How to Slay a Dragon Page 17

  You’ll recall that Andronikos’s sister Maria had married the khan of one Mongol khanate, the Ilkhanate. Andronikos’s sister Euphrosyne had married a major general of another khanate, the Golden Horde, and was khan-in-all-but-title of most of it. That title and the rest of the Golden Horde belonged to Toqta—who was as ambitious as Nogaj was powerful. Andronikos recognized this situation, and sent another of his daughters (also named Maria, because why not?) to marry Toqta. We’ll call her Maria 2.

  Score: Be a noble, 2; be a prince, 1; be a Mongol prince, 3.

  IRENE, IRENE, MARIA, AND MARIA

  Michael VIII’s daughter Irene did not marry nearly as well as her sisters, despite initial appearances. The Bulgarian Empire was Byzantium’s “one that got away,” and even Michael couldn’t get it back through military force or marriage.

  During Bulgaria’s internal turmoil in 1257, the Byzantine emperor had sheltered the runaway Bulgarian ex-ruler Mitso Asen in exchange for a base of operations on the Black Sea’s northern coast (a strategic position both politically and economically). In 1278, Michael made his big effort. He arranged Irene’s marriage to the exiled ruler’s son Ivan Asen III, and sent them off to Bulgaria with an army. It worked.

  Score: Be a noble, 2; be a prince, 2; be a Mongol prince, 3.

  On the other hand.

  An ambitiously cold-blooded (or cold-bloodedly ambitious) Bulgarian noble, George Terter, was married to a woman named Maria (we’re up to Maria 3) and even had an heir, Theodor.

  George figured out that Michael needed his army everywhere besides Bulgaria, and maneuvered himself closer to the Bulgarian throne by marrying Ivan Asen’s sister, also named Maria, because why not (this would be Maria 4). In 1279, he sent Maria 3 and Theodor off to Constantinople to prove his loyalty to Michael.

  Score: Be a noble, 3; be a prince, 2; be a Mongol prince, 3.

  But why be a loyal underling when you can be an equal? George seized Bulgaria for himself in 1280 and sent Ivan Asen and Irene running back to Constantinople.

  Michael, who had secured a détente or an alliance with almost (almost) everyone else, did not attack Bulgaria. But George still understood that his political position was balanced on the edge of a knife, and bided his time.

  Michael died in 1282. His son Andronikos II became solo emperor without major violence, because this is not Bulgaria.

  Back in Bulgaria, George decided to take advantage of what was still the turmoil around Andronikos’s elevation to reigning alone. He divorced Maria 4 and sent her to Constantinople, brought Maria 3 home from Constantinople, and was eventually able to negotiate back Theodor, too.

  This new situation suited Theodor well. He reigned as co-emperor and learned a few lessons about how to hold on to power amid restless nobles. More importantly, he learned a few lessons about what not to do.

  So, it’s 1282. To recap:

  Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII has died peacefully.

  Andronikos II, Michael’s son, has inherited the throne peacefully and is now emperor.

  Maria 1, Michael’s daughter, has married the khan of the Mongol Ilkhanate, founded a monastery, and is currently off-screen.

  Euphrosyne 1, Michael’s daughter, had married the military leader/khan who de facto ruled one faction of the Mongol Golden Horde, Nogaj.

  Euphrosyne 2 is the daughter of Euphrosyne 1 and Nogaj.

  Irene, Michael’s daughter, was empress of Bulgaria, but has now become a high-powered Byzantine aristocrat. Good for her.

  George Terter was a Bulgarian noble with ambitions.

  Maria 3 and Theodor, George’s wife and son, have been exiled to Byzantium but are now back in Bulgaria.

  Maria 4 was Irene’s sister-in-law and George’s second wife, but she is now in Byzantium.

  George Terter is emperor of Bulgaria.

  Theodor, his son, is co-emperor of Bulgaria.

  Back in England, William Marshal married an heiress and owned some land.

  Meanwhile—remember Princess Irene, daughter of an emperor, who was a queen for less than a year before she had to run away to save her life? In 1341, Irene’s granddaughter, also named (because why not) Irene, married even better. Forget Bulgaria. Irene 2’s marriage made her empress… of the entire Byzantine Empire.

  Sometimes you save the princess, and sometimes the princess saves herself. Sometimes you win the princess, and sometimes you have to let the princess win you instead.

  But what if nobody wants to be won?

  HOW to BE MARRIED to the PRINCE

  So, you have to marry the prince.

  This is good news for you, and not just if you’re in love with him. Sure, the only way women can be heroes when married is some awkward retconning later. But what do heroes specialize in, if not breaking the rules? All you need is the right guide to help you have your prince and be a hero, too.

  OPTION 1: ANSELM OF CANTERBURY

  Okay, yes, technically Anselm (d. 1109) was male.

  Okay, yes, technically Anselm was a monk and also the archbishop of Canterbury.

  And yes, technically, in the Middle Ages men could not marry men and monks could not marry at all, even if they were one of the most powerful bishops in the Church and one of the most important theologians of the whole Middle Ages. Allegorically speaking, though…

  Writers and theologians in the Middle Ages loved allegory. That might mean personifying an abstract idea, like depicting Pride as a beautiful woman wearing too much makeup. Or it could mean envisioning a mundane story as an extended metaphor for a deeper truth. Like, for example, treating marriage as an allegory for Christ’s love for his Bride—the human soul.

  As you can imagine, monks and nuns who vowed their lives to celibacy and to Christ really, really appreciated this allegory. Twelfth-century monk Bernard of Clairvaux used it as the underlying theme of more than eighty sermons. Thirteenth-century mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg used it to write some wonderfully spicy poetry.

  But slotting Christ’s title as Prince of Peace into the bridal allegory is a little bit too cute and much too simplistic for a hero, which is where Anselm comes in. Our celibate friend lived a little before the Bride of Christ identity became all the rage, but well within the era of the man crush.

  From surviving sources, it’s impossible to tell whether any specific case included the “what happens in the monastic cell, stays in the monastic cell” DLC. But you might well think of the core element as brotherhood, fellowship, or the same kind of romantic friendship that medieval women nurture. Still envisioning medieval warriors as the embodiment of raw masculinity? Well, actually, because men in the Middle Ages felt less threatened by women, it was much more acceptable for them to display lavish emotions like romantic love for each other.

  Look no further than Anselm’s letter to fellow monk Brother Gilbert: “The gifts of your affection, dearest friend, are dear to me. But they can never console my heart, deprived of you in my longing for your beloved person… Indeed, it will never be consoled for its separation except by recovering its other half, my sundered soul… Never having experienced your absence, I did not know how sweet it was for me to be with you, how bitter without you.”13

  Not only was Anselm willing to write these words, he also would have known they would be read aloud, and not just to or by Gilbert. He would have assumed his letter would be preserved for later generations to read. In other words, the archbishop of Canterbury had a man crush, and everyone around him thought it was completely normal. So sure, you might not marry-marry the prince. But your bond of love could be just as deep.

  Of course, not everyone can be the archbishop of Canterbury. Some of us have to settle for infuriating the archbishop of York.

  Twice.

  OPTION 2: MARGERY KEMPE

  Strictly speaking, Margery Burnham Kempe (d. after 1438) greatly annoyed the archbishop of York, the mayor of Leicester, some residents of Bristol, some priests in York, pilgrims in Jerusalem, pilgrims in Spain, her husband (they made up), and her son (th
ey made up, too). At least, so she wrote in the collection of stories where she chronicles her spiritual life, which included plenty of external adventures to ground it. And unlike John of Morigny (the monk who accidentally had Satan teach you to read), The Book of Margery Kempe is completely a Christian text in which its author recounts multiple visions of Christ. But she’s the perfect guide for any heroine who has to be married to the prince while continuing to be a hero.

  Most medieval women who can be called “badass” were nuns or prophets, widows taking over their husband’s authority, or queens seizing power on behalf of their sons. And Kempe is no exception. She was indeed committed to her family. She gave birth to fourteen children, convinced her husband to have a celibate marriage rather than leaving him, nursed him when he got too old and sick to take care of himself, and raised at least one daughter who was as adventurous as her mom. Kempe even brought her husband along on some of her own adventures. But the Book shows a married woman who lived her life on her own terms.

  Kempe could not sit still. Despite her obvious wealth, she attempted to start two different businesses. They both failed, which doesn’t speak well to her skills as a businesswoman but says a lot about her drive. After an agonizing and bleak postpartum period following the birth of her first child, though, she dedicated her life to a religious quest of sorts to, more or less, marry Christ (spiritually) while still married (humanly) to her husband. At the heart of her quest were two common phenomena: pilgrimage and education.

  The hero is in the details, though. Kempe’s multiple pilgrimages took her to Canterbury—and Jerusalem, Rome, Germany, and Spain. She was one of the most impressive world travelers in all of medieval Europe. She wasn’t quiet and demure about it, either—her loud displays of religious devotion and scolding her fellow travelers made a lot of people grouchy, and she sure acted like she didn’t care.

  As for education?

  Kempe read (or had someone read to her) some of the most popular and acceptable religious texts of her day. She learned them well enough to model her life after saints like Katherine of Alexandria, the one who outwitted fifty philosophers, and Birgitta of Sweden, who advised popes. More outstandingly, though, she apparently studied the Bible firsthand—enough to quote verses in her own stressful debates. But the Middle Ages sometimes had difficulty accepting smart women. Kempe was detained on suspicion of heresy multiple times. However, she knew both the Bible and Christian theology well enough to talk her way out of it. Again, multiple times. Sure, Kempe wasn’t wielding a sword or fireball. But given that the English Church’s persecution of heretics was in full flame in Kempe’s day, she had all the quick, witty remarks any hero would dream of having.

  So if you thought the travel part of your quest was just great and being asked to quest on behalf of someone else was annoying, make like Margery Kempe: the ordinary woman who broke all the rules of female decorum to be loud, smart, and definitely not heretical.

  BUT FIRST…

  Contrary to all stretches of the human imagination, married people in the Middle Ages could fall in love without committing adultery and go on adventures that had nothing to do with saving their children. Sure, part of you might still want to be like Arwa, the last queen of Sulayhid dynasty Yemen. She literally went to war—army versus army—to prevent one of her suitors from reaching her palace.

  But even she ultimately gave in to marriage. At least on parchment, without them ever living together. Arwa understood that sometimes being married to the prince is necessary, and it does not have to mean the death of your heroics. Furthermore, Arwa and her fifty-four years of independent rule as queen regnant of Yemen in her own right offer you a fitting role model for a reason even beyond her immense diplomatic skill and military ruthlessness.

  According to Yemeni chroniclers, the beautiful Arwa was most definitely not thin—quite the opposite. And after you attend the feast to celebrate your quest and eventual marriage, you won’t be, either.

  13. Letter 84, Walter Fröhlich, trans., The Letters of St. Anselm of Canterbury (Cistercian Publications, 1990), 1:219.

  HOW to FEAST LIKE a KING

  Slaying dragons makes you a hero. It also makes you hungry. A roasted pig with an apple in its mouth? That’s sidekick’s play. If you want to keep up with the Savoys, your pig needs to have an oil-soaked cotton rag stuffed in its mouth. Then you have to set the rag on fire so the pig will breathe flames. Also, the pig needs to be covered in gold.

  Thus it went at the court of Amadeus VIII of Savoy in 1420. With Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1454, on the other hand, four-and-twenty blackbirds might have sufficed for a quiet, private breakfast. For a feast, you needed to bake eight-and-twenty musicians in that pie. Alive musicians, mind you.

  Besides “wouldn’t the fire melt the gold” (no, because the “gold” was often raw egg yolks smeared all over the pig), two points in these examples merit attention. First, good thing Amadeus wasn’t alive to witness how thoroughly he had been outclassed. Second, since the musicians in the pie are alive and playing far better music than your bard, what are you supposed to eat?

  Philip’s five-day feast at Lille in Burgundy has you covered. In between watching its jousts and skits, you could munch on veal-brain ravioli and ruin your teeth with exotic fruits made entirely of even more exotic sugar. And who could turn down faux eggs and onions made of sugar?

  But don’t just spend the next five days committing the sin of gluttony. As a hero, you’re possibly going to marry the princess but definitely going to receive a massive reward of money, land, political power, and the need to maintain that power through rituals like feasts. So pay attention, because soon the only dragon you’ll be slaying is your culinary budget.

  1. NO, YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE

  No matter where or when in the Middle Ages you go, you’re not getting out of this one. When Moroccan merchant Ibn Battuta (1304–1369) reached the town of Iwalata in the middle of the Saharan desert, ten days’ travel from the nearest settlement in one direction and twenty-four days in the other, the villagers’ immediate reaction was to lay out a ceremonial meal. The connection between feasting and power is even baked into the titles “lord” and “lady.” The words derive from the Old English hlaford and hlafdige, or “loaf-ward” and “loaf-dough-maker.”

  If only medieval feasts were just a matter of throwing rolls and pretzels (a medieval invention) at your guests. Or a matter of carefully served lasagna (also a medieval invention) and a thousand florins’ worth of embroidered decorations. Wherever and whenever you were in the Middle Ages, feasts of course were an assertion of the host’s wealth and power. But then things got complicated, because feasts had a spread of other uses that did vary from culture to culture, and even feast to feast.

  In early and high medieval Scandinavia, for example, feasts served as a way to reinforce the two-way bonds between host and guests. An invitation was a way to honor the guest; accepting an invitation signaled allegiance, alliance, or protection. By the thirteenth century, the parents of the bride and the groom competed to see who could invite the more prestigious guests to the wedding feast.

  Or take those thousand florins spent on embroidery. That extravagance belonged to Holy Roman Empire ruler Maximilian I in 1500, when he hosted a masquerade in Munich—and nearly every thread and embroiderer’s fee went to decorating costumes and scenery with imperial symbols. Everywhere guests looked, from swishing skirts to hanging tapestries, the extravagant splendor proclaimed that the name Maximilian was a synonym for the empire itself.

  So pay close attention to your celebratory feast. You’ve got a lot of learning to do.

  2. THE HALL IS NOT A HALLWAY

  You’ve got a lot to worry about before you can start debating whether to use thread or glue to attach the 2,500 mirrors of various sizes to the deep blue fabric covering the entire hall ceiling in order to represent the planets, the constellations of the zodiac, and the full night sky. For one thing, the hall.

  “The biggest roo
m possible” is a good start, but it’s not enough. In early medieval England, it might have been easy enough to, say, use “the entire interior of the biggest building in the settlement” and then fill it with tables. But it’s 1475, and you’re in Pesaro, Italy. That’s where the five-day wedding feast of Costanzo Sforza and Camilla Marzano d’Aragona needed a hall with space for nine tables that could seat twelve people each. Plus there was room for an organ, a long table to display gold and silver treasures, more than one hundred servants and enough space to make sure they didn’t trip over each other, an open performance area large enough to stage a ballet, and bleacher seating along the sides for people who were elite enough to watch the entertainment, but not elite enough to eat.

  Because there was no such thing as over-the-top when it came to late medieval feasts, when the duke’s palace in Burgundy did not have a sufficient space for a grand feast its planners envisioned in 1430, they built one.

  The second absolute, no-exceptions requirement for a feast in Christian Europe was tablecloths. Costanzo and Camilla had all of the tables for their wedding feast freshly painted—some in gold—and then draped heavy white linen over them anyway. Tablecloths and napkins separated people from mere peasants, who ate off bare wood and wiped their fingers on their clothing. When you host your own feasts, you’ll need to be sure you purchase entirely new tablecloths and napkins each time. To clarify, you will need to purchase multiple sets of napkins. Multiple sets per meal. (But don’t worry about what to do with them afterwards. If you head to fourteenth-century Paris, you’ll find a thriving market for secondhand napkins.)

  3. YOUR DECORATING BUDGET WILL BE OUT OF THIS WORLD