The Rope Dancer
Page 44
In medieval times it was not considered shameful to have a master; indeed, the opposite was true. Every man had a master from the king and pope, who claimed God as their master, through the great vassals and archbishops, who bowed only to king and pope, down to the serf and slave, whose masters always seemed to be too close for comfort. Only outlaws had no master—outlaws and the traveling players, who were considered by many to be little better. They lived on sufferance alone, because they lightened the lives of those they entertained, but no law protected their lives or property—laws in medieval times were only for those who had an accepted place in society and varied according to that place; that is, all men (and certainly all women) were not equal before the law.
The players were treated solely according to the humor of the overlord of any keep they visited or the temper of the townsfolk and had no recourse—except to spread the word when they were dealt unusual harshness. Overlords and townsfolk knew that word passed from group to group, and if a keep or town got a reputation for repeated and too brutal mistreatment, all the players would avoid it, depriving those who mistreated them of entertainment altogether.
Also, the world of the traveling players, although larger than that of the serf who seldom traveled more than five or ten miles from the place he was born, was still very small. These people would not care much who was king or whether one faction or another was in favor in the royal court. What was important to them was the attitude of the lord of the manor before whom they played. No matter how insignificant his power on the national level, he was all-powerful to them. And a small private conflict that happened to be taking place in the area in which they were, was a matter of much greater importance to them than a major war, as long as the major war was far enough away that they were not caught up in it.
One problem becomes more serious in this book than in any previous one. I am caught between describing accurately—from a twentieth century point of view—the physical conditions in which these people existed or describing the conditions as they appeared to the characters themselves. Looking back, the hardships of the lives of common persons, particularly those down at the very bottom of society, in medieval times are very great. Probably few citizens of the western world could long survive the filth, the unsanitary food and water, the diseases carried by such insects as lice and fleas and bedbugs, which infested all people and dwellings to varying degrees, the constant exposure to cold and damp to which most of us with central heating are no longer adjusted. Transported back in time, I suspect many of us might die of shock and disgust without waiting for something usually considered fatal to attack.
On the other hand, people who had known nothing different—for even the nobility lived under conditions that we would consider appalling, although they were much better than those of the lowest members of society—did not think of their everyday life as being fraught with hardship any more than the ordinary person these days thinks of life being terribly hard. Part of the evidence that medieval people enjoyed life is amusing—fierce diatribes by priests against dancing in church or, worse, coupling on the tombstones, repeated orders to do away with the pagan maypole (not only was it pagan, but the dancing led to dallying all too often), sermons against gambling, drinking, wenching—in fact all the sins (if they are sins) that are today deplored.
Since this is true, is it fair to describe conditions of total gloom and misery, just because that is the way we would see them? Surely at times medieval people were miserable—a cruel lord, a war that swept over their little plots of land, even a hard winter could change a life to which they were accustomed to one of unbearable privation. But we know they laughed and danced and sang—even the lowest of the low—and I have chosen to depict their lives as they lived them, with mingled pleasure and pain, and little awareness of the cold and heat or the filth and pests that surrounded them.
For those readers who wish to write to me, you may reach me though my website (www.RobertaGellis.com) or more directly through my email address Roberta.Gellis@gmail.com.
About the Author
Roberta Gellis is the bestselling author of over twenty-five historical romance novels with over one million copies sold. New York Times bestseller John Jakes has called her a superb storyteller of extraordinary talent; Publishers Weekly has termed her a master of the medieval historical. Her many awards include the Silver and Gold Medal Porgy for historical novels from West Coast Review of Books and the Golden Certificate and Golden Pen from Affaire de Coeur, several Romantic Times book awards and also the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Romance Writers of America. She lives in Lafayette, Indiana.