In 1407, a strange sight appeared at the gates to the city of Hildesheim, in Lower Saxony.The Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund was rumored to be residing there, and a large group of people had gathered there to petition him for safe passage through the empire. They carried papers from some lesser nobles, and were given a donation by the Town Clerk's Office after claiming to be penitents and pilgrims. So begins the Hokkano Baro, The Great Trick, and the entry of the Romani people into Western Europe
Was this the first entry into Western Europe by the people we call Gypsies? Probably not. This was the first time that they used the idea that they were penitents to their advantage, though. Penitents in the Middle Ages were given a wide array of advantages, from alms to food to safe conduct papers so the people helping the penitents could "share the blessings" that descended on the pilgrim.
They received letters from Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor, granting them safe passage through all lands under his domain, catching up with him in Lindau on Lake Constance in 1417, it is believed. This letter of safe passage was copied multiple times, one of which was shown to an Englishman in 1550. One group was received in Frankfurt in June of 1418 with one of the letters and was given bread and meat. In the documentation of the time, the first mention of "the needy people of Little Egypt" is made.
On the 10 of August, 1418, Colmar, France was visited by 30 "Heiden" with women and children. When these thirty left, they were replaced by a further 100. In the chronicles of the time, their dark skin is emphasized as usual, but also a description of the women's garb is given as "they were dressed in rags that looked like blankets pinned to the shoulder".
A year later, we are given the first names that the Romani used, at least for their leaders. On the 20th of August, 1419, "Andrew, Duke of Little Egypt" and 120 followers arrived at St. Laurent, where the town gave them bread and wine after they showed their papers from the Holy Roman Emperor and the Duke of Savoy. In January, 1420 they arrived in Brussels, where they were given provisions and gold coin.
By September 1421, a group led by "Sir Miquiel, prince of Latinghem in Egypt" and his followers are mentioned as arriving in Tournai. There are two tapestries attributed to Tournai artisans that depict was is believed to be Romanies from this time period, though the depiction of the female dancers are in question as to being realistic. They returned to Tournai in May of 1422 and were allowed to stay in the marketplace.
On 11 October, 1421, we find the first concise description of the garb that these "Egyptians" wore. An alderman in Burgundian Arras wrote of
'30 foreigners from the country of Egypt' who arrived led by a count bearing letters from the Emperor; .... The men were very dark-skinned, long-haired and heavily bearded, while the women had cloths wound around their heads like turbans, and wore low-cut chemises covered by a coarse sheet fastened at the shoulder; women and children had rings in their ears. (1)
Duke Andreas arrived in Bologna on the 18th of July, 1422 with a band of approximately 100 and stayed a fortnight, he in the local inn and his people settled inside and outside one of the city gates. While there, he told the story of why they were told to wander for seven years for lapsing in the Christian faith after his lands were confiscated by the Muslims, adding that the King of Hungary supposedly allowed them to thieve whatever they wished for those seven years. During that time, though, they were supposed to go to the Pope so he could hear their confession and decide if they were to go on wandering.
In Spain, the first mention of the Romani is from a safe conduct paper issued to "Don Johan de Egipte Menor" by Alfonso V of Aragon. For many years, the Romani stay almost exclusively Aragon and Catalonia, showing up in Barcelona in 1447, and Andalusia in 1462.
They appear at the gates of the city of Paris, staying from the 17th of August until the 8th of September. First, a duke, a count and 10 men on horseback arrived and were invited into the city. Then their followers came, finally amassing to around 300 people outside of the city gates. They told the now standard tale of the wandering as penance, and showed letters from the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope stating they had safe passage and to give alms to them.
The Romani seem to have been generally treated with the respect given to most penitents until the last decade of the 15th century, when the "Seven years penance" story held less and less water. One begins to see a steady habit of paying them off to not come into the towns and cities they were once welcomed into, beginning in Germany, but spreading to the majority of Europe. This is when you see at least one group of those wandering cross the English Channel.
The first undisputed record of Romani being in Britain comes from the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland in 1505. The records state that James IV gave monies to the "Egiptianis". He seems to have had a good relationship with them, as the payment stated above seems to have been for entertainment provided by the Gypsies, though it could have just been a charitable "donation" to the pilgrims.
In England, the first mention of Romani is in A Dyalogue of Syr Thomas More where it is stated that an "Egypcian" woman was lodging in Lambeth, where she told fortunes in 1514.
It wasn't until 1530 where you see the first state action against the Romani, when Henry VIII proposed the "Egyptians Act". In it he banned further immigration and required those already on British soil to depart voluntarily within 16 days or suffer the confiscation of their goods and property, imprisonment and deportation, unless they were to settle and cease wandering. Unlike in other countries where they wanted to simply dispose of the "annoyance" of the Romani, this act seems to have stemmed from the fact that Henry wanted to enforce settlement, not just on Romani but on all of the nomadic groups in Britain, such as the tinkers and the travellers.
In Scotland, however, they were allowed to self-rule by 1540. Many scholars believe that is more "enlightened" view to them came about because of a sketch found in Arras labeled "L´Égyptienne quy rendist santé part art de médicine au roy d´Escoce abandonné des médecins" (The Egyptian woman who by medical art restored health to the King of Scotland, given up by the physicians). The King in question is still up for some speculation, but James V is the most likely. He spent eight and a half months in France, where his first wife was from.
Steadily the way that Romani were thought of degraded, but they still retained to most an air of mystery, closing themselves and their language off to others, and never becoming assimilated with the other groups they were around, even to the modern era. Some argue that they did try to hide themselves away, yet there is nothing to say that they did this. The Romani always stood out, especially in Europe because of their dark skins, and they never blended in, almost, it seems, on purpose. At the end of period, the gypsies were misunderstood and shunned, and post-period, the Victorians in particular romanticized the way that the Romani are thought of, even today. Only slowly are we finding out the truth of how the Romani came to Europe, and every day there are more and more scholarly publications coming out as to new and revisited information regarding the Romanies.
(1) From Gypsies: Peoples of Europe - Angus Fraser, 1994.
Rakli Zada Orlenda
MKA Amber Hansford
hawthorn62@hotmail.com
Gypsies: from India to the Mediterranean - Donald Kenrick, 1993. University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN: 2865650820
Gypsies: Peoples of Europe - Angus Fraser, 1994. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN: 0631196056
Pariah Syndrome - Ian Hancock, 1987. Karoma Publishers, Inc. ISBN: 0897200799
A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia - David M. Crowe, 1996. St. Martin's Press. ISBN: 0312129467
Historical Dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanes) - Donald Kenrick and Gillian Taylor, 1998. Scarecrow Press. ISBN: 0810834448
Handbook of the Vlax Romani - Ian Hancock, 1995. Slavica Publishers. ISBN: 0893572586
The Rom: Walking the Paths of the Gypsies - Roger Moreau, 1997. Key Porter Books. ISBN: 1550138685
Gypsies Their Life, Lore, and Legends - Konrad Bercovici, 1983. Random House Publishers. ISBN: 051741290x
Gypsies: An Illustrated History - Jean-Pierre Liegeois, 1987. Zed Books. ISBN: 0863560253
Gypsy Law: Romani Legal Traditions and Culture - Walter O. Weyrauch, Editor. 2001. University of California Press. ISBN: 0520221869
Roma, Gypsies: Texts issued by International Institutions - University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN: 1902806158
English Gypsies and State Policies - David Mayall. University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN: 0090045864X
We Are the Romani People - Dr. Ian Hancock. University of Hertfordshire Press. ISBN: 1902806190
http://www.patrin.com/ - The Patrin Web Journal: Romani Culture and History
http://www.gypsyloresociety.org/ - The Gypsy Lore Society
http://www.romani.org/ - Romani.org homepage
http://www.domresearchcenter.com/ - Dom Research Center - Middle East and North African Gypsy Studies
http://www.isidore-of-seville.com/goudenhoorn/72karin.html - Golden Horn - A Journal of Byzantium
http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/gypsy/intro.htm - Gypsy Collections at the University of Liverpool
http://www.herts.ac.uk/UHPress/Gypsies.html - University of Hertfordshire Press - Romani Publications
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Bridge/5847/english.htm - O Vurdon
http://website.lineone.net/~rtfhs/ - Romany & Traveller Family History Society
http://www.romove.cz/roma/ - Roma in the Czech Republic
http://www2.arnes.si/~eusmith/Romany/ - Romany Language
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-69051/romapeople.html - The Roma People
http://www.interlog.com/~leerom/roma/articles.html - Kopachi Roma Articles
http://www.globetek-networks.com/roma/history.htm - The Rromani People's Origins
http://www.geocities.com/domarisociety - The Domari Society - Gypsies in Israel
http://www.eurrenet.com/ - Centre de Recherches Tsiganes - Centre for Gypsy Research at the Université René Descartes, Paris (English mirror site available from index)
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