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Guitar plays. Brunham dances and speaks.
Brunham:
pics by Bhas Allan
Now I sit in my seemly sale,
I trot and tremle in my true throne;
As a hawk I hop in my hende hale;
King, knight and kaiser to me maken moan.
Oh God ne of good man give I never tale.
As a liking lord I leyke here alone.
Whoso brawl any boast, by down or by dale,
Those gadlings shall be ghasted and grisly groan iwis.
Whoso to the World will draw
Of God ne of good man giveth he not a hawe
Such a man by lands law
Shall sitten on my dais.
Allow
me to introduce myself. John Brunham.
The Merchant of Lynn. Mayor. 5 times. MP. twice, JP, royal agent, alderman, merchant-prince,
benefactor, the uncrowned king of Bishop's Lynn-
That speech I started with is the way I would have spoken to you at the
end of the fourteenth century.
I died in
1421. Unlike my fellow parishioners William
Sawtrey, my parish priest, and Margery Kempe, my daughter, I never got to
heaven because I never really
believed in it.
(Harp plays whenever heaven is evoked,fades whenever the world is emphasised)
Margery Kempe was the opposite. Even on earth she was always
seeing and believing heavenly things. A loving God, a beautiful Jesus, a Virgin
Mary, a robin Redbreast singing merrily in her right ear which she thought was the Holy Ghost. To my ear, the angels she heard singing were
the lawless trade winds beating in the sail of my ships down there on the frantic Hanseatic quay. We are all at sea in this world. Anchorless - and quite alone. Love is like our
relationship with the Hanse - sometimes we're trading partners, sometimes we're
trading rivals, occasionally we're enemies in an all out trade war. But we need
each other. Grain out, herring in. Lynners living and working in Lubeck and
Danzig; Germans living and working here in Lynn. One of my greatest political achievements was
helping the king sign a peace treaty after which the Germans established a permanent
trading post in Lynn that they ran for 400 years. 6 centuries later, it's still
standing, the only remaining Hanseatic building in England. And still good for
business. Margery's side of the business was the pilgrims sailing in from all
over the British isles and all over Christendom to visit Walsingham. Richeldis
had an authorised vision of the Holy Virgin there in 1061. A pity none of
Margery's visions was authorised because then the pilgrims would have stayed
here instead and that would have been even better for business. What did they
see as they sailed in? 5 dreaming friaries on the skyline and a giant
harbourside cross, reassuring them that this was the official point of
embarkation for Walsingham pilgrims. But they weren't the first to be drawn to
Lynn's magical confluence of sky, lowland and water. The Celts held water sacred and it is their
word for water, or pool, that still names the town. Lynn. Imagine then if you will a mediaeval Liverpool on a marina twice the size of the modern Wash and
with an airport for Margery's angels. In the good old age of Faith when
everybody sang from the same hymn sheet. Give or take a legion of burned
heretics like Smouldering Bill Sawtrey late of St Margaret's pulpit. Even in
the flames of an earthly hell he followed the music of his soul here to heaven.
More of him in a moment. First let's hear a bit more about Margery, some of
which she doesn't emphasise or even mention in her Book. (indicate Book)
She was born in 1373. She
grew up through the economic downturn of the 1390s. She wrote the first
autobiography in English-
Enter Geoffrey Chaucer, flustered, late.
Chaucer: Sorry.
Brunham: First time in Lynn?
Chaucer: Second. I was born
here. The name's Chaucer. Geoffrey
Chaucer.
Brunham: Ah! The Father of English Poetry. I hear you’re up here
researching a Merchant’s Tale?
Chaucer: A Magistrate. "Of
Northfolk was this reeve of which I telle/Byside a toun men callen
Baldeswelle".
Brunham: ‘Of
Northfolk was this merchant whom you should
sing/ In a port that men call Bishop’s Lynn.’ Take a pew.
Chaucer sits.
Brunham …in the
generation after Geoffrey Chaucer was also born
here. It's a town of pioneers. Margery married Lynn burgess John Kempe and had 14
children in 20 years, not counting those she lost in childbirth. She tells us in her Book that after the
first, a very difficult pregancy and labour, she started seeing things that
other people couldn't. Which is why, even though she's standing here now
smiling down at you from heaven, you can't see her. - Fortunately,
owing to my position stranded somewhere
between heaven and Lynn, I can bring you an embodiment of the Flesh she tried all
her life to deny and an angel. (indicates
harp) And the music of her Soul. And together they can sing you - the Ballad of
Margery Kempe.
Flesh, Angel
and Soul perform The Ballad of Margery Kempe.
William in
prison near a bonfire with guy of William on it.
William: I
am William Sawtrey, a Lollard of Lynn;
Priest of
this Parish, in Death’s Door Nailed;
The Bishop
Dispenser has bruised me in Limb
And broken
my Spirit for two days in gaol:
(resisting)
I don’t believe in Signs, Rites, Blessings;
In Prayers
by the Hour, Priests, Pilgrims, Grails;
Saint-Adoration;
Idolatrous bread; leprous blind Latin;
Fat church
Patriarchs piling on the shillings;
In
Confessions, Crusades: that ‘what Christ was the Cross is.’
Enter Bishop
Dispenser, furious.
William: I
do believe that what we’re for
Is Apostling
and preaching and teaching the poor;
In Scripture
and Christ above Roman Church Lore;
In plain
English speech for our priestly office!
Bishop
Dispenser: You no longer have an office. By the Statute of Heresies, 1400.
(strips off William’s priestly rank) (vestments, tonsure etc)
William:
Through seven steps of degradation
Reduced from
magic priest to bare doorman.
(new hope)
Did Christ not come this Way? Would Christ not also say:
The peasants
got Word, their simple souls sang
‘When Adam
delved and Eve span,
Who was then
the gentleman?’
They call
peasants (Bishop with him) ‘revolting’. Christ’s blessed I say!
Bishop
Dispenser: Tell that to the flames. (sarcastic) Have a nice Pray! (diabolical
laugh, exit)
William
prays. Flesh appears with drum (fearful heartbeat).
William:
(looking at bonfire, tries to pray) Oh God-
Flesh: Never mind God. You should listen to your Body, son.
I bide as a
broad bursten-gut aboven on these towers,
Everybody is
the better that to mine bidding is bent.
I am
Mankind’s fair Flesch, flourished in flowers.
My life is
with lusts and liking i-lent.
With tapets
of taffeta I timber my towers.
In mirth and
in melody my mende is i-ment.
Though I be
clay and clod, clapped under clowrys,
Yet would I
that my will the world went,
Full true I
you behight
I love well
my ease
In lusts me
to please:
Though sin
my soul seize,
I give not a
mite.
(like a bad
angel, spoken) Recant, William, and enjoy!
William is
about to recant when-
William: I want to recant but the
music of my soul won't let me.
Soul plays harp.… Devil lights the
candle. As harp plays-
William: If by this act, I can light
a flame,
Feed the wax of flesh to burn love's
name
In the unlettered lives of Jesu's
people,
The ground down to earth, the poor,
the meek, the faithful,
The pain of flesh passing is well
worth the candle.
It's a heaven to die for.
A musical struggle
Flesh: drowns out the harp.
William you’re a Lynn boy
Where’s your Norfolk grit?
Your Mind’s like a frightened girl,
You make me blooming spit.
This is Boudicca’s country,
Stand your ground:
The battered woman
Who would not lie down!
Where’s your knuckle?
Your Biblical kicks
Against the odds,
Against the pricks!?
Flex neck! I’ve got the nerve,
Meat balls! I’m gonna put you down!
Flesh pecs! I got the guts,
Pump blood! I’ll blow you out of town!
Soul: Flesh be quiet. Listen to your
Soul!
She plays her harp. Flesh quietens. Devil with fork
William: They told me that the bread became
Christ's Body not his ghost
I said a priest’s no sorcerer.
That did it: I was toast.
They tortured me, ‘recant
Your reasoning, or roast!’
I said a I cannot bear your cross.
That did it: I was toast.
They told me Latin prayer and Mass
Would keep me in my post.
I said ‘an English sermon’s best.’
That did it: I was toast.
'Our sacraments are spirit gold,
The brassy bishops boast’
I - ‘all that gilders isn’t God!’
That did it: I was toast.
They Credo-bashed and then defrocked
My body to their post.
I answered them with balaam's ass.
That did it: I was toast.
They told me that the bread became
The hostage not the host
I said ‘Man needs the bread as well.’
That did it: I was toast.
They burn me like a fallen Eve,
A holy without smoke,
The musical scream. Harp and bodhran contend. Bishop mimes flames. Devil exults.
Soul: Flesh be quiet!
William:
I climb up like a morning star
Of love and faith and hope.
William in crucifixion pose looks at audience.
End
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