The Troubadour's Song Read online

  Troubadour's Song

  By the Same Author

  Funny Money

  The Tyranny of Numbers

  Authenticity

  Troubadour's Song

  The Capture, Imprisonment and Ransom of Richard the Lionheart

  DAVID BOYLE

  Copyright © 2005 by David Boyle

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

  transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or

  mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any

  information storage and retrieval system, without permission

  in writing from the Publisher.

  First published in the United States of America in 2005 by

  Walker Publishing Company, Inc. Originally published in

  Great Britain in 2005 by Penguin.

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from

  this book, write to Permissions, Walker & Company,

  104 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is

  available from the Library of Congress

  eISBN 978-0-802-71820-4

  Visit Walker & Company's Web site at www.walkerbooks.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  For Robin

  born 15 July 2004

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Maps

  Dramatis Personae

  Family Trees

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue: The Legend of Blondel

  1. The Courts of Love

  2. The Age of Light

  3. Paris and Jerusalem

  4. Acre

  5. Setting Sail

  6. Disguise

  7. Blondel's Song

  8. Prison

  9. A King's Ransom

  10. The Return of the King

  11. The Very Last Day of Chivalry

  Epilogue: The Legend of Blondel, Reprise

  Appendix: Richard's Prison Song — Written in Captivity, Summer 1193

  Notes and Sources

  Select Bibliography

  List of Illustrations

  Section One

  1. Three generations of English kings: Henry II, Richard I, Henry III and John.

  (clockwisefrom top left)

  2. A French troubadour or possibly a jongleur.

  3. Lancelot and Guinevere kiss for the first time.

  4. Minstrels below the table.

  5. A crusader knight.

  6. The coronation of Richard I.

  7. The king and his entourage set off on crusade.

  8. Richard's neglected queen, Berengaria of Navarre.

  9. Philip Augustus, Richard's former passionate friend.

  10. Philip shocks the English by leaving Palestine before the end of the crusade.

  11. Richard I the Lionheart and Hugues III de Bourgogne claiming victory over Sultan Saladin and his army at the Battle of Arsuf 14 September 1191.

  12. The engraver Gustave Dore's view of Richard's dramatic assault from the sea at Jaffa.

  13. Richard's arrest in a kitchen outside Vienna.

  14. Arrested in disguise by two soldiers, Richard kneels before the clean-shaven emperor.

  Section Two

  15. The scene of Blondel's song: Diirnstein and its castle as it was in 1650.

  16. Ornate gloves played a key role in Richard's arrest.

  17. by Charles Alston Collins, 1850.The Pedlar

  18. Behind the Holy Family is Vienna as it was in the fifteenth century; the walls were built with the money from Richard's ransom.

  19. Two scenes from Richard's life: languishing in prison and then attacking Philip in Gisors.

  20. Richard's emotional speech at Speyer in March 1193.

  21. Richard's legendary encounter with the lion.

  22. One of Blondel's songs.

  23. A thirteenth-century map of Watling Street, Richard and Eleanor's route home, showing Dover, Canterbury, Rochester and London.

  24. Coins changing hands.

  25. Old London Bridge, late eighteenth century, as the bridge would have appeared for much of the medieval period.

  26. Salisbury Cathedral, the English version of the new Gothic style.

  27. Richard's half-brother William Longspee, the first to be buried in Salisbury Cathedral.

  28. Richard's effigy on his tomb, now empty, at Fontevrault.

  29. Blondel's song as a classic children's story, from Agnes Grozier Herbertson's 1911 book Heroic Legends.

  31. by Daniel Maclise. Robin Hood and his Merry Men entertaining Richard the Lionheart in Sherwood Forest

  Illustration Acknowledgements

  1 British Library, London. MS Cotton Claudius D. VI, fol. 9V. Photograph AKG-images, London; 2 Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Fr 854, fol. 230; 3 Pierpont Morgan Library, New York/Art Resource; 4 British Library, London/The Art Archive; 5 British Library, London. MS Roy 2A XXII, fol. 220; 6 Chetham's Library, Manchester. Photograph Bridgeman Art Library; 7 Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS NAL 1390, fol. 57V; 8 Giraudon Picture Agency, Paris; 9 Conway Library, London; 10 British Library, London. MS Royal 16 G VI, fol. 35OV. Photograph AKG-images, London; 11 Musée du Château de Versailles. Photograph © RMN/Gerard Blot; 12 Private Collection. Photograph Bridge-man Art Library/Ken Welsh; 13 Austrian National Library, Vienna; 14 Burgherbibliothek, Bern. Cod. 120 II, fol, 129r. Photograph AKG-images, London; 15 from Dürnstein, Edition Gottfried Rennhofer, Korneuburg, Austria; 16 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; 17 Manchester City Art Gallery; 18 Museum in Schottenstift, Vienna; 19 British Library, London. Miscellaneous Chronicle, MS Cotton Vit. A XIII, fol. 5. Photograph AKG-images, London; 20 Archiv für Kunst und Geschichte; 21 From John Gillingham, Richard 1 (Yale, 1999); 22 Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Nouv. Acq. Fr. 1050, fol. 77V; 23 British Museum, London. MS Royal 14C VIII; 24 Archivo Iconografico, SA/Corbis; 25 Photograph Museum of London/HIP; 26 Photograph by Stefan Drechsel/AKG-images, London; 27 From Charles Knight, Old England: A Museum of Popular Antiquities, Vol. 1, c. 1860; 28 Photograph Amelot/AKG-images, London; 29 Illustration by Helen Stratton from Agnes Grozier Herbertson, Heroic Legends (London, 1911); 30 Nottingham City Museums and Galleries (Nottingham Castle). Photograph Bridgeman Art Library.

  Dramatis Personae

  Acknowledgements

  Three encounters shaped the process of writing this book for me. The first was clambering up, on what seemed the hottest day of my life, to the ruins of Diirnstein Castle in Austria — the traditional spot for the legend of Blondel's song — and gazing down on the sloping vineyards and the Danube snaking along below. The second was sitting in candlelight during the atmospheric annual Advent service in Salisbury Cathedral, next to the tomb of William Longspee, the last of Richard the Lionheart's brothers to die, and imagining the scene of his funeral. And the third was in Vienna, while I was researching the book. I told one very helpful historian that I was writing about Richard's imprisonment. 'Ah!' he said. 'You are writing a children's book?' It was confirmation of what I had begun to suspect, that for some reason — and probably the legend of Blondel as much as anything else — the story of Richard's bizarre journey in disguise, his disappearance and his imprisonment has been relegated by serious historians to children's books and romantic novels. It made me all the more determined to write about it.

  There is another reason for their reticence, of course. Although there is considerable evidence about Richard's ransom and home­coming, the chronicles give only the sketchiest details about his journey and arrest, and what evidence there is tends to be contra-dietary. But in the course of my research, I have found that, by retracing the criti
cal parts of the journey, and sifting the local traditions that do not actually contradict each other, it is possible to build a convincing picture of what took place. It may not be definitive throughout and parts of it may not be absolutely certain — though little is certain in medieval history — but you have only to stand on the castle walls at Gorizia in Italy in winter and stare at the icy mountain wall that seems to block any progress to theeast to have an overwhelming sense of which way Richard and his companions fled.

  This book is an attempt to weave together that sort of geogra­phical evidence with local traditions from the route that Richard travelled in 1192 and information from the reliable chronicles — some of them based on eyewitness accounts — that we do possess. It is intended as a popular history, so I have tried not to interrupt the story too much with detailed argument about which legend or chronicle to believe, though some of the sources I have used are outlined in the notes at the back of the book. Throughout the process of researching the story, I have also found myself returning over and over again to the work of three medieval historians in particular. One is John Gillingham, whose dedication to the details of the life and world of King Richard has done so much to dust down his reputation, both as a king and as a military strategist. The second is Christopher Page, whose scholarship has managed to fill in so many gaps in the story of the development of twelfth-century music. The other is my godfather, Peter Spufford, whose pion­eering work on medieval money — and in Power and Profit on the history of trade in Europe — has done so much to reveal the hidden forces behind historical change.

  So many other people have helped me along the way that they are too numerous to list. But I am particularly grateful to Dr Mark Philpott of the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Keble College, Oxford, who read the whole book at a late stage, and whose detailed comments and incisive critique have made it so much better than it would otherwise have been. The remaining mistakes are where I failed to take his advice.

  I also want to mention and thank my father, who read most of the text and whose invaluable comments helped me enormously; my mother for all her encouragement and advice; Sandra Stokes, who read every chapter as it was written; Carol Cornish for all her help over the years, and for her support when I was first researching the story of Blondel; and all my other friends and relatives, who have been forced to talk to me at length about the Middle Ages. Other people I am enormously grateful to include my sister Louisa Crispe for all her help, advice, translation and for making my trips to Paris and Picardy so much fun; Dennis Blandford for his effortless translation of Latin sources and for other invaluable pointers and book loans; Silvia Longo for all her help with the Italian sources and for her wisdom and good sense; Marion Genevray for her patience and enormous help with some of the French sources; G. Linker for his help translating German; Dr Reinhard Pohanka of Wien Museum for his time and generous advice at a busy time; Martin Mosser for all his help with the German and Austrian sources, and especially for his fascinating help with the early history of Erdberg; Esther Jakubowicz for all her help, support and com­panionship in Vienna; Bernard Lietaer for his invaluable insights into money and currencies; Linda Marini for her help at a weak moment in Gorizia; Pierre Le Roy for his time and unique expert­ise about the history of Nesle; Karen Rails for all her advice about Templars; Jerry Blondel for his help about the Blondel family; and John Dillon from Wisconsin University for his help about the fate of Excalibur. I would not have been able to manage without them, though I am the only one responsible for the mistakes. I would also like to thank Claire Clam Martinic for her hospitality in an extraordinary Danube castle. Also the staff at the Warburg Institute and the British Library, both of them wonderful British institutions where resources are smoothly and efficiently put at the disposal of ordinary people like me. Also, mainly for being there, Crow on the Hill Bookshop and Renaissance Books in Crystal Palace.

  My editor at Penguin, Eleo Gordon, has been so supportive and generous with her time from the start, and I could not have done this without her experience and her infinite patience. Nor could I have managed without my agent, Julian Alexander, and his assis­tant, Lucinda Cook, who believed in me and the project from the start, and to whom I owe a very great deal.

  Last but not least, thank you from the bottom of my heart to my wife, Sarah, for putting up with the interminable medieval talk over the past two years, for coming with me to Vienna and on so many other shorter trips, for her advice and encouragement and much else besides.

  There was one other more obscure reason I had for wanting to write this book. Many years ago, and just forty-eight hours before the unexpected death of Pope Paul VI, I was arrested as a disreputable-looking student in Rome, having hitchhiked along the route that Richard originally used to leave England on crusade. I was incarcerated in the former Gestapo prison called — as only Italians would dare call such a place — 'Queen of Heaven', and I was told I would probably be there for two years. I had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the notorious Roman police swooped on two female tourists, and they did not appreciate the fact that my friends and I had witnessed their behaviour. In fact I was imprisoned for only three days: the death of a pope triggers major prisoner releases. But three days locked in a cell for twenty-three hours a day with nine homosexual Egyptian pickpockets — and believing I would be there for years — was, on the whole, a formative experience. Before I finally took the train out of Rome, I spent those days leaning against the bars of my cell door, peering into the great well of the prison and whistling my school song as loudly as I could. This was not something I had ever expected to do, but I hoped that my friend from the same educational establishment, who had been arrested along with me, was some­where in the same building. The clatter of prison life made it impossible to shout, because I would never have been heard, but I thought a whistle might just get through. When I heard the familiar tune echoed back to me, with a rush of relief quite out of proportion to the event, I promised myself that one day I would write about Blondel.

  Prologue: The Legend of Blondel

  'And when the first verse was finished, a voice within the tower took up the second, and sang it quaintly. And it was the voice of Richard.'

  Agnes Grozier Herbertson, 'Richard and Blondel', in

  Heroic Legends, 1911

  The story of Blondel's song is one that everybody seems to know. In many different versions, and with a range of interpretations and subtle meanings, it tells how the faithful minstrel made his way through Germany and Austria in search of the missing King, Richard the Lionheart, singing hopefully under each castle wall. It culminates when, one quiet night under a tower, Blondel's song is taken up and echoed by a familiar voice inside.

  The legend has seeped into our collective consciousness, even though it has been dismissed as serious history for more than a century. Maybe it is the story's whiff of romance, or its ideal version of faithful friendship, or its sheer mythic power, but some­where deep inside, many of us can feel the cold, damp night air as Blondel fingers his lute and tentatively sings the verses he and the king had written together. There is a familiar echo, we sense, about the story, just as Blondel hears the unmistakable echo of his own verse wafting down and realizes that he has found the imprisoned king of England behind the great stone walls.

  Some stories are like that. They have an element of universality about them that means they are repeated generation after genera­tion, and a haunting quality that can't be pinned down by separat­ing the elements and analysing what remains. You can find the story of Blondel in its classic version in dusty Victorian histories of England and Edwardian adventure tales for boys, but a century onthe legend has been allowed to fade a little. The strange story of the arrest of one of the most celebrated kings of medieval England has been relegated by historians to the nursery, while modern publishers feel that the homosexual undertones — which their forebears seem not to have noticed but now appear obvious — make it unsuitable for children.
So Blondel seems destined to join Cinderella, Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood in the realm of fairy tale, but without their mainstream appeal.

  This book takes another look at one of the most romantic stories in the English tradition and makes a plea for its rehabilitation as serious history — not as it stands perhaps, but as a distant memory of the truth behind a bizarre, half-forgotten event in the Middle Ages. Because, unlike Snow White, both Richard and Blondel really existed and the events that provide the backdrop to this story really happened. On his return from the Holy Land, and just before Christmas 1192, Richard I — the king of England and joint leader of the Third Crusade — was arrested and flung into prison. He was threatened with death by his captor and effectively disappeared. He did not get home for nearly sixteen months, and not before his subjects had been forced to pay an unprecedented ransom.