Hereward and Bohemond

While researching the life of Hereward the Wake for a paper, my imagination was captured by the thought that during the years that Hereward was exiled, he may have been fighting with the Varangian Guard. There is no doubt that he was exiled and was fighting on the continent, most likely as a mercenary. The accounts say Flanders but there is speculation that he joined other Saxon nobles, dispossessed by the events of 1066, and went to Constantinople to join Alexius, Anna Comnena's father, fighting our old friend Bohemond and his father Robert Guiscard.
There is not much of a description of Hereward out there. He was not a tall man but rather solidly built so Bohemond would have towered over him. I think Bohemond would have beaten him just because Bohemond was so much larger but they would have been matched in ferocity and bravery. Both were capable military leaders with the charisma to attract followers although lacking a title and funds.
Before Hereward left for the continent, he most likely went north, possibly to help Malcolm fight MacBeth. It seems like Hereward managed to find himself in some of the most interesting places of his times.
He came home, hearing that the Normans had killed his brother and were harassing his mother. Whoever he was, when people heard he was back, they came to join him and his resistance army hidden in the fens of Lincolnshire. When William was about to break through the defences at Ely, Earl Morcar and Bishop Aethelwine opted to surrender and throw themselves on the king's mercy. They died in prison.
Hereward refused to surrender. He broke through the siege with a group of like-minded followers and disappeared into the Brunwald Forest. Later William made peace with him and restored all of his land since he could not subdue him militarily. After that there is disagreement over, if he ended his days peacefully and was buried at Croyland, or, if he was treacherously ambushed by disgruntled Normans and died, fighting off a whole crowd of them who would not have beaten him if four had not snuck up behind him and stabbed him in the back. It sounds as if he and Bohemond had much in common. The thought that they could have met on the battlefield amuses me but it really is not likely since I cannot see either man letting such a foe walk away without a fight.

When Does a Boob Become a Charmer?

I have not been here in a while. I am sorry. I have been so busy reading things but I had a thought today which I will share with you. Someone was very kind and send me some study notes but apologized for the roughness of the notes. I thought - only a complete boob would complain about the notes when they were free and unasked for.

This is where the Medieval thoughts come in because my brain works like this: then I thought about Bohemond of Taranto spending those years in an Arabic jail, lucky enough to be alive never mind being ransomed by Alexius, the emperor of Constantinople whose throne he had been trying to topple. Was Bohemond grateful for the rescue? Was he grateful for the nice clothes and the invitation to dinner with gifts attached? He walked in and complained about the accommodations and that the gifts were not suitably lavish. There was a boob.

However, he is a charming rogue too. So I thought that manners are rather like politics, whether you are a rightie or a leftie, when you go far enough in either direction the righties start looking exactly like lefties and vice versa. So it is with boobs and charmers, if you go far enough in either direction, they start looking like each other and this is how Bohemond can still be so rude and yet charming. Now you know why we all like the bad boys.

Antiochus

    It is with a heavy heart that I review one of my original hypotheses about the name Antiochus being bestowed on the first bearer of the Elder Wand in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that I put forth in this article.  I was not looking for more background to Harry Potter, I was looking for a story I had read recently about a monk who, having had his relics stolen and replaced with a lump of coal by some rascals, held up the coal and said that it was one of the coals that St. Lawrence had been roasted with.  Stories about St. Lawrence pop up in the unlikeliest places. I thought it might have been in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales but it is more likely that I read the story in Boccaccio's Decameron.

      While I was thumbing through the Canterbury Tales, I came across the Monk's Tale about Antiochus a pre-C.E. king who attacked Jerusalem with the intent of razing it to the ground as related in the Biblical text, Maccabees.  God struck him down before he could ever strike a blow.  J.K. Rowling plundered the Pardoner's Tale for her fable about the three brothers who 'defeated' death in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so it seems more likely that she got the name Antiochus from the same source.  Especially when the "Spear of Destiny" that her characters were fighting over would be the one that Hitler had taken from the Habsburgs in Vienna.  It was held by Grindelwald and the re-taking of the wand by Dumbledore ended WWII much like the spear was recovered by Patton just before Hitler's suicide.

     Like so many things in Harry Potter, the fan theories are better than the novels themselves.  Bohemond would have been much more suitable as a character to have owned the first wand to make the bearer invincible in battle.  But then he does not appear to have valued the spear and trusted to his own 'genius' rather than a gimmick so perhaps not.

Bohemond of Taranto

     Bohemond was one of the leaders of the First Crusade.  In fact, he was the leader of the First Crusade until they took Antioch.  After he claimed that city for his own, he settled down to empire building and went no further.  This is why Godfrey de Bouillon  is held to be the leader of the Crusade.

     He was named Mark when he was born but because of his size, even as an infant, he was renamed Bohemond for   

Boamundus Gigas the giant.         Siege of Antioch, Wikipedia

The Gestae Francorum, 

written by an anonymous supporter of Bohemond, gives an account of the Crusades from the Frankish point of view.  An opposing point of view is put forth by Anna Comnena in her Alexiad. 

     Anna Comnena was the eldest child of the Emperor Alexius in Constantiople and was well placed to observe all of the players as they passed through the imperial court. It has been frequently noted that she was fascinated by Bohemond and, as a result of this fascination, we have one of the few full physical descriptions of a historical character.  It is amusing to me that , in paintings he is often depicted with long hair and a moustache (like in this engraving by Gustave Dore) , even a beard, when Anna clearly states that he was so clean shaven she could only guess at the color of his beard. He also kept his hair short, in contrast with his Frankish allies.  Anna refers to them variously as Franks and Kelts but Bohemond was neither of these.  

     His father, Robert Guiscard, was a Norman.  His brother was Roger II of Sicily and, although Anna comments on his low birth, Bohemond was married to Constance, the sister of the King of France,  Louis VI.  The First Crusade was largely a Frankish campaigning so Anna can be forgiven for being mistaken.  The king himself could not participate because he was excommunicated at the time. 

     As a younger brother, with no kingdom to inherit, he saw the Crusades as an opportunity to carve out a kingdom for himself.  At first, he and his father set their sights on Constantinople; thinking that it was in a weakened state and ripe for picking, although the call to arms was not just to recover Jerusalem but to save the Christian Byzantine empire from attacks by the Turks.  This is why Anna despises Bohemond; he was an enemy of her father.

      In spite of that, she says "the sight of him inspired admiration, the mention of his name terror."  He was a "full cubit over the tallest man".  Indeed, she wrote that the man who brought him in as a prisoner to the emperor barely come up to his buttocks.  Bohemond was "perfectly proportioned" with very white skin, light brown hair, and pale blue eyes. "in him both courage and love were armed, both ready for combat".  She mentions on several occasions that he has large nostrils, which is Medieval for big nostrils, big..........  Like large hands, which he also had.

      Shortly after the Crusaders had taken Antioch, they were besieged by Turks.  The Gestae Francorum relates how they were in dire straits since they had only just won the city through siege and supplies were low.  A priest had a vision that the spear of Longinus was buried in Antioch and the angel who came to him had shown him where it was buried.   It was duly excavated and carried before them while they mounted an assault on the Turks and defeated them. 

      Bohemond became the Prince of Antioch and one of the possessors of the "Spear of Destiny".  Ownership of this spear is supposed to confer invincibility in battle, Bohemond as a ferocious warrior was a fitting owner of the spear.  Others who are said to have owned it are Theodosius, Alaric, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, Frederic Barbarosa, and, mostly infamously, Adolf Hitler. There is more than one spear that is claimed to be the spear. If it sounds a little like the Elder Wand or the "Wand of Destiny" from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, that is no accident.  If you doubt that, consider this: the Peverell brother who owned it first was called Antioch. 

      Bohemond enjoyed a long and exciting career, too long to cover here but perhaps this will pique your interest enough to read more.  He died in Apula in 1111, at the age of 53, leaving his principality to his son, Bohemond II.  The spear that was found in Antioch was taken by the Turks when Antioch fell and is now in the museum of a monastery in Echmiadzin. 

Beatles Song of the Week

Vir Alienus verus est,

In Terra Aliena sedet,

Omnes consilium alienum pro nemone capet.

Non opinionem habet, 

Non scit ubi agit,

Estne similiter cum te et meo?

Vir Alienus, placebisne audire,

Quod amissis non scis, 

Vir Alienus, mundus tibi imperare est.

Caecus cum potente est,

Solum quod volet videre videt,

Vir Alienus potestne meum omnino videre?