Jack Cade, the Skin of a Dead Lamb, and the Hatred for Writing

Abstract

BURN ALL THE RECORDS of realm. (1) commentators of Part Two of Henry VI have acknowledged that one of main features attributed by Shakespeare to Cade's rebellion as it is staged in play is violent hatred for any form, any presence, any use of written word. The reformation of realm desired by Kentish people and their captain, which is characterized by Holinshed's Chronicle as the punishing and reforming of misdemaenors of [the King and Queen's] bad counselors, that neither fifteens [a property tax] should hereafter be demanded nor once any impositions or taxes be spoken of, (2) is radically reinterpreted in history play printed in 1594, very likely performed in 1590 or 1591, and then reedited in 1600 and 1619 Quartos before its publication in Folio. The return to liberty promised by Shakespeare's Cade supposes much more than abolition of any new taxes. It requires abolition of private appropriation of land, disappearance of a monetary economy, suppression of signs which exposed inequalities of status: All realm shall be in common.... There shall be no money, all shall eat and drink on my scores, and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord. Let's kill all lawyers is another of slogans of rebels, uttered by Dick butcher and taken up by Cade: Nay, that I mean to do. such hatred against lawyers? Because they handle two instruments that impose an unjust oppression: parchment and wax. In denouncing tyrannical power of writing Cade distorts and gives a Christian resonance to an old juridical formula: Is not this a lamentable thing, that of skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? (Or in slightly different text of Quarto: Why is it not a miserable thing, that of skin of an innocent Lambe parchment should be made, and then with a little blotting over with inke, a man should undo himselfe.) Cade's mistrust of authority assigned to words inscribed on skin of a dead animal does not have, as many of other formulas or mottos he uses, its origins in familiar tropes of popular protest. The image was in fact introduced in mid-thirteenth century by Sinibaldo dei Fieschi, future Pope Innocent IV, in his Apparatus or commentary to Gregory IX's Decretales: Contra fuit inventum a jure civili, ut credatur pelli animali mortui--against jus gentium civil law has decided that we must believe in skin of a dead animal. Such a gloss gave a striking formulation of an idea already expressed one century earlier against Roman civil law and according to which viva vox, live voice, has to be considered as a evidence more decisive than any written text. In Justinian's Novellae such a preference was indeed mentioned, but it was limited to situations in which authenticity of a property transaction was at stake. In such a case oral testimonies of those who had attended and eye-witnessed juridical act must always be preferred to evidence given by written document itself. (3) But from twelfth century on, privilege granted to viva vox was widely extended and used for establishing superiority of oral testimonies given by witnesses whose juridical and social condition could guarantee their capacity to speak truth. A French juridical saying likewise affirmed that temoins passent lettres--witnesses are superior to written records. It is such an that Edmund uses for convincing Gloucester of Edgar's unfaithfulness: If your honor judge it meet, I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by auricular assurance have your satisfaction. The proof of Edgar's betrayal will be more evident for Gloucester listening to words of his son than reading letter he has supposedly sent to Edmund. …