September : The Château of Saumur 1416

September : The Château of Saumur  1416 

[On looking at a facsimile of the Duc de Berry’s ‘Les Très Riches Heures’]

Commanding the landscape from its place on a hill,

the chateau lifts into the sky slim turrets crowned by

golden fleur de lys, symbols of privilege and power.

Intricate invention of white stone and dove grey slate,

a castle sugar-spun by a master patissier’s art, with

a quiet about it, shimmering in the noon day as if it

were enchanted, goblin made in silvered thistle down.

Ladies eat honeycakes, their lords make games of war, 

the empty tiltyard echoes with whispers of taffeta and

silk and the thud of steel cold lance on leather shield.

Lords joust, ladies play, but peasants all must work.

Servants, baskets on head, climb the gatehouse path; 

in the field below a woman rests, apron lifted high 

by her swollen belly; a hungry man, seizing a bunch

of ripe fruit, eats and takes his ease as best he can. 

Bent double over bloom coated purple grapes, grim 

faced gatherers, muscles aching, joints protesting  

toil on, while meek panniered donkeys rest patient

beneath their heavy burdens, and gentle eyed oxen

draw high stocked carts through the hot afternoon.

Subservient to a lord, whose great château itself 

mirrors his royal rank and wealth, but accustomed 

to their lowly appointed place, beast and peasant

mutely submit, helpless in a divinely ordered world.

Their lord’s free men now - but poor menials still, 

they must ever labour in another man’s vineyard, 

serve at another man’s table, dreaming of the day

when every man will make his own wine, his wife

bake her own bread. Dreaming is cheap, but hope 

is sometimes blind and freedom may be a burden.

There is an irony in this masterpiece of vellum, lapis 

and gold, this holy book of devotions made for the 

brother of a king, who nightly whispers his reverent 

Kyrie, eleison to his ever forgiving God, while peasants 
weep in the darkness for their dying children. 
Men may be free but not evade the serfdom of poverty;

a rich man’s self-content may divorce him from his

Lord’s command ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’

The king’s brother enjoys the sleep of a virtuous man,

poor men lie awake and pray for a better life to come.

           

Lords rest for eternity in their white marble tombs,

in the bleak church yard their peasants lie forgotten.

The castle remembers rebellion and revolution, canon

shot and the rattle of musket fire, while the captives

were broken on the spokes of Catherine’s cruel wheel.

The dark red blood of the dead ran like a river through

shattered streets and dreams of a new world crumbled.

What chance now for the coming of that longed for

community of a bright celestial dawning, when love

for one another should at last become the only rule?

Naomi        Donkeys  by  Liz