Name That Segue

Name that segue Alex Conradie Barbara Tuchman's historic account of the calamitous 14th century, A distant mirror, is a jewel within the popular history genre. She describes in vivid detail, a world where chivalry reigned supreme and courtly love flourished against the backdrop of enormous socio-economic upheavals like the Bubonic Plaque. Within an hour's drive from our home in Teesside, lie remnants of this world in Richmond & Barnard Castle. Walking through the ruins of great halls like Scolland Hall, one is transported to Tuchman's world where magic was believed omnipresent, superstitions gripped both nobles & peasants alike and alchemy was the most popular applied science. Tuchman's work particularly delves into the chaotic course of the Bubonic Plaque in Western Europe, when Death's scythe swung wide killing arcs. The pale horsemen of St. John's apocalyptic vision probably entered Yorkshire through the port of Hull in May 1349, the pestilence peaking in June - August. A third of the known world died between 1347-1350; but the death toll may have been even greater in Northern England. Today, naturally occurring infections of Yersinia Pestis are little more than an annoyance that may be treated with antibiotics and prevented via emerging vaccines. The world has certainly changed. Built soon after the Norman conquest in the late 11th century, the defensive positions of Richmond castle & Barnard castle stimulated the growth of market towns on the lower slopes outside the castle walls.

Medieval economic hubs were thus born that pandered to the needs of nobles like Alan de Ponthievre who founded Richmond castle. As we wandered Barnard castle's inner keep, Anje commented on the cult of celebrity that must have accompanied the feudal social structure. Indeed during the late Middle Ages, magnificence in clothing was considered a prerogative of the nobles, who should be identifiable by modes of dress forbidden to others. Non-clerical men had abandoned the gown in favour of divided legs clad in tights. Knights & courtiers had adopted a fashion of excessively long pointed shoes, often tied up around the calf to enable any semblance of a normal gait. According to one chronicler, certain short tunic styles revealed the buttocks and "other parts of the body that should be hidden"; exciting the mockery of the common people. Noble women wore cosmetics, dyed their hair, broadened their foreheads and plucked their eyebrows. Nothing was more resented by the nobles than the imitation of their clothing and manners by upstarts - peasants were required to wear black or brown. Servants who imitated the long pointed shoes and hanging sleeves of their betters were frowned upon. Henry Knighton wrote: "There was such pride amongst the common people in vying with one another in dress & ornaments that it was scarcely possible to distinguish the poor from the rich, the servant from the master, or a priest from other men." Eventually, sumptuary laws were passed to regulate dress and spending. Economic thinking did not embrace the idea of spending as a stimulus to the economy. Exact gradation of fabric, colour, fur trimming, ornaments and jewels were set forward for every rank and income level.

Though foolish & unenforceable, as all ill conceived forms of social engineering should be, the driving force towards adornment defied prohibition. I remember several years ago walking the streets of Manhattan, peering into the designer shop windows; wondering, in the words of Stephen Frears' Marquise de Merteuil, when we will finally accept that vanity and happiness are quite incompatible. How far off can the death of demand truly be? Then; the thousands of pounds spent on the fashions of Stella McCartney & others remind me of the wisdom of Barbara Tuchman thesis: "For man is ever the same and nothing is lost out of nature, though everything is altered".