LIFE IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND LIFE IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND Witches, Spies and Stockholm Syndrome FINBAR DWYER LIFE IN MEDIEVAL IRELAND: WITCHES, SPIES AND STOCKHOLM SYNDROME Published 2019 by New Island Books DAC 16 Priory Office Park Stillorgan Co. Dublin, A94 RH10 Ireland www.newisland.ie First published 2013 as Witches, Spies and Stockholm Syndrome: Life in Medieval Ireland. Copyright © Finbar Dwyer, 2013 The author has asserted his moral rights. PRINT ISBN: 978-1-84840-740-4 EBOOK ISBN: 978-1-84840-285-0 All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner. British Library Cataloguing Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. New Island is a member of Publishing Ireland. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Map of Anglo-Norman Ireland, c. 1330 Acknowledgements Introduction & overview of Norman Ireland Chronology of Major Events in Anglo-Norman Ireland 1. The Lifeblood of Medieval Society: Violence 2. The Revolt of Maurice de Caunteton and the World of Political Blood Sports 3. Love and Marriage 4. Famine 5. Reverence, Riots and Religion: The Church in Medieval Ireland 6. Women 7. Mob Rule: Protest in Medieval Ireland 8. Grub’s up! Food in Medieval Ireland 9. In Sickness and in Health 10. Piracy, Looters and Storms: Travelling to ‘Parts beyond the Seas’ 11. Medieval Dublin: A Tale of Two Cities 12. The Rise and Fall of the Knights Templar in Ireland 13. Ireland’s First Witch? 14. A Heretic in the ‘Isle of Saints and Scholars’ 15. An Irishman in China 16. You’re having a laugh? Fun in the ‘land of war’ 17. John Clyn: Living and Dying in Extraordinary Times 18. Fires: A Medieval Tsunami 19. Women and Warfare: Thieves, Spies and Rebels 20. Sanctuary, Exile or Luck: Evading the Noose 21. Trouble on the home front: Dublin 1304 22. Henry Crystede and Ireland’s Earliest Case of Stockholm Syndrome? Endnotes Selected Bibliography Acknowledgements W hen Fred Cairns proofread a chapter of this book, his brief but succinct comments captured my relationship with grammar: ‘The comma is not endangered. I have added many. Direct sentences are permitted. The word “however” flourishes dangerously and might be pruned.’ There are many, including Fred, whom I have to thank for reintroducing the endangered comma and trimming back the voracious ‘however’. My thanks go to Finbar Cafferkey, Sian Crowley, Katharine Gibney, Alison Gibney (and baby Cian), Cian O’Callaghan, Stephanie Lord, Ryan O’Sullivan, Paul Lynch, Peter McGuire, Paul Dillon, Paddy O’Byrne, Damon King, Tríona Sørensen, Lucy McKenna, Aidan Rowe, Daithí Mac An Mháistir, Bob Kavanagh, Dave Landy, David Robertshaw, Odhran Gavin and Cathie Clinton. I would also particularly like to thank Matt Treacy, Oisin Gilmore and Eve Campbell, who read early drafts of the book, and Kevin Squires, for his editing, proofreading and map design. Cormac Scully and Eamonn Costello provided many of the pictures and ensured that they looked their best. Writing a book proved far more difficult than I anticipated. Beginning life as an audio project, various incarnations of this book have been in the pipeline over the past few years, the completion of which would never have happened without Eoin Purcell and all the people at New Island. The friendship, advice and support of a few people have been invaluable, in particular Stewart Reddin, Grainne Griffin, Carl Robinson and James McBarron. While there are many other people who helped me over the years, I would particularly like to thank Fergal Finnegan for the many hours of historical conversations and encouragement. I would also like to thank Alan Morkan, Dermot Sreenan, Aileen O’Carroll, Andrew Flood and Mark Malone, who have been a great source of advice, support and help along the way. Fergal Scully deserves particular mention. He has been there through thick, thin and mountains of history books on the kitchen table, not to mention his invaluable proofreading of various articles as well as this book. Since I was a child I have been lucky enough to be surrounded by people who encouraged my interest in history: my uncles Colm and Sean and my late uncle Seamus, and also Mick and Peg Brennan. This book would never have happened without their passion and kind encouragement over many years. Finally, I want to thank my family: my sisters Catherine and Ruth and brother-in-law Paul, who have encouraged me every step of the way, and my brother John, who has read and listened to countless hours of history audio and relentlessly pushed me to improve, and without whose advice and support I think it is fair to say this project would never have developed as it did. Most importantly I would like to thank my mother Máire, who has given me great support on all levels and who has been a source of inspiration throughout my life. IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER GERRY DWYER (1943-2013) Introduction I S hould someone from medieval Ireland walk into a bookshop in the twenty-first century (we won’t even try introducing this fictional character to e-books) they would feel very neglected. The history sections of Irish bookshops are dominated by works on recent history such as the revolutionary period of 1913–1922 or the Troubles. The world of our medieval visitor scarcely gets a mention. As disappointing as this may be, our guest would surely feel worse off if they attempted to discuss medieval history in public. The history of the Middle Ages is so neglected that the only figure of renown is Strongbow, the man who led the Norman Invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century. The scope of the few non-academic books available on medieval Irish history is generally quite limited. Most focus on the activities of half a dozen powerful families, which is by no means an accurate reflection of medieval society. There is little written about the lives of majority of men, who held no title or land, and even less about women. This book attempts to focus on ordinary people from the period by examining daily life. Indeed, so neglected are these people in history that many of the stories and people recounted in the following chapters haven’t been heard of in centuries. I have chosen to break from a traditional narrative in a chronological format as I feel it would have limited the scope of the book. While the second part of this introduction outlines a brief history of Anglo-Norman Ireland, I have structured the book itself around twenty-two independent chapters, each focusing on some aspect or person from medieval Ireland. While some are related, others have little in common save that they explore some aspect of medieval daily life. There are also chapters that address universal themes, which crop up again and again throughout the book. Violence, famine and the Black Death were so all consuming and life changing (or ending) that it would be remiss not to refer to them constantly. It would be akin to writing a history of twentieth-century Europe and trying to avoid repeatedly mentioning World War Two. The book is dominated by stories from the Anglo-Norman Colony in Ireland in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. This is inevitable for several reasons. Any medieval historian is naturally directed to this time period because it is covered by the greatest amount of in- depth contemporary sources. Coincidentally, it also happens to be arguably the most important period of medieval Irish history. The Norman colony in Ireland reached its geographical zenith in around 1270 and its economic height in around 1290. By the early fourteenth century, however, it was gripped by a crisis that would last at the very shortest estimate for several decades, but in some readings continued through to the 1660s or later. The focus almost exclusively on life in the Anglo-Norman colony in Ireland to the neglect of the native Gaelic society is largely down to sources. It would be impossible to reconstruct a picture of daily life in Gaelic Ireland accurately to the level of detail contained in the following chapters. With extensive parts of the west, north-west, midlands and Wicklow Mountains outside the power of the Anglo-Normans’ governmental authorities, there are no documents such as court rolls or extensive property deeds from which we could accurately reconstruct daily life. Extending comparisons from colonial territory is dangerous given that the limited information we do have from Gaelic Ireland indicates that there were quite substantial differences between the two societies. Nonetheless, there are many Gaelic Irish people who feature in the following pages, often when they ended up on the wrong side of the law in Anglo-Norman colony. Terminology and Spelling To avoid confusion, I have made some minor amendments to some quotations referenced in the text. There are quotes from thirteenth- and fourteenth-century sources, which at times can be confusing due to mistakes in the original text or the use of antiquated spelling. Where I felt that this only served to confuse, and the incorrect spelling had no specific meaning, I altered the word. The best example of this is the changing of ‘divers’ to ‘diverse’. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, spelling was not as precise or uniform as it is today. Names were often spelt in numerous ways within the same account.