Once Upon A Time: Renaissance Storytelling

By this point, most of us have heard of The Brothers Grimm, the German authors who researched European cultural folklore and wrote it all down into a collection of children’s stories. These classic tales like Rapunzel, The Golden Goose, and Snow White & Rose Red, have been carried down through the ages in many iterations, and the framework of the traditional fairytale has continued to influence authors to this day.

But the peasants of the 16th century didn’t have a book of tales to draw from the shelves at bedtime. Despite a higher literacy rate than in previous centuries, most folks were still illiterate or understood enough reading to do their business. The stories they told were carried through oral tradition, generation to generation, parent to child, long before Jacob and Wilhelm began their collection.

Aesop’s Fables

Credited to the slave Aesop, who lived in ancient Greece, somewhere between 620 and 564 BCE, these fables found popular resurgence during the Renaissance thanks to their timeless moral lessons. The translation of these stories from Greek to Latin allowed them to survive in both oral and literary form, making it easy for these ancient stories to spread among the population.

In one popular tale, a powerful lion pounces upon a tiny mouse, who, sensing death at hand, pleads for its life and promises to return the favor. The lion, unassailable in his might, finds the mouse amusing and frees him, sure that the little creature will never be seen again. Later, the lion becomes ensnared by the trap of a hunter and knows he will soon be killed when the hunter returns. He roars in frustration but cannot free himself. Who then should appear but the mouse he spared, who runs along the netting and chews through it until the lion is released. Thus, a lesson is learned.

The lesson, through the eyes of the Renaissance storytellers and their audience, is to temper Justice with Mercy and to bear in mind the social balance of reciprocity. The Lion, as in many myths, symbolizes royalty or power, thus the capacity to dispense or withhold mercy at their whim. It becomes more important to remind the powerful of what the meek are capable of. It also serves as a reminder to the average person that no small act goes without consequences, and no kindness should go unrepaid. This reinforces the reliance of a community on its neighbors to survive.

Tales of Robin Hood

The stories of Robin and his Merry Men were already deeply ingrained in English folklore long before the 16th century. In Robin Hood and the Potter, we see an excellent example of Robin’s ability to turn a small bit of mischief into a grand jest and financial opportunity.

Robin Hood and Little John were walking through the forest, laughing back and forth at what the other one had to say, when they spot a potter. Little John knows the man for a fierce combatant and claims he fought the man with the bruises to prove it. He and Robin make a bet that Robin cannot best the man. Robin holds up the potter and the two spar, with the potter coming out the fair victor of the match. Robin takes the loss in good humor and offers the man a day of rest. In exchange, he will go and sell pots in town. While there, he attracts the attention of the wife of the Sheriff of Nottingham and engages her in bargaining. He gives her such a good price that she invites him to dinner, where Robin (in disguise) bests the Sheriff and his men at archery. He claims to have been taught by Robin Hood, and when the Sheriff asks to be shown the way through Sherwood to Robin’s hideaway, he agrees. Of course, the entire thing is a trap, and the Sheriff and his men are ambushed the moment they enter the greenwood. Robin allows the Sheriff to go free, but insists he must gift his wife a white palfrey as a gift for her hospitality. When the Sheriff returns, his wife laughs at him, saying Robin has been paid back for the money he lost on the pots.

In many of the Robin Hood tales, our titular hero is a yeoman, roughly above the peasantry but not quite gentry, who shows himself to be a man of the people. In this story, the defeat at the potters’ hands is a lesson in humility as much as to get the plot started. Robin Hood also uses charm and guile in his schemes, despite being an accomplished archer and swordsman. He displays a genteel nature with the Sheriff’s wife, and the two even share a joke at her husband’s expense. This type of charming anti-hero appealed to the everyman, limited by their position in the strict hierarchy of 16th-century England.

King Arthur

The myriad of tales about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table make up what is known as the Arthurian cycle. As opposed to being a work penned by a single author, these tales are collected from multiple medieval sources as the legend of Arthur grew and spread. It would not be until Thomas Malory took the tales and compiled them into Le Morte D’Arthur that we would see this tale told (more or less) in its entirety. From the rape of Igraine, wife of the Duke of Cornwall, by Uther Pendragon to the moment where Arthur would die at the hands of his own misbegotten son Mordred, this is the story that lasts into the current era, repeated in books and show and movies.

Despite the Chivalric Code dying out in the 1220’s, the romantic ideology behind it often seems to fly in the face of the real power dynamic between the wealthy elite and the poor. The tales of King Arthur encouraged values of responsibility, humility, and equality between the governor and the governed. It also showed the flaws and hypocrisy inherent in humanity, with Camelot and its ideals often being endangered by selfish personal choices or a lack of integrity from its protectors. It framed the perfection of Arthur and his utopian rule as an ongoing struggle against a world that often demands more than it’s owed.

This is likely why legends remain so popular today.

Bible Stories and Morality Plays

When it comes to educating the masses about Christianity, actors are probably the last people one would expect as teachers. Nevertheless, mummers played a vital role in dispensing Christian wisdom to the people, dramatizing the Latin hymns of the priest into stage performances that the average Englishman could understand.

There were Mystery plays, which had little to do with Sherlocking your way through the plot. The Mysteries were tales from the Old and New Testaments, creating riveting dramatizations of biblical miracles. However, they also had a tendency to be quite cutting of the church itself, depending upon the audience.

Miracle plays were composed around the Saints and their lives. St. Nicholas was among the popular subjects, credited with grand acts such as restoring life to murdered children and simple kindness like paying dowries for poor women so they do not fall to prostitution. The Virgin Mary is also a favored subject, though her portrayals often involve her being called upon as a deus ex machina, interfering on behalf of the sinner with God’s salvation.

Morality plays often stemmed from biblical and church teachings, but over the years quickly turned to farce and comedy to teach the same lessons. The characters were no longer limited to Biblical heroes, but often made the flaws and vices of the hero central to their struggle. They would be challenged by Vice(s) and aided by Virtue(s) as the hero strives to redeem himself.

It is easy to take a look at these plays and see them as appeals to the average person to heed the church authorities and their gospel, as that was the only way to God. The best way to reach a largely illiterate audience how to live what the church deemed a morally good life. However, as they moved from the spiritual to secular, the plays had to appeal to a wider audience, and some of the more subtle allegorical components were weakened. But the general message of struggling against sin and temptation stayed the same.

The tradition of storytelling goes back somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 years, coinciding with our evolutionary development, greater cognition, and more complex language development. The moment we could convey our thoughts with greater intent, we longed to tell tales. Through that came a greater sense of communal bonding, sharing information, and burgeoning cultural identity.

Our ancestors’ hands are stained with red pigment as they draw a tale of the hunt by firelight. Tens of thousands of years later, we know the story.