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How Sir Richard of the Lea Paid his Debts This is another chapter Pyle takes from A Gest of Robyn Hode.  quote:
"In coelo quies" is latin for "There is peace in heaven." The trained talking starling is Pyle's addition to the ballad; I didn't know starlings could be taught to speak. Here is a youtube video of a talking starling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XXYcr0S4Ts quote:"Where is thy prior?" asked the Knight of the old porter. Sir Richard won't trust his horse to the Abbey's care. If he did, he would be accepting the Abbey's hospitality, and they aren't his friends. quote:So saying, he pushed forward, and, the gates being opened, he entered the stony courtyard of the Priory, his men behind him. In they came with rattle of steel and clashing of swords, and ring of horses' feet on cobblestones, whereat a flock of pigeons that strutted in the sun flew with flapping wings to the high eaves of the round towers. Again, Pyle's eye here for a cinematic entrance; those vivid details aren't in the ballad. quote:
The detail of the falcon is a social inversion; medieval etiquette books such as the Book of St. Albans set fairly strict etiquette rules for who could appropriately hawk with which birds; hawking with a bird above your rank was presumptuous. Hawking with falcons was reserved for the king, princes, and dukes, the very highest nobility; priests were restricted to humbler birds like the sparrowhawk. The Abbot here is being habitually presumptuous and arrogant. The presence of the Sheriff of Nottingham here is a bit ambiguous in the original ballad ; the Gest does refer to a “Sheryf” as being present, but he isn’t named. quote:Jest and laughter passed around, and all was as merry as merry could be. The wizened face of the man of law was twisted into a wrinkled smile, for in his pouch were fourscore golden angels that the Prior had paid him in fee for the case betwixt him and Sir Richard of the Lea. The learned doctor had been paid beforehand, for he had not overmuch trust in the holy Vincent of Emmet. The Gest has the attorney state that he has been paid “in cloth and fee,” which Rochester.edu explains with this helpful note: quote:
So, again, the Abbot is being both corrupt and presumptously arrogant -- he’s acting like royalty, not a priest.. quote:Quoth the Sheriff of Nottingham, "But art thou sure, Sir Prior, that thou hast the lands so safe?" Medieval land law was *complicated* -- what survives of it still confuses law students today (if you want, look up “rule against perpetuities”). Short version, the knight’s estate is a feudal estate which the knight holds by grant from the King. If the Abbot just forecloses on the land, it might still be subject to the various feudal rights and duties of the knight, and the knight might have a chance to reclaim it later. If the Knight signs it over officially, though, it becomes Church property in perpetuity, without feudal obligations. . Basically the Abbot is offering the Knight money down now if he officially sells the land and signs it over, rather than forcing the Abbot to foreclose. quote:"Yea," said the Prior, "so thou hast told me ere now, but I know that this knight is so poor that he will gladly sign away his lands for two hundred pounds of hard money." Saint Hubert is a French (that is, Norman) saint. ; the Gest has the Abbot swear by Saint Richard, an English saint. There's another interesting bit in the original Gest which Pyle cuts here, probably because it is a bit of an inconsistency: while calling out the Abbot for his lack of mercy, the Cellarer states: quote:
In other words, the Knight is abroad, fighting for England (perhaps in the Continent in the hundred year's war, perhaps on Crusade, etc.) while the Abbot is just getting fat at home. This was a big issue for the soldiers and yoemen who likely made up the audience for a lot of these ballads: fighting overseas, far from home, returning home only to be taken advantage of by the wealthy who never left and never fought. quote:"Nay," said the man of law smoothly, "I dare swear this same knight will never come to settlement this day, but will prove recreant. Nevertheless, we will seek some means to gain his lands from him, so never fear." Prior kinda has a point! But from a medieval yeoman’s point of view -- setting aside that we know this is all Robin’s men anyway -- this just means the knight is a good boss. He’s spending on his men and his horse, not himself. He’s humble and caring. quote:"But art thou sure," said the little doctor tremulously, "that this knight will do us no harm? Such as he are fierce when crossed, and he hath a band of naughty men at his heels. Mayhap thou hadst better give an extension of his debt." Thus he spake, for he was afraid Sir Richard might do him a harm. The attorney has a legit concern here. We’re still in an era when disputes were settled by violence *all the time*. For example, in 1324, Geoffrey Chaucer’s father John Chaucer was kidnapped by men with swords in an attempt to force him to marry his first cousin and keep property in the family. . The whole central problem of “chivalry” -- and a major role of the Church -- was to try to impose some check and rule, via the conscience and the fear of the afterlife, on large bodies of armed violent men. And here the Church has forsaken that duty and is just grasping for wealth. So what’s to stop Sir Richard? Only that he’s one of the good ones. He has a conscience even when the Church doesn’t. quote:As the Prior finished, a door at the lower end of the refectory swung open, and in came Sir Richard, with folded hands and head bowed upon his breast. Thus humbly he walked slowly up the hall, while his men-at-arms stood about the door. When he had come to where the Prior sat, he knelt upon one knee. "Save and keep thee, Sir Prior," said he, "I am come to keep my day." RUDE. And greedy, and selfish, and discourteous. And unbecoming especially of a priest. quote:"Alas! I have not so much as one penny upon my body," said the Knight; whereat the Prior's eyes sparkled. This is a bit of a pun; Sir Richard is being “shrewd” -- and again, not technically lying! -- but “shrewd” can also mean “hard,” as in a “shrewd knock.” So Prior is saying “you’re a hard-knocked debtor” but not realizing the other meaning of “shrewd”, “cunning”, applies. quote:
In the Gest, the Sheriff won’t help at all; again, Pyle’s Sheriff is a bit kinder. quote:At this the Prior smiled grimly. "Pay me three hundred pounds, Sir Richard," said he, "and I will give thee quittance of thy debt." Oh poo poo! Again, the Abbot is just being *rude*. Discourteous, in an era when knightly morality is defined by “curtesye.” He’s making the Knight kneel this whole time without offering him a chair, he hasn’t offered him food or drink, all he’s talking about is money money money. And this is an era when people could, and did, kill each other over that kind of thing with some frequency. Think back to Robin and Little John bashing each other with sticks for an hour over who got to cross a bridge first. This is a society where that kind of thing matters, and the Abbot is just ignoring it, secure behind his wealth and his status as a priest. quote:Then quoth the man of law in a trembling voice, "This is surely an ill way to talk of matters appertaining to business; let us be mild in speech. What wilt thou pay this knight, Sir Prior, to give thee release of his land?" The Prior dares to call Sir Richard rude to him. Arrogant bastard. quote:"Hadst thou offered me a thousand pounds, false prior," said the Knight, "thou wouldst not have got an inch of my land." Then turning to where his men-at-arms stood near the door, he called, "Come hither," and beckoned with his finger; whereupon the tallest of them all came forward and handed him a long leathern bag. Sir Richard took the bag and shot from it upon the table a glittering stream of golden money. "Bear in mind, Sir Prior," said he, "that thou hast promised me quittance for three hundred pounds. Not one farthing above that shalt thou get." So saying, he counted out three hundred pounds and pushed it toward the Prior. gently caress you, fatman. You want money, you’ll get your drat money. But you won’t get a drat thing else. quote:But now the Prior's hands dropped at his sides and the Prior's head hung upon his shoulder, for not only had he lost all hopes of the land, but he had forgiven the Knight one hundred pounds of his debt and had needlessly paid the man of law fourscore angels. To him he turned, and quoth he, "Give me back my money that thou hast." This bit is Pyle’s addition, rendered necessary by his re-ordering earlier. The next two sections of the Gest *after* this point tell the story of Little John, while still in Sir Richard’s service, entering an archery competition in Nottingham, winning, entering the Sheriff’s service, fighting the cook, etc. as we saw above. quote:A merry feast it was to which Sir Richard came, but a sorry lot he left behind him, and little hunger had they for the princely food spread before them. Only the learned doctor was happy, for he had his fee. Practice tip: get paid in advance! This is a natural break point in the story, a section break in the Gest, so I’ll break this post off here and finish the rest of the chapter in the next post. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Aug 25, 2020 |
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Aug 25, 2020 01:16
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Wilbur Swain posted:This quote caused me to immediately recall a favorite illustration from my childhood and put it in context, thanks. you didn't post the accompanying verse: 
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Aug 25, 2020 01:36
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quote:Now a twelvemonth and a day passed since Prior Vincent of Emmet sat at feast, and once more the mellow fall of another year had come. But the year had brought great change, I wot, to the lands of Sir Richard of the Lea; for, where before shaggy wild grasses grew upon the meadow lands, now all stretch away in golden stubble, betokening that a rich and plentiful crop had been gathered therefrom. A year had made a great change in the castle, also, for, where were empty moats and the crumbling of neglect, all was now orderly and well kept. A year has passed, and it looks like Sir Richard decided to pay his debt back to Robin, not the Bishop of Hereford. Understandable. quote:
gently caress yes, let's go to a fair! Fairs are the best. Almost this entire section is Pyle's addition; in the Gest, this sequence at Denby Fair is only a few stanzas long, it isn't Denby but rather Wentbrydge, and none of the characters we're about to meet are given names. Denby is about an hour and a half south of Wentbridge, so this is Pyle rearranging the geography a bit to make everything happen more consistently around Sherwood, rather than Barnsdale. quote:Some background on medieval wrestling prizes: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/gest-of-robyn-hode quote:
quote:More middle ages wrestling info: https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/gest-of-robyn-hode quote:
Dude talkin' big and challenging all comers. We know how this is gonna go down, right? Yeah we do. It's gonna be sweet, too. quote:
Who is this tall, young, handsome, totally ripped stranger? quote:
This is a well-described fight; we can almost see every movement in the match. Every strain and grab and throw. quote:
https://chivalricfighting.wordpress...-of-master-ott/ So our mysterious ripped stranger is using techniques right out of a medieval wrestling textbook! I don't know that Pyle read Ott -- it seems more likely that wrestling is just wrestling and there are commonalities down the centuries -- but, still, cool aside. quote:
Wait! Have we seen one of those names before? quote:
We have! Stout David! David of Doncaster is only named in one of the Child ballads, but that one is Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow -- he's the guy who speaks up and warns Robin that the Sheriff's archery contest is a trap. Pyle's woven him throughout the rest of the stories as another named member of the band, and slipped him in here as the unnamed yoeman wrestler from Robin's band who Sir Richard luckily saves. quote:
There's a certain parallelism of theme here: Sir Richard's problems all began when his son was unfairly punished for accidentally slaying someone in a sporting competition. Now, just as Robin helped reverse that injustice, Sir Richard has helped a member of Robin's band avoid the same kind of ill that befell Sir Richard's son. quote:
People are the worst. quote:
I love that list bit there. It's such a great coda. It makes me feel like I missed out by not being there. But at the same time, I kinda was, because Pyle's writing is so clear and visual that I almost feel like I saw it. quote:
Sir Richard knows how to repay a debt: with absolutely pimp gear. Fuckin' peacock fletching, bro. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:01 on Aug 27, 2020 |
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Aug 27, 2020 01:58
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:
Richard's gift of the peacock arrows here is actually not that different from the bows, which are decorated but not so much that it becomes impractical. Peacock arrows were pretty common in medieval arrow fletchings. The Knight's Yeoman in the Canterbury Tales famously has some peacock arrows tucked into his belt, which has been the subject of much debate. Here's the first part of the Yeoman's description, you can see the similarities to the way Robin is always described. Geoffrey Chaucer posted:A yeman hadde he and servantz namo Many literary minded types and people who don't read that much into the military side of scholarship generally portray peacock arrows as being made purely for decorative or ceremonial purposes, but in reality, the fletchings weren't made from the showy feathers you think of in a peacock's tail. A medieval fletcher would have used the "primary pinions," which are still visually distinct from the swan and goose feathers that were also commonly used and were like a reddish-brown color. I'm taking this all from Kenneth Thompson's article "The Yeoman's 'Pecok Arwes'" published in the Chaucer Review. The price of peacock fletchings seems to have been a little more expensive than goose, but not by that much. Thompson thinks the peacock arrows were considered better for performance, and were used mostly in contexts like hunting or target shooting (I think this part of the article is a little more tenuous, but it's plausible). For someone like the Yeoman in Canterbury Tales or Robin and the bros here, it's supposed to show that they know what they're doing and that they can afford quality gear. A little like someone going shooting at a gun range today with basic plinking ammo vs someone going out there with match-grade bullets. The real expense of the arrows Richard is giving is from the nocks and (presumably steel) arrowheads, rather than the fletchings. As far as the bows are concerned, there's accounting records that mention "painted bows" in medieval England that were more expensive than the regular "white" bows but no real description of how they might have been painted. Probably nothing so fanciful as Richard's silver inlays here!
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Aug 27, 2020 03:46
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Good to see 'juggling' used in its old form to connote cheating and trickery. And seconding HA on the coda--for my money it's the best single bit of the book. It also faintly echoes the ending of the St. Crispin's Day speech, now that I'm thinking about it:Henry IV posted:And gentlemen in England now a-bed https://web.archive.org/web/20081121015933/http://www.the-exiles.org/Article%20Brief%20His%20of%20Eng%20Wrestling.htm This is a useful resource on folk English wrestling styles. The town centre of Lancaster is 95 miles away from Derbyshire, where Derby is, and less northern than Wentbridge. So Pyle's rearrangements make it more likely the wrestling style used by Big Dave was of the brutal, any-hold-goes style. Second, the descriptions of how Big Dave is the best wrestler in the Midlands and currently holds the midcountry championship belt. Dave would be, in a modern WWE context, a rising star in the midcard, holding a belt like the Intercontinental or US title; maybe he'll win the World title in a few years, watch this kid. So it ties back to Robin being a good leader who knows how to spot, recruit, and nurture talent, and is also a great bit of world-building: we are indirectly given the scale and bounds of Robin and his gang's operations and influence: he's really just a problem/ legend for local law enforcement, and there's a whole wider Merry England out there beyond the scope of these stories. Exasperated Badger fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Aug 27, 2020 |
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Aug 27, 2020 05:48
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Grenrow posted:Richard's gift of the peacock arrows here is actually not that different from the bows, which are decorated but not so much that it becomes impractical. Peacock arrows were pretty common in medieval arrow fletchings. . . . . That's such great detail, thanks! It cycles back to showing how Sir Richard is a Good Knight -- he knows how to equip his friends in the best sweet tactical gear. Exasperated Badger posted:Good to see 'juggling' used in its old form to connote cheating and trickery. .. . . Yeah, one thing I'm really getting out of this deep read is that there's a *lot* more in here on the nature of good leadership than I'd realized before. A lot of it has to be deliberate on Pyle's part, too, because he makes all these choices very deliberately and consistently in the same directions. This is a Victorian-era children's book -- Pyle is trying very deliberately to impart Good Lessons for Children -- but rather than with explicit morals, he's having his characters do it by example. Be a Good Stout Bro. Don't start fights, but don't run from a fight if a fight is needed. Take a Joke. Help those in need.
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Aug 27, 2020 18:03
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quote:"Yea, truly, saw ye not birdlime upon his hands?"
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Aug 27, 2020 20:32
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Birdlime is a glue used to trap birds: Just spread on a branch and wait. This is still practiced in Southern Europe, despite the EU's best efforts.
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Aug 27, 2020 20:38
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's such great detail, thanks! It cycles back to showing how Sir Richard is a Good Knight -- he knows how to equip his friends in the best sweet tactical gear. It's also furthering the dynamic of captain/retainer that has been previously established. Like the corrupt lawyer receiving clothes from the Bishop or Little John getting livery from the Sheriff, Sir Richard is equipping his retinue men with good gear, which historically was often the case. Even though the Merry Men won't be permanently attached to his household, they're still part of Sir Richard's local recruiting ecosystem and military community, so it's important that he maintains ties to them. If Sir Richard wanted to participate in a royal campaign, he would call on his own retainers and men-at-arms to show up, but he would also look to use these ties he's built among the military community to rustle up some additional manpower in a hurry. Instead of having to go out and find forty individual guys who are experienced archers all over the shire, he can go to Robin (their captain) and subcontract them as additional muscle. That way, if his "household" crew and local guys are thirty men-at-arms and sixty archers, he can now show up to the muster with a 130 man force without too much fuss or extra hassle. Edward I once tried to expand the infantry forces available to the English crown by using Commissioners of Array to go out and drag in recruits, but a major problem with that effort was that the knights and aristocrats nearby had already recruited the motivated, equipped soldiers to be part of their retinues. Sir Richard is playing the long game here, paying debts and demonstrating his generosity while also increasing his potential military strength.
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Aug 27, 2020 21:54
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Siivola posted:Birdlime is a glue used to trap birds: Just spread on a branch and wait. This is still practiced in Southern Europe, despite the EU's best efforts. Right! And putting sticky substances on your hands or body is still forbidden in modern competitive wrestling, because it can give you an advantage in gripping or leverage.
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Aug 27, 2020 23:35
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The next section may be delayed for a few days because I can't find sources for it. Starting to suspect Pyle just wrote a chapter on his own and slipped it in, as it were.
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Aug 28, 2020 03:52
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PART VI This next section is really interesting because this is where Pyle goes off-script; almost nothing in the next two chapters is derived from a Child Ballad. Instead, he appears to be drawing on two fairly interesting sources. The first is A general and true history of the lives and actions of the most famous highwaymen, murderers, street-robbers, &c. : To which is added, a genuine account of the voyages and plunders of the most noted pirates. Interspersed with several remarkable tryals of the most notorious malefactors, at the Sessions-House in the Old Baily, London. , published in 1734 by one "Captain Charles Johnson". Some critics have alleged that "Captain Charles Johnson" may have been a pseudonym for Daniel Defoe, but that's . . . unproven at best and modern scholars consider it fairly unlikely (for discussion see David Cordingly's Under the Black Flag). quote:Although related in part to Defoe’s History, this work is largely based on Captain Alexander Smith’s 1714 The History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highway-men and Captain Johnson’s 1724 A General History of the Pyrates. The section on pirates includes chapters on Avery, Martel, Blackbeard, Bonnet, England, Vane, Rackam, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, Davis, Roberts and Morgan. The first edition was published in 1734 https://www.baumanrarebooks.com/rar...men/117000.aspx I can't find a copy of the Captain Alexander Smith book in Google Books, though, so this is the source I'm working from. I feel comfortable doing so because I can confirm that Pyle used *this* same text in later works; in 1891 Pyle edited a new version of Exquemelin's Buccaneers of America, adding four stories from this text/ (Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered, p. 70). Pyle also published, in magazines like Harper's, numerous individual "pirate tales" drawing on this text, which were later collected & published posthumously in 1921 as "Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates.". The second source Pyle draws on for the next section is Robin Hood: A Collection of All the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads, Now Extant, Relative to that Celebrated English Outlaw, published in 1795 by one Joseph Ritson. Ritson is interesting for two reasons: (1) The first is because he was the first person to publish, in print, a giant collection of all available Robin Hood ballads. In the process he scooped up a lot of stuff, a lot of which Child left out of his later, more scholarly collection of ballads. Ritson was the first person to publish the Gest in print (at least, that we know of). When Sir Walter Scott put Robin Hood in Ivanhoe, Ritson's work was his source material. (2) The second reason is that Ritson was both a Jacobite and a Jacobin, and as a result he is often given credit for the modern idea of Robin Hood as a popular-audience Marxist, robbing from the rich in order to give to the poor. There is some truth to this; Ritson wrote a "true facts" style prologue to his collection, and in it he sets Robin up as a sort of proto-Jacobin for the English peasantry: quote:In these forests, and with [his] company, he for many years reigned like an independent sovereign; at perpetual war, indeed, with the king of England, and all his subjects, with an exception, however, of the poor and needy, and such as were ‘desolate and oppressed,’ or stood in need of his protection https://thehistoryvault.co.uk/inventing-an-outlaw-joseph-ritsons-robin-hood-1795/ Thing is, though . . . on the one hand, it's not valid to say that something like the Gest is "Marxist," because it predates Marxist analysis by hundreds of years and was written in a society with an entirely different kind of structure. On the other hand, though, . . . even in the earliest ballads like the Gest we see a Robin who is stealing from the rich -- and even specifically rich landlords-- helping those in need, and who "dyde pore men moch god." While Robin may not be robbing the rich in order to give to the poor -- not yet, anyway -- he is definitely robbing the rich, and he's definitely giving to the poor. So I'd argue that the core themes were always there in the legend; it's just that the theory wasn't really there yet in 1300 to connect the dots. So that's all stuff to be kept in mind as we move through the next two chapters. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Aug 30, 2020 |
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Aug 30, 2020 00:38
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I'm not entirely sure how "robbing from the rich to give to the poor" is Marxist. It's socialist-Christian if anything (which also predates Marx).
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Aug 30, 2020 11:41
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Xander77 posted:I'm not entirely sure how "robbing from the rich to give to the poor" is Marxist. It's socialist-Christian if anything (which also predates Marx). Right, exactly. I probably should've put "jacobin" there instead of "marxist" to make my point clearer. You'll get modern critics who try to impose modern frameworks onto older works, and it just doesn't work. But there is a certain parallelism between "rob the rich and give to the poor" and "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." It isn't the same analysis at all, but both are driven by similar underlying societal injustices. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Aug 30, 2020 |
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Aug 30, 2020 13:18
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quote:
We know this pattern by now: we open in the bucolic greenwood. What cheer? quote:Quoth Robin at last, "Methinks I would rather roam this forest in the gentle springtime than be King of all merry England. What palace in the broad world is as fair as this sweet woodland just now, and what king in all the world hath such appetite for plover's eggs and lampreys as I for juicy venison and sparkling ale? Gaffer Swanthold speaks truly when he saith, 'Better a crust with content than honey with a sour heart.'" Thesis: being forest bros is pretty great! Plover's eggs and lampreys were considered luxury delicacies in the medieval era. King Henry thr First is reported to have died from eating "a surfeit of lampreys" against medical advice. quote:The lamprey is a long, eel-like, blood-sucking parasitic jawless fish with a creepy round mouth covered in sharp teeth. It takes real skill – and I mean rough, messy, time-consuming toil – to turn this nasty bottom feeder into something edible, let alone delicious. I’m not talking French culinary skills like a rapid-fire parsley chiffonade or even filleting a regular clean-fleshed sea fish. No. Lampreys are muscular creatures that must be hung up by the head and bled out while still alive, the phallic body held down as it writhes out its last breath. Then the limp rod of flesh is thrown into boiling water where, I believe, it secretes slime that is then scraped off the exterior. As it cooks, its grayish brown mucus floats to the surface of the water and must be skimmed off. The almost completely boneless body is chopped into rough chunks, thrown onto a sizzling pan and browned before finishing off in a heavenly sauce made of the lamprey’s own blood and plenty of local Bordeaux wine, thickened with a bit of toasted flour. https://thatbestbite.com/2017/06/26/lamprey-a-la-bordelaise-at-brasserie-le-noailles/ quote:The eggs of plovers [were] considered to be a delicacy, generally cream or buff-coloured with dark brown spots or blotches, generally replaced by eggs of various species of gull (black- headed, lesser black-backed, great black-backed, etc.), which are similar in colour. In the UK they can only be gathered up to April the 14th and for home consumption only. Their sale is prohibited. When cooked, they may be served hot or cold; if the latter, they are often served, as here, on a bed of moss. https://bridesheadcastle.tumblr.com/post/4135439789/plovers-eggs-definition-the-eggs-of-plovers So, um, yeah, all things considered, I think "venison and ale" come off the winners in that comparison. But maybe that's just me. quote:
So that's our frame; Little John is going to dress up as a strolling friar, Robin will dress up as a beggar, and they'll come back and compare notes on who had the merrier jests. This is of course all Pyle, just the mechanic he's using to weave the next two chapters together. quote:Thereupon Little John and Friar Tuck went to the storehouse of the band, and there chose for the yeoman the robe of a Gray Friar. Then they came forth again, and a mighty roar of laughter went up, for not only had the band never seen Little John in such guise before, but the robe was too short for him by a good palm's-breadth. But Little John's hands were folded in his loose sleeves, and Little John's eyes were cast upon the ground, and at his girdle hung a great, long string of beads. And they're off! We'll be following Little John first. This section appears to be based on a single paragraph in "A general and true history of the lives and actions of the most famous highwaymen", cited above. I'll post the paragraph at the end for comparison; the biggest change is "Captain Smith" reports it as an adventure of Robin's, not Little John's. quote:Little John walked along, whistling, for no one was nigh upon all the road. In the budding hedges the little birds twittered merrily, and on either hand the green hills swept up to the sky, the great white clouds of springtime sailing slowly over their crowns in lazy flight. Up hill and down dale walked Little John, the fresh wind blowing in his face and his robes fluttering behind him, and so at last he came to a crossroad that led to Tuxford. Here he met three pretty lasses, each bearing a basket of eggs to market. Quoth he, "Whither away, fair maids?" And he stood in their path, holding his staff in front of them, to stop them.  La! quote:"Now out upon it!" quoth Little John, looking upon them with his head on one side. "Surely, it is a pity that such fair lasses should be forced to carry eggs to market. Let me tell you, an I had the shaping of things in this world, ye should all three have been clothed in the finest silks, and ride upon milk-white horses, with pages at your side, and feed upon nothing but whipped cream and strawberries; for such a life would surely befit your looks." That little interlude with the three maids isn't in any source I've found, but no such ill tale for all that. quote:After he had trudged along for a time he began to wax thirsty again in the warmth of the day. He shook his leathern pottle beside his ear, but not a sound came therefrom. Then he placed it to his lips and tilted it high aloft, but not a drop was there. "Little John! Little John!" said he sadly to himself, shaking his head the while, "woman will be thy ruin yet, if thou dost not take better care of thyself." Great tavern banter here, but the real point is the setup; I wot Little John knows how to serve rich monks a merry jest! A "pullet" is a young hen, less than a year old. The lamb of chicken. quote:At this a great shout of laughter went up. "Truly, it is a wondrous thing," quoth the Beggar, "I would have made my vow, to see the masterly manner in which thou didst tuck away yon pot of ale, that thou hadst not tasted clear water for a brace of months. Has not this same holy Saint Dunstan taught thee a goodly song or two?" It has been a recurring pattern that Little John's songs always get interrupted; I never noticed that till this read-through. Not only are these monks rich landlords, they lack curtesye; they interrupt his song, they tell him to shut up, and try to guilt-trip him. quote:Now, at this talk all the good fellows on the bench grinned till their teeth glistened, and even the landlord could not forbear to smile. As for the friars, they looked at one another with a puzzled look, and knew not what to do in the matter. They were so proud that it made them feel sick with shame to think of riding along the highroad with a strolling friar, in robes all too short for him, running beside them, but yet they could not make Little John stay against his will, for they knew he could crack the bones of both of them in a twinkling were he so minded. Then up spake the fat Brother more mildly than he had done before. "Nay, good brother," said he, "we will ride fast, and thou wilt tire to death at the pace." A seven foot tall dude goes wherever a seven foot tall dude wants to go. quote:The two brothers glowered at Little John when he so pushed himself betwixt them, then they drew as far away from him as they could, so that the yeoman walked in the middle of the road, while they rode on the footpath on either side of the way. As they so went away, the Tinker, the Peddler, and the Beggar ran skipping out into the middle of the highway, each with a pot in his hand, and looked after them laughing. Everything up till now in this -- all the banter, all the incidents -- has been Pyle's addition as far as I can tell; the core element of the story is the next bit. quote:Just ahead of them the road took a sudden turn around a high hedge, and some twoscore paces beyond the bend another road crossed the one they were riding upon. When they had come to the crossroad and were well away from those they had left, the lean Friar drew rein suddenly. "Look ye, fellow," quoth he in a voice quivering with rage, "we have had enough of thy vile company, and care no longer to be made sport of. Go thy way, and let us go ours in peace." For comparison, here's the grain of story from which (I believe) Pyle brewed that great draught of a tale:  A general and true history of the lives and actions of the most famous highwaymen, pg 71 (In most of the early ballads Robin is very devoted to the Virgin Mary; Pyle instead goes with the Saxon Saints / Norman Saints thing). quote:
Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Aug 31, 2020 |
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Aug 31, 2020 01:58
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:
I need to correct this a bit: this story is also found as a Child Ballad and in Ritson, in the form for "Robin Hood's Golden Prize", which I hadn't noticed till now due to the vague title. Still, the basic story of the ballad is the same as that above -- it just starts with Robin dressed as a friar meeting two rich monks on the road, without any of Pyle's preamble. However, I'm still fairly sure Pyle drew on "A general and true history of the lives and actions of the most famous highwaymen" for a different story, which I'll cover in the next section, and which as far as I can verify has no other ballad source at all. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Sep 1, 2020 |
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Sep 1, 2020 02:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The Adventure with Midge the Miller's Son One more correction -- this bit with the flour in the Midge story is actually from "Robin Hood and the Beggar (II)", Child Ballad 134, which I'll also cover in the next section.
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Sep 2, 2020 12:51
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Robin Hood Turns Beggar (Part 1 of 3) I'll be dividing this chapter into three sections because there's a lot of annotation -- this chapter draws on a lot of different, interesting sources. The first two parts draw somewhat on "Robin Hood and the Beggar" (which exists in two versions, Child Ballads 133 and 134, one of which only survives in fragments) and "Little John a-Begging" (Child Ballad 142), also found in Ritson as "Little John and the Four Beggars." The last section draws exclusively (as far as I can tell or verify) on A general and true history of the lives and actions of the most famous highwaymen, and I'll cover that separately when I get to it. The biggest change Pyle makes in these first two sections is assigning both adventures to Robin and giving them a connecting frame narrative -- Robin wants to 1) dress up like a beggar and then 2) see what life as a beggar is like. quote:AFTER JOLLY ROBIN had left Little John at the forking of the roads, he walked merrily onward in the mellow sunshine that shone about him. Ever and anon he would skip and leap or sing a snatch of song, for pure joyousness of the day; for, because of the sweetness of the springtide, his heart was as lusty within him as that of a colt newly turned out to grass. Sometimes he would walk a long distance, gazing aloft at the great white swelling clouds that moved slowly across the deep blue sky; anon he would stop and drink in the fullness of life of all things, for the hedgerows were budding tenderly and the grass of the meadows was waxing long and green; again he would stand still and listen to the pretty song of the little birds in the thickets or hearken to the clear crow of the cock daring the sky to rain, whereat he would laugh, for it took but little to tickle Robin's heart into merriment. Robin is doing zoomies. quote:
"If wishes were horses, beggars would ride" -- Robin's already getting started on his new career! Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says that "Willie Wynkin's Wishing Coat" was "an Irish locution," but then cites to and quotes this exact passage, so it may be a Pyle coinage. Capons we've been over before; those are "Castrated male chickens, fattened for eating." quote:
This passage tells us that Robin really does love Maid Marian: he compares her to food. There's a blog entry on "Howard Pyle's Palate" that specifically references this passage, here: https://howardpyle.blogspot.com/2011/07/howard-pyles-palate.html quote:
This description of the beggar is in the original ballad; most notes or explications on his dress just point out that this is a very successful beggar; he's got good clothes, good gear, and lots of bags and pockets to carry his stuffs. quote:
This guy sized Robin up pretty quick. The original ballad isn't so amicable, but Pyle's borrowing a bit of structure from Little John and the Cook here. First, important things like food and songs, then stout battlin'. quote:"Nay," quoth jolly Robin, "what I would say first is the most serious of all thoughts to me, to wit, 'Where shall I get somewhat to eat and drink?'" The beggar even has pigeon pie! That's pretty similar to the lark pie Robin was daydreaming about -- the recipes I was finding for lark pie even often say you can substitute pigeon. And we know Robin loves good ale, even if it isn't the Malmsey he was dreaming about. quote:
This footnote took me forever to track down; it's actually a reference to a pamphlet by the playwright Thomas Decker, chiefly remembered today for getting into a literary spat with Ben Jonson.. quote:
The closest thing I can find to a reprint of this pamphlet is here (apparently Dekker published many different versions of each of his pamphlets), published 1616. If you've ever played a D&D rogue, this -- or more precisely, this kind of book generally -- is where "Thieves' Cant" comes from. The weird words Pyle throws in here are actual period examples from Dekker's text. Dekker gives us the following definitions for "clapperdodgeon" and "abraham-man" (edited slightly by me for clarity): quote:
So a "clapper-dudgeon" is someone who fakes sores by applying salt and plants to their skin, dress in rags, and beg for money with laments and loud prayers, while also "fishing" for chickens with line and hooks, baited with bread. As to "abram-men," quote:
So an "abraham-man" or "abram-man" is a beggar who fakes madness and medical bills. quote:
He's warning Robin: the beggars have a guild, and just the clothes won't let Robin fake being a part of it. quote:
So Robin's gotten his beggar's clothing. In the original ballad, Robin *loses* this fight, and loses it rather badly -- the beggar breaks his bow, breaks his sword, and then beats Robin unconscious. In some versions, Robin switches clothes (the Beggar wanting Robin's good lincoln green), Robin is happy with the change because the beggar's clothes are high-quality and have lots of pockets, and then the switch lets Robin successfully save some of his Merry Men who are about to be hung by the Sheriff. In other versions of the tale, after Robin is beaten by the beggar, Robin blows his horn and three Merry Men join him, and the Beggar then plays the meal-bag trick we saw Midge pull earlier. Pyle reverses things here, and for a change Robin wins his fight, then switches clothes because *he* wants to pretend to be a beggar for a bit. It's kindof refreshing to see Robin actually win one of these, but I think it also shows an interesting shift in the legend. In Elizabethan England, being a wandering beggar was illegal, and could get you beaten and branded: quote:
So that's the societal context for this ballad and this tale. This is a late 17th century ballad, so it's coming along post-Poor Act, post "rogue books," but still set before it. Robin Hood, champion of the downtrodden poor, picks a fight with a rich beggar, and gets a beating for his pains. By the time we get to Pyle, though, late 1800's, American, Puritan work ethic . . . yeah, Pyle's not going to let a beggar beat Stout Robin in a fight. What sort of example would that set for the children? Robin helps the real poor, and this beggar lacks the virtue of the True Poor. He's a faker, a rogue. So Robin has kinship with him as with all stout rogues, but in a fight, Pyle's honest rogue Robin has to defeat the cheat. quote:
And Robin's on his way, Beggar-clad. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Sep 2, 2020 |
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Sep 2, 2020 15:09
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Nice breakdown of the societal view of beggars! I read this book on your initial recommendation, and it's great to follow along in a re-read.
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Sep 2, 2020 20:01
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While reading this thread, some of you may have thought to yourselves, "Wow, there were a lot of people running around with longbows all over medieval England, I wonder if that led to a bunch of injuries and deaths." The answer is yes, yes it did. This was an era before the 3 Rules of gun safety were invented and no one had any fucks to give. In 1556, a man named Thomas Curteys challenged his compatriot Richard Lyrence with the words, "Nowe let me se howe thou canst shott at my hatt." In a shocking twist of fate that couldn't possibly have been anticipated, he immediately died from Lyrence's arrow going straight through his head. Ye olde bowe safteye! EDIT: This is from Steve Gunn's article "Archery Practice in Early Tudor England" in case anyone wants more stories about English people accidentally shooting each other with longbows. Grenrow fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Sep 2, 2020 |
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Sep 2, 2020 22:18
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I know there were bans on crossbows (at least in warfare; don't know if people carried them around normally), but were there any restrictions of longbows?
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Sep 2, 2020 23:19
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Decker was a legit cool author who knew the seedier side of life, and was a good bro in line with this thread. He spent seven years in debtors prison and worked with the best play-writes of his generation and the next, mostly focused on the common man. His best work, Shoemakers’ Holiday, ends with everyone getting together for a big pancake breakfast.
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Sep 2, 2020 23:29
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Cobalt-60 posted:I know there were bans on crossbows (at least in warfare; don't know if people carried them around normally), but were there any restrictions of longbows? There was never any point where crossbows were banned. People get that myth from the 2nd Lateran Council, which issued a bunch of canons intended to reform the church and establish its authority. It prohibited a lot of things, like hurting clerics, priests having wives or concubines, jousts and tournaments, and any fighting from Wednesday to Monday, none of which were practical to enforce or were going to be enforced. For some reason, the part of the 2nd lateran council people really latch onto in modern times is the prohibition against using missile weapons (not exclusively crossbows) on Christians. No one ever followed this or even thought about it for a second (no one followed any of the other rules either). There's a mythology that goes around the internet and sometimes in pop history that a "crossbow ban" (which never in reality existed) was intended as some kind of class warfare measure, which is absolute nonsense. Knights did not feel threatened by the existence of the crossbow. They loved having more crossbows in their armies, being Master of the Crossbows was a prestigious role at court, and they spent huge amounts of money buying and stockpiling crossbows. Depending on where and who you were, owning a bow or a crossbow might even be legally mandatory. In England, it wasn't really "normal" to carry around a whole longbow and arrows unless you were doing something with them, like traveling or going down to the public archery butts to practice. If you were coming into a city, you were supposed to put up your weapons at whatever location you were staying (like an inn) after you arrived, but just going off death records and murder cases, this wasn't a law people felt a huge reason to follow.
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Sep 3, 2020 00:31
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Robin Hood Turns Beggar (Part 2 of 3) This next section is based on "Little John a-Begging" (Child Ballad 142), also found in Ritson as "Little John and the Four Beggars." quote:So Robin, with all the empty road to himself, strode along whistling merrily, his bags and pouches bobbing and dangling at his thighs. At last he came to where a little grass-grown path left the road and, passing through a stile and down a hill, led into a little dell and on across a rill in the valley and up the hill on the other side, till it reached a windmill that stood on the cap of the rise where the wind bent the trees in swaying motion. Robin looked at the spot and liked it, and, for no reason but that his fancy led him, he took the little path and walked down the grassy sunny slope of the open meadow, and so came to the little dingle and, ere he knew it, upon four lusty fellows that sat with legs outstretched around a goodly feast spread upon the ground. So really this should be titled "Robin Hood and the Four Con Artists." The bit about "Cain's Wife" is interesting because it's an obvious re-frame of the Pandora myth, and one I've never seen anywhere else. I suspect Pyle just didn't want any classical greek references in his Merrie Englande. Merrie Englande is Christian. quote:
It's interesting that Robin so readily agrees that he would "clip [their] ears." quote:
So Robin's saying he would actually inflict a real punishment for vagrancy on these vagrants; Robin here is enforcing the law. Why? Because these con artists are robbers and decievers of the middle class and poor; they're the bad kind of outlaw, not the good kind like Robin. quote:
Wait, the beggars have a "King" ? Let's talk about that. The idea of a "king of the beggars" or "Beggar's Guild" is a commonplace in fantasy novels but as far as I can tell doesn't really have any historical antecedents in England (from what I can tell, there may have been historical begging guilds in Germany in the medieval era, and there definitely were in India). Dekker does describe the various beggars as having "ranks," but doesn't seem to go beyond that, or to imply a "king". So Pyle's probably adding a bit of a flourish here. quote:"Stay, brother Hodge," quoth the Blind man, breaking into the talk, "I would not doubt our brother here, but bear in mind we know him not. What art thou, brother? Upright-man, Jurkman, Clapper-dudgeon, Dommerer, or Abraham-man?" They call each other "brother" as a title: this is definitely a guild. All those weird words are real cant terms right out of Thomas Dekker. Clapper-dudgeons and abraham-men we've covered above. "Dommerers" were (again, according to Dekker) men who pretended their tongues had been cut out, faking this rather cleverly apparently, and shoving a sharp stick into their mouths to cause bleeding, filling their mouths with blood and thus obscuring the tongue. Jarkmen seem to have been forgers -- from "iark" or "jark", cant for (wax?) seals -- and upright-men fake soldiers who would beat on people's doors and demand food and lodging (cursed 3rd amendment spoiling a good racket). quote:
Oh poo poo. Looks like Robin's got to roll a Thieves' Cant check! quote:"Now out upon it," quoth Robin Hood testily, "an ye make sport of me by pattering such gibberish, it will be ill for you all, I tell you. I have the best part of a mind to crack the heads of all four of you, and would do so, too, but for the sweet Malmsey ye have given me. Brother, pass the pottle lest it grow cold."  quote:
In the original ballad, the joke about making the dumb man speak and the lame man run happens here, rather than above: quote:
quote:Then Robin turned to the two stout knaves lying upon the ground. Quoth he, "These fellows spake somewhat about certain moneys they were taking to Lincoln; methinks I may find it upon this stout blind fellow, who hath as keen sight as e'er a trained woodsman in Nottingham or Yorkshire. It were a pity to let sound money stay in the pockets of such thieving knaves." So saying, he stooped over the burly rascal and searched among his rags and tatters, till presently his fingers felt a leathern pouch slung around his body beneath his patched and tattered coat. This he stripped away and, weighing it in his hands, bethought himself that it was mighty heavy. "It were a sweet thing," said he to himself, "if this were filled with gold instead of copper pence." Then, sitting down upon the grass, he opened the pocket and looked into it. There he found four round rolls wrapped up in dressed sheepskin; one of these rolls he opened; then his mouth gaped and his eyes stared, I wot, as though they would never close again, for what did he see but fifty pounds of bright golden money? He opened the other pockets and found in each one the same, fifty bright new-stamped golden pounds. Quoth Robin, "I have oft heard that the Beggars' Guild was over-rich, but never did I think that they sent such sums as this to their treasury. I shall take it with me, for it will be better used for charity and the good of my merry band than in the enriching of such knaves as these." So saying, he rolled up the money in the sheepskin again, and putting it back in the purse, he thrust the pouch into his own bosom. Then taking up the flask of Malmsey, he held it toward the two fellows lying on the grass, and quoth he, "Sweet friends, I drink your health and thank you dearly for what ye have so kindly given me this day, and so I wish you good den." Then, taking up his staff, he left the spot and went merrily on his way. The original ballad has Little John finding three hundred pounds on the beggars. quote:
quote:But when the two stout beggars that had been rapped upon the head roused themselves and sat up, and when the others had gotten over their fright and come back, they were as sad and woebegone as four frogs in dry weather, for two of them had cracked crowns, their Malmsey was all gone, and they had not so much as a farthing to cross their palms withal. Oh, I'm sure they'll be fine. The next section is really interesting for several reasons, not least of which that it isn't based on a ballad at all.
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Sep 3, 2020 09:29
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Robin Hood Turns Beggar (Part 3 of 3)quote:But after Robin left the little dell he strode along merrily, singing as he went; and so blithe was he and such a stout beggar, and, withal, so fresh and clean, that every merry lass he met had a sweet word for him and felt no fear, while the very dogs, that most times hate the sight of a beggar, snuffed at his legs in friendly wise and wagged their tails pleasantly; for dogs know an honest man by his smell, and an honest man Robin was—in his own way. "Mother Huddle's Oven" is also in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, but again, the citation in Brewer's is to this quote from Pyle, and Pyle was more than happy to invent his own myths and legends in order to get the appropriate reference. quote:But although Robin laughed at the droll sight, he knew the wayfarer to be a certain rich corn engrosser of Worksop, who more than once had bought all the grain in the countryside and held it till it reached even famine prices, thus making much money from the needs of poor people, and for this he was hated far and near by everyone that knew aught of him.  Look, everybody -- it's a capitalist! The main problem with "robbing from the rich and stealing from the poor" for a medieval Robin is that "The Rich" were a fairly small pool in medieval england -- the nobility and the church. And some of them, presumably, are good people. So medieval Robin only had fairly limited "legitimate" prey -- corrupt priests (e.g., our Bishop of Hereford) or corrupt nobility (our good friend the right noble Sheriff of Nottingham). Now we finally have an actual evil capitalist for Robin to prey upon. "Corn" of course at this stage of the world means any kind of grain. Our modern word for "engrosser" would be "monopolist". quote:Engrossers, forestallers, and regraters of grain were frequently condemned by English writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-and with good reason, as one learns by examining the historical background of their attacks. In both centuries, numerous royal proclamations condemned and forbade speculation in grain. Henry VIII issued a proclamation in 1512 forbidding the engros-sing or forestalling of grain in certain counties, and in 1527, 1529, and 1534 made his injunctions applicable to the whole kingdom.1 Edward VI, in 1551, rebuked " such of his subiectes, as be engrossers of Fermes, victualles, and other thinges, &c." and urged " amende- ment of ther gredy and insaciable doinges." Elizabeth and the Stuart monarchs issued proclamations specifically prohibiting specu-lations in grain. " Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Satire against Grain Engrossers," by Burton Milligan, Studies in Philology , Oct., 1940, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Oct., 1940), pp. 585-597. I won't quote that article in any more length here, but it's rather lengthy and goes through all the various plays and sermons and so forth of the period that criticized "engrossers" of grain. What it shows overall, I think, is that grain hoarding by aspiring monopolists was a *huge* problem. The penalties, though, seem to have been much lighter than what we saw for vagabondage; no corn hoarders were having their ears cropped. Instead the standard penalty seems to have just been fines (to the point that one Captain John Clarke at one point sought a letter patent from Queen Elizabeth I for the right to collect said fines). The same article also lists, at some length, all the known ballads that satirized or mocked grain engrossers; none of the ballads he mentions involved Robin Hood in any way, not even peripherally; what comeuppance came to engrossers in the traditional ballads apparently tended to come either by religious or supernatural means. quote:
Robin PREACH. I like that Robin is giving Mr. Engrosser a chance to show good character and help the poor. Robin knows he *won't*, but he had his chance. J.C. Holt has a whole chapter in his book arguing that the primary audience for the original Robin Hood ballads was the yoemanry -- not those in actual poverty and not those with actual wealth, but the closest equivalent the era had to the "middle class," artisans and tradesmen and small landowners and people "in service" as career military or career servants. So here Robin draws a parallel between a lower-class villain who preys upon the poor, and a rich villain who does the same. I'm reminded of the recent memes that compare poor and rich "looters" or "banksters." quote:"Doss thou prate so to me, sirrah?" cried the Corn Engrosser in a rage. "Now I will have thee soundly whipped if ever I catch thee in any town where the law can lay hold of thee! As for giving thee a penny, I swear to thee that I have not so much as a single groat in my purse. Were Robin Hood himself to take me, he might search me from crown to heel without finding the smallest piece of money upon me. I trust I am too sly to travel so nigh to Sherwood with money in my pouch, and that thief at large in the woods." He is as honest as thou art, Corn Engrosser! quote:"Put up thy money, lad," cried the other quickly. "Art thou a fool, to trust to beggar's rags to shield thee from Robin Hood? If he caught thee, he would strip thee to the skin, for he hates a lusty beggar as he doth a fat priest or those of my kind." No knave, perhaps, but only one as honest as good Robin! quote:
Really should have asked him his name before now! Here are the excerpts from A general and true history of the lives and actions of the most famous highwaymen by "Captain Charles Johnson" which I believe were likely Pyle's sources for this tale:    This is pretty much the only mention of the phrases "Corn Engrosser" and "Robin Hood" in the same text, anywhere in all of Google Books, predating Pyle's narrative -- and we know Pyle used this same text as a source for some of his pirate stories also (as I went over above. The same text also contains a companion passage about a landlord concealing rent money in his socks, and Robin wheedling it out of him by pretending to be an honest fellow traveller. So Pyle's taken both tales, woven them together with the strand of Robin's begging, and added in some class commentary on how rich upper-class villains are no better than lower-class ones. quote:At the sound of the name of Robin Hood, the corn factor quaked with fear, so that he had to seize his horse by the mane to save himself from falling off its back. Then straightway, and without more words, he stripped off his clogs and let them fall upon the road. Robin, still holding the bridle rein, stooped and picked them up. Then he said, "Sweet friend, I am used to ask those that I have dealings with to come and feast at Sherwood with me. I will not ask thee, because of our pleasant journey together; for I tell thee there be those in Sherwood that would not be so gentle with thee as I have been. The name of Corn Engrosser leaves a nasty taste upon the tongue of all honest men. Take a fool's advice of me and come no more so nigh to Sherwood, or mayhap some day thou mayst of a sudden find a clothyard shaft betwixt thy ribs. So, with this, I give thee good den." Hereupon he clapped his hand to the horse's flank and off went nag and rider. But the man's face was all bedewed with the sweat of fright, and never again, I wot, was he found so close to Sherwood Forest as he had been this day. I like that Pyle's given us a choice as to who had the merrier adventure. And good ol' Little John definitely had a great time. As for me, though, this particular adventure of Robin's might be my favorite in the whole book, at least right now. Partly that's because it's taken the most work to untangle the source material, but .. . well, given the current structure of our modern economy -- which is almost entirely driven by established (time-warner cable; microsoft; google) or aspiring (uber; netflix) monopolies -- Robin robbing a monopolist is just especially cheering. And, in fact, one thing I found in my attempts to dig up Pyle's source here is that this particular adventure, above all others in the book, seems to be frequently cited. I found references to it in in socialist newsletters from the turn of the century, in trade union publications, and even in the Congressional Record.
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Sep 4, 2020 17:30
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I like how Robin always lets the Sheriff and the Bishop get away after he robs them and has the Sheriff over as a 'guest' multiple times, but the Corn Engrosser getrs straight up told "You come back around these parts and we're gonna kill you."
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Sep 4, 2020 18:33
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Khizan posted:I like how Robin always lets the Sheriff and the Bishop get away after he robs them and has the Sheriff over as a 'guest' multiple times, but the Corn Engrosser getrs straight up told "You come back around these parts and we're gonna kill you." Yeah, Mr. Monopoly doesn't get invited back for cool forest bro feast time. Just get your rear end outta here before we shoot you. This guy doesn't belong in the Greenwood.
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Sep 5, 2020 05:06
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Genghis Cohen posted:Nice breakdown of the societal view of beggars! Thanks! That makes me wonder though -- are most peoplr finished with the book by now, or are people just going chapter by chapter as I post them? I don't want to hold discussion back -- if people have whole book comments please share.
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Sep 6, 2020 16:30
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Thanks! i ain't read poo poo beside what's itt. you've been tucking me in with robin hood bedtime stories and commentary all month 
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Sep 6, 2020 18:27
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I've read the whole book multiple times, but I've been going through and re-reading parts.
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Sep 7, 2020 03:45
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I found this interesting note on one historical Bishop of Hereford, Adam Orleton.quote:if we assume that Robin was a supporter of Edward II, then he had a particular reason to go after Orleton -- and to call him Bishop of Hereford even after his translation. Doherty describes Orleton (p. 86) as "ruffianly," while Hutchison, p. 128, calls him "unamiable and self-serving." Even the less pro-Edward Harvey declares (p. 160) that he was one of several bishops who "counted treason as nothing." http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/C117D.html
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Sep 7, 2020 15:01
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I've finished the book, I just don't have much to add to the discussion or your - frankly fascinating - effort posts. I think my favorite part of this thread was learning that the Sheriff of Nottingham got his own line in the Magna Carta.
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Sep 7, 2020 20:26
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Robin Hood Shoots Before Queen Eleanor We're getting into the home stretch here; only a few ballads left! This chapter is based on Robin Hood and Queen Katherine, Child Ballad 145. It exists in several different versions, most of which were more or less damaged (with several cruxes only resolved with the discovery of the Forresters Manuscript in 1993, which of course Pyle never saw). Pyle seems to have drawn on all the versions he had, and used his imagination to fill in the gaps. Pyle changes it to "Eleanor" because he's set all this during the reign of Henry II, and Henry's wife was Eleanor of Acquitaine, famous for classing up the British Isles by introducing that fancy french invention, the "chimney.". Eleanor also acted as Regent while King Richard was on the 3rd Crusade (which will come up later!) Here's our ballad grandpa singing this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlUoj81rTTQ quote:According to Knight/Ohlgren, ["Robin Hood and Queen Katherine"] must have been in existence by 1655, because one of the Wood broadsides (Child's B.a) was printed by Grove, who ceased operations in that year. http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/C145.html Interestingly, there was no English or Scottish "Queen Katherine" in any Robin-Hood-appropriate time period. The earliest of them, Catherine of Valois, married Henry V in 1420. Henry VIII married both Catherine of Aragon and Katherine Howard -- but Katherine Howard post-dates the Dissolution of the Monasteries, so what of poor Friar Tuck? Or, for that matter, the Bishop of Hereford? Robin has to pre-date the Dissolution, or there wouldn't be any fat priests for him to rob. If it is a reference to Catherine of Aragon, there may be a specific incident that this ballad connects with: quote:On 18th January 1510, Henry VIII and twelve of his men disguised themselves as outlaws, or Robin Hood and his merry men, and surprised Queen Catherine and her ladies. Chronicler Edward Hall records this event: https://www.tudorsociety.com/18-january-1510-henry-viii-dresses-up/ So Henry VIII was into Robin Hood enough to do cosplay, so maybe that was inspiration to some balladeers. Ritson just argues that since Henry had multiple wives named "Catherine," it just would have been a familiar queenly name to period writers. Either way, this is a relatively late ballad. It's a little derivative of stuff we've already seen -- another archery competition! -- but it weaves some tropes into the legend that we don't see elsewhere, and it sets us up for the next chapter, which is fairly dramatic. So I understand why Pyle included it.  quote:THE HIGHROAD stretched white and dusty in the hot summer afternoon sun, and the trees stood motionless along the roadside. All across the meadow lands the hot air danced and quivered, and in the limpid waters of the lowland brook, spanned by a little stone bridge, the fish hung motionless above the yellow gravel, and the dragonfly sat quite still, perched upon the sharp tip of a spike of the rushes, with its wings glistening in the sun. What is this pretty, pretty boy doing looking for Stout Robin? What interest has the Queen in our bold outlaw? quote:
"Uh, should we talk to this guy?" "Little John, you better go talk to him" Pyle's re-arranging the order of the ballad a bit but otherwise sticking pretty close to the source material; the page's name is "Patrington" and his conduct is similar: quote:
The main difference Pyle adds here is the slight initial suspicion on the part of our stout yoemen, who in the ballad only ask quote:
and then as soon as Partrington answers, the unnamed Yoeman takes him to meet Robin. Interestingly, "So farr in the north contrie" may indicate that Catherine was written near London, rather than in the north of England; Nottingham and environs were generally seen at the time as the beginning of "northern England." quote:"An thou knowest aught of him, good fellow," said young Partington, "thou wilt do great service to him and great pleasure to our royal Queen by aiding me to find him." "Ok, this guy seems chill, let's go". I like that Pyle specifically states that Partington pays his bar tab. In the source ballad, the yoeman Partington meets remains unnamed, but of course here it's Little John and Will Stutely, Pyle adding a little continuity. quote:Under the greenwood tree, in the cool shade that spread all around upon the sward, with flickering lights here and there, Robin Hood and many of his band lay upon the soft green grass, while Allan a Dale sang and played upon his sweetly sounding harp. All listened in silence, for young Allan's singing was one of the greatest joys in all the world to them; but as they so listened there came of a sudden the sound of a horse's feet, and presently Little John and Will Stutely came forth from the forest path into the open glade, young Richard Partington riding between them upon his milk-white horse. The three came toward where Robin Hood sat, all the band staring with might and main, for never had they seen so gay a sight as this young Page, nor one so richly clad in silks and velvets and gold and jewels. Then Robin arose and stepped forth to meet him, and Partington leaped from his horse and doffing his cap of crimson velvet, met Robin as he came. "Now, welcome!" cried Robin. "Now, welcome, fair youth, and tell me, I prythee, what bringeth one of so fair a presence and clad in such noble garb to our poor forest of Sherwood?" So gay a sight indeed! At some point, someone's going to do a blazingly homoerotic Robin Hood remake, and it's going to be fabulous. quote:Then young Partington said, "If I err not, thou art the famous Robin Hood, and these thy stout band of outlawed yeomen. To thee I bring greetings from our noble Queen Eleanor. Oft hath she heard thee spoken of and thy merry doings hereabouts, and fain would she behold thy face; therefore she bids me tell thee that if thou wilt presently come to London Town, she will do all in her power to guard thee against harm, and will send thee back safe to Sherwood Forest again. Four days hence, in Finsbury Fields, our good King Henry, of great renown, holdeth a grand shooting match, and all the most famous archers of merry England will be thereat. Our Queen would fain see thee strive with these, knowing that if thou wilt come thou wilt, with little doubt, carry off the prize. Therefore she hath sent me with this greeting, and furthermore sends thee, as a sign of great good will, this golden ring from off her own fair thumb, which I give herewith into thy hands." Huzzah! A Shooting-Match! quote:
Not even time for feasting? And Robin sure is vowing to protect that ring! In the versions of this Child (and Pyle) had available to them, Robin Hood chooses "Clifton", Will Scathlock, and Midge the Miller's Son to go with him to see the Queen, leaving "Renett Browne" to watch over Barnsdale in his absence. Pyle reworks those choices, of course, and in smart fashion; the "Forresters Manuscript" discovered in 1993 makes clear that "Clifton" was a pseudonym of Little John all along. What *I* think is happening here is, Robin is getting drawn into the tradition of Courtly Love . This being Pyle, it's all rather g-rated (in Pyle's Arthur stories, Lancelot and Guinevere is all just a big innocent misunderstanding), but the basic bones of the genre are there: A Noble Lady has asked our Robin to perform a Service, and sent him a Token. Our Hero swears to protect the Token with his life, and drops all other duties to go perform the Service. The only problem is that Robin isn't exactly a knight -- but by the 17th century the tradition of Robin as displaced or exiled nobility was well-established (more on that later) so it wouldn't necessarily have been unusual for this ballad to drop him into that role. quote:Then Little John and Will Scarlet and Allan a Dale ran leaping, full of joy, to make themselves ready, while Robin also prepared himself for the journey. After a while they all four came forth, and a right fair sight they made, for Robin was clad in blue from head to foot, and Little John and Will Scarlet in good Lincoln green, and as for Allan a Dale, he was dressed in scarlet from the crown of his head to the toes of his pointed shoes. Each man wore beneath his cap a little head covering of burnished steel set with rivets of gold, and underneath his jerkin a coat of linked mail, as fine as carded wool, yet so tough that no arrow could pierce it. Then, seeing all were ready, young Partington mounted his horse again, and the yeomen having shaken hands all around, the five departed upon their way. Melton Mowbray again! I wonder if Partington sprung for lark pies all around. I bet he tried, but Robin insisted on paying. quote:Queen Eleanor sat in her royal bower, through the open casements of which poured the sweet yellow sunshine in great floods of golden light. All about her stood her ladies-in-waiting chatting in low voices, while she herself sat dreamily where the mild air came softly drifting into the room laden with the fresh perfumes of the sweet red roses that bloomed in the great garden beneath the wall. To her came one who said that her page, Richard Partington, and four stout yeomen waited her pleasure in the court below. Then Queen Eleanor arose joyously and bade them be straightway shown into her presence. Again, this sort of pledging is very courtly-love, Arthurian-romance. Pyle's layering it on above and beyond the original ballad; in Katherine, Robin sends *his* mantle of Lincoln Green to the Queen, but that would be an inversion of the courtly-love traditions, so Pyle doesn't include that element here. quote:But good Queen Eleanor smiled pleasantly upon him, bidding him to arise. Then she made them all be seated to rest themselves after their long journey. Rich food was brought them and noble wines, and she had her own pages to wait upon the wants of the yeomen. At last, after they had eaten all they could, she began questioning them of their merry adventures. Then they told her all of the lusty doings herein spoken of, and among others that concerning the Bishop of Hereford and Sir Richard of the Lea, and how the Bishop had abided three days in Sherwood Forest. At this, the Queen and the ladies about her laughed again and again, for they pictured to themselves the stout Bishop abiding in the forest and ranging the woods in lusty sport with Robin and his band. Then, when they had told all that they could bring to mind, the Queen asked Allan to sing to her, for his fame as a minstrel had reached even to the court at London Town. So straightway Allan took up his harp in his hand, and, without more asking, touched the strings lightly till they all rang sweetly, then he sang thus: And that's a lot of notations, so we'll let Alan-a-Dale's sweet voice close out this post, and we'll draw our curtain here for the day and part it again for the next scene.
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Sep 8, 2020 04:16
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I've only gotten as far as the introduction of Alan a Dale (and thus haven't read the rest of the thread to avoid spoilers), but marking a question, how does the publication date of this story (or Pyle's other work) compare to the release of Pirates of Penzance? I'm thinking specifically of references to Caradoc. edit: also holy poo poo Rejected of Men: A Story of To-day for botm please
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Sep 8, 2020 04:25
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Discendo Vox posted:I've only gotten as far as the introduction of Alan a Dale (and thus haven't read the rest of the thread to avoid spoilers), but marking a question, how does the publication date of this story (or Pyle's other work) compare to the release of Pirates of Penzance? I'm thinking specifically of references to Caradoc. Pitates of Penzance appears to be 1879, so four years prior to this. I'm not sure if it had played in America by the time of this publication though. The repopularization of Arthuriana got rolling with Tennyson, starting in about the 1860's with the beginnings of the Idylls. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Sep 8, 2020 |
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Sep 8, 2020 04:28
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:In some ballads, yet another version of the character shows up under the name Gandelyn or Gamble Gold (you may have heard one of these, actually, as Child ballad 132, "Robin Hood and the Pedlar", was featured as a tavern song in Assasin's Creed: Black Flag). Unfortunately this video is private. Also it's extremely unlikely anyone heard this song ingame; Assassin's Creed Black Flag was laid out/designed in such a way that players had little reason to soak in the atmosphere, and I suspect the tavern song selection was done poorly, as you'll only hear one or two songs in any tavern unless you stand there and wait for them to get to new ones (if this is a tavern track with a male singer, I think there's only one tavern with the male singer for all those songs in the game!)
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Sep 8, 2020 17:21
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Discendo Vox posted:Unfortunately this video is private. Also it's extremely unlikely anyone heard this song ingame; Assassin's Creed Black Flag was laid out/designed in such a way that players had little reason to soak in the atmosphere, and I suspect the tavern song selection was done poorly, as you'll only hear one or two songs in any tavern unless you stand there and wait for them to get to new ones (if this is a tavern track with a male singer, I think there's only one tavern with the male singer for all those songs in the game!) d'oh, it was visible when I made the post! Instrumental version is still online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5wq3td3CLY I think has the vocal track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br3D_Tv3Vow
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Sep 8, 2020 17:25
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quote:A gay sight were famous Finsbury Fields on that bright and sunny morning of lusty summertime. Along the end of the meadow stood the booths for the different bands of archers, for the King's yeomen were divided into companies of fourscore men, and each company had a captain over it; so on the bright greensward stood ten booths of striped canvas, a booth for each band of the royal archers, and at the peak of each fluttered a flag in the mellow air, and the flag was the color that belonged to the captain of each band. From the center booth hung the yellow flag of Tepus, the famous bow bearer of the King; next to it, on one hand, was the blue flag of Gilbert of the White Hand, and on the other the blood- red pennant of stout young Clifton of Buckinghamshire. The seven other archer captains were also men of great renown; among them were Egbert of Kent and William of Southampton; but those first named were most famous of all. The noise of many voices in talk and laughter came from within the booths, and in and out ran the attendants like ants about an ant-hill. Some bore ale and beer, and some bundles of bowstrings or sheaves of arrows. On each side of the archery range were rows upon rows of seats reaching high aloft, and in the center of the north side was a raised dais for the King and Queen, shaded by canvas of gay colors, and hung about with streaming silken pennants of red and blue and green and white. As yet the King and Queen had not come, but all the other benches were full of people, rising head above head high aloft till it made the eye dizzy to look upon them. Eightscore yards distant from the mark from which the archers were to shoot stood ten fair targets, each target marked by a flag of the color belonging to the band that was to shoot thereat. So all was ready for the coming of the King and Queen. Pyle is doing something really interesting here. "Gilbert of the White Hand" is traditionally a member of Robin Hood's band, but it's suspected he was primarily a character from the oral tradition, who never really made the jump to the written versions. He's mentioned twice in the Gest, but we don't know much about him, other than that he's the only one in the band whose archery skills match Robin's. Gilbert does show up in some other Robin Hood fiction; the Dumas version makes him Robin's foster father, and some versions make Gilbert the Sheriff's Cook. "Clifton" we've already met above -- we know now, because of the Forresters Manuscript discovered in 1993, that "Clifton" is a pseudonym for Little John in this ballad, but when Pyle was writing, good Clifton was just an unknown who suddenly appears as a member of Robin's band for this specific archery contest and is never heard of elsewhere. So what Pyle's doing here is using Clifton and Gilbert as some "archers of legend" for Robin and his band to shoot against. "Tepus, bow-bearer to the King" is straight from the ballad text (though in the Forresters Manuscript the name is given alternatively as Tempest). "Bow-bearer" was a real medieval office; quote:
So if we go with "Tempest" from the Forresters Manuscript, rather than the "Tepus" in the version Pyle was using, that's another link with Henry VIII for this ballad. "Egbert of Kent" was king of Kent from 664 to 673.; William of Southhampton was an Earl under Henry VIII. quote:At last a great blast of bugles sounded, and into the meadow came riding six trumpeters with silver trumpets, from which hung velvet banners heavy with rich workings of silver and gold thread. Behind these came stout King Henry upon a dapple-gray stallion, with his Queen beside him upon a milk-white palfrey. On either side of them walked the yeomen of the guard, the bright sunlight flashing from the polished blades of the steel halberds they carried. Behind these came the Court in a great crowd, so that presently all the lawn was alive with bright colors, with silk and velvet, with waving plumes and gleaming gold, with flashing jewels and sword hilts; a gallant sight on that bright summer day. A Dapple-gray stallion:  A milk-white palfrey:  quote:Then all the people arose and shouted, so that their voices sounded like the storm upon the Cornish coast, when the dark waves run upon the shore and leap and break, surging amid the rocks; so, amid the roaring and the surging of the people, and the waving of scarfs and kerchiefs, the King and Queen came to their place, and, getting down from their horses, mounted the broad stairs that led to the raised platform, and there took their seats on two thrones bedecked with purple silks and cloths of silver and of gold. This is a nice little cinematic scene, and we get the rules of the competition. Mowbray *was* a noble house in England dating back to the Conquest up till the 1500's or so, but there doesn't seem to have been a "Hugh" of that line, at least not in Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Mowbray quote:And now the shooting began, the captains first taking stand and speeding their shafts and then making room for the men who shot, each in turn, after them. Two hundred and eighty score shafts were shot in all, and so deftly were they sped that when the shooting was done each target looked like the back of a hedgehog when the farm dog snuffs at it. A long time was taken in this shooting, and when it was over the judges came forward, looked carefully at the targets, and proclaimed in a loud voice which three had shot the best from the separate bands. Then a great hubbub of voices arose, each man among the crowd that looked on calling for his favorite archer. Then ten fresh targets were brought forward, and every sound was hushed as the archers took their places once more. This passage just establishes that Robin's up against some real competition. quote:
Of course the best archers in England are the best archers in the world! quote:
I'm a Queen! I'm such a GIRL! I don't understand this man stuff! I kinda hate that line. Especially since Pyle's made this Queen Eleanor . . . that is, Eleanor of Acquitaine, who led armies several times in her life and who held immense wealth and power in her own right, separate from her husband's kingship. She knows what's she's doing. Let's just assume she's smart enough to be playing dumb here to trap the King, and move on. quote:Then the merry King laughed again, for he dearly loved goodly jest; so he said, amidst his laughter, "I will wager thee ten tuns of Rhenish wine, ten tuns of the stoutest ale, and tenscore bows of tempered Spanish yew, with quivers and arrows to match." Hey, we know that guy! I'm sure he'd love to back Robin in a bet! quote:
And we know this guy too! Both the Bishop of Hereford and Sir Richard of the Lee are mentioned in the original Catherine ballad, likely as deliberate references to the Gest. So it's no surprise that Sir Richard steps up and backs the Queen. quote:
Betting her girdle. Hubba-hubba! This bit with the girdle is Pyle's addition; in the ballad, Robin himself bets directly against the Bishop, and Sir Richard bets on behalf of the Queen. quote:
poo poo. These guys are good! quote:In the midst of all the noise and hubbub five men came walking across the lawn toward the King's pavilion. The first was Richard Partington, and was known to most folk there, but the others were strange to everybody. Beside young Partington walked a yeoman clad in blue, and behind came three others, two in Lincoln green and one in scarlet. This last yeoman carried three stout bows of yew tree, two fancifully inlaid with silver and one with gold. While these five men came walking across the meadow, a messenger came running from the King's booth and summoned Gilbert and Tepus and Hubert to go with him. And now the shouting quickly ceased, for all saw that something unwonted was toward, so the folk stood up in their places and leaned forward to see what was the ado. Pyle's eye for characterization here -- Little John is rough, but his heart's in the right place. It's also really interesting that the Queen is calling him "Locksley." In Pyle at least, he's from Locksley town, but his name isn't Locksley; the Queen's form of address here is only appropriate if "Locksley" is his noble title. In the source material for this particular ballad, Robin is a displaced outlawed noble, so use of "Locksley" is at least somewhat appropriate (and has connotations for the Queen's endorsement of his claim to those lands). This may be the one time we've seen Pyle make an American's mistake with this material. quote:
Y'know, didn't they already win those prizes? Isn't the King kinda being a dick to say they'll lose them if they can't beat Robin? Robin and his men aren't actually in the official Tourney . . . kinda looks like this King is going back on his word a bit. Ruh-roh. quote:
I like how Robin doesn't tell Will to "win," but to "bring not shame upon Sherwood." Just do your best! And Will just isn't that great an archer, because he's younger and new to the band. quote:Quoth the King grimly, to the Queen, "If thy archers shoot no better than that, thou art like to lose thy wager, lady." But Queen Eleanor smiled, for she looked for better things from Robin Hood and Little John. Little John ain't losin to no town scrub. quote:
This is, as above, a sly reference, since traditionally Gilbert is a member of the band. Maybe after this he defects off-screen? quote:Then the King muttered in his beard, "Now, blessed Saint Hubert, if thou wilt but jog that rogue's elbow so as to make him smite even the second ring, I will give eightscore waxen candles three fingers'-breadth in thickness to thy chapel nigh Matching." But it may be Saint Hubert's ears were stuffed with tow, for he seemed not to hear the King's prayer this day. Saint Hubert is the patron saint of hunters; importantly, he is a French, that is, Norman, *not* Saxon, saint. Of course, historically, King Henry II *was* Norman, spoke French not English, and half his kingdom was in modern France; still, so far, all our heroes swear by Saxon saints. quote:Having gotten three shafts to his liking, merry Robin looked carefully to his bowstring ere he shot. "Yea," quoth he to Gilbert, who stood nigh him to watch his shooting, "thou shouldst pay us a visit at merry Sherwood." Here he drew the bowstring to his ear. "In London"—here he loosed his shaft—"thou canst find nought to shoot at but rooks and daws; there one can tickle the ribs of the noblest stags in England." So he shot even while he talked, yet the shaft lodged not more than half an inch from the very center. Robin makin' it look easy. And talkin' smack while he does it. quote:And now a low murmur ran all among that great crowd, for never before had London seen such shooting as this; and never again would it see it after Robin Hood's day had gone. All saw that the King's archers were fairly beaten, and stout Gilbert clapped his palm to Robin's, owning that he could never hope to draw such a bowstring as Robin Hood or Little John. But the King, full of wrath, would not have it so, though he knew in his mind that his men could not stand against those fellows. "Nay!" cried he, clenching his hands upon the arms of his seat, "Gilbert is not yet beaten! Did he not strike the clout thrice? Although I have lost my wager, he hath not yet lost the first prize. They shall shoot again, and still again, till either he or that knave Robin Hood cometh off the best. Go thou, Sir Hugh, and bid them shoot another round, and another, until one or the other is overcome." Then Sir Hugh, seeing how wroth the King was, said never a word, but went straightway to do his bidding; so he came to where Robin Hood and the other stood, and told them what the King had said. Robin, Lord of Smack. I like how he keeps calling Gilbert "Lad." How old is Robin at this point? Still in his twenties? quote:
And Robin and Little John redeem the King's shaky dealings with their generosity. quote:
And they're off! Next: Chase Scene! Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Sep 12, 2020 |
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Sep 12, 2020 21:46
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quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Team Sad story of course, but I thought it was really interesting that this is, virtually word for word, the *exact* injury that Sir Richard of the Lea's son inflicted on his jousting opponent.
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Sep 15, 2020 23:37
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Team Known to happen in medieval times too - one of the French kings died that way, whilst celebrating the recapture of Calais with a tournament.
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Sep 16, 2020 20:26
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