Skipping Ahead to the Important Stuff: The Problem with Excerpted Sources

When researching for my novels, one temptation I face is to sample sources instead of reading them fully and to skim through them at warp speed till I find the parts that are relevant to my work. After all, who has time to read William of Malmesbury's whole Chronicle of the Kings of England when all you need is his bit about the Norman Conquest?

One important thing to remember, however, is that research isn't just about finding the facts put forward in a given source; research is about getting to know the historian. When we take the time to evaluate a primary source as a whole instead of picking through it like a flea market connoisseur, we better understand the thoughts of a person living during that time period. And surely that person (even if he only represents a segment of his society), has a better grasp on what facts, what anecdotes, what lists of information were valuable to the men of his era. Sometimes, the boring and bizarre bits that we would want to skip are actually the key to unlocking an understanding of the period.

One example of this is the convoluted Easter controversy in Bede's Ecclesiastical History. To the modern reader, this disagreement between the Celtic churches and Roman churches may seem like a molehill on the horizon of historical mountains. One might be attempted to gloss over the liturgical controversy and excerpt out the "important" bits about the politics and polity of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. But to Bede, this subject was of primary importance, and if we look at Bede as not just a scribbler of facts but also a window into his age, we learn what was important to the eighth century Britons.

Excerpts of primary sources can be excellent timesavers, but they can also be misleading. Excerpts give us the bits that the excerpter (is that a word?) thinks are important, not necessarily the bits that the author considered most essential. I'm all in favor of skipping ahead to the important stuff, but sometimes it takes a thorough reading of a work in its entirety to know what the important stuff is.

Hero or Caterpillar?--Value Judgments in History

For a historical novelist, reconciling sources can be one of the most time consuming processes of writing a novel. So often, one chronicler will say that there were 500 men in a battle while another chronicler claims that there were 10,000. Which chronicler is more trustworthy? Which story is more plausible? Can both stories be true?

Besides contradictory facts, another thing that must be reconciled is contradictory value statements. Every medieval chronicler was quick to weigh down his narrative with moral judgments on the characters and actions therein. These judgments must be assessed as assiduously as the basic facts of the narrative.

The character of Bohemond, one of the most important characters in my trilogy The Chronicles of Tancred, is a case in point.

Ralph of Caen, a Norman who came East after the First Crusade and served Bohemond in Antioch, described Bohemond thus:

There was in those days a hero of great stature.... This was Bohemond, the son of that distinguished soldier Robert surnamed Guiscard, who was a vigorous emulator of his father's daring.

This passage compares Bohemond to his father in a very complimentary manner. Bohemond is a hero and Robert Guiscard is distinguished. The words used show how favorably this historian thought of his subjects.

Anna Comnena, the daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios, also wrote about Bohemond:

Bohemond resembled his father in all respects, in daring, strength, aristocratic and indomitable spirit. In short, Bohemond was the exact replica and living image of his father.... Bohemond was in fact like the acrid smoke which preceded the fire, the preliminary skirmish which comes before the great assault. Father and son you might liken to caterpillars and locusts, for what was left by Robert, his son fed on and devoured. 

Anna's account gives the same comparison as the one provided by Ralph of Caen, but the tone is very different. Bohemond is similar to his father, and this similarity is not necessarily a good thing. The similes Anna used to describe the two men (acrid smoke, caterpillars and locusts), make the reader dislike their daring and feel disgust at their indomitable spirit.

Both of these historians described Bohemond as a man similar to his father, but they each provided a different lens with which to view the men. They placed a value judgment on the given fact.

For the historical novelist, this kind of contradiction presents a whole new range of questions. Which value judgment should we accept? Is it possible to remain impartial, or must we take a side? Will we throw in our lot with the Byzantines, or raise our flag with the Normans? Was Bohemond a hero, or a caterpillar in disguise?

Bohemond's Mausoleum
in Canosa Di Puglia

Why Romance Is a Modern Phenomenon

Many people like to read the opening chapters of the Iliad as if it were a romance. Achilles falls in love with his war bride Briseis and is heartbroken when Agamemnon takes her from him. But, as my college literature professor pointed out, the text shows that Achilles is heartbroken about something else entirely. He's heartbroken because Agamemnon has made him look bad. The loss of Briseis is nothing compared to his own loss of face before his fellow Greeks.

The ancient world was obsessed with glory and the importance of being remembered by posterity. "My fame will be secure to all my sons," is the constant refrain spoken by Gilgamesh, one of the great heroes of Mesopotamia. But in our culture--where romantic love is celebrated in nearly every song, book, and movie--such a worldview is entirely alien. One has only to look at the 2004 film Troy starring Brad Pitt to see how the ideal of romantic love has been foisted on the ancient epic. Either the screenwriters were oblivious to the worldview of Homer's contemporaries or they recognized it and "fixed" it so that the story would appeal to moderns.

Katharina Von Bora
(Martin Luther's wife)

How did we get from here to there? When did romance become so important? A couple years ago I heard Rich Bledsoe give some lectures, and in one of his tangents he mentioned that the Reformation was instrumental in developing the idea of romantic love between husband and wife. Before that, marriage was seen as much more of a "business".

The Reformation put marriage at the center. I suspect that Luther’s marriage to Katie is one of the most important and central relationships in the history of the world. Beyond Luther and the Reformational emphasis on the centrality of marriage, C.S. Lewis makes the case that it was the Puritans who virtually “invented” or made normal the very idea of “companionate marriage.” Indeed, the affection and love between husband and wife in Puritan and Reformed households was quite remarkable. Jonathan Edwards' famous marriage is only one outstanding example.

Martin Luther

Bledsoe's assertion is one that I would like to explore further someday. The chivalric romances of the Middle Ages definitely placed importance on the love between a man and a woman, but most of the relationships sung by the troubadours tended to be outside marriage and adulterous in nature. The pages of nearly every novel set during the Middle Ages dwell upon the fact that marriage of that time period was generally not undertaken for the sake of love. Yet nowadays, it would be hard to find two people who married for some reason other than love.

Was it indeed the Reformation that began to normalize romantic love between husband and wife? When Martin Luther rescued his future wife from a convent in a fish barrel, was he beginning the great romance that would change the modern world forever?

Wikipedia: The Bane and Boon of Historical Research

Just like the word Google, the word Wikipedia has become a regular verb in our vocabulary. If I don't know about something, I'll go "Wikipedia" it. I'm as big a fan of Wikipedia as anyone, but I still cringe when I see a history student or a historical novelist cite Wikipedia as the source of their information.

Why is that? Have I imbibed the ivory tower snobbery of academia? Do I think all valid historical perspectives must be vetted by peer-reviewed journals?

Wikipedia is an excellent and (usually) accurate reference guide for finding out basic facts. It is a summary of readily available information on a given subject. But for someone doing historical research, it is more the starting blocks than the finish line. Just like any encyclopedia, it will acquaint you with basic dates, names, and events, and (hopefully) point you in the direction of books and articles that will give you a fuller discussion of the topic.

The trouble comes when people begin to see Wikipedia as the end and not the beginning of their research. If a history student's paper is simply a summary of Wikipedia's summary, he has presented nothing new to the world. He may have interacted with the viewpoints of a few historians, but only the ones deemed relevant by the anonymous writer of the page he viewed. He may have seen pieces of primary sources, but reading Wikipedia's excerpts is not substitute for understanding them in the context of the entire work . By basing a paper on Wikipedia, the student has shown his ability to read and condense an article. He has not shown any ability to research, analyze, or synthesize.

This same truth applies to the historical novelist. Although the research in a historical novel is subservient to the story and should not be included simply for its own sake, it is still the bones keeping the body of fiction from flopping about like a jellyfish. The historical novelist who only culls information from Wikipedia's paragraphs, is someone satisfied with a pelvis, a humerus, half a cranium, and a few vertebrae. It's not exactly the complete skeleton, but still enough to give some semblance of the human body. By neglecting to do deeper research, the author will be hard put to produce a book with any kind of depth.

Of course, it is not just the history student or the historical novelist who can use Wikipedia as the end-all and the be-all of research. Readers who are history enthusiasts sometimes fall into this trap as well. It's always mind-boggling when a reader informs the world that he fact checked a book by Wikipedia-ing it--and then assumes that whatever historical plot points didn't show up on Wikipedia were fabricated by the novelist.

I should certainly hope that there are things in my book that you won't find on Wikipedia! And many of those things I didn't make them up--I found them out by reading *gasp* source material! If you really want to fact check, I've appended a several page long bibliography at the end of each of my novels. You'll find books by eminent historians, translations of medieval chronicles, guides to period costume, but the one thing you won't find is a bibliography entry for Wikipedia. Did I ever use it for research? You bet! But I'm far too embarrassed to admit it....

If You Can't Spellcheck, Can You Be Trusted to Fact Check?

Several years ago when I was teaching junior high and high school, I had the privilege of developing the history program for the small, start-up school at which I worked. Finding curriculum that I liked was a frustrating experience. Most programs were too simplistic and incorporated barely any primary sources. I didn't want my high school students to just read and absorb a textbook account of past happenings. I wanted them to understand the process of uncovering history, how to glean information from the writings and artifacts of the people who lived during the period we were studying.

The lack of primary sources wasn't the only problem. Two of the curriculums that I looked at (the titles and authors of which shall remain nameless) made a big impression on me--and not in a good way. While scanning the pages, I noticed several typos in the chapters. One author confused the word "throne" with "thrown" and even made the egregious error of stating that the people "sang hims of praise."

I was a little appalled that an error this blatant could get into print, and especially into something that was being marketed as educational curriculum. It also made me think: if the author did not take the time to check his own spelling, what was the likelihood that he had checked his historical information? Were his chapters all based on one book he had read, ignoring the multitude of other sources available? Did he even look at the primary sources while performing his research, or was he merely regurgitating the popular view of history as told in (outdated?) secondary and tertiary sources?

In short, poor orthography leads one to suspect poor historiography. 

For self-published authors, the same rule applies. A poorly edited historical novel can lead one to suspect that the author doesn't really know her stuff. Who is going to trust an author's scholarship or stay immersed in a novel's storyline if the author clearly can't tell the difference between "then" and "than"? Editing: if you can't do it yourself, then find someone who can.

And now that I've rung such a peal over bad spelling, I suppose I'd better proof this post nine or ten times before I publish it. I wouldn't want to make the same misteak that I've just been complaning abowt. 

Items Learned While Lurking

It's been a while since I've visited my own blog, and I fear the holidays are not the things to blame. No, poor health is the culprit this time. Interesting that my last post was on the Black Plague since  I've been down with some disease nearly as awful ever since Christmas Eve. "It's just a cold," they told me when I went into the doctor two days ago. Then why does it feel like a knife in the ribs every time I cough? And why am I too dizzy to do anything besides sit or lie down? Fortunately, David's still on break from school this week and lots of kind relatives have been helping out with the twins. So, I've had ample time to lay about and convalesce and lurk to my heart's content on the Internet. There have been some interesting discussions of late on the Historical Fiction groups that I frequent, and I have three items to draw to your attention.

* * * * *

Item #1: "Downton Abbey." It's a show that I haven't yet had the opportunity to watch, but there has been some controversy lately in regards to its historical accuracy. According to a recent news article:

Historian Jennifer Newby said the servants in the country house drama, created by Oscar winner Julian Fellowes, look too clean and were too friendly with their employers. She said: ''I find it infuriating to watch, it sets my teeth on edge. The relationship they have with their employers is totally wrong.''

Which brings up the question: is historian Jennifer Newby right? Her complaint resonates with how history is popularly portrayed. Most people are far readier to believe that the lower classes of the olden days were dirty and downtrodden than that they were happy and hygienic. Marx's narrative of how the world works seems to have infected everyone's perceptions.

But are the Marxist eyeglasses the only ones worth looking through? Historical novelists Katherine Ashe and M. M. Bennetts made some insightful comments about this over on the English Period Authors Facebook group. And since Katherine Ashe re-posted the conversation on her own FB page in case others were interested, I'm going to take the liberty of quoting a couple of her comments on my blog:

Regarding the Downton Abbey review: I'm sure some servants were filthy and sullen, others tidy and cheerful, with a great many in between. The reviewer reveals more of her own sullen politics than any overriding historical truth. A household, like a corporation, has a certain spirit and those who are part of the household will reflect it according to their individual characters (I'm saying the obvious -- for any historical novelist.) It is well to remember that historians are as much twisted by current political spin as novelists may be.... 

The problem with certain 20th - 21st century historians is the desire to make the past seem virtually unlivable: dominated by inept rulers and their noble, worthless toadies. This reflects the political spin that has been with us, more or less, through much of the 20th century and has a distinctly pro-proletariat, anti-bourgeoise/aristocratic/monarchic leaning with a strong message of how people were abused by the holders of power and privilege. To a certain extent it's true, but it's overdone.

* * * * *

Item #2: "Heaving Bosoms or Chaste Kisses." This is an article that was posted yesterday on the Affaire de Coeur blog. As the title implies, the article deals with the divide between "steamy" historical romances and "clean" historical romances. Apparently, the clean romances are making a comeback.

This topic seems to be a favorite with readers and writers of the historical genres. Do you or don't you like your historicals with a tinge of eroticism? To me, the interesting thing is watching the way people phrase their comments, especially those who don't like the steamy side of things. "I'm no prude, but I just prefer to keep the story clean." Or, "To me, the sex scenes just get boring and take away from the storyline." Everything is couched carefully in terms of preference. No one objects to overt eroticism from a moral standpoint because that would stir things up a bit too much. That would require stepping on somebody else's toes. That would mean someone was in the right and someone was in the wrong.

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Item #3: "Writing Historical Fiction Simplified for the First-Time Author." This last item is a bit of humor for your delectation. Author Debra Brown gives some tongue-in-cheek advice on how to get into the historical fiction biz. Here are the first three items on her list of sixteen suggestions:

1) Set aside some years for research and sign up for NetFlix. You will need both streaming and physical DVDs for this tedious process. 

2) It costs money to make money. If you are not working, take your Mastercard and buy a good supply of popcorn. Microwave popcorn is preferred as you have your work cut out for you. (Use your lowest interest card- it might be a while before your first check.) Few are able to research well without chocolate, but you will have to ration it to maintain your current weight, as you will not be getting any exercise. Do not cheat on the rations. (Under no circumstances should you set the portions so low as to injure your self-esteem. You must be able to say, truthfully, “I am, indeed, a person who never cheats.”)

3) Have your spouse take the children and raise them somewhere else....

If you want to see the rest of her suggestions, be sure to click over to the article. I must admit that item number three did occasion the most laughter for me. "Have your spouse take the children and raise them somewhere else...." Well, David HAS been taking care of the kids a lot this week, but I don't think we've come to quite such a pass.

Thanks for listening in on the items I learned while lurking this week. If boy number three doesn't make an early appearance (due date is January 31), I hope to cease lurking and resume living sometime in the near future. Happy New Year!

Challenging a Millennium of Scholarship

I ran into an interesting article yesterday (via the Medieval News blog) touting a new nonfiction book by historian Peter Frankopan that will be "countering nearly a millennium of scholarship" about the First Crusade. In his new book, The First Crusade: the Call from the East, which is slated to come out in 2012, Dr. Frankopan argues that the focal point of the Crusade's origins was in the Byzantine Empire's desire to regain territory, not in Pope Urban's preaching. The Europeans who came to fight came as mercenaries for the Byzantine emperor Alexios. It was only later that Western propaganda turned the military action into a fight for Jerusalem.

The article (originally published in the newspaper The Australian) doesn't go into too much detail about Dr. Frankopan's new findings, but these paragraphs give a small picture of what his new book will propose:

For Dr Frankopan, the First Crusade was therefore not a religious war, but instead a "very specific, targeted military expedition against the cities of Nicaea and Antioch", two former Byzantine possessions that the crusader army swore an oath to hand over to Alexios. Jerusalem was just a carrot. 

The Crusade mythology that emerged from all this was a result of what happened next, Dr Frankopan claimed. Some of the Norman commanders refused to hand the newly conquered cities over to the Emperor. 

To justify this course of action, and a subsequent attempt to launch an expedition against Constantinople, they embarked on a propaganda war of "horrific vilification" against Alexios and his Empire. Urban successfully used the recapture of Jerusalem to cement the power of his papacy and Alexios was written out of the historical record.

I am very curious to read this book once it is released (my Amazon Wish List has been updated accordingly). Dr. Frankopan's claim is an interesting one, but it seems that he would have to discredit dozens of Western sources which attribute the Crusaders' original motivations to their desire to retake the Holy City. Perhaps Emperor Alexios thought he was getting an army of compliant mercenaries, but Urban, Bohemond, Godfrey, and Tancred thought otherwise....

The Eagle Fails to Soar

"The book was way better!" That is usually my reaction after watching a film based on a book I have already read. It's not because the film is different than the book--I understand that changes must be made to accomodate a different medium--it's because the film is worse than the book. The screenplay writer looked at the original story and thought that he could make a better story using the same characters. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the screenplay writer was wrong.

The Eagle, starring Channing Tatum and Jamie Bell, is a movie that came out earlier this year. It is based on the book The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff. Since Sutcliff has been one of the biggest influences on my own historical fiction writing, my interest was definitely piqued by the preview, and I was exited to watch it while we were on vacation last week.

*SPOILER ALERT!* The first third of the movie follows the book almost exactly. Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing) introduces himself well as a faithful and stalwart Roman centurion, trying to make up for the dishonor that his father had brought upon the family. The Roman fort Marcus commands is very believable, as is the surprise attack by the marauding Britons. Wounded in the leg, Marcus is forced to retire from his military career and spends some time in the south of Britain with his Uncle Aquila (Donald Sutherland). While Marcus is still convalescing (and wondering what he is going to do with the rest of his life), he attends a gladiator fight where he saves the life of a young Briton named Esca (Bell). Aquila purchases Esca as Marcus' body slave, and Esca makes an oath to serve Marcus even though he hates everything Roman.

It is at this point that the plot of the movie radically diverges from the story in the book. Marcus decides to go north across Hadrian's Wall and find the eagle standard from his father's lost legion, bringing with him his deeply-embittered slave Esca as a guide. Instead of adopting some sort of plausible disguise so that he can search unnoticed in enemy territory, Marcus naively follows Esca around the north of Britain, hoping that the tribesmen will ignore his Roman haircut and his reliance on the Latin language. Eventually, he discovers that Esca has been pulling the wool over his eyes--the slave knows exactly where the lost legion lost itself because his tribe was there at the battle! Esca spouts some touching memories about the deaths of his family members, prey to the voracious appetite of Roman conquest. Marcus responds in typical Roman fashion by defending his nation's imperialism and brutally killing any tribesmen who stand in his way.

When Esca and Marcus encounter the Seal People (the keepers of the eagle standard), their tribal logic immediately deduces that Marcus is a Roman. Esca pretends that Marcus is his slave, and that he tricked him into coming north so that he could escape the clutches of Rome and return to his own people. The Seal People (whose looks and way of life would seem to place them in The Last of the Mohicans rather than the highlands of Scotland) greet Esca as a brother and heap abuse on Marcus, the despised representative of a hated race who--despite his civilized veneer--is just as savage as they are.

Marcus, afraid that Esca has betrayed him, behaves stupidly and earns many beatings. But one night, after a tribal ceremony where the eagle is displayed, Esca wakes the Roman and tells him that it is time to complete their mission. The two men steal the eagle and ride for the border pursued by hordes of angry Indians...ahem...Celtic tribesmen. When Marcus is unable to go any further, he finally trusts Esca enough to grant him his freedom. The Briton leaves his erstwhile master and dashes off to find a very unlikely source of help. The movie culminates with a fierce battle between the two men (plus auxiliaries) and the aggrieved tribesmen, which my husband described as "Roman biker gang vs. Native American Blue Man Group."

My main contention with this movie is that the screenwriter took a historically plausible adventure with a resourceful hero and turned it into an anachronistic rant against slavery and Roman conquest. In the book, Marcus and Esca become friends (in a believable way) while they are still at Uncle Aquila's home, and Marcus manumits his slave before the trip to the north. Esca, although a Briton, is from a completely different tribe than the ones that slew the lost legion. He has no conflicted loyalties on the trip. Marcus is a sympathetic character--not an unintelligent brute--who shows kindness to Esca and devises stratagems to find and steal the eagle. The book also includes a small romance between Marcus and Cottia, a young woman who lives nearby Uncle Aquila's home, which softens and adds dimension to Marcus' character.

Instead of following the plot of the book, the screenwriter clearly showed that he (or she?) had an ax to grind. The temptation to add a "relevant message"to historical fiction is one that can beset both novelists and screenwriters. Marcus must learn to hate his country and feel self-loathing by the end of the movie because that is what we would feel if our country went around killing and enslaving people. Some may see this as a profitable addition to the story. After all, since literature teaches by example, is it not right to imbue it with our own society's sense of morals?

Two posts I did earlier in the year have some bearing on this issue, one with Ian Mortimer's take on historical fiction and the other with Sharon Kay Penman's. In his History Today podcast, writer Ian Mortimer states that he is "not interested in enhancing people's understanding of the past. In fiction I'm using the past to demonstrate how we can say something that is true today and more meaningful for us today." Mortimer's kind of thinking would embrace the addition of "messages" into historical fiction, ones like the anti-slavery and anti-imperialism messages in The Eagle, because these are values that are generally held by us today.

Sharon Kay Penman, on the other hand, insists that historical fiction should scrupulously follow the mindsets of the past and avoid anachronistic messages that may appeal to our modern understanding. In a blog post titled "History vs. Fiction" she talks about the medieval view toward animals:

When daily life is so hard, few can spare sympathy for hungry dogs. This is especially true in a world in which people believe that God has given them dominion over the earth and all in it. So when one of my characters is moved by the plight of a suffering animal, he often is vaguely embarrassed by his Good Samaritan inclinations. When Justin de Quincy rescues a drowning dog in The Queen's Man, he does it after he "casts common sense to the winds," and he is motivated in some measure by the tearful entreaties of a small child. The life of a horse was worth a great deal and the life of a pet dog might have mattered to its owner. But the lives of animals in general had no intrinsic value and my characters cannot display the same outrage in the face of cruelty that we would. 

Ms. Penman avoids injecting her novels with the modern notion of animal rights because it would not be appropriate to the time. Her commitment to historical accuracy in her writings outweighs her modern sensibilities.

The Eagle could have been an excellent movie, if the story had stayed close to Sutcliff's original story, or if the plot had been historically appropriate. I do have the capacity to enjoy a movie even if the storyline differs from the book. All I ask is that any changes to the storyline make a story that is equal to or better than the original. In the case of historical fiction (whether book or film), I follow Ms. Penman's (or Ms. Sutcliff's) school of thought. Paint the people as they truly were, not as twenty-first century Americans in helmets. And since films so rarely fail to live up to this criterion, perhaps it is better to keep our favorite historical fiction novels away from the cinema all together. As Lindsey Davis said, when asked about a poorly made film adaptation of her Falco series: "I am not interested in having inferior versions!"

Five Different Ways of Viewing the World

Would someone unfamiliar with the MA [Middle Ages] be repulsed by the description of a medieval execution, with its throngs of avid spectators and its raucous fair-like atmosphere? Shocked that Henry and Eleanor married their daughters off before they reached puberty? How far do you think historical novelists should go to make their books palatable to modern readers? Is it necessary to make the characters in a novel about the ante-Bellum South all secret abolitionists at heart in order to win reader sympathy? What of a family living in Nazi Germany?

Historical novelist Sharon Kay Penman asks these questions at the conclusion of a recent article entitled History vs. Fiction. Ms. Penman's stated goal for her fiction is "to make the MA [Middle Ages] come alive to readers in a way that makes them want to keep turning the pages." At the same time, she is a self-proclaimed fanatic about historical accuracy. So what does she do when her MA characters view the world in a way that she (and her audience) disagrees with?

Ms. Penman identifies five ways in which the modern mindset differs significantly from the medieval mindset: "the concept of religious tolerance, anti-Semitism, the conduct of war, the status of women, and the treatment of animals." She gives examples from her novels to show how she deals with these difficult issues, trying to fairly represent the medieval characters without anachronism, but striving not to alienate her readers who come from a world wholly different. One great annoyance to me is when historical fiction authors turn their protagonist into a mouthpiece for twenty-first century propaganda, and this article is a refreshing reminder to me to be careful how I craft my characters.

"Religious tolerance," according to Ms. Penman, "was as rare in the MA as the unicorn. All men--be they Christian, Jew, or Muslim--were convinced that theirs was the True Faith.... They can respect one another's courage, but neither side doubts that damnation awaits their foes." Instead of making her characters agnostic or doubters of their own religion (as Ken Follett repeatedly did in World Without End), Penman tries to make them true to life. "I have to care in my novels to acknowledge this bedrock belief, so alien to most of us today." 

As I evaluate my own writing, I can say that describing religious "intolerance" in my writing isn't really a problem. I share the bedrock belief with the denizens of the Middle Ages that there is only one way to heaven, that not all faiths are equal. In Road from the West, all of my characters (Muslim, Jew, Christian, and even the various sects within Christianity) are inflexibly sure of the truth of their own religion.

Ms. Penman's second point is that, "Anti-Semitism is the ugly underside of medieval life." Even though it still exists to this day, "the difference is that in the MA, the Church gave official sanction to it." How does she portray this in her novels? 

I try to stay true to the tenor of the times, so virtually all of my characters are infected to some degree. When I needed a character to voice doubts, I had to choose an outsider to make it believable, a character who was a natural rebel and therefore more likely to question even the teachings of the Church....

I have thought about the subject of Anti-Semitism a lot in my own research and writing. Ms. Penman's claim that "in the MA, the Church gave official sanction to it," is a prevalent notion, and is based on the previous concept of religious intolerance. The Church taught that the Jews were going to hell, therefore, the Church taught people to be Anti-Semitic.

But at the same time, when looking at the primary sources it is interesting to note that it is the laity, and particularly the money-hungry monarchs who take anti-Semitism to the extremes of torture and murder. It was King John who pulled out a Jew's teeth to force him to reveal where his fortune was hidden, not the Church. It was Edward I who issued the edict expelling all the Jews from England. During the First Crusade, when German adventurers decide that the "will of God" is to murder all the Jews in the Rhineland, it is the Christian bishops who hide the Jews in their churches and denounce the actions of these "Crusaders" as evil. This is an often forgotten episode in history that I plan to describe in Road from the West.

The third area where Ms. Penman sees radical difference is in the medieval attitude toward war.

During the MA, the Church attempted to shield noncombatants, too--women, children, priests, pilgrims, etc. But the nature of medieval warfare--laying waste the lands of one's enemies--all but guaranteed there would be civilian casualties. And kings, knights, and soldiers accepted this as inevitable.... There was a strain of pacifism in the MA; there were even a few to criticize the crusades. But we're talking of a small minority and their views never wielded any influence.... So to be true to the times, I cannot have my characters reacting to the destruction of a town or the raping of its women as if it were a war crime, the way we would characterize it today.

I am pleased to see that Ms. Penman acknowledges that there was a pacifistic strain in the MA. I think she marginalizes the pacifist segment a little too much, however. There were many times throughout the centuries when the Church tried to impose the "Truce of God" on bickering barons, forbidding them to fight except between Monday and Wednesday, and not at all on Church holy days. The Church was not exactly a "minority" in society.

Did all kings, knights, and soldiers accept the carnage as "inevitable"? Were they all murderous brutes like the characters in Michael Crichton's Timeline? In my research on Tancred for Road from the West, the primary sources display pieces of his character that seem bipolar in our modern age. Ralph of Caen writes about Tancred:

Over time, however, his prudent soul raised concerns that caused him anxiety. It seemed that his military life contradicted the Lord's command. The Lord had commanded that after one cheek had been struck the other was to be offered as well. But a secular military life did not even permit the sparing of a relative's blood. The Lord admonished that it is necessary to give over one's cloak, as well, to the one asking for a tunic. By contrast, the necessity of military life urges that once these two garments have been seized, the rest are to be taken as well. These two principles opposed one another and undermined the bravery of a man full of wisdom [Tancred], if, indeed, they ever permitted him to sleep. But when Pope Urban's decision granted a remission of all sins to all of the Christians setting forth to fight against the pagans, then finally it was as if the vitality of the previously sleeping man was revived, his powers were roused, his eyes were opened and his boldness set in motion.

At first, it seems that Tancred has a "pacifist streak" to him, but at the end of the paragraph we see that the way he intends to atone for his sins of warfare is by entering into more warfare against the pagans. Later on, we learn that Tancred has no such scruples about the warfare in the East; after killing 700 Turks in battle, Tancred sends Bishop Adhemar 70 heads as a "tithe" of his prowess. This seeming contradiction relates to the first concept of "religious intolerance," and adds a little more dimension to the kings, knights, and soldiers of this age. For many, killing Christians was unacceptable while killing infidels was praiseworthy.

The fourth subject Ms. Penman addresses is the status of women in the MA. A current trend in historical fiction is to have "strong women" be the protagonists, women who exemplify the twenty-first century feminist ideal. Ms. Penman denounces these sort of characters as unhistorical:

Yes, there were those rare rebels like Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Empress Maude, but they paid a great price for their independent spirits. It is obvious that both Eleanor and Maude chafed under their matrimonial bonds, wanting more freedom than their world was willing to allow. But there is no evidence that they viewed themselves as part of an oppressed sisterhood; they wanted power and autonomy for themselves, not for all members of their sex. So it would be unrealistic if I were to write of a female character resentful of male dominance, one eager to prove herself as capable as any man.

This point is one I especially appreciated. I have recently read three different novels by three different authors all of which featured the character Eleanor of Aquitaine. Two of the three tried to do the very thing that Ms. Penman deplores, making Eleanor the champion for the rights of womankind against a male-dominated society.

Ms. Penman's last point is about the treatment of animals in the MA. She acknowledges that while a few rich people did have pets, "when daily life is so hard, few can spare sympathy for hungry dogs. This is especially true in a world in which people believe that God has given them dominion over the earth and all in it." It is interesting to note that she traces harsh treatment of animals back to Church. If it is a result of Christianity, then it is a misapplication of it somehow since Proverbs teaches that "the righteous man regards the life of his animal."

I would contest that the medieval view toward animals is more derived from being an agricultural society. When you live on a farm, you don't cry if a sheep gets slaughtered. Your dog is there to hunt and protect the house, and while you may feel some affection for him, the reality of frequent mortality makes you less sentimental.

Sharon Kay Penman's post is an excellent reminder to historical fiction authors to consider well what ideas we are carrying in our pockets when we time travel. She clearly identifies the five different ways of viewing the world between our era and the Middle Ages and provides so much food for thought that I'll be munching on it for some time to come.

To Bathe or not to Bathe?

Dinner and a Bath (15th Century)

Last night I heard a comment commonly bandied about concerning the people of the Middle Ages; it accused them of being infrequent bathers. The speaker indicated that he had learned at a medieval museum that the people of that time bathed only once a year, if that. This is a claim I've heard many times before, and I have always wondered how much credence to give it.

When pondering this subject, the first thing that came to my mind was a counterexample: Charlemagne, a man who was very fond of his baths. His biographer Einhard wrote:

He enjoyed the exhalations from natural warm springs, and often practiced swimming, in which he was such an adept that none could surpass him; and hence it was that he built his palace at Aix-la-Chapelle, and lived there constantly during his latter years till his death. He used not only to invite his sons to his bath, but his nobles and friends, and now and then a troop of his retinue or body guard, so that a hundred or more persons sometimes bathed with him. 

But although Charlemagne enjoyed his baths, I suppose he can hardly be used as conclusive proof that most medieval people did as well. Charlemagne was a privileged emperor living during the late eighth and early ninth centuries. This is the very earliest portion of the Middle Ages and Charlemagne's life does not give demographic evidence of the European civilization at large. To prove or disprove the charge of infrequent bathing, we need evidence from later in the Middle Ages that deals with a greater segment of the population.

To gain that evidence, I turned first to Jackson J. Spielvogel's respected textbook Western Civilization. Dealing with the Carolingian period, Spielvogel asserts that aristocrats bathed at least once a week and monks indulged in a weekly Saturday night bath to prepare for the Lord's Day. Moving a few centuries forward, Spielvogel writes that: "Private and public baths...existed in medieval towns, and it is fair to say that standards of hygiene were rather high in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Paris, for example, had thirty-two public baths for men and women."

There were periods of medieval history when these high standards of hygiene declined. The plague hit Europe in the mid-fourteenth century, and Spielvogel records that, "One immediate by-product of the Black Death was a greater regulation of urban activities.... Viewed as unhealthy places, bathhouses were closed down, leading to a noticeable decline in cleanliness."

Although Spielvogel is a reliable secondary source, he does not cite any primary source evidence for his claims about medieval bathing; I was delighted to find a scholarly article titled "Tubbed and Scrubbed: An Overview of Bathing in the Middle Ages" with a little more bibliographical backing to it. In "Tubbed and Scrubbed" Master Giles de Laval does an excellent job looking at written and pictorial primary sources to establish that bathing was a prominent feature of medieval life. "The perception that medieval people never bathed and lived their lives in a state of filth is completely absurd," says de Laval, "and no more true of medieval society than it is of modern society."

De Laval talks about how many bath houses (such as Charlemagne's) were relics from the Roman Empire that continued to be used after the Roman period. In addition to this, travelers to Constantinople and the Crusaders to the Holy Land reintroduced the bath house to areas of Europe that had forgotten it. Concurring with Spielvogel's claims, De Laval says:

By the mid 13th century, bath houses were so numerous in Paril that the estuviers, or proprietors of such establishments, were permitted to form their own guild. Paid criers went about the city at daybreak, announcing that the water was hot and inviting customers in. The price of admission was set by law at two denieres for a steam bath, four for bathing afterwards.

Bathing, according to De Laval's sources, was a matter of politeness.

The 14th century Italian Book of Manners...noted that bathing and changing one's linen regularly was civil and mannerly towards others. According to the precepts of chivalry of Ramon Lull, one of the duties of the squire was to heat water for his lord's bath.

Besides being a courtesy to others, bathing was also considered to have medicinal properties. Gilbert Anglicus in his Compendium Medicinae (1240) encourages patients to take steam baths to soften the skin and open the pores and also to wash themselves in warm water.


Looking at this source material, it seems inevitable to conclude that the people of the Middle Ages were not such infrequent bathers as is commonly reported. Why then is this "myth" (as de Laval calls it) being "perpetuated by schoolroom history, Hollywood movies, and outdated scholarship"?

During parts of medieval history, the Church (which penned the majority of the historical documents and societal commentaries) had issue to take with frequent bathing; this can give the impression that the entire medieval society viewed hygiene with abhorrence. In the early medieval period, some ascetic branches of monasticism (holdovers from the patristic period) wrote that it was better to abstain from bathing in order to mortify the flesh; De Laval claims, however, that this attitude had been entirely "eroded" by the later Middle Ages, and that less austere religious orders such as the Cluniacs and the Dominicans enthusiastically approved of frequent bathing.

Unfortunately, immoral activities associated with bath houses caused other objections from the Church to surface during the later Middle Ages. Some bath house owners tried to make extra money by turning their establishments into brothels, causing the Church to decry bathing as an indecent activity. This occasional opposition from the Church may have given rise to the current view that all medievals viewed bathing with abhorrence and rarely practiced it.
 
So, were the medievals infrequent bathers? No. They may not have showered daily, but evidence indicates that bathing was popular and encouraged. Were the medievals smelly and filthy? Only to the same degree that nineteenth century Almanzo Wilder and his family in upstate New York were smelly and filthy. In Farmer Boy, Almanzo's future wife Laura Ingalls records that Almanzo and his family took weekly Saturday night baths, just like the Carolingian clergy did back in the eighth century. How positively medieval!

Counting on Their Fingers and Toes

Every medieval historian, whatever his race, invariably indulges in wild and picturesque exaggeration whenever he has to estimate numbers that cannot easily be counted. It is therefore impossible for us today to establish the actual size of the Crusading armies.

I came across this bold assertion a few weeks ago in Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades. It reminded me of many similar statements that I had read in the past, all of them calling into question the ability of ancient and medieval people to count in large numbers.

One prime example of this is Herodotus' count of Xerxes' invasion army which he places at 2.5 million men. Always eager to "show his work," Herodotus explains that Xerxes derived this number by counting off ten thousand men, herding them into a tight group, and drawing a circle around them; then the rest of the army was packed into that same circle section by section. After this, it was an easy matter to add up the groups of ten thousand and come up with a total figure. Other ancient sources give similarly high numbers for Xerxes' army.

Despite the manuscript evidence, many modern historians discount Herodotus' figure as highly unrealistic, positing that it would be impossible to keep such a large army supplied and watered along the route to Greece. The largest figure that they will concede for the Persian invasion army is 250,000, one tenth of Herodotus' 2.5 million. Herodotus may be lauded as the "father of history" in theory, but when it comes to counting heads, the Ph.D.'s born two and a half thousand years later consider themselves eminently more qualified.

Whenever I think about this mistrust of ancient and medieval statistics, I am reminded of the passage in Isaiah describing the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem. The Assyrian king Sennacherib taunts Hezekiah of Judah, claiming that Yahweh will not be able to deliver His people, the Jews. In response, God sends the Angel of the Lord into the camp of the Assyrians killing 185,000 men. If you believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, then here you have very clear proof of the large size of armies in ancient times. If the Assyrians could gather 185,000 men (or more) to besiege Judah in the 700s BC, why couldn't Xerxes, with his far larger empire, gather an army of 2.5 million in the 400s?

As far as the medieval chroniclers go, Steven Runciman may be right to distrust their figures somewhat. "Fulcher of Chartres and Albert of Aix tell us that the fighting men of the First Crusade numbered 600,000, while Ekkehard gives 300,000 and Raymond of Aguilers a modest 100,000." The discrepancies between these numbers are substantial; at the same time, all of the chroniclers report that the Crusader army was of exceptional size. But instead of averaging these statistics, or even taking the lowest one, Runciman upholds the modern notion that such a large number of combatants would be impossible to assemble and supply during this time period; therefore, he discards the chroniclers' statistics altogether.

Interestingly enough, Runciman goes on to say that, "when they are dealing with smaller numbers the chroniclers need not be entirely distrusted." Using these "smaller numbers" Runciman attempts to construct his own sum total of what the Crusader army could have amounted to. Whenever the chroniclers mention various contingents within the armies (e.g. Bohemond's knights, Godfrey's infantry), he pieces those numbers together. Finally, he comes to a reasonable total of "roughly 4200 to 4500 cavalry and 30,000 infantry." This number, he cautions, is only an estimate and must be taken "with reserve." A very wise caution since his opening statements claimed that it is, "impossible for us today to establish the actual size of the Crusading armies."

Although it is entirely proper for historians to compare and evaluate primary sources, it does seem rather odd to treat them with such blanket skepticism in this area. Somehow, it is considered more accurate to trust the conjecture of the modern scholar who lived one thousand years after the event than to give credence to the count of eyewitness chroniclers. We live in an age that exalts reason over revelation, and is it not perfectly reasonable to assume that the men who built catapults, castles, cloisters, and cathedrals could only count as far as their fingers and toes would take them?

   

What Would the Wife of Bath Say?

Artist's rendering of the Wife of Bath from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

 When Sir Walter Scott pioneered historical fiction by penning Ivanhoe in 1819, he certainly wasn't thinking about how best to include a strong, independent female protagonist. Rowena, the blonde beauty that Ivanhoe ends up with, is almost as insipid a female character as one can find in literature. Rebecca, the dark-eyed, generous Jewess, is rescued from death and dishonor not by her own wits but by the strength of the male hero. For decades after Ivanhoe, historical fiction authors tended to cast men and women in the same roles that Sir Walter Scott used. The man was the hero, the adventurer, the mastermind. The woman was the dependant damsel in distress.

Nowadays, much of historical fiction treats women in a completely opposite manner. Historical novelists (especially female authors) favor spunky, resourceful leading ladies who can rival--or better--the masculine characters with their intelligence, skills, and determination. Instead of waiting to be rescued, the modern historical heroine devises ways to protect herself and even to keep her man safe. I found two examples of this kind of heroine in the last two historical novels I read: Jean Plaidy's The Plantagenet Prelude and Ken Follett's World Without End.

In The Plantagenet Prelude, the twelfth century main character Eleanor of Aquitaine is portrayed as a woman determined to rule. One of her main ambitions is to demonstrate that, in terms of governing a kingdom, a woman can do everything a man can do. When she marries Louis of France, she dominates the relationship and tries to direct all the foreign policy of France. Her second husband, Henry Plantagenet, is much more difficult to control. She chafes under the expectation that she must continually conceive and produce heirs for him. "Her frustration was intolerable. It was unfair that it should always be the woman's lot to bear the children. This shall be the last, she promised herself." The roles of wife and mother are chains holding back her boundless ambition.

In World Without End, set in fourteenth century England, the main female character Caris is determined not to marry for these same reasons. She "resented Merthin for making her an offer she could not accept. He did not understand. For him, their marriage would be an adjunct to his life as an architect. For her, marriage would have to replace the work to which she had dedicated herself." Over and over again, Caris states that she is determined to live her own life and not live through someone else, whether it be a husband or a child. This is one of the determining factors that causes her to get an abortion when she finds out that she is pregnant by Merthin. "I don't want to spend my life as a slave to anyone, even if it is my own child," she declares.

The women in Plaidy and Follett's stories are obsessed with their own status--or lack of status--in a male-dominated world in a way that would not have even occurred to Sir Walter Scott's heroines. One thing we must remember though is that in Scott's time, the notion of women's suffrage had barely surfaced. He described the wants and desires of women as he understood them at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Plaidy and Follett describe the wants and desires of women as they understand them at the end of the twentieth century.

Though historical fiction does give us a window into the time period in which it is set, it also gives us a window into the time period in which it was written. To assume that Scott's description of women in the Middle Ages is more accurate (because it is older) would be just as fallacious as to assume that Plaidy and Follett's portrayal is more precise (because it makes sense in our own time period). Both views are clouded by the conceptions of the author's own times.

To find out what women were really like in the Middle Ages, we need to rid ourselves of preconceptions (as much as possible) and look at the primary source material. Was Margery of Kempe as insipid as Rowena or as feminist as Caris, or was she distinctly different from either? Do the source documents about Eleanor of Aquitaine show that she insisted on equality and despised her role as a mother?

Was marriage a romantic ideal or a degraded departure from independence? It doesn't matter how Scott, and Plaidy, and Follett would answer that question. The real test is this: what would the Wife of Bath say?

Reenacting History

When I was growing up, I almost always heard the words "historical reenactment" in conjunction with the words "Civil War." What this meant was that a bunch of overly-enthusiastic history nerds were going to dress up in blue and gray uniforms, run around on a hillside, and then lie down and pretend to be dead. Nonplussed by this activity, I discounted historical reenactment as a silly game without much historical value.

When I went to college and took some history classes, I discovered that there were other kinds of historical reenactment that were not related to the Civil War. My professor had us read a book called The Brendan Voyage. In this book, the author Tim Severin used reenactment to see whether St. Brendan, an Irish monk from the sixth century, could actually have sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to America as one ancient manuscript claims. Using clues from the manuscript, Tim Severin constructed a small boat out of a wooden frame and tanned ox hides. Then he and a few companions set out in this tiny "curragh"  in a reenactment every bit as exciting as the real voyage in the St. Brendan story. The voyage Severin took gave him a great insight into the events of the ancient tale and offered new possibilities of interpretation that he would never have thought of if he had relegated himself to a more academic research approach.

Today I witnessed a completely different kind of historical reenactment. An organization called Messiah's Mansion was in town for a week showing off a full scale model of the Mosaic Tabernacle. The tour, which lasted a little over an hour, focused on the history behind the Tabernacle, the ways that it prefigured Christ's ministry, and how that applies to us today.

Although the whole thing was a little bit hokey (with a lot more painted plastic than acacia wood), I was surprised about how well I can now visualize the layout of the tabernacle. The description of the building in the book of Exodus, with all of its cubits and woven cloth and wood paneling and gold overlay, mushes together in the mind without creating a clear picture of the building. Even after looking at the floorplan provided by most study Bibles, it is difficult to imagine, or retain, a 3-D image of what the building looked like. Walking through the re-creation of the Tabernacle helped create a mental picture in a way that reading the text could not.

Reenactment can be very valuable for giving us insight into history, but like academic research, it has its pitfalls. Sometimes there is not enough source information to fully re-create the past. Sometimes preconceived--and ill-conceived--notions about a time period can cloud re-creations. Oftentimes, movies will reenact historical events with slipshod or inaccurate historical detail. Audiences will leave the theater assuming that they are now experts on the persons and the period when really all they have gained is a misleading or warped understanding.

To benefit the most from reenactment is is essential to keep word and image in close proximity. If you are not familiar with the book of Exodus, then you have no measuring stick to hold up to Messiah's Mansion. If you have never read the tale of St. Brendan, then you cannot judge the authenticity of Tim Severin's voyage.

What kinds of historical reenactment have you witnessed or participated in? How did they further (or detract from) your knowledge of history?

Just the Facts, Ma'am...

Fiction or Nonfiction? What's the difference?

I picked up James Patterson's book The Murder of King Tut at the library the other day. Just in case you didn't know it, James Patterson (according to his website) is the best selling author in the world right now. In the past three years, he has reportedly sold more books than any other author, an estimated 170 million copies worldwide.

Now, James Patterson books aren't usually my thing--thrillers and mysteries that you buy at an airport book stall--but the cover of this book promised something special. "A Nonfiction Thriller," it proclaimed.

The Author's Note in the front of the book continued to promulgate what the cover had promised, that this was a work of nonfiction. Patterson asserts that his motto for this book was "Don't fake anything." He says he lost himself in books and online research while co-author Marty Dugard visited actual historical sites in London and Egypt.

We then combined our notes and began writing. One astounding fact about Egyptian history is that so much of it is still unknown. So when we came to a gap, we went back to the research for answers. Then we put forth our theory as to what happened. We constructed conversations and motives and rich scenes of palace life--all grounded in long hours of research.

Now, to me, this sounds exactly like what a historical fiction writer does. We research extensively, and then based on that research, endow our characters with words, thoughts, and descriptions. We fill in the gaps with plausible theories and construct motives for documented actions.

But Patterson, for some reason, does not want his book to fall into the genre of historical fiction. He claims it is history. "It's nothing new for histories to be speculative," he says, "but there's a difference between guessing and basing a theory on cold hard facts. We chose the facts."

I finished the Author's Note wondering if Patterson could perform what he had promised. Would he base this book on cold hard facts and live up to the name of nonfiction?

Chapter 12 - Thebes, 1347 BC

An even greater roar echoed through Thebes as the pharaoh's horses picked up speed.

High atop the reviewing stand, Nefertiti watched...Akhenaten...and tried to appear calm.

Meanwhile, two deep-set eyes leered at her. They belonged to her husband's royal scribe, a powerfully built man in his late thirties named Aye.

The populace was mesmerized by the horse-faced pharaoh galloping his favorite chariot, but Aye could have cared less. He was tantalized by the nervous young queen--and then aroused when she slipped her index finger into her mouth to bite her painted nail before remembering that thousands might witness her insecurity.

The royal scribe licked his lips. He could have almost any woman in Egypt, but she was the one he wanted. Aye studied her graceful neck and the rest of her, down to the gentle sway of her hips. She was much smarter than the pharaoh, who was a freak undeserving of her, Aye thought. Having served under his father, Aye knew how a pharaoh should look and behave--and Amenhotep was no such man.

But if not Amenhotep, then who should reign? Aye wondered.

He answered his own question: me.

Fiction or nonfiction? You be the judge.

The Homosexualization of History

Baldwin I is crowned King of Jerusalem

Yesterday, as I was doing some research for my current work in progress (Road from the West: A Novel of the First Crusade), I spent some time studying the life of Baldwin I, the man who succeeded his brother Godfrey of Bouillon as King of Jerusalem. I came across an article that claimed that Baldwin was a homosexual, citing as proof the fact that he had no children by any of his three successive wives and that in one place the contemporary chronicler William of Tyre says he "struggled in vain against the lustful sins of the flesh." Conclusive evidence, no?

This was yet another example of a historical fallacy that I've seen surfacing time and time again in popular history books. This fallacy goes something like this: "Person X had no biological children. Homosexuals have no biological children. Therefore, Person X was a homosexual." This makes just about as much sense as saying, "Monks do not marry. Elizabeth I did not marry. Therefore, Elizabeth I was a monk." Are there no other reasons besides homosexuality that a man does not procreate children? And are the only lustful sins of the flesh homosexual ones?

Richard the Lionhearted is one example of a historical figure who has been trampled on (probably undeservedly) by this historical fallacy. Until the middle of the twentieth century, no one seriously mooted the idea that he was a homosexual. Now, this portrayal of him shows up in nearly every biography and historical novel set during that time period. As I understand it, the case for Richard's homosexuality lies in the fact that he had no children (except for possibly one illegitimate son), didn't seem very interested in getting married (deserting his wife Berengaria right after they tied the knot), and in his early days had a very close relationship with Philip Augustus of France.

One of the primary source quotes used to "prove" that Richard and Philip had a homosexual relationship is this:

Et post pacem illam Ricardus comes Pictaviae remansit cum rege Franciae contra voluntatem patris sui; quem rex Franciae in tantum honorabat, quod singulis diebus in una mensa ad unum cantinum manducabant, ed in noctibus non separabat eos lectus. Et propter illum vehementum amorem qui inter illos esse videbatur, rex Angliae nimio stuporo arreptus, mirabatur quid hoc esset, et praecavens sibi in futurum, frequenter misit nuncios suos in Franciam ad revocandum Ricardum filium suum....

Which in translation says something roughly like this:

And after this peace, Richard the Count of Poitou remained with the king of France against the will of his father; and the king of France was honoring him in such a way that each day they would eat together at one table from one dish, and in the night their bed did not separate them. And because of this exceeding love which appeared between them, the king of England [Henry II] was struck with much astonishment and marveled at this, and being on his guard for himself in the future, sent his messengers frequently to France to recall his son Richard....

Now, I know that my husband or my brother would strongly object to sharing a bed with another man, probably on grounds that it was "gay." But does this text give a homosexual connotation to Richard and Philip sharing a bed? Not really. It seems just another way that Philip was honoring Richard, and we must remember that in the Middle Ages, men (yes, heterosexual men) shared beds all the time.

Some have read into this text that Richard's father Henry is upset about the strange relationship developing between his son Richard and Philip, the King of France. Yes, he is upset, but I don't think that a fear of homosexual activity has anything to do with it. His son Richard is befriending the longtime enemy of England, and Henry is trying to stop them from allying against him.

Judging this quote by the standards of the time it was written in, I think it is fair to say that the author is making no implications of homosexuality between Richard and Philip. The circumstantial evidence of Richard having no children (standing by itself) is a foolish fallacy to build an argument on. There are several clear cases of homosexual figures in history--take Edward II or James I, for example--but those are cases supported by the testimonies of contemporary historians not created by the speculations of modern scandal-mongers. Historians run the risk of rank revisionism when they make an argument for homosexuality based on the absence of children or anachronistic readings of primary sources.