by Tim Rayborn
Deor (tenth century, or earlier)
Sour grapes
Deor may be the name of an Anglo-Saxon scop (pronounced “shop,” a kind of early English minstrel or bard), or it may be a pseudonym. It literally means something like “wild animal” and may refer to the poet’s low or “wild” station.
Whoever this was, he left behind a poem called (conveniently enough) “Deor,” or sometimes “The Lament of Deor,” though the surviving text doesn’t have a title. It is found in a tenth-century manuscript known as the Exeter Book. It may have been meant to be proclaimed aloud, possibly in a mixture of singing and spoken word, accompanied by a lyre. Some scholars maintain that it was only a literary work, written in imitation of oral poems that no longer survive. In any case, the poem gives an account of some of the great tragedies and hardships of a number of folks from Anglo-Saxon and Germanic literature and legend, as can be seen in the opening lines:
Wayland experienced torment from serpents [swords?]
The strong-minded noble, he endured hardships,
Sorrow and longing were his companions,
In wintry exile, he often found misery …
Cheerful stuff. The full story that this particular verse refers to is told in the tongue-twisting Völundarkviða poem, from Old Norse (the language of the Vikings), and it is much worse than the brief excerpts related here. It was a story well known by the Germanic, Viking, and Anglo-Saxon peoples, who had many shared myths and cultural traditions.
Back to the “Deor” poem: it recounts various examples of suffering. Another verse reads:
We have heard of Eormanric’s wolfish mind;
He ruled men in many places
In the Goths’ realm—that was a grim king.
Many a man was surrounded by sorrows,
Expecting misery, he often wished
That the kingdom would be overcome.
That went by, so may this.
Each verse always ends with the same line: “That went by [or passed away], so may this.”
The stanzas revel in short stories of misery and death, telling us that the poet wishes “this” to pass away also, as these other sorrows did. So, what is the mysterious “this” that the poet alludes to? We find out in the last section, where he reveals that he was once an exalted poet to a lord who was dislodged from his position by someone else:
I will say this of myself:
For some time I was the Heodenings’ poet,
Dear to my lord, my name was “Deor.”
For many years I had a good position,
And a loyal lord until now that Heorrenda,
The man skilled in song, has received the estate
That the warriors’ guardian had given to me.
That went by, so may this.
That’s it. That’s the great tragedy. He was fired, laid off, given the boot; that’s the equivalent of all of these other heroic tragedies. Mass murder, imprisonment, torture, tyranny, unwanted pregnancy from a rape … all of that is easy, but losing his job? Now we’re talking disaster. To be fair, when and if such a thing happened, the scop couldn’t just go down to the local Anglo-Saxon unemployment office at the end of the village and collect a bagful of coins for a few weeks. Being cast out of a lord’s service could be akin to banishment, along with the shame that accompanied such a fate, and there was no guarantee of being accepted elsewhere. So maybe he does have a right to whine after all.
Actually, the writer probably wasn’t giving us his autobiography. The entire work is a fiction, with mythological content and probable ironic intent. Indeed, in this final verse, the poet speaks of being set out on his wretched path by the gods and serving mythical lords. He says Heorrenda, one of the names for the god Woden (Odin), has greater skill. Of course he does; Odin was the god of poets and verse-makers as well as war (the two often went hand in hand in that culture, with poetry existing to exalt the deeds of warriors). Really, Deor never had a chance; who can compete with a god, especially the god of the very same skill as the poet?
So, was “Deor” a real person giving some kind of odd autobiography laced with mythic imagery, perhaps to hide the real names of those whom he served and his replacement? Or is it all merely a clever literary device written in imitation of earlier oral poems and songs? We don’t know for certain, but it makes for a fascinating glimpse into the possible world of Anglo-Saxon performance, and its stirring imagery is written in the words that are roots of our modern English language.
Adémar de Chabannes (998/99–1034)
Forging new alliances
Adémar was a monk, scribe, and writer of liturgical music (i.e., chant) at the abbey of St. Martial in the Limoges area of central France. He has the distinction of being the first medieval composer we know of who wrote surviving music in his own hand (quite rightly known as his “autograph”). But old Adémar has another, far more interesting distinction than this; he was also a forger of audacious proportions, who seemed not to care in the slightest about the possibility of getting caught or the consequences of his actions.
A pilgrims’ legend had been circulating concerning a certain St. Martial, a third-century saint who had lived and preached in and around Limoges. One legend claims that he had actually lived earlier and been one of Christ’s original apostles. This strange tale found favor with Adémar for unknown reasons—perhaps because it built up the prestige of the region—and he set about doing everything he could to make it official. He forged a biography of Martial, and then wrote and borrowed mass music in support of the idea that Martial lived in the time of Christ. When a wandering monk, Benedict of Chiusa, learned of Adémar’s actions in 1029, he immediately denounced them as fraudulent and heretical. The whole thing seemed on the verge of collapsing, but Adémar wasn’t about to give up.
Instead he invented an entire church council, set in 1031, that supposedly confirmed St. Martial’s status; he even forged a letter from then-Pope John XIX that did the same. You would think that making up such obvious lies would have landed him in very hot water, but this doesn’t seem to have been the case. He continued with his forgeries and eventually went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1034, where he died of unknown causes.
Before he left, he had seen to it that his writings were deposited in the monastery library, where they continued contributing to the myth. Martial was venerated as an original apostle in the region through the nineteenth century. It was only in the 1920s that a historian by the name of Louis Saltet uncovered the web of lies and deceits woven by Adémar, and even then historians didn’t fully acknowledge his crimes until a good while later. Somehow he got away with his crazy fictions and not only escaped the wrath of the Church authorities, but also contributed to a false history that endured for almost a thousand years. It makes those fake diaries allegedly by Hitler, Elvis, and others look even stupider for their quick rates of failure.
Taillefer (mid-eleventh century)
The world cannot be governed without juggling
Taillefer was said to be a Norman (i.e., northern French) musician and minstrel in the service of William the Conqueror. William had a claim to the throne of England and, as every student of history knows, invaded the south English coast in 1066, defeated the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Hastings in October of that year, and changed the course of English and world history.
His victory wasn’t a foregone conclusion, however. The English had a better strategic position (up on a hill) and were pretty fired up. They’d just kicked some serious Viking butt up north a few days earlier, stopping an invasion by King Harald of Norway and killing him in the process. They weren’t about to give up easily to a bunch of Frenchmen with outrageous accents (though the Normans were originally Vikings too, hence their name). William had his work cut out for him.
According to legend, as the battle was about to commence, Taillefer bravely rode out to confront and terrify the Anglo-Saxons … by juggling. Actually, it must have been an impressive sight. He juggled a sword and spear, to the opposition’s great a
musement, no doubt. They probably figured that if this was the best the Normans could do, the whole thing would be over quickly; they’d hand William’s boys their Norman behinds and be home for mead and mutton (and maybe even a recital of “Deor”) in no time. Their amusement ended abruptly when Taillefer unexpectedly flung the spear at a Saxon noble and killed him. The enraged English immediately charged and engulfed him; it was said that an Englishman named Leofwine killed him.
But Taillefer’s brave sacrifice inspired the Norman troops. Another account says that he had recited the epic Chanson de Roland to the soldiers earlier in the day for morale building, though other evidence places the composition of this poem a few decades later. The Normans ultimately won the day and transformed England, and English history, forever. Did one musician contribute to all of that?
Whether the story is true or not (probably not), a lot of later medieval writers thought it was, and several mentioned him in the context of the Battle of Hastings as playing an important role. So a word to the wise … or at least to kings: beware of jugglers!
William IX (1071–1126)
Excommunication, eh, whatever
Also known as Guilhèm de Peitieus (say that three times fast), William was the Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony (both in modern-day southwestern France) and the Count of Poitou (known there as William VII) from 1086 until his death. He is recognized today as the first identifiable troubadour, at least the first whose poems have survived.
And a brief clarification here: “troubadour” in its original definition is not a generic term for a minstrel going about in tights and pointy shoes, strumming lutes under windows and ducking various pieces of rotten fruits and vegetables thrown at him. It actually refers to a specific group of poet-musicians who were prominent in what is now southern France from the early twelfth to the mid-thirteenth centuries. They could even be nobles (as in William’s case) and women (from whom a small but important number of poems survive). Their poetry is exquisite and quite sophisticated. Written in Occitan—a lovely Romance language related to modern Catalan in northeastern Spain—nearly 250 such poems survive with their music (there are many more poems preserved with their texts only). The song topics are varied, but often are about love (of course) and the pain it can bring (of course). But there are also satires, religious poems, and debates among the surviving works.
William was not the sensitive poetic type. He was basically a lustful, violent brute, a hothead who made bad decisions and whose actions got him in trouble on several occasions. He also happened to write good songs, not unlike a modern rock star.
As a military leader, on the other hand, he seems to have been fairly useless. Pushed into going on a crusade in 1101 (peer pressure was as effective then as it is now), he accomplished nothing and got most of his men killed when ambushed by the Turks not once, but several times. By the time he returned home, he obviously hadn’t learned anything from his brushes with death and proceeded to flip off the Church establishment. He was excommunicated twice, a real accomplishment! The first time was in 1114, apparently for violating various Church tax laws and privileges. He didn’t take too kindly to the idea. When Bishop Peter of Poitiers was due to read the bad news to him, he threatened said bishop at sword point with death, unless the bishop absolved him. William was nothing if not direct. The bishop pretended to comply, completed the excommunication once William’s sword was withdrawn, and then calmly offered his neck to the enraged duke. William is said to have sheathed his sword and replied that he didn’t love the bishop enough to send him to paradise.
He managed to get back into the good graces of the Church, but then blew it again when he “abducted” the Viscountess Dangereuse (what a great name; it sounds like a pin-up from the 1950s), the wife of none other than his vassal—a lesser lord who had vowed service to him. He took her to his castle in Poitiers; apparently the lady was not exactly an unwilling victim. William’s wife, Philippa, was understandably furious. After unsuccessfully attempting to get him to dismiss his adulterous lover, she retired to a nunnery and died some time later.
William may have shown some remorse for his actions. In the song Pos de chanter he bemoans his predicament, which may well refer to one of his excommunications:
Since I feel like singing,
I will write a verse that I grieve over:
I will never be a vassal anymore
In Poitiers nor in Limoges
For now I will be exiled:
In a dreadful fright, in great peril
He was eventually absolved again by the Church in 1120, and turned his attention to the efforts to fight the Muslim Moors in Spain. However, during his time there, he acquired a taste for Moorish women and apparently tried to set up a Moorish-style harem for himself; so much for the Viscountess.
Although establishing a harem probably kept him busy, William also found the time to write creative and often amusing poems. Of the eleven that we have, only one fragment of a melody survives, and this might not even be his, since the attribution dates to several centuries later. One of the saucier examples describes how he satisfied two noble ladies; the poem is both a boast on his prowess and a tweak on the nose to the establishment to prove that he could do whatever he wanted:
Thereafter Dame Agnes told Dame Ermessen:
“He [William] is stupid, it is clear:
Sister, let’s prepare for merriment and pleasure.”
I lingered for forty-one days that way.
You shall hear how much I f***** them:
One hundred and eighty-eight times,
So much that they nearly broke my equipment and my tool;
And I cannot describe the aching, so much I was taken.
At least he had a sense of humor, if not humility.
Peter Abelard (1079–1142)
The most unkindest cut of all
Abelard was a brilliant French scholar, teacher, and lecturer. These days, he is more known to students of philosophy, at least those who didn’t snooze through Introduction to Medieval Philosophy in their sophomore year. But Abelard was also a gifted composer of music, writing biblical laments and hymns for nuns as well as love songs for Héloïse (more on her in a minute). It was not exactly Top 40 stuff by our standards, but it was all the rage at the time. Unfortunately his Latin love songs do not survive, but six laments do. Written in the style called the planctus, they are based on biblical themes, and the melodies were popular enough to be borrowed and reused in a few later songs—a common practice at the time.
By 1115, he had established himself as one of the principal teachers of philosophy and theology in Paris. According to various accounts, he attracted thousands of enthusiastic students (remember, these were the days before frat parties, beer kegs, and spring break). Abelard eventually grew pretty cocky from the fame and adulation, believing that he could not be defeated in scholarly debates.
Sometime after his rise to prominence, he became the tutor to a beautiful young woman named Héloïse, the niece of a cathedral canon named Fulbert (not to be confused with the nut of a similar name). You can see where this is going; it was all rather like bad Internet fan fiction, but for real. Abelard declared that he was “utterly aflame with [his] passion for this maiden.” Pretty soon the two of them were at it hot and heavy, and apparently everyone knew except poor Fulbert. When he eventually found out, he was naturally very upset and separated the two of them—well, maybe not literally, that would have been awkward.
Of course, like in any good forbidden romance, the two continued to meet in secret, and Héloïse eventually became pregnant, twelfth-century contraception being what it was. Abelard sent her packing off to Brittany for her own protection. Nine months later she gave birth to a son and named him Astrolabe, after the instrument designed for calculating latitude that had recently arrived in Europe from the Islamic world. Seriously. Can you imagine the teasing he must have endured in school?
Anyway, Abelard proposed a secret marriage with Fulbert’s consent, after he had coo
led down. It was secret so that Abelard’s career in the Church could still advance; he was a shrewd thinker even here. She objected, desiring that they remain lovers only, but eventually agreed to the proposal. However, Fulbert did not keep the marriage secret, which forced Héloïse to publicly deny it so that Abelard could keep his position.
The stress of it all led her to seek refuge in the convent of Argenteuil, at Abelard’s request. Fulbert was furious about this, thinking that the ever-crafty Peter had sent her away to become a nun to be rid of her. He plotted his revenge with the help of a few friends. Abelard himself told what happened, saying that in their anger they plotted against him. One night while he was asleep in his lodgings, they entered, having bribed one of his servants. They took their vengeance on him in a cruel and terrible way, shocking those who learned of it. Abelard lamented that they cut off those parts of him that had committed the offense, the parts that were the cause of their sorrow. Two of the perpetrators were later caught and had their eyes and genitals removed.
Thus, poor Abelard was a eunuch, left to seek refuge in a monastery. Héloïse likewise remained in the convent. His six musical laments date from this time, which is understandable, since he had a lot to lament about. The two former lovers continued to correspond for the rest of their lives, leaving behind a mixture of letters, philosophical discussions, and even a declaration from Abelard that he never really loved her, though the sincerity of this is certainly debatable. On the other hand, considering the loss of his most valued personal possessions, he may have been rather bitter.
Marcabru (fl. 1129–1150)
Rubbing everyone the wrong way
What little we know about Marcabru comes from two vidas about him. A mixture of fact and legend, vidas were short biographies of troubadours that appeared in much later manuscripts containing their works. Some are more accurate than others, but Marcabru’s don’t appear to be among the factual. We don’t even know if that was his real name. Nevertheless, they variously record that his mother was named Marcabruna, or that he was an orphan abandoned at the door of a wealthy man, and that his original name was Panperdut, or “Lost Bread.” What was with these medieval children’s names?
