fight king of Scots, was likely to be listened capture and enslave ordinary people – fiercely against different polities within to by many in North Britain who would the sort of people who could not afford that same culture: adult male captives have objected to being instructed in to pay a worthwhile ransom. Ordinary being killed and women and children politically correct behaviour by their soldiers gained little, arguably nothing, dragged off as slaves. The mid twelfth- English enemies. from the new conventions of warfare, century biography of the Welsh prince, William of Malmesbury, surveying but women and children old enough to , praises its hero for the history of the previous 700 years work, the targets of the slave raid – then, ravaging and burning the land of his from his vantage point in the , in ancient times, and now in parts of enemy – another Welsh prince – and for carrying wives and daughters off into captivity. This appears to be the pattern of war characteristic of many early societies, the Iliad and the Old Testament providing the most famous examples. Consider Moses and the Israelites in the land of Canaan.

They warred against the Midianites as the Lord commanded Moses, and they slew all the males; and the children of took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and they took spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks and all their goods. (Numbers 31: 7-9).

Whatever happened to these captives later – and some no doubt were assimilated into the society which took them – they had been violently carried off and their families had suffered the slaughter that went hand in hand with enslavement. As recently as the eleventh century the English had themselves been a slave-owning, slave-trading, slave- raiding people, and they had taken this kind of thing for granted. Once they had abandoned slavery, however, they regarded such practices as barbarous and wrote passionately about them. Richard of Hexham’s narrative also reveals one of the pressures being brought to bear on the Scots. The papal legate, a French-born named

‘Pirates normands au IXème siècle’ (Norman pirates in the ), as imagined by Evariste-Vital Luminais (1822-1896).

The Historian – Summer 2014 9 Africa – were the principal beneficiaries chapter outlining a rough chronological of this change. This is at the core of overview of his subject from pre-history the rise of chivalry, including its much to the twentieth century Pinker dealt mocked concern for damsels in distress. with the capture and enslavement of Of course, violence against women women and children in war under two remained, and remains, a phenomenon headings: Homeric Greece and The of war. They continued to be raped, or Hebrew Bible. But once past the world seized and threatened in order to extort of the Old Testament the subject simply money from their husbands or fathers. disappears from view, and is replaced But in Europe ever since the age of by themes such as torture and varying chivalry that sort of conduct has been homicide rates in different parts of regarded as reprehensible, at the least as Europe under headings such as Early damaging to military discipline, by those Christendom and Medieval Knights. men who wrote about war or who held The discontinuance of a mode of war in high military command. which adult males were killed in order In the days before this new morality to carry off their women and children of war, battles had been desperate as men was a process which must have meant fought to save their families as well as that a high proportion of the population themselves. There had been few prepared of any given region was much less to surrender. At Hastings in 1066 the afterwards. For the elite, political life vulnerable to violence than ever before. victors followed the old convention in England once more became just as This is a transition very well suited to of mass slaughter. But during the next dangerous as it had been before 1066 bolster Pinker’s argument. Yet, curiously, 200 years very few ‘noble knights’ were when men of high rank had risked being it falls out of sight. The questions of killed in the battles which took place killed in battle or of being summarily just how, when, why and where so on English soil: at the Standard in 1138, executed afterwards. Fortunately other entrenched a practice fell into disuse are at Lincoln in 1141, Alnwick in 1174, forms of chivalry in wars between not even broached. Just as remarkable Lincoln in 1217, Lewes in 1264. Gerald Christians proved to be more lasting. is the fact that this extraordinary gap de Barri (in the ) drew a sharp Historians have tended to regard in his argument is hardly – if at all – contrast between what he portrayed as chivalry rather cynically, seeing it as ‘a mentioned by the many critics of his the Irish and Welsh practice of killing sham, a tinsel covering’ which attempted work who have almost always focused their captives and what he called French to disguise the brutality of war. But on either his account of the twentieth In the days before this new morality of war, battles had been desperate as men fought to save their families as well as themselves. There had been few prepared to surrender. chivalry (gallica militia). Where had had they measured the treatment of century or his statistics, or both. In part English knights learned how to fight women, children and the poor in the this reflects that venerable tradition and how, when defeated, to surrender ‘age of chivalry’ not against some ideal of historians who have liked to move in the confident expectation that in standard, but against the standards that from the Ancient World to what they return for a ransom their lives would had been regarded as acceptable, indeed comically label the Early Modern period be spared? On the tournament fields of honourable, in all previous ages, they without imagining that anything of France – for in England tournaments might have taken a different view. importance might have occurred in were banned until the . Early between. mêlée tournaments were highly realistic The better angels of our battle games in which the participants nature learned how to capture other players Whereas the end of slavery in Europe, John Gillingham is a Fellow of the while keeping them alive so that they the transition from slavery to serfdom, British Academy and Emeritus could pay ransoms. When some 25 is a subject which has engaged scholars Professor of History at the LSE, knights of aristocratic birth were killed for nearly 200 years, the end of slave- where he taught from 1965 to 1998. at the battle of Evesham in 1265 – and raiding has passed virtually unnoticed His books include Richard I (Yale Simon de Montfort’s body mutilated – by historians. Stephen Neff in War and UP, 1999), The English in the Twelfth contemporaries were shocked by this the Law of Nations (2005) noted it, Century (Boydell, 2000), The Angevin deliberate breach of the conventions describing the discontinuance of the Empire, 2nd edn (Hodder, 2001) and which had held sway since the Norman ancient practice of enslaving prisoners Conquests, Catastrophe and Recovery. Conquest. Robert of called of war in wars between Christians as Britain and Ireland c. 1066-c.1485 it ‘the murder of Evesham, for battle it ‘the most striking innovation’. But he (Random House, forthcoming). was not’. Subsequent battles on English could say little more about it given the soil in the fourteenth and fifteenth absence of scholarly literature on the centuries followed the pattern set at subject. Had there been any it would Find out more about subscribing Evesham. Aristocrats on the losing side no doubt have been cited in The Better to the Historian here were in serious danger of being killed Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker’s http://history.org.uk/member/ in battle, and if not killed there, then of controversial recent (2011) book on the register.php being summarily executed immediately decline of violence in history. In a first

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