relief from punishment, or every Christian country would have been
overwhelmed with the blackness of despair. Men could not live, if they
felt they could not expiate their sins. Who could smile or joke or eat
or sleep or have any pleasure, if he thought seriously there would be no
cessation or release from endless pains? Who could discharge his
ordinary duties or perform his daily occupations, if his father or his
mother or his sister or his brother or his wife or his son or his
daughter might not be finally forgiven for the frailties of an imperfect
nature which he had inherited? The Catholic Church, in its
benignity,--at what time I do not know,--opened the future of hope amid
the speculations of despair. She saved the Middle Ages from universal
gloom. If speculation or logic or tradition or scripture pointed to a
hell of reprobation, there must be also a purgatory as the field of
expiation,--for expiation there must be for sin, somewhere, somehow,
according to immutable laws, unless a mantle of universal forgiveness
were spread over sinners who in this life had given no sufficient proofs
of repentance and faith. Expiation was the great element of Mediaeval
theology. It may have been borrowed from India, but it was engrafted on
the Christian system. Sometimes it was made to take place in this life;
when the sinner, having pleased God, entered at once upon heavenly
beatitudes. Hence fastings, scourgings, self-laceration, ascetic rigors
in dress and food, pilgrimages,--all to purchase forgiveness; which idea
of forgiveness was scattered to the winds by Luther, and replaced by
grace,--faith in Christ attested by a righteous life. I allude to this
notion of purgatory, which early entered into the creeds of theologians,
and which was adopted by the Catholic Church, to show how powerful it
was when human consciousness sought a relief from the pains of endless
physical torments.
After Dante had written his _Purgatorio_, he retired to the picturesque
mountains which separate Tuscany from Modena and Bologna; and in the
hospitium of an ancient monastery, "on the woody summit of a rock from
which he might gaze on his ungrateful country, he renewed his studies in
philosophy and theology." There, too, in that calm retreat, he commenced
his _Paradiso_, the subject of profound meditations on what was held in
highest value in the Middle Ages. The themes are theological and
metaphysical. They are such as interested Thomas Aquinas and
Bonaventura, Anselm and Bernard. They are such as do not interest this
age,--even the most gifted minds,--for our times are comparatively
indifferent to metaphysical subtleties and speculations. Beatrice and
Peter and Benedict alike discourse on the recondite subjects of the
Bible in the style of Mediaeval doctors. The themes are great,--the
incarnation, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body,
salvation by faith, the triumph of Christ, the glory of Paradise, the
mysteries of the divine and human natures; and with these disquisitions
are reproofs of bad popes, and even of some of the bad customs of the
Church, like indulgences, and the corruptions of the monastic system.
The _Paradiso_ is a thesaurus of Mediaeval theology,--obscure, but
lofty, mixed up with all the learning of the age, even of the lives of
saints and heroes and kings and prophets. Saint Peter examines Dante
upon faith, James upon hope, and John upon charity. Virgil here has
ceased to be his guide; but Beatrice, robed in celestial loveliness,
conducts him from circle to circle, and explains the sublimest doctrines
and resolves his mortal doubts,--the object still of his adoration, and
inferior only to the mother of our Lord, _regina angelorum, mater
carissima_, whom the Church even then devoutly worshipped, and to whom
the greatest sages prayed.
"Thou virgin mother, daughter of thy Son,
Humble and high beyond all other creatures,
The limit fixed of the eternal counsel,--
Thou art the one who such nobility
To human nature gave, that its Creator
Did not disdain to make himself its creature.
Not only thy benignity gives succor
To him who asketh it, but oftentimes
Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.
In thee compassion is; in thee is pity;
In thee magnificence; in thee unites
Whate'er of goodness is in any creature."
In the glorious meditation of those grand subjects which had such a
charm for Benedict and Bernard, and which almost offset the barbarism
and misery of the Middle Ages,--to many still regarded as "ages of
faith,"--Dante seemingly forgets his wrongs; and in the company of her
whom he adores he seems to revel in the solemn ecstasy of a soul
transported to the realms of eternal light. He lives now with the angels
and the mysteries,--
"Like to the fire
That in a cloud imprisoned doth break out expansive.
* * * * *
"Thus, in that heavenly banqueting his soul
Outgrew himself, and, in the transport lost,
Holds no remembrance now of what she was."
The Paradise of Dante is not gloomy, although it be obscure and
indefinite. It is the unexplored world of thought and knowledge, the
explanation of dogmas which his age accepted. It is a revelation of
glories such as only a lofty soul could conceive, but could not
paint,--a supernal happiness given only to favored mortals, to saints
and martyrs who have triumphed over the seductions of sense and the
temptations of life,--a beatified state of blended ecstasy and love.
"Had I a tongue in eloquence as rich as is the coloring in fancy's
loom,
'Twere all too poor to utter the least part of that enchantment."
Such is this great poem; in all its parts and exposition of the ideas of
the age,--sometimes fierce and sometimes tender, profound and infantine,
lofty and degraded, like the Church itself, which conserved these
sentiments. It is an intensely religious poem, and yet more theological
than Christian, and full of classical allusions to pagan heroes and
sages,--a most remarkable production considering the age, and, when we
remember that it is without a prototype in any language, a glorious
monument of reviving literature, both original and powerful.
Its appearance was of course an epoch, calling out the admiration of
Italians, and of all who could understand it,--of all who appreciated
its moral wisdom in every other country of Europe. And its fame has
been steadily increasing, although I fear much of the popular
enthusiasm is exaggerated and unfelt. One who can read Italian well may
see its "fiery emphasis and depth," its condensed thought and language,
its supernal scorn and supernal love, its bitterness and its
forgiveness; but very few sympathize with its theology or its
philosophy, or care at all for the men whose crimes he punishes, and
whose virtues he rewards.
But there is great interest in the man, as well as in the poem which he
made the mirror of his life, and the register of his sorrows and of
those speculations in which he sought to banish the remembrance of his
misfortunes. His life, like his poem, is an epic. We sympathize with his
resentments, "which exile and poverty made perpetually fresh." "The
sincerity of his early passion for Beatrice," says Hallam, "pierces
through the veil of allegory which surrounds her, while the memory of
his injuries pursues him into the immensity of eternal light; and even
in the company of saints and angels his unforgiving spirit darkens at
the name of Florence.... He combines the profoundest feelings of
religion with those patriotic recollections which were suggested by the
reappearance of the illustrious dead."
Next to Michael Angelo he was the best of all famous Italians, stained
by no marked defects but bitterness, pride, and scorn; while his piety,
his patriotism, and elevation of soul stand out in marked contrast with
the selfishness and venality and hypocrisy and cruelty of the leading
men in the history of his times. "He wrote with his heart's blood;" he
wrote in poverty, exile, grief, and neglect; he wrote like an inspired
prophet of old. He seems to have been specially raised up to exalt
virtue, and vindicate the ways of God to man, and prepare the way for a
new civilization. He breathes angry defiance to all tyrants; he consigns
even popes to the torments he created. He ridicules fools; he exposes
knaves. He detests oppression; he is a prophet of liberty. He sees into
all shams and all hypocrisies, and denounces lies. He is temperate in
eating and drinking; he has no vices. He believes in friendship, in
love, in truth. He labors for the good of his countrymen. He is
affectionate to those who comprehend him. He accepts hospitalities, but
will not stoop to meanness or injustice. He will not return to his
native city, which he loves so well, even when permitted, if obliged to
submit to humiliating ceremonies. He even refuses a laurel crown from
any city but from the one in which he was born. No honors could tempt
him to be untrue unto himself; no tasks are too humble to perform, if he
can make himself useful. At Ravenna he gives lectures to the people in
their own language, regarding the restoration of the Latin impossible,
and wishing to bring into estimation the richness of the vernacular
tongue. And when his work is done he dies, before he becomes old
(1321), having fulfilled his _vow_. His last retreat was at Ravenna, and
his last days were soothed with gentle attentions from Guido da Polenta,
that kind duke who revived his fainting hopes. It was in his service, as
ambassador to Venice, that Dante sickened and died. A funeral sermon was
pronounced upon him by his friend the duke, and beautiful monuments were
erected to his memory. Too late the Florentines begged for his remains,
and did justice to the man and the poet; as well they might, since his
is the proudest name connected with their annals. He is indeed one of
the great benefactors of the world itself, for the richness of his
immortal legacy.
Could the proscribed and exiled poet, as he wandered, isolated and
alone, over the vine-clad hills of Italy, and as he stopped here and
there at some friendly monastery, wearied and hungry, have cast his
prophetic eye down the vistas of the ages; could he have seen what
honors would be bestowed upon his name, and how his poem, written in
sorrow, would be scattered in joy among all nations, giving a new
direction to human thought, shining as a fixed star in the realms of
genius, and kindling into shining brightness what is only a reflection
of its rays; yea, how it would be committed to memory in the rising
universities, and be commented on by the most learned expositors in all
the schools of Europe, lauded to the skies by his countrymen, received
by the whole world as a unique, original, unapproachable production,
suggesting grand thoughts to Milton, reappearing even in the creations
of Michael Angelo, coloring art itself whenever art seeks the sublime
and beautiful, inspiring all subsequent literature, dignifying the life
of letters, and gilding philosophy as well as poetry with new
glories,--could he have seen all this, how his exultant soul would have
rejoiced, even as did Abraham, when, amid the ashes of the funeral pyre
he had prepared for Isaac, he saw the future glories of his descendants;
or as Bacon, when, amid calumnies, he foresaw that his name and memory
would be held in honor by posterity, and that his method would be
received by all future philosophers as one of the priceless boons of
genius to mankind!
AUTHORITIES.
Vita Nuova; Divina Commedia,--Translations by Carey and Longfellow,
Boccaccio's Life of Dante; Wright's St. Patrick's Purgatory; Dante et la
Philosophie Catholique du Treizième Siècle, par Ozinan; Labitte, La
Divine Comédie avant Dante; Balbo's Life and Times of Dante; Hallam's
Middle Ages; Napier's Florentine History; Villani; Leigh Hunt's Stories
from the Italian Poets; Botta's Life of Dante; J. R. Lowell's article on
Dante in American Cyclopaedia; Milman's Latin Christianity; Carlyle's
Heroes and Hero-worship; Macaulay's Essays; The Divina Commedia from the
German of Schelling; Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique; La Divine
Comédie, by Lamennais; Dante, by Labitte.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
* * * * *
A.D. 1340-1400.
ENGLISH LIFE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
The age which produced Chaucer was a transition period from the Middle
Ages to modern times, midway between Dante and Michael Angelo. Chaucer
was the contemporary of Wyclif, with whom the Middle Ages may
appropriately be said to close, or modern history to begin.
The fourteenth century is interesting for the awakening, especially in
Italy, of literature and art; for the wars between the French and
English, and the English and the Scots; for the rivalry between the
Italian republics; for the efforts of Rienzi to establish popular
freedom at Rome; for the insurrection of the Flemish weavers, under the
Van Arteveldes, against their feudal oppressors; for the terrible
"Jacquerie" in Paris; for the insurrection of Wat Tyler in England; for
the Swiss confederation; for a schism in the Church when the popes
retired to Avignon; for the aggrandizement of the Visconti at Milan and
the Medici at Florence; for incipient religious reforms under Wyclif in
England and John Huss in Bohemia; for the foundation of new colleges at
Oxford and Cambridge; for the establishment of guilds in London; for the
exploration of distant countries; for the dreadful pestilence which
swept over Europe, known in England as the Black Death; for the
development of modern languages by the poets; and for the rise of the
English House of Commons as a great constitutional power.
In most of these movements we see especially a simultaneous rising among
the people, in the more civilized countries of Europe, to obtain
charters of freedom and municipal and political privileges, extorted
from monarchs in their necessities. The fourteenth century was marked by
protests and warfare equally against feudal institutions and royal
tyranny. The way was prepared by the wars of kings, which crippled their
resources, as the Crusades had done a century before. The supreme
miseries of the people led them to political revolts and
insurrections,--blind but fierce movements, not inspired by ideas of
liberty, but by a sense of oppression and degradation. Accompanying
these popular insurrections were religious protests against the corrupt
institutions of the Church.
In the midst of these popular agitations, aggressive and needless wars,
public miseries and calamities, baronial aggrandizement, religious
inquiries, parliamentary encroachment, and reviving taste for literature
and art, Chaucer arose.
His remarkable career extended over the last half of the fourteenth
century, when public events were of considerable historical importance.
It was then that parliamentary history became interesting. Until then
the barons, clergy, knights of the shire, and burgesses of the town,
summoned to assist the royal councils, deliberated in separate chambers
or halls; but in the reign of Edward III. the representatives of the
knights of the shires and the burgesses united their interests and
formed a body strong enough to check royal encroachments, and became
known henceforth as the House of Commons. In thirty years this body had
wrested from the Crown the power of arbitrary taxation, had forced upon
it new ministers, and had established the principle that the redress of
grievances preceded grants of supply. Edward III. was compelled to grant
twenty parliamentary confirmations of Magna Charta. At the close of his
reign, it was conceded that taxes could be raised only by consent of the
Commons; and they had sufficient power, also, to prevent the collection
of the tax which the Pope had levied on the country since the time of
John, called Peter's Pence. The latter part of the fourteenth century
must not be regarded as an era of the triumph of popular rights, but as
the period when these rights began to be asserted. Long and dreary was
the march of the people to complete political enfranchisement from the
rebellion under Wat Tyler to the passage of the Reform Bill in our
times. But the Commons made a memorable stand against Edward III. when
he was the most powerful sovereign of western Europe, one which would
have been impossible had not this able and ambitious sovereign been
embroiled in desperate war both with the Scotch and French.
With the assertion of political rights we notice the beginning of
commercial enterprise and manufacturing industry. A colony of Flemish
weavers was established in England by the enlightened king, although
wool continued to be exported. It was not until the time of Elizabeth
that the raw material was consumed at home.
Still, the condition of the common people was dreary enough at this
time, when compared with what it is in our age. They perhaps were better
fed on the necessities of life than they are now. All meats were
comparatively cheaper; but they had no luxuries, not even wheaten bread.
Their houses were small and dingy, and a single chamber sufficed for a
whole family, both male and female. Neither glass windows nor chimneys
were then in use, nor knives nor forks, nor tea nor coffee; not even
potatoes, still less tropical fruits. The people had neither
bed-clothes, nor carpets, nor glass nor crockery ware, nor cotton
dresses, nor books, nor schools. They were robbed by feudal masters, and
cheated and imposed upon by friars and pedlers; but a grim cheerfulness
shone above their discomforts and miseries, and crime was uncommon and
severely punished. They amused themselves with rough sports, and
cherished religious sentiments. They were brave and patriotic.
It was to describe the habits and customs of these people, as well as
those of the classes above them, to give dignity to consecrated
sentiments and to shape the English language, that Chaucer was
raised up.
He was born, it is generally supposed, in the year 1340; but nothing is
definitely known of him till 1357, when Edward III. had been reigning
about thirty years. It is surmised that his father was a respectable
citizen of London; that he was educated at Cambridge and Oxford; that he
went to Paris to complete his education in the most famous university in
the world; that he then extensively travelled in France, Holland, and
Flanders, after which he became a student of law in the Inner Temple.
Even then he was known as a poet, and his learning and accomplishments
attracted the attention of Edward III., who was a patron of genius, and
who gave him a house in Woodstock, near the royal palace. At this time
Chaucer was a handsome, witty, modest, dignified man of letters, in
easy circumstances, moving in the higher ranks of society, and already
known for his "Troilus and Cresseide," which was then doubtless the best
poem in the language.
It was then that the intimacy began between him and John of Gaunt, a
youth of eighteen, then Earl of Richmond, fourth son of Edward III.,
afterwards known as the great Duke of Lancaster,--the most powerful
nobleman that ever lived in England, also the richest, possessing large
estates in eighteen counties, as well as six earldoms. This friendship
between the poet and the first prince of the blood, after the Prince of
Wales, seems to have arisen from the admiration of John of Gaunt for the
genius and accomplishments of Chaucer, who was about ten years the
elder. It was not until the prince became the Duke of Lancaster that he
was the friend and protector of Wyclif,--and from different reasons,
seeing that the Oxford scholar and theologian could be of use to him in
his warfare against the clergy, who were hostile to his ambitious
designs. Chaucer he loved as a bright and witty companion; Wyclif he
honored as the most learned churchman of the age.
The next authentic event in Chaucer's life occurred in 1359, when he
accompanied the king to France in that fruitless expedition which was
soon followed by the peace of Brétigny. In this unfortunate campaign
Chaucer was taken prisoner, but was ransomed by his sovereign for
£16,--about equal to £300 in these times. He had probably before this
been installed at court as a gentleman of the bedchamber, on a stipend
which would now be equal to £250 a year. He seems to have been a
favorite with the court, after he had written his first great poem. It
is singular that in a rude and ignorant age poets should have received
much greater honor than in our enlightened times. Gower was patronized
by the Duke of Gloucester, as Chaucer was by the Duke of Lancaster, and
Petrarch and Boccaccio were in Italy by princes and nobles. Even
learning was held in more reverence in the fourteenth century than it is
in the nineteenth. The scholastic doctor was one of the great
dignitaries of the age, as well as of the schools, and ranked with
bishops and abbots. Wyclif at one time was the most influential man in
the English Church, sitting in Parliament, and sent by the king on
important diplomatic missions. So Chaucer, with less claim, received
valuable offices and land-grants, which made him a wealthy man; and he
was also sent on important missions in the company of nobles. He lived
at the court. His son Thomas married one of the richest heiresses in the
kingdom, and became speaker of the House of Commons; while his daughter
Alice married the Duke of Suffolk, whose grandson was declared by
Richard III. to be his heir, and came near becoming King of England.
Chaucer's wife's sister married the Duke of Lancaster himself; so he was
allied with the royal family, if not by blood, at least by ambitious
marriage connections.
I know of no poet in the history of England who occupied so high a
social position as did Chaucer, or who received so many honors. The poet
of the people was the companion of kings and princes. At one time he had
a reverse of fortune, when his friend and patron, the Duke of Lancaster,
was in disgrace and in voluntary banishment during the minority of
Richard II., against whom he had intrigued, and who afterwards was
dethroned by Henry IV., a son of the Duke of Lancaster. While the Duke
of Gloucester was in power, Chaucer was deprived of his offices and
revenues for two or three years, and was even imprisoned in the Tower;
but when Lancaster returned from the Continent, his offices and revenues
were restored. His latter days were luxurious and honored. At fifty-one
he gave up his public duties as a collector of customs, chiefly on wool,
and retired to Woodstock and spent the remainder of his fortunate life
in dignified leisure and literary labors. In addition to his revenues,
the Duke of Lancaster, who was virtually the ruler of the land during
the reign of Richard II., gave him the castle of Donnington, with its
park and gardens; so that he became a man of territorial influence. At
the age of fifty-eight he removed to London, and took a house in the
precincts of Westminster Abbey, where the chapel of Henry VII. now
stands. He died the following year, and was buried in the Abbey
church,--that sepulchre of princes and bishops and abbots. His body was
deposited in the place now known as the Poets' Corner, and a fitting
monument to his genius was erected over his remains, as the first great
poet that had appeared in England, probably only surpassed in genius by
Shakspeare, until the language assumed its present form. He was regarded
as a moral phenomenon, whom kings and princes delighted to honor. As
Leonardo da Vinci died in the arms of Francis I., so Chaucer rested in
his grave near the bodies of those sovereigns and princes with whom he
lived in intimacy and friendship. It was the rarity of his gifts, his
great attainments, elegant manners, and refined tastes which made him
the companion of the great, since at that time only princes and nobles
and ecclesiastical dignitaries could appreciate his genius or enjoy
his writings.
Although Chaucer had written several poems which were admired in his
day, and made translations from the French, among which was the "Roman
de la Rose," the most popular poem of the Middle Ages,--a poem which
represented the difficulties attendant on the passion of love, under the
emblem of a rose which had to be plucked amid thorns,--yet his best
works were written in the leisure of declining years.