Medieval Hostageship c.700-c.1500

Hostage, Captive, Prisoner of War, Guarantee, Peacemaker

Matthew Bennett, Katherine Weikert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781134996124
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

This volume explores the issues of taking, using and being hostages in the Middle Ages. It brings together recent research in the areas of hostages and hostageships, looking at the act of hostage-taking and the hostages themselves through the lenses of political and social history. Building upon previous work, this volume in particular critically examines not only the situations of hostages and hostageships but also the broader social and political context of each situation, developing a more complete picture of the phenomenon.

1 The State of Play

Medieval Hostageship and Modern Scholarship

Matthew Bennett and Katherine Weikert

Holding hostages in the medieval west was not an uncommon state of play. Hostages were taken and held as surety for various reasons: the holding of property, the promise of paying off debts, the securement of peace. Hostages could be taken for social reasons, if broadly read. The fostering of sons is a form of social contract involving the holding of a boy by another family to strengthen a network of alliances. Betrothals and marriages of daughters and sisters, especially in the cases of making treaties between warring factions, served much the same purpose as a hostage or a fostered son: a promise of peace held in the body of a person. Wardships of various kinds, of either minor children or widows, could equally be read as a form of social caretaking, a polite–and profitable–form of hostage. Of course, hostages were also taken and ransomed in wartime under martial conditions, and provided a tidy income for the keeper. Hostages under martial conditions could extend beyond the expected situation of the holding of knights and affect the vulnerable, for example, wives or children being held for the actions of husbands and fathers. And of course, hostageship could turn ugly. Hostages were killed, starved, mutilated and ‘disappeared.’ In social, political and military terms, hostages and hostageships were, if not common, then a regular occurrence.

Despite this, the secondary materials available on medieval hostages are surprisingly slim. In the last few years we have fortunately seen two solid monographs exploring the topic,¹ but this is merely a beginning. Gwen Seabourne and Adam Kosto have provided a foundation as well as a set of terminology, definitions, parameters and examples from which scholarship will spring. Previous to this, work exploring hostages or hostageship could be found in a handful of articles, but largely more in the mention of the action of taking or being a hostage as a part of another discussion. Medieval hostageship has undeservedly suffered from a lack of attention. If medieval hostageship was a regular state of being in the past, whence then this lack of secondary material?

There could be as many reasons for this as there were reasons for hostages in the Middle Ages. For one, the state of taking or being a hostage can all too easily be reflected in the modern mind as a part of the modern constructions of hostages. Our world has all too many circumstances in which hostages have been taken that make us recoil with horror and anger when we come upon the word. Perhaps we think of the Israeli athletes at the Munich 1972 Olympics, of the Iran hostage crisis of 1979–81, of Daniel Pearl’s death in 2002, of French journalists in Syria in 2014, of Daesh’s beheadings of military and civilian hostages in the Middle East happening today as we write this chapter.² The taking and detaining of hostages is a regular occurrence in the modern world; we have these often horrific examples at the cusp of our media cycles and within our collective memory to call to mind at the word. Medieval scholars may not give another thought to stumbling upon the word obses in our manuscripts; unfortunately, for a wider audience the term hostage has a negative meaning. Today we know all too well what hostage means.

However, there is a significant difference between ‘knowing’ what hostage means in our own world and understanding it in the medieval context, which was seldom a reflection of current mores. Modern hostage situations are always crises with a clear expectation of violence, bodily harm and force;³ medieval hostage situations were often a long-term social contract. As outlined above, a medieval hostageship could be undertaken for a variety of reasons, not all military or aggressive in their outlook, and hostageship in the Middle Ages could be as much about strengthening social ties as breaking them.

There is also a practical reason for our lack of attention to medieval hostages: it can be difficult to track them in the available evidence. When obses comes up in a record, we might assume that we ‘know’ what this means; but beyond that, this mention may be the sole piece of direct evidence for this obses, with little, if any, follow-up on the ins-and-outs of a particular hostageship. It is not always possible to trace individual hostages through the available records, particularly ones who are not famous or of high status. As opposed to doing more than reconstructing some of the more famous and extraordinary medieval hostageships, such as that of Eleanor of Brittany or Richard Lionheart, it remains easiest to simply see our obsides as hostages we might see in the modern world. In fact, the more extraordinary hostages that we have taken the time to know, such as Eleanor or Richard, are probably just that: out of the ordinary, and not necessarily standing as a paradigm for the larger phenomenon of medieval hostages. Beyond that, obsides are merely mentioned in our primary sources, and so we follow that mention with a mere mention of it in our own work.

Finally, there is a more ideological or even typological reason for our inattention to medieval hostages: it is incredibly difficult to simply define a medieval hostage in the first place. Can prisoners be considered hostages? Are hostages in groups different from individual hostages? Was the defining feature of a hostage being specifically called by that name, or can we see hostages outside of our obsides? How can we talk about medieval hostages if we have not yet come to a consensus about what constituted this status or position?

This last question is the hardest as it strikes true: there are indeed many ways of seeing and defining a medieval hostage. However, the question begs to be asked: by defining hostageship, will scholarship then be liable to ignore those that might fall outside of this definition? Too narrow a definition is undesirable for just this reason, but too broad a definition may dilute the field with examples of those who do not truly fall into the category. But there is still more at stake in the definition of a medieval hostage: a hostage or a state of hostageship in the medieval world was seldom a static situation but one that could be, and frequently was, fluid and changing. Hostageship was a state of being as much as a legal or social category; a state of being can be flexible and malleable. A man, woman or child taken as a hostage in the medieval past would be liable to a shifting status, and one that could be altered in many ways, during the time the hostageship continued or was terminated.

The research in this book extends the concept of medieval hostages and hostageships from previous legal definitions of the hostage. Indeed, this book overall is more concerned with the social and political impact of hostages than with legal definitions and categorization. And indeed, in attempting to see beyond narrow bounds of named obsides, two major themes emerge in the study of medieval hostages, moving into social and cultural reality in addition to legal parameters. The first is that a hostage, and the use of a hostage, could often be as much of a symbol or statement for the hostage-keeper as a position for the hostage. The second, more loosely, is that a hostageship could shift in its purpose and thus also its status and definition. Beyond this, though, there are a number of emerging themes that are built around medieval hostages: the possibilities of violence to a hostage, implied, threatened, or enacted; the gender and status of the hostage affecting their personal situation; the economics of taking, holding, caring for or ransoming a hostage; and, in many situations, the individual politics surrounding the situation of the hostage. All of these areas, and in many cases multiple intersections of them, are part of seeking to understand medieval hostageships.

The hostage as a symbol or statement is not an idea that has gone unnoticed, but the case studies in this volume represent new understandings and new exploration of the symbolic importance of the hostage. When momentarily setting aside questions of legal definitions, it becomes obvious that taking and being hostages created a new hierarchical structure between people in addition to the already-stratified medieval social structures in place. The state of hostageship itself creates a new social structure of authority, a social hierarchy between the hostage and the hostage-taker. Indeed, the state of being a hostage could many times serve to create a structural relationship between people rather than an actual, defined status for both. Within this hierarchical structure, the new power positions provided new opportunities of symbolic displays of these new social rankings. The hostage, then, was not only a form of personal surety but a way for the hostage-taker to display his or her new ability to exact control over not just a person, but the greater societies or peoples that a hostage represented. The hostage became a symbolic representation for a greater whole, and the display of this symbol in the form of a person was a display of a new hierarchy, a new structural relationship between a lord and a subjugated people.

Thus, the importance of symbolism in medieval hostageship should never be underestimated. During a period of poor communications, when seeing the ruler’s head on the currency might be the closest many royal subjects got to understanding who was in power, physical representations of authority were essential. In part this could be done by impressive buildings, both secular and ecclesiastical, or by royal progresses and the presence (when available) of royal officials, but for something as intangible as political influence, the presence of a personage spoke volumes. Hostages were literally paraded in front of both the political elite and the wider population. In 1064, Earl Harold, in fact if not de jure a hostage in Normandy,⁴ was made to swear oaths across the duchy asserting his support for Duke William’s claim to the English throne. After William’s victory in battle and his coronation he took many of the leading men of England, ‘velut obsides,’ on a tour of continental possessions to demonstrate his newly-won authority, although the actual conquest of England lay years in the future.⁵ Similarly, as Katherine Weikert explains, the Treaty of Norham in 1209 handed over the daughters of William I, King of Scots, to King John of England, as a demonstration of the vassalic relationship between them. A display of the princesses of Scotland, Margaret and Isabella, as a part of his court indicated John’s dominance over not just Scotland, but also the Scottish king and family.⁶ In Christian Ispir’s words, the symbolism of hostage giving and taking was ‘communicative’ of political relationships, noting as well John’s display of his Scottish hostages at the Feast of St John in 1213 as an exhibition of his post-Norham dominance over Scotland.⁷ As Gordon McKelvie points out, Henry V used a similar tactic in making visual use of his captive James I of Scotland at Henry’s marriage to Catherine de Valois and again at her coronation as queen;⁸ in Alex Brondarbit’s chapter, this volume, we see Edward V riding alongside his uncle-captor Richard, Duke of Gloucester, giving...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The State of Play: Medieval Hostageship and Modern Scholarship
• 2 Aldhelm “Old Helmet,” First Bishop of Sherborne, and His Helmgils, “Helmet Hostage,” First Abbot of Glastonbury, on the Dorset/Devon Coast at Lyme: The Making of a West Saxon Bishopric
• 3 Perceiving and Personifying Status and Submission in Pre-Viking England: Some Observations on a Few Early Hostages
• 4 The Role of Hostages in the Danish Conquests of England and Norway, 1013–30
• 5 Warrior Narratives and Hostageship Ethos: Old French Literature and “Reality” in the Twelfth Century
• 6 Exigens Obsides Ab Eis: Hostages under King John of England, 1199–1216
• 7 Female Hostages: Definitions and Distinctions
• 8 The Princesses Who Might Have Been Hostages: The Custody and Marriages of Margaret and Isabella of Scotland, 1209–1220s
• 9 “Thy Father’s Valiancy Has Proved No Boon”: The Fates of Helena Angelina Doukaina and Her Children
• 10 The Royal Prisoner of Henry IV and Henry V: James I of Scotland, 1406–24
• 11 Commanding the Crown: Royal Hostages in the Wars of the Roses, 1455–83
• 12 Hostages and the Laws of War: The Surrender of the Castle and Palace of Rouen (1449–68)
• Contributors
• Index