The Black Knight and Friar Tuck enjoy some delicious pie
I’m studying Ivanhoe right now, and I came across some interesting articles about the book and its connection to a real-life trial by combat. So I thought I would blog about the details, because though I think it is interesting it will probably never make it into a paper. And the advantage of the blog post format is I can just present a bunch of neat details, rather than arguing something revolutionary.
Anyways…
The Ashford v. Thornton case of 1817 was the last case of a trial by combat challenge in Britain. It came at a time of rising interest in medieval England, chivalry, and romance. The problem is that the case outraged most people: the early nineteenth century wasn’t a time when trial by combat was actually considered anything other than absurd and barbaric. Most people thought the case had allowed a guilty man to get away with rape and murder… through his willingness and ability to commit another murder.
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott was published two years later, in December of 1819. It includes a trial by combat, and a few scholars have argued that the case of Ashford v. Thornton was popular enough (it inspired numerous pamphlets and plays) that both Scott and his readers would have been very aware of the case during the climactic final scene in the novel. Scott indeed mentioned the Thornton case in his private letters (Letters; click “Vol. IV”).
Details of the Ashford v. Thornton case (1817)
In 1817 Abraham Thornton was accused of raping and murdering 20-year-old Mary Ashford; her body had been pulled from a pit of water outside a very small village several miles northeast of Birmingham. Thornton had boasted earlier that night, at a party he and Mary both attended, that he’d already had Mary’s sister and would also have Mary. He later told police that he did have sex with Mary that night, but that it was consensual. Although we will never know for sure, I must say that Thornton does not come across as a very sexually appealing fellow, based on his rude sexual boasting and his appearance. While covering the trial, the London Times noted that Thornton’s “natural thickness is greater than common, but his excessive corpulency has swollen his whole figure into a size that rather approaches to deformity.”[1] In the initial trial, Thornton was found not guilty after a 12 hour trial which was followed by about 5 minutes of jury deliberation. Based on the details available today, it is impossible to say whether he was guilty or innocent.
Mary’s brother William Ashford was allowed by English law to make an “appeal,” such that Thornton was called upon again to plead. Well, upon the advice of his attorneys, he pleaded “Not guilty, and ready to defend the same upon my body” (qtd. in Dyer 386), at which point he threw down the proverbial gauntlet—in this case a yellow leather glove. William, being a frail teenager, did not accept the challenge to fight a man whom he thought had already had some experience in the killing business. And so Thornton was free. (The weapons of the fight, by the way, were to be “oak clubs.”)
The public at the time was shocked, given that it was the first trial by battle since 1638. The right of the accused to demand trial by battle was a law that had basically been forgotten about, and so never repealed. People thought Thornton had basically gotten away with murder, though the details of the case certainly don’t make it clear whether he was guilty or innocent.
One of the most shocking things about the case, for the English public, was that Thornton had basically turned the chivalric code upside down. Chivalry asks men to use their power to defend women. Thornton used the chivalric code to get off the hook after supposedly raping and killing one. William Ashford, who actually was trying to defend a woman, was out of luck because he was a weak teenager.
Ashford v. Thornton and Ivanhoe
"Combat de chevaliers dans la campagne" by Eugène Delacroix
Ivanhoe’s trial by combat surrounds a woman (the saintly Jewess, Rebecca) who has basically been threatened with rape by the Templar knight Sir Brian Bois-Guilbert. There are a few obvious differences between the case of Ashford v. Thornton and Ivanhoe’s trial by combat. In the novel, trial by combat is demanded by the threatened woman, Rebecca, not the villain (though it is Bois-Guilbert who secretly suggests it to her). The combat also does not let someone get away with murder; it saves Rebecca’s life. Indeed, the real villain, Bois-Guilbert, even though he is never on trial, ends up killed in the combat, and justice ends up actually getting served.
Bois-Guilbert dies in the combat, even though Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, who arrives wounded and just in time to fight as Rebecca’s champion, barely hits Bois-Guilbert with his lance. The narrator tells us Bois-Guilbert “had died a victim to the violence of his own contending passions,” though the Templar Grand Master and Ivanhoe both claim it was God’s will. Bos-Guilbert’s contending passions would have been his will to win the fight and serve his ambition towards eventually becoming the Templar Order’s next Grand Master, and losing the fight to save Rebecca.
The two main scholars to take on the similarities of the case and Ivanhoe are Gary Dyer and Mark Schoenfield. Both argue that Scott is attempting to rescue chivalry in some way, even if he realizes it’s not at all feasible in the modern day world.
I think the idea of rescuing chivalry in a world in which it’s not feasible is a pretty important aspect of Scott’s Ivanhoe. Part of romance involves a kind of lost golden age we can never go back to, and despite the subtle narratorial critiques of it in Ivanhoe, I think that the world we are introduced to is indeed a romantic golden age. And it’s not that we can’t go back to it, it’s that it just doesn’t work anymore, even if it is a part of who we are now and where we have come from. In Schoenfield’s words, for Walter Scott, chivalric institutions (such as the trial by combat) “rendered modernity intelligible” (81).
[1] I saw part of this quotation originally in Mark Schoenfield’s article, and he cites it as 9 August 1817. But I could only find it in the 11 August paper. It’s in regards to a Friday trial, which is why it appears three days after, on the Monday instead of Saturday.
Cited Stuff:
Dyer, Gary. “Ivanhoe, Chivalry, and the Murder of Mary Ashford.” Criticism 39.3 (Summer, 1997): 383-408. Print.
Schoenfield, Mark. “Waging Battle: Ashford v. Thornton, Ivanhoe, and Legal Violence.” Prose Studies 23.2 (2000): 61-86. Print.
Scott, Walter. Ivanhoe. Ed. Ian Duncan. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Print. Oxford World’s Classics.
- – - . “The Letters of Sir Walter Scott E-Text.” The Walter Scott Digital Archive. Edinburgh University Library. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
“Warwick Assizes, Friday, Aug. 8. Trial of Abraham Thornton For The Murder Of Mary Ashford.” The Times [London] 11 Aug. 1817, Law sec.: 3. The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985. Web. 3 Jan. 2010.
I am more of a blondie man than a brownie man, myself, but my girlfriend likes brownies. So here are some brownies.
Here’s the 
Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe and Real-Life Trial by Combat
The Black Knight and Friar Tuck enjoy some delicious pie
I’m studying Ivanhoe right now, and I came across some interesting articles about the book and its connection to a real-life trial by combat. So I thought I would blog about the details, because though I think it is interesting it will probably never make it into a paper. And the advantage of the blog post format is I can just present a bunch of neat details, rather than arguing something revolutionary.
Anyways…
The Ashford v. Thornton case of 1817 was the last case of a trial by combat challenge in Britain. It came at a time of rising interest in medieval England, chivalry, and romance. The problem is that the case outraged most people: the early nineteenth century wasn’t a time when trial by combat was actually considered anything other than absurd and barbaric. Most people thought the case had allowed a guilty man to get away with rape and murder… through his willingness and ability to commit another murder.
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott was published two years later, in December of 1819. It includes a trial by combat, and a few scholars have argued that the case of Ashford v. Thornton was popular enough (it inspired numerous pamphlets and plays) that both Scott and his readers would have been very aware of the case during the climactic final scene in the novel. Scott indeed mentioned the Thornton case in his private letters (Letters; click “Vol. IV”).
Details of the Ashford v. Thornton case (1817)
In 1817 Abraham Thornton was accused of raping and murdering 20-year-old Mary Ashford; her body had been pulled from a pit of water outside a very small village several miles northeast of Birmingham. Thornton had boasted earlier that night, at a party he and Mary both attended, that he’d already had Mary’s sister and would also have Mary. He later told police that he did have sex with Mary that night, but that it was consensual. Although we will never know for sure, I must say that Thornton does not come across as a very sexually appealing fellow, based on his rude sexual boasting and his appearance. While covering the trial, the London Times noted that Thornton’s “natural thickness is greater than common, but his excessive corpulency has swollen his whole figure into a size that rather approaches to deformity.”[1] In the initial trial, Thornton was found not guilty after a 12 hour trial which was followed by about 5 minutes of jury deliberation. Based on the details available today, it is impossible to say whether he was guilty or innocent.
Mary’s brother William Ashford was allowed by English law to make an “appeal,” such that Thornton was called upon again to plead. Well, upon the advice of his attorneys, he pleaded “Not guilty, and ready to defend the same upon my body” (qtd. in Dyer 386), at which point he threw down the proverbial gauntlet—in this case a yellow leather glove. William, being a frail teenager, did not accept the challenge to fight a man whom he thought had already had some experience in the killing business. And so Thornton was free. (The weapons of the fight, by the way, were to be “oak clubs.”)
The public at the time was shocked, given that it was the first trial by battle since 1638. The right of the accused to demand trial by battle was a law that had basically been forgotten about, and so never repealed. People thought Thornton had basically gotten away with murder, though the details of the case certainly don’t make it clear whether he was guilty or innocent.
One of the most shocking things about the case, for the English public, was that Thornton had basically turned the chivalric code upside down. Chivalry asks men to use their power to defend women. Thornton used the chivalric code to get off the hook after supposedly raping and killing one. William Ashford, who actually was trying to defend a woman, was out of luck because he was a weak teenager.
Ashford v. Thornton and Ivanhoe
"Combat de chevaliers dans la campagne" by Eugène Delacroix
Ivanhoe’s trial by combat surrounds a woman (the saintly Jewess, Rebecca) who has basically been threatened with rape by the Templar knight Sir Brian Bois-Guilbert. There are a few obvious differences between the case of Ashford v. Thornton and Ivanhoe’s trial by combat. In the novel, trial by combat is demanded by the threatened woman, Rebecca, not the villain (though it is Bois-Guilbert who secretly suggests it to her). The combat also does not let someone get away with murder; it saves Rebecca’s life. Indeed, the real villain, Bois-Guilbert, even though he is never on trial, ends up killed in the combat, and justice ends up actually getting served.
Bois-Guilbert dies in the combat, even though Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, who arrives wounded and just in time to fight as Rebecca’s champion, barely hits Bois-Guilbert with his lance. The narrator tells us Bois-Guilbert “had died a victim to the violence of his own contending passions,” though the Templar Grand Master and Ivanhoe both claim it was God’s will. Bos-Guilbert’s contending passions would have been his will to win the fight and serve his ambition towards eventually becoming the Templar Order’s next Grand Master, and losing the fight to save Rebecca.
The two main scholars to take on the similarities of the case and Ivanhoe are Gary Dyer and Mark Schoenfield. Both argue that Scott is attempting to rescue chivalry in some way, even if he realizes it’s not at all feasible in the modern day world.
I think the idea of rescuing chivalry in a world in which it’s not feasible is a pretty important aspect of Scott’s Ivanhoe. Part of romance involves a kind of lost golden age we can never go back to, and despite the subtle narratorial critiques of it in Ivanhoe, I think that the world we are introduced to is indeed a romantic golden age. And it’s not that we can’t go back to it, it’s that it just doesn’t work anymore, even if it is a part of who we are now and where we have come from. In Schoenfield’s words, for Walter Scott, chivalric institutions (such as the trial by combat) “rendered modernity intelligible” (81).
[1] I saw part of this quotation originally in Mark Schoenfield’s article, and he cites it as 9 August 1817. But I could only find it in the 11 August paper. It’s in regards to a Friday trial, which is why it appears three days after, on the Monday instead of Saturday.
Cited Stuff:
Dyer, Gary. “Ivanhoe, Chivalry, and the Murder of Mary Ashford.” Criticism 39.3 (Summer, 1997): 383-408. Print.
Schoenfield, Mark. “Waging Battle: Ashford v. Thornton, Ivanhoe, and Legal Violence.” Prose Studies 23.2 (2000): 61-86. Print.
Scott, Walter. Ivanhoe. Ed. Ian Duncan. Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1996. Print. Oxford World’s Classics.
- – - . “The Letters of Sir Walter Scott E-Text.” The Walter Scott Digital Archive. Edinburgh University Library. Web. 19 Jan. 2010.
“Warwick Assizes, Friday, Aug. 8. Trial of Abraham Thornton For The Murder Of Mary Ashford.” The Times [London] 11 Aug. 1817, Law sec.: 3. The Times Digital Archive 1785-1985. Web. 3 Jan. 2010.