Medieval Life: the Tournament

What the Super Bowl, the BCS game, March Mardness, the NBA Playoffs, the World Cup and the Stanley Cup are to modern audiences, tournaments were in the Middle Ages.  Though only knights got to participate, even the lowest orders of society got to watch, albeit from a distance.  There was color, spectacle, pageantry, prize money, the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. 

A tournament, from the French word for "to turn" consisted of two primary events, the melee and the joust.  Though jousting, where two knight rode toward each other on horseback with lances and tried to unseat each other from their horses, is the best-known, it wasn't the main event.  A medieval tournament started with an announcement that a great lord was willing to sponsor one to take place.  While tournaments could mark special occasions, such as the birth of an heir, a marriage, or a coronation, they could take place for any reason, at almost any time of year.  The only forbidden times were Lent, and Fridays or Sundays.  Knights expecting to compete in the tournament gathered from as far as they could travel to be there.  While great champions might have their own quarters or tents and display their own standards, men usually grouped into open air settlements according to whom they would represent in the melee.  The inside or home settlement versus the outside, visiting knights.  In the days leading up to the tournament there would be banquets and other festivities.  Jousts might take place between individual knights, but that was the prelude to the big show.

The big event was the melee.  Essentially, this was a mock battle, with teams of opposing knights, sometimes up to several dozen men on each side.  The contest would then devolve into individual contests between the top contenders.  Although it wasn't intended to be lethal, the combination of men, weapons and horses was dangerous enough.  People got killed or seriously injured, or even stuck in their armor.  Though chain armor was the norm, rather than the plate armor of later centuries, it was possible to take a knock on the helmet and dent it so badly that a smith had to be called to get the armor off one's head.  William Marshal had that humiliating experience.  The object of the melee was to capture an opposing knight for ransom.   Knights who were defeated and captured could pay up.  Or, they could forfeit their armor, weapons and horses, which the winner could then keep or sell for money to fund himself for more tourneys.  Men could become known for their prowess in tournaments, much like modern athletes.  And, like modern athletes, proceeds from captures or even prizes and prize money offered at tournaments could make a man quite wealthy, William Marshal again.  Some kings were just as ready to enter the lists as the knights, Richard I being the usual suspect.

Just as people do today with modern sports, medieval people took these events seriously.  Knights trained and practiced for tournaments, some of which were invitation-only, so gaining renown in other tournaments was crucial.  There were books about tournament tactics and etiquette.  Songs and poems were written about them, and people talked about famous tournaments and famous contenders for years.  But what about ladies' favors, knights entering the competition incognito and all that?  Kings or royals might fight under an assumed name, to avoid special treatment good or bad, but that was rare.  Ladies were desired spectators at tournaments, but only as the Medieval era progressed did they take on the role of presiding over tournaments, issuing prizes and giving favors to special knights to be their champion.  That, like plate armor, comes in at a later period.

Did It Happen: Blondel the Minstrel and King Richard

It's one of the enduring motifs of Richard the Lionheart's legend.  Richard, secretly imprisoned in an unknown location by the evil Duke of Austria, hears a familiar voice beneath his window, singing a song that only he and one other person on earth know because they wrote it together.  He recognizes the voice as that of his faithful minstrel Blondel and responds, singing the second verse.  "My heart was a lion and now it is chained..."  It's the opening scene of the 1952 movie Ivanhoe, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Taylor and features as one of the main plotlines in the novel on which the movie was based, Sir Walter Scott's, Ivanhoe.

So, did it happen.  Not a bit of it.

First, a little bit of background and some beef between several major leaders of the Third Crusade (1189-1192).  That Crusade was called the Kings' Crusade because of the number of titled rulers who each claimed to be leading it, including the Kings of France, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Duke of Austria.  The Crusade began with the siege of Acre 1189-1191, which took two years to break.  Richard was late to the party, having arrived after dealing with the matter of his sister Joanna's dowry and the theft of his war chest and crusading funds by the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Comnenus.  Richard believed that his late intervention broke the siege, while others, including Phillip of France and Leopold of Austria, who had been there longer than Richard, believed they deserved the credit.  When Leopold displayed his standard on the walls of Acre, Richard had it torn down and his own standard flown instead.  Leopold would remember this insult. 

Long after several of the other rulers had given up on Jerusalem and returned to Europe, Richard pressed his advantage almost to the Holy City before brokering a truce with Saladin the Magnificent and returning home.  The only problem was that England and the Plantagenet domains in France were a long way away, including a journey across the lands of Tancred of Sicily, Leopold of Austria and Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor.  There was potential safety in the realm of Saxony, where Richard's brother-in-law, another Henry (the Lion) ruled, but Richard was captured near Vienna by agents of Leopold of Austria, who imprisoned him in Durnstein Castle.  Here, fiction plays a tug of war with fact.  In reality, there was no mystery about Richard's imprisonment.  The fact that he'd been captured and where he was being held were known throughout Europe within weeks.  There was too much at stake for Leopold, and his overlord Henry VI, to keep it secret.  They knew that in England, Eleanor of Aquitaine and nobles loyal to Richard would turn the country inside out to provide a king's ransom, and that's just what happed.  More on this drama in a later post.

Was there a minstrel named Blondel?  Several chansons or courtly songs of the era were attributed to a Blondel de Nesle.  This is believed to be either Jean I of Nesle (1155-1202) or his son Jean II of Nesle (d 1241), both of whom were minor nobles, but also French trouvieres or minstrels, as we would term them today.  Both of them may have gone on Crusade, Senior serving in the Third Crusade and Junior in the Fourth, but there's no evidence that either one of them knew or worked for King Richard.  The legend only became popular in the years after all three men were dead and gone.  Blondel is a longstanding nickname for a blonde person, which both Jean I and II could have been.  It It is also a common name on the Isle of Guernsey, were King Richard granted a fief to someone named Blondel.  Could this person have been someone who worked for him in some capacity or did him a favor that he wanted to repay?  Did it have something to do with Richard's captivity.  It's possible, but we don't know what it was or when it happened, now.  That it involved a traveling minstrel seeking a captive king in hiding.  Nope. 

Royal Woman: Eleanor of Brittany

Being a princess during the Medieval Age wasn't a storybook adventure.  There were serious issues at stake, namely the succession to crowns and kingdoms.  It was a man's world, men ruled and took what they wanted by force.  And though the women of the Plantagenet family could be a match for any man in cunning and fortitude, some paid a costly price for defying the men in their lives.

One such woman was Eleanor, Duchess of Brittany and Countess of Richmond in her own right.   Eleanor (c 1181- 1241) was the daughter of Geoffrey, brother of Richard and John.  Her mother Constance, was Duchess of Brittany in her own right.  Geoffrey and Constance had two children, Arthur and Eleanor.  Because Geoffrey was younger than Richard but older than John, his children inherited a more senior claim to the English throne at his death.  However, in those days, not only did women not rule kingdoms, neither did children when there was an able-bodied man to stand in the way.  At Geoffrey's death, Eleanor and Arthur were put into the formal custody of their Uncle Richard and lived with their grandmother, Eleanor of Aquitaine.  This was a usual arrangement in those days, even if a child's mother was still alive.  Constance remarried and centered her claims on her younger daughter, Alice, while allowing Richard and Eleanor to decide the fate of her two older children, Arthur and Eleanor.

As a potential claimant to the English throne, Eleanor was one of the most eligible young women of the time.  After her aunt Joanna bulked at being married to the brother of Saladin the Magnificent, Eleanor was proposed instead.  This time, Al-Adil broke it off, not interested in marrying a Christian, no matter her dowry.  Next, as part of Richard's ransom, Eleanor was to be married to the son of Leopold of Austria.  That marriage came to nothing when Leopold's son died.  There was also a marriage proposal between a son of Phillip II of France and Eleanor, but that, too fell through.  With Richard's death, Arthur and Eleanor passed into the custody of their uncle John in 1199.  Arthur made an attempt to claim his English inheritance, but his resistance was quickly put down by John.  Arthur was incarcerated in Rouen castle and later died under mysterious circumstances.

John wasn't taking any chances with Eleanor, either.  Even if she never made a bid for the crown of England, she was a target for any marriageable man who might make it for her.  From the death of her brother onward, any effort at marriage stopped.  Like her grandmother before her, Eleanor would pass through a succession of English castles, most notably Corfe.  She was always housed and treated like a princess, being provided clothing, food and maids, and being allowed to ride though under heavy guard.  She was not, however, allowed to go on with her life in anything approaching a normal fashion, such as marrying or even being allowed to press her own viable claim to Brittany after her mother's death.  John and his son Henry III backed the claims of Eleanor's half-sister Alice, while leaving Eleanor safely under lock and key in England.

Nor was she the only princess kept in captivity by John and Henry.  The King of Scotland sent his daughters as hostages to England, as did various Welsh princesses.  Thus, for some years, Eleanor had company, but for the most part, she was alone.  Henry was careful to have her shown to the people of Corfe from time to time to prove that she was alive, but that was all.  Eleanor might have bettered her situation by relinquishing her claims to England, Brittany and any other territory but she wasn't about to do so.  Meanwhile, plots to rescue her and place her on the throne of England or take her back to Brittany only made Henry increase her security and put her life in jeopardy.   She lived out her life a "state prisoner", never having been tried or convicted of any crime.  After her death, her body was buried in Amesbury Abbey and an endowment made in her name. 

Battle: Defeat at Bouvines, July 27, 1214

Plantagenet met would spend most of their lives either warring or preparing for war.  Some were inspired military leaders (Henry V).  Others could inspire men to follow them even when things were going far from well (Richard I).  Then there was John, King of England from 1199-1216. 

The feud between Phillip II Augustus of France, and Henry II of England and his sons was deep and personal.  The issues ranged from women, Eleanor of Aquitaine's divorce of Phillip's father and his sister Alys' being jilted by Richard (and maybe raped by Henry).  It was over money, lands, who was giving more to the Church and to the crusading effort.  If there was something to quarrel about, they were on it.  Although Kings were admonished by the Church not to war against one another while their neighbors were away on Crusade, the vow was almost never kept or enforced.  Upon Richard's capture after the Third Crusade (1192), Phillip II was relentless in his quest to wrest Normandy, Brittany, Anjou and the rest of the Plantagenet domain away from them.  With Richard's death in 1199, Phillip knew that he had easy mark.  Nobody took John seriously as a commander. 

Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV (1185-1218) was the nephew of Richard and John, grandson of Henry and Eleanor through their daughter, Matilda.  He claimed the Holy Roman Empire.  The problem is, so did several other rulers including Phillip II, who wasn't called Augustus for nothing, and Frederick II of Germany, one of the more eccentric rulers ever to wear a crown.  Dreams of a new Roman Empire weren't very far from their mind.  These men were willing to fight and their vassals were backing the most viable candidates, putting the Empire of Charlemagne into a temporary North/South split.  While John was terrible at military command and keeping his barons in line, he could at times be a better intriguer.  If he could draw Phillip into a war that Phillip might lose, Plantagenet possessions in France might be more secure and might increase in size.  He could back his nephew Otto for the Holy Roman Empire as long as he got something from the effort.  After two losses in battle against Phillip in Aquitaine, though, he had turned command over to Otto and scurried home to deal with mutinous barons who were winding up for the signing of the Magna Carta, and a chronic situation of unrest in Ireland.  The English contingent at the battle wasn't very large, owing to the barons anger at John.  So Otto had to look elsewhere for allies and they weren't short in coming.   Ferdinand of Flanders had been forced to give up several cities to Phillip in recent wars and he wanted them back.  There were others, including the Dukes of Lorraine and Brabant, part of Belgium now. 

Meanwhile, Phillip of France was not without powerful friends of his own.  Frederick II of Germany was another man who claimed the Holy Roman Empire.  For the time being, he was willing to join Phillip in driving the Plantagenets off the Continent of Europe, and deal with Charlemagne's legacy later.  The Duke of Burgundy was another powerful ally, among others.  All these men, with their knights and levies, found themselves near the town of Bouvines on what is now the France/Belgium border with, not only the Crown of Charlemagne at stake, and John's English possessions at stake, but, though they did not know it yet, the makeup of modern England and France also in the balance.  Otto had more men, 25,000, with less than 4,000 of them cavalry, knights and mounted levies.  Phillip of France had 15,000, but with an equal number of cavalry. 

From the start, this should have been a walkover for Otto, but it wasn't.  Each leader divided his forces into roughly three groups.  Phillip sent his cavalry on the right against the Flemish cavalry on Otto's left.  The French broke the Flemings, who quickly fled.  That left Phillip's cavalry to deal with the more serious infantry clash at the center.  Infantrymen from what is now the Netherlands were ranked among the finest in the world and were standing strong for Otto.  Phillip repurposed his cavalry from his right to his center and plowed into them.  During a pitched battle that almost cost his own life, Phillip drove the opposing infantrymen back further and further.  Meanwhile, on Otto's left was the English contingent, contesting the bridge at Bouvines.  They, too were slowly driven back, with William Longespee (Longsword), Earl of Salisbury, being captured.  Ferdinand of Flanders was also captured, as were the Dukes of Lorraine and Brabant.  Reginaud of Bolougne attempted a stand with seven hundred pikemen, but he too was ridden down and captured.  Otto fled the field, but his Imperial standard was captured by the French.

John knew the game was up and quickly asked for a truce.  Phillip's terms were harsh enough, requiring that John give up Normandy, Brittany and Anjou.  John would dodge these demands until after his death, his son Henry III was forced to acknowledge them in the Treaty of Paris, 1259.  Otto also had to face Frederick II, who defeated him and took the crown of the Holy Roman Empire the following year.  The Plantagenet empire in France was at an end, with only some holdings in Aquitaine and around Calais.  France as we know it today was beginning to take shape. 

Places: Fontevrault Abbey, Chinon, France

The Plantagenets may have been a family on the move, going from one castle to another as needs be, the early members of the dynasty had a spiritual home, the Abbey of Fontevrault.

This abbey, with its village of Fontevraud l'Abbaye near Chinons in Anjou was in the heart the early Plantagenet possessions.  It was a double monastery, which meant that it housed both monks and nuns, albeit in separate compounds.  And, both sets of religious were under the direction of the Abbess, who was always either a royal or noble woman.  The Abbey was founded in 1101, by an itinerant preacher called Robert of Arbrissel.  With noble patronage, he founded the Order of Fontevrault, with this abbey as the motherhouse.  Under the Rule of St. Benedict, the Abbey was a strictly-run sanctuary of contemplation and prayer.  Eleanor of Aquitaine was the first member of the Plantagenet family to take the Abbey under her patronage.  In her declining years, she would sojourn at the Abbey, finally taking the veil before her death.  This was a common practice for nobles of the time, to make one last bid for the salvation of their soul by taking Holy Orders before dying.  Eleanor's daughter, Joanna, would do the same in 1199.

The later Plantagenets would turn their patronage to other orders and churches but Fontevrault continued to enjoy royal patronage, particularly under the Bourbon family.  Several Bourbon women served as Abbess.  In 1789, the Revolutionary government of France ordered the confiscation of all property of the church.  In 1792, the community at Fontevrault was dispersed and its last Abbess died in poverty in Paris.  At that time, the mortal remains of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II of England, Richard I of England, Isabella of Angouleme (wife of Henry I), Joanne of Sicily and her son Raymond of Toulouse were scattered to the four winds.  The gisants or tomb effigies were damaged, and some, such as Joanna's effigy which was intended to kneel at the head of Henry's tomb, were never replaced.  The Abbey was later used as a prison (1804-1963), and some members of the French Resistance in World War II were shot there.  After 1963, the Abbey was turned over to the French Ministry of Culture and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Queen: Joanna of Sicily

Plantagenet women were not damsels in distress waiting for their men to rescue them.  They ran countries, led armies, conducted diplomacy, patronized artists and scholars, and when the situation called for it, they got their brothers (or any other man) told off in a hurry.

Joanna (or Joan) was one of the youngest of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine's large brood.  Eight years separated Joanna from her old brother Richard (aka the Lionheart).  Joanna (1165-1199) was born at one of her father's favorite places in Angers.  She spent much of her time as a girl under her mother's care, drifting between Winchester and Poitiers.  In 1176, when she was 11 years old, ambassadors from Sicily asked her hand in marriage for their king, William II.  The marriage would be celebrated, but the couple wouldn't begin living together until Joanna began menstruating, indicating that she was capable of child bearing.  The couple had no children and William died in 1189, leaving Joanna a widow and his out-of-wedlock son Tancred as his only heir.  In those days, being born out of wedlock wasn't necessarily a barrier to inheritance if a man had the means to take his rights by force.

Tancred seized the lands guaranteed to Joanna by her marriage contract, or tired to.  He was also holding Joanna captive when her brother Richard arrived in Sicily in 1190 as part of the Third Crusade.  Richard demanded her safe conduct and return of her dowry money.  Tancred defied him until Richard seized a monastery, the castle of La Bagnara, and decided to stay the winter in Massena.  Tancred realized there was only one way of getting rid of two Plantagenet siblings and returned Joanna and her money.  Things only got worse for Tancred when Richard and Joanna's mother, Eleanor, arrived in Sicily with Richard's intended bride, Berengaria of Navarre. 

Eleanor handed Berengaria off to Joanna and returned to England to deal with John if he made any false moves in Richard's absence.  Joanna, Berengaria and Richard sailed for Acre.  A storm ensued and his ship was blown to Crete.  Joanna and Berengaria ended up in Cyprus where the local Byzantine ruler, Isaac Comnenus, seized Joanna's dowry and Richard's crusading funds.  Isaac was courteous enough to the women, but intended to keep the money until Richard attacked the port of Limasol, threw Isaac into a dungeon, married Berengaria and took her along with him and Joanna on the crusade.  The two women remained at Acre while Richard pursued his crusade.

Then, one of the stranger episodes in Joanna's history began to unfold.  Richard soon realized that Saladin the Magnificent was not called that for nothing and that he and his fellow crusaders were in for more of a war than they realized.  In his turn, Saladin realized that Richard was just crazy enough to be dangerous.  When Richard proposed a truce, Saladin was ready to talk.  Then Richard proposed to marry Joanna to Saladin's brother and top general, Al-Adil.  Joanna loved Richard but this was not in her game plan.  She pleaded and begged, threatened and quarreled.  When Richard persisted with this insane idea of marrying a Christian princess to a Muslim, she went over his head to the Church leaders in Acre.  Not even being Queen of Jerusalem on an equal footing with Al-Adil as King, and the assurances that she could retain her Christian faith were going to dissuade her.  The churchmen warned Richard that he faced excommunication if he allowed the marriage and Richard backed off the idea.  Joanna was equally unimpressed with Phillip II of France, who backed off in his turn.  His father had been married to Joanna's mother Eleanor and one lion queen in the family was enough.

Joanna was too valuable a widow to be left unmarried.  She eventually married Raymond VI, Count of Tolouse and bore him two children, Raymond VII and a daughter, Little Joanna.  Raymond was trying to hold on to his own estates in the Holy Land and Joanna was described as supporting him by herself commanding the forces laying siege to the castle of a rebellious vassal.  When the situation proved too much she did what all sisters do, ask big brother to step in.  But by that time, unbeknownst to her, Richard was already dead.  Joana returned to Europe, widowed and pregnant again.  She sought refuge at Fontevrault Abbey in France where, after her child was born dead, she was veiled a nun and died in her turn.  Her tomb, with its effigy showing her kneeling at the head of her father, Henry II, was destroyed during the French Revolution.

What's in a Name?

Today we speak and write of the Plantagenet dynasty as though that was their last name.  In fact, most members of the Plantagenet family wouldn't have turned their head at the name, which originated as a nom de guerre or sobriquet of a distant ancestor. 

Last names are so common today that we forget how recent an invention they are.  Last names began as nicknames or designations, to tell which Tom, Dick or Harry people were talking to or about.  They didn't become common as names past down in a family from a common ancestor until the 14th century.  Royalty never used last names of any kind.  Their designation was their country, an estate (Gaunt, Lancaster, York), or a common ancestor, Fitzhenry, Stewart).  Nobles followed suit. 

The name Plantagenet began, as many last names did, as a nickname or sobriquet for Geoffrey of Anjou (1113-1151), the father of Henry II of England.  Some sources indicate that Geoffrey adopted the common broom plant (planta genistae in Latin) as a heradric badge.  However, heraldry as we know it was in its infancy then, so it's more likely that this was nickname of Geoffrey's that stuck.  Unflattering nicknames were a thing back then.  Henry was called Curtmantle because of his habit of wearing short French cloaks instead of the flowing Anglo-Saxon variety.  As we now know, when heraldry became all important the Plantagenets used the three rampant lions of England, and the fleur-de-lys of France among other symbols.  We'll get to the roses soon enough.

It wasn't until Geoffrey's many-times distant grandson Richard II (1367-1400) that the name Plantagenet gained some currency.  Richard had issues, not the least of which was constant rumors that he was not a true member of the dynasty but a result of his mother's infidelity or witchcraft.  In order to tie himself more firmly to the ruling house of England, he harked back to his ancestor, Geoffrey Plantagenet.  Even then, members of the dynasty wouldn't have used that as a name.  It wasn't until the time of Henry VIII Tudor (1491-1547) that the name Plantagenet for the previous dynasty came into official use.  Henry needed to differentiate his dynasty, the Tudors, from that other dynasty, the Plantagenets, who still had a few heirs walking around (though not for long).  Still, it wouldn't be until the 17th century that the name Plantagenet was routinely used by historians to indicate England's longest-running family drama.