CHAPTER I

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.

THE ART OF NARRATION

THIS IS

_A COMPANION VOLUME_

TO

THE ART OF DESCRIPTION

BY MARJORIE H. NICOLSON

Goucher College

THE ART OF

NARRATION

_By_

MARY ELLEN CHASE

_and_

FRANCES K. DEL PLAINE

THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

F. S. Crofts & Co.

New York

1928

COPYRIGHT, 1926, F. S. CROFTS & CO., INC.

_First printing, May, 1926_

_Second printing, May, 1928_

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

BY VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK.

PREFACE

For many years the teaching of narrative writing in American colleges

was dominated by the popularity of the short-story. The reason

for this lay in the high development of that form and in its wide

dissemination in popular magazines. In many cases, material not

strictly suited to the short-story was either rejected entirely or

distorted to fit the highly specialized requirements of that form.

Within the last ten years a change has become apparent. The war

produced a marked rise of interest in straightforward narratives of

personal experiences. Such books as _The First Hundred Thousand_

needed no plot structure to attract public attention. At the same

time, interest in the lives of non-combatants in the war zones,

as well as in the experiences of soldiers in the trenches gave to

letters and diaries a greater popularity than they had enjoyed for

a generation. Since the war, biography and autobiography have been

greeted with warmest enthusiasm, and historical fiction of various

kinds has taken a prominent place in public esteem.

In the meantime, college courses in narrative have been hampered

by the lack of a text book affording readily accessible models of

narratives other than short-stories. The present volume does not

pretend to afford a complete survey of the field of narration; it

is designed to furnish models and some helpful suggestions for the

study of twelve types of narratives, all of which are within the

range of the interest of college students. The selections included

are, in most cases, those we have found useful in our own classes in

Sophomore Composition.

The compilation of a book of selections leaves the editors indebted

to many people whom they are powerless to repay. Acknowledgment of

permissions to use material has been made in the body of the text,

and we are sincerely grateful to those authors and publishers whose

kindness has made our work both possible and pleasant. We have

profited greatly by suggestions and criticisms from practically

every member of the staff of Sophomore Composition at the University

of Minnesota. Furthermore we owe especial thanks to Mr. Joseph M.

Thomas of the University of Minnesota, for his kind encouragement and

generous assistance; to Miss Marjorie Nicolson, of Goucher College,

for her timely advice and counsel; and to those students in Narrative

Writing who consciously and unconsciously have cooperated with us,

and whose enthusiasm and responsiveness in the class room have been

our constant inspiration in this work.

M. E. C.

F. DEL. P.

FOREWORD

This volume is a companion to Miss Nicolson’s _The Art of

Description_. They constitute the beginning of a series which, when

completed, will furnish new illustrative material for the various

types of writing. The purpose in planning such a series was first,

of course, to provide specimens for analysis and for use as models

that would be unhackneyed both to teacher and students. Second,

there was the desire to put before the students examples of current

if not contemporary practice in so far as it was possible to secure

permission to reprint them. But most important of all was the intent

to stimulate the imagination of both teacher and student by including

many different kinds of writing which have been neglected in the more

conventional volumes of illustrative material.

The editors of this volume have been most happy in their choice of

material to carry out these three purposes. Out of the large number

of selections reprinted there are only three, from Macaulay, Froude,

and Parkman, which may be considered as classics; and these three

are all illustrative of “Historical Narrative.” Of the more modern

there is only one, John Corbin’s _A Day in an Oxford College_, which

I recall as having appeared in a similar volume. A glance at the

names of the authors in the Table of Contents will suffice to show

to what extent the work of contemporary writers has been used. It

is, I hope, not improper for me to call the attention of those who

have had no experience in the editing of books of this kind to the

increasing difficulty--and expense--of securing permission to reprint

copyrighted material. The work of the editors of this volume has been

more than doubled by their inability to reprint a large part of what

they had originally chosen. Under these circumstances they are to be

congratulated on their achievement.

But most of all it is the catholicity of their conception of

“narrative writing,” the variety of types of narrative that they

have analyzed and illustrated which is to me the outstanding merit

of their work. For a good many years I have had a steadily growing

feeling that altogether too much time and energy in our schools

and colleges have been devoted to teaching students the art of

story-telling. This feeling has grown into what may be called by

some a pedagogical obsession. There can of course be no possible

objection to developing whatever talent students may have for the

writing of stories. The point of the criticism is that this should be

considered the only talent worth cultivating. That one who can write

short stories may be able to write more simple forms of narrative may

perhaps be granted. The converse of the proposition is, however, far

from axiomatic. Have those who fail to write even acceptably mediocre

stories thereby demonstrated their inability to write other types of

narrative? Certainly this volume will give an opportunity to test

and to develop other talents and to cultivate a versatility that an

exclusive interest in the short-story is likely to forfeit.

When one has worked long and harmoniously with colleagues who are

gifted with imagination and generous with happy suggestions, it

is difficult to say to what extent ideas which now seem his own

may not be due to the invention of others. For a long time I have

been insisting that students should at least be reminded that all

narrative is not included under the category of the mechanized

short-story of the correspondence schools. I have even published an

experimental chapter in a text book calling the attention of teachers

and students to various forms of narrative of fact that might be

worth their cultivation. Perhaps that idea may have originally come

from the editors of this book. Certainly Miss Chase and Mrs. del

Plaine have gone far beyond this by enlarging also the scope of

imaginative writing. There is in this volume something to appeal to

anyone who has a gift for any form of narrative, except drama.

One great merit of this book is due not so much to its admirable plan

as to the excellence of illustrative material that has been chosen.

The majority of young people are likely to be absorbed in stories

because they have a belief that other kinds of writing are likely to

be non-entertaining or even dull. Here is a collection of narratives

that ought to disabuse them of any such prejudice. Whatever other

merits these selections may have--and they are neither inconspicuous

nor inconsiderable--their outstanding quality is interestingness. One

reads them with almost the voluptuous absorption which according to

Stevenson is the essential of romance. And this is as it should be.

J. M. THOMAS

Minneapolis, Minn. March 8, 1926

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE v

FOREWORD vii

CHAPTER I

EXPOSITORY NARRATIVE 1

_David Starr Jordan_ The Story of a Salmon 3

_William Stearns Davis_ A Medieval Wedding 11

_John Corbin_ A Day in an Oxford College 20

_Eileen Power_ The Peasant Bodo 28

Selected Bibliography of Expository Narrative 47

CHAPTER II

INCIDENTS 48

_Incidents from the Life of Lord Frederick Hamilton_ 49

_Marguerite Audoux_ The Fiancée 52

_Mark Twain_ Jim Wolf and the Cats 56

_Stewart Edward White_ The Hunting Trip 59

Selected Bibliography of Incidents 70

CHAPTER III

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE 71

_Thomas Babington Macaulay_ The Black Hole of

Calcutta 73

_James Anthony Froude_ The Marriage of Henry

and Anne Boleyn 78

_Francis Parkman_ The Hardihood of La Salle 83

Selected Bibliography of Historical Narrative 92

CHAPTER IV

HISTORICAL FICTION 94

_James Branch Cabell_ The Story of the Fox-Brush 96

Selected Bibliography of Historical Fiction 117

CHAPTER V

TALES AND LEGENDS 118

_Selma Lagerlöf_ In Nazareth 122

_William Canton_ The Song of the Minster 127

_Anatole France_ Juggler to Our-Lady 132

_James Stevens_ Paul Bunyon 139

_Selma Lagerlöf_ The Legend of the Christmas Rose 156

Selected Bibliography of Legends and Tales 175

CHAPTER VI

FAIRY TALES, ALLEGORIES, PARABLES AND FABLES 176

_Eleanor Farjeon_ The King’s Barn 179

_Oscar Wilde_ The Happy Prince 211

_Olive Schreiner_ Truth 222

_The Contributor’s Club_, “The Atlantic Monthly”

A Parable for Philanthropists 235

_Robert Louis Stevenson_ The Tadpole and the Frog 239

Selected Bibliography of Fairy Tales, Allegories,

Parables and Fables 239

CHAPTER VII

BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVE 241

_Llewelyn Powys_ Beau Nash 243

_Lytton Strachey_ Lady Hester Stanhope 248

_Stephen Chalmers_ The Beloved Physician 258

Selected Bibliography of Biographical Narrative 279

CHAPTER VIII

REMINISCENT NARRATIVE 280

_Ludwig Lewisohn_ My Fate 283

_Laura Spencer Portor_ The Photograph 287

_Lord Frederick Hamilton_ My Childhood 293

_Henry W. Nevinson_ Shrewsbury School 300

_Kenneth Grahame_ The Burglars 310

_Juliet Soskice_ The Kitchen 318

Selected Bibliography of Reminiscent Narrative 327

CHAPTER IX

NARRATIVES OF ADVENTURE 328

_R. B. Townshend_ Wild Justice 331

_Herbert Quick_ The Blizzard 352

_J. H. Rosny_ The Attack of the Tiger 364

_Pierre Loti_ The Storm 372

Selected Bibliography of Narratives of Adventure 379

CHAPTER X

NARRATIVES OF TRAVEL 381

_Julian Street_ The Departure 384

_Christopher Morley_ Up the Wissahickon 390

_Robert Louis Stevenson_ Travels with a Donkey

Our Lady of the Snows--Father Apollinaris 394

The Monks 399

Selected Bibliography of Narratives of Travel 406

CHAPTER XI

SKETCHES 407

_Robert Louis Stevenson_ The Lantern Bearers 408

_Felix Timmermans_ Kermis Morning 414

_Grace E. Polk_ The Forger 422

_John Galsworthy_ Quality 427

Selected Bibliography of Sketches 435

CHAPTER XII

STORIES 436

_H. C. Bunner_ A Sisterly Scheme 439

_Francis Buzzell_ Lonely Places 450

_Guy de Maupassant_ Two Friends 467

_Willa Cather_ The Sculptor’s Funeral 475

Selected Bibliography of Short Stories 494

THE ART OF NARRATION

CHAPTER I

_Expository Narrative_

Expository narrative tells a story not primarily for the sake of the

story, but for the sake of the information conveyed to the reader.

It is really narration turned to serve the purposes of exposition.

It is particularly useful in explaining a process, the work of

any particular trade or profession, or the details of existence

in any time or place. The chronological order carries the reader

along without difficulty, and the fact that the account deals with

a specific example makes it more interesting than a generalized

explanation could be.

In using this method, it is necessary to choose a subject in which

the succession of events is of genuine importance. Explanation of a

condition or situation does not have movement enough, and a process

which is largely hidden from sight or which is too complicated to

be readily followed lacks the necessary story element. It is best,

therefore, to choose a subject in which one may discern a clear march

of events, preferably with an unmistakable beginning and end, such as

the first step in the treatment of raw material and the completion

of the finished article, or, in another case, the morning and the

evening of a single day. Having chosen such a subject, fix upon one

occasion which is both typical and interesting, and begin at the

beginning of the story, leaving necessary explanations to be brought

in later. A particularly interesting incident may be related as

happening on this imaginary occasion, or the thread of the narrative

may break off to permit a slight digression, as in “A Day in an

Oxford College” when the anecdote of the two brothers is inserted,

not as having happened on the particular day whose events are being

recounted, but as being true of the time of day which the narrative

has reached.

The great advantage of expository narrative is that it is usually the

most readable form in which to present the material for which it is

suitable. Dr. David Starr Jordan’s story of the individual salmon,

though quite as scientific as the generalized explanations in biology

textbooks, is much more attractive to the average reader. Such

stories as “A Medieval Wedding” and “The Peasant Bodo” escape the

dullness of most histories, and bring before us these medieval people

in their habits as they lived. “A Day in an Oxford College” is both

interesting and clear in its explanation of a mode of life which is

so different from that in an American college that American students

find it hard to comprehend.

In his very interesting little book, “America at Work,” Mr. Joseph

Husband uses expository narrative to show the romance and fascination

of such work-a-day tasks as running a locomotive, making telephone

connections, and even manufacturing coffins.

In writing expository narrative, the beginner may find the following

suggestions helpful:

1. Choose a subject which has a good deal of action inherent in it.

2. Present details which are not too technical for the lay reader,

and use whatever description is necessary to make them clear.

3. Look for the human interest in the story--how the process

serves people, or how people are affected by the environment you

are presenting.

F. del P.

THE STORY OF A SALMON

DAVID STARR JORDAN

In the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the boundary-line between the

dark fir-forest and the sunny plains, there stands a mountain, a

great white cone two miles and a half in perpendicular height. On its

lower mile the dense fir-woods cover it with never-changing green; on

its next half-mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives place

in winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the snows of the great

ice age still linger in unspotted purity. The people of Washington

Territory say that their mountain is the great “King-pin of the

Universe,” which shows that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is

not without honor.

Flowing down from the southwest slope of Mount Tacoma is a cold,

clear river, fed by the melting snows of the mountain. Madly it

hastens down over white cascades and beds of shining sands, through

birch-woods and belts of dark firs, to mingle its waters at last

with those of the great Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz; and on

its bottom, not many years ago, there lay half buried in the sand

a number of little orange-colored globules, each about as large

as a pea. These were not much in themselves, but great in their

possibilities. In the waters above them little suckers and chubs and

prickly sculpins strained their mouths to draw these globules from

the sand, and vicious-looking crawfish picked them up with their

blundering hands and examined them with their telescopic eyes. But

one, at least, of the globules escaped their curiosity, else this

story would not be worth telling. The sun shone down on it through

the clear water, and the ripples of the Cowlitz said over it their

incantations, and in it at last awoke a living being. It was a

fish,--a curious little fellow, not half an inch long, with great,

staring eyes, which made almost half his length, and with a body so

transparent that he could not cast a shadow. He was a little salmon,

a very little salmon; but the water was good, and there were flies

and worms and little living creatures in abundance for him to eat,

and he soon became a larger salmon. Then there were many more little

salmon with him, some larger and some smaller, and they all had a

merry time.

Those who had been born soonest and had grown largest used to chase

the others around and bite off their tails, or, still better, take

them by the heads and swallow them whole; for, said they, “even

young salmon are good eating.” “Heads I win, tails you lose,” was

their motto. Thus, what was once two small salmon became united into

a single larger one, and the process of “addition, division, and

silence” still went on.

By-and-by, when all the salmon were too large to be swallowed,

they began to grow restless. They saw that the water rushing by

seemed to be in a great hurry to get somewhere, and it was somehow

suggested that its hurry was caused by something good to eat at the

other end of its course. Then they all started down the stream,

salmon-fashion,--which fashion is to get into the current, head

up-stream, and thus to drift backward as the river sweeps along.

Down the Cowlitz River the salmon went for a day and a night, finding

much to interest them which we need not know. At last they began to

grow hungry; and coming near the shore, they saw an angle-worm of

rare size and beauty floating in an eddy of the stream. Quick as

thought one of them opened his mouth, which was well filled with

teeth of different sizes, and put it around the angle-worm. Quicker

still he felt a sharp pain in his gills, followed by a smothering

sensation, and in an instant his comrades saw him rise straight into

the air. This was nothing new to them; for they often leaped out of

the water in their games of hide-and-seek, but only to come down

again with a loud splash not far from where they went out. But this

one never came back, and the others went on their course wondering.

At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the Columbia join, and

they were almost lost for a time; for they could find no shores, and

the bottom and the top of the water were so far apart. Here they

saw other and far larger salmon in the deepest part of the current,

turning neither to the right nor to the left, but swimming right on

up-stream just as rapidly as they could. And these great salmon would

not stop for them, and would not lie and float with the current. They

had no time to talk, even in the simple sign-language by which fishes

express their ideas, and no time to eat. They had important work

before them, and the time was short. So they went on up the river,

keeping their great purposes to themselves; and our little salmon and

his friends from the Cowlitz drifted down the stream.

By-and-by the water began to change. It grew denser, and no longer

flowed rapidly along; and twice a day it used to turn about and flow

the other way. Then the shores disappeared, and the water began to

have a different and peculiar flavor,--a flavor which seemed to the

salmon much richer and more inspiring than the glacier-water of their

native Cowlitz. There were many curious things to see,--crabs with

hard shells and savage faces, but so good when crushed and swallowed!

Then there were luscious squid swimming about; and, to a salmon,

squid are like ripe peaches and cream. There were great companies of

delicate sardines and herring, green and silvery, and it was such

fun to chase and capture them! Those who eat sardines packed in oil

by greasy fingers, and herrings dried in the smoke, can have little

idea how satisfying it is to have a meal of them, plump and sleek and

silvery, fresh from the sea.

Thus the salmon chased the herrings about, and had a merry time. Then

they were chased about in turn by great sea-lions,--swimming monsters

with huge half-human faces, long thin whiskers, and blundering ways.

The sea-lions liked to bite out the throat of a salmon, with its

precious stomach full of luscious sardines, and then to leave the

rest of the fish to shift for itself. And the seals and the herrings

scattered the salmon about, till at last the hero of our story found

himself quite alone, with none of his own kind near him. But that did

not trouble him much, and he went on his own way, getting his dinner

when he was hungry, which was all the time, and then eating a little

between meals for his stomach’s sake.

So it went on for three long years; and at the end of this time

our little fish had grown to be a great, fine salmon of twenty-two

pounds’ weight, shining like a new tin pan, and with rows of the

loveliest round black spots on his head and back and tail. One day,

as he was swimming about, idly chasing a big sculpin with a head so

thorny that he never was swallowed by anybody, all of a sudden the

salmon noticed a change in the water around him.

Spring had come again, and the south-lying snowdrifts on the Cascade

Mountains once more felt that the “earth was wheeling sunwards.” The

cold snow waters ran down from the mountains and into the Columbia

River, and made a freshet on the river. The high water went far out

into the sea, and out in the sea our salmon felt it on his gills. He

remembered how the cold water used to feel in the Cowlitz when he was

a little fish. In a blundering, fishy fashion he thought about it;

he wondered whether the little eddy looked as it used to look, and

whether caddis-worms and young mosquitoes were really as sweet and

tender as he used to think they were. Then he thought some others

things; but as the salmon’s mind is located in the optic lobes of his

brain, and ours is in a different place, we cannot be quite certain

what his thoughts really were.

What our salmon did, we know. He did what every grown salmon in

the ocean does when he feels the glacier-water once more upon his

gills. He became a changed being. He spurned the blandishment of

soft-shelled crabs. The pleasures of the table and of the chase,

heretofore his only delights, lost their charms for him. He turned

his course straight toward the direction whence the cold water

came, and for the rest of his life never tasted a mouthful of food.

He moved on toward the river-mouth, at first playfully, as though

he were not really certain whether he meant anything after all.

Afterward, when he struck the full current of the Columbia, he

plunged straightforward with an unflinching determination that had

in it something of the heroic. When he had passed the rough water

at the bar, he was not alone. His old neighbors of the Cowlitz,

and many more from the Clackamas and the Spokan and Des Chutes and

Kootanie,--a great army of salmon,--were with him. In front were

thousands pressing on, and behind them were thousands more, all

moved by a common impulse which urged them up the Columbia.

They were all swimming bravely along where the current was deepest,

when suddenly the foremost felt something tickling like a cobweb

about their noses and under their chins. They changed their course a

little to brush it off, and it touched their fins as well. Then they

tried to slip down with the current, and thus leave it behind. But,

no! the thing, whatever it was, although its touch was soft, refused

to let go, and held them like a fetter. The more they struggled, the

tighter became its grasp, and the whole foremost rank of the salmon

felt it together; for it was a great gill-net, a quarter of a mile

long, stretched squarely across the mouth of the river.

By-and-by men came in boats, and hauled up the gill-net and the

helpless salmon that had become entangled in it. They threw the

fishes into a pile in the bottom of the boat, and the others saw them

no more.

* * * * *

All this time our salmon is going up the river, eluding one net as by

a miracle, and soon having need of more miracles to escape the rest;

passing by Astoria on a fortunate day,--which was Sunday, the day on

which no man may fish if he expects to sell what he catches,--till

finally he came to where nets were few, and, at last, to where they

ceased altogether. But there he found that scarcely any of his many

companions were with him; for the nets cease when there are no more

salmon to be caught in them. So he went on, day and night, where the

water was deepest, stopping not to feed or loiter on the way, till at

last he came to a wild gorge, where the great river became an angry

torrent, rushing wildly over a huge staircase of rocks. But our hero

did not falter; and summoning all his forces, he plunged into the

Cascades. The current caught him and dashed him against the rocks. A

whole row of silvery scales came off and glistened in the water like

sparks of fire, and a place on his side became black and red, which,

for a salmon, is the same as being black and blue for other people.

His comrades tried to go up with him; and one lost his eye, one his

tail, and one had his lower jaw pushed back into his head like the

joint of a telescope. Again he tried to surmount the Cascades; and

at last he succeeded, and an Indian on the rocks above was waiting

to receive him. But the Indian with his spear was less skilful than

he was wont to be, and our hero escaped, losing only a part of one

of his fins; and with him came one other, and henceforth these two

pursued their journey together.

Now a gradual change took place in the looks of our salmon. In the

sea he was plump and round and silvery, with delicate teeth in a

symmetrical mouth. Now his silvery color disappeared, his skin grew

slimy, and the scales sank into it; his back grew black, and his

sides turned red,--not a healthy red, but a sort of hectic flush.

He grew poor; and his back, formerly as straight as need be, now

developed an unpleasant hump at the shoulders. His eyes--like those

of all enthusiasts who forsake eating and sleeping for some loftier

aim--became dark and sunken. His symmetrical jaws grew longer and

longer, and meeting each other, as the nose of an old man meets his

chin, each had to turn aside to let the other pass. His beautiful

teeth grew longer and longer, and projected from his mouth, giving

him a savage and wolfish appearance, quite at variance with his real

disposition. For all the desires and ambitions of his nature had

become centered into one. We may not know what this one was, but we

know that it was a strong one; for it had led him on and on,--past

the nets and horrors of Astoria; past the dangerous Cascades; past

the spears of Indians; through the terrible flume of the Dalles,

where the mighty river is compressed between huge rocks into a

channel narrower than a village street; on past the meadows of

Umatilla and the wheat-fields of Walla Walla; on to where the great

Snake River and the Columbia join; on up the Snake River and its

eastern branch, till at last he reached the foot of the Bitter Root

Mountain in the Territory of Idaho, nearly a thousand miles from the

ocean which he had left in April. With him still was the other salmon

which had come with him through the Cascades, handsomer and smaller

than he, and, like him, growing poor and ragged and tired.

At last, one October afternoon, our finny travellers came together to

a little clear brook, with a bottom of fine gravel, over which the

water was but a few inches deep. Our fish painfully worked his way

to it; for his tail was all frayed out, his muscles were sore, and

his skin covered with unsightly blotches. But his sunken eyes saw a

ripple in the stream, and under it a bed of little pebbles and sand.

So there in the sand he scooped out with his tail a smooth round

place, and his companion came and filled it with orange-colored eggs.

Then our salmon came back again; and softly covering the eggs, the

work of their lives was done, and, in the old salmon fashion, they

drifted tail foremost down the stream.

They drifted on together for a night and a day, but they never came

to the sea. For the salmon has but one life to live, and it ascends

the river but once. The rest lies with its children. And when the

April sunshine fell on the globules in the gravel, these were

awakened into life. With the early autumn rains, the little fishes

were large enough to begin their wanderings. They dropped down the

current in the old salmon fashion. And thus they came into the great

river and drifted away to the sea.

From _Science Sketches_ by David Starr Jordan. By

the kind permission of the author and of A. C.

McClurg & Co., Publishers.

A MEDIEVAL WEDDING

WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS

* * * * *

Conon has negotiated a most satisfactory marriage. He will give his

sister to Sire Olivier, the eldest son of the Count of Perseigne.

The Perseignes are a great Burgundian family with many castles, and

counts think themselves a little higher in the social scale than do

barons, but St. Aliquis is also a powerful fief, and its alliance

will be useful to Perseigne when he has his expected war with the

Vidame of Dijon. Conon will give the young couple his outlying

Burgundian Castle (not of great value to himself) and the alliance

will enable him to talk roundly to his uncivil neighbors. A most

excellent match; another sign that St. Aliquis has an extremely sage

seigneur!

Alienor is now nearly seventeen and has been thinking about a wedding

since before she was fifteen. Her nurses have long since reviewed

all the eligible cavaliers for her. Her great dread has been lest

she have to wed some old and very stupid man--as befell her cousin

Mabila, who had been sent away tearful and pouting to Picardy, the

bride of a three-times widower. Who can measure her relief when Conon

declared he would not give her to old St. Saturnin? It was all very

well for the jongleurs to sing, “An old man who loves a young maiden

is not merely old, but a fool!” The thing has happened so often!

Her ideal is to have a “damoiseau (squire or young knight) just with

his first beard”--one who is brave, valiant, and is, of course,

courteous and handsome. She had once hoped that Conon would give a

great tourney and award her to the conqueror; but this desire faded

when she learned that the victor in the last tourney was ugly and

brutal. She has been on very brotherly terms with William, Conon’s

first squire, but William is still too young, and it is not always

honorable for a squire to push intrigues in the house of his lord.

Thus she is in a very open state of mind when her brother says to her

one day: “Fair sister, I have arranged your marriage with Olivier of

Perseigne. He is a gallant cavalier. Any maiden might rejoice to have

him. Consider well what I say because (here he adds a phrase which he

hopes will not be taken too literally) I would not have you wed him

against your wish.”

If Alienor has anything against Olivier, if her antipathy were

violent and based on reason, Conon, as a genuinely affectionate

brother, might give it weight; but in fact, though she has met

Olivier only a few times at a tourney, at the Christmas fête at

the Duke of Quelqueparte’s court, and once when he stopped at the

castle, she has not the least objection. He has certainly large blue

eyes, blonde hair, a large nose, and a merry laugh. He is reported

to be kind to his servants, generous to a fault, and not overgiven

to drinking or brawling. At the tourney he broke three lances fairly

against a more experienced knight. His family is excellent and her

brother’s desires are obvious. She will not have to live too far from

St. Aliquis. What more could be said? After a few hours of decent

reflection she informs Adela that she will comply with Conon’s

wishes. After that the castle takes on a joyous activity.

Before the wedding had come the betrothal. It was a solemn ceremony,

blessed by the Church. Sire Olivier visited the castle with a great

following of relatives and met the shy and blushing Alienor. In

the chapel, after suitable prayers by Father Gregoire, the pair

had awkwardly enough exchanged their promises! “I will take you

for my wife.” “And I for my husband.” After this there would have

been great scandal had either side turned back. The Church affirms

energetically, however, that betrothal is _not_ marriage. Otherwise

the affianced pair might have considered themselves somewhat wedded

on trial, only to repudiate their obligations later. Also, not merely

the young couple, but their parents or guardians, had to be present

and add their consent; and, of course, all the pledges were sworn to

over the holiest relics available.

Olivier, during all this happy time, has lodged at the castle of

a friendly vassal of St. Aliquis, and he rides over frequently to

visit his betrothed. He is excellently bred and knows everything

expected of a prospective bridegroom of good family. The alliance has

been largely negotiated by his parents, but he has been consulted,

understands that Alienor is witty and beautiful, and he is wholly

aware of the worldly advantages of being Conon’s brother-in-law. At

meals he and his beloved are allowed to sit together and above all

to eat out of the same porringer, when he delicately leaves to his

intended all the best morsels. He consults a competent jongleur, and

with his aid produces suitable verses praising his fiancée’s beauty.

He gives her a gold ring with both his own name and hers engraved

thereon. In return, besides a sleeve and a stocking to hang on his

lances (gifts which she has already sent in mere friendship to

other cavaliers), she bestows a lock of her hair set around a gold

ring; likewise a larger lock which he may twine around his helmet.

The happy pair are permitted to take long walks together, and to

promenade up and down the garden, with Olivier holding his lady in

the politest manner by one finger--the accepted method of showing

intimacy.

We have said that Conon is resolved to knight his brother at the same

time he gives his sister in marriage. This involves holding a tourney

and many other proceedings really unnecessary for a wedding; but, of

course, it will attract a much greater number of guests and advertise

the prosperity of the baron of St. Aliquis to all northwestern

France. The knighting and tourney will come after the bridal,

however, and it is easier to explain the two things separately. We

omit the gathering of the wedding guests--the coming of distant

counts, barons, and sires; the erection around St. Aliquis of a real

village of brilliant tents and pavilions; the ceremonious greetings;

the frenzied efforts of the castle folk to make all ready; the

inevitable despair, not once, but many times, of Adela, who directs

everything. At last it is the morning of _the_ day, in midsummer.

No rain and, blessed be St. Martin, not too much heat. Alienor is

surrounded by a dozen women, old and young, arraying her for her

wedding.

There is no regular bridal costume. Alienor does not dress much

differently from what she does on Easter or at some other major

festival. Her two great braids of hair are weighted down over her

breasts with an extra intertwining with gold thread. Her pelisson is

completely fringed with magnificent ermine, the gift of the Countess

of Perseigne, and the garment itself is made of two cloths sewed

together, the inner of fine wool, the outer of beautiful bendal of

reddish violet. The whole is laced tightly until Alienor can hardly

breathe. Above this garment floats the elegant bliaut, of green

silk with long sleeves, many folds, and a long train. There is more

silk embroidery and elaborate flouncing. Fairest of all is the

girdle, made of many pieces of gold and each set with a good-luck

stone--agate to guard against fever, sardonyx to protect against

malaria, and many similar. In the clasp are great sapphires which

Baron Garnier originally “acquired” from a town merchant shortly

before he hanged him. Finally, there is the mantle--again of silk

intricately embroidered and dyed with a royal purple.

Alienor’s pointed shoes are of vermillion leather from Cordova,

with still more of gold-thread embroidery. While one female

minister is clasping these, her chief pucelle is putting on a small

saffron-colored veil, circular, and held down by a golden circlet--a

genuine crown; beautifully engraved and set with emeralds. Inevitably

the whole process of dressing is prolonged. Alienor is too excited to

feel hot or pinched, but her attendants find her very exacting. They

bless the Virgin, however, that she is not as some noble brides, who

fly into a passion if every hair in their eyebrows is not separately

adjusted.

Meantime, in a secluded part of the castle, the groom has been

wrestling with a similar problem, assisted by his two squires,

although requiring less of time and agony. His legs are covered with

fine brown silk stockings from Bruges; but it is effeminate to wear

a silk shirt--one of fine white linen will answer. His pelisson is

like his bride’s, although less tightly laced--of cloth and silk,

trimmed with rich fur; and the outer color is pale red, inevitably

with much gold embroidery around the neck and sleeves. His bliaut

does not come below his knees, but it is of blue sendal silk; his

mantle is also edged with fur and of the same color as his pelisson.

Simple as it is, it must hang exactly right. Everybody will ask, “Did

the groom wear his mantle like a great baron?” The squires take a

long time adjusting it. Olivier’s shoes are of very fine leather. On

his crisply curled hair they set a golden chaplet set with flashing

gems--very much like that worn by his bride.

Hardly are the happy twain ready before the wedding procession forms

in the bailey. So large a company could never crowd into the castle

chapel. It will go across the bridge over the Claire to the parish

church by the village--a Gothic structure sufficiently pretentious

to suit the occasion. The Perseignes reckon a bishop among their

cousins, and he is on hand to officiate.

So the procession forms. Ahead go a whole platoon of jongleurs

puffing their cheeks for their flutes, twanging their harps, or

rasping their viols. The Feudal Age delights in music, and does not

mind if sometimes melody is exchanged merely for a joyous noise.

Alienor comes next. She is on a black mule with extra long ears and a

finely curried shining coat. His harness is of gold and his trappings

of scarlet samite. She has been swung into the saddle by her eldest

brother (“Alas! that her father, who should do this, is dead!” murmur

all the women), and he as her guardian leads the mule. Olivier rides

a tall white palfrey with a saddle of blue leather. His mother,

Adela, and all the St. Aliquis and Perseignes female relatives follow

on other mules, led by gayly dressed squires. Then come all the noble

guests, the Duke of Quelqueparte at their head. No wonder there is no

work being done in all the villages for miles around, and that all

the villeins are lining the road, doffing caps, and cheering as the

dazzling cortege sweeps past.

The details at the church we pass over. Among other features to be

noted is the fact that the bride is swung down from her mule upon

a great truss of straw, that the bishop meets them at the sacred

portal, and that outside the actual building Olivier and Alienor

exchange those vows which form the essential part of the marriage

ceremony. After that Conon’s chief provost recites in loud voice all

the estates, horses, fine garments, and servitors which the bride

brings as her dowry. This customary publication may avert bitter

disputes later. Next the happy pair scatter newly coined silver

deniers among the swarm of ill-favored mendicants permitted to elbow

and scramble among the more pretentious guests.

Finally, the church is thrown open. The great nave opens mysterious

and dark, but galaxies of candles are burning and the lofty

stained-glass windows gleam like jewels. Olivier and Alienor occupy

seats of honor in the choir, while the bishop says the very solemn

mass of the Trinity and pronounces a special blessing over them. “Let

this woman,” intones the prelate, “be amiable as Rachel, wise as

Rebecca, faithful as Sarah. Let her be sober through truth, venerable

through modesty, and wise through the teaching of Heaven.”

So at last the mass ends. The “Agnus Dei” is chanted. The bridegroom

advances to the altar and receives from the bishop the kiss of

peace. Then he turns, and right at the foot of the great crucifix

embraces his wife and transmits the kiss to her. This act completes

the ceremony. Away the whole company go from the church. They have

been condemned to silence for nearly two hours, and are glad now to

chatter like magpies. When back at St. Aliquis they find the great

hall has been swept, garnished, and decorated as never before. The

walls of the hall are hung with the pictured tapestries of beautiful

pieces of red and green silk. Your feet crush fresh roses and lilies

scattered on the floor. Alienor almost bursts with delight at the

number of high-born cavaliers and dames who press up to kiss and

congratulate. All the remainder of her life she will match weddings

with her friends: “I had so many counts and barons at my wedding.”

“But I had so many!”

All these guests, however, expect to receive presents--bliauts,

mantles, goblets, and other things, each suitable to the recipient.

It is well that Conon has saved many livres in his strong box.

The presenting of the gifts by the host is quite a ceremony; each

article has to be accompanied by a well-turned speech. By the time

this reception to the bride and groom is over, the trumpets sound

furiously. They tell that the feast is ready in the fragrant garden

under the trees. There is a fine tent of blue silk for the bridal

party and the more exalted guests. All the others must sit on long

tables open to the glad sunshine.

What Messire Conon’s guests have to eat and drink is so serious a

topic that we must tell thereof separately. We speak here merely

concerning the festivities of the wedding. Olivier and Alienor are

served by two barons as squires of state. The groom drinks from a

great goblet, then sends it to his wife, who ceremoniously finishes

the draught. In the bridal tent there is a reasonable amount of

decorum, but elsewhere (Blessed martyrs!) what noise and tumult! All

the villeins appear to be there, and burghers have even wandered up

from Pontdebois. It will never do to have men say, “The bride was

charming, but her brother stinted his hospitality.” Enough food and

drink is gorged and guzzled to stave off a famine next winter. The

jongleurs keep quiet during the first part of the feast; later they

earn their dinner by singing of the loves of Jourdain and Orabel or

of Berte, who was the faithful wife of Girard of Roussillon through

all of her lord’s adversity. At many of the tables the jesting and

horseplay become unspeakably ribald. After the wine circulates two

petty nobles quarrel; one strikes the other with a drinking cup, but

the sergeants pull them apart before they can whip out swords.

After three hours of this some guests are sleeping stertorously under

the trees; but those nobles who have kept their wits go to another

large tent, and, despite their heavy meal, dance with vigor. The

bride and groom are expected to dance together, and everybody is

prepared to admire the beauty of one and the grace and strength of

the other. As evening advances a priest appears. He solemnly blesses

the nuptial couch strewn with roses, while the new couple piously

kneel. The couch is then “censed” like an altar, and the women guests

join in the bizarre usages of “putting the bride to bed.”

The morning after the marriage the newly wedded pair attend mass in

the castle chapel. Here they are expected to make privately all kinds

of vows of good conduct, and Alienor especially promises always to

obey her husband, and call him dutifully, “mon sire” and “mon baron.”

The festivities will last two weeks longer, and conclude with the

dubbing of knights and the tournament, whereof more presently. After

that Olivier and his wife will depart for their Burgundian castle

without anything like a honeymoon to strange parts....

From _Life on a Medieval Barony_ by William

Stearns Davis. By kind permission of the author

and of Harper & Brothers, Publishers.

A DAY IN AN OXFORD COLLEGE

JOHN CORBIN

When a freshman is once established in college, his life falls into

a pleasantly varied routine. The day is ushered in by the scout, who

bustles into the bedroom, throws aside the curtain, pours out the

bath, and shouts, “Half past seven, sir,” in a tone that makes it

impossible to forget that chapel--or if one chooses, roll-call--comes

at eight. Unless one keeps his six chapels or “rollers” a week, he

is promptly “hauled” before the dean, who perhaps “gates” him. To be

gated is to be forbidden to pass the college gate after dark, and

fined a shilling for each night of confinement. To an American all

this brings recollections of the paternal roof, where tardiness at

breakfast meant, perhaps, the loss of dessert, and bedtime an hour

earlier. I remember once, when out of training, deliberately cutting

chapel to see with what mien the good dean performed his nursery

duties. His calm was unruffled, his dignity unsullied. I soon came to

find that the rules about rising were bowed to and indeed respected

by all concerned, even while they were broken. They are distinctly

more lax than those the fellows have been accustomed to in the public

schools, and they are conceded to be for the best welfare of the

college.

Breakfast comes soon after chapel, or roll-call. If a man has “kept

a dirty roller,” that is, has reported in pyjamas, ulster, and

boots, and has turned in again, the scout puts the breakfast before

the fire on a trestle built of shovel, poker, and tongs, where it

remains edible until noon. If a man has a breakfast party on, the

scout makes sure that he is stirring in season, and, hurrying

through the other rooms on the staircase, is presently on hand for

as long as he may be wanted. The usual Oxford breakfast is a single

course, which not infrequently consists of some one of the excellent

English pork products, with an egg or kidneys. There may be two

courses, in which case the first is of the no less excellent fresh

fish. There are no vegetables. The breakfast is ended with toast

and jam or marmalade. When one has fellows in to breakfast,--and

the Oxford custom of rooming alone instead of chumming makes such

hospitality frequent,--his usual meal is increased by a course, say,

of chicken. In any case it leads to a morning cigarette, for tobacco

aids digestion, and helps fill the hour or so after meals which an

Englishman gives to relaxation.

At ten o’clock the breakfast may be interrupted for a moment by the

exit of some one bent on attending a lecture, though one apologizes

for such an act as if it were scarcely good form. An appointment with

one’s tutor is a more legitimate excuse for leaving; but even this is

always an occasion for an apology, in behalf of the tutor of course,

for one is certainly not himself responsible. If a quorum is left,

they manage to sit comfortably by the fire, smoking and chatting in

spite of lectures and tutors, until by mutual consent they scatter to

glance at the _Times_ and the _Sportsman_ in the common-room, or even

to get in a bit of reading.

Luncheon often consists of bread and cheese and jam from the buttery,

with perhaps a half pint of bitter beer; but it may, like the

breakfast, come from the college kitchen. In any case it is very

light, for almost immediately after it everybody scatters to field

and track and river for the exercise that the English climate makes

necessary and the sport that the English temperament demands.

By four o’clock every one is back in college tubbed and dressed for

tea, which a man serves himself in his rooms to as many fellows as he

has been able to gather in on field or river. If he is eager to hear

of the games he has not been able to witness, he goes to the junior

common-room or to his club, where he is sure to find a dozen or so

of kindred spirits representing every sport of importance. In this

way he hears the minutest details of the games of the day from the

players themselves; and before nightfall--such is the influence of

tea--those bits of gossip which in America are known chiefly among

members of a team have ramified the college. Thus the function of the

“bleachers” on an American field is performed with a vengeance by the

easy-chairs before a common-room fire; and a man had better be kicked

off the team by an American captain than have his shortcomings served

up with common-room tea.

The two hours between tea and dinner may be, and usually are, spent

in reading.

At seven o’clock the college bell rings, and in two minutes the

fellows have thrown on their gowns and are seated at table, where

the scouts are in readiness to serve them. As a rule a man may sit

wherever he chooses; this is one of the admirable arrangements for

breaking up such cliques as inevitably form in a college. But in

point of fact a man usually ends by sitting in some certain quarter

of the hall, where from day to day he finds much the same set of

fellows. Thus all the advantages of friendly intercourse are attained

without any real exclusiveness. This may seem a small point; but an

hour a day becomes an item in four years, especially if it is the

hour when men are most disposed to be companionable.

In the evening, when the season permits, the fellows sit out of

doors after dinner, smoking and playing bowls. There is no place in

which the spring comes more sweetly than in an Oxford garden. The

high walls are at once a trap for the first warm rays of the sun and

a barrier against the winds of March. The daffodils and crocuses

spring up with joy as the gardener bids; and the apple and cherry

trees coddle against the warm north walls, spreading out their early

buds gratefully to the mild English sun. For long, quiet hours after

dinner they flaunt their beauty to the fellows smoking, and breathe

their sweetness to the fellows playing bowls. “No man,” exclaims the

American visitor, “could live four years in those gardens of delight

and not be made gentler and nobler!” Perhaps! though not altogether

in the way the visitor imagines. When the flush of summer is on, the

loiterers loll on the lawn full length; and as they watch the insects

crawl among the grass they make bets on them, just as the gravest and

most reverend seniors have been known to do in America.

In the windows overlooking the quadrangle are boxes of brilliant

flowers, above which the smoke of a pipe comes curling out. At

Harvard some fellows have geraniums in their windows, but only the

very rich; and when they began the custom an ancient graduate wrote

one of those communications to the _Crimson_, saying that if men put

unmanly boxes of flowers in the window, how can they expect to beat

Yale? Flower boxes, no sand. At Oxford they manage things so that

anybody may have flower boxes; and their associations are by no means

unmanly. This is the way they do it. In the early summer a gardener’s

wagon from the country draws up by the college gate, and the driver

cries, “Flowers! Flowers for a pair of old bags, sir.” _Bags_ is of

course the fitting term for English trousers--which don’t fit; and I

should like to inform that ancient graduate that the window boxes of

Oxford suggest the very badge of manhood.

As long as the English twilight lingers, the men will sit and talk

and sing to the mandolin; and I have heard the fellows sitting and

talking all night, not turning in until the porter appeared to

take their names at roll-call. On the eve of May day it is quite

the custom to sit out, for at dawn one may go to see the pretty

ceremony of heralding the May on Magdalen Tower. The Magdalen

choir boys--the sweetest songsters in all Oxford--mount to the top

of that most beautiful of Gothic towers, and, standing among the

pinnacles,--pinnacles afire with the spirituality of the Middles

Ages, that warms all the senses with purity and beauty,--those boys,

I say, on that tower and among those pinnacles, open their mouths

and sing a Latin song to greet the May. Meantime, the fellows who

have come out to listen in the street below make catcalls and blow

fish horns. The song above is the survival of a Romish, perhaps a

Druidical, custom; the racket below is the survival of a Puritan

protest. That is Oxford in symbol! Its dignity and mellowness are not

so much a matter of flowering gardens and crumbling walls as of the

traditions of the centuries in which the whole life of the place has

deep sources; and the noblest of its institutions are fringed with

survivals that run riot in the grotesque.

If a man intends to spend the evening out of college, he has to make

a dash before nine o’clock; for love or for money the porter may

not let an inmate out after nine. One man I knew was able to escape

by guile. He had a brother in Trinity whom he very much resembled,

and whenever he wanted to go out, he would tilt his mortarboard

forward, wrap his gown high about his neck, as it is usually worn

of an evening, and bidding the porter a polite good-night, say,

“Charge me to my brother, Hancock, if you please.” The charge is

the inconsiderable sum of one penny, and is the penalty of having a

late guest. Having profited by my experience with the similar charge

for keeping my name on the college books, I never asked its why and

wherefore. Both are no doubt survivals of some medieval custom, the

authority of which no college employee--or don, for the matter of

that--would question. Such matters interest the Oxford man quite

as little as the question how he comes by a tonsil or a vermiform

appendix. They are there, and he makes the best of them.

If a fellow leaves college for an evening, it is for a foregathering

at some other college, or to go to the theatre. As a rule he wears

a cloth cap. A “billy-cock” or “bowler,” as the pot hat is called,

is as thoroughly frowned on now in English colleges as it was with

us a dozen years ago. As for the mortarboard and gown, undergraduate

opinion rather requires that they be left behind. This is largely,

no doubt, because they are required by law to be worn. So far as

the undergraduates are concerned, every operative statute of the

university, with the exception of those relating to matriculation

and graduation, refers to conduct in the streets after nightfall,

and almost without exception they are honored in the breach. This

is out of disregard for the Vice-Chancellor of the university, who

is familiarly called the Vice, because he serves as a warning to

others for the practice of virtue. The Vice makes his power felt

in characteristically dark and tortuous ways. His factors are two

proctors, college dons in daytime, but skulkers after nightfall,

each of whom has his bulldogs, that is, scouts, employed literally

to spy upon the students. If these catch you without cap or gown,

they cause you to be proctorized or “progged,” as it is called,

which involves a matter of five shillings or so. As a rule there is

little danger of progging, but my first term fell in evil days. For

some reason or other the chest of the university showed a deficit of

sundry pounds, shillings, and pence; and as it had long ceased to

need or receive regular bequests,--the finance of the institution

being in the hands of the colleges,--a crisis was at hand. A more

serious problem had doubtless never arisen since the great question

was solved of keeping undergraduates’ names on the books. The

expedient of the Vice-Chancellor was to summon the proctors, and

bid them charge their bulldogs to prog all freshmen caught at night

without cap and gown. The deficit in the university chest was made up

at five shillings a head.

One of the Vice-Chancellor’s rules is that no undergraduate shall

enter an Oxford “pub.” Now the only restaurant in town, Queen’s, is

run in conjunction with a pub, and was once the favorite resort of

all who were bent on breaking the monotony of an English Sunday. The

Vice-Chancellor resolved to destroy this den of Sabbath breaking,

and the undergraduates resolved no less firmly to defend their

stronghold. The result was a hand-to-hand fight with the bulldogs,

which ended so triumphantly for the undergraduates that a dozen

or more of them were sent down. In the articles of the peace that

followed, it was stipulated, I was told, that so long as the

restaurant was closed Sunday afternoons and nights, it should never

suffer from the visit of proctor or bulldog. As a result, Queen’s is

a great scene of undergraduate foregatherings. The dinners are good

enough and reasonably cheap; and as most excellent champagne is to be

had at twelve shillings the bottle, the diners are not unlikely to

get back to college a trifle buffy, in the Oxford phrase.

By an interesting survival of medieval custom, the Vice-Chancellor

has supreme power over the morals of the town, and any citizen who

transgresses his laws is visited with summary punishment. For a

tradesman or publican to assist in breaking university rules means

outlawry and ruin, and for certain offenses a citizen may be punished

by imprisonment. Over the Oxford theatre the Vice-Chancellor’s

power is absolute. In my time he was much more solicitous that the

undergraduate be kept from knowledge of the omnipresent woman with

a past than that dramatic art should flourish, and forbade the town

to more than one excellent play of the modern school of comedy that

had been seen and discussed in London by the younger sisters of the

undergraduates. The woman with a present is virtually absent.

Time was when no Oxford play was quite successful unless the

undergraduates assisted at its first night, though in a way very

different from that which the term denotes in France. The assistance

was of the kind so generously rendered in New York and Boston on the

evening of an athletic contest. Even to-day, just for tradition’s

sake, the undergraduates sometimes make a row. A lot of B. N. C.

men, as the clanny sons of Brazenose College call themselves, may

insist that an opera stop while the troupe listen to one of their

own excellent vocal performances; and I once saw a great sprinter,

not unknown to Yale men, rise from his seat, face the audience, and,

pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at the soubrette, announce

impressively, “Do you know, I rather _like_ that girl!” The show

is usually over just before eleven, and then occurs an amusing, if

unseemly, scramble to get back to college before the hour strikes.

A man who stays out after ten is fined threepence, after eleven the

fine is sixpence. When all is said, why shouldn’t one sprint for

threepence?

If you stay out of college after midnight, the dean makes a star

chamber offense of it, fines you a “quid” or two, and like as not

sends you down. This sounds a trifle worse than it is; for if you

must be away, your absence can usually be arranged for. If you find

yourself in the streets after twelve, you may rap on some friend’s

bedroom window and tell him of your plight through the iron grating.

He will then spend the first half of the night in your bed and wash

his hands in your bowl. With such evidence as this to support him,

the scout is not apt, if sufficiently retained, to report a suspected

absence. I have even known fellows to make their arrangements in

advance and spend the night in town; but the ruse has its dangers,

and the penalty is to be sent down for good and all.

It is owing to such regulations as these that life in the English

college has the name of being cloistral. Just how cloistral it is in

spirit no one can know who has not taken part in a rag in the quad;

and this is impossible to an outsider, for at midnight all visitors

are required to leave, under a heavy penalty to their host.

From _An American at Oxford_, by John Corbin. By

permission of and by arrangement with Houghton

Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers.

THE PEASANT BODO

EILEEN POWER

That, in a few words, is the way in which the monks of St. Germain

and the other Frankish landowners of the time of Charlemagne managed

their estates. Let us try, now, to look at those estates from a more

human point of view and see what life was like to a farmer who lived

upon them. The abbey possessed a little estate called Villaris, near

Paris, in the place now occupied by the park of Saint Cloud. When

we turn up the pages in the estate book dealing with Villaris, we

find that there was a man called Bodo living there. He had a wife

called Ermentrude and three children called Wido and Gerbert and

Hildegard; and he owned a little farm of arable and meadow land, with

a few vines. And we know very nearly as much about Bodo’s work as we

know about that of a small-holder in France today. Let me try and

imagine a day in his life. On a fine spring morning towards the end

of Charlemagne’s reign Bodo gets up early, because it is his day to

go and work on the monks’ farm, and he does not dare to be late, for

fear of the steward. To be sure, he has probably given the steward

a present of eggs and vegetables the week before, to keep him in

good temper; but the monks will not allow their stewards to take big

bribes (as is sometimes done on other estates), and Bodo knows that

he will not be allowed to go late to work. It is his day to plough,

so he takes his big ox with him and little Wido to run by its side

with a goad, and he joins his friends from some of the farms near by,

who are going to work at the big house too. They all assemble, some

with horses and oxen, some with mattocks and hoes and spades and axes

and scythes, and go off in gangs to work upon the fields and meadows

and woods of the seigniorial manse, according as the steward orders

them. The manse next door to Bodo is held by a group of families;

Frambert and Ermoin and Ragenold, with their wives and children.

Bodo bids them good morning as he passes. Frambert is going to make

a fence round the wood, to prevent the rabbits from coming out and

eating the young crops; Ermoin has been told off to cart a great load

of firewood up to the house; and Ragenold is mending a hole in the

roof of a barn. Bodo goes whistling off in the cold with his oxen

and his little boy; and it is no use to follow him farther, because

he ploughs all day and eats his meal under a tree with the other

ploughmen, and it is very monotonous.

Let us go back and see what Bodo’s wife, Ermentrude, is doing. She

is busy too; it is the day on which the chicken-rent is due--a fat

pullet and five eggs in all. She leaves her second son, aged nine,

to look after the baby Hildegard and calls on one of the neighbours,

who has to go up to the big house too. The neighbour is a serf and

she has to take the steward a piece of woollen cloth, which will be

sent away to St. Germain to make a habit for a monk. Her husband

is working all day in the lord’s vineyards, for on this estate

the serfs generally tend the vines, while the freemen do most of

the ploughing. Ermentrude and the serf’s wife go together up to

the house. There all is busy. In the men’s workshop are several

clever workmen--a shoemaker, a carpenter, a blacksmith, and two

silversmiths; there are not more, because the best artisans on the

estates of St. Germain live by the walls of the abbey, so that they

can work for the monks on the spot and save the labour of carriage.

But there were always some craftsmen on every estate, either attached

as serfs to the big house, or living on manses of their own, and

good landowners tried to have as many clever craftsmen as possible.

Charlemagne ordered his stewards each to have in his district “good

workmen, namely, blacksmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths, shoemakers,

turners, carpenters, swordsmakers, fishermen, foilers, soapmakers,

men who knew how to make beer, cider, perry and all other kinds of

beverages, bakers to make pasty for our table, netmakers who know how

to make nets for hunting, fishing and fowling, and others too many to

be named.” And some of these workmen are to be found working for the

monks in the estate of Villaris.

But Ermentrude does not stop at the men’s workshop. She finds the

steward, bobs her curtsy to him, and gives up her fowl and eggs, and

then she hurries off to the women’s part of the house, to gossip

with the serfs there. The Franks used at this time to keep the women

of their household in separate quarters, where they did the work

which was considered suitable for women, very much as the Greeks of

antiquity used to do. If a Frankish noble had lived at the big house,

his wife would have looked after their work, but as no one lived in

the stone house at Villaris, the steward had to oversee the women.

Their quarter consisted of a little group of houses, with a workroom,

the whole surrounded by a thick hedge with a strong bolted gate, like

a harem, so that no one could come in without leave. Their workrooms

were comfortable places, warmed by stoves, and there Ermentrude

(who, being a woman, was allowed to go in) found about a dozen

servile women spinning and dyeing cloth and sewing garments. Every

week the harrassed steward brought them the raw materials for their

work and took away what they made. Charlemagne gives his stewards

several instructions about the women attached to his manses, and

we may be sure that the monks of St. Germain did the same on their

model estates. “For our women’s work,” says Charlemagne, “they are

to give at the proper time the materials, that is linen, wool, woad,

vermilion, madder, wool combs, teasels, soap, grease, vessels, and

other objects which are necessary. And let our women’s quarters be

well looked after, furnished with houses and rooms with stoves and

cellars, and let them be surrounded by good hedge, and let the doors

be strong, so that the women can do our work properly.” Ermentrude,

however, has to hurry away after her gossip, and so must we. She goes

back to her own farm and sets to work in the little vineyard; then

after an hour or two goes back to get the children’s meal and to

spend the rest of the day in weaving warm woollen clothes for them.

All her friends are either working in the fields on their husband’s

farms or else looking after the poultry, or the vegetables, or sewing

at home; for the women have to work just as hard as the men on a

country farm. In Charlemagne’s time (for instance) they did nearly

all the sheep shearing. Then at last Bodo comes back for his supper,

and as soon as the sun goes down they go to bed; for their hand-made

candle gives only a flicker of light, and they both have to be up

early in the morning. De Quincey once pointed out, in his inimitable

manner, how the ancients everywhere went to bed, “like good boys,

from seven to nine o’clock.” “Man went to bed early in those ages

simply because his worthy mother earth could not afford him candles.

She, good old lady ... would certainly have shuddered to hear of any

of her nations asking for candles. ‘Candles, indeed!’ she would have

said; ‘who ever heard of such a thing? and with so much excellent

daylight running to waste, as I have provided _gratis_! What will the

wretches want next?’” Something of the same situation prevailed even

in Bodo’s time.

This, then, is how Bodo and Ermentrude usually passed their working

day. But, it may be complained, this is all very well. We know about

the estates on which these peasants lived and about the rents which

they had to pay, and the services which they had to do. But how

did they feel and think and amuse themselves when they were not

working? Rents and services are only outside things; an estate book

only describes routine. It would be idle to try to picture the life

of a university from a study of its lecture list, and it is equally

idle to try to describe the life of Bodo from the estate book of his

masters. It is no good taking your meals in the kitchen if you never

talk to the servants. This is true, and to arrive at Bodo’s thoughts

and feelings and holiday amusements we must bid good-bye to Abbot

Irminon’s estate book, and peer into some very dark corners indeed;

for though by the aid of Chaucer and Langland and a few Cour Rollis

it is possible to know a great deal about the feelings of a peasant

six centuries later, material is scarce in the ninth century, and it

is all the more necessary to remember the secret of the invisible ink.

Bodo certainly _had_ plenty of feelings, and very strong ones. When

he got up in the frost on a cold morning to drive the plough over

the abbot’s acres, when his own were calling out for work, he often

shivered and shook the rime from his beard, and wished that the big

house and all its land were at the bottom of the sea (which, as a

matter of fact, he had never seen and could not imagine). Or else he

wished he were the abbot’s huntsman, hunting in the forest; or a monk

of St. Germain, singing sweetly in the abbey church; or a merchant,

taking bales of cloaks and girdles along the high road to Paris;

anything, in fact, but a poor ploughman ploughing other people’s

land. An Anglo-Saxon writer has imagined a dialogue with him:

“Well, ploughman, how do you do your work?” “Oh, sir, I work very

hard. I go out in the dawning, driving the oxen to the field and I

yoke them to the plough. Be the winter never so stark, I dare not

stay at home for fear of my lord; but every day I must plough a

full acre or more, after having yoked the oxen and fastened the

share and coulter to the plough!” “Have you any mate?” “I have a

boy, who drives the oxen with a goad, who is now hoarse from cold

and shouting.” (Poor little Wido.) “Well, well, it is very hard

work?” “Yes, indeed it is very hard work.”

Nevertheless, hard as the work was, Bodo sang lustily to cheer

himself and Wido; for is it not related that once, when a clerk was

singing the “Allelulia” in the emperor’s presence, Charles turned

to one of the bishops, saying, “My clerk is singing very well,”

whereat the rude bishop replied, “Any clown in our countryside drones

as well as that to his oxen at their ploughing”? It is certain too

that Bodo agreed with the names which the great Charles gave to

the months of the year in his own Frankish tongue; for he called

January “Winter-month,” February “Mud-month,” April “Easter-month,”

May “Joy-month,” June “Plough-month,” July “Hay-month,” August

“Harvest-month,” September “Wind-month,” October “Vintage-month,”

November “Autumn-month,” and December “Holy-month.”

And Bodo was a superstitious creature. The Franks had been Christian

now for many years, but Christian though they were, the peasants

clung to old beliefs and superstitions. On the estates of the holy

monks of St. Germain you would have found the country people saying

charms which were hoary with age, parts of the lay sung by the

Frankish ploughman over his bewitched land long before he marched

southwards into the Roman Empire, or parts of the spell which the

bee-master performed when he swarmed his bees on the shores of the

Baltic Sea. Christianity has colored these charms, but it has not

effaced their heathen origin; and because the tilling of the soil

is the oldest and most unchanging of human occupations, old beliefs

and superstitions cling to it and the old gods stalk up and down

the brown furrows, when they have long vanished from houses and

roads. So on Abbot Irminon’s estate the peasant-farmers muttered

charms over their sick cattle (and over their sick children too) and

said incantations over the fields to make them fertile. If you had

followed behind Bodo when he broke his first furrow you would have

probably seen him take out of his jerkin a little cake, baked for him

by Ermentrude out of different kinds of meal, and you would have seen

him stoop and lay it under the furrow and sing:

Earth, Earth, Earth! O Earth, our mother!

May the All-Wielder, Ever-Lord grant thee

Acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing,

Pregnant with corn and plenteous in strength;

Hosts of grain shafts and of glittering plants!

Of broad barley the blossoms,

And of white wheat ears waxing,

Of the whole land the harvest ...

* * * * *

Acre, full-fed, bring forth fodder for men!

Blossoming brightly, blessed become!

And the God who wrought with earth grant us gift of growing

That each of all the corns may come unto our need.

Then he would drive his plough through the acre.

The Church wisely did not interfere with these old rites. It taught

Bodo to pray to the Ever-Lord instead of to Father Heaven, and to the

Virgin Mary instead of to Mother Earth, and with these changes let

the old spell he had learned from his ancestors serve him still. It

taught him, for instance, to call on Christ and Mary in his charm for

bees. When Ermentrude heard her bees swarming, she stood outside her

cottage and said this little charm over them:

Christ, there is a swarm of bees outside,

Fly hither, my little cattle,

In blest peace, in God’s protection,

Come home safe and sound.

Sit down, sit down, bee,

St. Mary commanded thee.

Thou shalt not have leave,

Thou shalt not fly to the wood.

Thou shalt not escape me,

Nor go away from me.

Sit very still,

Wait God’s will!

And if Bodo on his way home saw one of his bees caught

in a brier bush, he immediately stood still and wished--as some

people wish to-day when they go under a ladder. It was the Church,

too, which taught Bodo to add “So be it, Lord,” to the end of his

charm against pain. Now, his ancestors for generations behind him

had believed that if you had a stitch in your side, or a bad pain

anywhere, it came from a worm in the marrow of your bones, which was

eating you up, and that the only way to get rid of that worm was to

put a knife, or an arrow-head, or some other piece of metal to the

sore place, and then wheedle the worm out on to the blade by saying

a charm. And this was the charm which Bodo’s heathen ancestors had

always said and which Bodo went on saying when little Wido had a

pain: “Come out, worm, with nine little worms, out from the marrow

into the bone, from the bone into the flesh, from the flesh into the

skin, from the skin into this arrow.” And then (in obedience to the

Church) he added “So be it, Lord.” But sometimes it was not possible

to read a Christian meaning into Bodo’s doings. Sometimes he paid

visits to some man who was thought to have a wizard’s powers, or

superstitiously reverenced some twisted tree, about which there hung

old stories never quite forgotten. Then the Church was stern. When

he went to confession the priest would ask him: “Have you consulted

magicians and enchanters, have you made vows to trees and fountains,

have you drunk any magic philtre?” And he would have to confess what

he did last time his cow was sick. But the Church was kind as well

as stern. “When serfs come to you,” we find one bishop telling his

priests, “you must not give them as many fasts to perform as rich

men. Put upon them only half the penance.” The Church knew well

enough that Bodo could not drive his plough all day upon an empty

stomach. The hunting, drinking, feasting Frankish nobles could afford

to lose a meal.

It was from this stern and yet kind Church that Bodo got his

holidays. For the Church made the pious emperor decree that on

Sundays and saints’ days no servile or other works should be done.

Charlemagne’s son repeated his decree in 827. It runs thus:

We ordain according to the law of God and to the command of our

father of blessed memory in his edicts, that no servile works

shall be done on Sundays, neither shall men perform their rustic

labours, tending vines, ploughing fields, reaping corn and mowing

hay, setting up hedges or fencing woods, cutting trees, or working

in quarries or building houses; nor shall they work in the gardens,

nor come to the law courts, nor follow the chase. But three

carrying-services it is lawful to do on Sunday, to wit carrying

for the army, carrying food, or carrying (if need be) the body of

a lord to its grave. Item, women shall not do their textile works,

not cut out clothes, nor stitch them together with the needle, nor

card wool, nor beat hemp, nor wash clothes in public, nor shear

sheep: so that there may be rest on the Lord’s day. But let them

come together from all sides to Mass in the Church and praise God

for all the good things He did for us on that day!

Unfortunately, however, Bodo and Ermentrude and their friends were

not content to go quietly to church on saints’ days and quietly home

again. They used to spend their holidays in dancing and singing and

buffoonery, as country folk have always done until our own gloomier,

more self-conscious age. They were very merry and not at all

refined, and the place they always chose for their dances was the

churchyard; and unluckily the songs they sang as they danced in a

ring were old pagan songs of their forefathers, left over from old

Mayday festivities, which they could not forget, or ribald love-songs

which the Church disliked. Over and over again we find the Church

councils complaining that the peasants (and sometimes the priests

too) were singing “wicked songs with a chorus of dancing women,” or

holding “ballads and dancing and evil and wanton songs and such-like

lures of the devil”; over and over again the bishops forbade these

songs and dances; but in vain. In every country in Europe, right

through the Middle Ages to the time of the Reformation, and after

it, country folk continued to sing and dance in the churchyard. Two

hundred years after Charlemagne’s death there grew up the legend

of the dancers of Kölbigk, who danced on Christmas Eve in the

churchyard, in spite of the warning of the priest, and all got rooted

to the spot for a year, till the Archbishop of Cologne released them.

Some men say they were not rooted standing to the spot, but that

they had to go on dancing for the whole year; and that before they

were released they had danced themselves waist-deep into the ground.

People used to repeat the little Latin verse which they were singing:

Equitabat Bovo per silvam frondosam

Ducebat sibi Merswindem formosam.

Quid stamus? Cur non imus?

Through the leafy forest, Bovo went a-riding

And his pretty Merswind trotted on beside him--

Why are we standing still? Why can’t we go away?

Another later story still is told about a priest in

Worcestershire, who was kept awake all night by the people dancing

in his churchyard and singing a song with the refrain “Sweetheart

have pity,” so that he could not get it out of his head, and the

next morning at Mass, instead of saying “Dominus vobiscum,” he said

“Sweetheart have pity,” and there was a dreadful scandal which got

into a chronicle.

Sometimes our Bodo did not dance himself, but listened to the songs

of wandering minstrels. The priests did not at all approve of these

minstrels, who (they said) would certainly go to hell for singing

profane secular songs, all about the great deeds of heathen heroes

of the Frankish race, instead of Christian hymns. But Bodo loved

them, and so did Bodo’s betters; the Church councils had sometimes

even to rebuke abbots and abbesses for listening to their songs.

And the worst of it was that the great emperor himself, the good

Charlemagne, loved them too. He would always listen to a minstrel,

and his biographer, Einhard tells us that “He wrote out the barbarous

and ancient songs, in which the acts of the kings and their wars

were sung, and committed them to memory”; and one at least of those

old sagas, which he liked men to write down, has been preserved

on the cover of a Latin manuscript, where a monk scribbled it in

his spare time. His son, Louis the Pious, was very different; he

rejected the national poems, which he had learnt in his youth, and

would not have them read or recited or taught; he would not allow

minstrels to have justice in the law courts, and he forbade idle

dances and songs and tales in public places on Sundays; but then he

also dragged down his father’s kingdom into disgrace and ruin. The

minstrels repaid Charlemagne for his kindness to them. They gave

him everlasting fame; for all through the Middle Ages the legend of

Charlemagne grew, and he shares with our King Arthur the honour of

being the hero of one of the greatest romance-cycles of the Middle

Ages. Every different century clad him anew in its own dress and

sang new lays about him. What the monkish chronicles in their cells

could never do for Charlemagne, these despised and accursed minstrels

did for him; they gave him what is perhaps more desirable and more

lasting than a place in history--they gave him a place in legend. It

is not every emperor who rules in those realms of gold of which Keats

spoke, as well as in the kingdoms of the world; and in the realms

of gold Charlemagne reigns with King Arthur, and his peers joust

with the Knights of the Round Table. Bodo, at any rate, benefited by

Charles’s love of minstrels, and it is probable that he heard in the

lifetime of the emperor himself the first beginnings of those legends

which afterwards clung to the name of Charlemagne. One can imagine

him round-eyed in the churchyard, listening to fabulous stories of

Charles’s Iron March to Pavia, such as a gossiping old monk of St.

Gall afterwards wrote down in his chronicle.

It is likely enough that such legends were the nearest Bodo ever came

to seeing the emperor, of whom even the poor serfs who never followed

him to court or camp were proud. But Charles was a great traveller;

like all the monarchs of the early Middle Ages he spent the time,

when he was not warring, in trekking round his kingdom, staying at

one of his estates, until he and his household had literally eaten

their way through it, and then passing on to another. And sometimes

he varied the procedure by paying a visit to the estates of his

bishops or nobles, who entertained him royally. It may be that one

day he came on a visit to Bodo’s masters and stopped at the big house

on his way to Paris, and then Bodo saw him plain; for Charlemagne

would come riding along the road in his jerkin of otter skin, and his

plain blue cloak (Einhard tells us that he hated grand clothes and

on ordinary days dressed like the common people); and after him would

come his three sons and his bodyguard, and then his five daughters.

Einhard has also told us that

He had such care of the upbringing of his sons and daughters that

he never dined without them when he was at home and never travelled

without them. His sons rode along with him and his daughters

followed in the rear. Some of his guards, chosen for this very

purpose, watched the end of the line of march where his daughters

travelled. They were very beautiful and much beloved by their

father, and, therefore, it is strange that he would give them in

marriage to no one, either among his own people or of a foreign

state. But up to his death he kept them all at home saying he could

not forgo their society.

Then, with luck, Bodo, quaking at the knees, might even behold a

portent new to his experience, the emperor’s elephant. Haroun El

Raschid, the great Sultan of the “Arabian Nights” had sent it to

Charles, and it accompanied him on all his progresses. Its name

was “Abu-Lubabah,” which is an Arabic word and means “the father

of intelligence,”[1] and it died a hero’s death on an expedition

against the Danes in 810. It is certain that ever afterwards

Ermentrude quelled little Gerbert, when he was naughty, with the

threat, “Abu-Lubabah will come with his long nose and carry you off.”

But Wido, being aged eight and a bread-winner, professed to have

felt no fear on being confronted with the elephant; but admitted

when pressed, that he greatly preferred Haroun El Raschid’s other

present to the emperor, the friend dog, who answered to the name of

“Becerillo.”

It would be a busy time for Bodo when all these great folk came, for

everything would have to be cleaned before their arrival, the pastry

cooks and sausage-makers summoned and a great feast prepared; and

though the household serfs did most of the work, it is probable that

he had to help. The gossipy old monk of St. Gall has given us some

amusing pictures of the excitement when Charles suddenly paid a visit

to his subjects:

There was a certain bishopric which lay full in Charles’s path

when he journeyed, and which indeed he could hardly avoid: and the

bishop of this place, always anxious to give satisfaction, put

everything that he had at Charles’s disposal. But once the Emperor

came quite unexpectedly and the bishop in great anxiety had to fly

hither and thither like a swallow, and had not only the palaces

and houses but also the courts and squares swept and cleaned: and

then, tired and irritated, came to meet him. The most pious Charles

noticed this, and after examining all the various details, he said

to the bishop: “My kind host, you always have everything splendidly

cleaned for my arrival.” Then the bishop, as if divinely inspired,

bowed his head and grasped the king’s never-conquered hand, and

hiding his irritation, kissed it and said: “It is but right, my

lord, that wherever you come, all things should be thoroughly

cleansed.” Then Charles, of all kings the wisest, understanding

the state of affairs said to him: “If I empty I can also fill.”

And he added: “You may have that estate which lies close to your

bishopric, and all your successors may have it until the end of

time.” In the same journey, too, he came to a bishop who lived in

a place through which he must needs pass. Now on that day, being

the sixth day of the week, he was not willing to eat the flesh of

beast or bird; and the bishop, being by reason of the nature of

the place unable to procure fish upon the sudden, ordered some

excellent cheese, rich and creamy to be placed before him. And the

most self-restrained Charles, with the readiness which he showed

everywhere and on all occasions, spared the blushes of the bishop

and required no better fare; but taking up his knife cut off the

skin, which he thought unsavory and fell to on the white of the

cheese. Thereupon the bishop, who was standing near like a servant,

drew closer and said: “Why do you do that, lord emperor? You are

throwing away the very best part.” Then Charles, who deceived no

one, and did not believe that anyone would deceive him, on the

persuasion of the bishop put a piece of the skin in his mouth, and

slowly eat it and swallowed it like butter. Then approving of the

advice of the bishop, he said: “Very true, my good host,” and he

added: “Be sure to send me every year to Aix two cartloads of just

such cheeses.” And the bishop was alarmed at the impossibility of

the task and, fearful of losing both his rank and his office, he

rejoined: “My lord, I can procure the cheeses, but I cannot tell

which are of this quality and which of another. Much I fear lest

I fall under your censure.” Then Charles, from whose penetration

and skill nothing could escape, however new or strange it might

be, spoke thus to the bishop, who from childhood had known such

cheeses and yet could not test them: “Cut them in two,” he said,

“then fasten together with a skewer those that you find to be of

the right quality and keep them in your cellar for a time and then

send them to me. The rest you may keep for yourself and your clergy

and your family.” This was done for two years, and the king ordered

the present of cheeses to be taken in without remark: then in the

third year the bishop brought in person his laboriously collected

cheeses. But the most just Charles pitied his labour and anxiety

and added to the bishopric an excellent estate whence he and his

successors might provide themselves with corn and wine.

We may feel sorry for the poor flustered bishop collecting his two

cartloads of cheeses; but it is possible that our real sympathy ought

to go to Bodo, who probably had to pay an extra rent in cheeses

to satisfy the emperor’s taste, and got no excellent estate to

recompense him.

A visit from the emperor, however, would be a rare event in his life,

to be talked about for years and told to his grandchildren. But there

was one other event, which happened annually, and which was certainly

looked for with excitement by Bodo and his friends. For once a year

the king’s itinerant justices, the _Missi Dominici_, came round

to hold their court and to see if the local counts had been doing

justice. Two of them would come, a bishop and a count, and they would

perhaps stay a night at the big house as guests of the abbot, and

the next day they would go to Paris, and there they would sit and

do justice in the open square before the church, and from all the

district round great men and small, nobles and freemen and _coloni_,

would bring their grievances and demand redress. Bodo would go too,

if anyone had injured or robbed him, and would make his complaint

to the judges. But if he were canny he would not go to them empty

handed, trusting to justice alone. Charlemagne was very strict, but

unless the _missi_ were exceptionally honest and pious they would

not be averse to taking bribes. Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, who was

one of the Emperor’s _missi_, has left us a most entertaining Latin

poem, in which he describes the attempts of the clergy and laymen,

who flocked to his court, to buy justice. Every one according to his

means brought a present; the rich offered money, precious stones,

fine materials, and Eastern carpets, arms, horses, antique vases

of gold or silver chiselled with representations of the labours of

Hercules. The poor brought skins of Cordova leather, tanned and

untanned, excellent pieces of cloth and linen (poor Ermentrude must

have worked hard for the month before the justices came!), boxes, and

wax. “With this battering-ram,” cries the shocked Bishop Theodulf,

“they hope to break down the wall of my soul. But they would not

have thought that they could shake _me_, if they had not so shaken

other judges before.” And indeed, if his picture be true, the royal

justices must have been followed about by a regular caravan of carts

and horses to carry their presents. Even Theodulf has to admit that,

in order not to hurt people’s feelings, he was obliged to accept

certain unconsidered trifles in the shape of eggs and bread and wine

and chickens and little birds, “whose bodies” (he says, smacking his

lips) “are small, but very good to eat.” One seems to detect the

anxious face of Bodo behind those eggs and little birds.

Another treat Bodo had which happened once a year; for regularly

on the ninth of October there began the great fair of St. Denys,

which went on for a whole month, outside the gate of Paris. Then

for a week before the fair little booths and sheds sprang up, with

open fronts in which the merchants could display their wares, and

the Abbey of St. Denys, which had the right to take a toll of all

the merchants who came to sell, saw to it that the fair was well

enclosed with fences, and that all came in by the gates and paid

their money, for wily merchants were sometimes known to burrow under

fences or climb over them so as to avoid the toll. Then the streets

of Paris were crowded with merchants bringing their goods, packed in

carts and upon horses and oxen; and on the opening day all regular

trade in Paris stopped for a month, and every Parisian shopkeeper

was in a booth somewhere in the fair, exchanging the corn and wine

and honey of the district for rarer goods from foreign parts. Bodo’s

abbey probably had a stall in the fair and sold some of those pieces

of cloth woven by the serfs in the women’s quarter, or cheeses and

salted meat prepared on the estates, or wine paid in rent by Bodo and

his fellow-farmers. Bodo would certainly take a holiday and go to the

fair. In fact, the steward would probably have great difficulty in

keeping his men at work during the month; Charlemagne had to give a

special order to his stewards that they should “be careful that our

men do properly the work which it is lawful to exact from them, and

that they do not waste their time in running about to markets and

fairs.” Bodo and Ermentrude and the three children, all attired in

their best, did not consider it waste of time to go to the fair even

twice or three times. They pretended that they wanted to buy salt

to salt down their winter meat, or some vermilion dye to colour a

frock for the baby. What they really wanted was to wander along the

little rows of booths and look at all the strange things assembled

there; for merchants came to St. Denys to sell their rich goods

from the distant East to Bodo’s betters, and wealthy Frankish nobles

bargained there for purple and silken robes with orange borders,

stamped leather jerkins, peacock’s feathers, and the scarlet plumage

of flamingos (which they called “phœnix skins”), scents and pearls

and spices, almonds and raisins, and monkeys for their wives to play

with. Sometimes these merchants were Venetians, but more often they

were Syrians or crafty Jews; and Bodo and his fellows laughed loudly

over the story of how a Jewish merchant had tricked a certain bishop,

who craved for all the latest novelties, by stuffing a mouse with

spices and offering it for sale to him, saying that “he had brought

this most precious never-before-seen animal from Judea,” and refusing

to take less than a whole measure of silver for it. In exchange for

their luxuries these merchants took away with them Frisian cloth,

which was greatly esteemed, and corn and hunting dogs, and sometimes

a piece of fine goldsmith’s work, made in a monastic workshop. And

Bodo would hear a hundred dialects and tongues, for men of Saxony

and Frisia, Spain and Provence, Rouen and Lombardy, and perhaps an

Englishman or two, jostled each other in the little streets; and from

time to time there came also an Irish scholar with a manuscript to

sell, and the strange, sweet songs of Ireland on his lips:

A hedge of trees surrounds me,

A blackbird’s lay sings to me;

Above my lined booklet

The trilling birds chant to me.

In a grey mantle from the top of bushes

The cuckoo sings:

Verily--may the Lord shield me!--

Well do I write under the greenwood.

Then there were always jugglers and tumblers, and men with performing

bears, and minstrels to wheedle Bodo’s few pence out of his pocket.

And it would be a very tired and happy family that trundled home in

the cart to bed. For it is not, after all, so dull in the kitchen,

and when we have quite finished with the emperor, “Charlemagne and

all his peerage,” it is really worth while to spend a few moments

with Bodo in his little manse. History is largely made up of Bodos.

Eileen Power, _Medieval People_. By permission of

and by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company,

the authorized publishers.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EXPOSITORY NARRATIVE

The editors have found these additional selections very useful in

teaching expository narrative:

Davis, William Stearns. _A Day in Old Athens_, particularly Chapter

II, _The First Sights in Athens_ and Chapter XIX, _Country Life

around Athens_. Allyn and Bacon.

Husband, Joseph. _America at Work._ Houghton Mifflin Company.

Husband, Joseph. _A Year in a Coal Mine._ Houghton Mifflin Company.

Mills, Enos. _The Story of a Thousand Year Old Pine._ Houghton

Mifflin Company.

Pound, Arthur. _The Iron Man._ Atlantic Monthly Press.

White, Stewart Edward. _How to Go About It_ from _The Mountains_.

Doubleday, Page & Company.