Same-sex relationships (sworn brotherhood) in English history

As seen in traditional English ballads

Introduction

In 1589, George Puttenham is writing an argument about how music should be composed properly. He stops to make an exception – and in that comment he reveals a wealth of detail of how ballads were performed, who performed them, to whom and where. They were not normally performed in the Lord’s great hall on a winter’s night.

[V]nless it be in small and popular Musikes song by these Cantabanqui vpon benches and barrels heads where they haue none other audience then boys or countrey fellowes that passe by them in the streete, or else by blind harpers or such like tauern minstrels that give a fit of myrth for a groat, & their matters being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the reportes of Beuis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymme of the Clough & and such other old Romances or historical rimes, made purposely for recreation of the comon people at sse diners & brideales, and in the tauerns & alehouses and such other places of base resort.
Puttenham, Arte of English Poesie, 1589

So the ballads were the culture of the common people, every night in taverns, in alehouses and in celebrations like marriages. They were about the old English heros and their legends.

The ballad of Adam Bell and Clym of the Clough

William of Cloudsley, Adam Bell and Clym of the Clough, all famous names in English ballads were friends living the idyllic life of outlaws in Inglewood forest.

The three banded together as sworn brothers.

Merry it was in the green forést,
Among the leavés green,
Where that men walk both east and west,
With bows and arrows keen,

To rise the deer out of their den; [this is illegal: they are the king’s deer]
Such sights as hath oft been seen,
As by the yeomen of the north country,
By them it is as I mean.

And one of them hight Adam Bell,
The other Clym of the Clough,
The third was William of Cloudesly,
An archer good enough. [means very good indeed]

They were outlawed for venison,
These three yeomen everyone;
They swore them brothers upon a day,
To Inglewood for to gone.

Now lith and listen, gentlemen,
And those that of myrths love to here:
Two of them were single men,
The third had a wedded fere [or ‘wedded wife’].

...

So, Clym of the Clough, has to go to Carlisle to see his wife, and children three.

But a spy alerts the sheriff’s men; they surround the house, Clym lets his wife escape amid the hail of arrows, and the sheriff's men capture him and take him to the mayor of Carlisle, for trial and execution, the next day.

Next morning the others realise that he hasn’t come back and ride in haste to Carlisle: they are sworn to defend their sworn brother at the risk of their lives, if necessary.

The city gates have been locked so no outsider can interfere with the trial and the hanging. But the two sworn brothers gallop up and trick the gatekeeper into letting them in. They overpower the gatekeeper, wring his neck in two and steal his keys (so they can get out again), and arrive at the town square just in time to see Clym of the Clough with the noose around his neck.

They shoot the sheriff and the justice, rescue Clym and swashbuckle their way out of the city and escape. – They defend him to the death as they swore to do.

Then they ride straight to the king in London burst into the palace, they throw themselves, dramatically at the king’s feet to humbly beseech him for a pardon for killing the kings fallow deer (the reason for their being outlaws). The king won’t hear of it would have them hanged, except that the queen intervenes and has them pardoned and exonerated completely, to offer them a new life as honest men.

They go off to dine with the king.

But messengers arrive from Carlisle telling the king that there are 300 lying dead on the streets of Carlisle, and three outlaws are at large Adam Bell, William Cloudesly and Clym of the Clough.

The king would have them shot, but he has already pardoned them so he sets them tests and … in the end Cloudesly introduces the challenge that he will shoot an apple from the head of his son. Of course all the spectators are on the side of Cloudesly, willing him not to quaver. And when the apple is cleft in twain, the king is so impressed that he makes the three of them kings men, an soldiers, with a pension – and the queen throws in another for good measure.

The three repent, and go off to Rome for absolution.
And the ballad ends …

So forth be gone these good yeomen,
As fast as they might hye,
And after came and dwelled with the king,
And died good men all three.

Thus endeth the lives of these good yeomen,
God send them eternal bliss,
And all that with hand-bow shooteth,
That of heaven they may never miss!

• sworn brotherhood is a familiar status - needs no explanation
• between people of the same sex
• can be more than two people. Does it apply because the three are shady characters? It purports to be an ancient tale.
• established by oath - 'They swore them brethen' - but not in public
• band of outlaws - but the ethos changes toward the end
• different from marriage – history of multiple partners
• compatible – Cloudesly can be married and have a sworn brother – or even sworn brothers – without undermining the fidelity of marriage.

Guy (of Warwick) and Tirry

Guy of Warwick was another of the great figures of the world of folk tale and ballad. The legends are extensive.

Guy is enthralled by the lady Felice, who is of higher social rank than he is. So to be able to marry her he has to improve his status by being a valiant knight in the tradition of chivalry. So he travels widely, fights dragons, giants, great boars … and a dun cow, and eventually he returns and marries Felice. But he repents of his violent past, leaves on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and when he comes back to England, in spite of his new wife, he lives as a hermit.

But he has a sworn brother, Tirry.
Their vows are recounted: ‘Treuthe bitven hem is plight’. (Actually these vows are diverse and detailed – we could tick all the boxes in the table above.) But we’ll just note that there is real affection in several passages:

Tirry refuses food while his is parted from Sir Guy

and when he is woken up, he has been dreaming-:

Also me thoght, that syr Gye
Was here be me, full sekerlye [full surely]
And my hed in hys armes lay

Earlier in the poem it had been no dream:

Tho [Then] lay terry down to grounde,
And slepid in Gyes armes a stound. [a while]

And this corresponds with similar imagery in John Lyly’s Elizabethan novel Euphues, though they are two other characters:

But after many embracings and protestations one to another they walked to dinner … . They used not only one board but one bed, one book (if so be it they thought not one too many). Their friendship augmented every day, insomuch that the one could not refrain from the company of the other one minute. All things went in common between them, which all men accounted commendable. [Lyly, Complete Works, 1:199.]

There are several similar descriptions from other works.

• Sworn brotherhood is a familar status and needs no explanation
• Established by oath
• Compatible with marriage (Guy is romantically married as well as having a romantic sworn brotherhood)
• Troth plight
• Affection, and deep closeness between Guy and Tirry

Another theme has become evident, that sworn brotherhood is often associated with the high ideals of chivalry - not just with brigands.

The ballad of Athelston

The ballad begins with an invocation of God (as many do).
Then an invocation to the by-standers. (In Country and Western music, this is usually translated as ‘listen to my tale’.)
Then it tells us what the ballad is about – in one word: ‘falseness’.

Here’s the beginning of the ballad

Lord that is of mygthys most,
Fadyr and Sonne and Holy Ghost,
Bryng us out of synne
And lene us grace so for to wyrke
To love both God and Holy Kyrke
That we may hevene wynne.
Lystnes, lordyngs, that ben hende,
Of falsenesse how it wil ende,
A man that ledes hym therein. …

Four excellent young men, great friends with wonderful prospects bind themselves in sworn brotherhood plighting their troth.

They are Athelston, Wymound, Egelond and Alryke.

The oldest, Athelston, becomes king, and he advances his sworn brothers.
Wymound, who is poor, becomes Earl of Dover – a rich port.
Egelond becomes Earl of Stane.
Alryke, a devoted and able priest, he gives a bishopric. Caunterbury has just fallen vacant. He goes from humble priest to Archbishop overnight(!)

But Sir Wymound, becomes jealous. Athelston does not consult him as the old king used to. King Althelston, is particularly fond of Sir Egelond’s counsel and company, his wonderful wife and two handsome and pure sons.

Wymound deliberately spins the king a false tale (he’s sworn always to be honest to his sworn brother). He says that someone is plotting to poison and overthrow him and sieze the throne. He won't tell the king who, until the king swears by St Anne to give him anonymity. Then he drops the bombshell: it's Egelond, his wife and sons.

The king is outraged, and feeling betrayed and very vulnerable, summons Egelond, his sons and his very pregnant wife – on a pretext (so he now breaks his pledge of truth). When they arrive Egelond and his sons are cast into a dungeon to be executed on the morrow, and his distraught wife wails helplessly.

Several people try to persuade the king to hold a proper trial - but the king flies into a rage - after all, he's granted anonymity to his only witness, the sworn brother whom he trusts.

Quick summry: one sworn brother has been lied to by the second, and the third is in prison. Only the fourth sworn brother is left: can he save the day?

The queen sends a messenger to gallop hard, into the night to Caunterbury, to Alryke. Alryke takes a succession of nine horses to gallop hard to Westminster by dawn.

There, in church, the king is praying for guidance, and is eager to seek Alryke’s advice.

Alryke, like everyone else, advises a proper trial, which sends the king into a fury even greater than before.

He strips Alryke of cross, ring, crook and mitre.

The (ex-)archbishop pulls himself up to his full height, denies the king absolution announces that England will be denied all masses and christenings: drought and woe will follow; and he leaves.

He clearly has the support of the crowd which is becoming boisterous.

At last the king repents and sends runners to beg absolution from Alryke.

Alryke sets up a trial by fire.

Each of the Egelonds walks through unscathed except the mother, who rather predictably goes into labour and promptly gives birth to a very healthy baby on the way. The baby turns out to be none other than the future St Edmund.
The Egelond's each go to the high altar of St Paul’s to thank God for their escape.

The crowd rejoices and praises God at for each miracle.

Finally Sir Wymound, down in Dover, is summoned to the trial by fire. He fails, and his family drags him from the flames. Before he dies he just has time to admit that his falseness and lies were caused only through envy.

His body is drawn and hung very high as an example.
And the ballad ends …

And Jesu, who is heaven’s king,
Leaves never traitor better ending
But suche doome for to die.

This ballad uses the term ‘wedded’ with equal force for the king’s wedded wife, and for his wedded brother. A ‘wed’ in Middle English was a pledge or covenant and the vows of both of sworn brotherhood and of betrothal were ‘weddings’. (The Anglo Saxon Chronicle describes King Cnut’s relationship to Edmund Ironside in 1016 as one of ‘wed brotherhood’.)

• sworn brotherhood is recognised. It needs no explanation
• established by oath
• can be more than 2 people
• different from marriage – Athelston advances his brothers (you can’t really do that with a wife)
• independent of marriage: a man can have both sworn bothers and a wife.
• compatible with Christian duties of fidelity or priesthood: priest can have a wed brother but he can’t have a wedded wife, you can have both a wife and a sworn brother or brothers.
• troth plight. - althought the story is about 'falsenesse' what happens when the vow is broken
• the relationship is highly esteemed in this case

This tale purports to be more ancient than it is. Was sworn brotherhood really practiced or even recognised in the 14th century?

Yes.

Army pay rolls distinguish various relationships of soldiers and list many ‘sworn brother of’, ‘wedded brother of’, ‘wed brother of’, ‘y-sworn brother’ and so on, and that is in the 14th century.

But could you still have multiple sworn brothers? That may be a past tradition but no longer approved.

Bewick and Graham

These are two sons of two different families, the Bewick family and the Grahame family. The fathers drink too much, and fall out over an argument.

Grahame, the son, is the sworn brother of Bewick the son.
The drunken father Bewick compares their two sons. He says the Grahame son is an illiterate wimp, a kid, who’s learned everything he knows from his sworn brother, the son Bewick, and the son Grahame is useless without his sworn brother. Apart from being an insult – it really hurts because it’s not so far from the truth.

So the father Grahame rides off and commands the young Graham to go and fight, or kill his sworn brother – to show him what he’s made of. Well – you could not kill your sworn brother. That was unacceptable by any standard. It’s documented right across Europe.

But the dutiful son (as in all good ballads) has to do what his father commands, so he must fight with Bewick. And he’s really stung by the accusations too. So he goes to his sworn brother who welcomes him

‘I wonder much what man yon be
That so boldly this way does come;
I think it is my nighest friend,
I think it is my bully Grahame. [‘bully’ here is dialect for sworn brother.]

‘O welcome, O welcome, bully Grahame!
O man, thou art my dear, welcome!
O man, thou art my dear, welcome!
For I love thee best in Christendom.’

‘Away, away, O bully Bewick,
And of thy bullyship let me be!
The day is come I never thought on;
Bully, I’m come here to fight with thee.’

‘O no! not so, O bully Grahame!
That eer such a word should spoken be!
I was thy master, thou was my scholar:
So well as I have learnéd thee.’

My father he was in Carlisle town,
Where thy father Bewick there met he;
He said I was bad, and he called me a lad,
And a baffled man by thou I be.’
…

‘O no! not so, my bully Grahame!
That eer such a word should spoken be!
Shall I venture my body in field to fight
With a man that’s faith and troth to me?’

You know what’s going to happen – they fight hard, without weakening, for three long hours, when Graham accidentally wounds Bewick, who falls, dying slowly. He warns Graham to flee the country before news of his murder leaks out - he’s murdered his sworn brother. But Graham is horrified, and, of course, fulfils his brotherhood vow:

The vow I made, and the vow I’ll keep;
I swear I’ll be the first that die.

and falls heavily on his sword to make sure he dies first.

Then the drunken father Bewick staggers up. He sees the wimp Grahame lying dead, and congratulates his son because his son has won the victory.

His dying son says

Nay, dig a grave both low and wide,
And in it us two pray bury;
But bury my bully Grahame on the sun-side,
For I’m sure he’s won the victory.

And eventually both fathers realise what their stupidity has done to two wonderful young men, who meant everything to them, and now lie dead at their feet.

• sworn brotherhood is a well-known relationship
• it's established by vows: 'With a man that’s faith and troth to me?’, 'bully', 'The vow I made, and the vow I’ll keep'
• a same-sex relationship
• affection
• two people only – it’s a later ballad and an honourable instance
• they are troth plight – ‘with a man that’s faith and troth to me’
• united in death – literally in a shared grave.

Bewick and Grahame are not soldiers, monks, business men or bandits - any more than the characters in other ballads and tales. This seems to deny most of the reasons given at the start of this evening why people swore brotherhood.

Amys and Amelion

Our last two ballads show a very different aspect of sworn brotherhood between two people.

Amys and Amelion is a ballad that exists in three secular forms. But the fourth is adapted by churchmen. In this one, Amys and Amelion have become the two saints, Saint Amys and Saint Amelion, sworn brothers.

We will now our troth plight
And be fellows day and night
And, as long as our lives shall last
Neither fail other in any pass.

(And we’ll come across two other saints similarly united in death later. When we hear about saints Sergius and Bacchus, just before the re-enactment.)

You would expect Amys and Amelion to be sleeping affectionately together, and they were. At one point, the angel Raphel is sent to Amys in his sleep, and Amys imagines that the voice is that of his sworn brother:

Raphael says: “Friend, are you sleeping?
And Saint Amys doesn’t realise that it’s the angel Raphael and replies “I cannot sleep, my beloved brother”, because Saint Amys imagines he is still sleeping with Saint Amelion.

In one version, the two were buried in two tombs.
The next morning their bodies were found lying side by side.

This religious version of the story was constructed to as an example of Christian values. So it may seem surprising that the two saints were a same sex couple.

- - -

But Robert D’Oilly, and Roger D’Ivry – sworn brothers and ‘i-confedered and
i-bound everich to other by faith and sacrament…’
The Dukes of Orleans and of Burgundy: were united with ‘oath sworn on the precious body of Jesus Christ’ which is reminiscent of ‘oaths sworn on the relics of the saints’ from the Knight’s Tale.

In none of these sources is there any suggestion of conflict between church teaching, and these committed, life-long brotherhoods. In fact we’ve seen a monk, a priest, the archbishop of Canterbury and a pair of saints united in sworn brotherhoods, without the slightest hint that there is anything incongruous.

But, amongst all the Christian associations of sworn brotherhood is a tale from the Gospels.

Amice Cristi Johannes

At the crucifixion, before Christ dies, he places his mother Mary into the care of John, his disciple.

Something like this would have happened in Medieval England, when the sworn brother would – not have inherited but – would have sorted out his sworn brother’s affairs, making provision for his family, wife, parents and children.

The gospels report that when Christ was arrested, all his followers fled. But it also says that John is there, with Christ, at his death. And the writer in the next poem assumes that John had intended to die with Christ – and they are, at least, together in death.

So, to the medieval audience, it was obvious that John and Christ were sworn brothers, because of their rights and duties. Today we think of John leaning on Christ’s breast at the last supper and John called ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ but there were other things that made sense to the medieval churchmen.

There are two other sources we can use for this:

From and an early English Carol whose refrain and title is

Jhesum semper amare [Always to Love Jesus]

As he in his passion to his dere moder
Toke [took] the for her keeper, her son, and his brother,
Pray that our hartes may most of all other
Jhesum semper amare
[Greene, Early English Carols]

A sermon preached in Beverley in the north of England around 1390

“Now mother”, he saith, “Good Mother, be nothing dismayed nor dis-eased for me, for I go straight to the father of heaven, nor be not afeared who shall support thee and help here, when I am agone, for I shall leave her with thee, John, mine own deare brother, that shall rule thee and look to thee as to his owne mother.”

But the longer piece, Amice Cristi Johannes, spells out this medieval understanding of Christ and St John as sworn brothers in more detail. 'Amice Cristi Johannes' translates as 'O Friend of Christ, thou John' and is both the title and the refrain.

Amice Cristi Johannes

Prey for vs the Prynce of Pees,
Amice Cristi Johannes

To the [thee] now, Cristes dere derlyng,
That were a maydyn [virgin] bothe eld and yyng,
Myn herte is set to the [thee] to syng,
Amice Christi Johannes.

For thou were so clene a may [virgin],
The preuytes [secrets] of heuene forsothe thou say
Qwan on Crystys brest thov lay,
Amice Christi Johannes.

Qwan Cryst beforn Pylat was browth,
Thov clene maydyn [virgin] forsok him nouth;
To deye wyth hym was al thy thowth,
Amice Christi Johannes

Crystys moder was the [thee] betake, [was by thee taken]
A maydyn [virgin] to ben a maydeny’s make [companion];
Thov be oure helpe we be not forsake,
Amice Christi Johannes.

This does not represent a real fifteenth century relationship – on the contrary, it is the elevated ideal.

It shows not only that the church then did not have its present problem with same-sex relationships, it also shows that the relationship did represent an ideal.

The ideal is behind their understanding of Christ and John.
The ideal is behind the story of the knights Palamon and Arcite.
The ideal is behind the story of saints Amys and Amelion.
It was then a Christian ideal.

And it’s the ideal that was depicted on the tomb of the very real Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe, or the tomb of John Whytton and John Bloxham and many others, who were united in life and whose bodies were united in death, in church, in a shared tomb.

This second part of the evening ended with open discussion, followed by a tea break, augmented with cake, which was even better received, before we re-arranged some props and furniture and came back in costume for a re-enactment of one of the ceremonies that the Church used to bless same-sex couples.