A Bower in Bucklesfordbury
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| Barnard Castle – William Turner, 1825 |
Introduction
It is clear that psychological themes in this week’s subject, “Matty Groves”, strike the most resonant chords for us today, and probably always have even for people who never heard the term ‘psychology’. Beyond its entertainment value, we can see the ballad as a versatile psychic tool, used in some minds to justify male dominance and in others to express a need to escape it. I’ll take that on in my final post this week, “God Make You Safe and Free.” (If you’re not familiar with the ballad and its many faces, this week’s introductory post is a better place to start!)
But today I want to consider history. The fact that so much of the original social and historical context of this ballad survives gives us an opportunity, more so than in some other Child Ballads, to make some interesting observations. Those can help us begin to answer the big question. Why do these ballads persist in places like the American frontier (or, the Internet) where noble lords and ladies were never seen?
(Folks, I intended this to be a short post… but be fairly warned about the road to hell, and accept my apologies if history isn’t your thing. I promise the best music of all in my last post this week! If you still want to read on, I suggest music for the background by first starting this upbeat version on Spotify from The Cecil Sharp Centenary Collective – “Matty Groves“)
The ‘When’ (for what it’s worth)
Nailing down an exact date of origin for the ballad is unnecessary. I ran across one extended discussion online which proves the futility of trying. Anyway, we know the earliest reference in print is 1611. It’s probably older. That’s a good start.
To get a better if not historically perfect picture, we have circumstantial evidence (discussed in the original post) that “Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard”, might be a 16th century border ballad from Westmorland (now part of a larger Cumbria). This story I found posted by “HughM” from 18 April, 2008 in the extended discussion referenced above is illustrative, and great for both a laugh and insight into why we keep singing these songs.
Some time ago one of my friends was involved in a function at Rydal Hall in Cumbria (the north-west corner of England). He was shown an ornate wooden chest given to the Barnard family in the 16th century by the Musgraves on the occasion of a wedding in the Barnard family, in an attempt to end the long-running feud between them, said to have started in the 12th century. This prompted him to sing the song. Having started, it occurred to him that there were several clergymen and numerous children listening, and perhaps it was not the most appropriate song for the audience. However, having started, he felt compelled to finish it, after which there was a deathly silence until a small girl remarked “so it was quite like East Enders really, wasn’t it”? (East Enders is a soap opera on British TV.)
To avoid similar discomfort as a middle school history teacher, I use the ‘safe for school‘ Doc Watson version of “Matty Groves“, and mention others, to highlight certain ways to understand the British legacy in America. It always makes for interesting discussion, and I’m *sure* I’ve had that kid in my class more than once!
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| Blencathra Mountain – Cumberland / Cumbria |
Land and Power
“Matty Groves” is a primer on Elizabethan social rank and power. Almost every version shows that Barnard commands both gentleman and commoner. Likewise most identify Musgrave and Barnard (whatever their names and wherever they might be) as landholders; Barnard being Musgrave’s noble lord and Musgrave a lesser gentleman/knight. Their relative rank is reinforced by the order Barnard gives in some versions, after the blood-letting, to place Musgrave at Lady Barnard’s feet in their grave because “she was of better/noble kin”.
The lord’s power and its basis in land is clear. Musgrave knows what he’s risking if he and Lady Barnard fall “to a-hugging and a-kissing”, as some Appalachian versions put it.
I dare not for my lands, lady, I dare not for my life.
For the ring on your white finger shows you are Lord Barnard’s wife.
In some versions, Lady Barnard invites Musgrave to her “bower in Bucklesfordbury”, showing a family with land and wealth such that she has her own retreat away from Barnard Castle to call her “heart’s delight.” Lord Barnard offers the foot page who reveals the adultery all his “land in Bucklesfordbury” or other great wealth if he’s telling the truth. Barnard’s got it to spare, and the page is helping protect it. He threatens to hang the page if he’s lying though, a fate endured by countless commoners legally at the hands of the English nobility. (Why do I keep hearing Mel Brooks saying “It’s good to be the king“?)
Of course Americans ultimately rejected the old world system of gentility, but the idea certainly persists in our cultural imagination. As well, the ‘soap opera’ nature of wealth and power, old world or otherwise, always captures our attention. (Might we see a ballad called “Lord Donald… Trump?” Nah, that’s what we have TV for now.)
It’s easy to imagine this ballad arriving in the new world before the dawn of the 18th century. Maybe Christopher Jones or John Smith knew it! What’s remarkable is that, well after the American Revolution, stories of lords and ladies behaving badly entertained men and women who never bowed their heads to a noble master or removed their hats for some dandy in a powdered wig. My Spotify playlist and our YouTube playlist prove we’re still at it.
Oh, and when I ask kids today in my rural New England classroom how many think land is quite important to have when they ‘grow up’, they all raise their hands.
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| “Depiction of a judicial combat in the Dresden codex of the Sachsenspiegel (early to mid 14th century) illustrating the provision that the two combatants must “share the sun”, i.e. align themselves perpendicular to the Sun so that neither has an advantage.” Wikipedia |
The violence in the song is often described in gory detail and the action is gripping. We can see the awful struggle between Lord Barnard and Musgrave as if it were on a movie screen; two blows from shining steel at sunrise and one man goes down in a pool of blood.
While it’s not surprising at all that Barnard’s honor and reputation require him to confront his wife and Musgrave, it is surprising to my students at least that Barnard does two things in most versions after he confronts the lovers.
Barnard is clearly concerned with his reputation, and Americans can understand this legacy by looking at ‘gentlemen’ like George Washington and Robert E. Lee, who charted momentous decisions in their lives by the same compass of honor and reputation. There is, however, something more going on here, and it really is quite *English*.
It’s odd to me that most versions of “Matty Groves” neither declare nor imply any punishment for Barnard’s violence. For example, only one of Child’s many collected versions has Barnard being hung for his crime. Oh yes, sometimes Barnard kills himself, dies from his wounds, or withdraws from the world. But usually, he just orders the dead couple buried properly according to their birth, and presumably just goes on his (probably not so merry) way.
English law in the 16th century certainly didn’t allow for cold-blooded murder as redress for private grievances, and trial by combat was long gone. Why then does Barnard fear no accounting with the law after murdering Musgrave? Is it because this was a deed committed in the relatively lawless borderlands with Scotland, or because as the local lord, Barnard *was* the law? Is it just that the original balladeers who perpetuated this tale saw nothing wrong with what Barnard did and so edited out the punishment? Perhaps…
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| Patriarchal Elizabethan balladeers singing smugly of Musgrave’s and the lady’s fate… ok, ok, so I couldn’t find a citation for this image, but it’s cool! |
…but probably not. In studying up for today’s entry, I came across an interesting article by Jeremy Horder titled “The Duel and the English Law of Homicide“. While I’m neither a legal expert nor a proper historian, I believe Horder provides a good bit of documentary evidence to support his claim that “chance medley manslaughter” beginning in the 16th century was a tolerated form of dueling. That means what? A killing done in passion, but done fairly, was legally defined as less than murder; essentially at worst it was ‘voluntary manslaughter’.
In Horder’s words, to keep a killing done in the heat of anger from being murder, the killer had to show that he was “wiling to fight fairly, to hazard his own life at the same time as he put that of his ultimate victim at risk. The killer, in other words, had to demonstrate not only that his killing was unpremeditated but also that he had shown courage and respect for his opponent, by allowing the latter to draw his sword before engaging him.”
I’ll leave the legal implications of his wife’s murder for another day. But it’s clear if we accept Horder’s work that, with respect to Musgrave, Barnard was likely acting *very much* with an eye towards the law as well as his reputation. By treating Musgrave the way he did, Barnard would never face a charge of murder.
This all sounds very real, doesn’t it? It sounds more and more like, at its core, this ballad recounts a true story even if we dramatic folk music aficionados don’t need it to. The historical pieces fit together tolerably well. Cool!
But one more thing: and though it’s perhaps obvious to us cynical older folks, it always sort of blows my students’ minds…
If this is a true story, and both Musgrave and Lady Barnard were dead at the end of the whole mess, then who was left to tell the tale?
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| Tomb effigy of Sir Thomas Musgrave, 15th C., St. Stephen’s Church in Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria |
Postscript
My students often hear adults indict rap music for being violent, particularly with regards to women. They hear that the codes of honor exemplified in these songs are criminal and brutal. I love it when a colleague goes on about that at the lunch table. I usually offer to make them a copy of some “old songs I know.” (Or they could just read Shakespeare, eh? And wasn’t Johnny Cash making records when we were growing up?)
Rap doesn’t appeal to me aesthetically. But with apologies to those who desperately want to believe in the good old days before rap, there is just no getting around the fact that the violence represented in Anglo-American ballads like this one often was and is representative of patriarchy. And like rap, that’s *not all* that’s there. I will deal with that specifically in my last post, as it goes well beyond simple history.
But for now let’s admit at least that what we find most shocking about this song is not the violence itself, which is after all pervasive in our media entertainment and our news. We’re simply not expecting to hear about it in folk music!
Hey, isn’t there a Law and Order marathon on sometime soon?