Tag Archives: eyre

Feathers flying at a medieval Gloucestershire talent contest (?)

(Or, ‘Oh for the wings of several doves’)

Here’s a story which doesn’t end well, for at least one man and probably for several medieval birds, but which nevertheless has a certain charm, and affords some interesting glimpses into women and gender as well as fighting.  It comes from the crown pleas section of the rolls for the Eyre of Gloucestershire, 1287.[i]

Jurors of the vill of [Chipping] Campden reported that there had been a bit of a fight there one Sunday in 46 Henry III (1261-2) as a result of goings on at a singing and dancing event for women. Now, the entry does not quite say this, but I assume that this was in some sense a competitive event, with the prize being … pigeons! (Or ‘doves’, if we want to buy into pro-columbidae propaganda strategy…). To be absolutely honest, there is no ‘competition’ word, it just says that the women were singing and dancing ‘for pigeons’. So it could be some weird pigeon-pleasing event laid on by the women of the area, or something of semi-religious significance (doves, Holy Spirit and all that)[ii] or general carolling.

Whatever was going on exactly,[iii] it all turned rather unpleasant. Just like the judgment of Paris, only more … pigeony … it seems there was some dispute as to who should get the pigeons. A certain Walter de Campden wanted to give them to one woman with whom he was connected (I am assuming she was a Campden lass), but others, including Henry [le Parker], groom of Simon le Barber, came and took the doves and gave them to another woman, of their affinity. Thus, the fight was sparked off. Henry shot a man in the belly so that he died at once. Henry then ran away, but was followed by the men of Campden and caught, taken back to  Campden and imprisoned. He was only detained there for two days, however, before a mob of supporters broke him out and took him to Tewkesbury.  The fighting seems to have escalated from that point, and the men of Campden and Tewkesbury clearly had a bit of a beef, and the whole thing was still on their minds in 1287.  Some of those involved had died by 1287. Henry still seems to have been alive, but had fled, and was outlawed.

Of the pigeons and the rival singers and dancers we hear no more, very sadly.

The homicide and the Campden – Tewkesbury rivalry are, of course, interesting, but it’s the nuggets about women singing and dancing in the hope of going home with a pigeon or two that intrigues me. All and any information about social activities beneath the elite level is valuable, and I rather like to think of the excitement that women must have had preparing for this sort of event. Even if it did end in a homicidal bloodbath from time to time …

 

GS

20/3/2022

Image: some pigeons, obvs. Photo by Zac Ong on Unsplash

[i] For other records of the same case, see here, here and here.

[ii]  – though I note that we are not told that it was some special festival – it’s just ‘some Sunday’ in a particular year – and surely if singing for pigeons was attached to some particular feast, surely we would be told what it was …

[iii] [And if anyone thinks I have got this wrong, do let me know – it’s always possible. May well be that every medievalist should know that singing for doves was very much a thing, or meant something utterly different to what I am imagining here … but I have never come across it before.]

Curtesy and crying

A Year Book note on curtesy, and the requirements which a man must meet in order to claim to hold by the curtesy of England (proof of a live birth to his wife – specifically a baby’s cry being heard) YB Trin. 20 Edw I pl 39; Seipp 1292.88 refers to the case of Richard Danyel v Richard de la Bere (Herefordshire Eyre 1292) JUST 1/303 m. 6.  Richard Danyel, claiming the land formerly held by his mother, argued that Richard had not had qualifying issue with Cecily. De la Bere claimed that Cecily had given birth to his (qualifyingly noisy) child at Bishopston. A jury was summoned (the Year Book has some comments on the appropriate place from which to draw a jury when the alleged birth was in one place and the land in another). The jury told a sad tale of a very sick baby and an emergency baptism at home, then a brief visit to the church, after which it died, without having qualified, in auditory terms, as the right kind of offspring to give the father a right to curtesy. The crying test for curtesy is being taken seriously – and, as this case shows, could be used to exclude severely unwell children, even if they appear to have been viewed alive by at least a priest. Richard Danyel did not pursue the case, and should have been amerced for this failure, but was forgiven because he was a minor. Exactly what his role was in this story is unclear, but it does not suggest a happy family.

Herefordshire trespass/alibi case

 

YB Trin 20 Edw I pl. 84; Seipp 1292.133rs is John Lovet v. Walter de la Barre and others (1292), JUST I/303 m. 30d; JUST 1/302 m. 40d, a trespass case brought by John Lovet against Walter de la Barre and 27 other men, alleging that, on a specific day in the fourteenth year of Edward II, at Hereford, the Ds had assaulted and imprisoned P (keeping him for 18 days)  and taken £20 worth of his goods (to his damage, with force and arms contrary to the peace of the lord king). P claimed the damages to him amounted to £40. Two of the defendants pleaded alibis – John Lyghtefot claimed to have been in London on the day named, and William Hamelyn said he had been in Bristol. The matter was sent to the jury. The Yearbook tells us that the remaining defendants made other pleas – suggesting that this was a lawful arrest, and also self defence (when John, who had been involved in a crime, fled and attempted to resist arrest with a sword) rather than an unlawful attack. It adds further pleading points and information about the powers of bailiffs.