#49.8, Weds., Oct. 18, 2023

Historical Setting:  610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

         Histories are told in statues and epitaphs carved in stone to be handed on from generation to generation purposed with tethering the noble-born to their ancestors. The generations are designated heirs to nobility or even royalty according to these markers. And yet, without heirs the eternal line of title is broken. In that way maintaining a lineage protects the separation of the classes that keeps us common.

         But what if, simple romantic love would break the lineage and produce no heir? I see monks and nuns and ascetic desert mothers or fathers with passion for the spiritual who break the lineage with every life of them, and yet humankind continues on. After all, all the varieties of love aren’t limited to the threads that bind us to particular ancestors; and without names carved in stone each person is simply part of the whole fabric of people.  We are all the poorest of us, and we are all the kings. I can say that easily as a commoner. 

         But for those born noble it is not a convenient thing to acknowledge. And maybe I don’t understand it at all. Maybe it takes a special self-identity when our spiritual natures all just mesh together into one big humanity, unsorted, and unmarked.

         So here this ivory-fingered fellow, Gaillard, is a guest in this house where we slaughter our own chickens for food and butcher our lambs for feasting. It is our own hands that milk the goats and turn the cheese. And when we call for servants, they are us. Now our commonness requires Gaillard’s choice to either sever his obligation to his birth family, or cut his bond with Greg. We all know in our minds that mere fragments of relationships won’t survive. And a broken heart dies slowly in love’s own time.

         Greg and Gaillard return from their walk together and without speaking, they prepare their horses to leave. Ana offers to send them off with a bit of food and she prepares a bird in a traveling cage so they can send us word. They choose not to take a bird or the food. They don’t tell us where they are going or what they’ve decided to do. I imagine they are going to Metz where Greg will stay alone in a castle chamber until his lover comes calling.

         Now, even while the day is still fresh with morning, a bird comes from Luxeuil with a message. “Abbot taken, Papa needed.”

(Continues tomorrow)

#49.7, Tues., Oct. 17, 2023

Historical Setting:  610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

         Gratitude in this darkness that ends a day of homecoming and feasting should be all we have in our hearts. But Ana and I both want each of our children to be loved as we know love, and now for Greg, this love is tenuous.

         Ana whispers to me, “We know that just as Greg is formed in this family to be forever in the ways of Jesus’ love, Gaillard was, in his family, pressed into the mold of Frankish nobility. If there is any resolution for these differences it will have to be sourced in love, not parental edict.”

         “What advice did you offer?” I ask.

         “I told Greg we love him and he said that isn’t the problem. So, I asked him if he wants to make you take up a sword and a spear and go visit Gaillard’s uncle to make him tremble and quake in terror until he completely changes his wishes for an heir.”

         “He laughed. Sorry, Laz, he thought that was funny, and he really did laugh.”

         “Laughing could be good.”

         “We both know this can only be between Gaillard and Greg. If Greg chooses not to be the object of pretend love, then it will be Gaillard who must decide between an assigned wife or Greg. He didn’t like my suggestion either. If Greg had a third parent, he would have gone away for that parent’s advice. As it was, he just walked back here and said nothing.”

         Dear God, stay close to Gaillard and Greg, as we know your wings are wider than the bounds of our imaginations. Amen.

         And so, it is a bright autumn morning when the four guards ready their horses and prepare to return to Metz. Greg waits on the forest path, while Gaillard bids them a safe day’s journey. Then these two young men walk toward the wilderness, hand-in-hand. I know they’ve been released from the simple plan of assigning one to be a concubine, precious or not. But when they return for their horses will they leave here together, or will they part separately? Ana reminds me they must choose their own way now; we can only love them. It is, of course, something we’ve learned about love from God herself in the metaphor of being parents. Unconditional love is letting our children make their own choices regardless of our wishes that they might never know pain.

(Continues tomorrow)

#49.6, Thurs., Oct. 12, 2023

Historical Setting:  610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

I’m trying to make sense of this, and at the same time, be the voice of wisdom for my son.

          “Greg, I think the trouble the abbot finds with the king taking a concubine is the moral issue of a concubine. This dilemma is rooted in the notion that, with a concubine, a marriage becomes a love lie. When someone is added just for the sexual relationship the fullness of the relationship is incomplete or broken. So even if it were known that you were Gaillard’s only lover, the arrangement of adding a woman, simply purposed with having children, would mean you are sharing your intimacy, God’s physical metaphor for creative love, with someone who was selected to intrude for the sake of nobility’s power. Is that how you wish to continue throughout your life long?”

         “Momma knows better. I will hear her approval of this.”

         “Greg, your mother and I both want you to find a loving relationship to carry you on.”

         Greg cleans his blade, and says nothing more. He goes into the house.  Now, as I finish up here, I see Greg and Ana walking away from the cottage to have this conversation.

         Nothing is spoken of any resolution. The feast with our family and guests is nearly silent — uncomfortably silent.  Greg and Gaillard say nothing. There are longing glances between them, and even the four guardsmen and our children all know there is nothing to say. The wine is served with no toast.

         Now, in the quiet darkness made for soaking worries with sleep, Ana and I talk.

         I told Ana, “Greg wouldn’t listen to me because I wouldn’t give my approval to their idea that Greg could just be a third person in a marriage.”

         “Yes, he told me you were dug in on this, making metaphors of kings and politics. But really, it seems the whole problem here is Gaillard’s family requirement.”

         “So you think I should go have it out with his uncle, the castle builder, who is right now chopping down the hunter’s wood?”

         “Laz, he’s a warring nobleman — you are a peaceful commoner. Of course, you can’t confront him over this – at least in the warring, noble way. But really it this between Gaillard and Greg and isn’t that what has to be considered? I suggested Greg and Gaillard either have a bond together, or they don’t. Neither of them can base this on a plan made by fathers and uncles.”

         “Of course, Gaillard is obligated to produce heirs.”

(Continues Tuesday, October 17)

#49.5, Weds., Oct. 11, 2023

Historical Setting:  610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

         Greg is telling me that he has completed his indenture and Gaillard’s family may release him but he fears that would be so that Gaillard could take a wife.  He tells me Gaillard finds the solution for that in calling Greg his “precious concubine.”

         What can I say? He is awaiting some fatherly wisdom and I am very uncomfortable with this issue. I have no argument considering him “precious?” Of course, he is precious; his mother and I have always thought that of him. But it is our word for our children, not Gaillard’s word.

         And what does this mean, “concubine?”

         I know what it means. Father Columbanus is in a dispute over this very word with King Theodoric II and with the king’s great-grandmother, the regent for the young King. It seems Theodoric is in a relationship that would normally be sanctified as marriage.  But his regent, Queen Brunhilda, is against a marriage because it would mean the king is of age to rule without a regent. And this, just when Brunhilda is bringing together two kingdoms, Burgundy and Austrasia, into a Frankish union and Theodoric is rising to rule his own kingdom of Burgundy. So, a marriage would undermine the queen’s power. Brunhilda offers the compromise for the king to take the mother of his children as a concubine. [footnote]

         Now, that Theodoric and his so-called concubine have sons, Father Columbanus has issued his moral opposition. He is firmly against a young man taking a concubine. With that the Father has roused the raging wrath of Brunhilda.  So now, the complaining bishops of Gaul share this common enemy with the queen. It is a dangerous stand for the Father.

         I answer my son, “Greg, I fear that continuing a relationship with Gaillard would become troublesome in these times.”

         “So, Papa,” Greg qualifies, “You are suggesting Gaillard and I keep our tryst secret?”

         “No Greg. That’s not what I was saying.”

         A lone, wild gander flies overhead, honking its grieving song in the autumn brisk air. It is the season for the migration of the geese and this one is alone.

         “So, Papa, you are opposed to my keeping Gaillard as my lover? Momma knows us well. She knows I can’t just pretend away my love for Gaillard simply because it is inconvenient for his family. I should’ve just asked Momma about this in the first place.”

         “Please Greg, hear me out…”

 [footnote] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Columbanus

(Continues Tomorrow)


#49.4, Tues., Oct. 10, 2023

Historical Setting:  610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

         Greg and I are butchering the lamb that was slaughtered for the homecoming feast for those who returned today from a peace and charity mission to the strangers across the rivers.

         Greg is helping me prepare the lamb so he can talk with me alone. He told me he and Gaillard have seen a “vision of peace.”

         He goes on, “So now it is for Gaillard to try to explain this pacifism to his family who are warring aristocrats. My task was easier than his. Thank you, Papa.”

         Of course, I appreciate hearing it said with words, that my son has accepted an obligation for pacifism, and I am glad to know he is a man of wisdom, but there must be something more he has to tell me that requires Gaillard not hear this. And he does have a concern.

         “Papa, Gaillard’s family fears I, of a common root, have influenced Gaillard to grow weak in the face of war. They blame me for what we’ve both learned of war and peace now.”

         “You say, blame, surely God sees it as a credit to you. And who is it you wish to please, Gaillard’s family or God?”

         “Papa, it is important that I please his family. I’ve completed my indenture now, to pay the gift for Gabe to be at the monastery. I’ve worked for a wage and paid for my own horse and armor, and now they may choose to release me from my obligation.”

         “Congratulations, Greg, I am so proud of you.”

         I don’t have to say that on a bird’s leg message – I can put my arm around him, and say my blessings on him person-to-person here.

         He continues, “That they release me may not be a good thing, Papa.  If I am sent away, Gaillard and I will have to part. And I fear that is what his family would wish. Gaillard has been told they have arranged for him to take a wife from a noble family to bear children and carry the lineage forward. He tells me not to worry because I can still be his precious concubine.”

         I wish he’d phrased it another way, maybe “partner in arms,” or “special friend,” or “friend forever” whatever… It seems so strange to hear this full-statured man, strong and bold and wise, standing here with a lamb’s blood dripping from his blade, saying he is called a “precious concubine” by his lover.

 (Continues tomorrow)

#49.3, Thurs., Oct. 5, 2023

Historical Setting:  610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

         When I was last keeping this journal, before the caravan of charity, before our farm was rich, before our sons were grown, Ana and I had a house full of wee ones. We had just sent Gabe and Greg off only imagining them as the men they would become.  And here is Greg, now leader of the guard. He is tall and straight, broad shouldered, an imposing figure of a soldier, and always at his right flank is a nobleman of Metz, Gaillard. A lot has changed.

         Greg follows me to the shed where I’ve come to ready the meats. Yesterday, when we knew of this feast we killed a sheep, and now, here is Greg to help me with the butchering. We take our time with this because Greg has a concern he wants to speak with me about. He is sure Gaillard won’t come out here to help since Gaillard finds raw meats abhorrent.

         “Papa, I’ve done as you asked.  I’ve kept my sword sheathed as we’ve been searching the east for little windows of peace, not war.  After all these years I’ve come to know that your demand is worthy.”

         I stop my work and look at him here. Does he possibly know this thing he claims?

         He tells me, “You know, Gaillard was never one for drawing his sword, so on our first mission, when we encountered what we thought was a robber stopping us on the road it was my sword immediately at the man’s throat. I raised up his face with my blade under his chin. I looked him in the eye and then I saw this man was that fellow Cy we once met on that pilgrimage to Luxeuil; he was the lame man you carried on your back when Gabe and I were yet children. I think it was a true sign from God that Cy was our first fearsome enemy encounter. He took us then, and showed us the poverty of the people he was caring for.

         “Then, this second mission was for charity for those same people, victims of the eastern wars. We saw the wake of war. When I was the one with the spears and swords and the soldiers at my command, I was miraculously given the power of clarity – a vision – you would say. I was empowered to see that this so-called ‘enemy’ across the rivers was really a needy neighbor.”

         Thank you, God.

(Continues Tuesday, October 10)

#49.2, Weds., Oct. 4, 2023

Historical Setting:  610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

         Now it’s been many months since the caravan of Christian charity crossed over the hills and out of sight. We’ve heard nothing from Greg and Gaillard, and Hannah as well — until yesterday. The bird Hannah had for messaging came ahead with the news to expect them home soon. So today we watch the hills to the east.

         Hours pass, and now on the distant hillside, across the clearing – we catch a glimpse of the horses and the guardsmen – they’ve left the wagons and mules, the flocks and herds, and are all traveling on horseback with only one mule for their own packs. We’ve gathered to watch. It’s an easy cantor for them, briefly in view, down the slope then gone from sight again into the woods – we wait.  We hear the hoof beats, and now the chatter of their voices. Now, here they are, Greg and Gaillard leading the guard. And here is our always serious Hannah, fully an adult woman, smiling now. I lift her from her horse, as though a woman’s tunic made her frail, she wraps into her waiting mother’s arms reaching for the first hug.

         So here is our daughter, a beloved stranger, familiar, as we remembered, but now with us again as a wise and beautiful woman of the world, experienced in all the newness of adulthood. She stands calmly amid the teasing mayhem from her younger brothers and the bundle of hugs from Layla. They’ve been gone a good part of the year, and now as I see it from the perspective of these travelers, lots has changed here, though for us it seems the same as always. Now Brandell is going on twelve, and Haberd is the full stature of a man.

         With seven horses and a mule just returned to the stable, I go with Gabe and Gaillard and the guardsmen to brush down the horses and put them out to pasture.

         Ana has some honey cakes waiting on the hearth, and I bring the fresh water in for the pot for tea. And with soldiers here I should tap a keg of ale. The stores of grains and roots we sent away months ago, seeming sacrificial in our generosity, are now fully restored and our winter preparations are nearly completed.

         Dear God, we have thanks giving in our hearts now, that will take us the whole of autumn and into the winter just to speak of it in so many prayers, Thank you.

(Continues tomorrow)


#49.1, Tues., Oct. 3, 2023

Historical Setting: 610 C.E., Vosges Mountains

Seven years since last I wrote.

         Bishop Felix returned from his recent journey to Rome with the news that Pope Gregory is dead and much is left unfinished. The hopes Columbanus had in finding an ally in the pope went array because the pope didn’t even receive his letter. Now controversies are brewing over the power of the papacy and the hierarchy of bishops. Bishop Felix is still hoping for missionary assignment to East Angles following Gregory’s appointment of Augustine to convert the Pagans. There are many loose threads.

         We’ve watched for wars from the north and from the east. The nobility of Metz sent their spies to learn of this. The two spies that I know went looking for warring enemies and came back to this papa’s house before they reported back to Metz. Greg and Gaillard said the likely invaders, the Avars and the Slaves feared by the Franks, have settled in the lands beyond the rivers to the east. But the armies of those marauding tribes are now warring with the Persians and eastern vestiges of the Roman Empire in the Christianized Byzantine. [Footnote 1] With the wars far away, the settled tribes have no warriors left among them to burn and sack these Frankish lands.

         So, when Greg and Gaillard returned from their first journey across the rivers, last year, they brought news that these tribes we feared were, themselves, war-ravaged and suffering. They told us of famine and plague among the Slavs. This rallied the empathy of the Bishop of Metz and his wife Doda. So, we all gathered up supplies to send with the Frankish caravan from Metz filled with Christian charity for these suffering people. [Footnote 2] Our own farm supplied some of the mules and added to the sheep and goats that were sent. We were able to fill one whole wagon with just the abundance from our field and gardens.

         Hannah, who was fifteen last year, begged to go and care for the sick who desperately needed a knowledgeable healer.  Ana was most against it.

         “She has no experience with plague.”

         I asked Ana, “How would she gain that experience if we didn’t allow her to go?” And I reminded Ana of her own advice for letting children grow up in their own ways. “She will undoubtedly go with or without our blessing.” 

         So, Ana and I blessed her on her way.  We sent her with lots of herbs and medicines, and a bird to message us back.

[Footnote 1] One would think a history blogger would know this, but it took a source book. (Herrin, Judith, Byzantium: The surprising life of a medieval empire, Penguin Books: U.K. 2007, chapter 8.)

[Footnote 2] The Bishop of Metz, Agulif, and his also noble wife, Doda, were known to be charitable in a time when Christian charity was valued. But sending this caravan to needy strangers in 609 C.E. is fictional.

Art note: This Goauche painting of the Vosges in the autumn was my class project, introduced to this medium by a most excellent art teacher, Camille Tulcewicz.

(Continues tomorrow)

#48.12, Thurs., Sept. 28, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. The Vosges Mountains

         Those who were once hunters will soon be bent into farmers who will have no safety from wars except for a landowner’s castle walls.  The legends haunting the Samhain fires of the dwindling tribes of pagans remember the ghost riders across the sky, the soldiers of Theodoric I, and the fires of the old wars with the Huns. Our own house is a heap of stones from a Roman fortress ruin. Once guard towers watched to the east from these mountains, guarding against strangers crossing the rivers. In the end the Huns just dissolved into people wrapped in winter furs gathered around the fires the same as all the tribes that are us.

         And here we are again, building higher fortress walls, sending out spies, keeping watch on the wide rivers and borders for others. We name them enemies. Wars require enemies so any others might be them. That’s the first requirement for war — someone to call enemy. If we don’t label our enemies, we could discover the strangers beyond our rivers are us. They are hungry and homeless, not because of scarcity, but because of the fear of sharing.

         So, what if our kings and autocrats, or even just our hunters and farmers were to savor the gospels?  What if we go with empathy, not enemy? Maybe empathy is too expensive. It leads to dispersing our winter stores and dividing our fields. Is war less expensive?

         Dear God, thank you for these great stores of plenty for the winter I, myself, alone, have set aside. May crispy autumn days keep it cool and safe from rot…

         Oh wait, God answers my prayer even as I think of it — no heart searching or revelation is even needed. I’m not deaf enough yet, or too numb to hear God shouting back, “just listen to yourself, Lazarus!  Just listen! You’ve only had one good season, and already you pray like a greedy man!”

         Well, I would plan for solid walls to keep this abundance just for my own family. It’s easy to believe this good fortune and good earth are deserved and are mine, just mine, for the hoarding and the rotting. It’s so easy to think I need bigger barns and fortresses, when maybe, really, I just need wider doorways.

         Dear God, thank you for plenty. Help me recognize that this scarcity I would fear is imaginary. Amen.

(Continues Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2023)

#48.11, Weds., Sept. 27, 2023

Historical setting: 602 C.E. The Vosges Mountains

         I was asking what Bishop Felix will do if the noble bishops of Gaul won’t negotiate.

         He explains, “I will go to the pope again and ask for an assignment to East Anglia. Oh, but I probably shouldn’t make it sound so futile when these power struggles over the hierarchy would hardly make a difference to you and the other common people of Gaul. Surely your faith won’t be forsaken by God regardless of how bishops and abbots may disagree.”

         I don’t find comfort in that. Of course, we, who are the common people of Gaul, are not forsaken by God simply because the religious hierarchy abandon us to argue among themselves. It’s probably a very good thing that this churchman, so recently elevated to his rose-tinted authority, believes his ordination is all for God’s sake. But hopefully he won’t forget that God first knew us all naked, so whatever the liturgical garb, or ermine robes and crown, or tattered tunic, God still listens to our prayers.

         Now, the guards have climbed the hill and they are already at our cottage door. There are four guards on horseback leading the fifth horse, looking for the bishop. One of the voices of these men and the clacking of armor has an indelible place in my memories of terrors. I choose not to invite them into our house or even to go out and greet them as social duty would demand. The bishop simply thanks us and is gone. I send Haberd and Brandell back from the window so they don’t see this.

         The wood-smoke wafting up from the forests at the hunter’s village speaks of a new season now upon us. New castles and fortresses require the huge straight timbers hewn from the forests. The debris of this harvest is heaped unto bon fires flaming up in the newly barren places. The naked earth is softened by burning the land into new fields soon to come under the plow.

         The aisles supporting the halls and oratorios of castles and churches can only be as high as had been these tall trees now cut into columns. Now trees are for holding roofs, not for stroking the skies. When the grand rooms are made with the long tables and great thrones for the aristocracy, then the mules will bring the stones for the outer walls, solid as ancient Rome, to hold back any intruders or armies – maybe the rumored Slavs and Avars. Everyone is planning on wars.

(Continues tomorrow)