Unearthing Medieval Vampire Stories In England: Fragments From De Nugis Curialium and Historia Rerum Anglicarum

Jason Nolan Dr. Jason Nolan EDGE Lab Ryerson University Room KHS 349 350 Victoria Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5B 2K3 mailto:jnolan@ryerson.ca ph: +1-416-979-5000 x7030 1 THE 12th CENTURY VAMPIRE FRAGMENTS OF WALTER MAP AND WILLIAM OF NEWBURGH 2600 The Vampire Fragments of Walter Map and William of Newburgh1 I first came across Walter Map and William of Newburgh by way of a chance encounter with The Vampire Encyclopedia a few years ago. Looking for information on vampires in England, I found mention of two 12th century English writers, Walter Map and William of Newburgh, who recorded vampire stories in Latin. I had thought that the appearance of vampires in the literature of England to be an early 19th century phenomenon, with John Polidori's work “The Vampyre” (1819) usually cited as the first work of vampire fiction in British literature2. While reading, I noted Walter Map’s text identified as De Nagis Curialium, and that the word Nagis did not sound like Latin. After a bit of research, I decided that Nagis was probably a typographical error for Nugis, 1 I would like to thanks Elizabeth Miller, Randall Rosenfeld for their assistance in researching this paper. 2 Alexander Pope and Horace Walpole use the term in letters written decades before, poems such as Robert Southey's "Thalaba, The Destroyer" (1801), John Stagg's "The Vampire" (1810), Lord Byron "The Giaour" (1812) preceed Polidori, and the first mention of the word vampyre seems to have occurred in 1732 (Miller, 2005a; Miller, 2005b). 1 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan 2 meaning jests or trifles in Latin. I was curious about what Map and Newburgh wrote, and who they were, and now about how accurate the information might be. As it turned out, much of what has been recorded about these texts over the last seventy years is rife with problems. So, what are these two texts? The first is Walter Map’s De nugis curialium, or Courtiers' Trifles, and the other is William of Newburgh’s Historia Rerum Anglicarum, or The history of English Affairs. De Nugis, written sometime before 1190 and Newburgh's Historia, completed around 1198, both contain stories that are vampiric in nature. Though there are some issues as to how well they conform to modern definitions of what constitutes a vampire story, they represent the earliest known examples of vampire stories in England. William of Newburgh, also known as William Petit or Parvus, was born in 1135/1136, was educated at and lived as a canon in the Abbey of Austin Canons of Newburgh in Yorkshire, joining sometime shortly after 1145, and dying there sometime after 1199. His major work, Historia Rerum Anglicarum covers a period from the Norman Conquest in 1066 up to 1198. The latter date is often cited as the date when the text was completed. The work survives in five manuscripts, with only minor variations between them that do not change the general sense of the text. Scholars note that the manuscript was published in 1567, and again in 1610, 1719 and 1856. Newburgh’s work differs from some of the more famous medieval historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald of Wales, being cited for his “acute and sensible” observations and “clean and sober” style (Hamilton vi). The sense is that Newburgh stuck to the facts, whereas other historians were more interested in telling a good story. Newburgh 2 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan explicitly eschews the “ridiculous fictions” of historians such as Monmouth, who wrote at length about King Arthur and Merlin, striving for greater historical accuracy in the traditions of St. Gildas and the Venerable Bede, in place of, as he puts it “mystical exposition” (Stevenson, 397). Walter Map was a “moderately well known” Welsh cleric, according to Brooke, 3 and is pictured in a medieval illuminated manuscript held in the John Rylands University Library, Manchester taking dictation from King Arthur. He was probably born in the 1130s, and lived until the early 13th century. He was Archdeacon of Oxford under the patronage of King Henry II, having duties of both a civil servant and a scholar. He is noted as a friend of famous historians Geoffrey of Monmouth and Gerald of Wales. Brooke (1983) calls Map “an expert liar” and his work, an “untidy legacy of an untidy mind”, suggesting that at best De Nugis is “still a draft”, though he admits that his work “is not entirely aimless, and by no means so formless as has commonly been supposed” (Brooke, xxi, xxix, xxx, xxxiii). Map's legacy can be found in the picture of medieval life he left us and his wit as a storyteller and satirist. Maps’ De Nugis Curialium is largely a collection of interesting stories and anecdotes probably compiled posthumously, and it is his only authenticated surviving work; extant in a single manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. Satire, obfuscation and deliberate fiction, calculated to “keep up his reputation for lying” seems to be the tools of Map’s trade (Brooke, xxxvi). What do you do with a text as ostensibly frivolous as Newburgh’s is earnest? Especially when the work comes from someone intimately linked with the court of Henry the Second and his wife Eleanor, who 3 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan 4 were themselves connected with what we call the Chivalric tradition and the art of courtly love, as represented in the works of Andreas Cappellanus, and others. There are compelling reasons to take a closer look at Map's and Newburgh's contribution to the vampire canon. The first is the Celtic connection which Newburgh openly attacks, in his attempts to be an objective historian, and Map seemingly embraces as a storyteller and through his ties to the Arthurian tradition. Yet both authors, one sober and the other fanciful, include vampire stories in their work. They are contemporaries, recording similar stories, albeit from different perspectives and with different intentions; Map’s goal is primarily to amuse and Newburgh’s is to instruct. It is this Celtic connection that resurfaces in Anglo-Irish authors such as Le Fanu and Stoker, and the interest in Celtic and medieval studies on the 18th and 19th centuries. Many scholars of the period were turning from the study of classical history to formal inquiry into Anglo-Saxon and medieval Britain. As well, pre-romantic and romantic poets were looking to the obscure past of British texts as sources for inspiration. Map's and Newburgh's works though studied by medievalists and historians did not become part of the popular canon, and remained relatively obscure, in comparison to those of medieval historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth, Wace and Gerald of Wales who were influential figures for late medieval and early modern writers, such as Thomas Malory, Shakespeare, and those who followed. Few scholars of vampire lore have taken time to work with the original Latin text, and prior to the new translations presented here, vampire scholars and enthusiasts have had to rely on the work of Summers and his interpretative translations of Map and Newburgh. Unfortunately Summers was not the most conscientious scholar, and his work 4 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan contains errors, omissions and interpolations. Later writers, however, seem to have accepted Summer's work as canonical, faithfully replicated his errors, and adding their 5 own. Tracing the pathways of these additions is insightful as it reminds the scholar of the importance of consulting original sources, and introduces the student to the challenge of knowing who to trust when reading what are purported to be authoritative texts. Montague Summers is considered by many to be the progenitor of modern study into Vampiress and vampirism through his books The Vampire, His Kith and Kin (1928) and The Vampire in Europe (1929). Dudley Wright's Vampires and Vampirism (1914, 1924), however, precedes both works, mentions Map and Newburgh, and had greater popular appeal (Skal, 2001). Though Summers provides copious notes, they are inconsistent and poorly documented. In Kith and Kin Summers outlines his plans for his next work: The Vampire, His Kith and Kin will be shortly followed by The Vampire in Europe, in which work I have collected… numerous instances of vampirism old and new, concretely illustrating the prevalence and phases of the tradition in England… [and] related in detail such famous cases as that of… Buckingham, Berwick, Melrose Abbey, Croglin Grange, and many more. (xi) Summers’ translation of Newburg's Historia, differs on a few interesting points from standard translations. Only once does Summers use the word “vampire ” for the Latin sanguisuga: “they realized that this vampire… had battened in the blood of many poor folk” (38). Sanguisuga should be translated as blood-sucker or a leech. One may guess that Summer wanted to forge an explicit connection by making this choice in translation. 5 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan 6 The sections on Map's De Nugis contain interpolated comments that may mislead a casual reader as to the true vampiric content in the texts. Summers notes: In that curious but fascinating work, which breathes the very spirit of the Middle Ages, the De Nugis Curialium of that even yet more curious person, Walter Map, there are several accounts of Vampires, and this further goes to prove that the tradition was very strong in England about this time. (Summers, 1929, 88) And on the following page, Summers includes the passage: Thus Edric Wilde, lord of the mannor of North Ledbury, in the reign of Willliam [sic] the Conqueror, when one night near a remote and deserted inn (ghildhus), peeped through a window and observing a company of many beautiful women, remembered that he has often heard stories of "the wanderings of spirits and how troops of demons appear at night, and to see them is death, and Dictina (who is identified with Diana) and bands of Dryads and Vampires.” (89) It is a quote from some other source, but to a casual reader, it may appear as if the story comes from Map. Randall Rosenfeld correctly attributes this passage in Odericus Vitalis' Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy (book 8, chapter 17) written in the early 12th century. Summers’ continual assertions that these stories are about vampires, and the ambiguity regarding where translation and commentary begin and end make it easy for the reader to believe that Map and Newburgh are telling vampire stories, even when there is nothing explicit in the texts themselves. Glut’s True Vampires of History (1971) introduces some minor typographical errors; he otherwise seems mainly to have lifted sections from The Vampire in Europe 6 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan without any other modification. The difficulty is that the formatting of The Vampire in Europe does not make any clear delineation as to what is translated text and what is Summers’ interpretation. There are no quotation marks, block quotes, or indicators as to where the translation ends. Accordingly, Glut seems to have incorporated some of Summers’ text without knowing what belongs to Map and Newburgh and what is Summers'. Glut builds on Summers when he asserts “Vampirism was strongest in England during the Twelfth Century. In Walter Map’s De Nugis Curialium, his treatise on the Middle Ages… we find several accounts of English vampires…" (17). He goes on to include Summers’ misreferenced quote about “bands of Dryads and Vampires” unaware that it is not by Map at all. Glut further muddies the text, identifying a 'demon' as “a diabolical vampire…” and adding "vampire" elsewhere. Glut also adds section titles of his own invention: “The Vampire Husband”, “Concerning the Berwick Vampire”, “Vampires of Melrose Abbey and Alnwick Castle". McNally’s translation of sections De Nugis in A Clutch of Vampires (1974) is interesting because he regularly adds the word vampire in the story of the demon who is caught slitting the throats of babies; he follows Summer’s lead in adding "vampire" to heighten effect, though in McNally’s translation there is no actual blood drinking. Melton’s Vampire Encyclopedia seems to have relied on Glut as much as Summers. Though Melton says that the stories of Map and Newburgh, “contain many elements of the classical vampire tales of Eastern Europe, but each are missing an 7 essential element—any reference to the drinking of blood” (616), both Summers and Glut use the word “vampire”. Summer’s wording “they realized that this vampire… had 7 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan battened in the blood of many poor folk” is a pretty unambiguous reference to drinking blood, however. What is to be gleaned from all this? First of all, we need to find out what was really written, stripping away all of the wishful thinking of vampire scholars who have a vested interest in finding vampires behind every story and page. It is all too easy to assume that this or that reference must refer to a vampire, without an explicit smoking gun, especially if it is sensational enough to increase sales. Secondly, it is only through the perusal of original research and source material from a variety of perspectives and interpretations that may be conflicting that you can begin to piece together the best possible picture of the topic at hand. To facilitate this new view on Map and Newburgh, Randall Rosenfeld, a medieaval scholar with the Pontifical Institute of Medieaval Studies, has created for Forgotten Gems of Horror Fiction a new modern English translation of the most important sections of Map and Newburgh from the original Latin texts. The reader may now consider the stories themselves without having to worry about the accuracy of their 8 presentation, turning attention to other more interesting questions. Why have these stories come down to us from these two so different writers, the courtly Walter Map and earnest historian William of Newburgh? Do the stories represent a lost tradition, or are they just a pair of strange anomalies? And finally, how is it that these stories with vampiric-like elements appear at the end of the 12th century, and we then must wait 600 years before the flood vampire stories in the 19th century? And when this revival did occur, why are these stories largely ignored? Bibliography 8 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan Brooke, C., James, M. R., and Mynors, R. A. B. (1983). De nugis curialium (Courtiers' trifles). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Copper, Basil. (1973). The Vampire in Legend and Fact. New York: Citadel. Frayling, Christopher. (1991). Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula. London: Faber and Faber. Gelder, Ken (1994). Reading the Vampire. London: Routledge. Glut, Donald F. (1971). True Vampires of History. New York: H.C. Publishers. 9 Gorman, John C. (1960). William of Newburgh’s Explanatio Sacri Epihalamii in Matrem Sponsi: a Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles (12th-C.). Freibourg: The University Press. Hamilton, A. C. (1856). Historia Rerum Anglicarum Willelmi Parvi, Ordinis Sancti Augustini Canonici Regularis in Coenobio Beatae Mariae de Newburgh in Agro Eboracensi. Londini: Sumptibus Societatis. Vol. 1. Joynes, A. (2001) Medieval Ghost Stories: An Anthology of Miracles, Marvels and Prodigies. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. McNally, Raymond, T. and Florescu, Radu. (1994). In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires. New York Houghton Mifflin. McNally, Raymond, T. (1974). A Clutch of Vampires. London: New English Library. Map, Walter. (1924). Master Walter Map's book, De nugis curialium, Courtiers' trifles. Frederick Tupper and Marbury Bladen Ogle trans. London: Chatto & Windus. Map, Walter. (1914). De Nugis Curialium. M. R. James ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Marigny, Jean (1994). Vampires: Restless Creatures of the Night. New York: Abrams. 9 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote. Jason Nolan Melton, J. Gordon (1994, 1999). The Vampire Book: the Encyclopedia of the Undead. Detroit: Visible Ink. 10 Miller, Elizabeth. (2005a). Bram Stoker's Dracula: A Documentary Volume. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale. Miller, Elizabeth. (2005b). A Dracula Handbook. Philadelphia: Xlibris. Newburgh, William of (1920) Selections from the Historia rerum anglicarum of William of Newburgh. C. Johnson trans. ed. London: S.P.C.K. Polidori, John. (1819, 2001). "The Vampire". In David J. Skal, Vampires: Encounters with the Undead. New York: Black Dog. Skal, David. (2001). Vampires: Encounters with the Undead. New York: Black Dog. Stevenson, Joseph. (1856). The Church Historians of England: The History of William of Newburgh: The Chronicles of Robert De Monte. Vol. IV, Part II. London: Seeleys. Summer, Montague (1928). The Vampire, His Kith and Kin. London: K. Paul Trench, Trubner. Summer, Montague (1929). The Vampire in Europe. New York: Dutton. Wright, Dudley (1924). Vampires and Vampirism: Legends from Around the World. London: William Rider and Son. Rpt. 2001, Maple Shade, NJ: Lethe Press. 10 of 10 Draft. Email for permission to Quote.