Epos Propagandum (part 1)

It was a sign of the times

At war with sons in France

He burnt the town of Mantes

Was injured as his horse

Stumbled in the smoking ruins

He was carried to Rouen

And was buried at Caen

Having died at St. Gervas

Along the way

He left four sons

Of which two became Kings

Had several daughters as well

His wife’s name was Matilda

Daughter to Count Baldwin of Flanders

So the House of Normany was underway

Such a plight it must be

For this plain butchery

Done with the divine right of kings

With god on their side

And violence and lies

More violence and killing it brings

Yet let us still look

At these legitimate crooks

And bear one more line that Bob sings

'Steal a little and they'll

Put you inside a jail

Steal alot and they'll make you a king'

The way things were divided led to problems

When William the first at last did die

William Rufus the Red got all of England

Normandy was Robert’s piece of pie

Henry youngest of the children

Just got five thousand bits of silver

This led to avarice and arrows in the eye

William the Red was cross and blasphemous

He taxed the Church for all it was worth

With his cunning minister Ranulf Flambard

They foxed the barons of their land and wealth

Robert was favoured as King by those barons

But didn’t show up for the show down

They rebelled but were quelled by William’s men

Robert wanted out of town

So he pawned off his Dukedom to Will boy

And went off to Crusade the Holy Lands

What occurred next seems inevitable

Very low and underhand

William was hated by everyone

For he taxed all right up to the hilt

Of course there is contraversy surrounding

The way in which he was killed

An arrow in the eye whilst out hunting

With Henry in the retinue

Perhaps seems a little bit obvious

But nobody really knew

His brothers not around

Henry picked up the crown

Right there and then without delay

He promised good reforms

A hope of course forlorn

When Robert returned in some dismay

In the fight that then ensued

It was Robert that did loose

At the Castle Tinchebrai

Much to his dismay

He was put in prison till his dying day

Now Henry was quite clever

And excelled in the endeavour

Of monetary reform for the crown

Because he was so sharp

He was nick named the ‘beauclerc’

But his skills did not please the papistry

The church it had been rising

A thought perhaps not surprising

Considering monies it received

From rich and poor

Clergical appointments

Henry saw fit to sell

This holy privatising

Didn’t go down well

Pope Pascal the second

Threatened excommunication

Henry wouldn’t get to heaven

If he carried on like this

The King said he would change

But only his words rearranged

And went on much as he had before

In conferring sacred offices

He rescinded his authority

That is the Divine Right of Kings

The Pope reckoned him as secular

And subservient nothing more

An uneasy split from a greedy flaw

Henry’s only son was drowned

When the White Ship went down

So he had no male heir to make a King

His daughter by wife Adelaide

Was the only card that could be played

So he recalled her from Germany

And married her to Geoffrey of Anjou

A political move of course

Because with France he was at war

With King Louis the Fourth

He could placate or give defiance

With an Angevine alliance

But when Geoffrey wanted castles

He said no

So began a second stupid inbred war

This one with a his own brother in law

Henry died is it not sad

To have so much and end so bad

What is it with these Kings

See what it is their action brings

At war with relatives and sons

Cannot be the best one

The result of all this killing

Surely is not soul fulfilling

That there seemed no other way

No little hints of life more fey

Where oh where could it be

Such is our sad history

Emperess Matilda or Maude

Must have felt like a political pawn

She was married off to two men

Nowhere near her age

The first was Henry the Fourth

Of Germany this was

He was titled Holy Roman Emperor

When he died she had to go back

To England because it lacked

Any other heir to the Throne

To Geoffrey the Fourth Count of Maine and Anjou

Her father made her say I do

Though he was eleven years her junior

And they had to proceed with due care

His emblem featured the planta genesti

The Broom plant the Plantegenet crest see

Of which I would ask please take good note

It’s one of the reasons for which I wrote

They didn’t get on at first

But things got better not worse

She did three sons begat

All were pleased at that

Their names were Henry Geoff and Will

When her father met the children

He argued with their dad

And that is what led to their little war so sad

When her father died

She probably did cry

But soon she had to lead the country on

Yet usurping his oath

Her cousin Steven no sloth

Was quick to steal what was not his

Probably at this while

She was pregnant with child

In Anjou unable England to go

But as soon as she could

She made well and good

And a long civil war began did ensue

Robert of Gloucester helped Matilda

Or her cousin would have killed her

And at Beverston Castle they did win

This was up in Lincon

Steven they imprisoned him

The title Queen she did not wish

But ‘Lady of the English’

Or Empress but the Pope did not like that

But she was haughty and arrogant

Which the English couldn’t tank

Manners maketh man and woman it seems

Even if you are a King or a Queen

So her rule came to not much at all

Steven later got free

Causing Matilda to flee

Oxford in a white cape in the snow

She went to Wallingford

She’d made such escapes before

Such as disguised as a cadaver

In their Civil war palava

When she had to flee Devizes

A girl full of surprises

But Rob of Gloucester soon was dead

She had to go to France instead

Steve of course took the Throne and sat there

Yet Maude’s eldest showed up the natural heir

He had an army in tow

Which changed things so

The Treaty of Wallingford was written down

Stating who would wear the one Royal Crown

Matilda went back to her own court in Rouen

Maybe she just couldn’t stand it too long

When she died she was buried in the Cathedral

Here’s what is written if go there you will

‘Here lies the daughter mother and wife of Henry’

And as epitaphs go it’s much better than many

These Queens were hardcore they lived it to the max

Giving birth to dynasties and dealing with the cracks

In their hearts or in the courts that they had made

There lives had held much fear and joy also love and dismay

Is it a bit of dragon line coming from old Anjou

Does it stare us in the face as I tell their tale to you?

Born at le Mans to Matilda and Geoffrey

Was Henry first King of the Plantagenet line

He married Eleanor of Aquitaine

And added her empire to his own tracts of land

The barons were trying to overcome Royalty

So he tore down their castles and smashed the revolt

Now a Knight could still show his loyalty

He could pay scutage and be a vassal of court

Mercenaries were bought when Knights themselves off

Now this was what the armies were made of

There was much quelling of Normandy

Fighting with the Queen’s ex the King of France

After years of Norman style Trial by Combat

Trial by jury once more had a chance

Textbook common law it was invented

Which very much the church resented

Because their power was undermined

There was a dispute big time

Thomas a Becket was the church spokesman

Once friend to Henry and Chancellor

Also Archbishop in Canterbury Town

In the end he was killed by assassins

In his own Cathedral cut down

Henry had been angry but never wanted this

Four over eager knights did the job

Excommunicated but he got back in again

Was penanced by the church

Who set their terms to work

Henry pilgrimaged to Normandy

Was flogged nude in public in his own town Avranches

Henry had sired many sons on many women

And there were problems with what to give them

With the legitimate ones it was very hard

Henry wanted John for King yet Eleanor was for Richard

Geoffrey was jealous and went for his brothers

He failed and Richard attacked Henry

Who died somewhat miserable that Richard had the crown

Not here to underestimate that great lady of Europe

Let us spend some time with her now

Elaine of Aquitaine

Was quite a free spirit it is said

Which makes a difference with this lot

The Crusades were underway by this time

And bringing new ideas over from Palestine

One of these might well be this ‘Courtly Love’

Of which evidence is scant enough

The rules seem to change or to be ad lib

Coming from the troubadours trouvers and poets lips

Breathing words of this fantastic love

Into a court ready to receive it’s fancy

Fantasy to relieve the tedium perhaps

With adultery or near it

Of a most chivilrous kind

Of high action from high mind

Of humility and courtesy refined

A wild times methinks I would suppose

Henry had so many women Eleanor probably lost count

Her mood it was ambivulant which leaves me little doubt

She half recalled an echo in that trouver’s silken song

That entertained a notion of a world not quite so wrong

Or restrained behind the bars of court imposed marriage

Of love that could go on in someone else’s carriage

Realistic probably consid’ring what was going on

Eleanor had listened to those troubadours for long

I see her sat listening to them telling tales of Peredur

Enthralled by the romance of it always wanting more

Hearing of the graal that Parzifal once dreamed

All in a magic landscape with nothing as it seems

Robert de Boron wrote down the tales already old

In Eleanor’s lifetime at the court they were told

It popularised the tale in a new era reborn

For the stories had origins in pagan times before

When the woman was the one who permitted Kings to be

And marriage was not a thing of eternity

How they must have sighed

And laughed and corred and cried

Flirting with les yeux d’amour

It was considered love’s highest form

Eleanor allowed the Grail to shine

Revealed it to us for all time

She heard how Joseph brought it

After years of imprisonment

To Glastonbury where a church set up

First communion with the blessed cup

Resonating through the years

The Grail responds as we revere

Purification with this vase

Was needed if a court decays

The Grail was symbol of holy grace

For God to heal you face to face

Eleanor’s life was long and crazy

With five sons she wasn’t lazy

Imprisoned fifteen years

For plotting against Henry

She grew sick of his philandering

Wasn’t having any

Went all the way to Spain across the Pyranees

When she was in her seventies

Outlived most of her sons

She really was a one

There had been unrest for decades

Infidels from Persia causing outrage!

Constantine’s mother Helena was

Convinced she had found the original cross

At the site Golgotha where Jesus was crucified

This indeed was a place to be sanctified

So was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built

In Jerusalem pilgrims could travel as they willed

For Constantine protected the terrain

He had made everyone Christian

Yet about the time of Artur in the West

So Mohammed also did rise to the East

In 638 Islamic Champions took Jerusalem

Antioch and Alexandria where Caliphs became

Controllers who to begin with were tolerant

To the Christians they behaved most clement

It could have been a risky road for to tread

But Caliph Harun al-Rashid gave pilgrims a bed

With Muslim tolerance a hostel did provide

Yet the next Caliph was not so inclined

Hakim destroyed the church persecuted all non Muslims

Said that there was one God and it was him

Persian Seljuk Turks were invited to Bagdad

To all pull together and be big and bad

To become Sunnite Islamic Champions

And take on the Shi’ite rulers Egyptian

Byzantium fell (That’s Istambul now)

Asia minor was closely followed

Soon Jerusalem was taken by Turkish men

Into this new Seljuk Syria of Saracens

Alexius Comnenus took the Byzantiam throne

A cunning man I think he to be shows

By playing one Turk off on another

In power games so he didn’t have to bother

They made their own wars amongst themselves

This for Christian pilgrims didn’t bode well

The treacherous road was now much worse

With bandits and infidels interspersed

But it came to the attention of the church

Who of course could not leave them in the lurch

Something had to be done

Hearts and minds to be won

Inspired by St. Augustine’s idea

Of penitential warfare

Pope Gregory the Seventh

Said Knights could kill and still get to heaven

God would see that you were let in

By setting up a Holy war to absolve the sin

The plan was to reunite the Eastern Byzantium Christians

With the Roman Catholic Church end the schizm

Between Constantinople and Rome

You can see where it’s going

Rome spoke latin it was greek in the east

How can an Empire run with two main seats

Doctrinally aided slow strangulation

Led to a mutual excommunication

East and west disparate Christians

Could be united in a common mission

Brought together to save the Holy Land

From that horrid different Turkish man

That Pope pledged he would lead himself

An army of Western Knights to help

Byzantium, (by then Constantinople that is)

By force to get rid

Of those un christian hordes

That were so deplored

Soon to the council of Piacenza

The King Alexius sends a

Message that military aid is needed

This Pope Urban II conceeded

And comes up with this prime propogandum

Carefully worded murder absolution

‘Deus le volt’ cried the mesmerized crowd

‘God wills it’ Now they were allowed

Back along William the Conqueror

Had had to do penance for

All the raping and pillaging

Not forgetting all the killing

That made the Norman Conquests

But the Crusades brought out the best

Solution to all that belligerant testosterone

In need of soul guidance

Now violence was penance

If you slaughtered a Persian

And this new version

Brought them in like hordes

It was perfect the church needed a way

To say that violence was OK

Because the knights and kings were mad for it

The clergy could not call it interdit

There was too much to gain for one thing

But you couldn’t besmirch the Name and bring

Dishonour and property loss to the Christian Church and State

And those Turks were worse than Heathens for goodness sake

The point was that the church was split in its’ power base

Between Byzantium and Rome in this case

The Vatican must have felt rather insecure

By preaching they whipped up a Holy war

Which is now called the first Crusade

Let us survey the some of the mess they made

Crusaders converged in Constantinople

Answering the Authority of the Pope’s call

Alexius shipped them over the Strait of Bosporus

They had the Anatolian Mountains to cross

But first sieged Nicaea it was a Turk stronghold

But Alexius wouldn’t let them take full control

Dorylaeum they routed with a hard knock

Then over the crags in the push to Antioch

They split up different routes to take

Each a little Holy war would make

Once through Asia Minor they were in Palestine

And so began the pentinance divine

Edessa was captured by Baldwin of Boulonge

He had come through Armenia and purloined

A Princess from there, was made King

The people seemed to want him

This was the first Crusader State

Almost handed like on a plate

Antioch took nine months of siege

And bribery before it was siezed

All Turks were slain

And there were still lain

When the armies of Mosul came and besieged

The besiegers and diseases

From rank hacked corpses

Put pay to some and brought morale low

Just then it seemed that Christ himself did show

That Holy Lance that pierced his side

Beholden to Bishop Adhemar of Puy’s eyes

In the Church of Saint Peter

That first patriarch believer

That preached in Antioch

Right here on the spot and in that plot

As true as Matthews gospel was written hereabouts

It must have come into his mind and given him no doubt

It was a sign from God of divine will

That they must their Crusades fulfill

And bearing that Lance he rallied them all

Till they rode in tight charges from those castle walls

Routing again their objects of hate

And after much squabbling made Antioch State

Adhemar died and was sorely missed by the men

Raymond of Toulouse pushed on for Jerusalem

Through Tripola and Lebanon to the mountains

Where he met the Maronites who were Christians

Who had resisted the Turks

Then on with the work

Jerusalem stood strong and tall

They couldn’t breach it at all

Till a priest had a vision of Adhemar

Who said for the Crusaders hard

To atone by fasting going barefoot round the city

Which they did and pretty quickly

Had taken Jerusalem and killed all Muslims and Jews

It was their way it was what they knew

Ironically Urban died two weeks after that

Never hearing of his coup d’etat

Most Crusaders went home having done their bit

Leaving the problem of how to run it

Jerusalem’s Crusader state was made

And so it wouldn’t fade

Knights Hospitalier and Templar were founded

To protect Pilgrims and run around

Protecting all the Holy ground

From infidel of an other faith

Yet it wasn’t all one way

Solomon’s Temple was of eight

Sided shapes

This design the Templars did take

And place all over Europe

And in Malta too

This sacred geometric tool

I have heard it said that the Western crew

Knew not what high culture they had blown into

Raymond went and did Tripoli

Which made four states and lots of lolly

So the first crusade was complete

But there were to be repeats

Forty years later Turks took Edessa State

So Pope Eugenius III called the second Crusade

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux made it seem vogue

The Eastern Latin speaking states to go

To protect the land from the infidels once more

To fight for the Catholics another holy war

Kings Louis of France and Conrad of Germany

Soon set off upon the merry way

To meet in Acre then set off for Damascus

But they couldn’t get on and results were disasterous

Turks killed them all and they never arrived

And that was the end of the second try

Twenty years after that

A Sunni Kurdish warrior lad

Called Salah ed-Din had

Somehow brought all Moslem sects

Together to reject

The western intrusions

But not with total exclusion

He became Sultan of Egypt

Was naturally equipped

With diplomatic savvy

Such good relations had he

With Syrians Egyptians and Turks

That all prepared never to shirk

In clearing the Middle East

Of ruling Franks and their Priests

Yet his wisdom was in tolerance

Of religious observance
Surely it was better for him

Not to have his servants fighting

Amongst themselves

Might as well

Not hassle the Shi’ites but let them pray

Then all fight together on the battle day

Moslem and Christian respected him

That warrior that we call Saladin

Had more of an innate chivilary

That the Knights had ever dreamed to be
Around this time King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem
Died young of leprosy gruesome

And Saladin much wanted the Crusader States

He went to the desert and stung Tripoli first

He goaded them out and they died of thirst

Acre was next

And then all the rest

Till Jerusalem

Was taken by Saladins’ men

Once he had victory

Ed-Din felt no need

To kill all his conquered

Like the Catholics did

I imagine them shuffling sheepishly home

Embarrassed at how the Crusades were going

Or maybe some stayed and learned quite a lot

Of what ways this strange eastern culture had got

Pope Gregory VIII called for the third crusade

To win back Jerusalem again

In Jesus’s holy name

There was King Frederick Barbarossa of Germany

Also King Phillip II of France

And it’s here where Richard the Lion Heart

Makes his dramatic entrance

Raping and pillaging in Normandy

Had made up most of his youthful days

Yet this was a man brought up with troubadours

And he wrote and sang a bit as well y’all

Especially when needing a ransom

Yes and of course he was handsome

Eager to crusade he sold much property

To finance his armies properly

Would have sold London if he had someone to buy

He once said that you know I don’t lie

He fell out with Phillip his friend on the route

Frederick drowned at Tarsus and then there were two

Who were not getting on and the Germans dispersed

Richard and Philip split up at first

Philip failed at Acre but Richard took Cyprus

Then they came together and were really quite decisive

Acre fell with no Saladin there to rally his men

Richard took the prisoners and just killed them

At which point Philip left saying he was ill

His French troops would follow French Richard still

But the chivalry of Saladin could only go so far

And he came with three times his foe in war

Yet Richard charged and soundly routed them

Then set off for Jaffa destination Jerusalem

But the French without their King would not follow through

So Richard captured Ascalon for something to do

Then set off again for Jerusalem but still could not win it

The Hospitalier and Templar Knights advised not to begin it

Saying even if it was took it could not be kept

A lesson today’s leaders would do well to recollect

Gazing from afar at the city Richard screens his eyes with a shield

Knowing he could not win it back or make the Persians yield

Yet he smashed Saladin at Jaffa with not that many men

Went on to claim a strip of coast but never Jerusalem

At which point they’d both had enough

For each other they were too tough

Saladin was sick of war

Richard wanted home once more

A peace treaty was writ and Richard kept his strip

Of Tyre to Jaffa plus Antioch and Tripoli

Muslems kept Jerusalem but Christian pilgrims could go there

Acre became the head crusader state and this is where