The Vows of the Heron

The Vows of the Heron (Voeux du héron) c.1346 is a satirical Flemish poem, which purported to explain the causes of the Hundred Years' War in terms of the goading into action by a Low Country exile of Edward III of England.

Background

Robert III of Artois, in exile in England, was a significant bone of contention between England and France, as well as a persistent agitator of Edward to take action against France.[1]

Theme

The Vows presents Robert as offering Edward a heron at a royal banquet: "I believe I have caught the most cowardly bird...It is my intention to give the heron to the most cowardly one who lives or has ever lived: that is Edward Louis, disinherited of the noble land of France...because of his cowardice".[2] The poem satirizes Robert as the cunning instigator of the war;[3] and presents Edward as his naïve, blustering victim.[4]

While almost certainly a fictional account, modern historians consider that the poem nonetheless reveals a kind of truth about the relations of the two men, and the approach to war.[5]

Ethos

Johan Huizinga emphasised as typically late medieval in the poem, what he called “the spirit of barbarian crudeness that it reveals”, as well as the self-mockery found within its grimness.[6]

One knight, Jean de Beaumont, is presented as claiming that: “When we are in the tavern, drinking strong wine,/When the ladies pass and look at us….Nature urges us to have desiring hearts/...[But when] our enemies are approaching us,/Then we should wish to be in a cellar so large”.[7]

See also

Further reading
  • J. L. Grigsby ed., The Vows of the Heron (1992)

References
  1. J. R. Tanner ed., The Cambridge Medieval History VOL VII (Cambridge 1932) p. 344
  2. Quoted in D Jones, The Plantagenets (London 2012) p.455
  3. D Kagay ed., The Hundred Years War Pt II (2006) p. 283
  4. Quoted in D Jones, The Plantagenets (London 2012) p.455
  5. D Kagay ed., The Hundred Years War Pt II (London 2006) p. 281
  6. J Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages (Chicago 1996) p. 98-9 and p. 102
  7. Quoted in J Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages (Chicago 1996) p. 87 (vs 354-371)
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