[Artemisia] Richard the Lionheart

[Stephanae Baker]

Thank you, Your Majesty. That was the point I was trying to make.  
There's no way to know for certain what Hovedon meant by passionate  
love and no way to know what they were doing when even their beds did  
not separate them. We use the word love very specifically in modern  
English, but modern French has no word for "like." Je t'aime means I  
love you. Je t'aime bien, although it translates literally as "I love  
you well" actually means something more akin to "I like you." French  
is what Richard spoke. Latin is what Hovedon wrote about him in.  
Americans are weird about using the word love between men. We're  
weird about handholding and physical intimacy and nudity. If you look  
only at the differences between modern Americans and modern Europeans  
and then try to extrapolate those differences across a century of  
centuries and one or two languages, how in the world can you talk  
about verifiable facts? If we can't talk about possibilities; if we  
can't interpret and speculate (drawing on period and scholarly  
sources), then we can't talk about anything at all.

On May 7, 2007, at 8:51 PM, TClayton wrote:

> Also let me add, that in this period,  very deep (hetro)  
> friendships between men are very often described with the word  
> love, and are ascribed as lovers. It's in our homophobic era that  
> we imply the "gay" aspect to it. It's possible that Hovedon is  
> simply trying to portray them as very close, inseperable  
> companions. Shakespeare is full of such comparisons ("The Merchant  
> of Venice" has many references like these) that do not mean to  
> imply homosexual acts. However, it is true that the stigma for  
> homosexual practices in the middle ages, particularly among the  
> noblility, was far less than it is today.
> Until the invention and introduction of courtly love, it was  
> considered odd or weak to refer to a relationship between a  man  
> and a woman with the word "love". That was certainly more sinful!
>    A great book on this subject is "The Royal Bastards of Medieval  
> England" by Chris Given -Wilson and Alice Curteis. It talks about  
> these very issues on this list.
> -----Ralph, Rex Artemisia
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephanae Baker"  
> <stephanae at countryrhoades.net>
> To: "Kingdom of Artemisia mailing list"  
> <artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org>
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 7:57 PM
> Subject: Re: [Artemisia] Richard the Lionheart
>
>
>> Dear Conrad:
>>
>> You seem offended by the idea that Richard's sexuality could have  
>> something to do with his place in history and certainly to think  
>> it  has no place in our discussion, so I'd like to respectfully  
>> present  some arguments to the contrary.
>>
>> Roger of Hoveden (who went on the 3rd crusade with Richard) wrote  
>> the following (translated from Latin by Boswell):
>>
>>     "Richard, [then] duke of Aquitaine, the son of the king of   
>> England, remained with Philip, the King of France, who so honored  
>> him  for so long that they ate every day at the same table and  
>> from the  same dish, and at night their beds did not separate  
>> them. And the  king of France loved him as his own soul; and they  
>> loved each other  so much that the king of England was absolutely  
>> astonished at the  passionate love between them and marveled at it."
>
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