A þef, a Ribaude, scolkede vnder þe Brigge.

 

¶ Thoo might men seen archieres drawen ham in þat on side and in þat oþere; 
and knyȝtes also foughten togeder wonder sore,
and among oþere Sir Hunfray de Bohoun, 
Erl of Hereford,
a worþi knyght of renoune þrouȝout al Christendome,
stode & fauȝt with his enemys apon þe brigge.
And as the noble lord stode and fauȝt oppon þe brugge,
a þef,
a ribaude,
scolkede vnder þe brigge,
and fersly wiþ a spere smote the noble knyght
into þe fondement,
so þat his bowailles comen out þere.
Allas þe sorwe!
for þere was slayn
þe flore of solace and of comfort
& also of courtesy . . . 

¶ Men might see archers drawn up one side and down the other,
while knights also fought there wondrous sore;
among the rest,
Sir Humphrey de Bohun, 
Earl of Hereford,
a worthy knight of renown throughout all Christendom,
stood and fought his enemies upon the bridge.
And as that noble lord 
stood and fought upon the bridge,
some brigand,
a ribaud, 
skulking under the bridge,
fiercely with a spear smote the noble knight
in the fundament
so his bowels fell out thereon. 
Alas for pity!
for there was slain
the flower of solace and of comfort,
and of courtesy . . . 

This is an extract from the Brut Chronicle, a collection of historical texts produced from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, at first in Anglo-Norman French, then translated and continued in Latin, Middle English and Welsh. The version I am following here is the Early English Text Society edition of 1906-08. It is taken from Chapter 197, Of þe Scomfiture of Burbrigge.

On March 16, 1322, lords opposed to the government of Edward II, led by the Earl of Lancaster, were confronted on the Great Northern Road by the Sheriff of Carlisle, Sir Andrew de Harcla with a few thousand men called from Cumbria and Westmorland. With Edward himself in pursuit, Lancaster was compelled to force the crossing at Boroughbridge with the couple of thousand men he had to hand. 

Archaeologists note English Medieval bridges were often built to complement rather than replace a ford; the bridge provided a dry crossing for travellers on foot or leading packhorses, while the broader ford allowed carts, wagons, bodies of horse and livestock to make the passage. At Boroughbridge, a wooden footbridge below the town spanned the River Ure, with a ford a few minutes down river; Harcla needed to defend both crossings. 

This extract related to the attempt led by Earl of Hereford to carry the bridge while Lancaster himself led the attack across the ford. All sources agree the assault on the bridge failed, and that Hereford was among the fallen; the Brut, however, takes a turn for the folkloric. 

Another of the battles fought around York featured a heroic bridge death. The footbridge held by a single Norwegian at Stamford Bridge in 1066 was also eventually taken down by someone under the trestle with a spear, which makes me wonder whether this is a literary echo of that; if not, the two notable instances of this very specific way to die both happened in the vicinity of the same city. 

The man delivering the blow is a þef, a ribaud'; a robber or brigand, but also a ribaud, a lightly armed marauder employed by armies along the Borders. That lends Hereford's death an irony which again points towards literary invention; the worþi knyght of renoune þrouȝout al Christendome is killed in the most unglamourous way imaginable by the least of men, an outlaw. And yet, the forensic examination of the skeletal remains of Richard III revealed evidence of bladed thrusts to the pelvic region, consistant with what is being described here; the archaeologists interpreted these as most likely post mortem, but one of the grisly realities of warfare during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is that if you were wearing a full harness of plate and mail, your opponants were in the business of tripping you up, throwing you down and stabbing you in the face, groin or bum. 

What happens here, however, is not what happened to Richard, who was overwhelmed by a succession of blows. Rather, it is more akin to the field dressing of a hart or boar; he is cut open, and his internal organs pulled down and out. That would entail a lot more than a stab up the bottom, but a cutting thrust which then twists or hooks the bowels onto the bridge, a spectacular wound to inflict. According to the sources, the attempt on the bridge faltered on Hereford's death; the loss of moral leadership would account for that, but so also would his bursting in front of everyone owing to an attack from below. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't cross that bridge in the light of that, either. 

The folkloric quality and literary irony suggest this is an invention; later in the account, Lancaster prophesies that Harcla will die a villainous death before the year is out, which in fact he did, indicted and executed for treason by the king he helped secure on the throne. The other sources don't mention it at all. The Arthurian Romances contain plenty of spectacular deaths like this, limbs flying off during jousts a l'outrance and so forth, and the symbolism of the disabling blow to the genitals has its own resonance for Arthurian traditionalists. It also draws the line between hunting and warfare, the way the tools and skills of the one are applied to the other. The anonymous ribaud might as well be a poacher as a robber, and waiting in ambush to strike with a spear is an aspect of the chase. 

Something that might point towards this reading is that Hereford stode. This is the term applied to the Hart when he turns on his pursuers (if you're following my current work on Gascoigne's Noble Art of Venery, you'll be familiar with it). He stands and fights like a cornered stag, and is taken down by the kind of person who'd play that role in a hunt; then, he is dressed and displayed. 

This confluence of folklore and literature with history, and of the language and methodology of the battlefield and the hunt, is something I'm going to be looking into quite a lot. But this is a good place to start, with a brief episode during a small battle. 

Illustrated: A high-status German boar spear dated to the mid-fifteenth century, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. The broad leaf-shaped blade is intended to cause a deep wide wound channel, and so a rapid death; the wings at the base at to prevent over-penetration, and better hold the beast to allow other blows to be delivered, or push back against a beast making its stand.