Same-sex relationships (sworn brotherhood) in English history

As seen in the work of Geoffrey Chaucer

Introduction

We know about sworn brotherhoods from many historical sources.
The Kings Cnut and Edmund Ironside became sworn brothers in 1016 to cement good political relations between their kingdoms. Edward II became the wedded brother of Piers Gaveston in 1300/1 ‘as an unbreakable bond of love between them’, and sources from many parts of the world tell of different relationships:

• of blood brothers,
• brothers in arms
• brigands who swore a commitment ‘all for one and one for all’, like the three musketeers.

Several different sorts of relationship seem to be related to sworn brotherhood.

For the first part of this evening we’re looking at England and trying to get a feel of what sworn brotherhoods were really like, starting with passages from Geoffrey Chaucer from the 14th century.

In the second part we look at some traditional English ballads.

The third is where we do the costumes and acting.

- - -

Some writers argue that sworn brotherhoods were:

• obscure - we don't know much about them,
• trivial relationships with no social or legal status,
• or business partnerships,
• the brotherhood between monks,
• or the camaraderie of soldiers or brigands.

But these accounts don’t seem to fit the evidence. In Chaucer we find several recurring themes that tell a different story.

The Friar’s Tale

Chaucer is best known for his portrayal of the hypocrisy of his characters, many of whom were pretty dodgy people. And some of those people swore brotherhood.

In Chaucer’s time if someone was accused of an offence, the 'summoner' would be sent to summon them to court. The summoner would be not afraid to get into a fight, and not afraid to win. Because of his position, he also had enormous opportunity to extort money.

In the Friar’s Tale an exceptionally corrupt summoner is met by a mysterious ‘gay yeoman’ and they greet each other heartily. The summoner is too ashamed to admit his real employment, so he claims to be a bailiff and the fair yeoman says he’s a bailiff too.

… Thou art a bailly, and I am another,
I am unknowen as in this contree;
Of thyn aqueyntance I wolde praye thee
And eek [also] of brotherhede, if that yow lest [wish]
I have gold and silver in my cheste;
If that thee happe to comen in our shyre,
Al shal be thyn, right as thow wolt desyre

‘Grantmercy,’ quod this Sumnour, ‘by my feith!’

Everich [each] in the otheres hand his trouthe leith,
For to be sworne bretheren til they deye.
In daliance they ryden forth hir weye.

Sworn brotherhood may be unfamiliar to us today, but Chaucer tells it in only two words ‘For to be sworne bretheren til they die’. So Chaucer expects his audience to know sworn brotherhood without any explanation at all. The idea is familiar to them.

He stresses the truthfulness of the relationship that they are swearing up to: 'Everich [each] in the otheres hand his trouthe leith' ‘[Each in the others hand his troth he lays]’. But Chaucer has described the summoner as extremely dishonest – so this is heavy irony.

And Chaucer adds that they swear brotherhood 'till they die'. He doesn’t need to explain this common idea to his audience. It's a story-teller's device to give the reader clues about how the plot will work out.

Before they swore brotherhood, they used words like ‘brother’ and ‘dere’ ‘[dear]' as politeness and as pleasantries. Now they are sworn brothers, they refer to each other as ‘dere’ and ‘brother dere…’, increasingly, although the need for pleasantries has gone. So they are showing, or pretending, affection.

Notice too that these vows are not sworn in public nor are they witnessed – the audience would recognise that this is not how such vows were supposed to be taken. The summoner’s motive is pure greed – this too is a bad sign.

Now they are sworn brothers, the corrupt summoner starts to pry for the tricks of the trade the newcomer uses to extort the most money as a bailiff. In doing so, he quotes his new relationship of truthfulness, troth plight, to demand truthful answers on a delicate subject.

Summoner:
' ... But as my brother tel me, how do ye?

Yeoman:
'Now by my trouthe, brother dere,' seyde he
'As I shal tellen thee a feithful tale, ... '

The newcomer reveals that he is not a bailiff, nor even a human being. He is actually a fiend from hell, come to take the summoner where he belongs.

And after some close scrapes the summoner traps himself through his own words and the fiend finally drags him off to Hell.

They are indeed united in death.

This tale reveals that-:

• It’s a familiar status - Chaucer explains it in just two words
• Established by oath – (though it is through bad motives and the oaths are not public not witnessed)
• People of the same sex
• Troth plight – supposed to be a truthful relationship, although they are, in fact lying
• Affection: they express particular affection although they are lying: they are expected to express affection
• A relationship to death – in one sense beyond death, into hell

The Knight's Tale The Knight’s Tale is far from being earthy. It’s about two sworn brothers, the knights, Arcite and Palamon. The story genuinely comes from ancient Greece. The most successful fighting force known to the ancient Greeks was the sacred band of Thebes, consisting entirely of male couples.

But Chaucer may have been unaware of this, and he updates the story so that Arcite and Palamon are dressed in a full suit of medieval armour and are therefore identified as sworn brothers by their heraldry.

So, after the carnage of defeat, the two are found, apparently dead, lying together, and their heraldry shows that they were sworn brothers.

We know quite a bit about medieval heraldry. Here is Richard Strangways, a gentlemen studying heraldry as part of his education. Here's what he wrote in the 1450s.

There were ii knights, and their lineage is yet in Spain, and there fell so great a love betwixt them that they were sworn brothers, and that one of them bore his arms with a bend [a heraldic diagonal]; and for the great love that his sworn brother had to him he forsook his own arms and said he would bear his brother’s arms and took the same arms, saying that he laid the bend up on the left side: and heralds considered the great love betwixt them and granted thereto.

It’s not entirely clear what Strangways is describing, but it’s like impalement. That is to say that the arms of the two knights were united, side by side, within the one design. Chaucer knew two knights, deeply loving, sworn brothers, whose arms were united in just this manner, so this may have been what he is referring to.

Returning to the Knight’s tale, Arcite and Palamon are not dead, and they are eventually nursed back to life and imprisoned high in a castle keep. However, from their vantage point they can see part of the palace gardens, and one day the beautiful princess Emily comes into view. Immediately Palamon, who sees her first, is enthralled by her beauty and, like a good medieval knight, is immediately struck by passionate and devoted love for her. Seconds later, Arcite sees her, and does the same, and thus she becomes the occasion of the near break up of their long and devoted relationship, a situation that continues through many adventures over tens of pages.

From the first moment that their argument begins, they quote their vows at each other

'It nere,' quod he, 'to thee no great honour
For to be fals, ne for to be traytour
To me, that am thy cosin and thy brother
Y-sworn full depe, and ech of us til other,
That never, for to dyen in the peyne, [to die in torture]
Til that deeth departe shall us tweyne
Neither of us in love to hinderen other,
Ne in non other cas [case], my leve [dear] brother;
But that thou sholdest trewely forthren [further] me
In every cas, and I shall forthren thee.
This was thyn ooth [oath], and myn also, certeyn [certainly], …

Chaucer elaborates the vows for dramatic effect. He says that they swore never to cross each other in love

Neither of us in love to hinderen other,

We can question whether people really swore vows this detailed. It could be that Chaucer, like any story-teller, elaborates the details of the tale for effect. But sworn brothers certainly were expected to further each others’ interests.

Also, it was common to swear mutual vows of brotherhood to death.

It seems very odd to us today, that in Chaucer’s England, a man could have a deep relationship with his wife, and at the same time an equally serious relationship with another man. But it was not odd in Chaucer’s time, nor in the world of ancient Greece nor in much of the Roman world.

But, whatever we think, in the story, this was not the problem. The only problem was that they both fell for the same woman.

The story is long and complicated, with many adventures. Suffice to say that they live to resolve all their differences, give thanks to God, and live happily ever after – like all good chivalric heroes.

But the tale shows that

• sworn brotherhood was well understood – needs no explanation
• established by taking oaths
• same sex
• it was not marriage (very distinct from the relationship with Emily)
• it was like marriage: impaling the arms of both families suggests that sworn brotherhood was recognised as a bond between the partners’ families.
• it was a deeply loving relationship: Arcite and Palamon really are made for each other (similarly Richard Strangways says that a deeply loving relationship was the reason for sworn brothers being allowed to impale their arms).
• the relationship did not conflict with marriage vows nor with the fidelity required with someone of the opposite sex: indeed it did not impinge on or devalue either relationship.
• united (apparently) in death – their bodies found lying together
• being permitted to change one’s coat of arms was a formal semi-legal recognition of the sworn brotherhood

The relationship is chivalric and highly esteemed, and the moral values of this story are high, quite unlike Chaucer’s bawdy tales.

Chaucer has two more very earthy tales that refer to sworn brotherhood.

The Shipman’s Tale

This is a tale of three characters: a wealthy merchant, his sworn brother a monk, and the merchant’s wife.

Before the merchant goes away on business the wife wants more money to buy finery. She borrows it from her husband’s sworn brother, the exceptionally handsome and caring monk, by putting on a show of real distress. The monk actually has to borrow it from the merchant on a pretext, before the merchant leaves. Sworn brothers were expected to support each other financially in time of need, so that was as it should be.

But when the monk needs the money back, the wife can’t repay him … in cash, and re-pays him generously ‘in kind’. And when the merchant returns he asks the monk to return the borrowed money, the monk says that he did repay it, giving to the merchant’s wife, and she has, no doubt, forgotten to mention it.

When the merchant asks the wife, very disappointed that she has failed to inform him of a debt repaid, she is not in a position to deny it. And she can’t repay it either, but she has the presence of mind to persuade her husband that she will repay him, in full, in bed. The husband realises that there is no mileage in admonishing her further, and settles for the deal.

So the story is pretty scurrilous. The woman gets the blame for goings on, and the relationships are restored – more or less.

However, there are three sets of vows in the story,

1. the marriage vows including truthfulness and sexual faithfulness,
2. the vows of sworn brotherhood including truthfulness to one’s sworn brother
3. and there are the monk’s vows of chastity in the monastic life.

In a burlesque way, all three sets of vows are reduced to the value of a sum of money, the same sum of money, and at this level, their value is just about equal. It’s not a very edifying moral, but the story wouldn’t work if the sworn brotherhood were significantly less important or less honourable than the binding vows of marriage or the binding vows of chastity in the monastic life.

So the vows of brotherhood must have been about as significant as the marriage vows or the monk’s vows.

It also illustrates that there was no conflict in having a sworn brother and a wife at the same time. And there is no problem to the monks’ vows of chastity in having a sworn brother – only in having a wife – in this case having the merchant’s wife.

• Sworn brotherhood is a familiar relationship.
• Established by oath
• Same sex (the sworn brotherhood is between the merchant ant the monk only)
• Supposedly troth plight
• It’s quite separate from marriage: you can have both relationships.
• There’s obvious affection here, although it is unremarkable in the social context of this tale

The Pardoner’s Tale

The Pardoner’s Tale is possibly the darkest of the Tales. The other pilgrims protest against hearing from the pardoner at all, and his tale is uniquely badly received. In fact, by the end, one pilgrim is about to castrate him.

A pardoner was someone who sold indulgences for sins – a very questionable practice at the time. This pardoner has boasted that the pardons and relics he sells are not genuine.

The pardoner tells a tale from one of his own sermons, beginning with several minutes of preaching against vices – most of which seem to be those he exemplifies himself.

One day three drunken villains learn, quite suddenly, that someone called ‘Death’ is taking people from all around – that’s ‘Death’, the medieval figure of the grim reaper - . He’s just carried off their friend next door and several others and nearby a whole village with the pestilence.

One of the three suddenly has … a bright idea. He proposes that they band together to seek out this fellow, Death, corner him and kill him – and the other two agree that it looks like a very good idea … at the time.

The three swear brotherhood joining hands. They plight their troth – so they’re probably going to be deceiving each other. And they swear to live and die together, and we suspect that they might be doing that rather soon.

The three stagger out in a drunken frenzy of bungling and wickedness – exactly the depravities that the pardoner’s sermons dwell upon.

They are told exactly where to find Death, but when they get there they discover a huge hoard of coins. They have got lucky! Two of them remain to guard it till nightfall, while the youngest goes off for provisions – more wine – and then they can carry the hoard away under cover of darkness.

The two who remain plot to kill the youngest on his return, and divide the spoils. Then the third returns, with a similar idea, carrying wine laced with rat poison, so that he can take the whole hoard himself.

So the two turn on the third and kill him. After that they settle down to drink the wine and they die slowly in prolonged pains, ages of agony and terrible torment.

• The relationship is recognised by the audience – no explanation
• Established by vows – though the vows are rash, not public, not witnessed and, in this case, not even taken in a remotely sober state
• a same sex relationship
• The troth that they plight is broken within the hour
• Not like marriage – since more than two people are involved
• They are indeed united in death – but horribly, not nobly nor romantically – they even kill each other (which by the tradition of sworn brotherhood is absolutely heinous).

They become a ‘union’ – although it’s all for one and one for all.

Both Chaucer and the ballads from this period refer to sworn brotherhoods of more than two people. But this practice seems to have died out long ago.

Where there are more than two sworn brothers the context tends to be ancient, and often rather disreputable – like outlaws swearing solidarity against authority.

House of Fame

The House of Fame is quite unlike Chaucer’s earthy and bawdy stuff. It’s a grand, allegorical poem. It tells how the writer is transported, in a dream or a vision, by an enormous eagle, golden and shining like the sun, and the eagle soars heavenward, taking him to the mythical house where dwells the goddess-like figure of Fame.

Everything represents something else in a poetic sort of way. So he’s playing games with lots of concepts.

Toward the end of the poem he tells us how the news gets back to this personage, Fame. The news or ‘tidings’, true and false go together. Hundreds of them, they scurry away in haste back to Fame. But there are so many tidings that they can’t squeeze through the crevices and windows.

So the tidings pair up and unite – true and false together to become one tiding, by swearing brotherhood.

It really is allegorical.
So he’s playing games with the ideas.

… I shal never fro thee go,
But be thyn owne sworen brother!
We wil medle [mingle] us ech with other,
That no man, be he never so wrothe,
Shal have that oon of two but bothe
At ones, al beside his leve, [all inspite of his leave]
Come a-morwe or on eve,
Be we cryed [shouted] or stille y-rouned. [quietly whispered]

He’s playing games with the concept of sworn brotherhood.
You can make out that it’s

• a familiar status (otherwise the allegory would not work)
• a relationship established by oaths

The two become mingled – in fact they become ‘united’.

...Thus saugh I fals and sooth compouned
Togeder flee for oo [one] tydinge. ...

But the remarkable thing is that the audience must have been very clear indeed what sworn brotherhood is – because you wouldn’t get it from the expressions used here. Chaucer is deliberately twisting the concept: tidings can’t swear anything – and they are not people so they can’t swear brotherhood. It’s a troth plight relationship: truthful; it can’t be half false and half true … and so on.

So it shows that people understood sworn brotherhood very clearly.

(And, just to explain why he does this, by this date Chaucer had become thoroughly disillusioned by the hypocrisy of 14th century England. That is why he describes fame as being made up of true and false tidings. They are mixed equally, and they are so mingled that you can no longer tell truth from falsehood.)

- - -

In case we miss the obvious, we've said that some of these passages show a real civil and legal relationship between sworn brothers. But that is an understatement: they all did. That's what the term 'sworn brother' or 'wedded brother' entails. In this period, covenants or contracts were formally sworn and witnessed in a public place. This was true of marriage, and it was true of sworn brotherhood. The references in ballads suggest that it was not just true of sworn brotherhood, it was equally true.

Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville

Truth and falsehood were mixed up in the state and in the Church. The selling of indulgences and the role of the pardoner was very discredited by Chaucer’s time. Soon Luther’s protest and the reformation were about to change the shape of the church permanently.

Two of Chaucer’s friends were Lollards, the precursors of the reformers. They were also upstanding figures in 14th century England. Chaucer knew Sir John Clanvowe as the poet. But Sir William Neville was the younger son of the historic Neville family. These two had met at university, and went on to serve the court of Richard II well, they became knights and international diplomats. And Chaucer knew them both as sworn brothers.

We said earlier that sworn brotherhood was an exceptionally exalted state in the 14th century – and Chaucer desperately needed the support of such a couple.

In 1380 Chaucer had been found guilty of rape. The girl was very young, and Chaucer needed to call upon Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville as, what we would call, character references. They became witnesses to a deed releasing Chaucer from rights of action in the rape case brought against him.

So in his last twenty years, Chaucer had reason to be extremely grateful for the prestige of sworn brotherhood and for these two sworn brothers in particular.

The Neville family is well documented and we know about both men from different sources. An entry in the Westminster Chronicle for 1391 recounts:

It was on 17th October that in a village near Constantinople in Greece the life of Sir John Clanvowe, a distinguished knight, came to its close, causing to his companion on the march, Sir William Neville, for whom his love was no less than for himself, such inconsolable sorrow that he never took food again and two days afterward breathed his last, greatly mourned, in the same village. These knights were men of high repute among the English, gentlemen of mettle and descended from illustrious families.

In 1913 the inscription stone from their tomb was found.

It depicts two helmets, facing each other, as if in the kiss of peace, each bearing a shield with the arms of the Neville and Clanvowe families impaled, as they would have been for a marriage. The two shields lean toward each other, overlapping as if in an embrace, but indicating that the two bodies that once lay beneath were turned toward each other in death.

So Chaucer knew sworn brothers whose relationship was characterised by

• a relationship that was familiar, needing no explanation
• established through taking formal oaths
• same sex
• to us it looks like marriage in some respects
• a very deep love between them
• a relationship completed in death, they die together and are buried in a shared tomb
• civil recognition for an esteemed relationship

So sworn brotherhood was a real relationship, with legal and civil status, of deeply loving couples.

There are few records of burials and few tombs of married couples from this country that survive from this date. There are even fewer of sworn brothers, and the relationship of sworn brotherhood almost disappeared during the 15th century as traditional medieval thought patterns gave way to those of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. People continued to commit to life long relationships, but the civil relationship was no longer recognised and carried no legal significance. But some of those relationships whose records do survive are included in the handbill for this evening:

Sir John Clanvowe and Sir William Neville,

Dicul and Maelodran the wright

Louis of Orleans and Jean of Burgundy

Dairmoit and Mac Cois

Thomas Harper and Ralph Hamsterley

Ultan and Dubthac

...

They are all part of our LGBT history

This part of the evening ended with some discussion, followed by a tea break, before we came back for the presentation on ballads.