Athelston

This is a treat of a medieval romance, written sometime in the late 14th century. I don't really know quite what to do with it. Rather like the romance before, I'll write an impression of the story without looking at the original.

So, the story starts out with a group of four messengers who grow quite close from working with one another. They decide after some time passes to become brothers, and are able to do so in a ceremony that is often referred to as "weddynge."

One of these brothers, Athelston, wins the equivalent of the lottery and becomes king of England through some pretty odd luck. He acts the good brother and doles out some positions. To Egelond he gives the earldom of Stone, to Wymound the earldom of Dover, and to Alric the bishopric of Canterbury. For a time all goes pretty smoothly.

However, pretty soon Wymound gets jealous of the close relations between Athelstan and Egelond. They confer with one another a lot, and he's envious. So he decides to frame Egelond with treasonous plots that bring him under suspicion. So Egelond and his pregnant wife Dame Edyff are both taken into prison, even though there are concerns that she is too pregnant to travel.

Meanwhile, Athelston shows that he has gone off of his rocker by first refusing the queen's request to give Dame Edyff some relief and then kicking her and killing their own unborn child. The child gets born, a pretty, fair, white and red child. All noble, except for the small problem of being stillborn. It's quite affecting, so much so that the queen then writes to the Archbishop Alric in order to plead for intercession. The messenger here gets considerable detail devoted to him, losing his horse in the effort to ride quickly. Rather baldly, he's the true messenger in contrast to the king, a messenger who's lost his way.

So the Archbishop finds the king in prayer, and attempts to urge a trial. Athelston refuses and disinvests him. In return, Alric excommunicates the king and slams England with an interdiction. Alric then leaves, and while walking through the city, must explain to a knight why he can no longer perform his church functions. This leads to a popular upswelling that forces Athelston to listen. They reach an accord to attempt a doom, or a trial by ordeal. They heat up several (nine?) plowshares and have the earl, his wife, and their previous children traverse them. Each pass over them unscathed. The wife enters labor while walking over them, and the result is Saint Edmund!

Anyway, once they do this, the messenger is asked to deliver a message to the Earl of Dover, telling him that the traitors have been killed and urging him to come. When the Earl does, he must undergo the trial. He is revealed to be a liar, is drawn and hung, and so the tale ends.


A couple of quick thoughts - color keeps coming up here and elsewhere. White and red in the complexions of the people, the red of the coals, and so on. Also, the ecclesiastical ring is a little curious because normally in romance the ring is a love token. Here, it's clearly a sign of investiture, but there's also a little bit of the love token sense, in that the ring was given to a brother for love, but now it has been revoked and is no longer recognized. Their entire relationship, including the use of "weddyd," deserves some closer study, both for that and Wymound's envy.  The exchanges between the brothers are fascinating.