The Outlaws of Ennor: (Knights Templar 16) (58 page)

I
feel I should make it clear that the terrible affliction which so persecuted Isok is not a figment of my over-strained imagination. It is based upon a real court case, as I mentioned in the Acknowledgements – the divorce of John and Tedia Lambhird.

This was a truly tragic story, but one which is not without its own black humour for us in the twenty-first century. It serves to demonstrate neatly how different life is now compared with the existence of our ancestors long before the arrival of the starchy German manners of Prince Albert.

Tedia Lambhird, like the Tedia in my story, complained about the lack of consummation of her marriage. It was already noted, because she and her husband had tried, so to speak, to get things up in public in a barn. This was not abnormal. People lived with each other in much closer proximity than we do today. There were no separate bedrooms for children: all, including parents, lived in one room. When a young couple married, they lived with his or her parents, and when they coupled, they did so with others watching. It was normal.

Thus Tedia and John tried to enlist the help of others when John’s affliction became apparent. To be unpleasantly graphic, this involved John’s brother trying to aid him in achieving an erection. Yes, this was still in front of the community generally. Clearly the attempt failed.

Next, then, came the court’s actions. The unfortunate John was to be examined
per aspectum corporis.
This involved three women chosen by the court trying to arouse him. It was a special trial, and one can only imagine the feelings of the poor groom, already forced to endure the ribald amusement of his neighbours, now expected to perform in front of a bunch of women whom he may or may not have desired.

The
object here was to see whether John was in fact impotent, or whether the two had merely grown tired of each other and sought an easy release from their vows. In John and Tedia’s case, from what the women reported, the impotence may have had a physical explanation:
hypospadias.
This is a congenital deformity of the penis, in which a small fissure occurs in the lower part of the urethra, caused by arrested development. For more details read Frederik Pedersen’s ‘Marriage Disputes in Medieval England’.

In this story I have assumed that Isok suffered from this same malformation. Any errors of description are, of course, entirely my own.

Michael Jecks