Medieval Paradise Cockaigne – Land Of Extreme Pleasure And Luxury

Ellen Lloyd - AncientPages.com - Some myths and legends are based on memories of ancient heroes or events, some tales are pure fantasies.  There are also stories that reflect our ancestors' desire to live a different life, far away from sorrow, restrictions, and poverty. To escape the frustration of daily life was a dream to many.

The legend of Cockaigne describes a place where humans enjoy extreme pleasure and luxury. It’s difficult to image such a place could have ever existed, but sometime during the Middle Age the legend of Cockaigne was born and this unusual paradise where people enjoyed a perfect life was mentioned in various poems, songs and books.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Luilekkerland ("The Land of Cockaigne "), oil on panel (1567; Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Credit: Public Domain

The origin of the Italian name Cockaigne is not entirely clear, and it is often confused with Cockney, a dialect of the English language traditionally spoken by working-class Londoners. Scholars suggest the name Cockaigne is connected with Latin coquere, through a word meaning “cake,” the literal sense thus being “The Land of Cakes.”

Cockaigne - The Land Of Plenty Was A Medieval Paradise

For Medieval dreamers, Cockaigne – the Land of Plenty, was a paradise, an escape from earthly suffering. In Cockaigne people enjoyed plenty of food, the rivers were of wine, the houses were built of cake and barley-sugar and the streets were paved with pastry.

No-one had to worry about money because shops supplied goods for nothing. It is a place “where money has been exchanged for the good life,” wrote a medieval poet in an enthusiastic description of Cockaigne, the mythical Land of Plenty, and he who sleeps the longest, earns the most.

Your entire existence was free from sorrow and worries that so often trouble our daily lives.

According to Herman Pleij, emeritus professor of Medieval Dutch literature at the University of Amsterdam, “to the Medieval mind, modern-day western Europe comes pretty close to a bona fide Cockaigne. You have fast food available 24/7, climate control, free love, workless income, and plastic surgery to prolong youth.”

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In the Land of Plenty people practiced free love, they never argued about anything and they enjoyed eternal youth. The weather was always beautiful, and everyone was dressed in gorgeous clothes.

Everyone living at the end of the Middle Ages had heard of Cockaigne at one time or another. Where the land of Plenty was located is unknown, but it was believed to be tucked away in some remote corner of the globe.

Whether life in the land of Cockaigne was so perfect can be discussed. People were mainly occupied with idleness and gluttony, but to the Medieval peasant who had to struggle and work hard for daily food, it was undoubtedly a paradise.

In his book, Dreaming of Cockaigne, Pleij writes that “by the Middle Ages no one any longer believed in such a place, yet the stories about it continued to circulate around Europe for centuries. Apparently it was vi- tally important to be able to fantasize about a place where everyday worries did not exist and overcompensation was offered in the form of dreams of the ideal life.

The Land of Plenty - Cockaigne was a dream to many people living during the Middle Ages. Image credit: alimentarium.org

The stories about Cockaigne even competed with one another for the greatest entertainment value, incorporating contrasts—as absurd as they were grotesque—to combat the fear, sometimes driven to frantic heights, that this already wretched earthly existence would suddenly take a turn for the worse. These images thus linked the seriousness of the daily fight for survival with the humor of hyperbole to produce hilarious topsy-turvy worlds that proved to have didactic functions as well, supplying directives concerning desirable social behavior and the attainment of self-knowledge, as well as encouraging reflection on the nature of earthly existence.”

People became influenced by the story of Cockaigne and it appeared in more modern literature and art.

The Brothers Grimm for example retold the fairy tale Das Märchen vom Schlaraffenland ("The Tale About the Land of Cockaigne"). In the Adventures of Pinocchio, a children novel written by Carlo Collodi, the land of Toys is said to be located in Cockaigne.

The term has also been humorously applied to London, and to the rich quarters in Paris.

Written by Ellen Lloyd – AncientPages.com

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