Blethering Skite

If you are looking for ways to hurl insults at your enemies, then the medieval world has some interesting examples for you. Taken from chronicles, literature and court cases, they show inventive ways to offer slights and invectives.

The words here are sometimes poetic and clever and sometimes just vulgar and mean, so reader discretion is advised.

Flyting

A practice found in the British Isles and Nordic lands during the Middle Ages was flyting – a game where two people would exchange insults against each other in front of an audience. It has been coined the medieval version of a rap battle. A famous example is The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie, recorded in Scotland around the year 1500. Here are the opening lines of what Kennedie said about Dunbar:

Dirty Dunbar, on whom do you blow your boast?

Pretending to write such slanderous screeds,

Raw-mouthed rebel, you fall down at the joust.

My laureate letters I loose at your deeds;

Mandrake, manikin, master only of mead,

Thrice-shelled trickster with a threadbare gown,

Say Deo mercy, or I’ll cry you down;

Leave your rhyming, rebel, with your wit’s weeds.