Historical Device Conflict

[teufel <teufel@erols.com>]

Poster: teufel <teufel@erols.com>

To all those of the Merry Rose,

        Greetings,

        I recently came across a bit of information that may be of interest
to those debating Device Conflict in History.  In 'The Fables of Alfonce and
Poge' published in 1484, there is the following story.   The tenth fable of
Poge reads as follows:
                        ------------------------
        Poge telleth also that there was a carrick (a galley) of Genoa hired
into France for to make war against Englishmen, of the which carrick the
patron bore in his shield painted an oxe head.  Which a nobleman of France
beheld and saw and said he would avenge him on him that bore those arms.
Whereupon arose an altercation so much that the Frenchman provoked the
Genoese to battle and fight therefore.
        The Genoese accepted the provocation and came at the day assigned
into the field, without any array or habilements of war.  And that Frenchman
came in much noble apparel into the field that was ordained.  And the the
patron of the carrick said: "Wherefore is it that we two should fight and
make battle?"
        "For I say," said that other, "that thine arms been mine and
belonged to me 'tofore that thou haddest them."
        "Then," the Genoese said, "it is no need to make any battle
therefore.  For the arms that I bear is not the head of an oxe, but it is
the head of a cow."  Which thing so spoken, the noble Frenchman was abashed
and so departed half-mocked.

                        ------------------------

        You should take this as you will, since the fables of Alfonce and
Poge was written as a 'jest-book', or a book intended more for humor.
        But it does show some of the mental state of the Gothic period. YMMV.

                Frederich Von Teufel

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