‘Ah! Freedom is a Noble Thing’, by John Barbour

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CLERKS may question,* when they fall into debate, whether, if a man bid his thrall do aught, and at the same time the thrall’s wife come to him and demand her due, he should leave undone his lord’s behest, and first pay his debt, and afterwards fulfil his lord’s command, or leave his wife unpaid, and do what he is ordered. I leave the solution to them of more renown. But since they make such comparison between the duties of marriage and a lord’s bidding to his thrall, ye may see verily, though none tell you, how hard a thing this thraldom is. For wise men know well that marriage is the strongest bond that any man can undertake.*

But thraldom is far worse than death. As long as a thrall lives it mars him, body and bones, while death troubles him but once.

by John Barbour ?1320-1395

Abridged from ‘The Bruce’ compiled in 1375 by John Barbour (?1320-1395), edited (1907) by George Eyre-Todd (1862-1937).

* Barbour was Archdeacon of the Kirk of St Machar in Aberdeen, and himself a clerk of audit to the Royal Household.

* Barbour’s argument is that if a serf owes a duty to his lord akin to the marriage bond, a married serf is in a terrible position because he must decide whether his first duty is to his lord or to his wife. John Balliol was on the horns of the same dilemma: whether his first duty was to his master Edward I, or to his wife the Scottish people. For Barbour, no King or State should ever drift into such a conflict of loyalties. Scotland’s king must be sovereign, and not subject to a foreign lord. (Barbour’s argument is a little blurred today because ever since Scotsman James VI became James I of England in 1603, the King of Scotland and the King of England has been the same person; a closer modern parallel might be Scotland’s relationship with the European Union.)

Précis

Barbour noted how some lawyers equated duties to a feudal lord with the duties of marriage. But what about a married serf: where does his first loyalty lie? Barbour said a Scottish king under English lordship had a similar conflict of loyalties, one so intolerable and so insoluble that his condition was worse than death itself.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

What was the question Barbour had heard clerks debate?

Suggestion

Whether wife or master should come first.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

A man asks his servant to do something. The servant’s wife asks him to do something. Which should he do first?

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

IBidding. IIIf. IIIObey.

Précis

Questions for Critics

Sevens

Jigsaws

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