Richard the “Lion Hearted” Plantagenet, like many medieval European monarchs, bore a symbolic crest which depicted a lion as part of his masculine heritage. In a world that had not seen a living lion for over 500 years, and then only one imported from far off Indian, or ferried down the Nile in a cage, European ruling families continued to associate their family line with what was in essence a legendary beast. They might as well have carried dragon banners around. Civilization had eradicated the European Lion. The barbarian lords that snatched up the ruble of that crumbling civilization and aspired to ruling a portion of it grasped at the image o the lion.

It is likely that the crown favored by European royalty was an imitation of the lion’s mane. In the 700s Charlemagne may have had a lion caged in a bestiary. In the 1200s perhaps the apostate Holy Roman Emperor, “Stupor Munde” had a lion in his menagerie. It is unlikely in the extreme that more than a handful of medieval Europeans ever saw a lion, or even a lion hide, over the course of a thousand years. Yet the most defiant of predators remained the symbol of many a noble house, and still finds expression on flags to this day. The modern American fashion for naming sports teams after our extinct Indian enemies—as well as the Detroit Lions and Penn State college team—reflects a similar urge to “lionize’ our fallen ancestral foes, and is curiously facing abolishment by emasculatory forces in the twilight of western masculine culture.

The verse below was possibly penned around 1700 and most likely composed earlier, and is unattributed. I found it in a rare boxing collection when researching The Broken Dance in 1998.

Now they dight them speedily

These three knights, to set to sea,

Hoisted sail, the wind was good,

Swift they crossed the salt sea flood,

Into Flanders did they go,

Richard, and his comrades two;

Took their way, with gladsome cheer,

Thro’ strange lands, both far and near.

Thus they spied the Holy Land,

How to win it to their hand;

Homeward turned their face at last,

Into England fain had passed.

When they came o’er the great sea

To Almayne, those palmers three,

There they wrought, ere hence they go,

That which brought them mickle woe;

How it chanced I now will tell,

Lordings, listen to me well!

They had bought a goose for fare

In the tavern where they were;

Richard stirred the fire, I wit,

Thomas set the goose on spit,

Fulk d’Oyley, he trimmed the wood—

Very dear they bought their food!

When they well had dined that day

Came a minstrel on his way,

And he quoth: “Good men, he ye

Pleased to hear my minstrelsie?”

Richard bade him forth to go,

Words that turned to mickle woe,

For he laid his speech to mind,

Saying: “Ye be men unkind,

Ye shall rue, if so I may,

That ye gave me naught to-day,

Gentlemen should well entreat

Minstrels whom they chance to meet,

Of their meat and drink be free,

Fame is spread thro’ minstrelsie!”

English, he the English knew

By their speech, and look, and hue;

On this road he went that day

Where the King of Almayne lay,

To the castle hath he gone,

With the porter spake anon:

“Go, nor wait for summoning,

Speak thus to thy lord the King:

“There be come unto thy land

Palmers three, a valiant band,

In Christendom the strongest they

And their names I’ll tell straightway,

‘T is King Richard, warrior grim,

Comrades twain he leads with him,

Sir Fulk d’Oyley, or renown,

And Sir Thomas of Moltoun.”

Sped the porter to the hall,

Told his lord these tidings all,

Glad, the king, he harkened there

And by Heaven an oat he aware

He who brought to him the tale

For reward he should not fail.

Then his knights he bade straightway

To the city take their way:

“Take ye now these palmers three,

Bring them swiftly here to me.”

Forth in haste those knights have gone

Unto Richard came anon,

Asked: “Who here at meat be?”

Richard answered fair and free:

“We be plamers three, no less,

Come from lands of heatheness,”

Spake the knights in answer there

“To the king ye needs must fare

Of your tidings is he fain—”

With the three they turn again;

When King Rchard he did see,

“Dieu Me Garde,” he quoth, “ ‘t is he—

Yea, in sooth, my deadly foe,

Hence he shall not lightly go!”

Straight he doth at them demand,

“Say, what seek ye in my land?”

Quoth again: “With traitorous eye

Ye be come my lands spy,

Treason would ye work on me!”

Quoth King Richard, readily,

“We be palmers three, sooth to say,

From God’s Land we pass this way.”

Called the King on Richard’s name,

Spake unto him words of shame:

“Now for king I know thee well,

These thy knights, tho’ sooth to tell

Thou dost seem but ill bedight;

So I say it is but right

That thou in foul dungeon lie

Right and reason here have I!”

The tale of Richard “The Lion-hearted” being captured and held by the Austrian King was set at the same time as the mythic story of Robin Hood. Richard—despite neglecting his patrimony—has, since the High Middle Ages, been lauded as a model of masculine honor for various reasons. First and foremost, was that he fought the great Muslim general Saladin to a draw. The second, was that he was an adventurer king, along the classic Alexandrian type, who suffered indignities at the hands of a lesser domestic king on his way home from the Crusades while his weak brother hung on meekly at home as the reviled—by the common people—model of the domesticated king manipulated by lesser lords.