Mother Goose Rhymes And The Middle Ages

Essay, Research Paper

Mother Goose Rhymes and the Middle Ages

Medieval children learned rhymes and songs from the oral repetition of adults. As many as a quarter of the 550 texts in the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes are accurately dated before the 15th Century; many were only oral rhymes and not written down until decades after they were first popularly recited. In 1978, Helen Cooper pointed to a much larger body of potential medieval nursery rhymes, which she collected and modernized in an anthology called Great Grandmother Goose. The rhymes in her collection come from a large number of manuscripts and documented records that survive from the thirteenth century forward (Thomas 42).

There is also folklore inherited from the Middle Ages regarding the personage of the actual Mother Goose. Some believe she may have been Queen Bertha who died in 783 AD. She was the wife of Pepin and the mother of Charlemagne. She is said to have been goose-footed. Others argue that Mother Goose was the Queen of Sheba (Baring-Gould 16). The most plausible reason for the personage of Mother Goose is from the Medieval English Goose Girl. The goose girl tended geese for the entire community as a shepherd tended sheep (Johnson 14). Possibly, the goose girl sang or designed rhymes to pass the time and passed them down to other goose girls. Whoever she is, throughout the ages, Mother Goose has acted as a storyteller, passing down oral history, folklore and the superstitions of the past. She has helped to document some of the pagan beliefs of the Middle Ages and later (Ward 3).

The rhymes were commonly called Mother Goose Rhymes in approximately the late seventeenth century. In 1697, a compilation of popular folk tales was published in France by Charles Perrault called Tales of Mother Goose, Perrault told the fairy tales of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty along with nursery rhymes. This is the first known time that this personage of Mother Goose appeared in print (Thomas 15).

Majorities of the rhymes were political satires or commentaries on the way of life and the nobility in the Middle Ages. Most were written, sang, or spoken for political purposes or as a way of communicating a problem within the society they lived. The rhymes were recited from memory and varied somewhat as they were passed down (Johnson 9). Also, many of the rhymes were interpreted and changed to fit into the different countries of Medieval Europe (Ward 2).

Illiterate peasants created many of the rhymes and they were indeed fitting criticisms of the time. Only a small number of the peasants were capable of composing the rhymes, but everyone could repeat them. The opinions expressed in the rhymes were understood, appreciated, and passed down orally from generation to generation (Baring-Gould 12). Church officials were mainly the only people that could write during the Middle ages; therefore, since many of the rhymes about church corruption were not written down until long after the Middle Ages (Opie xxi).

Some of the rhymes dealt with the unfairness of the feudal system as the King received or took more and more power, land, and goods from the peasants. However, the rhymes were not only critical of kings and the nobility, but also church officials; for example, many rhymes dealt with the corrupt Cardinal Wolsey. The common people could see the corruptness of the Church; they resented the fact that the church officials were very wealthy while the peasants were struggling to survive (Johnson 13). The people judged the kings as tyrants who became wealthy at the expense of the common people (Johnson 9).

This first group of rhymes shows some of the contempt, circumstances, and feelings the peasants felt about their living conditions with a brief overview explaining the cause or circumstance behind the rhyme.

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Baa, Baa, black sheep, have you any wool?

Yes, sir, yes sir, three bags full.

One for my Master,

One for my Dame,

And one for the little boy who lives down the lane.

During the Middle Ages peasants were required to give one-third of their income to their “master”–the King; one-third to the “dame”–the nobility; and the final third for themselves–the “little boy.” One version of this rhyme ends with, “And none for the little boy.” The question is, which version is more accurate? The peasants in different areas may have changed this last line to depict the tyranny of their particular region more accurately (Ward 5).

Recently politically correct groups have reinterpreted this rhyme as being racist. It seems that a Birmingham nursery school can no longer read children Baa Baa Black Sheep because it has racist undertones. The ruling by the city council delighted political activists but left parents and teachers fuming. The Working Group Against Racism in Children’s Resources, which issues guidelines to education authorities, said: The history behind the rhyme is very negative and also very offensive to black people, due to the fact that the rhyme originates from slavery The rhyme has colonial links: `Three bags full’ refers to the three bags of wool, which the slaves were told to collect and `yes sir, yes sir’ is how the slaves would reply to the masters.”

However, most academics believe the rhyme was a protest against a wool tax in 1275. This wool tax required peasants to give a third of their income to the king (master), a third to the nobility (dame), and could keep a third for themselves (the little boy) (Baring-Gould 35).

Hickory Dickory Dock

Hickory, dickory, dock,

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one,

And down he come.

Hickory, dickory dock.

This rhyme was simply a rhyme passed down between shepherds. The “hickory, dickory, dock” chant is an example of an onomatopoeia. The words were numbers used by medieval shepherds to count their flocks. These shepherds probably came home from a hard day in the pasture and put their children to sleep by “counting sheep” with the same rhyme (Ward 15). This rhyme may be one of the oldest known rhymes and probably originated in Germany (Opie 185).

Ring Around the Rosies

Ring around the rosies

A pocket full of posies

ashes, ashes

we all fall down!

This rhyme and its interpretation are widely known to refer to the Black Plague. The Black Plague devastated Europe in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, it struck England in 1348 and killed an estimated one-third of its population (Johnson 17). Ring Around the Rosies refers to the rings that formed around the painful sores. One notion is that a pocketful of posies, a small bouquet of flowers in a shirt pocket, was believed to hold off the plague because of the smell. The poesy was also an herb that people carried to ward off illness. The ashes could be the ash of fires from the burning of personal belongings of plague victims or the ashes that were spread on the bodies of the ill to try to prevent more spreading of the disease (Johnson 17). “We all fall down!” obviously represents the devastation of all the dying.

Three Wise Men of Gotham

Three wise men of Gotham

Went to sea in a bowl

If the bowl had been stronger

My song would be longer.

From the Middle Ages until about the end of the last century, Gotham was well known for the stupidity of its inhabitants. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries many stories were told of their foolishness. For example, in order to have perpetual summer, they built a hedge around a cuckoo to keep it from flying away (Opie 193).

During King John s reign in the early thirteenth century, he and his court were scheduled to travel near the city of Gotham. The King required his subjects to provide food for the hundreds of people in his entourage. This would mean the loss of income and food for the peasants of Gotham. The grain and other food would be used up in the weeks of the visit leaving the lord of the manor bankrupt. Also, any road that the King traveled on became a King s Highway. The route used by the king would become a taxed public road thereafter. These two factors made the Gothamites unwilling to have the King visit. They decided to act like raving lunatics when the King approached so that he would not require their services or not come through their territory at all. The people of Gotham were smart enough to conceive this plan to keep the King away. The rhyme apparently started in Gotham as propaganda that would get back to the King before he traveled through their city (Johnson 19). It is unrecorded as to whether or not the plan worked.

Goosey Goosey Gander

Goosey Goosey Gander

Whither shall I wander?

Upstairs and downstairs

In my lady s chamber.

There is an old man

Who would not say his prayers.

I took him by the left leg

And threw him down the stairs.