the lagoons, lashing the shallow water into foam and howling through the
narrow canals and dark byways of the city. It was late at night when a
poor fisherman, who had narrowly escaped destruction, ran in and began
to moor his boat. He had not finished when three venerable old men, of
majestic countenance, suddenly appeared out of the darkness and
earnestly begged him to take them across the lagoon in the teeth of the
gale. The fisherman hesitated, and was on the point of refusing a
request which seemed most unreasonable; but there was something in the
faces, in the manner, gestures, and tone of the three which imposed
itself upon him in spite of himself. They entered the stern of the
fishing boat, and he shoved off into the rough water, which was close at
hand. The wind howled, the frail skiff rocked as if she would capsize,
the salt spray blinded the poor man as he stood up and bent to his oars
in the Italian fashion, but the presence of the three venerable
strangers gave him superhuman strength to go on.
They were already far out upon the seething water when an appalling
vision burst upon his sight. In the heart of a black squall a great
barge full of fire came flying towards the city, and the fire was full
of demons, and fiery fiends swung red-hot oars that hissed each time
they dipped into the water. The poor fisherman gave himself up for lost
and fell upon his knees, but behind him in the stern of the boat the
three majestic passengers stood upright and made the sign of the cross
with wide and potent gestures; and suddenly the fiery barge stood still
as if she had struck a rock and was thrown into the air, and turning
upside down fell with all her fiery crew hissing into the raging sea,
and all was dark, and suddenly the storm subsided and the moon shone out
between the clouds as on a summer’s night.
[Sidenote: _About 1340._]
[Sidenote: _The fisherman gives the ring to the Doge Gradenigo, Paris
Bordone; Accademia._]
Then said the oldest of the three old men to the fisherman, ‘Take me to
the island of Saint George, for there I dwell.’ And the fisherman put
him ashore there. The second of the old men then said, ‘I am Saint
Nicholas, take me over to the Lido.’ The fisherman set him ashore there,
wondering at his own strength, for it is far. Then said the last, ‘I am
Saint Mark, set me ashore at the Piazza.’ When they were there the
fisherman fell upon his face before the saint, who raised him up and
gave him his blessing, and, moreover, bade him go at once to the Doge,
though it was late, and tell him what he had seen, and to prove that it
was truth and not a dream the saint drew from his finger a ring and gave
it to the fisherman as a token.
The legend has been too often told for me to dwell upon what followed,
but it contrasts characteristically with the tale of the little Countess
Tagliapietra, which is only forty years older, but which still retains
that subtle perfume, that air of peace and light, which belong to the
earlier Venetian legends. The story of the fisherman belongs already to
those nightmare tales of terror which became so very common in Venice
that in the sixteenth century all the popular tales represent devils and
fiends struggling against the supernatural powers of saints. Last of
all, even the saints and demons disappeared, and the degenerate
eighteenth century expressed its love of fiction in a set of ghost
stories as terrifying as any that the human imagination has ever evolved
out of darkness.
Next to all that is connected with religion, that which would do the
most to give a clear idea of the fourteenth century would be the study
of women and their position at that time, but an almost total lack of
documents makes this absolutely impossible. We can learn from old family
papers and carefully preserved accounts what women were, and we may even
to some extent reconstruct the frame of their outward existence; but the
soul of it all escapes us. The story I have told of the little patrician
girl alone stands out to give us some idea of what a spotless child’s
thoughts could be in a city which was even then one of the most perverse
in Europe. But of the many other Venetian ladies whom history mentions
by name we know absolutely nothing, so far as their private lives are
concerned. One dogess after another appears in magnificent garments; but
we feel no more interest in them than if they were so many gorgeous wax
figures, for no one has taken the trouble to tell us whether this one
was beloved or that one hated; whether one was a woman of heart, or
another proud, ambitious, and vain. In most cases we do not even know
their ages. Why should any one care? Each one was ‘the dogess of her
day,’ and that was enough; she was the companion and consort of the
doge, but beyond that, in a state in which the supreme dignity was not
hereditary, her value was purely decorative.
The fourteenth century was not remarkable for much luxury or feminine
display. Among the most characteristic objects used in those times were
the extraordinary clogs, with double heels and enormously high, on which
women went about in order to keep their skirts out of the mud. For the
streets and lanes were not even paved, and there seems to have been no
great effort made to clean them. The principal scavengers seem to have
been the little pigs of the monastery of Saint Anthony of Padua, which
had an official right-of-way about the city, and devoured greedily
whatever the good wives of Venice chose to throw into the streets when
they cleaned out their kitchens. It will easily be understood that clogs
might be useful in such a town. As another illustration of the times,
here is a list of the exiguous outfit provided for a young lady of great
family on her marriage in the year 1300: One bed, two down quilts, two
pillows, four sheets, one coverlet, six silver spoons, one copper pail;
one piece of scarlet stuff long enough to make a bodice, one skirt of
the same material; one skirt of striped stuff, and one trimming for the
said skirt of the price of nine soldi grossi; one skin of a fox; seven
amber beads, one ornament made of pearls, an ornament of gold, a silver
belt and some silver beads.
The display of jewellery on that occasion was certainly not magnificent,
but the list of clothes leaves even more to be desired. The document
explains further and determines precisely how the wedding is to be
conducted, and what it is to cost the family of the bride. The bride,
when she reaches Padua, is to receive twelve soldi grossi for her pocket
money, a like sum to pay for the drums, and the same again for the cook;
but only half as much for the duenna who is to accompany her, and who
rejoices in the high-sounding name of Richadonor, ‘rich in honour’!
Furthermore, forty soldi grossi were to be spent on beef, pork, poultry,
biscuits, apples, birds, eggs, bread, torches, wax candles, and the hire
of boats.
Living was certainly not dear in those days, and we have no means of
calculating the value of the coins used, about which learned men have
fruitlessly quarrelled for generations; we cannot by any means establish
the value of such an outfit, but we can affirm most positively that the
outfit itself bore no resemblance whatever to those provided two
centuries later for brides of the very same family.
[Sidenote: _Galliccioli. vi. 18._]
In this connection it is as well to say that the marriage customs of
Venice had changed considerably during the thirteenth century. It had
become altogether impossible to celebrate all marriages on the same day
of the year in the same church, as was formerly done, and weddings now
took place throughout the year in the different parishes.
An edict of the year 1255 recommends the publication of marriage bans
in Venice, but very little attention was paid to this regulation, and
clandestine
[Illustration: RIO DELLA PANADA]
marriages became one of the great evils of the day. If, for instance,
an unmarried woman of any condition found herself hopelessly in debt,
she had only to marry in order to be safe from any legal action on the
part of her creditors. It was so easy to get the ceremony performed, if
one wished to keep the affair quiet, that it was not even necessary to
go to church. A priest could be sent for to a private house, or even to
an inn, the witnesses heard the necessary words pronounced, the priest
blessed the couple, and the union was irrevocable.
The government took cognisance of the innumerable abuses which resulted
from this manner of proceeding, and a law was passed which would have
introduced a real reform if it had been rigorously enforced. But instead
it was so completely overlooked and forgotten that the archives of the
law-courts a century later teem with amusing anecdotes of such
marriages. The following is a specimen taken from the case of a certain
Dame Caterina of the parish of Saint Gervasio.
One evening, as this good lady was lingering on the threshold of her own
door, a certain Pierin da Trento came by, selling brooms. Having greeted
Dame Caterina, who appears to have been an acquaintance, the man said,
‘Good madam, I pray you find me out some handsome girl.’ Thereupon the
good lady was immediately very angry, and loaded Pierin with the
choicest epithets in the Venetian language, all of which are
scrupulously quoted in the report of the case. Pierin, however,
protested, ‘No, no, Dame Caterina, I did not mean what you think! I am
asking you to find me a nice little wife to whom I will be a model
husband.’ She answered, ‘Well, well, on my faith I will try and find
one for you. Come back to-morrow.’ She immediately thought of a young
girl called Maria who waited upon herself and her daughter. On the
morrow the parties met in the house of Dame Caterina, and one Menego
Moisè, who was there, asked, ‘Maria, does Pietro suit you as a husband
according to the commandments of God and Holy Church?’ She answered,
‘Yes.’ So they took each other by the hand, and all the company sat down
to table with great joy.
This was apparently all that was necessary to make a marriage binding.
It is not even explicitly stated that the man Menego who asked the
ritual question was a priest; but unless we suppose that something like
common-law marriage was legal in Venice, we may take it for granted that
he was.
Of course, in the absence of a divorce law, the chief object of such
summary marriages was that they might be denied, and such cases led to
some lively fencing between the civil and religious authorities.
In spite of these abuses, however, and in spite of the numerous regular
and proper marriages that took place in the parish churches, the old
custom of marrying wholesale on the thirty-first of January had not
fallen wholly into disuse. I shall describe in another place the Feast
of the Maries, instituted to recall the one which had been disturbed
long ago by the Dalmatian pirates, and which was celebrated every year
with the same mixture of simplicity, display, and jollity.
One might get married quietly, with closed doors and without sound of
drum or trumpet, but it was quite impossible to be buried with the same
simplicity and privacy. All the chroniclers of those times have left
accounts of funerals, which remind one very strongly of the East, and
even of ancient Egyptian and Assyrian rites. It was absolutely
indispensable that a husband on the death of his wife, or a wife on the
death of her husband, should exhibit in public the most extravagant
grief. The bereaved widow or widower was expected to scream, to roll
upon the ground, to tear out his or her hair by the handful, to howl and
moan with scarcely a moment’s intermission.
When at last the friends of the dead came to carry away the body, the
frenzied relict was always found stretched upon the threshold of the
house, to prevent the funeral from passing, and had to be dragged out of
the way by main force. The body having been carried out of the house at
last, the whole family followed it to the parish church with screams and
howls, and kept up the same terrific noise during the chanting of the
whole funeral service. This insane custom was so deeply rooted amongst
the people that centuries elapsed before the Church could put it down,
and only threats of excommunication sufficed to prevent the unseemly
interruption of the Office for the Dead. Those who have lived in the far
East, and especially in India, are familiar with such sights. No one who
has heard the lamentations of hired mourners at an Asiatic funeral is
likely to forget the impression he received; but it is hard to
understand such doings amongst the Venetians of the fourteenth century,
and that the poor sometimes even went so far as to expose their dead in
the streets during several days, in order to excite the compassion and
solicit the alms of those who passed by.
[Sidenote: _Schupper, Manuale della Storia del Diritto._]
It is quite certain that slavery was not only common but almost
universal in Venice until the fifteenth century at least. The custom of
keeping household slaves was indeed general throughout Italy in the
Middle Ages, but it was nowhere so deep-rooted as in Venice. Church and
State laboured in vain to put down the traffic and to discourage the
purchase of slaves. In the year 960 the Doge Pier Candiano IV.
threatened with very severe punishments all those who should either
engage in or encourage the slave trade. And at the same time the
patriarch declared himself as follows: ‘Moreover, we and our brother
bishops will excommunicate all those who shall be proved guilty before
the tribunals of the state; they shall be deprived of the sacrament of
the Holy Eucharist; they shall not be allowed to enter any church; and
if they do not repent, they shall burn everlastingly with Judas, who
sold our Lord Jesus Christ.’
The civil and ecclesiastic authorities could not have expressed
themselves in stronger language, but it is clear that their edicts could
not be enforced, for slavery continued to flourish during four centuries
after that time. We have not even the satisfaction of telling ourselves
that it was at last put down by a noble impulse of humanity, since the
most superficial examination proves to us that slavery did not begin to
diminish in Venice until the general depravity of women had brought them
down to the moral level of slaves. That very depravity was itself in
great part produced by the presence of an immense number of Eastern
female slaves, absolutely without any moral sense, and having no object
whatever in life except to extract favours from their masters by making
themselves the willing instruments of every passion and of every vice.
They possessed many means of accomplishing this end, and in particular a
great many of them claimed the secret knowledge of philtres, which would
not only heal every malady, but which could instantly satisfy their
masters’ thirst for love or revenge. They pretended, by means of
incantations, to destroy by degrees the life of an enemy who could not
be safely stabbed or otherwise violently put to death; and in a vast
number of cases the victim actually died, if not by supernatural means,
by subtle poisons administered to him by some slave of his own in
collusion with the witch. Often, too, men and women went suddenly raving
mad from poison thus secretly administered, and remained permanently
insane. This crime was so common that it had a name of its own, and was
called ‘Erbaria.’
[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Costumi._]
The whole of Venice was undermined by these slave intrigues. The Eastern
woman possesses beyond all others the secret of secrecy. The thousands
of them who lived in Venice were in communication with each other,
helped each other, and could accomplish for their respective masters
almost anything they desired. There was a certain number of male slaves
also, who, though far less astute than the women, often rendered their
owners great services, sometimes to their own destruction; for there are
records of their having been imprisoned, tortured, and hanged instead of
their masters, and sometimes with the latter, for having committed
crimes of which their owners did not wish to take the responsibility.
[Illustration: FONDAMENTA MARCOTTA]
IX
THE FEAST OF THE MARIES
The reader will not have forgotten how the Venetian brides were carried
off by pirates of Narenta towards the middle of the tenth century, in
the reign of Pier Candiano III. When, at a later date, the custom of
celebrating all marriages on the same day of the year and in the same
church was abandoned, the ceremony called ‘the Maries’ was continued
each year in memory of the romantic event.
The brides were replaced by twelve young girls, who were chosen among
the most well-behaved in the city, so that the choice became a sort of
prize of virtue--a ‘Prix Montyon’--and the selection was made with the
utmost care. At that time the city was divided into six wards, each of
which contained thirty ‘contrade,’ or districts. Two of the latter were
named each year to furnish the ‘twelve Maries.’ The headmen of the
districts, who were like police magistrates, called together the people
in the principal open place of the district, and the election began. The
chroniclers do not agree upon the qualities which were required in
candidates; some say that they were all to be noble, some that they were
to be poor, another says that they were the most beautiful. There is
only one point upon which all agree: their behaviour was required to be
perfect.
The twelve Maries having been chosen, the meeting proceeded to elect the
twelve nobles at whose houses the young girls were to be entertained.
These personages were to be of the same district, or were at least to
live in the immediate vicinity; and it was no sinecure to fulfil this
office of hospitality. The district spent from eight hundred to a
thousand ducats in decorating the streets and houses, and the boats that
conveyed the Maries; and the patrician whose ill-luck had designated him
as one of the patrons was obliged to make such a display and to furnish
such a magnificent banquet in honour of the girl he was supposed to
protect, and such a reception for the inhabitants of the whole
district, that his pocket suffered severely, and he was obliged to
economise for some time afterwards. It often happened that there were
not so many as twelve rich nobles living in the district, and in that
case matters were arranged by giving two Maries to one, who was thus
condemned to a double expenditure, if not to actual ruin, for the
greater glory of patriotic institutions. However, as time went on, the
State was moved by such misfortunes, which were not really justified by
any serious necessity, and the Great Council voted that the Doge should
exercise a certain control over the election of the Maries and their
official protectors. By this means it became possible for a noble in
poor circumstances to pass on the burden of the feast to some richer
man. It was further decided that the procurators of Saint Mark should be
authorised to lend on security, to the districts and to the patrons
chosen, all the jewels from the treasure of the basilica, with which to
adorn the attire of the twelve young girls. These jewels consisted of
numerous necklaces and diadems of immense value, and the fact that they
were lent for such an occasion proves the great importance which the
Venetians attached to the festivity. For the time being the Republic
behaved as if it had fallen in love with the maidens whose part was to
recall to memory the stolen brides of old. On one occasion it is
recorded that no less than 72,000 ducats were expended on the feast.
By far the most interesting and charmingly simple account of the feast
is that left by a certain Martin da
[Sidenote: _Arch. Stor. Ital. Series I., vol. viii._]
Canal, written in a dialect half French and half Provençal. It describes
the Feast of the Maries in the second half of the twelfth century, when
Ranier Zeno was Doge; and though a few modifications were afterwards
introduced in the ceremonial, this account continues to be quite the
most accurate that has come down to us. The only way of accounting for
its having been written in the Provençal tongue is that the latter was
the language of polished society in that age. Here is an attempt to
translate it as simply and accurately as possible:--
I shall now tell you about the festival which the Venetians hold on
the last day of January, to wit, in remembrance of how our Lord St.
Mark came to Venice; and of the beautiful festival which the
Venetians hold in reverence of our Lady St. Mary. You must know
that the Lord Doge has divided the districts of Venice into thirty
parts, two districts to each part. Now on the eve of our Lord St.
Mark a company of young gentles come by water, and when they have
reached the palace they land and hand their banners to little boys,
and go two by two before the church of our Lord St. Mark; and after
them come trumpeters, and after them again young gentles who carry
silver dishes loaded with confectionery, and with them are brought
vessels of silver, full of wine, and cups of gold and silver
carried by more young nobles, and last of all come clerks singing,
dressed in their copes of velvet and gold, and they all together go
as far as the church of St. Mary, which is called Formosa; and they
find women and maidens in great numbers, and present them with the
confectionery and with wine to drink....
So far I have told you of the eve, and now I shall tell you of the
day of our Lord St. Mark.
You must know, sirs, that on the last day of January is the feast
and double procession, when come youths and men of age to the
palace of our Lord the Doge by water; and they get out upon the dry
land, and give more than one thousand banners to little children,
and send them before them two and two to the church of our Lord St.
Mark; and after them come the older children carrying in their
hands more than a hundred crosses of silver; and afterwards come
the clergy, all dressed in copes of velvet and gold; and trumpets
and cymbals; and a clerk comes in the midst of the company, dressed
in a cloth all of gold damask, after the manner of the Virgin, our
Lady St. Mary; and that clerk is placed upon a very richly
ornamented chair, which is carried by four men on their shoulders;
and before him, and on each side, the standards of gold, and the
clerks go singing in the procession. While they are thus going,
three clerks come out of the procession, and where they see our
Lord the Doge at the windows of his palace, in company with noble
Venetians, they go up to a platform singing with a loud voice, and
they all sing as follows:--‘Christ is King. Christ reigns!’ ‘To our
Lord Ranier Zeno, by the grace of God Doge of Venice, Dalmatia, and
Croatia, and ruler of the fourth part and one-half a fourth part of
all the empire of the Romans, health, long life, and victory!’ ‘St.
Mark, help thou him!’ When the praises are finished they come down
from the platform, and our Lord the Doge causes to be thrown down
to them a quantity of his medals, and they return into the
procession with the rest who have meanwhile been waiting for them;
and then comes forward a clerk who wears a crown of gold, and is
richly attired after the manner of the Holy Virgin, as I have told
you; and when he is very near our Lord the Doge he greets him, who
returns his greeting, and then those who carry him on their
shoulders go forward, and the procession follows them, and they go
their way into the church of our Lady St. Mary, and wait there
until those of the other district have also entered. Now these
others come in the manner which I have explained, with banners,
crosses, and priests, and cause three clerks to sing the same
praises of our Lord the Doge, as did the others, and our Lord the
Doge causes medals to be thrown down to them. You must know our
Lord the Doge is dressed in cloth of gold, and has a crown of gold
upon his head; and in order to see the procession, which is made in
honour of our Lady, there are present the nobles of Venice, all the
people, and a great number of ladies and maidens, and there are
many of them both in the streets and at the windows of the palaces.