Dwarfs in the courts of Europe in the early modern period

The diverse roles of dwarfs in early modern society - especially aristocratic society, appear surprisingly often in the pages of Medieval and Early Sources Online (MEMSO), often enough that the contradictory positions of aristocratic favour and aristocratic abuse that people affected by dwarfism found themselves in become readily apparent. Short stature opened doors into the richest houses of Europe for such people, but at the price of loss of liberty and/or the chance of leading anything like a normal life.

Dwarfs were welcomed into royal courts because of their novelty and even fashion value, where they lived beside other court peculiarities such as the court jester. For instance, Mary of Guise kept both a a female jester, called Serat, and a dwarf called Jane in Scotland during the 1530s.

The benefits of being at court were mixed at best, as the mentioning of dwarfs in the same breath as jesters suggests. In the court of Mantua the Marchioness viewed her two dwarfs in the same way she might have viewed hunting dogs - marrying them and then disposing of one of their children as a gift to a friend as she might have given a puppy.

Yet in other places, dwarfs were held with affection to the degree that they were allowed unusual liberties in aristocratic society. A dwarf named Jemmy [Jamie] was employed by the Steuarts of Grandtully at Murthly Castle in the early 19th century, where he was employed as keeper of the inner gatehouse, and worked on various tasks from weeding the court, counting the fowls sent as rent, and fetching mail.

Somehow, as well as these tasks, Jemmy acquired the liberty to 'make his appearance in the dining-room', at meal times, whereupon he would sit on the floor and make observations on the conversation, including remarks of 'caustic bitterness' against anything he heard with which he disagreed. He would also wander into some of the women's bedrooms before they were up in the morning, and talk to them 'until it was time to rise'.

Unfortunately, as the castle passed to a new master, Jemmy found himself in less tolerant surroundings. The new laird both hated and was hated by Jemmy, yet the laird stopped short of dismissing him entirely from his service.

Accordingly the Redbook of Grantully records that Jemmy spent his later life 'eating and making love to lady's-maids, and he died partly from the loss of his sweethearts, on whom he made verses, and partly from the discountenance of the cook'.

By the time he died, he had saved between £400 and £500 from his wages - a sum that the National Archives estimates as about £25,000 in today's money.

Bad booze and beatings in medieval Oxford - The Scholastica Day 'riot'

Medieval boozers.

10 February 1355, town versus gown friction in Oxford reached an all time low. The St Scholastica Day Riot (surely a more proper name would be 'massacre') over bad beer wine erupted when a slanging match and a thrown tankard led the tavern owner and the mayor to call the townspeople to arms in retaliation. 2000 men raided Oxford colleges in search of the original instigators, killing 63 scholars. The scholars were hardly innocent in events either - two of them had provoked the retaliation by beating the tavern owner, then 200 had gathered around them and roughed up the mayor before the town finally responded. During the rioting as many as 30 townspeople were also killed, bringing the total deaths to as many as 93.

Despite the horrendous behaviour on both sides, only the townspeople were punished, and ordered to say mass every subsequent St Scholastica Day, and pay a fine of a penny for every scholar killed. Bad feeling continued for centuries to come, and in 1575 the university claimed 15 years breach of contract - even though the mass had been illegal since the accession of Elizabeth I. The payment of fines continued until 1825, when the mayor refused to take part, but a formal reconciliation did not occur until 1955, just 600 years after the events concerned.

One might ask why this event is not more notorious. For comparison, only 38 men were murdered at the notorious Glencoe Massacre (although 40 more [men, women and children] died of exposure subsequently). The massacre of Jews at York, perhaps numerically the largest ever massacre in mainland Britain (although dwarfed by some of the massacres that have happened in Ireland), saw 150 die in 1190. By any measure the Scholastica Day Riot deserves to be better known.

More details at:
http://en.wikipedia.or/wiki/St_Scholastica_Day_riot
http://organizations.ju.edu/fch/1993miller.htm

Henry VIII and Jewish Law

Eustace Chapuys, ambassador of the
Holy Roman Emperor at the Court of Henry VIII

31 January 1531, Eustace Chupuys, ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor and leading defender of Catherine of Aragon, recounts how Henry VIII had been consulting a Jew from Rome on matters of Jewish law that might provide a way by which the king could divorce Catherine. Henry in fact consulted a number of Jews in his search for a way out of his marriage.

On this occasion, according to Chupuys, he was advised that his marriage should not be dissolved, but on the other hand it would be perfectly legal for him to take a second wife.

This suggestion Henry found 'extravagent and absurd' and would not consider. Nevertheless, Henry continued to pursue solutions in Jewish law to the 'Great Matter' of his marriage, primarily relating to the legality of marrying the widow of one's brother.

The argument used by the Jewish scholar for royal bigamy was that, since Henry had married his brother's widow, under Jewish law his heirs were ascribed to Catherine's first husband (Prince Arthur, who died in 1503), and not Henry (based on Deuteronomy 25). Since it was unreasonable that someone should be unable to produce heirs of their own, it was therefore permissible to take a second wife.

Henry, by contrast, was interested in the apparent contradiction between Deuteronomy 25, which commanded that a man must marry his brother's widow (and have children), and Leviticus 18, which forbade a brother from having intercourse with his brother's wife, and the potential for interpretations that might release him from marriage to Catherine.

The scholar in question was probably Marco Raphael, a convert to Christianity. In 1531 Jews were banned from England, as they had been since 1290 and would remain until 1655, and ubiquitous anti-semitic sentiment made it impossible for Henry to invite some of the rabbis he consulted to England. Raphael was politically acceptable as a convert, but unfortunately gave the wrong answer to the leading question that Henry had asked. Isaac Halfron, a Venetian rabbi, by contrast, had given the correct answer, but only by a letter. Halfron stated that while the law commanding marriage in Deuteronomy had fallen into abeyance since the Talmudic era, the law in Leviticus forbidding sexual relations with one's brother's wife had not, and therefore Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon was illegal.

Additional details from The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850, by David S Katz via http://jeremyrosen.blogspot.com/2007/06/henry-viii-and-jews.html

When Baroque Renos Go Bad

13 January 1690. Hampton Court Palace is suffering from a dodgy reno, but who is the cowboy contractor responsible? None other than baroque bricky extraordinaire Sir Christopher Wren, that's who.

Wren and others had been sent to inspect a falling wall and then got into argument with Master of Works William Talman about how bad the cracks were, and whether the wall was unsafe. Mr Talman stated "every pier is crakt that one may putt his finger in". Wren responded "I'le putt it on this, a man cannot putt his finger in the cracks". Talman responded that the cracks had been 'stopt', or hidden. Others on Wren's side claimed the wall had already withstood a 'hurrycane'.

To solve the dispute, the Lords of the Treasury did what committees do best - appointed a commission. This 'commission to examine the cracks' was to report back by Wednesday and state whether the disputed wall would stand or not.

To be fair to Wren, his additions to Hampton Court, including the piers (pillars) still stand, so presumably the build quality was more than sufficient.

Wren and Talman's addition

Interestingly, Talman was a former pupil of Wren, and notoriously hard to get on with. As Master of Works, he was responsible for building the wall according to plans provided by Wren, so the overall implication here appears to be that Talman was arguing that Wren's designs were defective. Talman had moreover beaten Wren to the building contract by quoting a lower price for interior decoration.

A very rich Lotterie generall without any Blankes

11 Jan 1569 went down in history as date of the 1st lottery in England. In fact the lottery took several years to run, starting in 1566, and in 1567 MEMSO shows that the queen was concerned that the lottery was failing since 'the lottery erected by her commands in London had not been so well supported as was anticipated'.

Prizes from the first lottery

Everybody who bought a ticket to an early lottery won a prize, and the total prizes given equalled the total cost of tickets sold. As a result, the lottery benefited the government only in so far as it was an interest free loan for the period between the ticket being sold and the prize being awarded.

The lottery system gave rise to the stockbroker profession. Because lottery tickets were very expensive, the brokers sold 'shares' of tickets to individuals instead. This system ran until 1826.

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Best Tweets of 2011: strange rules and regulations

Here are some more of our favourite tweets of 2011 as found in MEMSO. Remember, access to MEMSO is available (discounted during the Holiday season) at http://www.tannerritchie.com/.

Today's theme: strange rules & regulations.

1611: Act abolishing rude & barbarous customs in Ireland, such as crying or howling at funerals; blowing milch cattle to make them give milk.

The West End of Canterbury Cathedral.
Once England's finest gothic urinal?

1536: Henry VIII orders all inhabitants of Galway to shave their 'over lips called crompeaulis' & grow their hair 'til it covers their ears'

1634: Despite a ban, urination @ west end of Canterbury Cathedral & defiling of churchyard 'with more filthy excrements' is still a problem.

Report from London 1618: Tobacco use widespread but banned from court as James I abhors it. Also a great selection of European wines but very expensive. As a result, hiccups held in high regard. Not rude to discharge them in your neighbour's face provided they be redolent of wine or choice of tobacco.