Storytelling
at the Castle
Why did people tell stories?
How did people tell jokes in the Middle Ages?
What do you call a Medieval storyteller?
Be a Troubadour
William IX was Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine and lived from 1071-1127. And he was also the first troubadour we know things about. Troubadours wrote the words and poems for songs in France. He then inspired his granddaughter, Eleanor of Aquitaine, to love poetry too.When she grew up she married two kings: first Louis VII and then Henry Plantagenet. Henry and Eleanor had a son, Richard, who became known as Richard the Lionhearted. Richard was a troubadour too. One legend says on his way home from the Third Crusade he was imprisoned. His faithful minstrel, Blondel de Nesles, went in search of Richard and was able to bargain for his master's release by singing. So you, too can be a troubadour. Make up a poem. Write it down. Find a friend to be a minstrel or jongleur. Ask your friend to hum some music while you say your poem. If your friend plays a musical instrument ask him/her to play sounds on it.
Storytelling was one of the best ways to be entertained in the middle ages... people would pass the time by telling stories. If everyone told a story, it could keep a group of people busy for a whole afternoon or more. Here is an example of this: It was no sooner than three in the afternoon when the queen arose and ordered all the company to be called, saying that too much sleep in the daytime was unwholesome; and they went into a meadow of deep grass where the sun had little force. Having the benefit of a pleasant breeze, they sat down in a circle as the queen had commanded, and she spoke as follows: "As the sun has risen rather high, and the heat grows excessive, and nothing is to be heard but the chirping of the grasshoppers among the olives, it would be madness for us to think of moving for a while. This is an airy place, and here are chessboards and gammon-tables to amuse yourselves with, but if you are ruled by me, you will not play at all, since that often makes one party uneasy without any great pleasure to the other player or the onlooker. Instead, let us begin by telling stories, and in this way one person will entertain the whole company. By the time each of us has told a tale, the worst part of the day will be over, and then we can amuse ourselves as we like best. If this is agreeable to you, then (for I wait to know what you would prefer) let us begin; if not, you are free to follow your own desires until the evening. This proposal was approved by everybody, and the queen continued, "Let each person for this first day choose whatever subject they fancy most."......from The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, Through the Glass Window Shines the Sun: an anthology of medieval poetry and prose edited by Pamela Norris and published by Little, Brown and Company, 1995 In the Middle Ages, people used riddles to amuse themselves. There were easy ones and very hard ones. Occasionally people would put riddles into poetry or stories.
Can you figure out the riddle in the following poem?
I Have a Young Sister ( a riddle poem)
I have a young sister
Far beyond the sea;
many be the love-tokens
That she sent to me.
She sent me the cherry
Without any stone;
And so she did the dove
Without any bone;
She sent me the briar
Without any branch;
She bade me love my
sweetheart
Without longing.
How should any cherry
Be
without stone?
And how should any dove
Be
without bone?
How should any briar
Be
without branch?
How should I love my
sweetheart
Without longing?
When the cherry was a flower;
Then it had no stone.
When the dove was an egg;
Then had it no bone.
When the briar was a seed;
Then had it no bough.
When the maiden hath that she loveth;
She is without longing
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