Life in Medieval Ireland

Witches, Spies And Stockholm Syndrome

Finbar Dwyer

• Publisher: New Island
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781848407404
• eBook ISBN: 9781848402850
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

The history of the Middle Ages [in Ireland] is so neglected that the only figure of renown is Strongbow, the man who led the Norman Invasion of Ireland in the twelfth century … There is little written about the lives of majority of men, who held no title or land, and even less about women … Indeed, so neglected are these people in history that many of the stories and people recounted … haven't been heard of in centuries. In a society born of conquest, beset with famines and plagues, and where the staples of life were everything from spies and corruption to witch trials and warfare, life in medieval Ireland was seldom dull. In Life in Medieval Ireland, Finbar Dwyer offers a unique portrait of life as it was lived in medieval Ireland. Against the backdrop of what was often a violent and chaotic period of history, Dwyer explores the personal stories of those whose recollections have been preserved, finding in them continual relevance and human interest.

1

The Lifeblood of Medieval Society: Violence

Pub culture has a long history in Ireland. In the Middle Ages taverns were popular, so much so that one of Dublin’s streets was solely dedicated to such establishments: Winetavern Street. If contemporary accounts from England are anything to go by, however, the standard of the drink on offer wasn’t up to much. The late fourteenth century English poet John Gower lamented that tavern-keepers watered down wines and resold poor quality drinks as upmarket wine.² Customers socialising in some of Ireland’s more raucous medieval drinking emporia, however, had greater concerns than the quality of the wine. In 1302 a court in Wexford heard how a certain Felicia was trampled by a horse ‘maliciously’ driven through the tavern in which she was drinking³, while in 1300 an unfortunate customer drinking in a tavern in Cork lost his left eye when a patron carelessly flung an oyster shell over his shoulder.⁴ Unsurprisingly, given that alcohol was involved, more serious disputes broke out as well.

Violence in Dublin Taverns

In the summer of 1310, as Dubliners enjoyed the long evenings, an argument arose between two patrons, Reymund Freysel and John Cachfrens, in one of the city’s taverns. As in the case of many pub arguments, the tensions eventually dissipated when Cachfrens left the tavern to drink elsewhere. Unfortunately, he did not forget the incident but instead sat fuelling his anger with wine. When the sun set late on that summer’s evening, he had reached boiling point and resolved to find Reymund Freysel. After rounding up a gang, Cachfrens intended to do far more than just discuss his differences with Reymund; he was going to put an end to the dispute once and for all by killing the man.

Medieval Dublin, however, was a small place. Scarcely forty-four acres were enclosed within the walled city and, unsurprisingly, word filtered back to Reymund that his life was now in danger. Before he could make good his escape, however, Cachfrens arrived with his accomplices, forcing Reymund to flee, taking a spear with which to defend himself. Seeing that his enemy was making an escape, Cachfrens and his gang followed in hot pursuit. In what now became a manhunt, Freysel did his best to escape through the narrow medieval streets. Moving rapidly on such surfaces, described by contemporaries as so ‘destroyed and broken that passing through the city is irksome and costly to passengers’⁵ was not easy. Unfortunately, Cachfrens and his followers caught up with their human prey. His senses no doubt dulled by alcohol, however, John Cachfrens ran directly at Freysel, not realising that he bore a spear. Before he could stop himself, he was impaled upon the point of the weapon. Inevitably, in a world where surgery was rudimentary and antibiotics were non-existent, he later died from his wounds.⁶

While this incident could be dismissed as a drunken argument gone too far, it was reflective of a deeper, more systematic (and to modern eyes, disturbing) attitude to violence in medieval society. Similar forms of aggression did not just happen when people were drunk in Dublin’s back lanes. Many people saw violence as an acceptable way for human beings to relate to each other. Cachfrens’ decision to murder Freysel, while fuelled by alcohol, was by no means unusual behaviour. While the court system tried to curb such activity, they enjoyed little success. Indeed, it occurred on all levels of society; even the political leaders of the era orchestrated horrific levels of violence on their rivals.

Widespread conflict had been part of life long before the Norman Conquest in 1160s. In the later thirteenth century, though, there had been increased resistance to the Norman occupation from the dispossessed Gaelic Irish, which resulted in an upsurge of violence, particularly in the east of the country.

The Necromancer of Toledo

Indeed, systematic violence was so chronic in this period that some contemporaries viewed Ireland as one of the most violent regions in Europe. The fourteenth-century Bishop of Armagh, Richard Fitzralph, when addressing the Papal Court of Clement IV in 1349, used a colourful parable to explain the society in which he preached. Relating a story about Johannes de Toledo, a thirteenth-century cleric known as the Necromancer of Toledo, Fitzralph claimed that Ireland was the most violent place on Earth.

The Necromancer had reputedly asked the devil which country sent the most souls to hell. In response, Lucifer replied that it was Ireland because murder and theft were so widespread. In the bishop’s own words, he explained that the ‘two nations are always opposed to one another from a traditional hatred ... so much so that every day they rob and slay and kill one another: nor can any man make any truce or peace among them, for in spite of such a truce they rob and slay one another at the first opportunity.’⁷ Fitzralph was by no means the first to acknowledge the ferocity of such violence in medieval Ireland. A century earlier, in 1242, his predecessor as Bishop of Armagh, a native of Cologne, Albert Suerbeer, referred to a church in his diocese as being built between two nations who had destroyed the region by their constant war. Suerbeer went on to refer to the ‘insatiable hatred’⁸ the Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Normans had for each other.

Tensions between the Gaelic Irish and the Normans were not the only source of mass violence. In fact, tensions between the Norman aristocrats who gathered large personal armies around them and fought each other over lands and power were at times worse. In 1327, serious fighting broke out between several noble families. In a conflict that was centred on Kilkenny and Tipperary, an estimated £100,000⁹ of damage was inflicted on this region, equivalent to approximately twenty years of what would have been very respectable exchequer incomes for the entire colony in this period!

Such figures, however, hide the human cost of violence and the brutality people witnessed on a daily basis. In the 1320s, in one annal compiled by a Franciscan in Kilkenny, Friar John Clyn, hundreds of brutal deaths were recorded. In 1323, Edmund Butler, whose son would become the first Earl of Ormond, burned alive men, women and children who had sought refuge at the monastery of St Mullins¹⁰. The following year, his ally, Robert Cuanteton, massacred 200 Gaelic Irish at Thurles¹¹. In 1325, the Gaelic Irish O’Carrolls attacked and destroyed a number of Norman settlements in the Midlands, with an unknown number of casualties. 1326 saw a massacre of eighty people in Carlow. In 1327, the sheriff of Kilkenny, together with twenty others, was killed by the Brennan family in north Kilkenny. Finally, to close what was only a moderately violent decade in a horrific century, James Butler, who had recently been made Earl of Ormond, attacked the O’Nolans in the Barrow Valley and ‘wasted their lands and very near all their neighbourhood by fire’¹² in 1329. This was his response to the kidnapping of two men, one of whom was his brother. These are just the events recorded in one area by one chronicler, but the story was similar all across Ireland.

With leadership like this encouraging, organising and participating in massacres and violence on such a scale, it is little wonder that society was intensely violent. Indeed, the incident that occurred in the tavern in Dublin in 1310 between John Cachfrens and Reymund Freysel was mild compared with some of the other events happening regularly across the island. The story of Eynon Madoc, for instance, reveals a disturbing level of gratuitous violence within the context of daily life.

Eynon Madoc: Vengeance and Violence

Little is known about Eynon Madoc’s life prior to 1305, save that he had been declared an outlaw and a felon for an unknown reason. As his name suggests, Eynon was of Welsh descent. His family, no doubt, contained some of the thousands of colonists who had moved to Ireland to settle on the lands the Normans had conquered from the Gaelic Irish in the years after the invasion of the 1160s. Being declared an outlaw created severe problems for Eynon. Being on the run meant that he was effectively no longer protected by the law, and so murdering him would not have been a crime. If he could stay alive, though, there were ways in which he could have this conviction nullified. Increasingly in the later thirteenth century, pardons were being offered across Anglo-Norman Ireland in return for service in the king’s armies fighting in Scotland: a policy that did little to curb violence in society.

Until such time as he could be pardoned, however, Eynon seems to have been forced to steal to survive. This led him to the property of one Walter le Poer, a man who was himself away fighting for the king in Scotland at the time. Unfortunately for Eynon, while he helped himself to food and drink, he was caught in the act by le Poer’s Sergeant, Mathew O’Ryan. O’Ryan tried to apprehend the thief, and a fight of sorts broke out. In the ensuing struggle, Eynon did manage to escape, but not before he was severely injured.¹³

Eynon fled to the house of his brother John Madoc, where his severe injuries enraged his relatives. John resolved to take vengeance against the man who had so injured his brother. Organising several other colonists, many of whom were of Welsh descent with names such as Rys Madoc, Iewan Robyn and Gwen le Waleys, into a band, John Madoc stormed the le Poer farmstead looking for O’Ryan. The attackers broke the doors of the hall, the chamber and other houses, took goods and ‘wholly devastated his land’¹⁴, but they could not find O’Ryan.

Three days later, Eynon Madoc succumbed to his wounds and died. Anger and a desire for vengeance again surged in his brother, and now John Madoc led a gang to the settlement of Carrickmcgriffin, where they finally caught up with Mathew O’Ryan. In an act of unbelievable barbarity, they dragged O’Ryan from the house in which he sat out into the public street. There, in full public view, they beheaded him. In a final act of humiliation, they stripped the corpse naked, stealing any belongings in his possession. There is little evidence that this act was viewed as being particularly heinous, which is indicative of the level of violence tolerated in medieval society.

When John Madoc and the others appeared before a judge, they successfully evaded convictions. After dragging out the case, they finally argued that O’Ryan was a felon himself, which legitimised the action. Mathew O’Ryan’s Gaelic Irish background would have unquestionably played a role in the case; discrimination against Gaelic Irish people was a common feature in the colonial legal system. On one occasion when a case was being heard, many of the accused didn’t bother turning up to court because they were fighting with the Earl of Gloucester’s army against the Gaelic Irish in the Slievebloom Mountains. The court record noted that their presence in the army was integral to the security of the colony. The fact that Anglo-Norman society was dependent on such men was indicative of the wider attitude to violence. Eventually, the case was deferred indefinitely.¹⁵

While it seems incredible to us that the brutal murderer of Mathew O’Ryan could be treated with what amounted to a laissez-faire attitude, the use of violence was increasingly one of the ways in which people resolved disputes. The act itself was rarely questioned; the only issue was whether it was legal and legitimate.

That the Madoc family themselves would resort to such violent measures following the murder of Eynon Madoc is very much reflective of the society in which they lived. After all, twenty-five years later the Earl of Ormond, James Butler, would do far worse, devastating huge tracts of territory after his brother’s kidnapping. Ultimately, for many there was almost no reason not to act violently when it achieved the desired objective of the perpetrator, be it vengeance, the pursuit of power or merely the possessions of a victim. This attitude to violence was accentuated by the actions of the king, who frequently offered pardons in return for renewed loyalty and military service, which removed many of the inhibitions and fears people had. Indeed, by 1317 the situation regarding pardons appears to have become intolerable. The Earl of Kildare, Thomas Fitzjohn – a man whose family had been pardoned themselves for what had been at times outrageous behaviour – wrote to the king pleading that officials should be prevented from granting ‘pardons for the death of an Englishman, but that such Felons be judged according to the law’¹⁶. Presumably it was in response to this that Edward II banned such pardons, citing that ‘others had been encouraged to commit crime on account of the facility of obtaining such pardons’¹⁷.

Unfortunately, as will become obvious over the following pages, the banning of Royal Pardons failed to have much of impact. Violence was endemic throughout society, from men such as John Cachfrens and John Madoc all the way up to men like the Earl of Ormond, James Butler. Violence was an accepted mechanism to resolve differences and disputes in society, which made it an integral part of everyday life in medieval Ireland in a manner that we cannot comprehend today. Combining this with the cut-throat world of medieval politics proved to be an incendiary combination.

2

The Revolt of Maurice de Caunteton and the World of Political Blood Sports

One the most famous political thinkers of the sixteenth century was the Florentine Niccolò Machiavelli. His political ideas have given rise to the term ‘Machiavellian’: a word synonymous with deceit, intrigue and cunning, all traits that he felt were necessary in an efficient ruler. While he wrote as the medieval world was giving way to the Renaissance and the early modern period, his ideas were still disturbingly relevant to thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Ireland. Indeed, they were not only advantageous, but arguably necessary in Anglo-Norman politics. When mixed with the widespread violence across society, politics in the Middle Ages often looked more like a blood sport than what we recognise as current affairs today. We have elections, canvassing and media appearances; they often resorted to murder,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Map of Anglo-Norman Ireland, c. 1330
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction & overview of Norman Ireland
• 1. The Lifeblood of Medieval Society: Violence
• 2. The Revolt of Maurice de Caunteton and the World of Political Blood Sports
• 3. Love and Marriage
• 4. Famine
• 5. Reverence, Riots and Religion: The Church in Medieval Ireland
• 6. Women
• 7. Mob Rule: Protest in Medieval Ireland
• 8. Grub’s up! Food in Medieval Ireland
• 9. In Sickness and in Health
• 10. Piracy, Looters and Storms: Travelling to ‘Parts beyond the Seas’
• 11. Medieval Dublin: A Tale of Two Cities
• 12. The Rise and Fall of the Knights Templar in Ireland
• 13. Ireland’s First Witch?
• 14. A Heretic in the ‘Isle of Saints and Scholars’
• 15. An Irishman in China
• 16. You’re having a laugh? Fun in the ‘land of war’
• 17. John Clyn: Living and Dying in Extraordinary Times
• 18. Fires: A Medieval Tsunami
• 19. Women and Warfare: Thieves, Spies and Rebels
• 20. Sanctuary, Exile or Luck: Evading the Noose
• 21. Trouble on the home front: Dublin 1304
• 22. Henry Crystede and Ireland’s Earliest Case of Stockholm Syndrome?
• Endnotes
• Selected Bibliography