Illusions and Resurrections selected from Walter Map’s De nugis curialium translated and adapted by M. T. Anderson Walter Map (c. 1130 – c. 1210), friend of kings and saints, was most likely from Hereford, near the border of Wales. He rose rapidly through the ranks of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the civil service, finally acting as royal justice at the court of King Henry II. He was the author of one book, De nugis curialium (“Trinkets for the Court”), a sprawling compendium of political gossip items, hearsay, essays, satirical riffs, character assassinations, and supernatural hi-jinx. The text was apparently composed over some years. Map’s prose is lively and eccentric, marked by headlong syntax, abrupt shifts in direction, and peculiar poetic flourishes. The following selections, drawn from throughout the work, trace their own set of themes. Prologue. “I exist in time; and of time I speak,” said St. Augustine, adding: “But what time is, I do not know.” With the same bewilderment, I may say that I exist in the court and I speak of the court, but I have no idea (God knows) what the court is. I do know that the court is not time, though it is temporal – for it is mutable and various, it is in one place and it is wandering, and “never continueth in one state.” When I leave it, I feel as if I know it completely; when I return to it, I find little or nothing of what I left: for once I am outside of it, I am as a sojourner, and it is strange to me… When courtiers set aside court business, exhausted by the vast work of their monarchs, they often like to stoop to speak with the poor and humble and to lighten their ponderous thoughts with outrageous tales. Similarly, when you rest between pages of some philosophy or some divine work, it may please you to hear or even to read for your own recreation this book’s tasteless, anaemic idiocies. You have asked me to set down examples for future generations, something which will excite 1 ILLUSIONS AND RESURRECTIONS – WALTER MAP laughter or teach a moral. Though I can’t do what you demand (for “the penniless poet does not know the caves of the Muses”), it would not be difficult for me to collect some odds and ends, which a good man, being good, might turn to good account (since, for the good, all things cooperate to produce more good). I might at least plant seeds that will yield fine fruit. But who can harvest fruit from a spirit that is worthless and dingy? For the Scripture says, “Like vinegar poured upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a grim heart.” Now I will sing my song. Will you listen? Of Llewelyn, King of Wales. Llewelyn, King of Wales, a man as unfaithful as almost all of his ancestors and descendents were, a lazy and slothful man who squatted in the ashes of his father’s hearth, a weak and even defective man – Llewelyn, King of Wales, had an extremely beautiful wife, whom he loved more passionately than she loved him. He armed himself in every way he could to protect her chastity. Driven by suspicion and jealousy, he thought of nothing but making sure that no one would touch her. One day, it came to his ears that a young man of the kingdom – well-known, well-liked, well-formed, well-endowed – happy in business and in person – had slept with the Queen in a wet dream. The King was crazed. He raged as if the dream were real; he pined; he captured the youth through trickery. If the King’s regard for young man’s family had not been so great – or perhaps his fear of their vengeance – he would have tortured the man on the spot and killed him. As was the custom, the young man’s family offered themselves as security for his release, wary of a trial. The King refused to grant the young man bail, and demanded an immediate sentencing. Their suit refused, the family complained, but they at least delayed their vengeance while the young man was still imprisoned. Many came to argue the case, first for one party, then the other, but no one could agree. Both sides summoned wise men from all over the land. Finally, they called upon a man known as the kingdom’s wisest. He considered the problem, one side and the other. They awaited his decision. Finally, he spoke his verdict. “We must obey the laws of our land. We have no reason to cast aside the statutes of our forefathers, established by ancient custom. Let us follow them, then, yes? “In the most ancient laws, it is decreed that anyone taken in adultery with the queen of Wales shall pay one thousand head of cattle to the king, and go free. This man here is accused of dreaming that he had intercourse with the Queen, and he does not deny it. He has confessed that the charge is true, so clearly – clearly! – he must yield up a thousand head of cattle. 2 ILLUSIONS AND RESURRECTIONS – WALTER MAP “Seeing as it was a dream, I declare that the defendant shall lead his one thousand head of cattle down to the bank of Lake Brycheiniog, in full sight of the King; and he shall arrange the cattle in a row in the sunlight, so that the reflection of them is seen upon the water. The cattle shall still belong to their owner; but the image of them on the water shall now belong wholly to the King, as dream is the image of truth.” Everyone approved this decision, and so it was done, in spite of the griping of Llewelyn, King of the Welsh. Some Sort of Miracle. Once a priest was being shot with arrows by the Saracens, who were trying to force him to give up his faith. Nearby was another cleric who had already caved in, and who kept mocking him for continuing to believe, jeering with each arrow-shot, “Is that nice? Do you like that?” The other did not reply. Finally, seeing that the priest would not be moved, the apostate whacked off the man’s head with one blow, saying, “And what about this? Do you think this is nice?” The head, speaking with its own lips, said: “Yes. Now it’s nice.” Stories like this were often told of the early Knights Templar, back when they adored God and thought the world was vile. But when they began to adore what was vile, and their wealth led them to uncertain acts, we began to hear very different tales of them indeed … Another Fantastical Apparition. Since I am speaking of peculiar deaths: A knight of Brittany who had lost his wife and mourned greatly for her found her again late one night in a huge crowd of women gathered in a vast and lonely valley. He was filled with fear and awe, seeing right before him the woman he had buried; he could not believe his eyes, and doubted what the Fates had done. He decided to capture his dead wife, determining that either he would have the glory of the capture, if indeed his eyes didn’t deceive him, or he would be cheated of the phantom, but at least would not be accused of cowardice. So he seized her, and thus enjoyed his marriage for several more years, years every bit as pleasant as those before she had died. They had children, whose progeny are great even today, and who are called “Sons of the Dead.” This would seem like an incredible and prodigious injury to the natural order, if there were not these certain proofs of its truth. 3 ILLUSIONS AND RESURRECTIONS – WALTER MAP Regarding St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Once I was having dinner with the blessed St. Thomas Becket, at that time Archbishop of Canterbury. Two Cistercian abbots were dining with us, and insisted on telling us many stories of miracles done by that wonderful man St. Bernard – who, one must admit, shone like a bright star in his order – the brightest, really, above all the rest, burning over them as the beautiful angel Lucifer shines in the heavens. St. Bernard was led through the land of France by the Holy Spirit. His many miracles were recorded by Geoffrey of Auxerre, his own private secretary; you can believe every word. The two Cistercian abbots took this occasion to praise Bernard, and extolled him to the stars. John Planet, a clerk, distressed at the way this conversation about the good master was going, interrupted. “Once,” he said, “in Montpellier, I saw quite a startling miracle, one which made many people wonder.” And when the abbots urged him to go on, he said, “St. Bernard, this man who you praise – quite rightly – he’s magnificent – he had a demon-possessed man dragged to him in chains for healing. Bernard, seated on an ass, shouted at the unclean spirit and demanded that it depart. The crowd was silent. When Bernard felt that the demon had left the man, he said, ‘It is done. Unchain him and let him go free.’ “They freed the demoniac, who immediately began to throw rocks as hard as he could right at the saint. Bernard tried to scramble away, but the man ran after him, and even when people captured the madman and tied his hands, he kept glaring at Bernard, as if his eyes wouldn’t budge.” The Archbishop was displeased with this anecdote.