On seeing their enemies advance they rose up and fell into their ranks.
That of the Prince was the first to do so, whose archers were formed in
the manner of a portcullis, or harrow, and the men-at-arms in the rear.
The earls of Northampton and Arundel, who commanded the second division,
had posted themselves in good order on his wing, to assist and succor
the Prince if necessary. You must know that these kings, earls, barons,
and lords of France did not advance in any regular order, but one after
the other, or any way most pleasing to themselves. As soon as the King
of France came in sight of the English his blood began to boil, and he
cried out to his marshals, "Order the Genoese forward and begin the
battle, in the name of God and St. Denis." There were about fifteen
thousand Genoese cross-bowmen, but they were quite fatigued, having
marched on foot that day six leagues, completely armed and with their
cross-bows. They told the constable they were not in a fit condition to
do any great things that day in battle. The Earl of Alençon, hearing
this, said, "This is what one gets by employing such scoundrels, who
fall off when there is any need for them." During this time a heavy rain
fell, accompanied by thunder and a very terrible eclipse of the sun, and
before this rain a great flight of crows hovered in the air over all
those battalions, making a loud noise. Shortly afterward it cleared up
and the sun shone very bright, but the Frenchmen had it on their faces
and the English on their backs. When the Genoese were somewhat in order
and approached the English they set up a loud shout[48] in order to
frighten them, but they remained quite still and did not seem to attend
to it. They then set up a second shout and advanced a little forward,
but the English never moved.
They hooted a third time, advancing with their cross-bows presented and
began to shoot. The English archers then advanced one step forward and
shot their arrows with such force and quickness that it seemed as if it
snowed. When the Genoese felt these arrows, which pierced their arms,
heads, and through their armor, some of them cut the strings of their
cross-bows; others flung them on the ground and all turned about and
retreated quite discomfited. The French had a large body of men-at-arms
on horseback, richly dressed, to support the Genoese. The King of France
seeing them thus fall back cried out, "Kill me those scoundrels, for
they stop up our road without any reason." You would then have seen the
above-mentioned men-at-arms lay about them, killing all they could of
these runaways.
The English continued shooting as vigorously and quickly as before; some
of their arrows fell among the horsemen, who were sumptuously equipped,
and, killing and wounding many, made them caper and fall among the
Genoese, so that they were in such confusion they could never rally
again. In the English army there were some Cornish and Welshmen on foot
who had armed themselves with large knives. These, advancing through the
ranks of the men-at-arms and archers, who made way for them, came upon
the French when they were in this danger, and, falling upon earls,
barons, knights, and squires, slew many; at which the King of England
was afterward much exasperated. The valiant King of Bohemia was slain
there. He was called Charles of Luxembourg, for he was the son of the
gallant king and emperor Henry of Luxembourg. Having heard the order of
the battle, he inquired where his son, Lord Charles, was. His attendants
answered that they did not know, but believed he was fighting. The King
said to them: "Gentlemen, you are all my people, my friends and
brethren-at-arms this day; therefore, as I am blind,[49] I request of
you to lead me so far into the engagement that I may strike one stroke
with my sword." The knights replied that they would directly lead him
forward, and, in order that they might not lose him in the crowd, they
fastened all the reins of their horses together and put the King at
their head, that he might gratify his wish and advance toward the enemy.
Lord Charles of Bohemia--who already signed his name as King of Germany
and bore the arms--had come in good order to the engagement, but when he
perceived that it was likely to turn out against the French he departed.
The King, his father, had rode in among the enemy, and made good use of
his sword, for he and his companions had fought most gallantly. They had
advanced so far that they were all slain, and on the morrow they were
found on the ground, with their horses all tied together.
The Earl of Alençon advanced in regular order upon the English, to fight
with them; as did the Earl of Flanders in another part. These two lords,
with their detachments--coasting, as it were, the archers--came to the
Prince's battalion, where they fought valiantly for a length of time.
The King of France was eager to march to the place were he saw their
banners displayed, but there was a hedge of archers before him. He had
that day made a present of a handsome black horse to Sir John of
Hainault, who had mounted on it a knight called Sir John de Fusselles,
that bore his banner. The horse ran off with him and forced its way
through the English army, and, when about to return, stumbled and fell
into a ditch and severely wounded him. He would have been dead if his
page had not followed him round the battalions and found him unable to
rise. He had not, however, any other hinderance than from his horse; for
the English did not quit the ranks that day to make prisoners. The page
alighted and raised him up, but he did not return the way he came, as he
would have found it difficult from the crowd. This battle, which was
fought on the Saturday, between La Broyes and Crécy, was very murderous
and cruel, and many gallant deeds of arms were performed that were never
known. Toward evening many knights and squires of the French had lost
their masters. They wandered up and down the plain, attacking the
English in small parties. They were soon destroyed, for the English had
determined that day to give no quarter nor hear of ransom from anyone.
Early in the day some French, Germans, and Savoyards had broken through
the archers of the Prince's battalion and had engaged with the
men-at-arms; upon which the second battalion came to his aid, otherwise
he would have been hard pressed. The first division, seeing the danger
they were in, sent a knight in great haste to the King of England, who
was posted upon an eminence near a windmill. On the knight's arrival he
said: "Sir, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Reginald Cobham, and the others
who are about your son are vigorously attacked by the French. They
entreat that you would come to their assistance with your battalion,
for, if their numbers should increase, they fear he will have too much
to do."
The King replied, "Is my son dead, unhorsed, or so badly wounded that he
cannot support himself?"
"Nothing of the sort, thank God," rejoined the knight, "but he is in so
hot an engagement that he has great need of your help." The King
answered: "Now, Sir Thomas, return back to those that sent you, and tell
them from me not to send again for me this day, or expect that I shall
come, let what will happen, as long as my son has life; and say that I
command them to let the boy win his spurs; for I am determined, if it
please God, that all the glory and honor of this day shall be given to
him and to those into whose care I have intrusted him." The knight
returned to his lords, and related the King's answer, which mightily
encouraged them and made them repent they had ever sent such a
message.[50]
It is a certain fact that Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, who was in the
Prince's battalion, having been told by some of the English that they
had seen the banner of his brother engaged in the battle against him,
was exceedingly anxious to save him; but he was too late, for he was
left dead on the field, and so was the Earl of Aumarle, his nephew. On
the other hand, the earls of Alençon and of Flanders were fighting
lustily under their banners and with their own people, but they could
not resist the force of the English, and were slain, as well as many
other knights and squires that were attending on or accompanying them.
The Earl of Blois, nephew to the King of France, and the Duke of
Lorraine, his brother-in-law, with their troops, made a gallant defence;
but they were surrounded by a troop of English and Welsh and slain in
spite of their prowess. The Earl of St. Pol and the Earl of Auxerre were
also killed, as well as many others.
Late after vespers, the King of France had not more about him than sixty
men--every one included. Sir John of Hainault, who was of the number,
had once remounted the King; for his horse had been killed under him by
an arrow. He said to the King: "Sir, retreat while you have an
opportunity and do not expose yourself so simply. If you have lost this
battle, another time you will be the conqueror." After he had said this,
he took the bridle of the King's horse and led him off by force, for he
had before entreated him to retire. The King rode on until he came to
the castle of La Broyes, where he found the gates shut, for it was very
dark. The King ordered the governor of it to be summoned. He came upon
the battlements and asked who it was that called at such an hour. The
King answered: "Open, open, governor! It is the fortune of France!" The
governor, hearing the King's voice, immediately descended, opened the
gate and let down the bridge. The King and his company entered the
castle, but he had only with him five barons, Sir John of Hainault, Lord
Charles of Montmorency, Lord Beaujeu, Lord Aubigny, and Lord Montfort.
The King would not bury himself in such a place as that, but, having
taken some refreshments, set out again with his attendants about
midnight, and rode on, under the direction of guides--who were well
acquainted with the country--until about daybreak, when he came to
Amiens, where he halted. The English never quitted their ranks in
pursuit of anyone, but remained on the field, guarding their position
and defending themselves against all who attacked them. The battle was
ended at the hour of vespers.
When, on Saturday night, the English heard no more hooting or shouting,
nor any more crying out to particular lords or their banners, they
looked upon the field as their own and their enemies as beaten. They
made great fires, and lighted torches because of the obscurity of the
night. King Edward then came down from his post, who all that day had
not put on his helmet, and with his whole battalion advanced to the
Prince of Wales, whom he embraced in his arms and kissed, and said:
"Sweet son, God give you good perseverance; you are my son, for most
loyally have you acquitted yourself this day. You are worthy to be a
sovereign." The Prince bowed down very low and humbled himself, giving
all the honor to the King, his father. The English, during the night,
made frequent thanksgivings to the Lord for the happy issue of the day,
and without rioting, for the King had forbidden all riot or noise. On
Sunday morning there was so great a fog that one could scarcely see the
distance of half an acre. The King ordered a detachment from the army,
under the command of the two marshals--consisting of about five hundred
lances and two thousand archers--to make an excursion and see if there
were any bodies of French troops collected together. The quota of troops
from Rouen and Beauvais had that morning left Abbeville and St. Ricquier
in Ponthieu to join the French army, and were ignorant of the defeat of
the preceding evening. They met this detachment, and, thinking they must
be French, hastened to join them.
As soon as the English found who they were, they fell upon them and
there was a sharp engagement. The French soon turned their backs and
fled in great disorder. There were slain in this flight in the open
fields, under hedges and bushes, upward of seven thousand; and had it
been clear weather, not one soul would have escaped.
A little time afterward this same party fell in with the Archbishop of
Rouen and the great Prior of France, who were also ignorant of the
discomfiture of the French, for they had been informed that the King was
not to fight before Sunday. Here began a fresh battle; for those two
lords were well attended by good men-at-arms. However, they could not
withstand the English, but were almost all slain, with the two chiefs
who commanded them; very few escaping. In the morning the English found
many Frenchmen who had lost their road on Saturday and had lain in the
open fields, not knowing what was become of the King or their own
leaders. The English put to the sword all they met; and it has been
assured to me for fact that of foot soldiers, sent from the cities,
towns, and municipalities, there were slain, this Sunday morning, four
times as many as in the battle of Saturday.
This detachment, which had been sent to look after the French, returned
as the King was coming from mass, and related to him all that they had
seen and met with. After he had been assured by them that there was not
any likelihood of the French collecting another army, he sent to have
the number and condition of the dead examined. He ordered on this
business Lord Reginald Cobham, Lord Stafford, and three heralds to
examine their arms, and two secretaries to write down all the names.
They took much pains to examine all the dead, and were the whole day in
the field of battle, not returning but just as the King was sitting down
to supper. They made him a very circumstantial report of all they had
observed, and said they had found eighty banners, the bodies of eleven
princes, twelve hundred knights, and about thirty thousand common men.
MODERN RECOGNITION OF SCENIC BEAUTY
CROWNING OF PETRARCH AT ROME
A.D. 1341
JACOB BURCKHARDT
The beauty of nature, of natural scenery amid mountains,
fields, and lakes, seems to have passed unheeded during
early mediæval times. Even in the ancient days of classic
culture it apparently attracted very little notice, except
from an occasional poet. The present attitude of enthusiasm,
which leads thousands of tourists to flock to Switzerland or
to Niagara every year, is wholly a modern development. This
development of what is almost a new sense in man certainly
deserves notice. To fix an exact date for its beginning is,
of course, impossible, but it is generally regarded as a
product of the Italian Renaissance, and Burckhardt, seeking
for its slow unfolding, traces it back to Petrarch, who, in
his poetry, speaks of nature repeatedly.
Petrarch's poetry was so highly valued by the Italians that
they unanimously agreed to confer upon the author a laurel
crown. This was a revival of the old Greek method of
honoring poets, and as such it was felt by the Italians a
specially fitting way to proclaim their reviving interest in
art. So a great public gathering was arranged at Rome, and
the laurel was with elaborate ceremonies placed on
Petrarch's brow.
The recipient of this new and distinguished honor is
regarded as second only to Dante in Italian literature. In
addition to his world-famed sonnets to Laura, he wrote
much-admired Latin poems, and was a scholar of high repute.
His enthusiasm for the ancient Greek and Latin authors made
him the central figure in that revival of classic learning
which at this time began in Italy.
Petrarch, who lives in the memory of most people nowadays chiefly as a
great Italian poet, owed his fame among his contemporaries far rather to
the fact that he was a kind of living representative of antiquity, that
he imitated all styles of Latin poetry, endeavored by his voluminous
historical and philosophical writings not to supplant, but to make
known, the works of the ancients, and wrote letters that, as treatises
on matters of antiquarian interest, obtained a reputation which to us is
unintelligible, but which was natural enough in an age without
handbooks. Petrarch himself trusted and hoped that his Latin writings
would bring him fame with his contemporaries and with posterity, and
thought so little of his Italian poems that, as he often tells us, he
would gladly have destroyed them if he could have succeeded thereby in
blotting them out from the memory of men.
It was the same with Boccaccio. For two centuries, when but little was
known of the _Decameron_ north of the Alps, he was famous all over
Europe simply on account of his Latin compilations on mythology,
geography, and biography. One of these, _de Genealogia Deorum_, contains
in the fourteenth and fifteenth books a remarkable appendix, in which he
discusses the position of the then youthful humanism with regard to the
age. We must not be misled by his exclusive references to _poesia_, as
closer observation shows that he means thereby the whole mental activity
of the poet-scholars. This it is whose enemies he so vigorously
combats--the frivolous ignoramuses who have no soul for anything but
debauchery; the sophistical theologian to whom Helicon, the Castalian
fountain, and the grove of Apollo were foolishness; the greedy lawyers,
to whom poetry was a superfluity, since no money was to be made by it;
finally the mendicant friars, described periphrastically, but clearly
enough, who made free with their charges of paganism and immorality.
Then follow the defence of poetry, the proof that the poetry of the
ancients and of their modern followers contains nothing mendacious, the
praise of it, and especially of the deeper and allegorical meanings
which we must always attribute to it, and of that calculated obscurity
which is intended to repel the dull minds of the ignorant.
And finally, with a clear reference to his own scholarly work, the
writer justifies the new relation in which his age stood to paganism.
The case was wholly different, he pleads, when the Early Church had to
fight its way among the heathen. Now--praised be Jesus Christ!--true
religion was strengthened, paganism destroyed, and the victorious Church
in possession of the hostile camp. It was now possible to touch and
study paganism almost (_fere_) without danger. Boccaccio, however, did
not hold this liberal view consistently. The ground of his apostasy lay
partly in the mobility of his character, partly in the still powerful
and widespread prejudice that classical pursuits were unbecoming in a
theologian. To these reasons must be added the warning given him in the
name of the dead Pietro Petroni by the monk Gioacchino Ciani to give up
his pagan studies under pain of early death. He accordingly determined
to abandon them, and was only brought back from this cowardly resolve by
the earnest exhortations of Petrarch, and by the latter's able
demonstration that humanism was reconcilable with religion.
There was thus a new cause in the world, and a new class of men to
maintain it. It is idle to ask if this cause ought not to have stopped
short in its career of victory, to have restrained itself deliberately,
and conceded the first place to purely national elements of culture. No
conviction was more firmly rooted in the popular mind than that
antiquity was the highest title to glory which Italy possessed.
There was a symbolical ceremony familiar to this generation of
poet-scholars which lasted on into the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, though losing the higher sentiment which inspired it--the
coronation of the poets with the laurel wreath. The origin of this
system in the Middle Ages is obscure, and the ritual of the ceremony
never became fixed. It was a public demonstration, an outward and
visible expression of literary enthusiasm, and naturally its form was
variable. Dante, for instance, seems to have understood it in the sense
of a half-religious consecration; he desired to assume the wreath in the
baptistery of San Giovanni, where, like thousands of other Florentine
children, he had received baptism. He could, says his biographer, have
anywhere received the crown in virtue of his fame, but desired it
nowhere but in his native city, and therefore died uncrowned. From the
same source we learn that the usage was till then uncommon, and was held
to be inherited by the ancient Romans from the Greeks. The most recent
source to which the practices could be referred is to be found in the
Capitoline contests of musicians, poets, and other artists, founded by
Domitian in imitation of the Greeks and celebrated every five years,
which may possibly have survived for a time the fall of the Roman
Empire; but as few other men would venture to crown themselves, as Dante
desired to do, the question arises, To whom did this office belong?
Albertino Mussato was crowned at Padua in 1310 by the Bishop and the
rector of the university.
The University of Paris, the rector of which was then a Florentine,
1341, and the municipal authorities of Rome competed for the honor of
crowning Petrarch. His self-elected examiner, King Robert of Anjou,
would gladly have performed the ceremony at Naples, but Petrarch
preferred to be crowned on the Capitol by the senator of Rome. This
honor was long the highest object of ambition, and so it seemed to
Jacobus Pizinga, an illustrious Sicilian magistrate. Then came the
Italian journey of Charles IV, whom it amused to flatter the vanity of
ambitious men, and impress the ignorant multitude by means of gorgeous
ceremonies. Starting from the fiction that the coronation of poets was a
prerogative of the old Roman emperors, and consequently was no less his
own, he crowned, May 15, 1355, the Florentine scholar Zanobi della
Strada at Pisa, to the annoyance of Petrarch, who complained that the
barbarian laurel had dared adorn the man loved by the Ausonian muses,
and to the great disgust of Boccaccio, who declined to recognize this
_laurea Pisana_ as legitimate. Indeed, it might be fairly asked with
what right this stranger, half Slavonic by birth, came to sit in
judgment on the merits of Italian poets. But from henceforth the
emperors crowned poets whenever they went on their travels; and in the
fifteenth century the popes and other princes assumed the same right,
till at last no regard whatever was paid to place or circumstances.
Outside the sphere of scientific investigation, there is another way to
draw near to nature. The Italians are the first among modern peoples by
whom the outward world was seen and felt as something beautiful. The
power to do so is always the result of a long and complicated
development, and its origin is not easily detected, since a dim feeling
of this kind may exist long before it shows itself in poetry and
painting, and thereby becomes conscious of itself. Among the ancients,
for example, art and poetry had gone through the whole circle of human
interests before they turned to the representation of nature, and even
then the latter filled always a limited and subordinate place. And yet,
from the time of Homer downward, the powerful impression made by nature
upon man is shown by countless verses and chance expressions. The
Germanic races which founded their states on the ruins of the Roman
Empire were thoroughly and specially fitted to understand the spirit of
natural scenery; and though Christianity compelled them for a while to
see in the springs and mountains, in the lakes and woods, which they had
till then revered, the working of evil demons, yet this transitional
conception was soon outgrown.
By the year 1200, at the height of the Middle Ages, a genuine, hearty
enjoyment of the external world was again in existence, and found lively
expression in the minstrelsy of different nations, which gives evidence
of the sympathy felt with all the simple phenomena of nature--spring
with its flowers, the green fields, and the woods. But these pictures
are all foreground, without perspective. Even the crusaders, who
travelled so far and saw so much, are not recognizable as such in these
poems. The epic poetry, which describes armor and costumes so fully,
does not attempt more than a sketch of outward nature; and even the
great Wolfram von Eschenbach scarcely anywhere gives us an adequate
picture of the scene on which his heroes move. From these poems it would
never be guessed that their noble authors in all countries inhabited or
visited lofty castles, commanding distant prospects. Even in the Latin
poems of the wandering clerks, we find no traces of a distant view--of
landscape properly so called; but what lies near is sometimes described
with a glow and splendor which none of the knightly minstrels can
surpass.
To the Italian mind, at all events, nature had by this time lost its
taint of sin, and had shaken off all trace of demoniacal powers. St.
Francis of Assisi, in his _Hymn to the Sun_, frankly praises the Lord
for creating the heavenly bodies and the four elements.