Geoffrey Chaucer was nearly executed by the Merciless Parliament in 1388. That parliament met from December 1387-June of 1388. In April and May dozens of Richard II’s friends and advisors were executed by the Lords Appellant who were trying to both take over rulership and revenge themselves for some of Richard’s actions against their estates and trying to make peace with the French, of all things. Chaucer had been a member of the previous parliament in 1386, the Wonderful Parliament. He had been nominated because he was a Justice of the Peace from Kent, a position given him by Richard II, in an attempt to stack the Parliament with those sympathetic to the beleaguered king. Chaucer's wife likely died in 1387, and Geoffrey disappears from the record for a bit. He was not appointed to other office until 1389, when John of Gaunt returned and the political pendulum swung the other way. So he was out of politics for about a year and a half, and it was during that time a great many of his friends and fellow-supporters of Richard were executed.
He was an important member of the courts of Edward III and Richard II, and was especially close with John of Gaunt. He was sidelined at just the right time, it seems.
About those executions. This is one more example of how their lives were different than ours, and we should not pretend that we understand what their lives were like nor comment on their decisions and actions without putting in a fair bit of thought. Executing a bunch of your political opponents in your own country, including family members, was not terribly unusual. Internal violence in Western Society has greatly reduced over tha last seven centuries, as we have discussed before. What we think of as normal life, the way everyone lives, the default position of society, is nowhere near universal even today, and fairly rare in history. As a side note, it brings fear to my heart when people tolerating violence in our society do not understand this. Civilisation is a fragile thing. I don't think they get that.
We're really flattering ourselves if we think we're that much more civilized. We may not use physical violence but what's the Cancel Culture method of using lawfare and ostracism to deprive someone of community, wealth, and earnings but a not quite metaphoric execution?
ReplyDelete"Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer" from God's point of view. From ours, murder is still a long way from ostracism.
ReplyDeleteFor every action, there is a reaction. Over-reactions can be a BITCH.
ReplyDeleteI believe in both sides of that debate, as folks probably know. I believe we are not that far from our more primitive states, and under duress could revert to them. Indeed, there are plenty of examples from within Western Civilisation of individuals and groups behaving as cruelly as any other peoples. I think there are lots of programs in our DNA that can be re-activated under difficult conditions.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I also believe that we are better than we were, down even to genetic levels. Also, however primitive and violent those other programs are, we seem to be activating them less and less often.
AVI, I disagree. For most of us civilization is no more than skin deep. For some it doesn't even go that far. The ruthless black violence of today is a sure and certain sign that in some places civilization has taken several steps backward. Here in America it wasn't that long ago that 'everyone' aspired to be a rational and civilized person. I don't see this as the case anymore. We have whole swaths and an entire generation of people who appear disinclined to behave as civilized people are expected and don't care if you don't like it. This of course invites the civilized to retaliate, in a civilized manner of course.
ReplyDeleteConsider that any alternative to death back in Chaucer's time would involve a dungeon and a rather grim death of starvation and neglect, giving the enemy the chop was probably by far the more civilized course of action than 'locking them up for life' as we do now.
So far we haven't reverted to officially flaying people alive, no matter how much some groups may want to.
ReplyDeleteIf not flaying people alive today is a sign of our civilisation, how should we rate the millions of child sacrifices we tolerate each year.
ReplyDeleteMalory, who lived just after Chaucer, had time to write his novel because of lengthy prison time. Mostly this seems to have been political as well, although there may also have been a jealous husband.
ReplyDeleteWe are lucky, in a way, that it happened; just as it would have been a great loss if Chaucer had been executed, it would have been a similar loss if Malory had not been imprisoned.
BLACK LIES MATTER representatives were unavailable for comment!
ReplyDelete