_S. Ives and the Crusades_
‘A pretty burgh and such as Fancy loves
For bygone grandeurs.’--LOWELL.
The town of Chartres is clearly divided into two sections--the upper
(_quartier du luxe_), modern, unimpressive and inelegant, and the lower,
picturesque, poor, mediæval. This lower part of the town is watered by
an arm of the Eure,
‘Dont l’eau distille
Autour de notre ville,
Et d’un murmurant flot
Maint beau verger enclot,’
as a local sixteenth-century poet has it. Like most old towns, Chartres
consisted originally of a small city enclosed by strong walls and of
suburbs stretching along the main roads which led to it. As these
suburbs increased in size and importance, the enceinte was enlarged so
as to include them. This took place at Chartres notably in the twelfth
century. But up to that time the area enclosed was remarkably small, for
after Hastings had sacked the town ‘the inhabitants had not the heart,’
says the monk Paul, ‘to rebuild all their city, but contented themselves
with fortifying the little corner of the ancient town which is still’
(1060) ‘surrounded with walls.’
The line of the enceinte enclosing this ‘little corner of the ancient
town’ cannot be exactly traced. But
[Illustration: Étape-au-Vin]
it certainly ran from the Place de l’Étape-au-Vin (the picturesque old
shop built out on wooden supports), and, passing behind the Church of S.
Aignan, the Castle of the Counts (Place Billard), crossed the
Petit-Boucherie to join the Tertre S. Eman,[44] where was the Porte
Evière (Porta Aquaria). Tertres, it should be remarked, are, in
Chartrain dialect, little streets of stone steps which facilitate
communication between the upper and lower towns. The rest of the town
was defended by ditches and ramparts. A few wooden forts guarded the
bridges.
Within the walls, the Cathedral and the castle frowned over the rest of
the town and other churches, representing the double power of bishop and
count, around which was growing up the crowd of dependants who were
destined, in the fulness of time, to become the bourgeoisie of Chartres.
And without the walls lay the Monastery of S. Père, waxing yearly in
lands and wealth, stirring the jealousy of bishops and tempting the
cupidity of counts. About the castle, the Cathedral and the monastery
there were gradually being established groups of artisans who, by
instinct and necessity, herded together in distinct quarters of the
town, and thus gradually formed the redoubtable corporations and guilds
of the Middle Ages--unions which, in the learned and unlearned
professions alike, still exercise so potent an influence in England and
on the Continent. Already there were the quarters of the money-changers,
the saddlers, the skinners, the goldsmiths in Chartres. Later, as we
shall see, almost every street will fly the banner of some particular
Craft.
The liberty of the peasant was also being gradually asserted throughout
this period. He was passing from the condition of a farmer under a
proprietor to that of a proprietor owing duties to a lord. From these
duties and obligations, again, the tendency now was for the peasant, by
purchase or refusal, to free himself.
Side by side with this very gradual exaltation of the humble and meek,
there begin to occur, as the era of the Crusades approaches, numerous
instances of the voluntary abasement of the great. Old seigneurs, in
strange paroxysms of religious enthusiasm, giving up their old way of
life, left lance and sword to younger hands and themselves put on the
armour of God. The example of these soldiers of the Lord, having become
_pauvre et peuple_ for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, living as mere
monks in the Monastery of S. Père, went some way towards inspiring pity
and consideration for the truly poor and the naturally low-born.
Generally, also, throughout this period there is a tendency to
substitute for arbitrary exactions and violence arrangements settled by
charter and definite duties and rights. But it is only a tendency. The
amelioration of life was only very gradual. Neither life nor property in
the eleventh and twelfth century were, as a rule, what we should call
secure. Take for an instance the behaviour of the sons of one Échambaud
when they had a difference over the possession of some land with the
Abbot of S. Père. They refused to submit their case either to the
jurisdiction of the Church courts or of Hélisende, the lady of the land.
For they preferred to have recourse to the intervention of a powerful
friend named John, living at Étampes, who was a total stranger to the
matter in dispute. Relying upon his protection, these sons of Échambaud
proceeded to plunder the property of the abbey and to burn the houses
of the tenants. They were only induced to cease from their ways and to
follow the peaceable paths of justice when the monks presented
themselves at Étampes and threatened to excommunicate the town.
Crimes were paid for in cash. There was indeed a regular tariff for
injuries done in the Middle Ages. The material damage once made good,
the moral damage was left out of account. We learn from the _Cartulaire_
the price of a monk of S. Père, for it is there recorded that Richard de
Réviers, having slain one of these, Giraud by name, bought the pardon
(pax) of the monks by making over to them four acres of land and an
annual tribute of _four quartants_ of corn. A century later (1239) we
find the monks releasing from prison a man, who had slain a clerk, on
receipt of a promise to pay _thirty sous tournois_ yearly, in addition
to certain other minor considerations.
Private wars arising from personal quarrels and ambitions, or damages of
the sort described, were very frequent. The intervention of the Crown
was rare. We have an instance of the exercise of the royal prerogative,
however, when Louis le Gros stepped in and destroyed, after three years’
war, the fortress of the Seigneurs du Puiset, who had long been a thorn
in the side of Chartres, continually committing brigandage on the Church
lands and caring nothing for ecclesiastical pains and penalties. The
King abolished the oppressive institutions of these lords, and
re-established in their ancient liberty the possessions of Notre-Dame
and the Monastery of S. Père.
In the thirteenth century the power of the King grew stronger, and
asserted itself over the monastic property. The monks of S. Père none
the less retained the right of jurisdiction in their own lands. Thus
when Geoffroi, Seigneur d’Illiers, had arrested a murderer in an inn on
their property and had hung the man (1229), he was afterwards
constrained to admit that he had exceeded his rights. All jurisdiction,
he acknowledged, appertained to the abbot and monks; he gave them
satisfaction, and paid them a fine.
Whilst they upheld their rights against the encroachments of Grands
Seigneurs in this fashion, the monks were no less frequently involved in
similar disputes with the _Communes_. Such disputes were often carried
for settlement to the court of the King. Occasionally we find the courts
ordering a point in dispute to be decided by judicial combat. These
combats seldom actually took place. The proposal of them seems to have
stimulated both parties to come to some arrangement, or to have
frightened one of them perhaps into withdrawal. The absurd and cruel
practice of trial by single combat had been borrowed from the warlike
tribes of Germany, who could not believe that a brave man deserved to
suffer or that a coward deserved to live. The old, the feeble and
infirm, therefore, in civil and criminal proceedings, were exposed to
mortal challenge from the antagonist who was destitute of legal proofs,
and thus condemned to renounce their fairest claims and possessions, to
sustain the danger of an unequal conflict, or to trust the doubtful aid
of a mercenary champion. Two instances of such challenges are recorded
by the monk Paul, and are full of human interest.
The Lord Payen de Rémalard brought an action (1090) against the Abbot of
S. Père with regard to some land in the possession of the monastery. The
two parties appeared in the Bishop’s Court. S. Ives was the Bishop of
Chartres, and he appeared among the witnesses for the monks. Geoffrey,
Count of Perche and many others were present on behalf of Rémalard. The
advocates on either side had begun to discuss and expound the case, when
suddenly a servant of S. Père, Laurent by name, burst into the middle of
the assembly and cried aloud that he had witnessed the gift of the
property in question by the Lady Ermengarde to the monks. Rémalard
himself, he further asserted, was present at the time and had made no
objection then. Rémalard denied the story; the servant affirmed it again
and again. Neither would give way. It was a question of word against
word, and who was to decide which was the better? At last, at the
suggestion of the monks, and with the assent of Rémalard, Laurent boldly
named _diem belli et locum_--the day and place of combat. But on the
day, and at the place named, Rémalard failed to put in an
appearance--_suam presentiam minime exhibuit_, and the land passed
peaceably into the undisputed possession of the monastery.
On another occasion, some twenty years later, the men of God proved
themselves too sturdy for their opponents. Again it was the question
about the donation of some property. Again one of the witnesses for the
monastery, Walter of Treleveisin, offered to make good in a duel his
testimony that he had been present on the occasion of the gift. This
time once more the offer was accepted, and the opposite party, thinking
to succeed by means of many subterfuges which they had prepared, at
first put on a bold face. But when there was no sign of wavering on the
part of the monks, the adversary’s heart failed him; we are told his
conscience smote him. He acknowledged the wrong he had done, and begged
pardon of the abbot, promising, in the presence of the whole Chapter,
that in future he would champion the cause of the monastery, both by
word and deed, in court and in battle.
Occasionally, when temporal power failed to secure them justice, Divine
aid helped the monks to maintain their rights. Wiard, son of Drogon de
Conflans, found this to his cost when he had wrongfully exacted a horse
from the Monastery of S. Père. Each time that he mounted the beast he
was attacked by a sudden malady. So much so that, after making four
unsuccessful attempts, he gave in and restored the horse to the monks,
as is recorded by the monk Paul in the year 1098.
The same writer relates an incident of the same year, which throws a
vivid light upon the social conditions of the days of chivalry. War was
the profession of your true chevalier and brigandage his pastime. The
excesses of a life spent in these occupations were to be repeated and at
the same time expiated by the Crusader. The preliminary expenses of
equipment for the Holy War were only to be met by selling some portion
of his property to the Church. Many transactions of this sort are
recorded in the telltale Chartularies of Notre-Dame and S. Père. The
incident to which I refer will serve as an example of this:--
Nivelon, son of Faucher, Lord of Fréteval, confesses that, as often as
he was carried away by chivalrous ardour (of a sort sufficiently
inconvenient to his neighbours), it was his custom to fall upon the
village of Emprainville with a troop of his followers and to
‘commandeer’ all the provisions to be found there belonging to the men
of the Abbey of S. Père. But when, in after years, he determined to go
on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he agreed, in order to obtain pardon for
his trespasses and money for his journey, in consideration, that is, of
thirteen silver pounds from the monks, to forego this vexatious habit of
his.
And he adds that if any of his descendants dispute the validity of this
concession, he hopes he may ‘be struck down by the thunderbolt that
awaiteth on perjurers, and that he may be condemned with Dathan and
Abiram to hell fire, and there to suffer everlasting torture.’ There is
a fine ecclesiastical ring about the legal documents of those days, it
will be noticed. Imprecations on breakers of contracts are indeed common
enough in mediæval diplomatics. The monk Paul supplies us with an
instance in which the guilty man is consigned ‘to the everlasting fires
of hell along with Nero, who caused the Apostle S. Peter to perish on
the cross, and S. Paul the Apostle to perish by the sword.’ In another
case the hope is expressed that the transgressor may incur, amongst
other inconveniences, the penalty of eternal damnation, the loss of his
eyesight, and the infliction of the _mal royal_.
Nor was it a marauding knight only or an aggressive seigneur who was
likely to interrupt the even tenor of a man’s way in those times. There
were not infrequently bishops in his path also--bishops of the feudal,
fighting, robbing sort, whose style of blessing was a blow with a sword.
Notable among these persecuting Bishops of Chartres is Robert of Tours,
Cardinal and Legate (1065), who excommunicated a whole parcel of monks
because they refused to accept the abbot he wished to force upon them.
Then, too, there was Arrald, deceitful and fair of speech, against whom
the chronicler is mightily wroth. But the bishop must at least have had
a sense of humour. For his dictum was that gold and silver and the
precious ornaments of the Church had no place in a monastery; they were
only provocative of pride and the occasion of wantonness in the monks.
Therefore he would take such things away, to save them from temptation.
He remarked, too, that it was a wicked thing for monks to eat fish or
the fat of beasts; they ought to eat simple herbs only, and he advised
them to strive to be xerophagi, or eaters of dry, plain food. And to
help them, no doubt, he confiscated their fish ponds, for he had a nice
taste in good fish himself, and a liking for foreign dishes, ‘always
indulging,’ adds our monk savagely, ‘his own natural tendency to
gormandise’ (ventri suo castrimargiam semper habens vernaculam)![45] But
it is the monks themselves who have left us an imperishable tradition of
gormandising; even on fast days they would put a fowl in the pot, and
salve their consciences with the argument that as birds and fishes had
been created on the same day, they might be of the same species; and, as
to drink, they were often under the patronage of S. Martin, in cloisters
or at the tavern, quite theologically drunk. As early as 847 the
councils of the Church were busy with the scandals of monks in inns. And
cleanliness of the body they considered to be a culpable vanity, a
pollution of the soul.
But, whether Arrald deserved the censure of the monk Paul or not, that
kind of bishop was not uncommon in this century. Geoffrey the First,
seven years later, was excommunicated for simony and other vices. His
simony he had defended with shameless cynicism.
When the King reproached him with having given to others the benefices
which he had asked of him, ‘I have not given them at all, sire,’ he
replied; ‘I have sold them very profitably.’
But his treason, his adulteries and his perjuries became at last
unbearable. Pope Gregory VII. determined to make an example of him. He
was compelled to resign his bishopric, and in his stead was appointed
one of the greatest of Chartrain Bishops--S. Ives.
The Feast of S. Ives is kept at Chartres on the 20th of May, when his
relics, which are kept in the Treasury of the Cathedral, are shown. His
name has been given to the passage in the cloister opposite the great
north porch, and it lives in the mouth of the peasants as S. Yvre,
protector of sheep; his stone image stands near that of Fulbert on the
_clôture_ of the choir, but his spirit lives most surely in those square
grey towers which he began to build, and which, so massive and yet so
spiritual, point with their spires heavenwards, like hands that have
been clasped and raised in prayer.
A man of high birth, he had joined one of the severest Augustine orders,
who eat neither fish nor meat; a man of great talents, he had improved
them by study under the famous Lanfranc, at the Monastery of Le Bec.
There he had been the friend and fellow-student of Anselm, who in later
years paid him a visit at Chartres, on his way from Canterbury to Rome.
The characters of the two men, as revealed by their lives and letters,
are much alike in their sweetness and their strength. S. Ives was a man
before his time; in every way superior to his century. A scholar, he was
also a man of action, a statesman of indomitable will, a theologian of
surpassing acumen and enthusiasm. He did not, like Fulbert, found a
school of philosophy, but he made of his monks practical philosophers.
As a canonist his famous ‘Décret’ caused him to be consulted by high and
low, learned and learners alike, on questions of theology, jurisprudence
or conduct. On questions of practical politics his advice was sought by
Popes and Kings, whether of France or England; by Counts and Seigneurs,
and men of low degree. It was always given with sympathy, science, and a
charming humility. His letters are indeed full of sweetness and light,
of dignity and logic, of firmness and vigour, tempered by Christian
charity and meekness. Take, for an example, his reply to the Bishop of
Orléans, who had consulted him on the question whether a free man,
married to a woman of whose servile condition he had been ignorant,
could divorce her and marry again. ‘If the laws of the world are to be
consulted,’ S. Ives writes, ‘the answer must be that, marriage between
equals alone being legitimate, the divorce ought to take place. But if
we consult the law of God, which makes us all equal, and is careless of
social conditions, we shall answer, No.’ And elsewhere he says, ‘Reject
these pretended trials by ordeal of fire and sword. It is tempting God,
and I have often seen the innocent punished and the guilty acquitted by
this means.’
Such was the pure and fearless spirit of the man who was now called to
govern Chartres, and who set himself to introduce order, discipline and
a right tone in a diocese which had suffered much from Geoffrey’s
lawless rule.
It was much against his will that he left his monastery at Beauvais to
take up what he called ‘the heavy burden of the episcopate’ (Letter
III.).
And since he was not willing to receive the insignia of his pastoral
charge from the throne, the Canons of Chartres dragged him by main force
before Philippe, and compelled him (as Anselm in England also was
forcibly compelled) to receive the pastoral staff from the King.[46]
Geoffrey, however, the deposed bishop, was not the man to retire without
a struggle. He enlisted the support of his uncle, Bishop of Paris, and
of the Archbishop of Sens. Gently but firmly S. Ives ignored their
protests, resting his claim on the supreme decision of the Pope. The
storm wore itself out against his unflinching calmness. But scarcely was
he settled peaceably in possession of his bishopric when, like the
conscientious man of action that he was, S. Ives felt bound to stir up
another storm, destined to make itself felt throughout Christendom.
The union of Philippe the First with Bertrade de Montfort was a flagrant
violation of the laws of the Church. Against this adulterous marriage S.
Ives arose and protested. In order to understand the part S. Ives took
in this matter it is necessary to realise that the sanctity of marriage
was a point, the observance of which, in his aim of securing not the
appearance only but the reality of virtue, S. Ives had set himself to
enforce in all classes. He deals with the subject in his letters with
broad judgment and sound sense.
In the case of princes--for the sake of example--he had continually
exerted himself to prevent or to annul marriages which transgressed the
laws of holy matrimony.
Now, therefore, with immense courage, he determined to stop the
adulterous and incestuous union of the quinquagenarian Philippe I. with
Bertrade, third wife of Fouques, Count of Anjou. For the King wished to
repudiate Queen Bertha and to make a wife of that fascinating and
ambitious woman.
To quiet all scruples and objections, he began by endeavouring to obtain
the consent of the bishops, and especially that of S. Ives (S. Ives,
Letter XIII.), whom he tried to trick into giving his assent. But S.
Ives would be no party to such a business. Though he could not dissuade
the King, he persisted in opposing and condemning his action. He warned
his brother bishops not to be mute dogs that know not how to bark. He
wrote to the King that he would rather have a millstone round his neck
and be cast into the sea than aid and abet by his presence this
unrighteous union with Bertrade.
It was a noble letter; but the purpose of the writer was not achieved.
The marriage took place. It remained to punish the honest bishop.
Perhaps Philippe might have forgiven him, but Bertrade was not the kind
of woman to forgive such opposition.
Hugues II. du Puiset, Viscount of Chartres, was her tool. Acting under
instructions from the Court, he pillaged the lands of Notre-Dame. Then,
profiting by the presence of the bishop in his country house near
Fresnay,[47] he seized him and held him prisoner.
When news was brought to Chartres of the seizure of their bishop, people
and clergy alike rose to arms to rescue him. But he wrote forbidding
them to use violence for his sake. ‘War,’ he said, ‘is for wolves, not
for shepherds. I did not obtain my bishopric by arms, and by arms I do
not care to recover it.’ In like manner he restrained the nobles who
were eager to fight against the King in his defence, and, for fear of
stirring up rebellion, he refused for a long time to publish the letters
which the Pope had despatched, denouncing the scandalous marriage of
Philippe. As a reward, his lands and property were ravaged and sacked,
so that, when in obedience to the Pope’s command he was at length set
free, he found himself reduced to absolute penury. But his firmness
gained him his point in the end. Morality was vindicated. Philippe,
excommunicated, made his submission to Pope Urban II., and although he
withdrew it under Pascal II., he finally, with Bertrade, made the
_amende honorable_ before the assembled bishops in Paris (1104).
S. Ives had taken his part in that famous Council of Clermont, in which,
after the Roman Pontiff had hurled from this tribunal in the heart of
France his anathemas against the French King, the Church confirmed the
Truce of God by which it was determined that (1095) ‘on all days monks,
clerks and women, and those with them shall abide in peace; but on three
days of the week any injury inflicted by anyone upon another shall not
be counted an infringement of the peace; but on the other four days
(Thursday-Sunday) anyone who injures another shall be held guilty of
breaking the holy peace, and shall be punished accordingly.’ Men who
lived by violence were to be violent only three days a week--men who
lived by the sword were to keep it sheathed more than half the year. The
check upon the unbridled power and wanton cruelty of the barons implied
by this moderate enactment constituted one of the greatest steps in the
direction of alleviating the distress of the poor, the weak and the
educated; of encouraging travelling and trade, and promoting
civilisation that was taken in the Middle Ages.
S. Ives proceeded with the utmost vigour to persuade the nobles of his
diocese to accept the peace which they were tempted to reject as
contrary to their privileges, and also to see that it was observed
thereafter by them and by others within the limits of his own
jurisdiction. And thus, by helping to deliver the weak from the power of
the strong, he contributed towards preparing the way for the movement
which was soon to give the people a voice in their own affairs and
procure for them their municipal franchise in the form of ‘Communes.’
Meanwhile this same Council of Clermont had provided an outlet for the
energies of the knights of Christendom, which were restricted by the
Truce of God. The Crusade had been promulgated.
The enthusiasm of the people had been carefully prepared. The fantastic
figure of Peter the Hermit, dressed in a woollen tunic and a cloak of
coarse cloth, his arms and feet alike bare, and his eyes flashing with
magnetic frenzy, had appeared among them and heated their imaginations.
At the sound of his eloquence every heart caught fire, and a nation of
soldiers was burning to exhibit at once its piety and its valour by the
conquest of the Holy Land. The merit and glory of that undertaking had
also been preached by the clergy in every diocese. When, therefore, the
Pope ascended a lofty scaffold in the market-place of Clermont his
eloquence was addressed to a vast concourse of well-prepared and
impatient enthusiasts. The answer to the summons to arms was unanimous.
The orator was interrupted by the shout of thousands, ‘Diex el volt!
Diex el volt!’ For so the popular tongue corrupted the cry of the
clergy, ‘God wills it!’ (Deus vult). ‘It is indeed the will of God,’
replied the Pope, and he gave them as a mark of their sacred and
irrevocable engagement the symbol of the red, the bloody cross to be
worn on their breast or shoulder.
Thus in a paroxysm of religious fervour began that Crusade which was to
end in the rapine of a mediæval raid, and in the disastrous _dénouement_
of Nicæa.
The effects of the Crusades were as varied as the motives of the
Crusaders. For though all were inspired, one need not doubt, by a
genuine religious desire to regain the Holy Sepulchre for Christendom,
by the belief of merit, the hope of the reward of plenary indulgence
promised by the Pope, and the assurance of divine aid, yet other motives
and instincts were present in the breasts of many. Collectively, the
Crusading Gaul exhibited a perversion of that instinct of expansion to
which French excursions into Britain and Russia, across the Pyrenees,
the Alps and the Rhine, to America, India, Madagascar and Algiers, have
continually borne witness, and which now survives the population’s power
to expand. Individually, the desire to rescue the Church, mingled with
the hope of military glory and the prospect of unlimited plunder, were
sufficient inducements for the barons to cease from petty wars in their
own land, and to gratify, as a penance and against the nations of the
East, those passions which, when indulged at home, had involved them in
the discipline of penance. And in the case of their followers, among
many other motives, the love of freedom prompted. For, under the sign of
the Cross, the peasant attached to the servitude of the glebe might
escape from a haughty lord and transplant himself and his family to a
land of liberty, just as the monk might release himself from the
discipline of his convent and the criminal elude the punishment of his
crime.
Of the effects of the Crusades I shall only mention those which are
directly illustrated by the story of Chartres. They rolled back the tide
of Mahometan conquest from Constantinople; they brought together East
and West, and led to the awakening of the human intellect which was to
put an end to the dark ages; they opened up new markets and stimulated
trade to a wonderful degree--these great results they had, but they only
affected Chartres indirectly. More directly we see the effect of them in
the relations between the powers that were. By weakening the resources
and influence of the barons they strengthened the authority of the Kings
acting in alliance with the citizens. And this alliance broke up the
feudal system, gradually abolished serfdom, and substituted the
authority of a common law for the unstable will of chiefs, whose
arbitrament was private war. Last and not least permanent of the effects
of the Crusades was the influence exercised by the East upon art. The
Porche Royal of the Cathedral, and the stained glass windows which are
the glory of Chartres, would not have been as they are had Peter the
Hermit never led his hundred thousand pilgrims to destruction, or if
Bohémond, Prince of Antioch, had not taken the Cross in the sanctuary of
Notre-Dame.
The foundation of the Abbey Josaphat-Lès-Chartres, which, like so many
other religious foundations rich in lands, in relics and in books, was
destroyed in 1789, affords another example of the indirect influence of
the Crusades upon the institutions of Chartres. This abbey[48] was
situated about two kilometres from Chartres, under the Hill of Lèves, on
a site which in its topographical relations resembled that Valley of
Jehosaphat to which its founder, Bishop Geoffrey, the successor of S.
Ives, had vowed to go, but came into the bishopric instead. Even so S.
Bernard recalled the town of Tyre to the memory of all Christians in the
name of Tyron, which he gave to the monastery which he founded in Le
Perche on lands given to him by S. Ives.
It was to the Abbey of Josaphat that, up to the days of the Revolution,
the musicians and choristers of Notre-Dame made yearly, in the vintage
season, a strange kind of equestrian promenade, known as the
_Chevauchée_. This probably represented the survival of some feudal
obligation. The chevaucheurs in a dignified Latin speech obtained leave
from the Chapter to perform their functions, and then, before leaving
the Cathedral, they used to sing the office of the day. But once _en
route_ the cavalcade became as noisy and riotous a scene of carnival as
the Feast of Fools. Riding on horses and donkeys, clad in outrageous
garments of all colours, armed with swords, wearing absurd hats, and
making a deplorable noise with all kinds of instruments, the cacophonous
cavalcade made its way through the laughing, boisterous throng, to
_déjeûner_ at the Abbey of Josaphat. The Feast of Fools, to which I have
referred, like this amazing excursion, was celebrated in the odour of
scandal down to the end of the eighteenth century. It was a feast widely
popular in France, but much more licentious than religious. It was held
at Chartres on the 1st of January. An admirable picture of the Feast of
Fools as observed at Notre-Dame-de-Paris five days later is drawn by
Victor Hugo in the first chapters of his novel of that name.
Clerks of the choir dressed up in grotesque costumes, elected a _Pape
des Fous_ and a college of ridiculous cardinals, and then performed an
indecent parody of the sacred offices. They danced in an abandoned
fashion in the sanctuary, and ran about the city committing a thousand
extravagances and bandying jests with the ribald crowd. There was
another Feast of Fools in carnival time, which was authorised in 1300 on
the condition that it was celebrated _dévotement_. That condition was
not observed, and the feast was abolished in the following year. But
that of January 1st continued till the ‘scandals, insolences, turpitudes
and abuses’ which attended it led to its being forbidden in 1479 by the
Church authorities. But the people preferred their Saturnalia to the
danger of ecclesiastical anathemas, and the feast maintained its
indecent existence for many years to come.
S. Ives had accompanied Urban preaching the Crusade through France. He
returned now to Chartres and preached it there. Numerous were the
Crusaders who went from the Chartrain country. It was fitting that, as
in Foucher (_historien un peu trop conteur_), Chartres was to boast one
of the chief chroniclers of the Crusades, so among her sons there should
be many, like Gautier-Sans-Avoir, Raoul de Beaugency, and Gérard de
Cherisy, to do knightly deeds worthy to be chronicled. The Battle of
Gorgoni was won by the valour of the Count of Chartres and his
followers, and Raimbaud Croton, a Chartrain, it was who first scaled the
ramparts of Jerusalem. But none among the Chartrain Crusaders exceeded
in bravery and brilliant daring Évrard, Viscomte of Chartres and
Seigneur du Puiset. It was he who at the passage of the _Orontes_ (El
far) stood at the head of the bridge and, like another Horatius Cocles,
held it against the enemy. It was he again who, when Jerusalem had just
fallen into the hands of the Crusaders, won the admiration of the whole
army by a bold feat of arms. A party of Christian soldiers were put to
flight by the desperate resistance of a troop of the enemy. Their flight
was barred by Évrard, whose anger found vent in a scathing volley of
reproaches.
‘Vile troop of cowards,’ he cried, ‘is it to fight you have come here,
or to figure in a ballet? Are you children playing at soldiers, or
little girls footing it in the chorus of a dance?... Away with fear,
take courage, and remember you are Francs and born of brave sires. My
ensign,’ he nobly added, ‘shall guide you--follow you me.’ Thus
speaking, he rushed into the fray, and, inspired by his example, the
Crusaders succeeded in overwhelming the infidels.
The part played by Count Étienne was at first less noble. He had married
Adèle, daughter of William the Conqueror, and, like his wife, he was
distinguished in this age of the sword by a love of art and letters. He
wrote poetry, and Hildebert, Bishop of Le Mans, rashly compared him to
Vergil. ‘Gentiz homme, noble barun,’ so Robert Wace describes him.
Summoned from more congenial pursuits, he sailed with Robert, Duke of
Normandy, to join the army which was then encamped before Nicæa. In a
letter to his wife he described the hospitality with which the Emperor
Alexis received him at Constantinople. ‘He treated me with so much
distinction,’ he says, ‘that I could only tear myself away from him with
tears.’ He proceeded to amass booty both before and after the taking of
Nicæa, and his letters acquaint his wife with his increasing wealth and
his military preferment, but he grows anxious to return to France with
his enormous loot. His cowardly retreat from Antioch and the treacherous
representations by which he dissuaded the Emperor Alexis from relieving
the Crusaders, who were now pressed by the army of Kerbogha, gained him
a poor welcome in France when he returned. The subsequent taking of
Jerusalem exposed the deserting Crusaders to unlimited contumely, and
filled them with remorse. French irony expressed itself in biting
_sirvente_, short satirical poems by fighting troubadours like Bertram
de Born, the Provençal nobleman, who gave to Richard Coeur-de-Lion his
nickname of Yea-and-Nay. Those faint-hearted knights who had stolen back
to their baronial halls were denounced with cutting invective.
‘Marques, li monges de Clunhie
Veuilh que fasson de vos capadel
O siatz abbas de Cystilh,
Pus le cor avetz tan mendic
Que mais amatz dos buous et un araire
A Montferrat qu’alors estr’ emperuieur.’[49]
Stung by such taunts, Count Étienne seized an opportunity which was
given him of making a fresh expedition against the Turks. On this
occasion he amply redeemed his reputation, and after many deeds of
heroism he laid down his life for the cause whose sign he bore. Before
setting out he had secured the blessing of the bishop by two interesting
concessions.
It was a long-established custom of the town and a right by usage of the
Counts of Chartres that, on the death of a bishop, his palace should be
sacked. To S. Ives, when his new palace was finished, Count Étienne now
granted a charter renouncing this barbarous practice. But none the less
Thibault, his son, sacked the bishop’s palace upon the death of S. Ives.
The other concession made by the Count was with regard to the liberty of
the cloister, which, the canons maintained, was outside all secular
jurisdiction. The quarrel which sprang from this question of the rights
of the cloister was destined to last for three centuries. For the
present it was forgotten in the more absorbing interest of the Crusades.
From the time of Fulbert onwards, the canons, on one pretext or another,
whether by buying houses, claiming jurisdiction, or openly demanding the
right of enclosing their cloister by walls and gates, had begun to
encroach--so at least it was regarded by Counts and townsmen--upon the
domain of Chartres, and to set up by degrees a town within a town, the
cloister which stretched from the Rue de Cheval Blanc on the north to
the Rue au Lait on the south, and from the Percheronne on the west to
the Rue Montonnière, a continuation of the Rue Muret, on the east. The
rights claimed by the Chapter were at last acknowledged and established
by parliamentary decree, 1470; but only, as we have said, after
centuries of bickering with the Counts. They, feeling themselves
assailed both as to their pockets and their powers of jurisdiction by
the privileges extended by the Church to those who attached themselves
to the cloister, expressed their feelings by frequent armed raids into
the precincts, pillaging the shops[50] which had sprung up beneath the
shade of Notre-Dame and carrying off unfortunate clerks as prisoners to
be ransomed from the great Tower. The Church retaliated with its one
all-powerful weapon--excommunication.
The cloister[51] was finally enclosed by thick walls and by nine
gates--mostly destroyed in the eighteenth century; but of some of them
traces may still be seen--the _Porte Neuve_ and the _Porte de
l’Étroit-Degré_, giving on the Rue du Cheval Blanc; the _Porte des
Changes_ (Rue des Changes), and _Porte aux Herbes_ (Rue au Lait), _Porte
Évière_, entrance of Rue Saint-Eman; _Porte Percheronne_ (Rue du
Soleil-d’Or), _Porte des Carneaux_ (Rue Sainte-Même), _Porte des Lices_
(Marché-a-la-Filasse), _Porte de l’Évêque_ (Rue Muret).
One of the handsomest of the old houses of the canons that remains is
that at the corner of the Rue des Changes, facing the south porch of the
Cathedral. Utilitarian France has sadly restored this old
thirteenth-century house, and turned it to account as the Post Office,
just as she has planted some villainous cavalry barracks on the site of
the old monastic buildings of S. Père, and converted into a military
bakehouse the interesting old House of Loens.
Attached to the cloister was the Hospital or Hôtel-Dieu of Notre-Dame.
It was founded about the tenth century; restored and spoilt in the
eighteenth century. The hospital has recently been removed to a more
suitable spot, and the old Hôtel-Dieu, with its thirteenth-century
chapel, now serves for the École Mutuelle of the town. It stands in the
south-west corner of the space which has been cleared in front of the
Cathedral, between the Rue Fulbert and the Rue de la Cathédrale.
[Illustration: Street Entrance to Old Hôtel de Ville]
The departure and death of Etienne left Chartres and its bishop more
than ever exposed to the brigandage of the Viscount Hugues, who was
always in a state of excommunication, and whose bands of mercenary
robbers held the roads, so that S. Ives could not attend the great
Council at Sens or at Paris. With his violence, as with the greed and
slackness of his own clergy, S. Ives carried on unceasing war, and it
was not long before he found himself involved also in a bitter quarrel
with the Countess Adèle, widow of Etienne. The Chapter had bound
themselves by oath not to admit into their ranks any of those known as
_conditionarii_--men, that is, freed from serfdom but still held under
servile obligations to the Countess. The Countess exerted herself with
extraordinary energy and persistence to advance the claims of certain
clients of this description. S. Ives strove to calm her and to support
his Chapter. The Countess retorted by violent reprisals and seized the
wine of the precentor, Hilduin, in the street des Corroyeurs. S. Ives
threatened her with excommunication, and she interdicted the canons from
the use of the roads, and of bread and water throughout her domain. It
was time to give way, and S. Ives, by a judicious compromise, obtained
the Pope’s consent that the Lady Adèle’s men should be admitted to share
in the revenues of the Cathedral.
In support of his suzerain the Viscount Hugues had been devastating the
diocese. But a new Crusade saved S. Ives from his enemies. Bohémond of
Tarentum, Prince of Antioch, came to Chartres to marry Constance,
daughter of the King, and to receive the nuptial benediction from the
hands of S. Ives, to whose efforts the marriage was due. The Countess
Adèle displayed on this occasion a hospitality worthy in its
magnificence of the daughter of William the Conqueror and of the noble
House of Thibault the Trickster. The marriage ceremony was performed,
and thereafter, before a vast assembly standing on the steps of the
altar of the _Vierge-aux-Miracles_, the Prince of Antioch related his
wonderful adventures, and bore witness to the miraculous protection
afforded to him by God in the former Crusade. Men listened and wondered
and waxed enthusiastic. When Bohémond concluded his discourse by
inviting his listeners to follow the example of the first Crusaders, a
crowd of knights rushed forward and then and there took the sign of the
Cross. Foremost among them was the excommunicated brigand, Hugues,
Viscomte de Chartres.
S. Ives died at the end of the year 1115. But during his busy lifetime
there had been springing up the great monument which is his in Chartres,
the Western Towers and the Porche Royal of the Cathedral, with its
sculptured kings and queens, than which no sculpture in the world is
more beautiful. During his lifetime also it had been necessary to
rebuild in great part the Church of Fulbert. The rapidity with which it
had been built in troublous times of war and famine may account for this
necessity. S. Ives increased the length of the building by some
twenty-five yards and, whilst carrying the nave and aisles one bay
further west, he prolonged the crypt to the foot of his new towers,
adorning it with mural paintings, of which traces yet remain. The towers
were built at the end of each aisle, and the lower part of the west
front, though actually the same now as that then built, lay back at that
time on a line within the eastern sides of the towers. It was afterwards
brought forward so as to be where it now is, flush with their western
sides.
S. Ives also constructed the two new entrances to the crypt, with
staircases and passages, through the Cave du Bois on the north and S.
Martin’s Chapel on the south. The roof of the apse was also renewed, and
an angelot or guardian angel set thereon.[52] But one of the chief works
of S. Ives was the construction of the beautiful Jubé,[53] of which we
have seen the few remaining fragments in the crypt.[54] Meanwhile the
rest of the Cathedral, its chapels and altars, were being adorned by
the pious generosity of the people of all classes. The choir was paved
with marble and mosaic, and tapestries were hung round it where now runs
the sculptured _clôture_. The beautiful glass through which the light
still pours its coloured streams were being set up in the lower lights
of the western façade, and in the sacristy was accumulating that
collection of jewels and relics, of chalices, censers and crucifixes, of
liturgies bound in silver, gold and precious stones, and of
ecclesiastical ornaments, which was to render the treasury of Chartres
one of the richest in the world, till the Vandals of the eighteenth
century laid their sacrilegious hands upon it.
In order to obtain funds for the building of his towers and the
restoration of his church, S. Ives, like Fulbert before him, begged
freely of Kings.
It will be understood that his relations with Philippe were not of the
kind to encourage him to ask for aid in that quarter. But he sent two
monks to Henry I. of England with a letter, in which, after expressing
the pious hope that Henry would continue to walk in the footsteps of his
father, and recognise that, as the body ought to be subject to the mind,
so ought the civil government to be subject to the ecclesiastical, he
tells him that he is the servant of the servants of God, and not their
master; their protector, and not their lord; and then adds that the
bearers of the letter will explain to His Highness the needs of the
Church, which he is conjured to satisfy with the same generosity as his
parents showed.
It is scarcely surprising that a letter couched in such terms was not
productive of alms from the English King who had taken his spouse from a
nunnery; nor was an appeal to Matilda in the following year ‘to show
that love for the Queen of the Angels which the Queens of the Angles
have always so generously displayed’ any more successful. But a third
more likely letter knocked, to borrow S. Ives’s own phrase, at the door
of Henry’s generous heart with better result. Queen Matilda was charged
with the duty of replying to it, and she made many gifts to the Church,
among which were several bells, of which S. Ives writes in
acknowledgment that ‘they are doubly dear to us, both on account of your
piety and of their own sweet melody. Every time that they are put in
motion to indicate certain hours, our ears are soothed with such
delicious music that your memory is renewed within our hearts.’ He also
reminds her, amid many such graceful sayings, that the roof wants
mending; and at her death we find that his words bear fruit, for she
made many bequests to the Cathedral, and left money to defray the
expenses of a lead roof. But it was not only Kings and Queens who fell
under the charm of S. Ives and the love of his Church, and it was not
only the great who received his thanks. Such phrases as the following
occur again and again in the Necrology of Notre-Dame:--‘On Nov. 24th,
died Jean, son of Vital, the clever and faithful carpenter of this
Church, who always worked with love and zeal at the work of this
Church.’ That is but one name among the thousands, who now, with an
extraordinary outburst of enthusiasm, came from far and near to build
the superb monument of Chartres Cathedral.