Gone Medieval - Erotic Medieval Poet: Gwerful Mechain

Episode Date: March 4, 2023

Wales in the Medieval period had a thriving bardic tradition and one poet is particularly fascinating. Gwerful Mechain lived in the second half of the fifteenth century. She left a body of work that is mostly religious, but sometimes very rude and irreverent.In today’s episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis finds out more from Professor Wynn Thomas, editor of A Map of Love: Twelve Welsh Poems of Romance, Desire and Devotion, which includes Mechain’s startling hymn of praise to female genitals.**WARNING: This episode contains graphic, bawdy verse**This episode was edited and produced by Rob WeinbergIf you’re enjoying this podcast and are looking for more fascinating Medieval content then subscribe to our Medieval Monday newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download, go to Android or Apple store Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Welsh poets have for a long time been an overlooked source for historical study. Their importance to the study of the Wars of the Roses, my specific area of interest, has only just begun to be understood. There was a thriving bardic tradition and one poet in particular is fascinating. Gwerville Mechain lived in the second half of the 15th century and as a female poet left a body of work that deals less with history and more

with social concerns. She's rude, she's irreverent and unafraid to tackle serious issues. She also features in a brand new book, A Map of Love by Wynne Thomas. And Wynne joins us today to tell us more. It's great to have you here on Gone Medieval Win. Oh, thank you for the opportunity. It's a pleasure. Can you paint a picture for us of the Welsh Bardic scene in the late medieval period? Was it something that was flourishing or was it beginning to wane. Something dramatic had happened. The Bards became a sort of a guild of poets initially serving the princes, and the earliest bardic poetry, as is known in English, dates back to the 7th century shortly after the Romans left Wales, and then a new language was forged

out of the combination of the basic Celtic language and then some admixture of Latin. So Cumbrague, Welsh, came into existence. The language has a newness about it. that poets could exploit and the first poets, believe it or not, the bards actually worked not in Wales but in what was known as the Hain Oglet, the Old North. And that meant the region around Edinburgh, because of course people became the Welsh were originally a Brathonic, British people and they occupied much of the island of Britain. And the two great poets, which are regarded as the founding of the Bardic Order, therefore are Nairnayorin and Italiesin. And over the centuries that followed, the sort of poetry that they wrote, which was very much very much,

much in keeping with the Welsh language, which is very flexible language in terms of sounds. That began to regularise as a particular writing which involved elaborate patterns of assonance and alliteration within a life. Now, it lasted about 700 years because it lasted in 1282 and that is a change. 1282. No Welsh person should be unaware of what that date means. Do you know what it means? I was filming at Conway Castle last week talking all about what happened in Wales around this time, so I'm very well aware of it. But just in case anyone isn't, we're talking about Edward I's invasion and eventual conquering of Wales. That was the date when the last native Prince of Wales was killed by Edward I. Now, the princes, they had been the

employers of the Bards, because the Bards were court poets primarily, and therefore, an important part their duties to sing the praises of their patron. 12.2 comes, and that is the end of that world, because there are no princes anymore, and therefore there is no place for the bard. And one of the great poems in Welsh was written, in fact, as an elegy, and it starts by evoking an apocalyptic scene, because it wasn't just the end of a local order for the bar,

it was the end of the world, really. So there was that extraordinary change, when suddenly they had no raison d'est, they had been the custodians of a people, really, because they were also charged with conveying legend and law and tradition from one generation to another. All that had come to an end. But the bards, we invented themselves, and with that, they interestingly changed what it became, in fact, a rather ritualistic and arcane mode of writing. And some great writing resulted, but it's not easy to read, because it's foreign was today,

the whole manner and mode of it. It was an in-group writing for the princes, but that couldn't last. So they evolved a new kind of writing which compared to the old was simpler. It was much more mobile, much more colloquial, much more flexible, and that served them well because they had to find new patrons just to keep them going. They needed to live and they needed to maintain the Baric tradition and found that in the remnants really of the great families of Wales. They weren't great aristocracy, but they had houses sufficient size and they had sufficient well to maintain the poets as long as the poets travelled all around the country from one great house and another and now, of course, adapting their singing to these new conditions.

And the monasteries, too, are a very important source of particular, particularly the cistercians. The cistercians was originally from France, brought over by the Normans, and they weren't native. And the cistercians have contributed enormously to the cultural of ways, not least by maintaining it at this difficult period. So a new form emerges called the Cawyd, which is a simplified form of the older poetry, and the great master who, if he didn't devise it, developed it to an extraordinary height of greatness, was David Abwilim, and he's arguably the greatest poet-wills ever produced,

and he lived in the 14th century, for a century before Gwerville Mecham, and it was he and his contemporaries who practiced this new kind of Nimbabwe writing, which was an interesting writing, because Davitha William, in a sense, he had to ride two horses. On the one hand, you had the occupying force of the Anglo-Normans,

and in fact his own relatives had got over to that side, and some of them are constables of Cardigan Castle. At the same time, Davyeth was going from great house to great house, and linking up with what remained of the old warrior leadership of Wales. So he had to be nimble in all sorts of ways, culturally, linguistically, he was moving between worlds all the time, and you see this in the flexibility of his poetry. So a cousin of the bards and where it was at when Gwervel Mechain came upon the scene, Because that new kind of Bardic poetry was in its heyday. It's one of the golden ages, in fact, of Welsh poetry,

and arguably one of the golden ages of European poetry and culture, actually, which lasted roughly from the 14th century to the early tuna period. It's fascinating that you can see them developing and reacting to political developments. They're adapting their language. They're adapting their way of operating. So when the princes are gone, they become much more mobile. Who were the barge? What was their kind of background?

Did it tend to be a poor man? game or did you have to be educated to some degree? If you go back in histories of most people, there was having tribal poets, that is the poets whose responsibility was to serve the tribe. And more often than not, these have been greatly honoured. That's particularly true of Celtic society. And you've got to remember that Welsh society was

and there's a Celtic society. By now Wales is the only country in the world, where a Celtic language is still spoken and maintains an extraordinary, modern, vibrant culture. And the Bardic tradition is part of that, even in present-day Wales. But the Bards were a guild of prestige poets who were accorded places of honour within the court. Formerly, in the laws, they're acknowledged to have a position within the household which is very high, particularly if they were the highly skilled ones, because the bards in the end,

the evolved system as in Ireland, were to be apprenticed to the bardicraft for years. And then you had to sit examinations, and then you were formally admitted to what you might say in a monopoly, a guild. and once you were in there, there was further chance for competitions, and if you were very successful, you became a Privard, which means a main poet, as a chief poet, and that would allow you to become, for example, either a Barthrism or a Barth Thailiae, so there were grades, and that depended on your relationship,

in the sense of the prince. And the bards were not only trained for years in this extraordinary and unique kind of writing, which is known as can Haneth, and the body work that lies on it is called Barthas, bard in Welsh is a poet, and in English bard. Not only were the laws of the game taught you, so to speak, in what is a kind of bardic school, but also you were taught the traditions of your people, the legend, and the law, and not infrequently true, of course, among the many conventions that you then perated, there was prophetic verse, and when the Anglo-Normans, English, came along, that proved

very difficult for them, because the barred, through prophecy, began to enter the political sphere, And, more often than not, they chose to prophesy not what the English wanted to hear, but an alternative version of the future. And so you've got no wonder that the very word bard entered popular English vocabulary in 1757, because that was the date of Thomas Gray, the Oxford Don's poem, The Bard. And Gray knew it was a legend and not history, but it is the bard, which is high in a crag with his harp, was hurling down curses in the end of the first, was supposed to have commanded the slaughter of the Welsh barges.

So it didn't happen, but it's a wonderful story. Hungary makes much of it in a poem which then was heavily illustrated. And by the way, it treats such fame that most people in Hungary have heard of the Welsh bards because the greatest patriotic poem in Magia is about that. Paz did indeed maintain the identity of a whole people. And that's why in Wales poetry has always had a very special place. Until recently, we had no senet of our own, right? We had no, as it were, system of home rule since the time of so well in the last 1282, at least.

And we haven't had our own separate law courts. We've had nothing like that. And so the maintenance of which identity, which has depended a lot upon the translation of tradition, and of language and of culture, that has come down to the barge. Before we get on to Gweville herself, what do we know about female poets and barge during this period? Do we know if they were as well represented as men or how they were regarded by their peers? First of all, to note, they were excluded from the gild of bards, which is a male preserve. There were women poets in Wales who, in fact, were adept at the strict meters.

In other words, exactly the skills that the bards were skillful at. They were almost all of high social standing, because they needed to be. The bar themselves were high social standing anyway. And they were all certainly taught their skills by, male bards. And Gwerle Mechain is one of these, but there's very little of their poetry extent. And maybe that is for cultural reasons, the way that women were regarded at that time unsubbed even later, to be honest. I think we can reliably say that she lived in the later 15th century and that she was a married woman of good family in Montgomeryshire, and that she had one

daughter, we think, and that she may have been taught with the bardic skills and arts by a male whom she frequently addresses in her poetry and who may possibly have been her lover, but I think that's speculation, but the whole tone of some of the writing at least leads us to suspect that. There isn't much more we know of it, except that there is a slim body of work that she left, and believe it or not, 95% of that is religious, and most of her poetry is quite conventional. It's verse, pious, verse, devout verse. Anyway, of course, you've got the more little ribald, a bit of pieces. including what I call

the vagina monologue that she wrote which is a glorious piece of poetry and she wrote a scatological poem as well by the way about her made defecating so she was supposed to me would use it to rabelaisian these days wouldn't we? But ribald if you like listeners would be aware of the wife of Bath

of Chaucer and there's something of the wife of Bath obviously about Gwervin Meichai there was the same kind of robust and hearty love of life of the body I think's physical as well as spiritual and she wasn't apparently afraid of saying so. And that came through in her writing, but that's about as much as we know about her,

apart from their knowing, of course, that she was effectively censored. She was edited out of the record. So her poem to the vagina, which you mentioned there, kind of referred to as a vagina monologue, is probably her best-known work now, at least. But why was it forgotten for so long?

Was it because it was buried, it was censured? Why do you think? It was the obvious reason, isn't it? You should have heard at least of Chapel Wales, 19th century was a completely chapel, right? Not church, chapel. And there was always a puritan streak. And they certainly didn't like anything obscene. Gracious me, come on. Of course, then when the great editors the 20th century got to work on these texts in Wales, they were the product without backdrop. And they might be sophisticated. They might know in theory about all this. But, oh me, they

weren't going to edit it or in any way to acknowledge it. And so it was, it must be in the 1980s, Before Gverville, Mechand really came to light and since then, of course, great interest has been shown. But that's why it's quite simple, really, unsigned in a way, and it's so nice now that she gets a hearing for the first time. She's very much unwise, you might say, not as of her own period, but as we hear, of course, of our own time. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb,

and on my podcast, not just the Tudors from History Hit, I try to make sense of everything that baffled our early modern ancestors. like, what do you do with your waist? If you put your dunghill up against your neighbour's wall, you're going to cause rising damp. Would Henry the 8th ever consider executing his wife? The Queen of England? Anne Boleyn?

I'm not even sure if the Billins took it seriously because why would they have any reason to suspect Henry VIII would really get rid of his queen? And why do men grow beards? During puberty, the male body heats up and a smoke rises in the body, pushes out the hair in the face. So the beard is actually a form of excrement. In other words, not just the Tudors, but most definitely also the Tudors.

Twice a week, every week. Listen and follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's quite amusing to think of all of those, as you say, Chapel 19th and 20th century Welshmen sort of picking up this poem and reading it and the look of utter shock and disgust on their faces. I imagine that would make careful laugh, if anything. So this specific poem, what is it talking about? What message is it delivering? One of the other conventions of Baricpouries you'd expect was poetry addressed to women. That is praising the beauty of women. And it was full of praise of women, which, as she says in the beginning, is grace at her boys, but it does stop at the waist, doesn't it? And she then goes on to say,

what's really interesting, let me tell you, is what happens below the waste. And you don't seem to pay any attention to that. But through, in fact, a praised poem, which is what it is. of her genital organs. That's what she's doing, and the context of it, is games the bards like to play. Because it was this closed order and a closed shop, there was an in-group of bards that always, from the earliest time,

they'll exchange his little unofficial competitions and so to demonstrate their powers. So she's also making fun of a convention of praised poetry. She's made fun of limits within which a male poets operate, and she's effectively saying, do better than that, and let me show you. I thought it was playful, definitely,

but it was also, I think, aimed at shocking a male audience to some extent by talking about the fact that, you know, you talk about beautiful eyes and lovely hair and everything else, but you never talk about this in a way that would make men's jaws drop. Yeah, yeah, I think I should read a bit of it. I mean, you're welcome to read it all, Wyn, if you want to. I'm sure people would love to hear you recite it. Go for it. Go for it.

This, by the way, is a translation by Katie Grammich, an old friend of mine. But, okay, this is the way that it goes. Every poet, drunken fool, thinks he is just the king of cool. Everyone is such a bore. He makes me sick. He always declaims fruitless praise of all the girls in his male gaze. He's acted all day long, by God, ignoring the best bit. Sir Lysod, he places the hair, gown of fine love, and all the girls.

the girl's bits up above, even lower down, it praises merrily the eyes which glance so sexually, daring more, he lords the lovely shape of the soft breast, swiss leave him agape, and the booty's arms, bright drape, even her perfect hands do not escape. Then, with his finest magic before night, it's tragic, he pays homage to God's might and empty illoggy, it's not quite right, where he's left the girl the middle, ungraced. That place where church, where church is a place where children are conceived. Though all bright quim, he does not say, That tender, plump, pulsating, broken ring.

That's the place I love. The place I bless. The hidden whim beneath the dress. You female body, you are strong and fair. A faultless, fleshy coat pluned with hair. I proclaim that the quim is fine. Circle of broad-edged lips divine. A can't dare by a lavish ass,

table of song this double in red and the churchmen or the radiant saints when they get a chance they've no restraint they never miss their chance to steal by st baino to give it a good feel so i hope you feel well and truly told off all you proud male poets you dare not scoff let songs of the quim grow and thrive find their dear reward and survive for it is silky soft the sultan of an ode a little seam a curtie on an ish bestowed needful Flaps in a place of meeting, the sour grove, circle of greeting, superb forest, faultless gift to squeeze, fur for a fine pair of balls, tender trees, dingle, deeper than hand, or ladle, hedge to hold a penis as large as you're able, a girl's thick glade, it is full of love, lovely bush. You are blessed by God above. and at the end there, if you notice, there's a run of conceits, that is, of comparisons. In Welsh, there's no one was Devali, Devali, and that was a central part of what the barbs did. And I should have said, at the end, she talks about a fine pair of boars and so on, the whole of penis. You've got to remember that the bardic poets used to write poems praising their penis. Now that William did, which is also, whether we edited it out of the standard edition for the same reason. So she's writing in a context where the barque,

Bars themselves, in fact, had written sexy poetry, but she wants to have the women's point of view. What you get, isn't it? It's just fascinating. As you say, you know, she's almost reflecting the male poetry that they write, and yet it somehow comes across as more shocking because it's a woman doing it. I guess because we're less used to a woman doing it. What do you imagine her listeners would have thought when they heard this? How do you imagine they would have reacted as she read this poem out? I don't know.

But they wouldn't have reacted as weird, was it? because I don't think they'd have been shocked. I don't really. Just think of Chaucer. And the word quim, by the way, is from Chaucer. That was one of the words used in that time. One of two of them might be offended, not by the obscenity of it, but the fact that she dares to invade it, they preserve.

I should also say, I suppose, that I'm not a scholar. The scholars would tell you of Havillez-Haneh isn't perfect, okay? It's not up to the very high standards that the greatest of the bards would have set. Who the hell cares? I don't care, and I'm not sure that's her content. I mean, Briss was cared very much. Most of them would have taken it in good fun, would have risen to the Batry and might have very pride in kind for all we know.

I imagine something like this being not dissimilar to a modern rap battle. You know, it's people standing up. They're saying things, maybe partly off the cuff, maybe pre-prepared, but it's all aimed at rivalry, who can produce the best poem, who can do it in the best possible way. Yeah. As it goes over the top, that's the whole point of it, isn't it? There's a showing off, not just of her gender-ed-law.

but have her prowess, her skills, a female poet who has created, today we talk, it was a feminized discourse, which is very fashionable, 20, 30 years ago, the theory of how women necessarily wrote differently from men, I know there's true or not, but you can see there, you could read Berraiméil as attempting to create a distinctively female discourse, not just of subject matter, but of manner of writing, I think there'd be interesting work to be done on her. They also tell me, by the way, the scholars, that you can get something similar on the continent as well, at the same time. going on. So I'm not claiming that what we've just heard is absolutely weak in any way, but it's certainly starting so to us. And to this day, there's been nothing written or being written in

Welsh, even by women. And women, poets have come to the fore in the last 30, 40 years. And I was going to ask to kind of end on, how do you think Guareville's poetry still speaks to us today? But I guess maybe it's part of that feminist tradition and writing. Is that the main thing that we can take from it, that even 600 years ago, women were doing what men did in a challenging way? Yeah, if you like we, encounter her as a liberated woman, don't we? After all, she was tied into marriage, wasn't she? Etcetera. And as far as I know, she did a perfectly conventional life. If you include even the thinking of love as possibly as part of that, certainly in her day. But she comes across to us as an electrifying voice, it seems to me, because this is

a voice in a woman. You can't doubt that. Something about it, which immediately convinces you at even before you're told that she is, you know. So for me, it makes sense. I mean, no wonder there's interested in these days. And of course, I have to admit that being naughty, a map of love to explain is this collection of poems up to only 12, with little commentaries by me. And it's aimed at a popular market. That's the whole point of it. And it ranges from that sort of poetry we've just been hearing to a very moving poem by Emmett Humphrey, written when he was a hundred years old, tribute to his wife. There's a gay poem.

There's a poem of a love of mother for child, of a husband for a pregnant wife. So by map of love, I was trying to give some suggestion of the range of uses to which we put the word love and the range of experiences that be associated with that or identify through that word. And therefore, Gervilmichand fits into that,

right, that she is the most powerful, sexual voice in the whole volume. and it is the sexuality of a woman that is speaking through her. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Wynne. I've really enjoyed talking about the Bardic tradition and about Gwifil in particular. It's been fascinating to learn more. My pleasure, and thank you for the opportunity.

You can buy Wyn's book A Map of Love Now. It explores 12 poems and poets from Wales over the centuries and is available from University of Wales Press. You can join Dr Kat Jarman on Tuesday for another brand new episode. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts from and to tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval.

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