Difference between revisions of "Aeldred of Rievaulx"

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In penance for smelling a book before it's owner... Aelred of Rievaulx, De Bello Standardi.

When the fragility of their scottish [sic] lances had been mocked by the solidity of iron and wood, they tried to content face to face with their swords drawn. But the southern gadflies, boiling up out of the hollow quivers and flying around like heavy rain, violently attacked the breasts, faces, and eyes of every one in their way, greatly hindering their effort. You might see a Galwegian stuck all around by arrows like the spines of a hedgehog, but shaking his sword nonetheless, now rushing forward to slaughter the enemy as if in a blind madness, now beating the empty air with futile blows. At last, completely terrified, they melted away in flight.
Then the illustrious youth, the king's son, coming forward with his own line, hurled himself against the wing opposite him with the savagery of a lion, and when he had broken the part of the southern throng like a spider's web, he went ahead of the king's ensign to kill everyone in his way.[1]

[1] Aelred of Rievaulx: The Historical Works, tr. Jane Patricia Freeland (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2005), 266. The Latin appears in PL 195, 710-711. Ubi vero ferri lignique soliditate Scoticarum lancerum est delusa fragilitas, eductis gladiis cominus decertare tentabant. Sed australes muscæ de cavernis pharetrarum ebullientes, et instar denissimæ pluviæ convolantes, et in obstantium pectora, vultum, oculos quoque importunius irruentes, conatum illorum plurimum retardabant. Videres ut hericium spinis ita Galwensem sagittis undique circumseptum, nihilominus vibrare gladium, et cæca quadam amentia proruentem nunc hostem cædere, nunc inanem aerem cassis ictibus verberare. Et jamjam percussi pavore extremi quique dissolvebantur in fugam, cum inclytus adolescens filius regis cum sua superveniens acie in adversum sibi cornu leonina se ferocitate proripuit, ipsaque globi australis parte instar cassis araneæ dissipata, obstantes quosque cædendo ultra regium signum progressus est, ratusque reliquum exercitum secutum iri, et hostibus fugæ præsidium toleret, equorum stationem invasit, dispersit, ac retro usque ad duo stadia redire coegit.

Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167) concerning the Battle of the Standard (1138), in which William of Aumale halted David I of Scotland’s advance into ‘Anglo-Norman’ England. As with the Genealogia regum Anglorum, it was composed around 1153-1154, at the closing of the Anarchy, prior to the death of King Stephen, for his successor Henry of Anjou. Both texts articulate a desire for a peaceful and just ruler (while, in the case of DBS, charting the deeds of Walter Espec, the patron of Rievaulx Abbey).

* * *

The spider’s web I can think of no comparisons – Bruce’s spider is a Walterscottism. Am curious to see if there are any other motifs. The rest are quite common, albeit not so close to each other in a single text.

Regarding the hedgehog/arrows comparison, this appears in Abbo of Fleury’s Vita s. Edmundi:

The palace is surrounded, Edmund stands before Inguar as Christ before Pilate. After being mocked and beaten, he is tied to a tree and lashed. Following this he is used as target-practice with arrows until he looks like a hedgehog.[1]

There is also this dream of a deacon in one of the lives of Becket, though without arrows; it is an embellishment of Isaiah 34.

The king of England was hunting in Wabridge forest with all his archbishops, bishops, barons, nobles, priors and abbots, when a hedgehog sprang out in front of them, roused by the clamour of the hunters. When they saw it they all began to chase it, harrying it with shouts and mockery. But the hedgehog outran the throng and hastened to the sea, not in a straight line but in a more winding path, carrying on his back the book entitled The Acts of the Apostles. None of those who followed was without a bodily flaw, but seemed either blind, one-eyed or lame, or to have mutilated lips or nose. And when eventually the hedgehog came back to the sea, it plunged and it did not emerge again. Seeing this, those who had been in pursuit turned back. And behold a thick dark cloud arose and covered the face of the earth, and a shower of blood fell. The king then turned aside to the royal hall set up in that place, and he sat in it, after he had put on a long white robe of linen, and placed around his head wolves’ tails as a garland. But the blood did not cease from spilling down upon him, because the house, being in a deserted place, did not have a waterproof roof, and through the wolves’ tails hanging down it flowed into his garment. And when it had filled his garment and its winding folds, it began to flow out, and as it overflowed it filled even his mouth.[2]

But I think in the De bello standardii it’s a purely visual image, rather than any religious connotation, since the audience (Henry) is meant to feel no sympathy for the Galwegians; rather, the Scottish David, whom Aelred was highly sympathetic to (owing to a ten year court service, and apparent in his eulogy Vita Davidis Scotorum regis, which is typically attached to Genealogia regum Anglorum) receives criticism from Aelred for employing soldiers responsible for massacres, murders, rapes, etc etc.

The lion is widespread symbol of kingship. There is a very interesting article on a piece of church sculptor including Samson overcoming the lion that was made during the German Investiture contest, which presents itself a symbol of the Church overcoming and controlling the kings.[3]And there is the famous and much discussed scene of the Cid taming an escaped lion, while the useless Infantes cower away.[4]But since DBS is a product of the Normans, a brief look at them is suffice. They were clearly taken by the image.

There is of course Henry I’s use of the lion image, and the belief in propagated in Henry II’s court that the Conqueror conquered England under the banner of golden lions.[5]

In an earlier case of Norman history writing, in Dudo’s Historia Normannorum (c. 1015-1030), the Viking Hasting is described as such in his frenzied attacks on the Franks in the 9th century, in a comparison that compares his behaviour to a wolf and a lion.[6]

In comparison, William of Jumièges Gesta Normannorum Ducum (prior to 1060) uses the wolf/lion comparison more sharply. The pagan Rollo and his son William get baptised: Rollo, who keeps his pagan ways, “emerges from the font “a ravening wolf” [et exit rapacissmus lupis]” and so “attracts lupine allusions” as his “pagan pack steals into the sheepfold of Christ, burning down churches, leading women captive, slaughtering the people” – the “twilight wolves (lupi vespere) of Zephaniah 3.3 – while Rollo’s Christian son William Longsword is introduced as a lion.[7]

During the Crusades, there’s a ‘Frankinization’ of the armed pilgrims in the Frank-orientated sources.[8]So there is Godfrey, who in battle becomes like a lion,[9]and similarly, Bohemond.[10]

[1] Quoted in Marco Mostert, The Political Theology of Abbo of Fleury (Hilversum: Verloren, 1987), 42. I haven’t located the PL 139.

[2] Michael Staunton, Thomas Becket and his Biographers (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006) 164. The Latin is in Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, vol. 1, 41-42. The online version has recently been taken down.

[3] "Finally, there is the representation of Samson rending the lion (fig. 5, upper panel), which is unrelated to the main cycle and yet summarizes its message. The meaning of this scene has been clarified by Tosco, who traced exegetical sources from Isidore of Seville in the seventh century to the Glossa Ordinaria in the twelfth, and showed that the submission of the lion to Samson was often understood symbolically as the submission of the kings of the earth to the Church". Anat Tcherikover, 'Reflections of the Investiture Controversy at Nonantola and Modena, Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte, 60. 2 (1997), 158

[4] Paul R. Olson, ‘Symbolic Hierarchy in the Lion Episode of the Cantar de Mio Cid,’ MLN 77. 5 (1962): 499-511. David Hook, ‘Some Observations upon the Episode of the Cid’s Lion,’ MLR 71. 3 (1976): 553-564. E. Michael Gerli, ‘The Ordo Commendationis Animae and the Cid Poet,’ MLN 95. 2 (1980): 436-441.

[5] For a brief discussion, see David Crouch, The Normans: The History of a Dynasty (London: Hambledon, 2007), 291.

[6] “Round the walls of strongholds, he roars as the wolf round the folds of the sheep. He scorns the Franks, fearfully withdrawn behind their fortifications. He persecutes all men, as the lion the deer.” Dudo of St. Quentin, History of the Normans, tr. Eric Christiansen (Boydell: Woodbridge, 1998) 17.

[7] All this is from Emily Albu, The Normans in their Histories: Propaganda, Myth and Subversion (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), 63-64.

[8] C.f. Plumtree’s Budapest MA thesis, featuring lions (briefly).

[9] “Godfrey was handsome, of lordly bearing, eloquent, of distinguished character, and so lenient with his soldiers as to give the impression of being a monk rather than a soldier. However when he realised that his enemy was at hand and battle imminent, his courage became abundantly evident and like a roaring lion he feared the attack of no man. What breastplate or shield could withstand the thrust of his sword?” Carol Sweetenham, Robert the Monk’s History of the First Crusade: Historia Iherosolimitana (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 84. Godefrido, qui erat Eustachii Boloniensis comitis filius, sed officio dignitatis dux erat Teuthonicus. Hic vultu elegans, statura procerus, dulcis eloquio, moribus egregious, et in tantum militibus lenis, ut magis in se monachum quam militem figuraret. Hic tamen quum hostem sentiebat adesse et imminere prælium, tunc audaci mente concipiebat animum, et, quasi leo frendens, ad nullius pavebat occursum. Et quæ lorica vel clypeus sustinere poterat impetum mucronis illius? Recuil des Historiens des Croisades: Historiens Occidentaux 3 (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1886), 731-732.

[10] Fuit itaque ille, undique signo crucis munitus, qualiter leo perpessus famem per tres aut quatuor dies, qui exiens a suis cauernis, rugiens ac sitiens sanguinem pecudum sicut improuide ruit inter agmina gregum, dilanians oues fugientes huc et illuc; ita agebat iste inter agmina Turcorum. Rosalind Hill, Gesta Francorum: Deeds of the Franks and Other Pilgrims to Jerusalem (1962; reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 36.

Work in Progress

text by James Plumtree