As the summer advances, Conon, his baroness, and his familiars make
their annual visit to the great fair always held at this time at
Pontdebois. Practically nothing except wheat, cattle, and a few like
staples are ordinarily bought and sold in or around St. Aliquis. Of
course, a messenger can be sent to the town for articles that are
urgently needed, but, as a rule, the baron's family saves up all its
important purchases until the fair, when many desirable things not
ordinarily to be had in the city are put on sale. This present season
the fair seems the more important because on account of the expensive
fêtes Conon cannot afford to visit Paris and must make his purchases
nearer home.
It is only a few leagues to Pontdebois, but messire travels with a
considerable retinue--at least twenty men at arms well equipped,
besides body servants for himself and his wife, and a long string of
sumpter beasts to bring back the desired commodities, for the castle
must really stock itself for the year. The baron hardly fears an attack
by robbers so near to his own castle and to a friendly town, but he
takes no chances. The best of seigneurs disclaim any responsibility
for the fate of travelers who proceed by night, and one sire who
controls some miles of the way has possibly a quiet understanding with
certain outlaws that they may lurk in his forests and watch the roads
without too much questioning, provided they refrain from outrages
upon important people and make him liberal presents at Christmas and
Easter.[103] In any case, a number of merchants, packmen, and other
humble travelers who had gone safely as far as St. Aliquis, are glad to
complete the journey in the baron's formidable company. Conon in turn
gladly protects them; it adds to his prestige to approach Pontdebois
with a great following.
The roads are no worse than elsewhere, yet they are abominable; trails
and muddy ruts they seem most of the year, ordinarily passable only
for horses and mules, although in the summer rude two-wheeled carts
can bump along them. To cross the streams you must, in some places,
depend on fords very dangerous in the springtime. One unfordable
river, entering the Claire, is indeed crossed by a rude wooden
bridge. The building of bridges is fostered by the Church. A great
indulgence was proclaimed by the bishop some years ago when this bridge
was constructed as a pious work, especially useful for pilgrims.
Unfortunately, no one is responsible for its upkeep. It is falling
into disrepair, and already is so tottering that as men pass over it
they repeat those formulas, "commending their souls to God," which the
Church provides for use whenever one is attempting unstable bridges.
[Sidenote: Travelers and Inns]
On the journey you meet many humble travelers obliged to trudge
weary miles. There is a poor peasant seeking a farm now on a distant
seigneury. He has a donkey to carry some of his household gear and one
of the children. His wife is painfully carrying the youngest infant.
The poor man himself staggers under a great sack. Travelers of more
consequence ride horseback, with a large mail or leathern portmanteau
tied on their beast's crupper. Their burdens are heavy because one
often has to spend the night in abominable quarters, and consequently
must, if possible, carry flint, steel, and tinder for making a fire,
some kind of bedding, and very often a tent. Along the road, too, are
any quantity of beggars, real or pretended cripples and other deformed
persons, wandering about and living on charity; or blind men with
staffs and dogs. The beggars' disguise is a favorite one for robbers.
The wretches, too, who whine their, "Alms, Messire! Alms!" and hold
up a wrist minus the hand, or point to where an eye has been gouged
out, probably have suffered just punishments for crimes, although some
of them may have mutilated themselves merely in order to work on the
sympathies of the gullible.
As the party approaches Pontdebois the houses become better and closer
together, and just outside the gate is a group of taverns, available
for those who prefer to carouse or lodge without rather than within
the city walls. Conon is on terms of hospitality with a rich burgher
who has found the baron's favor profitable, and he leads his company
promptly inside the gates, but many of the humbler travelers turn off
to these taverns. Adela gives an aristocratic sniff of disdain as they
ride past such places. They are assuredly very dirty, and from them
proceeds the smell of stale wine and poor cooking. The owners, smooth,
smirking men, stand by the road as travelers come in sight and begin to
praise their hostelries. "Within," one of them is calling out, "are all
manner of comforts, painted chambers, and soft beds packed high with
white straw under soft feather mattresses. Here is your hostel for love
affairs. When you retire you will fall asleep on pillows of violets,
after you have washed out your mouth and rinsed your hands with rose
water!"
His victims, however, will find themselves in a dirty public dining
room, where men and women alike are drinking and dicing around the
bare oaken tables. At night the guests will sleep in the few chambers,
bed wedged by bed, or perhaps two in a bed, upon feathers anything but
vermin-proof. In the rear of most inns, too, there is a garden where
guests are urged to carouse with the unsavory females who haunt the
establishments. The visitors will be lucky if they can get safely away
without being made stupidly drunken and then robbed, or having the
innkeeper seize their baggage or even their clothes on the pretense
that they have not paid their reckoning.
Leaving these taverns at one side, the St. Aliquis company rides
straight onward. Before it the spires and walls of Pontdebois are
rising. The circuit of gray curtain walls and turrets reaches down to
the Claire, on which barges are swinging, and across which stretches
the solid wooden bridge which gives the Good Town its name. Above the
walls you can see the gabled roofs of the more pretentious houses, the
great round donjon, the civic watchtower, and, above all else, the
soaring fabric and stately mass of the cathedral with the scaffolding
still around its unfinished towers. Several smaller parish churches are
also visible. The baron's company is obliged to halt at the gate, such
is the influx and efflux of rickety carts, sumpter beasts, and persons
thrusting across the drawbridge. "Way, good people," Conon's squires
cry. "Way for Messire of St. Aliquis!" and at last, not without a
cracking of whips to make these mechanic crowds know their betters, the
party forces a path down the narrow streets.
[Sidenote: Entering a City]
A visit to Pontdebois is no real novelty to the castle folk, yet they
always experience a sense of bustle and vastness upon entering. Here
are eight thousand, indeed, some assert ten thousand, people, all
living together in a single community.[104] How confused even the
saints must be when they peer from heaven and try to number this swarm
of young and old, rich and poor, masters and apprentices, packed in
behind one set of walls! To tell the truth, the circuit of Pontdebois
is not very great; to render the walls as defensible as possible
and to save expense, the fortifications have been made to inclose
the smallest circumference that will answer. As a result, the land
inside is precious. Houses are wedged closely together. Streets are
extraordinarily narrow. People can hardly stir without colliding with
others, and about the only real breathing spaces are the market place
and some open ground around the cathedral. Behind the bishop's palace,
also, there is a small walled-in garden. Otherwise, it appears almost
as if not one green thing could grow in Pontdebois. The contrast with
the open country whence the travelers have just come is therefore
startling.
Even the best of the streets are dark, tortuous, and filthy. There is
almost no paving.[105] The waste water of the houses is flung from the
windows. Horrid offal is thus cast out, as well as the blood and refuse
from the numerous slaughterhouses. Pigs are privileged as scavengers,
even in the market place. The streets are the darker because the second
stories of the houses project considerably over the first, the third
over the second, and also the fourth and fifth (which often exist)
over those lower. Consequently, there is almost a roof formed over the
lanes, cutting off rain, light and air. In the upper stories, neighbors
not merely can gossip, but can actually shake hands with their friends
across the street. All the thoroughfares, too, are amazingly crooked,
as if everybody had once built his house where it pleased him, and
afterward some kind of a bypath around it had been created! At night
these twisting avenues are dark as pitch. No one can get about without
a lantern, and even with one it were better, if possible, to stay at
home. To prevent the easy flight of thieves, it is common to stretch
many heavy chains across the streets at night. Notwithstanding,
footpads often lurk in the covert of black corners.
Pontdebois has few quiet residence sections. It is a community of
almost nothing but little shops and little industries--the two being
often combined under one roof. The shops generally open directly
into the streets, with their stalls intruding on the public way like
Oriental bazaars. The streets, in fact, seem to be almost the property
of the merchants. Foot passengers can barely find a passage. Carts
cannot traverse the town during business hours, and Conon's company on
horseback might have found itself absolutely blocked had it not chanced
to arrive almost precisely at noon, when the hum and bustle very
suddenly cease and the worthy folk of Pontdebois forsake their counters
and benches to enjoy hearty dinners.
[Sidenote: A Rich Burgher's House]
As it is, they reach the market place just as the city hangman has
finished a necessary ceremony. One Lambert, a master woolen weaver,
had been caught selling adulterated and dishonestly woven cloth,
contrary to the statutes of his guild. The hangman has solemnly burned
the offending bolts of cloth before a jeering crowd of apprentices,
while Lambert's offense has been cried out with loud voice. The man is
disgraced and ruined. He will have to become again a mere wage earner,
or quit the city outright. His misfortune is the choice news of the
hour. The smell of the burning cloth is still in the air when Conon's
party rides by the pillory and halts at the house of the rich Othon
Bouchaut, who is ready to receive them.
Maître Othon is one of the principal burghers. He has grown rich by
importing wares from Venice, Constantinople, and the lands of the
Infidels. It is scandalous (say some nobles) how he, villein born, with
hands only accustomed to hold a purse or a pen, is able to talk to a
great seigneur without groveling as every good peasant ought. He and
his wife even wear gold lace, pearls, and costly stuffs on fête days,
as if they were nobles; and they are said actually to have broken the
law forbidding non-nobles to wear furs. Very deplorable, but what can
be done? Othon is so rich that he can stir up trouble even for the
duke. Nothing remains but to speak him fair and accept his hospitality.
This powerful merchant's house is in the marketplace. It rises five
stories high, and is built of beams filled in with laths, mortar, and
stucco. On the ground floor are storerooms for costly Oriental goods,
and desks where the master's clerks seem forever busy with complicated
accounts. On the next are the rooms for the family, and, although
without the spacious magnificence of the great hall at St. Aliquis,
Adela remarks a little enviously that her host's wife enjoys many
comforts and luxuries hardly known in the castle. The upper stories are
full of small chambers for Othon's family, his clerks, and the younger
apprentices who are learning his business. Before the front door swings
the ensign of the house--a gilded mortar (in token of the powdered
spices which the owner sells). The houses of Pontdebois have no
numbers. The ensigns serve to identify them. One of Othon's neighbors
lives at the "Crouching Cat," another at the "Tin Pot," another at the
"Silver Fish," and so on all through the town.
The house of Othon also appears to be quite new, as do many others.
This, however, is a doubtful sign of good fortune. Only a few years ago
much of Pontdebois was burned down. The narrow streets, the thatched
roofs, the absence of any means of checking a blaze save a line of
buckets hastily organized, make great fires a standing menace to every
city.[106] Othon complains that at any moment he may be reduced almost
to beggary by the carelessness of some wretched scullery maid or tavern
apprentice. He will also say that somehow in the pent-up city there is
greater danger of the plague than in the country castles or even in
the villages with their dungheaps. A dozen years ago Pontdebois lost
a quarter of its population by an outbreak which spared neither rich
nor poor, before which physicians and religious processions seemed
alike helpless, and which demoralized the community before the saints
mercifully halted the devastation.
[Sidenote: The Communal Donjon]
There are only a few stone houses in Pontdebois. Even the best houses
of the citizens are usually of wood and mortar. Not yet have risen
those magnificent stone city halls which later will be the glory
of North France and Flanders. But on one side of the market place
rises the communal donjon. The Good Town is like a seigneur (indeed,
somewhat it _is_ a seigneur placed in commission): it has its walls and
therefore its strong citadel. The donjon forms a high, solid, square
tower dominating the public square. At its summit there is always a
watchman ready, at first danger of fire or attack, to boom the alarm
bell. The tower itself is large enough to have good-sized rooms in its
base. Nearest the ground is the council chamber where the worshipful
echevins can deliberate. Above that is the archive room, where the
elaborate town records are kept. Directly under the council chamber,
however, is the prison, where general offenders are mewed up no more
comfortably than in the abysses of St. Aliquis.
The soul of the communal donjon, however, hovers around its bells.
There in the dark tower hang shrill Jacqueline, loud Carolus, and,
deepest and mightiest of all, Holy Trinity, and several others. A peal
of powerful bells pertains to every free town. Of course, they ring
lustily and merrily on holidays; indeed, strangers to the city think
they are rung too often for repose.[107] But if they all begin leaping
and thundering together, that is probably a sign for a mass meeting
of the citizens in the open plaza before the donjon. The magistrates
may wish to harangue the populace from the balcony, just above the
council room, descanting upon some public danger or deliver a peaceful
explanation of some new municipal ordinance. In any case, a commune
without its donjon and bells is like a ship without its rudder, and
if ever Pontdebois succumbs to superior power, the first step of the
conqueror will probably be to "take away the bells"--that will be the
same thing as annulling the city liberties.
Pontdebois has been a Good Town with a charter of privileges for about
a hundred years. As early as Charlemagne's day a village existed upon
the site. The location proved good for trade, but the inhabitants,
despite success in commerce and industry and increasing numbers, were
for a long time mere villeins dependent upon the lord bishop of the
town and region, and with no more rights than the peasants of the
fields had. However, in dealing with men who were steadily becoming
richer, and who were picking up strange ideas by foreign intercourse,
it proved much harder to keep them content with their station than it
did the run of villeins. Besides, the dukes of Quelqueparte, although
very loath to grant privileges to their own villeins, were not averse
to having privileges given to the subjects of such independent and
unreliable vassals as the bishops of Pontdebois. Consequently, when
the townspeople about A.D. 1100 began raising the cry, "Commune!
Commune!" in the episcopal presence, the bishop could not look to his
suzerain for much support. Indeed, it was being realized by intelligent
seigneurs that granting a charter to a town often meant a great
increase of wealth, so that if the lord's fiscal rights were carefully
safeguarded, he was actually the gainer by an apparent cession of part
of his authority. The upshot was that about A.D. 1110, when a certain
bishop needed a large purse to cover his travel to the Holy Land, for a
round sum the townsfolk bought from him a charter--a precious document
which practically raised them out of the status of villeins and
protected them against those executions and tyrannies which the run of
peasants had to accept resignedly, as they did bad winters.
[Sidenote: Charter of a Commune]
This charter read in part much as follows: "I, Henri, by the grace of
God Bishop of Pontdebois, make known to all present and to come, that
I have established the undermentioned rules for the inhabitants of my
town of Pontdebois. Every male inhabitant of said town shall pay me
every year twelve deniers and a bushel of oats as the price of his
dwelling; and if he desires to hold land outside the walls four deniers
per year for each acre. The houses, vines, and fields may be sold and
alienated at the pleasure of the holder. The dwellers in this town
shall go neither to the _ost_ (feudal levy) nor on any other expedition
unless I lead the same in person. They are allowed six echevins to
administer the ordinary business of the town and to assist my provost
in his duties. I especially decree that no seigneur shall withdraw from
this town any inhabitants for any reason, unless they are actually 'his
men' or owe him arrears in taxes, etc."[108]
After securing this charter, the men of Pontdebois began to hold up
their heads in a manner grievous to the neighboring nobles, and even
more grievous to the wealthy clergy, for prince-bishops were often
the original suzerains of the towns, and their authority was the most
seriously curtailed.[109] The books are full of the wrath of the
ecclesiastics over the changed situation. "'Commune!' a name new and
detestable!" pungently wrote Abbot Guibert of Nogent, even when the
movement was young; while Bishop Ives of Chartres assured everybody
that "compacts (with city folk) are binding on no one: they are
contrary to the canon law and the decision of the holy fathers." Even
as recently as 1213 a synod at Paris has denounced communes as the
creations of "usurers and exactors" who have set up "diabolical usages,
tending to overthrow the jurisdiction of the Church."
However righteous the anger of these holy men, it has proved vain.
The communes ever wax stronger, and annually some new seigneur is
compelled to sell a charter or even to grant one for nothing. The kings
watch complacently a movement which weakens their unruly feudatories.
Sometimes the townsfolk have grown insolent and tried to defend their
privileges by sheer violence. Once there was a very tyrannous bishop
of Laon. He foolishly tried to cancel a charter granted the city, and
boasted: "What can you expect these people to do by their commotions?
If my negro boy John were to seize the most terrible of them by the
nose, the fellow would not even growl. What they yesterday called a
'commune' I have forced them to give up--at least as long as I live!"
The next day the yell, "Commune! Commune!" rang in the streets. A mob
sacked the episcopal palace and found the bishop hiding in a cask at
the bottom of the cellar. The howling populace dragged him into the
street and killed him with a hatchet. Then, to add to this sacrilege
upon an anointed bishop, they plundered most of the nobles who chanced
to be in the town. After such deeds it is no wonder that the king went
to Laon and re-established order with a strong hand. Nevertheless, some
years later, a new charter was granted the town, and the succeeding
bishops have had to walk warily, despite inward groanings.
[Sidenote: Rule by Echevins and Rich Merchants]
Fortunately, Pontdebois has been spared these convulsions. As a rule
the local prelates have been reasonable and conciliatory. The bishop
is still called "suzerain." He receives the fixed tax provided in the
original agreement. He has jurisdiction over the citizens in spiritual
matters, which include heresy, blasphemy, insults, and assaults upon
priests and outrages to churches. Likewise much of what might be
called "probate litigation"--touching the validity of marriages and
children, and consequently the wills and property rights affected
thereby. However, in most secular particulars the citizens have pretty
complete control. They levy numerous imposts, direct taxes, tolls, and
market dues; they enroll a militia to defend the walls and to take the
field under their own officers and banner when the general levy of the
region is called out; they pass many local ordinances; and they name
their own magistrates who administer "high justice." They can even wage
local wars if they have a grievance against neighboring barons, being
themselves a kind of collective seigneur. The one thing they _cannot_
do is to coin money; that is a privilege carefully reserved to the king
and to the superior nobility.
Practically all these powers are exercised by the six echevins, with
a higher dignitary, the mayor (_maire_), at their head.[110] There is
little real democracy, however, in Pontdebois. The richer merchants,
like Othon, and the more prosperous masters form practically an
oligarchy, excluding the poor artisans and apprentices from any
share in municipal affairs save that of paying taxes and listening to
edicts by the magistrates. The same officers are re-elected year after
year. They use the town money much as they see fit, refusing public
reckoning and blandly announcing that "they render their accounts to
one another." There are, therefore, certain discontented fellows who
even murmur, "We 'free burghers' are worse taxed and oppressed than are
Baron Conon's villeins at St. Aliquis."
Nevertheless, there is often a great desire to become even a passive
citizen of Pontdebois. If you can live there unmolested for "a year and
a day," you escape the jurisdiction of the lord on whose estate you
have been a villein. You are protected against those outrages which
are possible on even the best seigneuries. Most of all, you gain a
chance to become something more than a clodhopping plowman. Perhaps
your grandchildren at least will become wealthy and powerful enough to
receive a baron as their guest, even as does the rich Othon.
So one may wander about the twisting streets of Pontdebois until
nightfall, when the loud horns blow curfew--"cover fires." After that,
the streets are deserted save for the occasional watchman rattling his
iron-shod staff and calling through the darkness, "Pray for the dead!"
FOOTNOTES:
[103] Another abuse would be to levy a heavy toll on all travelers
passing a castle, irrespective of whether there was any legal license
to demand the same.
[104] If Pontdebois really had as many as eight thousand permanent
inhabitants, it was no mean community in feudal times. Many a city
would have only two or three thousand, or even less. A place of ten
thousand or more would rank as the most important center for a wide
region. There were few of such size in France.
[105] Even in Paris at this time the only paving was on the streets
leading directly to the city gates. The remainder continued to be a
mere slough, a choice breeding place for those contagious diseases
against which precautions were assumed to be useless and to which men
were bound to submit as to "the will of God." Supplications to some
healing saint, like St. Firman or St. Antoine, usually seemed more
efficacious than any real sanitary precautions.
[106] Rouen had six severe fires between 1200 and 1225, and yet was
not exceptionally unfortunate. If a city were close to a river, it was
liable also to very serious freshets. Of course, every place was in
fairly constant danger of being stormed, sacked, and burned down in war.
[107] Modern travelers are to this day impressed by the amount of
bellringing which goes on in such unspoiled mediæval-built Flemish
towns as Bruges.
[108] Of course, no two communal charters were ever alike, although
many were run in a common mold. Many towns received not a full charter,
but "rights of burgessy"--_e.g._, guaranties against various common
forms of oppression, although the laws were still actually administered
by officers named by the seigneur.
[109] Bishops often had their cathedral and episcopal seat at the
largest place in their dioceses--the very places most likely to demand
charters.
[110] The echevins were often known instead as "jurés" and their
numbers were frequently much greater than six. The mayors might be
called "provosts" or "rewards."