Illuminated Poem: Ranulf, Earl of Chester

 

Langland's "Piers Ploughman" mentions in passing that Robin Hood and Ranulf, Earl of Chester were both popular characters in the everyday tales of late 14th Century England.  Robin Hood, of course, has survived,  Ranulf has not.  So I thought it was time to revive him.  Unfortunately, by Langland's time, three Earls of Chester had been called Ranulf/Randolph.  I just picked the one whom I thought would give me the best story (Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester, 1099–1153).

As the plan for these illuminated poems, when finished, is to present them as "The Canterbury Out-takes" (Poems by Chaucer that never made the final cut!) they had to be illustrated in a style between the writing of the Canterbury Tales and the "Final Cut"... Caxton's printed edition.  The borders are inspired by "The Carpentin Hours" and the first illustration by a manuscript of Josephus' "Histories of the Jews" commissioned by Edward IV, so from about 1470-1475. The second illustration includes a vision of hell taken more or less straight from a historiated initial in the "Carpentin Hours".  The figure of death (in the Middle Ages, usually a decaying corpse in its winding sheet rather than the skeleton more familiar today) comes in part from another work by the same artist (known as "the Master of the Dresden Hours), showing the mediaeval parable of the three living and the three dead, though there are numerous similar examples in period illumination.

The borders are populated by apes, wood-woses (wild-men, reminiscent of the Yeti or Bigfoot) and demons.  All of these are found as subject-matter in the borders of the Carpentin hours... all have the suggestion of depraved versions of humanity, appropriate to a poem about civil war and treachery.  The poem is a light-hearted pun on the two meanings of the phrase "crossed to the other side", but with the addition of the illuminations, becomes a typically mediaeval moral tale.

Heraldry is a common theme in mediaeval borders, usually pointing to the patron who commissioned the book or, if a gift, its intended recipient.  Here it is used to tell the story.  Heraldry was in fact in its infancy in the reign of King Stephen, so some of the devices are probably anachronistic, but they are plausibly what a 15th century illuminator might imagine them to be!  They are, in order:

• The device of Ranulph Earl of Chester as depicted in Wikipedia (though without sources!)
• The device of Geoffrey of Anjou, husband of Empress Matilda and thus used here to depict her.  This is apparently the oldest reliable surviving example of personal heraldry.
• The early royal arms of England.  Probably not actually used as early as the reign of Stephen, but Matthew Paris states that they were used by him, so a 15th century illuminator might believe it.
• The royal arms of Scotland, probably anachronistic for King David.
• The (later) arms of the Peveril / Peverel family.  William Peveril was accused by Ranulf of trying to poison him.  He actually died a few months after the alleged poisoning incident (hence "did slowly fester") so it is questionable if it was actually the poisoning that killed him, but why spoil a good story?