The Troubadour's Song

by David Boyle

  There was another reason to suppose that Hadmar would have made Richard welcome, apart from the pride that a social climber might have felt at having a king as his prisoner, and that was that they already knew each other. Hadmar had been at the siege of Acre with Leopold, and they had returned to Austria in disgust together after the incident of the banner. The Austrian sources emphasize how well Richard was treated, and it was the tradition in the twelfth century to consider high-born prisoners as honoured guests. Their value for ransom depended, after all, on their staying healthy. English sources, on the other hand, describe Diirnstein as crude and squalid.

  Richard was almost certainly conducted from the town by Hadmar up the rocky and probably icy track that led to the castle, through the gate into the bailey and then right into the keep and inner courtyard. It seems likely that he was held in the north­eastern corner of the castle, overlooking the sheer cliff over the forests north of the Danube. The prison cells were in the same block, though he must have been in something more comfortable, but the position would have impressed upon him — and been intended to — that his predicament was hopeless, high above the river in an unknown, snow-covered land.

  Richard arrived in Diirnstein on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and would have been allowed to celebrate Christmas either in the chapel of St Michael by the river at the foot of the mountain — for some reason churches associated with hills and mountains tend to be dedicated to the Archangel Michael — or in the tiny chapel in the castle over the eastern walls, still recognizable in the ruins to this day. He may have attended all three traditional masses of a medieval Christmas Day, the Angel's Mass at midnight — if he arrived in time — followed by the Shepherd's Mass at dawn andthe mass of the Divine Word later in the morning. He would undoubtedly have attended the Christmas banquet at Hadmar's court, and enjoyed the Yule boar — his first proper meal since Erdberg or even before — together with the familiar acrid stench of tallow winter candles and of old rushes on the floor.

  The main meal in the twelfth century was usually eaten around 10 a.m. It followed a ritual washing of hands in water bowls brought by the servants and, in wealthy or pretentious households such as this one, was announced by a trumpeter. It was eaten from big wooden trenchers, one between two people, eaten with their hands and their own knives, before the remaining bread was given to the dogs, the stinking water from the pots carried away through the hall, and the household had dispersed to hunt or play, before sunset, supper and music. Warmth and music were universal elements of Christmas celebrations across Europe, with a Yule log big enough to burn until Twelfth Night, cut down the previous Candlemas and dragged up from the forests and into the castle hall. This is the background to the legend of Blondel's song: music, minstrels and a Christmas banquet — and the faint possibility, as European peasants liked to believe — that at the height of Midnight Mass, the cattle outside would go down on their knees to worship.

  As Richard was taking stock of his prison, and realizing how likely it was that none of his friends had any idea of his whereabouts, Leopold's messengers were riding as fast as they could to the emperor, who was spending Christmas at Hordhausen near Nuremberg. The news must have reached him a few days after the first Christmas festivities, because on 28 December —just a week after Richard's arrest in Erdberg — he was in Bamburg dictating a letter to Philip Augustus in Paris — more evidence that he was acting on Philip's request when he had ordered his vassals to take Richard captive on his return.

  To any other eyes it would be an explosive letter. 'Henry by the grace of God, Emperor of the Romans and ever august, to his beloved and special friend Philip, the illustrious king of the Franks,' it began, and then the bombshell. 'We have thought it proper toinform your nobleness by means of these presents that while the enemy of our empire and the disturber of your kingdom, Richard, King of England, was crossing the sea for the purpose of returning to his dominions, it so happened that the winds brought him . . . to Istria.' There then followed a detailed account of the chase, Richard's escape and his capture by the Duke of Austria 'in a humble house in a village in the vicinity of Vienna'. The letter finished: 'We know that this news will bring you great happiness . . . Inasmuch as he is now in our power, and has always done his utmost for your annoyance and disturbance, what we have above stated we have thought proper to notify to your nobleness, know­ing that the same is well pleasing to your kindly affection for us, and will afford most abundant joy to your own feelings.'

  The letter gave an enormous time advantage to the French. It certainly caused delight when it arrived in Paris after a ten-day journey through frozen Europe. Philip immediately dictated a reply, urging Henry to keep his prisoner secure until they had a chance to consult. Then he wrote another letter to the one person likely to be even more excited than he was: John, who was spending Christmas in Cardiff. And finally, he wrote to Richard himself, via Leopold, denouncing him and declaring war against him.

  England at New Year and people were still nervously scouring the Channel for Richard's return. But in the first fortnight of the year the rumours began to spread that the king had been taken into captivity on his return journey. On n January John received the letter from Philip with mounting excitement. He set off immediately and as quietly as possible to cross the Channel to meet the French king, where he promised to divorce his wife and marry Philip's sister Alys — still locked in a castle in Normandy, for her mistake of satisfying the lusts of Richard's father. He also did homage to him for Normandy and the other dukedoms and coun­ties of the Angevin empire in France, and may have done homage for England too. This possibility shocked the English chroniclers, partly because of the precedent it set and partly because of the evidence it provided that John would now promise almost anything to take the English throne.

  That same day, Pope Celestine was writing a New Year letter to the rulers of Europe from Rome, urging them to put aside their differences and make peace with each other. It seems clear that he had not yet heard the news of the fate of his most famous crusader.

  In Paris, William Longchamp heard about Richard's disaster as well. He claimed he had seen a copy of the letter that arrived at the French court, and set off as quickly as he could for Germany. Hubert Walter, the Bishop of Salisbury, who had left Richard's ship in Corfu and was then in Italy, also heard the rumours and raced north to Rome to see the Pope, before travelling on to find the king. But the first confirmation of the rumours in nervous England came in letters to the members of the Great Council from the chief justiciar, Walter of Coutances, who had been celebrating Christmas as Archbishop of Rouen, the capital of Normandy. Enclosed in his missive, packed with biblical quotations trying to do justice to the extremity of the situation, were copies of the emperor's letter to Philip. It was the custom in those days of uncertain roads to send more than one copy of vital letters via different messengers. The Archbishop of Rouen had clearly used what informal networks he possessed either to steal a copy of the letter in Paris or to have it seized on the road.

  The news was greeted in England with horror and rage. There was a particular animosity towards the Austrians. 'They are savages who live more like wild beasts than men,' said the Dean of St Paul's, the chronicler Ralph of Diceto. 'Frightful in their speech, squalid in their habits and covered in filth.' One outraged abbot announced that he would search for the king until he found him or discovered certain knowledge of him.

  Even before the emperor's letter had arrived in Paris, four parties from Austrian territories had set out to meet Henry at Regensburg on the Danube, once the biggest city in Germany. Meinhard of Gorz went with the prisoners he had taken in Udine; Leopold himself went from Vienna; the prisoners taken in Friesach went too; and finally Richard was escorted in the same direction, leaving on 28 December and arriving on 6 January. Richard therefore came face to face with the emperor for the first time on Twelfth Night. Either through nerves, guilt or rage, or some combination of the three, Henry angrily refused to look at him. It seems
to have been this act of petulance that did most to raise Richard's spirits, convincing him that he was dealing with a novice in the art of diplomacy.

  Richard's arrest had actually come as a miraculous opportunity for Henry. His first attempt to invade Sicily had been an expensive disaster, and he was facing a brewing challenge to his power from the princes of the lower Rhineland and the powerful archbishops of Cologne and Mainz. Rumours were flying that Henry, Duke of Brabant, might be better suited as emperor — theoretically the Holy Roman Emperor was an elected position. But now Henry held this vital and lucrative pawn, or he would once he could persuade Leopold to part with the prisoner. Not only was Richard a possible financial solution to his difficulties, but holding the most famous prisoner in Europe gave him an immediate status that could not be ignored.

  In fact, Henry had been dealing with an awkward situation similar to that faced by Richard's father after the murder of Thomas Becket a generation before. There had been a grumbling argument through the summer between two rival princes over who should be the new bishop of Liege. The emperor had tried to impose a third candidate of his own when, on 24 November — less than a month before Richard's arrest — one of the other two was murdered in France by trained assassins disguised as German refugees. It looked suspiciously as if the murder had taken place on the emperor's orders. Henry VI was temperamentally unsuited to compromise and Richard's arrest seemed likely to provide him with the resources and the status to avoid having to make one. Still, Richard was not in imperial custody yet. Almost as soon as he had arrived in Regensburg, with its famous stone bridge, a suspicious Leopold sent him back to Diirnstein for safe-keeping.

  In England, Eleanor and the Great Council were aware that they were likely to face an imminent invasion led by John and Philip — certainly of Normandy and probably of England too — but they had a more immediate problem. They needed to opennegotiations for Richard's release as soon as possible, just to show that he would be home eventually. But it was also unclear who was actually holding him, or where he was being held. If the Archbishop of Rouen had secret networks that he could consult, or secret messengers who could listen at the courts of Europe — and it seems certain that he did — he sent desperate instructions to them now.

  Having sent their own special emissary to the emperor — Savaric de Bohun, the new Bishop of Bath, who was a cousin of Henry's — the Great Council met in Oxford on 28 February, and decided first to make sure all the English aristocracy renewed their oaths of fealty to Richard, and second that it would send its own official representatives to find the king. Two abbots, of Boxley and Robertsbridge in Sussex, were duly sent across the Channel with letters from Eleanor and instructions to search Swabia and Bavaria. Three weeks later, on 19 March, they stumbled across Richard on the road to Speyer, near Ochsenfurt, with an imperial escort, on his way from Wiirzburg back to the emperor's strongholds on the Rhine. With him was William Longchamp, restored to royal favour and to his old pomposity, who had himself happened upon him a few days before.

  This is the official story about how Richard was found. Conven­tional history now dismisses the legend of Blondel singing under the tower of Diirnstein in the night and dashing to England to raise the alarm. Even so, it is a surprisingly resilient story and it does still provide an answer — albeit a misty and romantic one — to the question of how Longchamp and the abbots managed so coincidentally to be in the right place at the right time. It is also a story that has been lovingly embellished in the centuries since.

  There are complicated versions of the legend of Blondel singing under Diirnstein tower, involving jailors' daughters, castellans and dramatic escapes. But the classic story that most people know is the one in which Blondel disguises himself as an ordinary minstrel and hears a familiar voice replying high in the castle tower. In Agnes Grozier Herbertson's classic version for children, publishedin 1911, she described the scene: 'Upon one side of the valley were great rocky hills, and on one of these stood a sombre castle, black and grim, and of an aspect most terrible.' It is even the north tower that she accurately marks out for Blondel's attention, having been told that the song he is singing earlier in the day has been heard wafting down from the mysterious prisoner held there. In the Herbertson version, Blondel sings verses that Richard had written himself and hears the king's voice echoing back the second verse.

  'Art thou there, my faithful Blondel,' says a voice afterwards.

  'Blondel replied with great joyfulness: "It is I, Sire, for I have sought thee and have now found thee."'

  That is the legend in a nutshell, explaining how — having trav­elled across Germany and Austria in search of Richard — his minstrel finally discovers him by singing underneath his cell in Diirnstein Castle. But actually, the earliest surviving version of the Blondel story has the encounter the other way around, with Blondel over­hearing the song wafting down from the tower. This early version of the story was written down around 1260, about seventy years after the events it describes, which is almost certainly beyond living memory. The author of the strange manuscript that includes it, known simply as the Minstrel of Reims, might conceivably have been alive when Richard was captured, might have heard the story at first hand from those who were there, but both are pretty unlikely. Nor should we put too much historical weight on a document that also claims Eleanor of Aquitaine had an affair with Saladin.

  The Minstrel of Reims describes how Blondel heard about a mysterious prisoner held in one of the castles after he had searched for Richard for over a year — or four months in one version of the manuscript. The story describes Blondel wandering about the castle grounds, asking local people if they know about any prisoners, and finally hearing rumours of one believed to be a 'gentleman and a great lord':

  When Blondel heard these words, he was very glad, and it seemed to him in his heart that he had found the man for whom he had beenlooking, but he showed no signs of this to his hostess. That night he slept very well, and he awoke at daybreak. When he heard the guard sound reveille, he arose and went to the church, to ask for God's help. Then he went to the castle, and spoke with the chastelain, saying that he was a minstrel, and would very much like to stay with him if he was willing . . .

  Blondel plays his music in the castle and carries on doing so throughout the winter, being unable to find out who the prisoner is. The climax of the story takes place at Easter, when Richard sings and Blondel overhears him in the garden:

  Near the tower, Blondel looked around him, thinking that he might, by chance, see the prisoner. As he was doing this, the king looked through an archer's slot, and saw Blondel. He thought about how to make him recognise him, and he remembered a song that they had made up together, which only the two of them knew. He began to sing the opening words loudly and clearly, for he sang very well, and when Blondel heard him, he knew certainly that this was his lord. In his heart he felt greater joy than he had ever felt, and he left the garden, and went to his room, where he reclined, picked up his vielle, and began to play, singing of his joy at having found his lord. Blondel stayed until Pentecost, making sure that no one within the castle knew what he was trying to do . . .

  So he packed and left and went to England to raise the alarm, and when the king's friends heard the news, 'they were overjoyed, for the king was the most generous man who ever spurred a horse'.

  A century later, the story had reversed itself into the shape that it has today. The Ancient Chronicles of Flanders, written in the mid-fourteenth century, calls the castle Brissac and gives the min­strel his full name, Jean Blondel, and this time it is Blondel who strolls under the tower and sings the verse of the song that is overheard by the imprisoned king. In another version of the same document, the castle is called Frisac and Blondel is Norman. A century later, the French chronicler Jehann de Raveneau was usingthis same version, where Blondel is overheard, emphasizing that Blondel was a 'menéstral de France .

  But what did Blondel sing? This is the question that historians of music have pon
dered for almost as long as the story has been in circulation. Needless to say, none of the early manuscripts are very precise about it — the Minstrel of Reims simply mentions a song — but since then antiquarians have dashed to fill that silence by simply asserting what their contemporaries wanted to hear. There seems to have been no argument about this, no question of marshalling evidence; instead, they set out the verses as if they were telling their readers something that had never been questioned.

  The first hint that there might be some record of the missing song came in a book by the first president of France's mint, Claude Fauchet, in 1581 in his Recueil de I'Origine de la Langue et Poésie Francaise, and it was said to be a song written by Richard himself, originally for Marguerite, Countess of Hennegau. Fauchet did not see fit to quote this, but the gap was filled by a romantic novel that rediscovered the legend in the eighteenth century. Marie-Jeanne L'Heritier de Villandon was one of a group of aristocratic French women who were reinventing the fairy-tale form. She wrote only one volume of her successful 1705 novel about Blondel's mission, The Dark Tower, but she included an introduction about the origi­nal story in which she claimed she had culled her information from a probably mythical long-lost document from 1308. This missing document was the source she used to claim that the song was in Occitan and called 'Domna vostra beutas':

  Your beauty, lady fair,

  None views without delight;

  But still so cold an air

  No passion can excite;

  Yet this I patient see

  While all are shunn'd like me.

  To which Richard replied: