Laments and Elegies, Death and Destruction

"Elegy" (from Greek) = "lament" (from French) = a song or poem expressing grief for the dead; a dirge.

"Elegy" has a second meaning; a classical Greek elegy was any reflective poem written in a particular meter (elegiac). Virgil used the pastoral elegy to treat of many things besides death. In Early Modern Britain, some elegies were laments while others were love poems.

Three parts of a classical funeral elegy

praise
lament
consolation

Obsessed with Death?

(or, Why so many elegies and laments in our anthologies?) Warning: The remainder of this page, like the books of Lemony Snicket, is quite depressing.

Poetry is a poet’s natural response to honor the loss of a friend or important person (in earlier times, especially the poet’s patron or someone in the patron’s family).
Death was more immediate to earlier people, who didn’t have hospitals and funeral homes. People were usually nursed at home, died at home, and were prepared for burial at home.
Tragic and even catastrophic death was more common in the later Middle Ages and Early Modern period than before the Norman Conquest--because of war, famine, and plague.

WAR

War with France: 1066-1453

After William Duke of Normandy had defeated the forces of Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, William was crowned at Westminster Abbey, and his half-brother Odo is thought to have commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry to celebrate.

William the Conqueror, as he is known to history, was born out of wedlock to a tanner’s daughter and Duke Robert of Normandy, who in turn was the son of a Norseman who had conquered Normandy. In the absence of any other heir, William became Duke of Normandy at age 7, and earned over the years a reputation for being devout, brave, tough, and cruel.

After his coronation as William I of England, he still had to put down rebellions for four years; in the process he destroyed churches, monasteries, and fields—and sacked the city of York. He and his Norman supporters built residences they could easily defend: castles with towers and moats. William's was the original portion of the Tower of London.

By 1399 William's descendents controlled this much of the main island of Britain. This is what Chaucer and his contemporaries meant by "England." The Normans had also introduced cultural practices from the continent--for instance, the feudal system.

But the monarchs of England hadn't forgotten that William had been Duke of Normandy: France, 1032. This is how much land Henry II of England, at the end of the 11^th century, believed he could claim by birthright or by marriage (to Eleanor of Aquitaine). The white territories he claimed for his brother Geoffrey, who had married Constance of Brittany: France, 1174. And this is how close the British came to achieving their goal: France, 1429.

In the "Hundred Years War" (1337-1453), there was increased emphasis on infantry and on archers, rather than the more expensive cavalry. As a result, battles became bloodier: they involved more men and less ransoming, because one only ransomed the aristocracy.

For example, at the Battle of Crecy (1346), the British reportedly "took no prisoners and asked no ransoms," allowing "Welsh and Cornishmen armed with long knives" to finish off the injured. John of Luxemburg, king of Bohemia, blind and thus not much of a threat, was nevertheless found dead on the battlefield, with all his companions. Before Poitiers (1356), John II of France ordered that no British soldier be left alive except the Black Prince. And before Agincourt (1415), Henry V ordered that all French prisoners be killed in anticipation of an attack (one that never came)—thus Pistol’s cry, "coup’ la gorge," in Shakespeare's Henry V.

But even though battles were bloodier, more soldiers died from infection and disease (like the dysentary that probably killed Henry V, as well as many of his men) than on the battlefield.

The Crusades

At the same time, many British were going off to the Crusades, to "free" the Holy Land from the "infidels." Propaganda and promises were used to enlist Crusaders.

FAMINE

1315-22
1370
1433-35
1438-40

Causes:

Weather: wet springs and summers, causing poor harvests; cold winters, killing animals; floods and storms on the east coast that washed farmland and houses into the sea;
Outbreaks of disease among animals;
Raids on northern England by Scottish armies, 1311-27, frequently at harvest-time;
British soldiers turned raiders, especially on the northern border;
Corrupt purveyers who didn't pay (in wooden "tallies") for the army's victuals and/or sold the army's victuals for private gain.

Results:

The mortality rate is difficult to estimate. Many died not of starvation but of vitamin deficiencies like scurvy (the lack of vitamin C) and pellagra (the lack of niacin). There were also food-related disorders like ergotism (called "St. Anthony's Fire"), caused by eating moldy grain.

PLAGUE

The Black Death:

Bubonic: fatal to 60% of the sufferers, typically in five days, recognized by swellings or buboes where the lymph glands were trying to combat the disease. Another symptom was corea, "an uncontrollable movement of the limbs that may have given rise . . . to the tradition of Danse Macabre" (Alberth).
Pneumonic: fatal in nearly 100% of the cases, typically in three days. More commonly occurring in winter, the main symptom was coughing up blood.
Septicemic: fatal within hours, with few recorded symptoms (so that the method of transmission is still unknown).

Epidemics—in Chaucer’s lifetime alone:

1348-49
1361-62
1369
1374-79
1390-93
1400
1407
1413
1420
1423 (possibly another disease)
1426-29 (possibly another disease)
1433-35
1438-40
1463-64
1467
1471
1479-80

Causes: fleas infested with the plague bacteria, and carried to Britain by the black rat, Rattus rattus; lack of antibiotics; poor hygiene (for instance, clothes were expensive and difficult to clean); timber roofs and earthen floors covered with rushes--very hospitable to the black rat.

Mortality rate: 25% to 60% of Britain; in some areas, 70-80% died.

Other epidemics in Chaucer’s lifetime:

1471 the stich (pleurisy?)
1473 the flux (dysentery)
1475 the French pox (gonorrhea)
1485 the sweat (respiratory influenza)

Results: Family ties disintegrated, as "brothers abandoned brothers, uncles their nephews, sisters their brothers" (Boccaccio). "In addition, laws were disregarded; doctors refused to tend the sick; priests feared to administer last rites; . . . whole families were walled into their houses once the plague struck one of their members; . . . no one attended or cried at funerals, but rather fled from them or made them the object of jests" (Alberth). Some today argue that many survivors refrained from marriage or even practiced contraception, but contemporaries observed an increase in marriages and births. Monks Ralph Higden and John of Reading noted that after the plague of 1361 widows married foreigners, "imbeciles," and kinsmen, and "shamelessly gave birth to bastards."

Quiz from The Measly Middle Ages:

Which of the following was considered to be a cure for the plague?

stuffing a mustard and onion mixture up the nose
wearing a dried toad in a bag round the neck
eating powdered emeralds
wearing a bandage of goats' droppings mixed with rosemary and honey

For the answer, see the bottom of the feudal system page.

Apocalypse Now?

Society was breaking down. People were dying all around, many times from causes that were inexplicable to contemporary observers. In response, some survivors abandoned religious faith, morality, and social responsibilities. Others became more religious, considering all these tragedies punishment for the sins of the people. Perhaps God would forgive them if they did penance (the flagellants) or destroyed God's enemies (the crusaders). Nearly everyone became more superstitious-since they couldn't see germs, they blamed the stars, or witchcraft, or demons. They bought relics and indulgences, and went on pilgrimages. Many dabbled in alchemy, which promised gold and the elixir of youth.

For Further Reading:

Aberth, John. From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague, and Death in the Later Middle Ages. New York and London: Routledge, 2001.
Deary, Terry. The Measly Middle Ages. New York: Scholastic, 1996.
Singman, Jeffrey L., and Will McLean. Daily Life in Chaucer's England. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995.

This page, http://www.tcnj.edu/~graham/elegies.html, was last updated
[Dr. Graham's LIT 251 syllabus] [Dr. Graham's home page]