_Theobald-the-Trickster and Fulbert the Bishop_
‘Thiebaut li quenz de Chartres fu fel é engignous
Mult out chastels é viles, é mult fu averous;
Chevalier fu mult prous é mult chevalerous
Mez mult part fu cruel é mult envious.’
ROBERT WACE--_Roman de Rou._
Rollo, on his conversion, gave his domain of Malmaison, near Épernon, to
Notre-Dame de Chartres. The deed of gift was long preserved, and ran in
these terms:--
‘I, Rollo, Duke of Normandy, give to the Brethren of the Church
Notre-Dame de Chartres my Castle of Malmaison, which I have won with my
sword, and with my sword I will guarantee it to them, as let this knife
be witness.’
A knife in the Middle Ages was a symbol of putting in possession. It was
a fitting symbol for the _siècle de fer_, that century of moral and
material disorder and disaster in which the country was now involved.
For France was now falling into the iron grip of feudalism. It is the
age of castles. As the power of the central authority weakens, the power
of the great vassals, dukes, counts, bishops and abbots becomes
established as absolute in their fiefs. But during the period of
disorder, from which the feudal _régime_ emerged triumphant, the serf
had waged with his master the same struggle that the vassal was waging
with his lords and the lord with the King. The result was similar in all
cases. Usurpation of servile tenures accompanied that of liberal
tenures, and, territorial appropriation having taken place in every rank
of society, it was as difficult to dispossess a serf of his manse as a
seigneur of his benefice. The serf, therefore, emerged from the
condition of almost absolute slavery in which he was at the time of the
fall of the Western Empire, and from the condition of servitude that had
been his up to the end of the reign of Charles-le-Chauve. From this time
_servitude_ was transformed into serfage. The serf having withdrawn his
person and his field from his master’s hands, owes to him no longer his
body and goods, but only a portion of his labour and his income. He
ceases to be a slave and becomes a tributary.
With the advent of feudalism the map of the country underwent a change.
The Roman arrangement, by which Gaul had been divided into eighteen
provinces and 127 dioceses, had been little altered by the Francs, and
lasted on under the Carlovingians, but it gradually disappeared in the
course of the tenth and eleventh centuries. It was preserved only by the
Church, the dioceses of which, up to the time of the Revolution,
represented very nearly the ancient divisions of Gaul under the Romans.
Before the days of Cæsar it was into _pagi_ that Gaul had been divided.
The pagus or _pays_ persisted now; more numerous than the cities, they
continued to split up and multiply. But from 800 onwards most of these
pays having set up comtés of the same name and same extent began to be
known as such--as, for instance, the Comté of Chartres.
When in 987 Hugues Capet, Duke of France, decided to assume the title of
King, the political unity of the Chartrains had long been broken by the
territorial usurpations of the great officers of the Crown. The
government of the country under Charlemagne had been shared by seven
counts--Chartres, Dreux, Châteaudun, Blois, Vendôme, Poissy and Mantes.
But by Hugh Capet’s time these had been reduced to three--Chartres,
Blois and Dreux--and in the person of Thibault-le-Vieux or le Tricheur,
who was of Capetan stock, the counties of Blois and Chartres were
united. They remained in his family till the death of Thibaut VI., 1218.
They were then divided between the two collateral branches of the house,
but reunited again in 1269.
Philippe-le-Bel acquired the county of Chartres in 1289, and gave it to
his brother, Charles de Valois, whose son, Philippe de Valois, united it
to the Crown (1346).
It is convenient to explain this matter of the Comté here, for the
present period of the history of Chartres is connected with the dread
name of Thibault-le-Tricheur, Theobald the Trickster, Count of Chartres,
the _chevalier fel et engignous_, whom Robert Wace describes.
This first hereditary Count of Chartres was the Robert the Devil of the
_Pays Chartrain_. Through the whole country side, from Tours to Blois,
and from Blois to Chartres, the impression of his dreaded personality is
indelibly stamped. The legend still runs that Thibault, the old
_Chasseur_, nightly crosses the Loire from Montfrau to Bury with a crowd
of his reckless men of arms, bent, you may suppose, on some murderous
foray. This turbulent spirit threw himself eagerly into the quarrel
between Lothaire and Richard, Duke of Normandy, and took an active part
in the cruel war that ensued. He invaded the Duke’s territory, and,
availing himself of every device, and employing every ruse, for Thibault
was ‘_plein d’engin et plein fu de feintie_,’ he took Évreux and
advanced even to the walls of Rouen. His line of advance was marked by
devastation so terrible that, says the Norman chronicler, there was not
the bark of a single dog to be heard throughout the county.[33]
A peace was patched up, and Thibault married Richard’s daughter. But the
King and the Count shortly afterwards renewed their machinations against
the Duke. The latter was hard pressed, but, thanks to his spirit and the
valour of his followers, he proved victorious. He ravaged the country of
his enemy, and sacked and burnt the town and church of Chartres. It is
said that when Thibault, the hardened old _Chasseur_, came to the
town--_sa bonne ville de Chartres_--he began to count one by one the
heads of those whom the Northmen had slain. Suddenly he stopped in his
counting and began to utter the cries and laughter of a madman. For the
head of his own son lay there before him, and the shock of the sight
unhinged his mind forever.
The Rue des Changes lies opposite the south-west corner of the
Cathedral. Pursue this street and you will find yourself in the modern
vegetable market--the Place Billard. It is the site on which--coolly
appropriating some territory which belonged to the Monastery of S.
Père--Thibault built the castle and donjon of the Counts of Chartres. It
was outside the then walls of the town, between the Porte Évière and the
Porte Cendreuse. Not a vestige of it now remains, if we except a few
fragments of the old enclosing wall. For the donjon was destroyed in
[Illustration: South Transept]
1587, and the castle in the nineteenth century. The great tower known as
the King’s or Count’s Tower (Tour le Roi, Tour le Comte), was used for a
prison, and within the spacious halls of the ancient palace most of the
general assemblies of Chartres were held. It was here that for five
centuries justice was administered, and it was in the chapel of the
castle that the bishop, on his entry, was wont to swear that he would
not go contrary to the rights of the prince. And it was here that feudal
homage was done, _à cause de la grosse tour de Chartres_.
The castle, with its crenelated donjon, its huge façade on the crest of
the hill, its massive walls and buttresses; the Cathedral, with its
soaring spires, majestic nave and mystic sculptures, were typical in
their juxtaposition. The fortress of the Counts, rising behind armed
walls and portcullis; the stronghold of the bishops, secure within the
buildings of the cloister, to which there was access only through
guarded gates--such, for instance, as that facing the castle, of which
you may still see a trace on the corner house of the Rue des Changes and
the Rue du Lait--Castle and Cathedral so placed were stone symbols, you
might fancy, of the temporal and spiritual powers which ruled with
divided sway the old town of Chartres.[34]
For, throughout the Middle Ages, side by side with the persistent power
of the bishops and their train of clergy and of serfs, persisted also,
but waxing and waning with varying fortune, the power of the Counts. And
from the vassals and dependants of these two powers was destined to
spring the modern _Bourgeoisie_. The Counts of Blois, of Chartres, of
Meaux pass before us in the pages of history, forever raising levies,
waging wars and exacting tolls on merchandise. Sometimes they are in
accord with the clergy; sometimes in opposition; and at one moment make
large donations to the Church, at another rob it. To-day they fight for
their King abroad and on their Crusades, while Viscounts represent them
at home. To-morrow they are home again, fighting among themselves, or
trying to throw off their allegiance to their King. Counts of Chartres
or their relatives mount the throne of England and the throne of France.
But war and brigandage remain their business. They pillage the bishops,
and the bishops excommunicate the pillagers. They raise troops, and the
bishops call their parish to arms. They war with the sword, and the
bishops win with the aid of their trained ability, the cunning of their
counsel, and their pens.
For the great bishops--such as Fulbert, Ives and John of Salisbury--were
indeed remarkable men, and they held their own successfully, not only,
if need be, against the interference of their Archbishop of Sens, but
also with the Counts of Chartres and the Kings of France and England.
The eleventh century above all was an era of notable bishops.
There were, of course, good bishops and bad. Aganon, who succeeded
Gantelme, was in the former class, and he devoted himself to the
rebuilding and establishing of the ruined churches and monasteries;
among them that of S. Père de Chartres, which had been utterly
demolished by the Normans. His nephew, Ragenfroi, succeeded him, and
continued in the paths of his uncle. He was one of the greatest
benefactors of S. Père, to which he added many buildings, and whither he
brought twelve monks from the Monastery of Fleury-sur-Loire. Their
fervour and discipline, which was to give new life to the community at
Chartres, had been acquired under the rule of their abbot, Vulphard,
destined to be one of the great bishop-builders of Chartres.
It was under Ragenfroi that Hugues le Grand, father of Hugues Capet,
gave evidence of his lively devotion to the Notre-Dame de Chartres by
the donation of the domain of Ingré, ‘with all its lands cultivated or
not, vineyards, pasturage and _prairies_, with its forests and serfs of
either sex, and the church which is dedicated to Saint Leu.’ So runs the
charter, and the object is ‘that the brethren deriving therefrom the
necessaries of life may have the more liberty to perform Divine service
and spiritual exercises, and pour out the more abundant prayers for us,
our wife and our whole family.’
Hardouin, Bishop of Chartres, succeeded to his brother’s position, but
not his religion, says the chronicler; for he was filled with pride and
swollen with secular ambition. He waged war with the monks of S. Père,
and took from them every privilege and possession he could. And the
chronicler adds (writing always from the point of view of S. Père) that
several later bishops followed his example, and trod in the same path of
sacrilege, wasting their own property and coveting that of others,
plotting against the monks and harassing them, and even robbing them of
much that the charity of the faithful had bestowed upon them, and,
whereas they should have protected them, acting in the blindness of
their hearts like tyrants and plunderers. Count Eudes succeeded his
father Thibault (977), and the following narrative, which the monk Paul
gives us in connection with his name, is sufficiently eloquent of the
times.
There was a holy priest, by name Sigismund, whose goodness and sanctity
were clearer than the light of day to all people, lay and clerical.
Chaste and humble, prudent, prayerful, burning with the fire of faith,
yet jocund of speech withal, he shone as an example of all Christian
virtues. Now Fulcher, Abbot of S. Lubin,[35] had committed to his care
certain vineyards, from which, it appears, the Blessed Sigismund knew
how to make good wine. And one day when Count Eudes of Chartres was
about to dine, and his men were looking about for the best wine to be
obtained, they heard that there was wine to be got for nothing in the
cellar of the priest. Overjoyed at the news, they hastened there, and
boldly entering the cellar filled their skins and carried them off to
the hall. The good Sigismund returned from the house of God and found
the chief cup-bearer sitting in his cellar, who mocked him, asking,
‘Master, tell me, is that wine of yours very good or not?’ ‘My brother,’
returned the holy man, ‘you are no novice at wine, and do not need to be
told when you have only to taste for yourself.’ ‘Give me a goblet,
then,’ said he. ‘Nay; the wine will be better from the cup into which it
is drawn.’
The unhappy man placed the cup to his lips, but before he could drink he
was seized with a fit, and fell to the earth foaming at the mouth. He
was taken back to the palace, and when the Count heard of the affair he
summoned Sigismund to his presence and ordered the eyes of those who had
stolen the wine to be gouged out and the wine to be restored to its
owner. Sigismund, however, when he saw him so roused, would not leave
his presence till the Count had calmed his wrath, set the prisoners
free, and consented to drink the wine _gratis_. Then the holy man turned
to pray, and thanks to his intercession the cup-bearer was restored to
his former health.
Count Eudes--whose widow, Bertha, afterwards became for a while the
wife of King Robert--died in 995. He was succeeded by his son, Thibault
II., and with him the struggle between the spiritual and temporal powers
took the form of a claim to present to the Monastery of S. Père.
Fulbert, who was one day to be the great Bishop of Chartres, has left us
an account of the matter, preserved and completed by the monk Paul,
which is as curious as it is instructive.
‘The Abbot of S. Père,’ writes Fulbert, ‘was very ill, but still in full
possession of his faculties, when a monk named Magenard--up to that time
a dear friend of mine’ (more of a courtier than a priest, says
Paul!)--‘slipped secretly out of the monastery by night and hastened to
Count Thibault, who was all that time lying at Blois, with the view of
begging the post of abbot for himself. The Count sent him back to us
next day, accompanied by commissioners, who were to secure from the
brethren a magnificent reception of him as abbot. But to almost all of
us this conduct appeared as horrible as it was unprecedented. We
answered, therefore, that we could not consent to their requests, for
the appointment was not legal; and an ambitious schemer who had tried to
secure the post of abbot before the abbot himself was dead could not be
accepted. Magenard rode back in high dudgeon to the Count, and fanned
the flames of the young man’s wrath against us. Five days later
Gislebert, the abbot, died. The members of the monastery met, and the
question was put whether anyone supported the claim of Magenard. One by
one the brethren answered no. A deputation was therefore sent to the
Count (who was acting as bishop at the time) to inform him of
Gislebert’s death, and to ask for regular permission to choose his
successor. But this deputation was forestalled by the treacherous
conduct of two monks, who hastened to Blois and falsely informed the
Count that Magenard had been chosen abbot by the brethren. The Count was
delighted at the news, and publicly presented Magenard with the pastoral
staff. The brethren who had remained at home were incensed at this
fraudulent business, and promptly drew up and signed the following
protest:--
‘Know all the Church that we have not chosen Magenard to be our abbot:
we do not approve of him, we do not want him, we do not consent; but we
disapprove, refuse, and altogether reject him--we, that is, the
undersigned monks of Saint Père.’
Fulbert tells us that all the brethren either signed or witnessed their
signatures in his presence. On the next day, he continues, the Count
Thibault returned to Chartres and requested to be admitted with formal
processions into the monastery. The monks replied that they would
willingly so receive him provided that he did not bring the false abbot
with him. The Count was enraged, but held his hand for one day. On the
following day, however, with a noisy crowd of followers, he forced
Magenard upon the Monastery of S. Père. At this violence the holy
brethren, fearing to be contaminated by the presence of the intruder,
bade farewell, with tears in their eyes, to the sanctuary of the Lord,
and took refuge in the Cathedral. The Cathedral also lacked a bishop,
and within its walls the two flocks of monks, like sheep without a
shepherd, mingled their tears with mutual consolation.
The monks found a resting-place in the monastery of Lagni, and Magenard
was installed by a foreign bishop, in the absence of the clergy, amidst
the indignation of the people, and in spite of the open protest of the
Archbishop of Sens and a few of the remaining monks of S. Père.
Not the least dramatic part of this curious story is its end. Magenard
remained quietly in possession of the monastery, and ‘there was not one
bishop in all France whose heart was touched by feelings of piety or
love of sacred law to interfere on behalf of the monks who had been
expelled.’ But presently (1004), on his return from a pilgrimage to
Rome, Count Thibault died, and his body was brought back to be laid next
his brother Thierry in the Chapel of S. Père. His gravestone, restored
in the seventeenth century, at the time of the reconstruction of the
abbey, is now to be found in the Hôtel de Ville. Now, on the death of
the Count, Raoul, the Dean of Notre-Dame, who had welcomed the monks of
S. Père in their flight, was appointed bishop in his stead. The bitter
feeling against Magenard, which had long been smouldering, now burst
into flame. He was deprived of his pastoral staff and compelled to pass
some days in the bishop’s house. But when men saw how instant he was in
prayer, and how fervent in vigil, how wise in speech and accomplished in
letters, the flames of the quarrel died down. His staff was restored to
him, together with the conduct of the monastery, and, adds the
chronicler, as long as he breathed this vital air so long did he full
well and lovingly feed the flock which was confided to his charge.
Bishop Hardouin died eight days after the destruction of the town and
church in 962, and the pious and able Vulphard was appointed in his
stead. The people of Chartres set themselves with undaunted energy to
rebuild their town, and they seized the opportunity of making their
houses more substantial, and of enlarging their churches. Look at the
tenth-century remains of Notre-Dame and S. Père, and judge how massive
was the material they used. Their houses, of course, were still made
mostly of wood. Vulphard devoted himself to the business of constructing
a new cathedral, which should be more beautiful than any yet conceived.
The martyrium is the kernel of the crypt of Notre-Dame. The latter half
of the tenth century was the period of vast crypts, and Vulphard, not
content with merely renewing the martyrium of Gislebert, added a broad
ambulatory round it, enclosed with a strong circular wall, which was
broken by three advanced chapels. This was intended to make the
martyrium, as the depository of the treasure and the Veil, safe from all
accidents. We shall see presently how well it fulfilled its purpose. The
church itself was extended westwards as far as the line marked now by
the labyrinth in the pavement of the nave. Two great piers were inserted
in the martyrium to support the raised choir.
In order to understand the growth of the Cathedral, which is in itself,
to the eye that can see, an almost complete history of Christian
architecture, it is necessary to form some idea of the church which
Vulphard built. For in size and site it approached the modern building.
If we count the circular portion embracing the martyrium, and connected
by stairs with the main building, it must have been over 100 yards long,
and in breadth at least thirty, including the Chapel of
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre on the one side, and the sacristy on the south.
But the nave and the aisles--the floor of which was on a level with that
of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre--were together only as broad as the modern
nave by itself.
Like the tenth century Church of S. Martin-au-Val, the choir was raised
ten or twelve steps above the nave, and was surrounded by an ambulatory.
There was a double transept: and it may be that we can trace it in the
recesses which now form the Chapels of S. Savinian, S. Potentian and
the Saints Forts on the one side, and the Chapel of S. Clement on the
other.
As to the details and ornamentation of the church nothing remains, but
we can say from our knowledge of the times, and from a comparison with
what tenth century work there is in Chartres, what could and what could
not have been, if not what was. There may, for instance, have been a
belfry, and, seeing that the great square tower of the Abbey Church of
S. Père was at that time being built, there probably was. Perhaps two
such towers flanked the two extremities of the façade. They would have
had no spires, but a four-sided, pyramidal roof. Squat columns or square
pillars, one may suppose, carried the series of plain round arches of
brick and stone which connected the aisles with the central nave. But
the great ‘Triumphal Arch,’ as it was called, separating choir from
nave, was richly adorned with sculpture and painting.
The capitals of the pillars and their bases would be in most instances
romanesque, after the fashion of that which serves as a font in the
Chapel of Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, whilst others would be decorated
like those of S. Martin-au-Val with foliage and forms of real or
fantastic animals, the mystic symbols of Mediæval Masonry, the language
in which the Masters of the Living Stone were now beginning to speak.
The walls may have been enriched with mosaics and paintings in
accordance with the precepts of Charlemagne. Above the aisles may have
run a triforium or gallery, set apart for the prayers of virgins and
widows. If you look at the entrance of Vulphard’s crypt you will see
that the doorways were simple, and they offer a striking contrast to the
porches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with their wealth of
sculpture, which records, as it were, in brief the history of
Christianity, and serves as a preface to the book of the Cathedral.
Without going into further detail, we may add, that as the complete art
of vaulting was not yet known, though the small roof of the martyrium
may have been vaulted, the large roof of the Cathedral can only have
been a flat wooden ceiling.
The building of this church was completed before Vulphard’s death. But
the decoration of it lagged under his successor. The skilled monks
engaged for that purpose disappeared. The artists had retired to their
cloister to await their last hour in prayer and fasting. For the end of
the world was expected. The ancient and popular doctrine of the
millennium possessed all minds. Every sign, it seemed, had been given.
Wars, famine and pestilence, and the ravages of the Normans and Saracens
had produced a depression of spirit, which, combined with an erroneous
interpretation of the Apocalypse, led men to think that the reign of
Antichrist and the end of the world must surely be at hand. The
beginning of the year 1000, it began to be believed, was the appointed
date of this dread climax.
‘A long and unceasing series of signs,’ writes one in 985, when
bequeathing his property to the Abbey of S. Père, ‘bears witness to the
approaching end of the world, and of the passing of all things therein.’
Private wars and the revolt of the Norman peasantry, who had dared to
utter the word ‘commune’ and had been ferociously crushed by the feudal
barons, the breaking up of the Roman Empire, and Charlemagne’s after it,
the plague of S. Anthony’s fire and the scourge of famine, these and a
thousand others not less awful were surely signs enough to fill the
world with terror and despair. And what should a man do but seek refuge
in the house of God and prepare himself
[Illustration: FULBERT AND HIS CHURCH.]
by frenzied supplication against the great day of the Lord?
But when the year was passed and the world was still unended, a wave of
religious feeling swept over Europe and men went with one accord to
render thanks at the holy shrines. Pilgrims crowded to the sanctuary of
Chartres to make their offerings to the Holy Veil and to acknowledge the
protection of the blessed Virgin. They came also to seek relief from the
terrible malady known as S. Anthony’s Fire or _Mal des Ardents_.
S. Fulbert[36] himself, the successor of Eudes, was afflicted with this
painful plague. William of Malmesbury records the miracle by which he
was healed.
‘He was sick unto death,’ he tells us, ‘of the sickness called the
Sacred Fire or _Mal des Ardents_ (erysipelas), which was devouring his
tongue with grievous pain. One night, when his agony was most extreme,
he beheld a beautiful lady approach with an air of majesty, attended by
a numerous suite. She bade him open his mouth, and the sick man obeyed.
Thereupon the mysterious lady did unto him as a mother does who suckles
her infant child; she pressed upon his burning tongue some drops of her
virginal milk, which refreshed his tongue and healed him instantly.
‘Even the cheeks of the saint were sprinkled with the precious liquid,
and he, having wiped off some drops thereof with costly linen, left them
to the Church of Chartres as relics, and as a token of the miracle which
had been wrought in his favour.’ ‘Qui se veoid encores parmi les
reliques,’ adds Souchet.
But Fulbert’s reputation does not rest on these passive acts of
sanctity. An event was to happen shortly which brought out all the
energy that lay beneath his mild excellence and his scholarly
instructions.
‘It was on the 7th September 1020,’ says Souchet, ‘that the burning of
the Church of Chartres happened, on the eve of the nativity of Our Lady.
It is not known how or by whose agency this disaster occurred; but there
was nothing in this holy temple that the fire did not consume.’
Rouillard (1608) piously supposes that lightning was sent from heaven to
destroy the church, as a punishment for the sins of the pilgrims, some
of whom, among the crowds of both sexes who kept vigil there, may by
some act of impurity have defiled the sanctity of the place.
However it may have been, the church was once more destroyed, and, as
was happening all over Italy and France at this period, it was destroyed
only to rise from its ashes more beautiful than ever. So Angers,
Poitiers, Beauvais, Cambrai, Rouen were rebuilt almost as soon as burnt,
in the enthusiastic rivalry of the Christian builders of the day.
‘Humanity,’ in the fine phrase of Raoul Glaber, ‘rose from its long
agony and set itself to build, and to shake off the rags of its old age
in order to put on the white robe of the churches.’
The great bishop with whose name the new Cathedral at Chartres was to be
indissolubly connected, the Fulbert of Fulbert’s Cathedral, had been the
favourite pupil of Gerbert of Reims and had practised medicine in the
Monastery of S. Père, where that art was long held in high honour. But
Fulbert was more than a mere doctor. He was a poet, a mathematician, a
theologian, grammarian and skilful musician as well. When, therefore, he
became the head of the School of Chartres (from which a few years later
John, called the Deaf, was to issue, doctor of Henry I. and chief of the
sect of Nominalists, whose pupil was Rosselin, whose pupil Abeilard)
scholars flocked from England, Germany, Denmark and all parts of France
to listen to the teachings of the French Socrates, and to receive from
his eloquent lips the precepts of wisdom and the counsel of friendship.
For his knowledge was immense and his learning encyclopædic, ranging
from the minutest details of the exact sciences to the most daring
speculations of metaphysics. Fulbert, we are told, like a modern Plato,
would often withdraw to a garden near the bishop’s palace, watered by
the clear stream (it _was_ clear in those days), and there, surrounded
by his chosen pupils, expound with mingled sweetness and force the
tenets of philosophy and the doctrines of faith. ‘The teacher of
philosophers, the marvel of his age, the sun whose rays gave life,’ his
pupil Adelmann called him. And among the philosophers he taught, and the
rare flowers of intellect which in this age of brute force expanded
beneath the quickening rays of his mind, Adelmann enumerates Lanfranc,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, Walter of Burgundy, Lambert and Engelbert
of Paris and Orléans, Hildier, wise as Socrates and learned as
Pythagoras, and Sigo, the musician of the delicate ear. Fulbert’s
letters,[37] which place him among the most interesting historians of
this obscure period, reveal him as a theologian firm and decided, as a
statesman eager to enforce order and to secure the administration of
justice, as a man broad-minded, charming, enthusiastic, humane.
Inspired by a mysterious voice which bade him ‘build a sanctuary worthy
of his filial love and the divine majesty,’ Fulbert now set about
procuring funds to build first a veritable crypt, and then above it the
new Cathedral, adopting, however, the general plan of the church left by
his predecessor in order to make use of the enormous existing
foundations.[38] The subterranean aspect of the old church, built about
the grottoes and heaped round by the rapid deposit of rubbish which
continually raised the soil of mediæval towns, would naturally suggest
this scheme. But to carry it out funds beyond the ordinary were needed.
Fortunately Fulbert was no ordinary beggar. Not only did he know how to
use the usual means of encouraging gifts, in money and in kind, from the
clergy and people of the diocese by holding special assemblies on the
site of the proposed church, and by sermons which promised heavenly
rewards for those who took part in the building, but he used his
connections with the great world and his power of letter-writing to the
best advantage.
He wrote first of all to ‘his beloved Lord,’ the ‘good King Robert,’ in
whom the historian sees more of a monk than of a sovereign.
‘All our resources fail us for the rebuilding of our church, and a great
necessity is upon us. Come then to our aid, O holy father; strengthen
our weakness and succour our distress to the end that God may reward
your soul with all blessings.’
And doubtless the ‘father of religious architecture’ responded
generously to this eloquent appeal from his former teacher.
Meanwhile every belfry in the diocese attested by its silence the
disaster of the church and the sorrow of its bishop. ‘On account of the
disaster,’ he writes, ‘which has befallen my church, I wish to make
known my profound grief to all. In consequence I have commanded that all
the bells which are wont to ring with joy and gladness shall attest
henceforth by their silence my bitter sadness.’
Fulbert wrote next to his most beloved and pious Duke of Aquitaine, and
he received handsome annual subscriptions from him whilst the Cathedral
was a-building. ‘Your marvellous and inexhaustible charity,’ writes the
bishop, ‘is pleased to overwhelm me with many gifts which I do not
deserve. I should blush to receive your offerings were I not sure that
you will be magnificently rewarded hereafter.’
Eudes II., Count of Chartres and Blois, was, before he met his death in
the Battle of Bar-le-Duc, a generous contributor. That was to be
expected from so rich a seigneur for the restoration of the principal
church of his own county and town, but deeply was Fulbert touched by the
receipt of a contribution from Cnut, King of Denmark and England, who,
as William of Malmesbury records, ‘sent many sums to the churches across
the seas, and chiefly enriched that of Chartres, where flourished
Fulbert, renowned for his holiness and philosophy.’
In acknowledging the esterlings of the great Danish King, the bishop
speaks of him in terms which the verdict of history has confirmed.
‘To the very noble King of Denmark, Cnut, Fulbert, by the grace of God,
Bishop of Chartres, with his clerks and his monks, promises the
recommendation of his prayers.
‘When we saw the offering which you deigned to send us we admired at
once your astonishing wisdom and religious spirit--your wisdom in that
you, a prince divided from us by language and by sea, are zealously
concerned not only with the things around you, but also with the things
that touch us; at your religious spirit, in that you, of whom we had
heard speak as a Pagan King, show yourself a very Christian and generous
benefactor of the churches and servants of God. We render lively thanks
to the King of Kings, through whose mercy your gifts have descended upon
us, and we beseech Him to make your reign happy and prosperous, and to
deliver your soul from all sin.’
Such were the means by which the courtly bishop extracted donations from
the great, and such the spiritual consolation with which he rewarded the
generosity of his royal patrons.
Fulbert’s labours, supported by the enthusiastic devotion of the people,
were interrupted by the turbulent behaviour of Godfrey, Viscount of
Châteaudun. He, since Eudes had acquired the county of Champagne, and
took, therefore, little interest in the affairs of Chartres, had, like
the other great vassals of Eudes, followed the example of his suzerain.
He was endeavouring, by building himself first the Castle of Gallardon,
and now of Illiers, in the very centre of the bishop’s possessions, to
aggrandise himself at the expense of the King and the Church. Fulbert
could not prevail upon the monkish Robert to repress Godfrey by force.
The spiritual arms which he himself used only roused the Count to take
reprisals by plundering the episcopal farms. Eudes himself, who had
assumed the title of Count Palatine, was too much occupied with his own
ambitious schemes, and his opposition to King Robert and King Robert’s
successor, to have either the wish or the time to interfere. For,
although he had acquiesced in Fulbert’s advice, followed by Robert the
Good, that Henry, the third son, should be appointed to succeed to the
throne, yet, when King Robert died, Eudes espoused the cause of the
fourth. He was obliged to yield at last to the force of Henry’s arms,
and some years later this turbulent Count was killed at Bar-le-Duc when
striving to take vengeance on the Emperor Conrad by attacking his
vassal, Gothelon.
In spite of his many reverses, Eudes had greatly increased the power and
repute of the house of Chartres. So far as Chartres was concerned he had
made many rich presents to the Cathedral and to the Monastery of S.
Père. He endowed the small church and foundation which was afterwards to
become the Monastery of S. Jean-en-Vallée.[39]
But his chief act of interference was when, on the death of Fulbert, the
Chapter appealed to him to uphold their election of Albert the Dean to
the episcopal seat against the appointment of Theodoric, a creature of
Queen Constance. Eudes, seizing the opportunity of opposing the royal
will, declared that he would not admit the new bishop into his town
until he had been examined by a bench of bishops, for he was said to be
a man of little sense and no education. Theodoric’s appointment was,
however, in the end made good.
The vast possessions of Eudes were divided between his sons, who,
following the family tradition, refused to pay homage to the King. They
were surprised by the energy of their royal suzerain, overpowered and
held captive for six years. Étienne, the younger, died; but Thibault, at
the price of the county of Tours, was set free by Geoffrey of Anjou.
Thibault was now Count of Chartres, Blois, Brie and Champagne, but as to
the delimitations of their territories endless hostilities arose
between him and the Angevin prince. And when his hands were not full
with the attentions of this neighbour he waged disastrous war for his
King against William I., Duke of Normandy (1058).
But in spite of wars and famine and disease, in spite of the violence of
Counts and the weakness of Kings, Fulbert’s Cathedral was completed ere
his death. The fire had left but a few columns and fragments of wall
standing where once was the Cathedral of Vulphard. The winter of 1020
was devoted to clearing away the _débris_, and so active was the work,
that by September in the following year Fulbert could write ‘we have
finished our crypts, and’ (this is the reason why he cannot accept the
invitation of William of Aquitaine to be present at the solemn
dedication of the Cathedral of Poitiers) ‘we must devote all our
energies to covering them before the inclemency of the winter damages
them.’ But in the following year the work had made such progress that he
was able to undertake a journey at King Robert’s request to Rome,
leaving the building to his canons and architect. Who that architect was
may perhaps be indicated by the entry in the _Nécrologie de Notre-Dame_,
under date October 22:--_Bérenger_. ‘Berengarius hujus matris ecclesiæ,
Artifex Bonus.’
The martyrium had suffered less than the rest of the Cathedral, but it
was thought necessary to place a large round column on the Gallo-Roman
wall, in order to strengthen the vaulted roof. On this column you may
descry the word Fulbert, cut not in modern days, nor yet at any great
distance of time.
‘The circular part of our crypt,’ says l’Abbé Bulteau,[40] ‘with its
vaulting, is to-day just as it was left then.’ But the floor was
probably much lower if one may judge by the embrasures of the windows.
The convex wall of the martyrium was strengthened on the outside by a
double thickness, for it had to support not only the thrust of the new
vaulting, but also the weight of the upper church.
As to the rectilinear portions of the crypt, in spite of the alterations
of the twelfth century, we may easily recognise the seal of the
eleventh century in the piers and the _abaci_. To S. Fulbert we
may also attribute the construction of two sacristies for
Notre-Dame-de-Sous-Terre, that on the _south_ side now being the Chapel
of S. Martin, that on the north the _Cave au Bois_, known formerly as
the ‘Place of the Iron Chest.’
The upper church was built of the same dimensions as those of the former
one, but the ground level of the whole was raised considerably, almost
to the height of that of the choir.
The length of the church may be indicated by the excavations of 1849 at
the centre of the labyrinth known as _La Lieue_, where fragments were
discovered which are supposed to have been the _débris_ of the western
façade. There was a double ambulatory round the choir and chapels
corresponding to those of the crypt, and two sacristies may be reckoned
to have been built above those of the Sous Terre.
A transept and two side-doors existed in the same place, but of less
size than those of to-day.
The decoration of the Cathedral was left in great part to Fulbert’s
successors.
Henry I., who came to the throne when death had surprised his father,
Robert the Good, as he was copying a manuscript in the Church of Melun,
owed his succession in some degree, as we have seen, to Fulbert.
He cancelled his debt in part by paying for the wooden roof[41] of the
Cathedral--wooden, for the art of extensive vaulting in stone was not
yet understood--whilst Henry’s doctor, Jean le Sourd, the Chartrain
pupil of Fulbert and leader of the sect of Nominalists in the battle of
the schools, was responsible for the construction of the south gate and
many other details. Teudon, who had made the Sainte Chasse for the Veil,
undertook the principal façade. A big bell weighing 5000 livres was also
hung in one of Vulphard’s towers, which still stood.
Fulbert died in the year 1028, but so rapid had the work been that he
did not die before his Cathedral was complete. For William of Malmesbury
(_Gest._, Vol. II. chap. XXV.) records that ‘Bishop Fulbert, among other
proofs of his efficient labours, very magnificently completed the Church
of Our Lady S. Mary, of which he himself had laid the foundations, and
which, moreover,’ he adds, ‘doing everything he could for its honour, he
rendered celebrated by many musical modulations. The man who has heard
his chaunts, breathing only celestial vows, is best able to conceive the
love he manifested in honour of the Virgin.’
Under Fulbert, indeed, the school of Chartres became famous for its
music and for its plain-song renderings of the sacred offices. The
celebrated François de Cologne and many others are mentioned as having
belonged to this school. But Fulbert himself excelled them all in his
compositions.[42] For amongst other beautiful canticles he composed, in
collaboration, it is said, with King Robert, the famous responses of the
Nativity of the Virgin, a feast which he, in grateful remembrance of his
wondrous visitant, was the first to celebrate in France. I shall be
forgiven for quoting in the untranslatable Latin this noble hymn of
love, which is the most beautiful blossom of the poetic crown of Mary.
‘Solem justitiæ, regem paritura supremum
Stella Maria maris hodie processit ad ortum;
Cernere divinum lumen gaudete fideles!
Stirps Jesse virgam produxit, virgaque florem,
Et super hunc florem requiescit Spiritus almus,
Virgo dei genitrix virga est, flos filius ejus.
Ad nutum Domini nostrum ditantis honorem,
Sicut spina rosam genuit, Judæa Mariam,
Ut vitium virtus operiret, gratia culpam.’[43]
Fulbert himself left a great part of his wealth to complete the work
which he had begun. That work was carried on by his successor,
Theodoric. But it must have been interrupted for a while by the terrible
famine which came upon France at this period--a famine so terrible that
during its course human flesh, it is said, was exposed for sale, and the
bodies of the dead were dug up and eaten. The abundant harvest of 1034
put an end to this infliction, and men turned again to finish the
decoration of God’s house. It would seem, indeed, as if Theodoric turned
this task to the purpose of relief-works. For the monk Paul says of him
‘that his abounding wealth, poured out in a lavish stream, issuing ever
to provide for the hunger and thirst of the needy, completed the famous
work of the court of our gracious Lady, the Mother of God, and makes him
worthy of saintly renown.’
But it was not till the year 1037 that the solemn dedication of the
Cathedral by Theodoric took place in the presence of Henri I. and his
whole Court.
Theodoric was buried by the side of Fulbert, and on his tomb in S. Père
was written, ‘Holy Virgin, he wished to raise to thee a temple, the
design of which the author had taken from Heaven itself.’