Whether you're contemplating making a resolution, vow, promise, pledge, or even a sworn oath, the New Year awaits, and it's time to gird up your loins! With great vigour and vim, the Anglo-Saxon Monk tackles the fascinating subject of oath-making in early medieval England.
The Bayeux Tapestry (late 11th-century). Harold (right) swears an oath to William (left) whilst touching two altars. Beware the man who makes overblown pledges! Image: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
After a week of frivolity and feasting, you, my blessed readers, may now be feeling just a tinge of guilt as well as a wave of melancholy bordering on moroseness. Somehow, though, urged on by that internal (and infernal) cycle of life, you may suddenly feel that you’re about to bolster your mind, stiffen your resolve and, indeed, gird up your loins.
Promises to renew with verve your visits to the blessed gymnasium and even to forfeit mead for a month will follow, no doubt. But, beloved beholders of blogs, I feel obliged to ask you, as you clear away your emptied cups of mirth, if you truly know the value of an oath.
Why do I ask? Well, in the medieval world, oaths were taken most seriously. They certainly were not reserved for dubious, after-the-party declarations of good intentions.
So to help everyone appreciate the importance of vows and oaths, I’ve decided to take a look at five fascinating facts about oath-making in early medieval England.
Now, I will just say that I can’t promise you that my medieval morsels will be at all relevant to your current post-pleasure predicament, though I will do my best to identify a few parallels here and there. You deserve nothing less.
Promises to renew with verve your visits to the blessed gymnasium and even to forfeit mead for a month will follow, no doubt. But, beloved beholders of blogs, I feel obliged to ask you, as you clear away your emptied cups of mirth, if you truly know the value of an oath.
Why do I ask? Well, in the medieval world, oaths were taken most seriously. They certainly were not reserved for dubious, after-the-party declarations of good intentions.
So to help everyone appreciate the importance of vows and oaths, I’ve decided to take a look at five fascinating facts about oath-making in early medieval England.
Now, I will just say that I can’t promise you that my medieval morsels will be at all relevant to your current post-pleasure predicament, though I will do my best to identify a few parallels here and there. You deserve nothing less.
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