Monthly Archives: July 2010

07/27/10

Medieval Women, Riding, and the Side Saddle

Did women ride side saddle or astride in the Middle Ages? 

To the right is a side saddle from the 17th century.  It is clearly designed to limit a woman’s ability to ride athletically–more of a way to carry her from one place to another at a walk, then as a sensible mode of transport. 

This saddle is, however, a later invention.  In England (and Wales) it appears that women in the Middle Ages rode astride much of the time, either on their own or pillion behind a man. Here are two pictures of women riding: The Prioress from The Canterbury Tales (dated to 1532) rides aside and The Wife of Bath (1410) rides astride (the Ellesmere Manuscript, c. the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA).  For more discussion  http://ilaria.veltri.tripod.com/sidesaddle.html 

Riding astride is certainly far more practical, provided the dress or gown a woman wore could be arranged modestly.  Given the voluminous skirts that women often wore, that was perhaps not as difficult as it might appear.  Victorian women, in contrast, wore much narrower skirts and rode aside–it would have been impossible to ride astride in them (probably part of the point) without hiking it to the waist or ‘kilting’ it, as Brother Cadfael does with his monk’s robe.

At the same time, riding aside is a very old custom, all over the world. There are images on Greek Vases of women riding aside: http://www.theoi.com/image/P12.4BThetis.jpg
As well as on Celtic stones, namely the goddess Epona: http://www.epona.net/depictions/strasbourg.jpg

It is odd, then, that “history credits Anne of Bohemia (1366-1394) with introducing the earliest version of a functional sidesaddle, a crude chair-like affair with a planchette (small foot rest) her design no doubt inspired by having to ride swaddled in elaborate gowns.”  http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/hgarrett/medst300/forum/messages/78.html

Perhaps it is, rather, that she (re) introduced the side saddle to Europe.

07/15/10

King Arthur’s Round Table

 . . . has not been found, despite recent news to the contrary.

This article states with the very generalized ‘historians believe’ that King Arthur’s round table is actually the ampitheatre in the City of Chester.  When the Romans abandoned Britain, they left their forts and roads behind.  Many archaeologists believe that in the ensuing chaos, the Britons no longer used the ampitheatres for their original purpose, if they used them at all.  As I said in this post of the Romans, “within a generation or two, little trace of them, except for their roads and ruined forts–and their religion, Christianity–remained.  Everything had fallen into disrepair.  The ‘Saxons’ descended from the east, the Scots from the North, and the Irish from the West, driving the original Britons west, into what is now Wales.”

The Chester ampitheatre was discovered in the 1960′s and is an ongoing project and subject to fifty years of speculation and research.  Archaeologists have found evidence of some Dark Age use, as well as a recylcling of it for homes and protection by around 1200 AD: 

http://www.chester.gov.uk/amphitheatre/histsofar.htm

It might have been King Arthur’s round table, if he had one, but that is not something that they’ve discovered just yet, despite the claims of the ‘Camelot historian’, Chris Gidlow who states: “In the 6th Century, a monk named Gildas, who wrote the earliest account of Arthur’s life, referred to both the City of Legions and to a martyr’s shrine within it. That is the clincher. The discovery of the shrine within the amphitheatre means that Chester was the site of Arthur’s court and his legendary Round Table.”

As I pointed out here, one of the huge issues, central to the question of whether or not King Arthur existed, was that GILDAS NEVER MENTIONS HIM AT ALL!

The first mention of King Arthur’s round table was in the Roman de Brut by Wace (c. 1155), writing from Normandy and working off Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, which itself is a highly suspect historical document. (see http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/?p=341)

King Arthur might have existed and had a round table.  It might even mean the ampitheatre of the City of Chester, but the present evidence has certainly not clinched it.

07/13/10

Guest Post: Anna Elliott, author of “Twilight of Avalon”

Why I love Arthurian Stories

In the Spring of 2007, I woke up from a very vivid dream of telling my mother that I was going to write a book about the daughter of Modred, son of Arthur and the great villain of the Arthurian cycle of tales.  I’d been writing historical fiction and sending books around to agents and editors, always coming close to being published but never actually getting a book sold.  I was four months pregnant with my first baby at the time, and had been starting to think that as much as I loved writing, maybe a professional career wasn’t going to happen for me–or at least not for some time.

            Something about this dream, though, just wouldn’t let me go.  I had been an English major in college with a focus on Medieval literature and history, and had fallen in love with the Arthurian world and the Arthur legends then.  I started to do some preliminary research, reading books that explored the possibility of a real, historical Arthur–who if he existed at all would, scholars agreed, have been a 5th century British warlord, possibly one who made a victorious stand against the Saxon tribes invading Britain at the time–a far cry from the king of Camelot who’s come down to us in the tales. 

            At the same time, though, I was reminded of why I’d fallen in love with the Arthur stories in the first place.  The world of the legends is a recognizably historical one, part of our own past–and yet it’s also a world that has the wonderful potential for magic and enchantment.  So as I was reading, I started to build my own version of that world in my head–one that was a blending of legend and late 5th century British history, truth and tale.

            In my dream, I’d known only that the main character of my book was going to be Modred’s daughter.  It was only when I was looking over name lists trying to decide on one for my heroine that the name “Isolde” leaped off the page at me and made me turn back to the story of Trystan and Isolde.  The Trystan and Isolde legend is a later addition to the Arthurian cycle, very much grounded in a courtly, chivalric, 13th century world.  And yet it, too, has its roots in earlier legends and traditions that still echo faintly in the story as it has come down to us today.  I started to wonder what those earliest traditions might have been, what the story might have looked like at its first inception during the chaos and violence of Dark Age Britain, the “real” Arthurian age.

            That was how the story started to frame itself in my mind as a trilogy: Twilight of Avalon, Dark Moon of Avalon, and Sunrise of Avalon.  Three books that would weave together the scraps we knew of 5th century British history with the earliest versions of both the Arthurian and the Trystan and Isolde tales.

            From the first, I’d known that my story was going to be a kind of sequel to the Arthur tales, a chance to explore what might have happened after the battle of Camlann, after Arthur was wounded and carried away to be healed on the mist shrouded Isle of Avalon.  And that idea, too, held tremendous appeal for me, in that it gave me a chance to see a different side of the Arthurian story. 

            I think one of the most captivating, the most moving aspects of the Arthur stories is their ability to show us the highest potentials for human nobility, human honor and courage.  And yet the story always ends in tragedy, with the battle of Camlann where Arthur falls, betrayed by all those he loved best. 

            His legend though, still lives, still gives us an ideal to strive for.  That was the feeling that stayed with me in reading the original Arthur stories–and the feeling I wanted the characters in my trilogy to have, as well.  The title of my book is Twilight of Avalon, because in many ways it’s set at a turning point, the end of the age defined by Arthur the king.  But I wanted my Trystan and Isolde to be able to hold onto the ideals of the Arthurian world, even if that world was forever gone.  Because even in the wake of tragedy, life goes on–and there’s always the possibility that someday those ideals will end in victory instead of defeat.  For me, that was one of the joys of writing Twilight of Avalon: to know that this time, in my small corner of the great Arthurian tapestry, the story didn’t have to end at Camlann.

07/11/10

Buried Treasure

The impulse to bury treasure, gold, or much-valued objects is long-standing.

“An amateur treasure hunter armed with a metal detector has found over 52,000 Roman coins worth $1 million buried in field, one of the largest ever such finds in the UK, said the British Museum.

Dave Crisp, a hospital chef, came across the buried treasure while searching for “metal objects” in a field near Frome, Somerset in south-western England.”   http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/09/uk.roman.coin.treasure/

“The find includes more than 760 coins from the reign of Carausius, the Roman naval officer who seized power in 286 and ruled until he was assassinated in 293.

“The late third century A.D. was a time when Britain suffered barbarian invasions, economic crises and civil wars . . . Roman rule was finally stabilized when the Emperor Diocletian formed a coalition with the Emperor Maximian, which lasted 20 years. This defeated the separatist regime which had been established in Britain by Carausius.” 

An interesting question about this is why was the treasure buried?  The natural response is because the person needed to perserve it–whether because his villa was under attack, or he thought it would be, or merely from robbers.

Throughout the millenia, burying treasure was a common response to attack, in hopes of perserving it.  This is a Roman hoard, but after the Romans left and the Saxons came, Britons all along the east coast of England buried their treasure–and by the number of hoards that have been found, very few were able to return to claim it.

Last year, a hoard of Anglo-Saxon coins was discovered in central England. The so-called Staffordshire Hoard, the largest hoard of Saxon gold every found, included more than 1,500 objects.

Of it, Kevin Leahy, National Finds Advisor states, “Most of the gold and silver items appear to have been deliberately torn from the objects to which they were originally attached. We have over 80 gold and garnet pommel caps, and there also appear to be fittings from helmets.

This is not simply loot; swords were being singled out for special treatment. If it was just gold they were after we would have found the rich fittings from sword belts. Perhaps gold fittings were stripped from the swords to depersonalise them – to remove the identity of the previous owner. The blades then being remounted and reused.

It looks like a collection of trophies, but it is impossible to say if the hoard was the spoils from a single battle or a long and highly successful military career. We also cannot say who the original, or the final, owners were, who took it from them, why they buried it or when. it will be debated for decades.

We don’t know how it came to be buried in that field, it may have been  . . . concealed in the face of a perceived, but all too real, threat, which led to it not being recovered.”

http://www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/interview/