(This story is a fictional account of a day in medieval England. Any similarities to actual events or people in history are purely coincidental.)
The year was A.D. 1245, and medieval England was at its height. In the town of Landshire, under the rule of King Bernard II, all was peaceful, for the moment. The Landshire castle's central location and strong Gothic architecture were flagrant declarations of the king's power. The king's knights ensured peace and protection for his loyal subjects, while the noblemen ruled indirectly over the peasants, which ensured a constant flow of goods and products (fuedal system). All was well, on the outside at least.
Behind the immense closed doors of the castle, far removed from the central royal court area, was the royal bedroom chamber. Inside, the Queen sat at her dressing table straining to breathe against her binding corset and the flow of tears that would not stop. The king paced the length of the chamber trying to control his anger, but was not successful. The king's faithful footman had informed him that his wife had indeed lost her virtue to another man before he had married her. The Queen denied this awful accusation. Yet, the King was a very jealous and concerned man, because the virtue of a man's wife was extremely important. He had attempted to get at the truth by force prior to the footman's message. After much personal deliberation, the king decided that the best decision would be to divorce the Queen. In the shadows, just outside the door, a chambermaid stood too curious to leave, but too scared to enter the room. The king's decision was the most monumental news of the year and was bound to have implications more far-reaching than the castle.
It was only a few days later when the chambermaid began to spread the news of divorce in the royal house. She confided the secret to her best friend, who was also the handmaid to the Duchess of Windsor. The handmaid was certain that the Duchess would want to know the news, so she told of the divorce. The tragic news appalled the Duchess, as well as the other noble men and women who were present. At the same time as the rumor was passing through the noble circles, it was also spreading like wild fire through the peasant gossip circles. The peasants were just as shocked as the nobles at the instability of the ruling family. Before the day came to an end, the news had reached the peasant town.
During this same time, a peasant couple was rumored to be considering divorce. Although people in the peasant circles knew of this, it was not an entirely strange event, and it certainly did not create nearly as much concern as the king's possible divorce. The Catholic church generally frowned upon divorce due to Catholic religious morals. However, the peasants were not a concern of people in power. Consequently, the parish priest overlooked the couple's problems, and allowed them to escape his scrutiny by simply separating.
Before the king could go through with his decision, tradition and religion compelled him to consult with and get permission from the Pope, since he held the final say in matters of marriage and the church. As Pope Frederick ushered
the king into his chambers behind the sanctuary, he explained to the king that the Catholic church did not look upon divorce favorably. Pope Frederick reminded the king of the sanctity of the marriage he had entered into, the dependence of the people upon the stability of the ruling family, and that the situation was a test by God of the king's faith in his wife. Frederick also spoke about the unreliability of a rumor and how often and viciously Satan would devise and employ tricks to manipulate the God-given power of the king. After their lengthy discussion, the king decided to reconcile the situation with his wife in order to uphold a church statute which would reinforce the public good.
Project research, script writing, graphics gathering, and HTML code writing:
Merriya Pickner
Matt Knudson
Leah Somsen
Mitch Peterson
All of the pictures and information were provided by the following:
http://www.atklab.yorku.ca/wm/paint/auth/brugel/
http://www.sdsmt.edu/krkozel/
Chodorow, Stanley et al. The Mainstream of Civilization. The Harcourt Press, New York. 1994.
Le Croix, Paul. France in the Middle Ages. Frederick Unger Publishing, New York. 1984.
.....And thank you Professor Lehmann for making the middle ages so interesting that we wanted to create a project that encompassed the principles and characteristics of everyday life in Europe.
http://www.cnct.com/home/grantf/index.htm
http://www.cnct.com/home/grantf/link.htm
http://www2.ecst.csuchico.edu/~rodmur/sca/combat.html"
http://alethea.ukc.ac.uk/su/societies/deBec/welcome"
http://www.3wis.nl/paul/medsource.html"
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