Beyond Death

All my life I’ve heard people say: “What is this, the Middle Ages?” or “It feels like we’ve gone back to the Middle Ages,” whenever they want to comment on something absurd that makes us regress so much we turn into barbarians, puritans, God-fearing souls destined to die of the plague.

And every time I hear that, I can’t help thinking about how many things we still share with an era that we, for some absurd reason, insist on seeing as dark and full of limitations.

The Middle Ages were an immense period that saw countless changes, not only in customs but also in thought and… language.

Yes, because you really have to forget the grey, silent Middle Ages we were taught about in school: the one made only of monks copying manuscripts and ladies sighing in Latin, of men being quartered and sexuality reduced to almost nothing.

The Middle Ages were, much like today, a noisy world full of life, sweat and… swear words. Oh yes, because even then people insulted, laughed about sex and… blasphemed.

Only their obscenities sounded far more theatrical than ours and, quite often, the foulest mouths didn’t belong to peasants in taverns but to kings on their thrones.

Let me explain… in the Middle Ages (and in the Renaissance too, as we’ll see in this post), the worst swear words weren’t about anyone’s mother, but about God Himself, of course.

And even in that sense, we haven’t really changed much, have we?

Swearing “By God’s blood!” or “By God’s nails!” (referring to the nails of Christ) was the medieval equivalent of a stadium roar… except it could cost you your life.

The chronicles tell of whippings, fines and pilgrimages imposed on those who swore in public.

Shakespeare had to invent a trick to keep from angering the censors:

“God’s wounds!” became “Zounds!”, “God’s blood!” was shortened to “’Sblood!”.

A bit like saying “heck!” instead of “fuck”.

The same linguistic hypocrisy that still follows us today. Holy moly.

Then there was the other great, immense and endless taboo: sex.

And here the Middle Ages turn out to be surprisingly… direct (as we’ve also seen in various posts on this blog).

In thirteenth-century London there was actually a street called Gropecunt Lane, literally “Street of the Prostitutes.”

It was later renamed the more modest Grape Lane, but the meaning was clear.

No metaphors, no beating around the bush: medieval people called things by their name.
In the Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (late fourteenth century) uses the word “swive” to mean sexual intercourse.

In France, the fabliaux spoke freely of “foutre,” meaning “to fuck.”
Even the art of insulting was a little masterpiece of creativity.

It wasn’t enough to say “idiot,” oh nooo. In the Middle Ages they preferred insults that sounded like moral judgments:

“Knave!” (scoundrel), “Whoreson!” (son of a whore), “Villano!” (coarse peasant) or “Ribaldo!” (depraved rascal).

Words that would make us smile today could back then ruin your reputation.
Calling the wrong nobleman a “villain” was worth as much as a duel challenge.

Forget “idiots on Facebook”: imagine how many duels there would be today if we challenged each other every time someone insulted us on social media! 😄

And now let’s get to my favourites: the foul-mouthed kings and queens.

Between one marriage and one beheading, Henry VIII still found time to crack crude jokes with his hunting friends.
Foreign ambassadors reported that “he spoke like a soldier,” filling his talk with sexual innuendo.
No surprise there: for him, virility was proven through language too.

And his daughter was no different. Behind that marble Tudor composure, Elizabeth was sharp-tongued, sarcastic and often merciless.
With her courtiers she could be both venomous and brilliant: she called her favourite Robert Dudley “my little dog,” in a way that, let’s face it, left very little to the imagination.

She knew perfectly well when a double meaning could bring a man to his knees more than a war ever could.

Charles II, nicknamed The Merry Monarch, turned vulgarity into an art form.
During banquets he sang bawdy songs and, when moralists scolded him, replied: “I cannot promise to stop sinning, but I can promise to sin more discreetly.”

A genius of sarcasm, even before he was a genius of sin.

Francis I of France, on the other hand, liked to “speak like the soldiers.”
He didn’t mind dirty jokes and affectionately called his mistresses “my little royal piglets.”
One of them nicknamed him “mon cochon royal”… and he was proud of it. Very proud.

Of course, not everyone could afford such freedom. In the city records of Florence or Venice we find fines for “foul language” and “public blasphemy.”
Those who cursed risked the whip; those who insulted a noble could end up at the pillory.

But in markets and taverns, language knew no censorship: swearing was the voice of the people, a way to exorcise fatigue and fear.
Medieval swear words tell us of a world that was anything but dark: noisy, carnal, alive.

Cursing, laughing and insulting were part of the game, a way of being human.

Today the words have changed, but the need remains the same: to break the silence with a cry that is human, all too human.

And who knows… if we could stroll into a fifteenth-century tavern, between a “’Sblood!” and a “foutre!”, we might feel more at home than we could ever imagine.

NOTE: The photo in this post shows a note found inside a 1529 copy of Cicero’s De Officiis.
At the bottom of the page, the scribe, without the slightest filter, wrote: “fuckin abbot.”

Who knows what that abbot did to make him so incredibly… pissed off.