Medieval ideas of love and marriage



“Love and marriage, love and marriage, they go together like a horse and carriage” ...well, not so much in medieval times!
Margaret of York, Richard III and Edward IV’s sister, was promised to half a dozen men before her brother Edward finally gave her to a brute of a man, Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. And she never met any of the gentlemen and only met Charles a couple of days before their formal betrothal in Damme, near Bruges, in 1478 when she was the ripe old age of 22. For Edward it was a political win; for Margaret it meant leaving her family and her homeland for ever (well, except for a three-month visit back to England in 1480 to negotiate trade agreements for her new country) and being saddled with a man without scruples and very few morals.
Sometimes--in the case of King Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou--one or other had someone stand proxy for them and you might be married before you even saw your husband! Imagine dreaming about your knight in shining armor or your Guinevere and being forced to live the rest of your days with Eygor from Frankenstein or Cruella Deville. Yes, a familiar love grew between couples in many cases, but it was hardly what we know today as conjugal bliss! Romantic love was most definitely missing for these very often mismatched pairs, so was it any wonder a young woman would fantasize about love and romance and be susceptible to flirtations.
Yet woe betide those who lived out their fantasies; their reputations would be lost and, in many cases, suitable marriages as well. Somehow, and why are we not surprised, this was not the case with young men, who were expected to have their flings--often leaving bastards in their wakes. Richard III and Edward IV were good examples, although Richard is thought to have stayed true to his wife, Anne Neville, once they were married. Edward, on the other hand, enjoyed his mistresses until his death at 40 in 1483, and his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, had to grin and bear it.
It was delightful, therefore, to come across a love-match between Cecily Neville and Richard, duke of York, who were the subjects of my fourth book QUEEN BY RIGHT. For all his other faults, their third son who survived childhood, George of Clarence, managed to retain a spotless reputation for fidelity with his wife, Isabel.
In ROYAL MISTRESS, the fifth book in my series about the York family in the Wars of the Roses, my protagonist is Jane (born Elizabeth) Shore, Edward IV’s final and favorite mistress. Although she was not born noble, she was born into a well-to-do merchant family in the city of London and all the same rules applied: be demure, obey your father and marry whomever he chooses for you. In that class, the gain might be a merger in business, prestige for the family or a way for a father to divest himself of a mouth to feed.
Jane managed to avoid marriage to anyone until she was in her 20s, older than was usual, because many contracts were arranged between families when their offspring were only a few years old. But these young people might live at opposite ends of the country from each other and never meet until the legal age for marriage arrived: 12 for girls and 14 for boys. And so early in the medieval period, the troubadours began to sing about love and romance, which quickly spread to literature and, pretty soon, anyone born with a silver spoon in his or her mouth was caught up in what we would probably call affairs today.
We now refer to this idealized version of romance as “courtly love.” We would laugh at it now as it was exaggerated and artificial; we would also deem it highly dangerous as its most exciting aspect was secrecy. When a knight or lord fancied a lady, he was supposed to let her know by sending her secret gifts, singing her songs or penning flowery poems. The lady on the other hand was supposed to only afford her pining lover a mere nod of approval and hint at affection. The relationship was more of a mistress dominating her servant, and the men apparently went for it.
At the beginning of ROYAL MISTRESS, Jane meets a handsome young man, Tom Grey, and falls headlong in love with him. She so desperately wants to know what real love is, according to her poetry books (and Jane was quite literate, BTW), that she can’t help but begin the game of courtly love, much to Tom’s chagrin! Even when he tells Jane he is not free to love her, she believes this is all part of the game, because she knows for it to be true romantic love, it had to be hidden.
Everyone knew that marriage was just for begetting children, thus real love was precious and lovers should be allowed to carry on in secret. Andrew the Chaplain, a medieval clergyman, wrote: “Love rarely survives when it becomes common knowledge.” And Heloise is said to have told her lover Abelard: “The love freely given matters. The name of ‘wife’ may seem more sacred or more worthy, but sweetest to me will always be the words ‘lover, concubine or whore.’” Jane Shore ended up living her fantasy first with King Edward, then his chamberlain and friend, Will Hastings, and finally with Tom Grey.
The story of how she weathered marriage and annulment with William Shore and came to be Edward’s “merriest” mistress, is the stuff of fairy tales. But when her lovers let her down--two by dying and the third by lying--her fall was more the fodder of nightmares. Jane experienced the whole gamut of love between men and women: filial love, romantic love, friendship, sensual love, true love and conjugal love--and some with the same man! ROYAL MISTRESS explores them all and I hope gives us a woman we can all relate to today.

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