The use which some of the Latin chroniclers and verse-makers make of the
words _caudatus_ and _cauda_ suggests that the former of these may have
been intended to bear the sense of "cowed" or "coward", and the latter
to symbolize the evil qualities, more particularly, perhaps, the
treachery ascribed to the English. Thus, in Matthew of Paris, one, at
least, of Count Robert's insulting outbursts, though hardly both,
remains perfectly intelligible even if a figurative rather than a
literal meaning be given to the epithet.[337] And, again, when John
Oxenedes, in his account of the battle of Lewes, fought, in 1264,
between Henry III and the Barons, under Simon of Montfort, places it in
immediate juxtaposition to "full of guile", "false", "unstable", and
"dispirited", it seems more natural to interpret it as a reference to a
moral defect than to take it as a taunt at a physical deformity.[338] As
regards the substantive, a symbolical sense, not, indeed, excluding the
primary meaning, but rather taken in combination with it, is obviously
consistent with the anonymous poetaster's advice to "cut off that
poisonous tail".[339] And the _Annales Gandenses_, the most noteworthy
chronicle of the closing years of the thirteenth and the beginning of
the fourteenth century, whilst doubtless alluding to the popular belief
in a real caudal appendage worn by Englishmen, seem to employ the word
metaphorically in the passage which records the incendiarism and the
looting by which the troops of Edward I disgraced themselves in Ghent,
where they had been cordially received and hospitably entertained by the
inhabitants in 1298. "The English, like the most ungrateful men that
they were," says the Minorite author, "dragging after them their
habitual tail, and eager to plunder the town of Ghent and to slay those
that resisted them, set fire to it in four places, at the four corners,
so to speak, in order that the people of Ghent, whilst endeavouring to
extinguish the conflagration, should be less careful about the custody
of their property."[340] In the _Eulogium Historiarum_, too, there is a
passage where the word _cauda_ occurs in such a connection as to make it
quite clear that the literal acceptation would be out of place, the more
so, indeed, from the circumstance that the "tail" is bestowed, not on
an Englishman, but on a Scot, and on a Scot no less genuine than Robert
the Bruce. Referring to the capture and punishment of the Scottish
King's adherents, the chronicler adds that Bruce himself found safety in
flight and concealment, but that this did not in the least trouble
Edward, who, now that his enemy's tail was completely cut off, was quite
willing that he should wander about, wherever he found it easiest to
save his life.[341] And if, in this instance, the amputation of the tail
is a figure of speech intended to convey the notion of reducing to
powerlessness, it might be argued, with some show of reason, that, even
when applied to Englishmen, as in the lines which exultingly proclaim
how the French King made them harmless by submitting them to similar
treatment, the expression does not necessarily imply the actual
possession of a real tail. This would add yet another passage to those
which, if they stood by themselves, would justify some hesitation in
accepting them as proofs of a serious conviction as to the alleged
anatomical peculiarity of Englishmen. But when the fullest allowance has
been made for all of them, they do not appreciably affect the evidence
of the many witnesses who not only testify to the general acceptance of
the phenomenon as an actual fact, but are also ready with a reason for
its cause and an explanation of its origin. The first of these in age,
and by no means the least in point of standing and respectability, is
the biographer Goscelin. He is said to have been born at or near
Terouanne, and was originally a monk in the monastery of St. Bertin, but
was brought over to England, possibly as early as 1053, by Hermann,
Bishop of Salisbury. Being a monk at Canterbury, he became interested in
the founder of the see, and not only drew up an account of the
translation of Augustine, a ceremony at which he was present, but also
wrote a life of the Saint. He professes to have based this work on older
records; and it may be assumed that it embodied local tradition as it
existed prior to the Norman Conquest. It consists of two versions of the
story of the life of the Apostle of England. One of them, known as the
_Historia Minor Sancti Augustini_, is brief and compendious. The other,
or _Historia Major_ as it is called, which enjoys the distinction of
having been selected by the Bollandists for inclusion in their Acta
Sanctorum, whilst identical with it in substance, has that greater
fulness of details which its title suggests.
Both texts relate an incident which is said to have taken place in the
province of Dorset, in a little village which, for its heathenish
impiety, is likened to the nether regions themselves. There, the
devil-inspired inhabitants not only refused to give the messenger of the
Gospel a hearing, but also raised a very storm of mocking and contumely
against the Saint and his companions. In their shameless audacity, they
fastened the tails of sea-fish to the garments of the holy men.
Indignant at this sacrilegious outrage, the Spirit of the Lord, through
the mouth of Augustine, condemned those who had committed it to
perpetuate in themselves and in all their posterity the ignominy to
which they had submitted the saints of God.[342]
Shorn of its miraculous and spiteful sequel, and presented in a form to
which critical history is not compelled to raise objection, the same
episode reappears about the middle of the twelfth century, that is,
approximatively, a hundred years later, in the _Gesta Pontificum_ of
William of Malmesbury. The chronicler narrates how, at Cerne, in
Dorsetshire, the infuriated inhabitants, at the instigation of the Evil
One, attacked Augustine and his brethren, and expelled them from their
midst, after having heaped insults upon them, and how they carried the
indignity of their conduct so far as to fasten the tails of ray-fish, or
skate, to the clothes of the holy missionaries. The attitude which
William of Malmesbury credits Augustine with assuming in the
circumstances seems less in keeping with what we elsewhere read of the
Saint's temper than does the vengeful sentence which Goscelin makes him
pronounce against the offenders. William says of him that, for Christ's
sake, he bore their affronts patiently, modestly, and even joyfully, and
shaking against them the dust of his feet, retired a distance of some
three miles, as a precaution against further irritating the insane anger
of the poor people.[343]
When next the story of the insult offered to Augustine reappears, the
Divine vengeance, which Goscelin hardly does more than suggest, is
unhesitatingly asserted, and is recorded with a fullness of details such
as medieval credulity would readily accept as evidence of a genuine
miracle. The writer to whom we owe the legend in this complete form is
Robert Wace, of Jersey, the Anglo-Norman poet and author of the _Brut_,
a rhymed chronicle written but a few years, probably not more than a
decade, after William of Malmesbury's _Gesta Pontificum_. Differing from
his predecessors who referred to a small village as the scene of the
incident, Wace lays it in Dorchester itself, although the conduct which
he attributes to its inhabitants seems in keeping with rural coarseness
rather than with the more refined civilization of a county town:
"Saint Austine came and to the heathen folk
He preached God's law. Full earnestly he spoke;
But they, as men by nature vile and naught,
Were careless of the holy truths he taught;
And even as he stood before them, there,
--One sent by God, God's precepts to declare--
They fastened to his garments tails of ray,
And with those tails they drove the Saint away.
Then Austine prayed that, for His servant's sake,
The judgment of the Lord might overtake
The impious scoffers and His wrath proclaim
Against the men who did the deed of shame.
And so it was and shall be through all time,
In punishment of their detested crime:
For, sooth to say, to every man among
The rabble rout by whom the tails were hung
There grew a tail; and thus, for evermore
This token of disgrace the tailards bore;
And all their progeny, from sire to son,
Have suffered for the deed which then was done;
And so 'tis now, for all the kith and kin
Are tailards, too, in memory of the sin
Incurred by those who, lewd and reprobate,
Defiled the friend of God with tails of skate."[344]
Some fifty years after Robert Wace wrote his _Brut_, Layamon translated,
or rather, paraphrased and expanded the poem. In this Old English
version of it, St. Augustine's adventure is enriched by the addition of
further details. Layamon's most interesting contribution to the history
of the development of the legend consists of the information that an
exaggerated notion as to the extent of the Saint's vengeance had, by
this time, got abroad, and that foreigners now credited all Englishmen
indiscriminately with the tails which the transgressors themselves and
their posterity had alone been condemned to bear. That those tails were
called "muggles", and that the men whom they disgraced were nicknamed
"mugglings", are further circumstances for the knowledge of which we are
indebted to Layamon. And the fact that, whilst one manuscript of his
poem follows Wace with regard to the locality of the incident, another
transfers it from Dorchester to Rochester, suggests a desire on the part
of the scribe to exonerate the West Country, with which he may possibly
have been connected.[345] In Sir F. Madden's prose rendering of the old
English _Brut_, the whole episode is thus given:
"And so St. Austin drew southward, so that he came to Dorchester; there
he found the worst men that dwelt in the land. He told them God's lore,
and they had him in derision; he taught them Christendom, and they
grinned at him. Where the Saint stood, and his clerks with him, and
spake of Christ, as was ever their custom, there they approached to
their injury, and took tails of rays and hanged them on his cope, on
each side. And they ran beside, and threw at him with the bones, and
afterwards attacked him with grievous stones. And so they did him shame
and drove him out of the place. To St. Austin they were odious, and he
became exceeding wroth; and he proceeded five miles from Dorchester, and
came to a mount that was mickle and fair; there he lay on his knees in
prayer and called ever toward God, that he should avenge him of the
cursed folk, who had dishonoured him with their evil deeds. Our Lord
heard him, in heaven, and sent his vengeance on the wretched folk that
hanged the rays' tails on the clerks. The tails came on them--therefore
they be tailed! Disgraced was all the race, for muggles they had; and in
each company men call them mugglings, and every freeman speaketh foul of
them, and English freemen in foreign lands have a red face for the same
deed, and many a good man's son, in strange lands, who never came there
nigh, is called base."[346]
The same occurrence is related in the English prose version of the
_Brut_, with the addition of aggravating circumstances of violence and
contumely. But what imparts special interest to the passage is the
mention of the ingenious means adopted for the purpose of evading the
hereditary curse:
"And in the menewhile that the peple turnede ham to God, seynt Austyn
came to Rochestre and there prechede Goddis worde. The paynnemys
therefor him scornede and caste uppon hym reyghe tayles, so that al his
mantel was hongede ful of reyghe tailes; and for more despite thai keste
uppon hym the guttis of reyghes and of other fysshe, wherefore the good
man seynt Austyn was sore anoyede and grevede, and prayede to God that
alle the childerne that shulde be borne afterward in that citee of
Rochestre muste have tayles. And wherre the kyng herde and wiste of this
vengaunce that was falle thurghe seynt Austynus praier, he lette make
one howse in the honoure of God, wherein wymmen shulde have hire
childerne, at the brugges ende: in whiche howse wymmen yette of the
citee be delyveride of child."[347]
The _Story of Inglande_, written by Robert Manning of Brunne, in 1338,
contains a section which has the marginal summary, "Qua de causa Anglici
vocantur Caudati". In his explanation of the reason why Englishmen are
called "tailards", Manning closely follows Wace, some of whose lines,
indeed, he translates with literal accuracy. He closes his narrative of
the incident, however, in the same manner as does Layamon, with a
protest against the unfairness of attributing to all Englishmen
indiscriminately the degrading stigma inflicted on a few only of his
countrymen:
"But there he stod them to preche
And ther savacion for to teche;
Byhynd hym on his clothes they henge
Righe taillis on a strenge.
When they had don that vyleny
They drof hym thenne wyth maistri;
Fer weys they gan hym chace;
Tailles they casten in hys face.
Thys holy man God bisought,
For they hym that vileny wrought,
That on them and on al their kynde
Tailled alle men schulde hem fynde;
And God graunted al that he bad,
For alle that kynde tailles had--
Taillis hadde and tailles have;
Fro that vengaunce non may them save;
For they wyth tailles the goodeman schamed,
For tailles al Englische kynde ys blamed;
In manie sere londes seyd
Of tho tailles we have umbreyde."[348]
The Bibliothèque Nationale possesses a manuscript,[349] which is
ascribed by experts to the fourteenth century, and in which the legend
of St. Augustine and the tails--no longer those of ray-fish,
however--supplies materials for a quaint satire against the inhabitants
of Rochester. It begins with a mock-serious discussion as to the species
of animals to which they belong. That they are not men is quite clear,
for they have tails, and Aristotle has conclusively established that men
have no tails. And yet those strange animals have something human about
them, too--they reason and have laws. For all that, however, there
remains the stern fact that they bear tails, and this quite precludes
the possibility of classing them as perfect human beings. In the course
of the satire reference is naturally made to the outrage of which St.
Augustine was the victim. After giving an account of the saint's mission
to England, the anonymous author continues: "As he went about from city
to city, preaching, it happened that he preached in the city which is
called Rochester. But, whilst he was preaching, the inhabitants of the
city flocked together about him, and, deeming his words to be lies,
subjected him to many insults. After reviling him with opprobrious
words, they fastened tails of swine and of cows to the skirt of his
garments, spat into his face, and drove him out of the city."[350] The
saint prayed that they who had insulted him might be punished, to the
end that the divinity of his mission should be brought home to them. At
the conclusion of his prayer, he wept bitterly, but was comforted by
receiving the assurance that his petition would be granted. And so, God,
wishing to avenge the insult done to Him and to his servant, ordained
that all who, from that time, might be born in the city of Rochester,
should have tails, after the fashion of swine. And nothing could be done
to prevent their having tails. From that day to this, the natives of
Rochester have been tailed, and they shall remain tailed for ever. It is
consequently evident that they are not human beings. Amongst the
inconveniences resulting from this peculiarity of theirs, is that of not
being able to sit down when they are angry; for, at such a time, their
tails stand erect, as is the case with other animals.[351]
During the fourteenth century, too, the myth, in its restricted and
local form, makes its appearance in Continental literature, other than
that of France. It is referred to by Fazio degli Uberti, an Italian poet
who lived between 1326 and 1360, and whom D. G. Rossetti deals with and
translates in his work _Italian Poets chiefly before Dante_. In a
description of England which Fazio gives in the _Ditta Mondo_, he says:
"Now this I saw not; but so strange a thing
It was to hear, and by all men confirmed,
That it is fit to note it as I heard,
To wit, there is a certain islet here
Among the rest where folk are born with tails,--
Short as are found in stags and suchlike beasts".[352]
Fazio is probably Boccaccio's authority for the statement, unaccompanied
with any further details, however, that "certain Englishmen were born
with tails".[353]
The chronicle which is commonly known as Alexander of Essebye's, and
which exists in manuscript only, has been quoted as briefly stating that
"when fish tails were despitefully thrown at him by certaine men of
Dorsetshire", St. Augustine "was so furiously vexed therewith that he
called upon God for revenge and He forthwith heard him and strake them
with tails for their punishment". Greater interest attaches to the story
as told in the English version of the _Golden Legende_. Though not less
credulous than were his predecessors as to the punishment inflicted on
the impious people who insulted the saint, the writer who interpolated
the narrative--for it does not appear in the Latin original--prepares
the way of the sceptic by limiting the duration of the penalty, and by
testifying with an earnestness suggestive of personal knowledge to the
immunity of some, at least, of those who were believed to be stricken
for the transgression of their forefathers:
"After this Saynt Austyn entryd into Dorsetshyre and came into a towne
whereas were wycked peple and refused his doctryne and prechyng utterly,
and droof him out of the towne, castyng on him the tayles of thornback
or like fisshes, wherefor he besought Almyghty God to shewe his jugement
on them, and God sente to them a shameful token, for the children that
were borne after in that place had tayles, as it is said, tyl they had
repented them. It is sayd comynly that thys fyl at Strode in Kente; but,
blessyd be God, at this day is no such deformyte."[354]
By the middle of the fifteenth century, the legend of the tails had
undergone important modifications. The original account of the outrage
and of its punishment was still current; but, by the side of it, there
existed several versions which affected not merely the circumstances of
time and place, but also the individuality of the persons concerned in
the incident. We are indebted to Walter Bower, who expanded and
continued Fordun's _Scotichronicon_, for an interesting passage in which
the old story and its subsequent variants are presented together. The
Scottish chronicler, taking Wace's narrative as his starting-point,
relates that when St. Augustine was preaching the word of life to the
heathen, amongst the West Saxons, in the county of Dorset, he came to a
certain town where no one would receive him or listen to his preaching.
They opposed him rebelliously in everything, contradicted all he said,
did their utmost to distort his actions, on which they put sinister
interpretations, and, impious to relate, carried their audacity so far
as to sew and hang fish tails to his garments. But what they intended as
an insult to the holy father brought eternal disgrace on themselves and
on their posterity, and opprobrium on their unoffending country. He
smote them in the hinder parts and cast lasting shame upon them by
causing similar tails to grow both on their own persons and on those of
their offspring. And here the Abbot of Inchcolm becomes particularly
interesting by reason of the wholly new information which he imparts. He
states that there was a special name for the punitive tail. "Such a
tail," he says, "is called Mughel by the natives, in the language of
their country; and because of this, the place where St. Augustine was
thus insulted received the name of Muglington, that is, the town of the
Muglings, and still bears it at the present day." It is to be regretted
that the topographical indication is not more definite. The modern map
of England knows no Muglington. Wherever it may have been, it would seem
that it did not stand alone as a monument of St. Augustine's power and
spite. According to Bower, it is also related that a similar indignity
was done to him in the province of Mercia, by the inhabitants of a town
called Thamewyth. But they were not allowed to go unpunished either;
for, "as is known to all", they were put to shame by the infliction of
the like opprobrious punishment.
It is from its concluding part, however, that Bower's account derives
its chief importance and its value as a contribution to the history of
the development of the myth. "Something similar," he says, "happened at
a later period, during the exile of St. Thomas, Primate of England, when
the people of Rochester, intending it as an insult to him, docked his
horse's tail. But their iniquitous action was foiled of its purpose and
recoiled on themselves; for it was found that thenceforth all the
children born in that place were tailed."[355] From this we first learn
that a new character had by this time assumed a part in the story.
Hitherto, the responsibility for having endowed Englishmen with tails
had rested with St. Augustine alone. And his monopoly of the doubtful
honour had endured through four centuries. Henceforth, though he was not
to disappear altogether, he was to have a rival.
In the case of Becket, as in that of his predecessor, there was a basis
of historical fact on which to build up a legend.
The chroniclers Ralph de Diceto, Roger de Hoveden, and both William and
Gervase of Canterbury,[356] who record the murder of Becket, and whose
proximity, in point of time, to the events that took place on those
memorable December days of the year 1170, gives them indisputable
authority, all agree in narrating, with such slight variations in
matters of detail as serve to show that they did not merely repeat each
other, an incident which happened to the Archbishop shortly before his
death. They state that Robert Broc, a groom of the royal bedchamber,
who, together with Nigel de Sacheville, incumbent of Harrow, was
solemnly excommunicated by the Primate, on Christmas day, had cut off
the tail of Becket's horse, as an insult to its owner. According to the
two brother-monks, the Archbishop made direct reference to this
indignity in his interview with the four conspirators, Reginald
Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton.
"The tail of a mare in my service," he said, "has been shamefully cut
off, as if I could be disgraced by the docking of a brute beast."[357]
It was not, however, for this cowardly and contemptible act of spite
that Broc was excommunicated, but because, being a layman, he had
appropriated ecclesiastical revenues. And, though William of Canterbury
records that the very dogs refused to be fed by the hand of the man whom
the Prelate had banned, neither he nor any of the other chroniclers
refers to the infliction of tails on him or his posterity. It was only
at a later date, and when Broc had been lost sight of, as the
perpetrator of the outrage, that the miraculous punishment was thought
of.
Although there is the evidence of Bower to show that, in his day,
Becket's name had already begun to be connected with the legend of the
tails, Augustine still continues to hold his own through the whole of
the first half of the sixteenth century. It is he who figures as the
hero, or the victim, in the account given by John Major, an account
which is noteworthy by reason of the very cautious spirit in which it is
written. It may be said to mark the beginning of a transition from
unquestioning credulity to uncompromising scepticism. It also seems to
imply that, so far as the author's reading of the chroniclers extended,
he found the English, if not yet ready to deny the supernatural
punishment of the insult offered to the saint, at least convinced that
it had not been perpetuated through the ages. The chapter in which Major
recapitulates the old story, is mainly devoted to the outward form and
appearance of the English, and contains a great deal about "skiey
influence". Thus, it comes of "skiey influence" that close by the Arctic
pole people are of foul aspect. And, if in some parts of Africa men are
born with the head of a dog, "this, too, is a matter of skiey influence
and carries with it no other influence". After this preamble the author
proceeds to relate the conversion of Kent--how Augustine laboured so
strenuously that, in a short space of time, he brought to the faith the
king himself and almost the whole people; how, passing on to Rochester,
he began there, too, to preach the word of God; and how the common
people derided him, and threw fish tails at the holy man. "Wherefore
Augustine made his prayer to God that, for punishment of this sin, their
infants should be born with tails, to the end they might be warned not
to contemn the teachers of divine things. And, for this reason, as the
English chroniclers relate, the infants were born with tails; but for a
time only, and to the end that an unbelieving race might give credence
to their teacher, was this punishment inflicted." The Scots and the
Gauls, it is true, "assert the opposite". But, Major "cannot agree with
them". And, further, the phenomenon having been only temporary, he gives
it as his opinion that it had "very little to do with the skiey
influence".[358]
Nicole Gilles whose "very elegant and copious annals of Gaul" were
published in 1531, being a French chronicler, is one of those who
believe that the divine anger has not ceased to manifest itself, and
that the descendants of the men of Dorchester, who mocked and derided
St. Augustine, still have "tails behind, like brute beasts, and are
therefore called tailed Englishmen". It is worthy of notice that, owing,
doubtless, to the misreading of some Latin text and to the intelligible
confusion of _raia_ or _raria_, both of which are used to translate
"rayfish", with the more familiar _rana_, Gilles makes the impious
Dorchestrians hang frogs--"des _raynes_ ou grenouilles"--to St.
Augustine's garments.[359]
Bellenden, who belonged to the next generation, took the liberty of
introducing the Augustinian myth into his Scottish prose rendering of
Hector Boece, although there was nothing in the Latin original to
justify him in doing so.
"Quhen this haly man, Sanct Austine, wes precheand to the Saxonis in
Miglintoun," he says, "thay wer nocht onlie rebelland to his precheing,
but in his contemptioun thay sewit fische talis on his abilyements.
Otheris alliegis thay dang him with skait rumpillis. Nochtheless, this
derisioun succedit to thair gret displesoure: for God tuke on thaim sic
vengeance, that thay and thair posteritie had lang talis mony yeris
eftir. In memorie heirof, the barnis that are yit borne in Miglintoun
hes the samin deformite, but the wemen havand experience thairof fleis
out of this toun in the time of thair birth and eschapis this
malediction be that way."[360]
Bower and the prose _Brut_ are obviously the authorities for Bellenden's
statements, and it is not without interest to note that whilst drawing
from the latter his knowledge of the subterfuge by means of which
cunning mothers might secure for their children immunity from the
consequences of the saint's vindictiveness, it is from his Scottish
predecessor that he takes the name of the town which witnessed the
affront, and in which the punishment was perpetuated. And the question
arises whether the chronicler's apparently deliberate choice of
Miglinton is to be taken as evidence that a place bearing that name, or
rather nickname, really existed.
Though Dunbar's brief reference to the insult offered to St. Augustine
proves nothing beyond his acquaintance with the legend, it may be
quoted, for the sake of completeness. It occurs in the _Flyting with
Kennedy_, at whom his adversary flings the jeer,
"he that dang Sanct Augustine with an rumple
Thy fowll front had".[361]
The Frenchman Génébrard is the last of those who, as long as the story
continued to be accepted or, at least, not openly scouted, connected it
with Augustine. He confines himself to recording the outrage, and to
stating, with due caution, that, because of it, the people of Dorchester
"are said to have had tails like beasts". His own belief in the prodigy
does not appear to have been very firm.[362]
Of those who, after Bower, present St. Thomas as the central figure in
the incident, the first in date is a foreigner, Wilwolt of Schaumburg.
This German gentleman errant visited England about the end of the
fifteenth century, and an account of his travels was published in 1507.
He appears to have been greatly impressed by the story of St. Thomas of
Candlwerg, as he calls him, and relates how "he left behind him a
wonderful token which will perhaps endure to the day of judgment". On
one occasion, he says, riding like a pious and upright man, on his
little ass, the holy man came to a certain village where he stopped to
take some food. Here the country folk made fun of his lowly mount, and
cut off the poor ass's tail. Thereupon, the dear saint complained to
Almighty God, and prayed to such purpose that, even to this very day,
all the boys that are born in that village bring with them into the
world little tails rooted to their hinder parts. From this circumstance
has arisen the byword which so greatly annoys the English: "Englishman,
show your tail!" And continues Wilwolt, "I should like to see the
foolhardy man who dared to call out, 'English tailard' in that same
village. He would have to take himself off very quickly if he did not
wish to be beaten to death." The German traveller also learnt how, at
the right moment, women could avert from the expected child the grievous
consequences of its forefathers' fault. They only had to cross the water
and go into the next village.[363]
Another and better known foreigner, no less a personage, indeed, than
Polydore Vergil, continues, at the same time that he considerably
restricts, the legend of the tails. As narrated by him in the _Anglica
Historia_, published in 1534, Becket's misadventure appears to have been
one of the minor incidents in the quarrel between him and the king. It
had become known that Henry had been moved to exclaim, "Wretched me! Can
I not have peace in my own kingdom because of one priest? Is there none
of all my subjects who will rid me of that annoyance?" And there were
not wanting evil men who understood this to mean that, in his heart, he
desired the death of the Archbishop who, in consequence, began to be
generally neglected, despised, and hated. Such was the position of
affairs when Thomas one day came to Stroud, on the Medway, near
Rochester. There, the inhabitants, anxious to inflict some insult on the
good father, now that he was in disgrace, did not hesitate to cut off
the tail of the horse on which he was riding. By this act, however, it
was on themselves that they brought lasting shame. For, by the judgment
of God, it happened that the descendants of the men who had perpetrated
this outrage were born with tails, like brute beasts. But if the
learned Italian was superstitious enough to believe in the miraculous
punishment of an offence which, at its worst, involved far less moral
guilt than was incurred by the murderers of Becket, against whom no
divine retribution was recorded, he was too intelligent not to see the
absurdity of making it perpetual, and of inflicting it on the community
at large, as earlier chroniclers had done. He admitted that the mark of
infamy had not survived the family of the immediate offenders.[364]
The next and last writer of what may be called the period of credulity,
though that credulity had begun to wane long before it reached its
vanishing phase in him, was Guillaume Paradin, of Cuiseaux. He confesses
to a suspicion that what tradition has handed down concerning the tails
of Englishmen is mere nonsense, and apologizes for reproducing it, on
the score that English chroniclers themselves report it quite seriously.
The Becket legend which he thus introduces affords him an opportunity
of adapting to the English the words of the Royal prophet, "He smote
them in the hinder parts and put them to a perpetual shame"; and of
perpetrating, at their expense, some doggerel lines of which he has the
good sense not to acknowledge the authorship:--
Of old, some Britons docked the tail
Of Becket's nag, they say,
And that is why all Englishmen
Have short tails to this day.[365]
By the middle of the sixteenth century, saints had ceased to command the
same popular reverence as before, and their alleged miracles were put by
many on the same level as the myths of antiquity. There is,
consequently, from that date onwards an absolute change in the tone and
temper of those who allude to the legend of the tails. Most of them,
indeed, do so for the sole purpose of denying the miracle and of
sneering at those who superstitiously gave it credence. The first and
not least indignant of the denunciators is John Bale, Bishop of Ossory.
After indicating the discrepancy between John Capgrave and Alexander of
Esseby--that is, Ashby--who record that, "for castynge of fyshe tayles
at thys Augustine, Dorsett shyre men had tayles ever after", and
Polydore Vergil, who "applyeth it unto Kentysh men at Stroude, by
Rochester, for cuttynge of Thomas Beckett's horse's tayle", the author
of the _Actes of Englysh Votaryes_ says: "Thus hath England, in all
other landes, a perpetual dyffamy of tayles by their wrytten legendes of
lyes, yet can they not wele tell where to bestowe them trulye".[366] In
another passage he inveighs still more bitterly against "the Spiritual
Sodomytes" who "in the legends of their sanctyfied sorcerers", have
"dyffamed the Englyshe posteryte with tayles", and to whom it is due
"that an Englishman now cannot travayle in any other lande by way of
merchandyce or anye other honest occupyenge, but yt ys most
contumelyousslye throwne in his teeth, that all Englishmen have tayles".
And concludes the Bishop in his wrath, "that uncomlye note and report
have the nacyon gotten without recover, by these laysye and idell
lubbers, the munkes and the prestes, whiche coulde fynde no matters to
advance their canonysed Cayns by, or their Sayntes (as they call them)
but manyfest lyes and knaveryes".[367]
Bale's _Actes_ appeared in 1546. Seventy years later, William Lambarde
published a _Perambulation of Kent_. Coming to Stroud, in this
topographical and historical account of his native county, he eagerly
avails himself of the opportunity offered him to record his protest
against the attribution of tails, not only to the natives of that
locality, but to the Kentish men generally, and that--unkindest cut of
all--by their own fellow countrymen. He is evidently acquainted with
several versions of the story; but whilst denouncing the authors of all
of them, he is particularly incensed against Polydore, whom he quite
unjustly accuses of "lashing out further" than his authorities, and of
endeavouring "to outly the lowdest Legendaries". It is bad enough that
"the whole English nation should be earnestly flowted" with the
"dishonourable note" of having tails; but what Lambarde obviously finds
it more difficult to bear, and makes Polydore responsible for, is that
"Kentish men be heere at home merily mocked". In his most entertaining
contribution to the history of the legend, the Kentish apologist says:
"A name, or family of men, sometime inhabiting Stroude (saith Polydore)
had tailes clapped to their breeches by Thomas Becket, for revenge and
punishment of a dispite done to him, in cutting of the taile of his
horse. The author of the new Legend saith, that after St. Thomas had
excommunicated two Brothers (called Brockes) for the same cause, that
the Dogges under the table would not once take bread at their hands.
Such (belike) was the vertue of his curse, that it gave to brute beasts,
a discretion and knowledge of the persons, that were in danger of it.
Boetius (the Scotishe chronicler) writeth, that the lyke plague lighted
upon the men of Midleton in Dorsetshire: who because they threwe Fish
tailes in great contempt at Saint Augustine, were bothe themselves and
their posteritie, stricken with tailis, to their perpetual infamy and
punishment. All whiche their reportes (no doubt) be as true, as Ovides
Historie of Diana, that in great angre bestowed on Actæon a Deares head
with mighty anthlers.
"Much are the Western men bound (as you see) to Polydore, who taking the
miracle from Augustine, applieth it to S. Thomas, and removing the
infamous revenge from Dorsetshire, laieth it upon our men of Kent. But
little is Kent, or the whole English nation beholding, either to him, or
his fellowes, who (amongst them) have brought upon us this ignominie and
note with other nations abrode, that many of them believe as verity,
that we have long tailes and be monsters by nature, as other men have
their due partes and members in usual number. Polydore (the wisest of
the companye) fearing that issue might be taken upon the matter,
ascribeth it to one speciall stocke and family, which he nameth not, and
yet (to leave it the more uncertain) he saith, that, that family is
worne out long since, and sheweth not when; he goeth about in great
earnest (as in sundrie other things) to make the world beleave he cannot
tell what: he had forgotten the Lawe whereunto an Hystorian is bound,
'Ne quid falsi audeat, ne quid veri non audeat'. That he should be bold
as to tell the trueth, and yet not so bolde as to tell a lye."
To his credit, however, Lambarde does Polydore the justice of admitting
that his history, "without all doubt", is "a worthy work", in places not
blemished with such follies. But, seeing that he does insert them often
and without discretion, he must be read with great suspicion and
wariness. "For, as he was by office Collector of the Peter pence to the
Popes gaine and lucre, so sheweth he himselfe throughout by profession,
a coveteous gatherer of lying fables, fained to advance the Popish
religion, kingdome and myter."[368]
In the seventeenth century, the story of the tails, which, by that time,
however, had ceased to be attributed to Englishmen at large and were
humorously regarded as distinctive of Kentish men alone, was
incidentally referred to by several poets. It supplied Sir John Mennis,
the author of _Musarum Deliceæ_, with a coarse joke. Andrew Marvel, in
his _Loyal Scot_, cites it in illustration of the danger incurred by
provoking the anger of a prelate:--
"There's no 'Deliver us' from a Bishop's wrath:
Never shall Calvin pardoned be for sales,
Never, for Burnet's sake, the Lauderdales;
For Becket's sake, Kent always shall have tails."[369]
In Drayton's _Polyolbion_, the "Blazons of the Shires", as set forth by
Helidon, open with the lines:
"Kent first in our account, doth to itself apply
(Quoth he) this Blazon first, 'Long tails and Liberty!'"[370]
Butler, in his _Hudibras_, has a couplet which declares that:
tails by nature sure were meant
As well as beards, for ornament.
According to an annotator, "Mr. Butler here alludes to Dr. Bulwer's
_Artificial Changeling_", where, besides the story of the Kentish men,
near Rochester, who had tails clapped to their breeches by Thomas à
Becket, he gives an account, on the authority of "an honest young man of
Captain Morris's company in Lieutenant-General Ireton's company", of how
"at Cashell in the County of Tipperary, in the province of Munster, in
Carrick Patrick church, seated on a hill or rock, stormed by the Lord
Inchequine, and where were neare 700 put to the sword and none saved but
the Mayor's wife and his son, there were found among the slain of the
Irish, when they were stript, divers with tailes near a quarter of a
yard long. The relator being very diffident of the truth of this story,
after enquiry was ensured of the certainty thereof by forty souldiers,
that testified upon their oaths that they were eyewitnesses, being
present at the action." With such testimony in support of his assertion
that "the rump bone among brutish and strong-docht nations doth often
spread out with such an excrescence or beastly emanation", Dr. Bulwer
is not disinclined to believe in the possession of tails by the
inhabitants of Stroud.
In the _Church History of Britain_ by Dr. Bulwer's contemporary, Thomas
Fuller, modern scepticism again asserts itself. Quoting from Hierome
Porter, in the _Flowers of the Lives of the Saints_, to the effect that
when the villagers in Dorsetshire beat Augustine and his fellows, and in
mockery fastened fish tails at their backs, in punishment hereof, "all
that generation had that given them by nature, which so contemptibly
they fastened on the backs of these holy men", Fuller adduces this to
show that "most of the miracles assigned unto Augustine, intended with
their strangeness to raise and heighten, with their levity and absurdity
do depress and offend, true devotion". In equal contempt of those who
relate such a story as that of the Dorsetshire folk and of those who
accept it, the author exclaims, "Fie for shame! He needs an hard plate
on his face that reports it, and a soft place in his head that believes
it".[371]
In his _Worthies of England_, the same writer discusses at some length
the origin of the nickname applied to the Kentish men. "Let me premise,"
he says, "that those are much mistaken, who first found the proverb on a
miracle of Austin the Monk, for the scene of this lying wonder was not
laied in any part of Kent, but pretended many miles off, nigh Cerne in
Dorsetshire." His own opinion is that the saying is "first of
outlandish extraction and cast by Forrainers as a note of disgrace on
all the English, though it chanceth to stick only on the Kentish men at
this day". In support of this view, Fuller relates the incident of the
quarrel "betwixt Robert, Brother of Saint Louis, King of France and our
William Longspee, Earle of Salisbury". Continuing his disquisition he
says:--
"Some will have the English so-called from wearing a pouch or poake (a
bag to carry their baggage in) behind their backs, whilst probably the
proud Monsieurs had their lacquies for that purpose; in proof whereof,
they produce ancient Pictures of the English Drapery and Armory, wherein
such conveyances doe appear. If so, it was neither sin nor shame for the
common sorte of people to carry their own necessaries; and it matters
not much whether the pocket be made on either side, or wholly behind. If
any demand how this nickname (cut off from the rest of England)
continues still entailed on Kent. The best conjecture is, because that
County lieth nearest to France, and the French are beheld as the first
founders of this aspersion. But if any will have the Kentish men
so-called from drawing and dragging boughs of trees behind them, which
afterwards they advanced above their heads, and so partly cozened,
partly threatened, King William the Conqueror to continue their ancient
customes; I say, if any will impute it to this original, I will not
oppose."[372]
The incident upon which Fuller bases the explanation which he considers
most plausible, without, however, expressing himself dogmatically with
regard to it, is related by the chronicler Willam Thorne, and also forms
the subject of an old ballad quoted by Thierry. So modern an historian
as Lappenberg thinks that "perhaps the tradition is not unfounded, that
the Kentish army, advancing under the covering of branches from the
trees, might have appeared to the enemy as a wood, until, standing in
face of them and casting down their leafy screen, they at once appeared
threatening with sword and spear". Freeman rejects the story altogether.
But even its truth, which Fuller may be excused for accepting, would
hardly support his theory. The only credit which it deserves is perhaps
the negative one of being a little less fanciful than that put forward
by Fynes Moryson, who states that "the Kentish men of old were said to
have tayles, because trafficking in the Low Countries, they never paid
full payments of what they did owe, but still left some part
unpaid".[373]
The author of the early sixteenth-century _Mad Pranks and Merry Jests of
Robin Goodfellow_, contributes no less than three other explanations, of
which one bears considerable resemblance to that favoured by Fuller.
After relating how he dropped into an alehouse, whilst travelling in
"that noble county of Kent", he continues:--
"The ale being good, and I in good company, I lapt in so much of this
nappy liquor, that it begot in mee a boldnesse to talk and desire of
them to know what was the reason that the people of that country were
called Long-tayles. The hoast said, all the reason that ever he could
heare was, because the people of that country did use to goe in
side-skirted coates. There is (sayd an old man that sat by) another
reason that I have heard: that is this. In the time of the Saxons'
conquest of England there were divers of our countrymen slaine by
treachery, which made those that survived more carefull in dealing with
their enemies, as you shall heare. After many overthrowes that our
countrymen had received by the Saxons, they dispersed themselves into
divers companies into the woods, and so did much damage by their
suddaine assaults to the Saxons, that Hengist, their king, hearing the
damage that they did (and not knowing how to subdue them by force) used
this policy. Hee sent to a company of them and gave them his word for
their liberty and safe returne, if they would come unarmed and speake
with him. This they seemed to grant unto, but for their more security
(knowing how little hee esteemed oaths or promises) they went every one
of them armed with a shorte sword, hanging just behind under their
garments, so that the Saxons thought not of any weapons they had: but it
proved otherwise, for when Hengist his men (that were placed to cut them
off) fell all upon them, they found such unlooked a resistance that most
of the Saxons were slain, and they that escaped, wond'ring how they
could do that hurt, having no weapons (as they saw), reported that they
strucke downe men like lyons with their tayles; and so they, ever after,
were called Kentish Long-tayles. I told them this was strange, if true,
and that their countries honor bound them more to believe in this, than
it did me. Truly, Sir, said my hoastesse, I thinke we are called
Long-tayles, by reason our tales are long, that we use to passe the time
withall, and make ourselves merry."
Du Cange considered the problem more seriously, without, however, being
able to find a satisfactory solution. He suggests that the epithet
"tailed" may have been applied to Englishmen because of the excess to
which they carried the fashion of wearing toes of extravagant length to
their shoes, but admits that the explanation does not greatly appeal to
him. With still more diffidence he hints at the possibility of
considering the Latin "caudatus" as equivalent to either "foppish" or
"cowardly". But whilst none of the cited instances of its use justifies
the former of these interpretations, there are only a very few of them
that can be strained into imparting even slight plausibility to the
latter. Neither does there appear to be anything to support Professor
Wattenbach's suggestion that Englishmen may have been called "tailed"
because of the way in which they wore their hair. Finally, a work
entitled _England under the Normans_ has a chapter on the measurement of
land, in which the author states that "there was a mile peculiar to
Kent, as well as a customary field admeasurement", and that "these
'long tales' are possibly the 'long tails' of which the county used to
be so proud". The history of the medieval myth does not lead to the
belief that either Englishmen generally, or, as here stated, Kentishmen
in particular, ever looked upon the nickname otherwise than as an
insult.
The attempts that have been made to fix upon some actual fact as
originating the attribution of tails to Englishmen seem as uncalled for
as most of them are fanciful and absurd.[374] They are all based on the
hypothesis that the epithet "caudatus", "coué", and "tailard" was first
applied for some reason other than the belief in the existence of a
tail, and that only subsequently, if, indeed, ever, was it taken
literally. But our investigation has proved that there is nothing to
warrant this assumption. It has been shown that, on the contrary, the
actual monstrosity was accepted as a fact from the outset. Nor does it
seem impossible to explain how this came about. Given the insult offered
to St. Augustine, about which there is no room for scepticism, it only
requires a knowledge of the medieval spirit to account for the sequel.
Impressed by the sanctity of the apostle of England and by the
greatness, or, indeed, the divinity of his mission, the early biographer
looked upon it as inevitable that the sacrilege of those who dishonoured
him should draw down upon them the wrath of Heaven. Was not the
disrespect of the children who called the Prophet "bald head" visited
upon them? The conviction that this should be the case easily led to the
assumption that it was. And a very slight effort of imagination sufficed
to devise a punishment suited to the offence. It was suggested by the
very nature of the impious deed. And what, to the chronicler, seemed the
application of an obvious principle--that the transgression should fall
back upon the transgressor--was accepted by the credulity of the age.
Then there was the animosity of other nations, of France in particular,
and of Scotland, her ally. If, at home, the manifestation of divine
anger and of saintly power was thought to be limited to the kith and kin
of the offenders, such nicety of distinction was ignored abroad. It
suited the enemies of England that all Englishmen should be "tailards",
and "tailards" they were universally and indiscriminately called.