I hope most of you are having a better weekend—weather-wise—than we are in the Northeast corner of the US. This is the second Nor’easter to hit in as many days. At least it gives me a chance to catch up on e-mails, etc, and to get a new blog up before I leave for a quick research trip to France. (I know, as the old joke goes, a dirty job but someone has to do it.) I am so grateful to Richard’s sister Joanna for marrying the Count of Toulouse, for until now, I’d never gotten any farther south than Bordeaux. She was also very helpful in wedding the King of Sicily, another place I’ve always longed to see. Sadly I am not going to be able to make it to Palermo and Messina—not if I have a prayer in hell of meeting the Lionheart deadline—but I can console myself with the knowledge that I’ll get a second grab at the Sicilian brass ring with my novel about Constance de Hauteville. And the research about Sicily’s “Golden Age” was truly fascinating. I’ve also enjoyed delving into the history of medieval Cyprus, one reason why Richard’s quick conquest expanded to four full chapters, much to his disgust. But the culture clash between the Greeks and the “Latins” was interesting; Latins was the term used at the time for those who adhered to the Pope in Rome rather than the Patriarch in Constantinople And no writer could have resisted the first-person accounts of the chroniclers who’d accompanied Richard on what he called his “pilgrimage.” (The word “crusade” was not used in the MA)
Here’s one explaining, simply and succinctly, why they were able to defeat the Cypriot emperor’s forces so easily even though they were outnumbered: “We knew more of war than they did.” Or here is Richard being told that Acre was about to be captured, “’God forbid that Acre should be won in my absence,’ he said, ‘for it has been besieged for so long, and the triumph—God willing—will be so glorious.’” Here is another eye-witness chronicler describing Richard’s wedding, “She (Berengaria) was beautiful, with a bright countenance, the wisest woman, indeed, that one could hope to find anywhere. There was the king in great glory, rejoicing in his victory and his marriage to the woman to whom he’d pledged his troth.” {Richard of Devizes, the chronicler who famously if unkindly described Berengaria as “more prudent than pretty” never laid eyes upon her.} Here a chronicler tells us of a fiery confrontation at Famagusta between Richard and envoys sent by the French king, who was already at Acre: “They insulted him so much that the king became angry, raising his eyebrows. Such things were said as should not be written down.”
Of course these were hardly unbiased observers, men convinced that Richard was destined to be the savior of Christendom, so the French king does not come off too well. I actually felt some sympathy for Philippe at this point. He had never wanted to take the cross, had been shamed into it by the Archbishop of Tyre and public opinion. For Philippe—like Henry—was a realist, without any of Richard’s illusions of the glory of battle and no love of adventure or travel; the poor guy did not even like horses. Then, not only did he get pressured into going on crusade, he had to do it with Thor, the God of War. There is no doubt that Philippe was a very intelligent man and he would prove to be a capable, ruthless king, as unlike his father Louis as chalk and cheese. Yet when it came to the forum of public opinion, he could not begin to compete with a “media-savvy” war hero, one as skilled at promoting his own legend as he was at wreaking havoc on the battlefield. Philippe would eventually win their war because of Richard’s untimely but unsurprising death (the only surprise is that Richard lived as long as he did given the way he liked to dice with death), but he would discover that the legend lived on, for myths are harder to kill than mortal men.
I think I’ve responded to all of your queries in the last blog; if not, feel free to remind me what I missed. I’d like to thank Ken again for all the research work he has done and for being generous enough to share it with us. My very negative reaction to the suggestion that Constance of Brittany could possibly have been the mother of John’s daughter Joanna was in no way directed at Ken; I definitely do not believe in shooting the messenger! Basically, it seems that someone with too much free time on his hands began to wonder if the chroniclers could have mistaken “Clemence” for “Constance” and with that, he was off to the races. He does not appear to have even considered how extraordinary it would have been for Constance to bed the man who was her son’s main rival for the English Crown. From the moment that Arthur was born, it was obvious to all that if Richard died without an “heir of his body” (a distinct possibility in light of his reckless battlefield exploits; apparently few expected him to return alive from the crusade.) the only heirs would be his nephew Arthur or his brother John. The laws of primogeniture were still in a state of flux in the twelfth century, and men were not sure if the son of an older brother (Geoffrey) had a better claim than the youngest brother, John. Yet we are supposed to believe that this prideful, ambitious woman, who utterly loathed all of the Angevins except Geoffrey, would indulge in some high-risk sinning with John, of all men? I’d have to see actual photographic evidence of them in bed together to believe that one! I will give the final word on this subject to Kathryn Gibson, whom I am sure is familiar to many of you as the woman who almost single-handedly won official recognition for Aber as the site of the palace of the Welsh princes. Kathryn agreed to let me post her response, so here it is.
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‘Here Be Dragons’
>”Joan, daughter of King John who married Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in 1205, was most probably born 1191. The statement by the Pope that John ‘when unmarried fathered…’ is clear, but what it meant at the time when it was written is that in the eyes of the church his first marriage, annulled on the grounds of consanguinity, was deemed not to be a ‘marriage’. In other words because John had needed a divorce and didn’t have proper grounds, this gave him a reason that was valid.
> The statement that her mother was ‘an unmarried woman’ at the time allows us to exclude some of the likely named contenders.”
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I have a few items to pass on now. One of my readers was kind enough to send a link to my Facebook page about the discovery of a twelfth century crusader mural in Syria. I tried to copy and paste the link, but for some reason it wouldn’t go through despite several attempts. So if you’re interested, just google twelfth century crusader murals in Syria and the stories will come up. There is a Yahoo discussion group for people interested in talking about my books. Jayne Smith, its founder, asked me to post the link here. Sharonpenmanhistory~subscribe@yahoogroups.com And another reader sent me a link to the BBC History Magazine website; it is not strictly medieval, of course, but definitely interesting: http://www.bbchistorymagazine.com/
This will be my last blog until mid-November, but I hope to return with some interesting stories about my pursuit of Angevin ghosts. I’ll leave you now with this to ponder. Remember we talked earlier about the best-selling {!) book, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and whether it signaled the decline of civilization as we know it? Well, we have something else to look forward to—an upcoming film, Templars vs Zombies.
October 18, 2009