Odd Jobs: Clowns, Jesters, and Fools in Medieval and Tudor England

 Even in medieval times, people needed entertainment.  And court entertainers, fools, jesters, jugglers, minstrels, led a life much different from both their royal “employers” and the run of the mill populace.

Of course, to have a position as a court fool was the height of luxury.  There were also freelance entertainers, including fools, who not only provided amusement, they also might do acrobatics and play instruments.  They might be hired by taverns or brothels, by cities for participation in public pageants, or they might be part of a touring company that would travel between noble households, “singing for their supper.”  Indeed, many more were itinerant entertainers than permanent residents.

Indeed, “fol” may not have been a full-time position, as Henry III’s payments to “John the Fol,” named him also a forester and huntsman, but the court fool was a particularly privileged position, for in making fun, he could say things that other people couldn’t.  One of history’s favorite tales is of the defeat of the French fleet by the English fleet at the Battle of Sluys in 1340.  No one could summon the courage to tell the French king, Phillippe VI, the news.  Finally, the court jester told him the English sailors were cowards, because they “don't even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French.”



This portrait of Henry VIII and his family shows "Jane the Fool" in the archway on the left and "Wil Somer" in the archway on the right, suggesting they were considered members of the family.

Of course, kings were not always so amused when a royal fool overstepped his bounds.  It was reported in a letter from the ambassador to England from the Holy Roman Empire, that Henry VIII had “nearly murdered his own fool, a simple and innocent man.”  The crime?  Speaking well of the king’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and her daughter Mary, while disparaging Anne Boleyn and her “bastard” daughter.

The Tudor and Elizabethan eras were considered a “Golden Age” of folly and most of the Tudor kings and queens record regular payments and expenses for court fools.  By this time, we begin to have more information about these people, partly because having one’s personal fool was no longer limited to royalty.  Several prominent men of the time, such as Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More also had their own fools.

It does seem as if there were two distinct types of court fools:  the “artificial” fool and the “natural” fool, but the records don’t always allow us to clearly distinguish one from the other.



Richard Tarlton

An artificial fool is what most of us think of when we think of a jester.  This is a person of sharp wit, able to say amusing things on demand.  A medieval standup comedian, if you will.  Like so many things about the world past, we don’t have detailed information so we don’t know much what was so amusing about them.  (No one kept detailed notes on the fool’s scripts.)



A “natural” fool is one that is intellectually or developmentally disabled or even mentally ill.  This person might be dressed up and laughed at, kept somewhat like a pet as a part of the family.  Certainly, this seems like unimaginable cruelty to us today.  But some of the financial records, which indicate payments to a fool’s “keeper,” suggest that they realized these men (or women) were not capable of caring for themselves.  And as members of a royal household, they were fed and clothed, not left to wander the streets alone.

Even distinguishing which fools were natural and which artificial is a challenge.  “Patch,” Cardinal Wolsey’s fool, was so honored that when Cardinal Wolsey fell from Henry VIII’s favor, he gifted the king with his fool, perhaps to be certain that the man was provided for.

The king’s records show that Patch had several “keepers,” and the fact that he could, literally, be given away suggests he might be a “natural” fool, kept like a pet for amusement, but also needing “keepers,” unable to take care of himself.

More famous, however, were the actors who took to the stage.  Richard Tarlton, said to be Queen Elizabeth’s favorite fool, was an actor, a dancer, a fencer, a musician, and a man famous for his witty banter.  He was said to have studied “natural” fools in order to enhance his stage performance.



William Kempe on right, doing a jig.

Many of our impressions of the medieval fool come from Shakespeare, who created memorable characters in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “King Lear,” and other plays.  Two prominent comic actors played many of these signature roles:  William Kempe and Robert Armin.

Kempe played such roles as Dogberry in “Much Ado About Nothing,” Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and he was famous for his “jigs,” a combination of dance and physical comedy, often performed by a troupe of dancers.

Armin succeeded Kempe as a member of the Chamberlain’s Men.  His style was less physical comedy and more comedic wit.  Hence, the roles of Feste in “Twelfth Night,” and Touchstone in “As You Like It” are considered his.  These are more acerbic, philosopher-fools, though as an actor he was not limited to these parts.

Truly by this time, there was money to be made by making people laugh.   

John Southworth’s FOOLS AND JESTERS AT THE ENGLISH COURT, Sutton Publishing, 1998, 2003, was the source of much of the information in this piece.

After many years in public relations, advertising and marketing, Blythe Gifford started writing seriously after a corporate layoff. Ten years and one layoff later, she became an overnight success when she sold her first book to the Harlequin Historical line.  Since then, she has published eleven romances set in England and on the Scottish Borders.  RUMORS AT COURT, a Royal Wedding story, will be released in May, 2017, from the Harlequin Historical line.  For more information, visit www.blythegifford.com

 

 

Author photo Jennifer Girard

 

Tragic Tales: The Lovesick Maidens of Hangzhou

By Jeannie Lin

I first learned of the lovesick maidens of Hangzhou when reading Lisa See's Peony in Love, a hauntingly imaginative ghost story in which three women find their voice through the interpretation of the famous Ming Dynasty opera, The Peony Pavilion.

Written by poet Tang Xianzu(1550-1616) in the late 16th century, The Peony Pavilion is known for its nuanced lyrics and use of symbolism and metaphor. It is often compared to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in terms of the shared theme of dying for love and also in terms of its literary and social influence. Young women were known to become obsessed with The Peony Pavilion, so much so that they wasted away and died of lovesickness, captivated by the mere idea of romantic love so strong that it transcended life and death.

The most amazing part of Lisa See's tale was the historical basis. A subset of these afflicted ladies, termed the lovesick maidens of Hangzhou, composed beautiful poetry influenced by the ideals of romantic love in the opera. Such a phenomenon is significant when we consider that this was a small literary movement that budded during a time known for footbinding and the subordination of women.

The heroines of Peony in Love were based on three women who together wrote The Three Wives Commentary, published 1694, about The Peony Pavilion. The commentary was one of the first works of literary criticism written and published by women as it was funded by the last of the wives.

Hangzhou is known for its romantic tradition of which these lovesick maidens were a part. The history of the maidens can be found in discussions regarding the literary significance of the Three Wives Commentary. In Teachers of the Inner Chambers: Women and Culture in 17th Century China, Dorothy Ko remarks on how the popularity of The Peony Pavilion among women reached "legendary proportions." But these women were more than swooning fans. The play provided a "common vocabulary" and discourse among women.

Many of these poets died before their words became known--this was definitely the case of two of the three wives--the idea of romantic love captivating young women so completely that they wasted away in contemplation of it, is poetically tragic.

These women wrote. They wrote and discussed romance in a literary and social context and wasted away because their ideas of love consumed them. Perhaps some connection could be made to Virginia Woolf's parable of Shakespeare's exceptionally gifted sister in A Room of One's Own. A woman, with the fire of poetry in her, living in a time and place with no possible outlet to exercise her creativity; would meet only frustration and ruin, would wither away, would die with her genius unsung.

Footnote: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu were contemporaries, both writing plays on opposite sides of the world. Romeo and Juliet was first published in 1597. The Peony Pavilion was first performed in 1598.

What Surprised Me: Witchcraft and Royalty

By Margaret Mallory

Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,
I would remove these tedious stumbling-blocks
And smooth my way upon their headless necks...

Speech of Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester
From Shakespeare's HENRY VI (Part 2, Act 1, Scene 2)

When I was doing my research for KNIGHT OF PASSION, the third book in my "All the King's Men" medieval series, I came across Eleanor Cobham, a woman who married into the royal family and was accused of using witchcraft. It was so easy to falsely accuse a woman of witchcraft that I assumed this was a trumped up charge.

What surprised me is that Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, probably did it.

Eleanor was an ambitious woman--and not very nice.

The daughter of a mere knight, she became Gloucester's mistress while she was a lady-in-waiting to Gloucester's wife. There had been rumblings from the start of Gloucester's marriage that his wife still had a husband on the Continent. Since she was a great heiress, the rumors were ignored. When Gloucester, who was Henry V's youngest brother, wanted to get rid of his wife, however, the church conveniently invalidated his marriage.

Royal marriages were about power, inheritances, and alliances. It was no surprise, then, when Henry V made it clear he was not inclined to give his brother permission to make Eleanor his duchess. But when Henry V died unexpectedly, Gloucester married his mistress before Henry's body was brought home for burial.

Gloucester's nephew, a nine-month-old babe, became Henry VI. Some years later, after Gloucester's last remaining brother died, Gloucester became the young king's heir.

Eleanor could almost feel the crown on her head--and decided she better act before the now-teenage king took a wife and begat a new heir. It all came out when one of her co-conspirators turned informant. The allegation was that Eleanor was part of a witches' cabal, that included a woman known as The Witch of Eye, and at least three men of the church, including her confessor. This cabal allegedly employed sorcery in an attempt to predict the death of the king and to cut short his life.

While you may not believe their sorcery could harm the king, they did. Hence, their activity amounted to both heresy and treason.

Eleanor admitted to witchcraft, but she claimed she was only using it to try to get pregnant. She wisely denied the allegations of treason and was allowed, in effect, to plead guilty to a lesser offence. For her penance, she was made to walk London barefoot with a candle. Afterward, she was imprisoned for life on the Isle of Man--with servants, of course.

Eleanor's co-conspirators did not fare so well. Because this was The Witch of Eye's second offense, she was burned as a relapsed heretic. One of the churchman, a well-known Oxford scholar, was hung, drawn & quartered; another died in the Tower.

Gloucester laid low throughout the whole nasty business and let Eleanor face her accusers alone. (I like to think he made the plea for the servants.) Being royalty, he was conveniently "unmarried" a second time on the basis that Eleanor must have used sorcery on him from the beginning.

I had great fun with Eleanor Cobham and the Duke of Gloucester, who both appear as secondary characters in my new book, KNIGHT OF PASSION. I'd love to hear your comments or answer questions.

* Historical photos courtesy of Wikipedia

Arts and Music: Boys on Stage

By Zoe Archer

Female actors did not start appearing on the English stage until the middle of the Seventeenth Century. Prior to this date, women's roles were played exclusively by male actors, often adolescent members of the acting troupes, whose smooth, beardless faces and higher-pitched voices made for more convincing females. This is a fairly well-known fact about English theater history. But what many people don't know is that there were, in truth, entire Elizabethan acting companies comprised entirely of boys.

Some boy acting companies had their origins as choir boys performing in royal pageants up through the reign of Henry VIII. Yet it wasn't until after Elizabeth I took the throne that these groups became professional acting companies. In 1576, The Chapel Children (or Children of the Chapel) moved into a playhouse in the Blackfriars area (pictured above) in London--the same year the first adult players' theater was constructed. At around the same time, the Children of Paul's, or St. Paul's Boys, performed plays by John Lyly. Various changes of management occurred, and in 1582, the two boy companies united. They lost their commercial stage in 1584, but continued giving royal performances until 1590.

The boys were between the ages of eight and twelve. Just as in an adult acting troupe, the boys' companies had a repertory group of actors who each performed specific "type" roles. Sometimes, performing in the troupe was not a matter of choice, but rather the boys could be conscripted into the company if they had good voices and attractive faces. The companies had masters, including Richard Farrant, Henry Evans, Sebastian Westscott and Thomas Giles. These masters were responsible for training the boys in all aspects of theatrical performance as well as education. In addition to these responsibilities, the masters served as directors, costumers, set designers and theatrical managers. Boy troupes performed with their companies, and also acted alongside adult troupes, wherein they would often take the female roles.

In Hamlet, Rosencrantz does not look favorably on this trend of boy actors, perhaps voicing Shakespeare's feelings toward rival theatrical companies:

...there is, sir, an aerie of children, little eyases, that cry out on top of the question and are most tyrannically clapped for't. These are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages--so they call them--that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills and dare scarce come thither. (II.ii.)

The success of the boy troupes continued until 1589. The Martin Marprelate religious controversy caused Lyly and his acting troupe to be officially disowned by the crown. They stopped performing in 1590, and didn't resurface for many years.

Two boy companies returned in 1598. Theater impresario Richard Burbage rented the second Blackfriars Theater to the Chapel Children. With the accession if James I in 1603, the company received a new patent and a name change, when the troupe became Children of the Queen's Revels. The plays the troupe performed were not "dumbed down" versions of plays, nor were the plays altered in order to accommodate the child performers. The company performed plays by Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Thomas Middleton and John Marston and specialized in satirical, witty plays that appealed to a genteel audience.

Controversy continued to afflict the troupe. The play Eastward Ho, by Jonson and Chapman, caused the authors to be jailed and the company to lose its royal patent. More name changes followed, and yet more scandals due to the political and satiric nature of the works performed. They won, then lost royal favor, then regained it once more. Eventually, with profits declining and interest in child acting troupes waning, the boys' companies were incorporated into adult acting troupes. The group Lady Elizabeth's Men, granted a patent in 1615 was comprised largely of adult veterans of the boys' companies.

One of the last famous stage boys, Edward Kynaston
Later attempts to revive the boys' companies followed. One such attempt came in 1637 when Christopher Beeston founded the King and Queen's Young Company. The company was known more informally as Beeston's Boys. This company was variably successful, and was managed by Beeston's son after the elder's death, until the closing of all English theaters in 1642. After the theaters were reopened in the Restoration, Beeston's Boys performed again, but only briefly. Female actors had already begun to be seen on English stages, and the era of the child acting troupes was over.

Thursday Thirteen: Historical Quotations of Love

By Jacquie Rogers

1. Who can give law to lovers? Love is a greater law to itself. ~~Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus), De Consolatione Philosophiae

2. All the pictures that hung in my memory before I knew you have faded and given place to our radient moments together. Now I cannot live apart from you...Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me. ~~Sarah Bernhardt

3. Love is a blazing, crackling, green-wood flame, as much smoke as flame; friendship, married friendship particularly, is a steady, intense, comfortable fire. Love, in courtship, is friendship in hope; in matrimony, friendship upon proof. ~~Samuel Richardson

4. As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life. ~~Napoleon Bonaparte

5. 'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it. ~~Miguel de Cervantes

6. We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end. ~~Benjamin Disraeli

7. Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get--only with what you are expecting to give--which is everything. ~~Katharine Hepburn

8. I cannot exist without you--I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again--my life seems to stop there--I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion--I have shudder'd at it--I shudder no more--I could be martyr'd for my Religion--Love is my religion--I could die for that--I could die for you. My creed is Love and you are its only tenet--You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist. ~~John Keats

9. Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage. ~~Lao-Tzu

10. The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it... you and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough. ~~George Moore

11. At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. ~~Plato

12. There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not. ~~La Rochefoucauld

13. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. ~~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Honorable Mentions, because verse messes up the numbering:

With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt.
~~William Shakespeare

Love wing'd my Hopes and taught me how to fly
~~The Oxford Book of English Verse

Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. ~~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love is like the wild rose-briar;
Friendship like the holly-tree.
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms,
But which will bloom most constantly?
~~Emily Bronte
Sources:
Quotations.Com
Bartleby

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Plumbing: Very Good to Have

I must admit to enjoying our soft and convenient way of life. I like canned and frozen foods, microwave ovens, central heat, and definitely cars. The local water district decided to test just how appreciative I was. I got out of bed this morning, only to discover we had no water. Ack! What's a modern girl to do?

Or not do. Here's a list:

Couldn't take a shower.
Couldn't run the dishwasher.
Couldn't wash my hands after making sausage patties (made do with Clorox Wipes).
Couldn't run the clothes washer.
Couldn't, er, flush, meaning I couldn't do other things, either.

And worst of all . . . Couldn't make coffee!!!

So let's talk plumbing. Lots of civilizations in the past have had excellent plumbing systems, some, like Ancient Crete or Rome, rivaling what we have today. We don't often think of these things because Britain (after the Romans left) and America had, well, pathetic or no plumbing.

When I put together the words "ancient" and "water," I think Roman aquaduct. Bowdoin College has a good online article, ARCHAEOLOGY 291: The Roman Aqueducts and Water Systems. Of course, there's always a price to be paid.

Here's a terrific site that tells all about plumbing through the ages, ThePlumber.com. Did you know ancient Crete boasted ". . . the world's earliest "flushing" water closet." Or Egypt where "Excavators of the mortuary temple of King Suhura at Abusir discovered niches in the walls and remnants of stone basins. These were furnished with metal fittings for use as lavatories." Want an armrest on your toilet? "China has flushed Britain's claims to have invented the water closet down the pan with the discovery of a 2,000-year-old toilet complete with running water, a stone seat and a comfortable armrest."

Interested in Americana? Here's the history of outhouses, where you can find out the actual function of a two-holer, and why there's a moon cut into the door. How about outhouse folklore? "The outhouse was movable and Grandpa always located it so that the door was directly behind an oak tree to which he would affix a panel of boards, so that you could use the outhouse with the door open, the advantage should be obvious." Outhouses of the American West has pictures, trivia, lore, and even jokes--a great site to check out.

Ah, here's a prize. How about a biblography champberpots and other interesting facilities

Now, I'll tell a story on my own family. I grew up on a farm outside Homedale, Idaho. My great-grandmother lived about twenty miles away, in Parma. She was getting up in years, and her mother, who was nearly 100, lived with her. One year, for Mother's Day, My dad and grandfather decided to install bathroom facilities in the pantry, a fairly good-sized room off the kitchen. So when they showed up with a tub, toilet and sink, my great-grandmother (an immaculate housekeeper) chased them out of her driveway with a broom because she was so appalled to think that anyone would do "their business" in her house. How disgusting!

A week later, Dad and Grandpa built a little building near the house and installed the facilities, then connected it to the main house with a roofed walkway. And everyone lived Happily Ever After.

The point of this story is that we shouldn't force our values onto our characters who live in another time and another place. I think the story about my great-grandmother is funny, but she sure didn't, and neither did her mother.

But back to the broken water main. When basic services are interrupted, I'm always grateful to live now, even though I've always thought I would fit in better had I been born at least 150 years ago. Honestly, I truly appreciate our precious running water, and the same goes for the drain pipes that take the waste away.

Of course, we probably won't get too much into, er, bathroom habits in our stories, but still, it's part of your character's world, and who knows when the opportunity for a little bathroom humor might arise. I say, if it's good enough for Will Shakespeare . . .

Despite the complexity and supreme cleverness of his manipulation of language, Shakespeare was a popular entertainer in his own time. It's a matter of great curiosity, therefore, that perhaps the greatest author of bathroom humor has today been appropriated by the cultural elite.

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Jacquie Rogers
2006 PEARL Award Winner, Best Short Story
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