A Damsel In Distress, A Knight In Shining Armour, And A Terrifying Wildman

Depicted at the bottom of several folios in the mid fourteenth-century manuscript known popularly as the Smithfield Decretals (British Library Royal 10 E IV) is an amusing little story...

A beautiful young woman is out in the forest one day when she is accosted by a fearsome Wildman. (Fearsome not only for his excessive body hair but also for his insatiable lust). An old knight comes to her rescue, however, and slays the Wildman.

f. 101.

After saving the life of the woman, the old knight decides to claim her for his own. He seizes her arm and sets off with the woman. Quickly though they bump into another knight, this one much more comely.

f. 101 v.

Instantly smitten by his rockstar looks, the woman decides to leave with the younger knight, rather than her original heroic Wildman-slayer. The two knights enter into a heated discussion.

f. 102 v.

They decide to settle their quarrel over who ‘gets the girl’ in the only sensible way possible...by blowing their horns at one another.

f. 103.

It is eventually decided that after all the woman will go with the handsome knight, whilst the older knight leaves with only his dog for company. However the younger knight decides he is not satisfied with the bargain they have struck. Instead he marches back and tries to take the dog too.

f. 104 v.

The older knight decides that enough is enough. “You can have my girl,” he says, “but you cannot have my dog.” And so the two knights fight.

f. 105.

After a hard struggle the older knight kills the handsome knight. Weeping and wailing in distress the woman collapses in grief beside the body.

f. 105 v.

Rallying she begs the old knight to take her with him. But her pleas are met with stony silence. No longer interested the old knight and his dog abandon the ungrateful chit in the forest.

f. 106.

And then, my dear reader, she was eaten by bears.

f. 106 v.

THE END.

Storm In A Teacup...

England, 1945

They say the past is a foreign country. A place filled with a hundred sepia-toned memories of frozen lifeless figures going through the motions of living. But what do they know. My past hurtles dangerously fast, spinning me around and around on an endless merry-go-round, until I feel like I might be flung off and dashed in two. Like a sped up film roll those faces, first smiling, then weeping, then angry, beckon me only to vanish with the whirring and clacking as the film reaches its inevitable end.

As I watch the once familiar English countryside rush past my window I cannot help but wonder whether it is in fact the past I am travelling to now. Yet as I blink and my vision clears I can see the differences that have been wrought by war and the passage of time. There are scars upon the landscape and the tired etching of my own face is dimly reflected in the glass.

I gaze intensely at that reflection trying to find the spark of the girl somewhere in the woman’s face. Rain resolutely strikes the window causing the image to blur and run like watery paints across a canvas. Disappointed I hunch back into my seat. The train carriage fills with the hum of conversation and a teaspoon chimes richly against a china saucer.

The Historian And The Snail

This is not some bizarre twist to the classic fairytale and no snails were kissed in the making of this post. Rather I found myself, one morning this week, confronting an unwelcome intruder to my morning routine. For a slug was casually hanging out on my floor as if he had every right in the world to be spending his morning there. As my friends know well I am prone to girlish squeals, so after I had emitted such a girlish squeal I flung the uninvited guest out of my window.

Though feeling a grudging sense of respect for the tenacity of his grim ascent to the lofty fourth floor of my flat, I have no particular interest in what became of him after departing my room. Did he fall onto some unsuspecting soul below my window, was he happily reunited with some leafy paradise or was he quite simply squashed? As long as he wasn’t enjoying the hospitality of my four walls I quite simply didn’t care.

Monster snail attacking knight, Smithfield Decretals, (British Library, Royal 10 E IV, f. 107).

The intrusion of this slug into my morning routine has however reminded me of manuscript illumination and the challenge for the art historian to explain the presence of slugs and snails within the margins of medieval manuscripts. They do not only appear amongst floral borders, which is more obvious to rationalise, but also often in narrative scenes.

Snail, Villard de Honnecourt, (Bibliotheque Nationale de France, MS. Fr. 19030, f. 3).

A surprising amount of publications have been written about snails in manuscripts, perhaps because these occurrences beside devotional texts are so perplexing. Explanations have ranged from the peculiar to the down-right preposterous.

Snail combat, Macclesfield Psalter, (Cambridge FitzWilliam Museum, MS. 1-2005, f. 76).

The snail has alternatively been seen as a symbol of the Resurrection, an ethnic joke about the Lombards, an agricultural pest banished to the margins, a reference to the sin of cowardice, and of course the obligatory sexual insinuations. Perhaps we’ll never understand why the snail thrived amongst the parchment leaves of medieval manuscripts. But historians will continue to strive for new interpretations, for the medieval snail is much harder to banish than my uninvited slug.

Snail, Luttrell Psalter, (British Library, Additional MS. 42130, f. 160).

Cryptic Mystery...

Crypts are without doubt the best bit of a church. This crypt is entirely imaginary though I did cheekily borrow ideas from a couple of my favourite medieval crypts. The Romanesque crypt capitals from Canterbury Cathedral depict a fanciful array of monstrous creatures, whilst the crypt at Winchester Cathedral has actually flooded in the past.

As the dank water trickled into his nose and mouth he gagged. Pulled from the dark haze of unconsciousness he lifted his head from the puddle and choked, spitting the foul tasting water from his mouth. Disorientated he lay on the damp floor frowning at the darkness of his surroundings and trying to remember where the hell he was.

Acting on extinct he tried to lift himself but his muscles trembled weakly with the effort and he collapsed back onto the ground with an echoey splash. Blinding pain sliced through his head at the movement and he groaned. Bile rose in his throat as the nausea bubbled within him. He retched, quivering pathetically, and a droplet of sweat rolled off his forehead. Hands scratching for purchase he dragged himself across the sodden ground. Finding what felt like a corner he curled himself up against the moist stone feeling drained from his exertions. A feeble hand reached for the back of his head from where the pulsing ache was splitting his skull in two. His fingers found a sticky indentation and he didn’t need a light to know it was his own blood. Swallowing convulsively in an effort to stop a second wave of nausea from overcoming him he closed his eyes.

Exhausted his mind drifted between semi-awareness and unconsciousness. By the time he was able to drag himself off the floor the water level had increased dramatically. Hands groping in the darkness he pushed himself to wade cautiously outwards. Adapting to the gloom his gaze began to identify shadows and the dim outline of shapes. A rush of familiarity caused him to halt in sudden confusion. Brow furrowed he tried to rearrange his memories into some semblance of order.

- The crypt of a church. - October rain’s causing the river to swell dangerously. - The solemn intonation of a tonsured figure. -

Reeling from the onslaught of remembrances which resurrected the pounding in his head, he staggered, the water sloshing about his legs. Breathing ragged he wobbled unsteadily until his gaze latched upon another shape. This one was the most familiar of all.

It was a door. Hope flared to life within him and heedless of his head injury he leapt forward. Hammering on the door with the palm of his hand he yelled out his continued existence. The quiet murmur of the water lapping at stone was his only response. It was then that he knew, though perhaps he had known it instinctually before, that the blow had meant to do more than stun him. Somebody wanted him dead and had at least the forethought to plan that the water would finish the job. He felt a rush of irrational anger. He was going to die and he couldn’t even remember what for. The snarling hybrid beasts watching comfortably dry from their lofty height atop sturdy columns seemed to mock him with their curled lips and forked tongues. He slammed his fist once more on the solid door ignoring the flash of pain across his knuckles and the responding throb in his head.

Desperation seeped through him as pervasive as the chilled water through his tunic. Sliding down the length of the door he crouched on the highest step. Despondent in the knowledge that help would not be arriving he rested his head on his bent knees with a tortured sense of finality.