..."reformation" the realm desired by the Kentish people and their captain, which is characterized by Holinshed's Chronicle as "the punishing and reforming of the misdemaenors of [the King and the 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 the history play printed in 1594, very likely performed in 1590 or 1591, and then reedited in the 1600 and 1619 Quartos before its publication in the Folio. The return to the "liberty" promised by Shakespeare's Cade supposes much more than the abolition of any new taxes. It requires the abolition of private appropriation of the land, the disappearance of a monetary economy, the suppression of the signs which exposed the inequalities of status: "All the 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 the lawyers" is another of the slogans of the rebels, uttered by Dick the butcher and taken up by Cade: "Nay, that I mean to do." Why such hatred against the lawyers? Because they handle the two instruments that impose an unjust oppression: parchment and wax. In denouncing the tyrannical power of writing Cade distorts and gives a Christian resonance to an old juridical formula: "Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man?" (Or in the slightly different text of the Quarto: "Why is it not a miserable thing, that of the 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 the authority assigned to the words inscribed on the skin of a dead animal does not have, as many of the other formulas or mottos he uses, its origins in the familiar tropes of popular protest. The image was in fact introduced in the mid-thirteenth century by Sinibaldo dei Fieschi, the future Pope Innocent IV, in his Apparatus or commentary to Gregory IX's Decretales: "Contra jus gentium fuit inventum a jure civili, ut credatur pelli animali mortui"--against the "jus gentium" the civil law has decided that we must believe in the skin of a dead animal. Such a gloss gave a striking formulation of an idea already expressed one century earlier against the Roman civil law and according to which the "viva vox," the 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 the situations in which the authenticity of a property transaction was at stake. In such a case the oral testimonies of those who had attended and eye-witnessed the juridical act must always be preferred to the evidence given by the written document itself. (3)

But from the twelfth century on, the privilege granted to "viva vox" was widely extended and used for establishing the superiority of the oral testimonies given by witnesses whose juridical and social condition could guarantee their capacity to speak the truth. A French juridical saying likewise affirmed that "temoins passent lettres"--witnesses are superior to written records. It is such an "auricular assurance" 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 the words of his son than reading the letter he has supposedly sent to Edmund. (4)

For medieval commentators, only the power of the pope, the emperor, or the king could endow the skin of a dead animal with a credibility that is "contra jus" and almost "contra naturam." In this sense the Cade imagined by Shakespeare is not wrong when he links the authority of the "scribbled parchment" able to "undo a man" with the power of the officials who are or claim to be in charge of enforcing the royal orders. For Cade as for the lawyers the seal is the instrument that operates the "miracle" of transforming the lamb's skin into evidence that must be believed. According to the commentators of the Roman Law, the "sigillum," or seal, is the material "signum" that authenticates the silent "voice" of writing. It is then not surprising...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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