slow, and almost perhaps insensible progress of agriculture and internal
improvement during the latter period of the middle ages. But no
diligence could recover the unrecorded history of a single village;
though considerable attention has of late been paid to this interesting
subject by those antiquaries, who, though sometimes affecting to despise
the lights of modern philosophy, are unconsciously guided by their
effulgence. I have already adverted to the wretched condition of
agriculture during the prevalence of feudal tenures, as well as before
their general establishment.[691] Yet even in the least civilized ages,
there were not wanting partial encouragements to cultivation, and the
ameliorating principle of human industry struggled against destructive
revolutions and barbarous disorder. The devastation of war from the
fifth to the eleventh century rendered land the least costly of all
gifts, though it must ever be the most truly valuable and permanent.
Many of the grants to monasteries, which strike us as enormous, were of
districts absolutely wasted, which would probably have been reclaimed by
no other means. We owe the agricultural restoration of a great part of
Europe to the monks. They chose, for the sake of retirement, secluded
regions which they cultivated with the labour of their hands.[692]
Several charters are extant, granted to convents, and sometimes to
laymen, of lands which they had recovered from a desert condition, after
the ravages of the Saracens.[693] Some districts were allotted to a body
of Spanish colonists, who emigrated, in the reign of Louis the Debonair,
to live under a Christian sovereign.[694] Nor is this the only instance
of agricultural colonies. Charlemagne transplanted part of his conquered
Saxons into Flanders, a country at that time almost unpeopled; and at a
much later period, there was a remarkable reflux from the same country,
or rather from Holland to the coasts of the Baltic Sea. In the twelfth
century, great numbers of Dutch colonists settled along the whole line
between the Ems and the Vistula. They obtained grants of uncultivated
land on condition of fixed rents, and were governed by their own laws
under magistrates of their own election.[695]
There cannot be a more striking proof of the low condition of English
agriculture in the eleventh century, than is exhibited by Domesday Book.
Though almost all England had been partially cultivated, and we find
nearly the same manors, except in the north, which exist at present, yet
the value and extent of cultivated ground are inconceivably small. With
every allowance for the inaccuracies and partialities of those by whom
that famous survey was completed,[696] we are lost in amazement at the
constant recurrence of two or three carucates in demesne, with other
lands occupied by ten or a dozen villeins, valued altogether at forty
shillings, as the return of a manor, which now would yield a competent
income to a gentleman. If Domesday Book can he considered as even
approaching to accuracy in respect of these estimates, agriculture must
certainly have made a very material progress in the four succeeding
centuries. This however is rendered probable by other documents.
Ingulfus, abbot of Croyland under the Conqueror, supplies an early and
interesting evidence of improvement.[697] Richard de Rules, lord of
Deeping, he tells us, being fond of agriculture, obtained permission
from the abbey to inclose a large portion of marsh for the purpose of
separate pasture, excluding the Welland by a strong dike, upon which he
erected a town, and rendering those stagnant fens a garden of Eden.[698]
In imitation of this spirited cultivator, the inhabitants of Spalding
and some neighbouring villages by a common resolution divided their
marshes amongst them; when some converting them to tillage, some
reserving them for meadow, others leaving them in pasture, they found a
rich soil for every purpose. The abbey of Croyland and villages in that
neighbourhood followed this example.[699] This early instance of
parochial inclosure is not to be overlooked in the history of social
progress. By the statute of Merton, in the 20th of Henry III., the lord
is permitted to approve, that is, to inclose the waste lands of his
manor, provided he leave sufficient common of pasture for the
freeholders. Higden, a writer who lived about the time of Richard II.,
says, in reference to the number of hydes and vills of England at the
Conquest, that by clearing of woods, and ploughing up wastes, there were
many more of each in his age than formerly.[700] And it might be easily
presumed, independently of proof, that woods were cleared, marshes
drained, and wastes brought into tillage, during the long period that
the house of Plantagenet sat on the throne. From manerial surveys indeed
and similar instruments, it appears that in some places there was nearly
as much ground cultivated in the reign of Edward III. as at the present
day. The condition of different counties however was very far from being
alike, and in general the northern and western parts of England were the
most backward.[701]
The culture of arable land was very imperfect. Fleta remarks, in the
reign of Edward I. or II., that unless an acre yielded more than six
bushels of corn, the farmer would be a loser, and the land yield no
rent.[702] And Sir John Cullum, from very minute accounts, has
calculated that nine or ten bushels were a full average crop on an acre
of wheat. An amazing excess of tillage accompanied, and partly, I
suppose, produced this imperfect cultivation. In Hawsted, for example,
under Edward I., there were thirteen or fourteen hundred acres of
arable, and only forty-five of meadow ground. A similar disproportion
occurs almost invariably in every account we possess.[703] This seems
inconsistent with the low price of cattle. But we must recollect, that
the common pasture, often the most extensive part of a manor, is not
included, at least by any specific measurement, in these surveys. The
rent of land differed of course materially; sixpence an acre seems to
have been about the average for arable land in the thirteenth
century,[704] though meadow was at double or treble that sum. But the
landlords were naturally solicitous to augment a revenue that became
more and more inadequate to their luxuries. They grew attentive to
agricultural concerns, and perceived that a high rate of produce,
against which their less enlightened ancestors had been used to clamour,
would bring much more into their coffers than it took away. The
exportation of corn had been absolutely prohibited. But the statute of
the 15th Henry VI. c. 2, reciting that "on this account, farmers and
others who use husbandry, cannot sell their corn but at a low price, to
the great damage of the realm," permits it to be sent any where but to
the king's enemies, so long as the quarter of wheat shall not exceed
6_s._ 8_d._ in value, or that of barley 3_s._
The price of wool was fixed in the thirty-second year of the same reign
at a minimum, below which no person was suffered to buy it, though he
might give more;[705] a provision neither wise nor equitable, but
obviously suggested by the same motive. Whether the rents of land were
augmented in any degree through these measures, I have not perceived;
their great rise took place in the reign of Henry VIII., or rather
afterwards.[706] The usual price of land under Edward IV. seems to have
been ten years' purchase.[707]
[Sidenote: Its condition in France and Italy.]
It may easily be presumed that an English writer can furnish very little
information as to the state of agriculture in foreign countries. In such
works relating to France as have fallen within my reach, I have found
nothing satisfactory, and cannot pretend to determine, whether the
natural tendency of mankind to ameliorate their condition had a greater
influence in promoting agriculture, or the vices inherent in the actual
order of society, and those public misfortunes to which that kingdom was
exposed, in retarding it.[708] The state of Italy was far different; the
rich Lombard plains, still more fertilized by irrigation, became a
garden, and agriculture seems to have reached the excellence which it
still retains. The constant warfare indeed of neighbouring cities is not
very favourable to industry; and upon this account we might incline to
place the greatest territorial improvement of Lombardy at an era rather
posterior to that of her republican government; but from this it
primarily sprung; and without the subjugation of the feudal aristocracy,
and that perpetual demand upon the fertility of the earth which an
increasing population of citizens produced, the valley of the Po would
not have yielded more to human labour than it had done for several
preceding centuries.[709] Though Lombardy was extremely populous in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, she exported large quantities of
corn.[710] The very curious treatise of Crescentius exhibits the full
details of Italian husbandry about 1300, and might afford an interesting
comparison to those who are acquainted with its present state. That
state indeed in many parts of Italy displays no symptoms of decline. But
whatever mysterious influence of soil or climate has scattered the seeds
of death on the western regions of Tuscany, had not manifested itself in
the middle ages. Among uninhabitable plains, the traveller is struck by
the ruins of innumerable castles and villages, monuments of a time when
pestilence was either unfelt, or had at least not forbad the residence
of mankind. Volterra, whose deserted walls look down upon that tainted
solitude, was once a small but free republic; Siena, round whom, though
less depopulated, the malignant influence hovers, was once almost the
rival of Florence. So melancholy and apparently irresistible a decline
of culture and population through physical causes, as seems to have
gradually overspread that portion of Italy, has not perhaps been
experienced in any other part of Europe, unless we except Iceland.
[Sidenote: Gardening.]
The Italians of the fourteenth century seem to have paid some attention
to an art, of which, both as related to cultivation and to architecture,
our own forefathers were almost entirely ignorant. Crescentius dilates
upon horticulture, and gives a pretty long list of herbs both esculent
and medicinal.[711] His notions about the ornamental department are
rather beyond what we should expect, and I do not know that his scheme
of a flower-garden could be much amended. His general arrangements,
which are minutely detailed with evident fondness for the subject, would
of course appear too formal at present; yet less so than those of
subsequent times; and though acquainted with what is called the topiary
art, that of training or cutting trees into regular figures, he does not
seem to run into its extravagance. Regular gardens, according to Paulmy,
were not made in France till the sixteenth or even seventeenth
century;[712] yet one is said to have existed at the Louvre, of much
older construction.[713] England, I believe, had nothing of the
ornamental kind, unless it were some trees regularly disposed in the
orchard of a monastery. Even the common horticultural art for culinary
purposes, though not entirely neglected, since the produce of gardens is
sometimes mentioned in ancient deeds, had not been cultivated with much
attention.[714] The esculent vegetables now most in use were introduced
in the reign of Elizabeth, and some sorts a great deal later.
[Sidenote: Changes in value of money.]
I should leave this slight survey of economical history still more
imperfect, were I to make no observation on the relative values of
money. Without something like precision in our notions upon this
subject, every statistical inquiry becomes a source of confusion and
error. But considerable difficulties attend the discussion. These arise
principally from two causes; the inaccuracy or partial representations
of historical writers, on whom we are accustomed too implicitly to rely,
and the change of manners, which renders a certain command over articles
of purchase less adequate to our wants than it was in former ages.
The first of these difficulties is capable of being removed by a
circumspect use of authorities. When this part of statistical history
began to excite attention, which was hardly perhaps before the
publication of Bishop Fleetwood's Chronicon Preciosum, so few authentic
documents had been published with respect to prices, that inquirers were
glad to have recourse to historians, even when not contemporary, for
such facts as they had thought fit to record. But these historians were
sometimes too distant from the times concerning which they wrote, and
too careless in their general character, to merit much regard; and even
when contemporary, were often credulous, remote from the concerns of the
world, and, at the best, more apt to register some extraordinary
phenomenon of scarcity or cheapness, than the average rate of pecuniary
dealings. The one ought, in my opinion, to be absolutely rejected as
testimonies, the other to be sparingly and diffidently admitted.[715]
For it is no longer necessary to lean upon such uncertain witnesses.
During the last century a very laudable industry has been shown by
antiquaries in the publication of account-books belonging to private
persons, registers of expenses in convents, returns of markets,
valuations of goods, tavern-bills, and in short every document, however
trifling in itself, by which this important subject can be illustrated.
A sufficient number of such authorities, proving the ordinary tenor of
prices rather than any remarkable deviations from it, are the true basis
of a table, by which all changes in the value of money should be
measured. I have little doubt but that such a table might be constructed
from the data we possess with tolerable exactness, sufficient at least
to supersede one often quoted by political economists, but which appears
to be founded upon very superficial and erroneous inquiries.[716]
It is by no means required that I should here offer such a table of
values, which, as to every country except England, I have no means of
constructing, and which, even as to England, would be subject to many
difficulties.[717] But a reader unaccustomed to these investigations
ought to have some assistance in comparing the prices of ancient times
with those of his own. I will therefore, without attempting to ascend
very high, for we have really no sufficient data as to the period
immediately subsequent to the Conquest, much less that which preceded,
endeavour at a sort of approximation for the thirteenth and fifteenth
centuries. In the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., previously to the
first debasement of the coin by the latter in 1301, the ordinary price
of a quarter of wheat appears to have been about four shillings, and
that of barley and oats in proportion. A sheep was rather sold high at a
shilling, and an ox might be reckoned at ten or twelve.[718] The value
of cattle is, of course, dependent upon their breed and condition, and
we have unluckily no early account of butcher's meat; but we can hardly
take a less multiple than about thirty for animal food and eighteen or
twenty for corn, in order to bring the prices of the thirteenth century
to a level with those of the present day.[719] Combining the two, and
setting the comparative dearness of cloth against the cheapness of fuel
and many other articles, we may perhaps consider any given sum under
Henry III. and Edward I. as equivalent in general command over
commodities to about twenty-four or twenty-five times their nominal
value at present. Under Henry VI. the coin had lost one-third of its
weight in silver, which caused a proportional increase of money
prices;[720] but, so far as I can perceive, there had been no diminution
in the value of that metal. We have not much information as to the
fertility of the mines which supplied Europe during the middle ages; but
it is probable that the drain of silver towards the East, joined to the
ostentatious splendour of courts, might fully absorb the usual produce.
By the statute 15 H. VI., c. 2, the price up to which wheat might be
exported is fixed at 6_s._ 8_d._, a point no doubt above the average;
and the private documents of that period, which are sufficiently
numerous, lead to a similar result.[721] Sixteen will be a proper
multiple when we would bring the general value of money in this reign to
our present standard.[722] [1816.]
But after ascertaining the proportional values of money at different
periods by a comparison of the prices in several of the chief articles
of expenditure, which is the only fair process, we shall sometimes be
surprised at incidental facts of this class which seem irreducible to
any rule. These difficulties arise not so much from the relative
scarcity of particular commodities, which it is for the most part easy
to explain, as from the change in manners and in the usual mode of
living. We have reached in this age so high a pitch of luxury that we
can hardly believe or comprehend the frugality of ancient times; and
have in general formed mistaken notions as to the habits of expenditure
which then prevailed. Accustomed to judge of feudal and chivalrous ages
by works of fiction, or by historians who embellished their writings
with accounts of occasional festivals and tournaments, and sometimes
inattentive enough to transfer the manners of the seventeenth to the
fourteenth century, we are not at all aware of the usual simplicity with
which the gentry lived under Edward I. or even Henry VI. They drank
little wine; they had no foreign luxuries; they rarely or never kept
male servants except for husbandry; their horses, as we may guess by the
price, were indifferent; they seldom travelled beyond their county. And
even their hospitality must have been greatly limited, if the value of
manors were really no greater than we find it in many surveys.
Twenty-four seems a sufficient multiple when we would raise a sum
mentioned by a writer under Edward I. to the same real value expressed
in our present money, but an income of 10_l._ or 20_l._ was reckoned a
competent estate for a gentleman; at least the lord of a single manor
would seldom have enjoyed more. A knight who possessed 150_l._ per annum
passed for extremely rich.[723] Yet this was not equal in command over
commodities to 4000_l._ at present. But this income was comparatively
free from taxation, and its expenditure lightened by the services of his
villeins. Such a person, however, must have been among the most opulent
of country gentlemen. Sir John Fortescue speaks of five pounds a year as
"a fair living for a yeoman," a class of whom he is not at all inclined
to diminish the importance.[724] So, when Sir William Drury, one of the
richest men in Suffolk, bequeaths in 1493 fifty marks to each of his
daughters, we must not imagine that this was of greater value than four
or five hundred pounds at this day, but remark the family pride and want
of ready money which induced country gentlemen to leave their younger
children in poverty.[725] Or, if we read that the expense of a scholar
at the university in 1514 was but five pounds annually, we should err in
supposing that he had the liberal accommodation which the present age
deems indispensable, but consider how much could be afforded for about
sixty pounds, which will be not far from the proportion. And what would
a modern lawyer say to the following entry in the churchwarden's
accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, for 1476: "Also paid to Roger
Fylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel giving, 3_s._ 8_d._, _with
four-pence for his dinner_"?[726] Though fifteen times the fee might
not seem altogether inadequate at present, five shillings would hardly
furnish the table of a barrister, even if the fastidiousness of our
manners would admit of his accepting such a dole. But this
fastidiousness, which considers certain kinds of remuneration degrading
to a man of liberal condition, did not prevail in those simple ages. It
would seem rather strange that a young lady should learn needlework and
good breeding in a family of superior rank, paying for her board; yet
such was the laudable custom of the fifteenth and even sixteenth
centuries, as we perceive by the Paston Letters, and even later
authorities.[727]
[Sidenote: Labourers better paid than at present.]
There is one very unpleasing remark which every one who attends to the
subject of prices will be induced to make, that the labouring classes,
especially those engaged in agriculture, were better provided with the
means of subsistence in the reign of Edward III. or of Henry VI. than
they are at present. In the fourteenth century Sir John Cullum observes
a harvest man had fourpence a day, which enabled him in a week to buy a
comb of wheat; but to buy a comb of wheat a man must now (1784) work ten
or twelve days.[728] So, under Henry VI., if meat was at a farthing and
a half the pound, which I suppose was about the truth, a labourer
earning threepence a day, or eighteen pence in the week, could buy a
bushel of wheat at six shillings the quarter, and twenty-four pounds of
meat for his family. A labourer at present, earning twelve shillings a
week, can only buy half a bushel of wheat at eighty shillings the
quarter, and twelve pounds of meat at seven-pence.[729] Several acts of
parliament regulate the wages that might be paid to labourers of
different kinds. Thus the statute of labourers in 1350 fixed the wages
of reapers during harvest at threepence a-day without diet, equal to
five shillings at present; that of 23 H. VI., c. 12, in 1444, fixed the
reapers' wages at five-pence and those of common workmen in building at
3-1/2_d._, equal to 6_s._ 8_d._ and 4_s._ 8_d._; that of 11 H. VII., c.
22, in 1496, leaves the wages of labourers in harvest as before, but
rather increases those of ordinary workmen. The yearly wages of a chief
hind or shepherd by the act of 1444 were 1_l._ 4_s._, equivalent to
about 20_l._, those of a common servant in husbandry 18_s._ 4_d._, with
meat and drink; they were somewhat augmented by the statute of
1496.[730] Yet, although these wages are regulated as a maximum by acts
of parliament, which may naturally be supposed to have had a view rather
towards diminishing than enhancing the current rate, I am not fully
convinced that they were not rather beyond it; private accounts at least
do not always correspond with these statutable prices.[731] And it is
necessary to remember that the uncertainty of employment, natural to so
imperfect a state of husbandry, must have diminished the labourers'
means of subsistence. Extreme dearth, not more owing to adverse seasons
than to improvident consumption, was frequently endured.[732] But after
every allowance of this kind I should find it difficult to resist the
conclusion that, however the labourer has derived benefit from the
cheapness of manufactured commodities and from many inventions of common
utility, he is much inferior in ability to support a family to his
ancestors three or four centuries ago. I know not why some have supposed
that meat was a luxury seldom obtained by the labourer. Doubtless he
could not have procured as much as he pleased. But, from the greater
cheapness of cattle, as compared with corn, it seems to follow that a
more considerable portion of his ordinary diet consisted of animal food
than at present. It was remarked by Sir John Fortescue that the English
lived far more upon animal diet than their rivals the French; and it was
natural to ascribe their superior strength and courage to this
cause.[733] I should feel much satisfaction in being convinced that no
deterioration in the state of the labouring classes has really taken
place; yet it cannot, I think, appear extraordinary to those who
reflect, that the whole population of England in the year 1377 did not
much exceed 2,300,000 souls, about one-fifth of the results upon the
last enumeration, an increase with which that of the fruits of the earth
cannot be supposed to have kept an even pace.[734]
[Sidenote: Improvement in the moral character of Europe.]
The second head to which I referred, the improvements of European
society in the latter period of the middle ages, comprehends several
changes, not always connected, with each other, which contributed to
inspire a more elevated tone of moral sentiment, or at least to restrain
the commission of crimes. But the general effect of these upon the human
character is neither so distinctly to be traced, nor can it be arranged
with so much attention to chronology, as the progress of commercial
wealth or of the arts that depend upon it. We cannot from any past
experience indulge the pleasing vision of a constant and parallel
relation between the moral and intellectual energies, the virtues and
the civilization of mankind. Nor is any problem connected with
philosophical history more difficult than to compare the relative
characters of different generations, especially if we include a large
geographical surface in our estimate. Refinement has its evils as well
as barbarism; the virtues that elevate a nation in one century pass in
the next to a different region; vice changes its form without losing its
essence; the marked features of individual character stand out in relief
from the surface of history, and mislead our judgment as to the general
course of manners; while political revolutions and a bad constitution of
government may always undermine or subvert the improvements to which
more favourable circumstances have contributed. In comparing, therefore,
the fifteenth with the twelfth century, no one would deny the vast
increase of navigation and manufactures, the superior refinement of
manners, the greater diffusion of literature. But should I assert that
man had raised himself in the latter period above the moral degradation
of a more barbarous age, I might be met by the question whether history
bears witness to any greater excesses of rapine and inhumanity than in
the wars of France and England under Charles VII., or whether the rough
patriotism and fervid passions of the Lombards in the twelfth century
were not better than the systematic treachery of their servile
descendants three hundred years afterwards. The proposition must
therefore be greatly limited; yet we can scarcely hesitate to admit,
upon a comprehensive view, that there were several changes during the
last four of the middle ages, which must naturally have tended to
produce, and some of which did unequivocally produce, a meliorating
effect, within the sphere of their operation, upon the moral character
of society.
[Sidenote: Elevation of the lower ranks.]
The first and perhaps the most important of these, was the gradual
elevation of those whom unjust systems of polity had long depressed; of
the people itself, as opposed to the small number of rich and noble, by
the abolition or desuetude of domestic and predial servitude, and by the
privileges extended to corporate towns. The condition of slavery is
indeed perfectly consistent with the observance of moral obligations;
yet reason and experience will justify the sentence of Homer, that he
who loses his liberty loses half his virtue. Those who have acquired, or
may hope to acquire, property of their own, are most likely to respect
that of others; those whom law protects as a parent are most willing to
yield her a filial obedience; those who have much to gain by the
good-will of their fellow citizens are most interested in the
preservation of an honourable character. I have been led, in different
parts of the present work, to consider these great revolutions in the
order of society under other relations than that of their moral
efficacy; and it will therefore be unnecessary to dwell upon them;
especially as this efficacy is indeterminate, though I think
unquestionable, and rather to be inferred from general reflections than
capable of much illustration by specific facts.
[Sidenote: Police.]
We may reckon in the next place among the causes of moral improvement, a
more regular administration of justice according to fixed laws, and a
more effectual police. Whether the courts of judicature were guided by
the feudal customs or the Roman law, it was necessary for them to
resolve litigated questions with precision and uniformity. Hence a more
distinct theory of justice and good faith was gradually apprehended; and
the moral sentiments of mankind were corrected, as on such subjects they
often require to be, by clearer and better grounded inferences of
reasoning. Again, though it cannot be said that lawless rapine was
perfectly restrained even at the end of the fifteenth century, a
sensible amendment had been every where experienced. Private warfare,
the licensed robbery of feudal manners, had been subjected to so many
mortifications by the kings of France, and especially by St. Louis, that
it can hardly be traced beyond the fourteenth century. In Germany and
Spain it lasted longer; but the various associations for maintaining
tranquillity in the former country had considerably diminished its
violence before the great national measure of public peace adopted
under Maximilian.[735] Acts of outrage committed by powerful men became
less frequent as the executive government acquired more strength to
chastise them. We read that St. Louis, the best of French kings, imposed
a fine upon the lord of Vernon for permitting a merchant to be robbed in
his territory between sunrise and sunset. For by the customary law,
though in general ill observed, the lord was bound to keep the roads
free from depredators in the day-time, in consideration of the toll he
received from passengers.[736] The same prince was with difficulty
prevented from passing a capital sentence on Enguerrand de Coucy, a
baron of France, for a murder.[737] Charles the Fair actually put to
death a nobleman of Languedoc for a series of robberies, notwithstanding
the intercession of the provincial nobility.[738] The towns established
a police of their own for internal security, and rendered themselves
formidable to neighbouring plunderers. Finally, though not before the
reign of Louis XI., an armed force was established for the preservation
of police.[739] Various means were adopted in England to prevent
robberies, which indeed were not so frequently perpetrated as they were
on the continent, by men of high condition. None of these perhaps had so
much efficacy as the frequent sessions of judges under commissions of
gaol delivery. But the spirit of this country has never brooked that
coercive police which cannot exist without breaking in upon personal
liberty by irksome regulations, and discretionary exercise of power;
the sure instrument of tyranny, which renders civil privileges at once
nugatory and insecure, and by which we should dearly purchase some real
benefits connected with its slavish discipline.
[Sidenote: Religious sects.]
I have some difficulty in adverting to another source of moral
improvement during this period, the growth of religious opinions adverse
to those of the established church, both on account of its great
obscurity, and because many of these heresies were mixed up with an
excessive fanaticism. But they fixed themselves so deeply in the hearts
of the inferior and more numerous classes, they bore, generally
speaking, so immediate a relation to the state of manners, and they
illustrate so much that more visible and eminent revolution which
ultimately rose out of them in the sixteenth century, that I must reckon
these among the most interesting phenomena in the progress of European
society.
Many ages elapsed, during which no remarkable instance occurs of a
popular deviation from the prescribed line of belief; and pious
Catholics console themselves by reflecting that their forefathers, in
those times of ignorance, slept at least the sleep of orthodoxy, and
that their darkness was interrupted by no false lights of human
reasoning.[740] But from the twelfth century this can no longer be their
boast. An inundation of heresy broke in that age upon the church, which
no persecution was able thoroughly to repress, till it finally
overspread half the surface of Europe. Of this religious innovation we
must seek the commencement in a different part of the globe. The
Manicheans afford an eminent example of that durable attachment to a
traditional creed, which so many ancient sects, especially in the East,
have cherished through the vicissitudes of ages, in spite of persecution
and contempt. Their plausible and widely extended system had been in
early times connected with the name of Christianity, however
incompatible with its doctrines and its history. After a pretty long
obscurity, the Manichean theory revived with some modification in the
western parts of Armenia, and was propagated in the eighth and ninth
centuries by a sect denominated Paulicians. Their tenets are not to be
collected with absolute certainty from the mouths of their adversaries,
and no apology of their own survives. There seems however to be
sufficient evidence that the Paulicians, though professing to
acknowledge and even to study the apostolical writings, ascribed the
creation of the world to an evil deity, whom they supposed also to be
the author of the Jewish law, and consequently rejected all the Old
Testament. Believing, with the ancient Gnostics, that our Saviour was
clothed on earth with an impassive celestial body, they denied the
reality of his death and resurrection.[741] These errors exposed them to
a long and cruel persecution, during which a colony of exiles was
planted by one of the Greek emperors in Bulgaria.[742] From this
settlement they silently promulgated their Manichean creed over the
western regions of Christendom. A large part of the commerce of those
countries with Constantinople was carried on for several centuries by
the channel of the Danube. This opened an immediate intercourse with
the Paulicians, who may be traced up that river through Hungary and
Bavaria, or sometimes taking the route of Lombardy into Switzerland and
France.[743] In the last country, and especially in its southern and
eastern provinces, they became conspicuous under a variety of names;
such as Catharists, Picards, Paterins, but above all, Albigenses. It is
beyond a doubt that many of these sectaries owed their origin to the
Paulicians; the appellation of Bulgarians was distinctively bestowed
upon them; and, according to some writers, they acknowledged a primate
or patriarch resident in that country.[744] The tenets ascribed to them
by all contemporary authorities coincide so remarkably with those held
by the Paulicians, and in earlier times by the Manicheans, that I do not
see how we can reasonably deny what is confirmed by separate and
uncontradicted testimonies, and contains no intrinsic want of
probability.[745]
[Sidenote: Waldenses.]
But though, the derivation of these heretics called Albigenses from
Bulgaria is sufficiently proved, it is by no means to be concluded that
all who incurred the same imputation either derived their faith from the
same country, or had adopted the Manichean theory of the Paulicians.
From the very invectives of their enemies, and the acts of the
Inquisition, it is manifest that almost every shade of heterodoxy was
found among these dissidents, till it vanished in a simple protestation
against the wealth and tyranny of the clergy. Those who were absolutely
free from any taint of Manicheism are properly called Waldenses; a name
perpetually confounded in later times with that of Albigenses, but
distinguishing a sect probably of separate origin, and at least of
different tenets. These, according to the majority of writers, took
their appellation from Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, the parent,
about the year 1160, of a congregation of seceders from the church, who
spread very rapidly over France and Germany.[746] According to others,
the original Waldenses were a race of uncorrupted shepherds, who in the
valleys of the Alps had shaken off, or perhaps never learned, the system
of superstition on which the Catholic church depended for its ascendency.
I am not certain whether their existence can be distinctly traced beyond
the preaching of Waldo, but it is well known that the proper seat of the
Waldenses or Vaudois has long continued to be in certain valleys of
Piedmont. These pious and innocent sectaries, of whom the very monkish
historians speak well, appear to have nearly resembled the modern
Moravians. They had ministers of their own appointment, and denied the
lawfulness of oaths and of capital punishment. In other respects their
opinions probably were not far removed from those usually called
Protestant. A simplicity of dress, and especially the use of wooden
sandals, was affected by this people.[747]
I have already had occasion to relate the severe persecution which
nearly exterminated the Albigenses of Languedoc at the close of the
twelfth century, and involved the counts of Toulouse in their ruin. The
Catharists, a fraternity of the same Paulician origin, more dispersed
than the Albigenses, had previously sustained a similar trial. Their
belief was certainly a compound of strange errors with truth; but it was
attended by qualities of a far superior lustre to orthodoxy, by a
sincerity, a piety, and a self-devotion that almost purified the age in
which they lived.[748] It is always important to perceive that these
high moral excellences have no necessary connexion with speculative
truths; and upon this account I have been more disposed to state
explicitly the real Manicheism of the Albigenses; especially as
Protestant writers, considering all the enemies of Rome as their
friends, have been apt to place the opinions of these sectaries in a
very false light. In the course of time, undoubtedly, the system of
their Paulician teachers would have yielded, if the inquisitors had
admitted the experiment, to a more accurate study of the Scriptures, and
to the knowledge which they would have imbibed from the church itself.
And, in fact, we find that the peculiar tenets of Manicheism died away
after the middle of the thirteenth century, although a spirit of dissent
from the established creed broke out in abundant instances during the
two subsequent ages.
We are in general deprived of explicit testimonies in tracing the
revolutions of popular opinion. Much must therefore be left to
conjecture; but I am inclined to attribute a very extensive effect to
the preaching of these heretics. They appear in various countries nearly
during the same period, in Spain, Lombardy, Germany, Flanders, and
England, as well as France. Thirty unhappy persons, convicted of denying
the sacraments, are said to have perished at Oxford by cold and famine
in the reign of Henry II. In every country the new sects appear to have
spread chiefly among the lower people, which, while it accounts for the
imperfect notice of historians, indicates a more substantial influence
upon the moral condition of society than the conversion of a few nobles
or ecclesiastics.[749]
But even where men did not absolutely enlist under the banners of any
new sect, they were stimulated by the temper of their age to a more
zealous and independent discussion of their religious system. A curious
illustration of this is furnished by one of the letters of Innocent III.
He had been informed by the bishop of Metz, as he states to the clergy
of the diocese, that no small multitude of laymen and women, having
procured a translation of the gospels, epistles of St. Paul, the
psalter, Job, and other books of Scripture, to be made for them into
French, meet in secret conventicles to hear them read, and preach to
each other, avoiding the company of those who do not join in their
devotion, and having been reprimanded for this by some of their parish
priests, have withstood them, alleging reasons from the Scriptures, why
they should not be so forbidden. Some of them too deride the ignorance
of their ministers, and maintain that their own books teach them more
than they can learn from the pulpit, and that they can express it
better. Although the desire of reading the Scriptures, Innocent
proceeds, is rather praiseworthy than reprehensible, yet they are to be
blamed for frequenting secret assemblies, for usurping the office of
preaching, deriding their own ministers, and scorning the company of
such as do not concur in their novelties. He presses the bishop and
chapter to discover the author of this translation, which could not have
been made without a knowledge of letters, and what were his intentions,
and what degree of orthodoxy and respect for the Holy See those who used
it possessed. This letter of Innocent III., however, considering the
nature of the man, is sufficiently temperate and conciliatory. It seems
not to have answered its end; for in another letter he complains that
some members of this little association continued refractory and refused
to obey either the bishop or the pope.[750]
In the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Vulgate had ceased to be
generally intelligible, there is no reason to suspect any intention in
the church to deprive the laity of the Scriptures. Translations were
freely made into the vernacular languages, and perhaps read in churches,
although the acts of saints were generally deemed more instructive.
Louis the Debonair is said to have caused a German version of the New
Testament to be made. Otfrid, in the same century, rendered the gospels,
or rather abridged them, into German verse. This work is still extant,
and is in several respects an object of curiosity.[751] In the eleventh
or twelfth century we find translations of the Psalms, Job, Kings, and
the Maccabees into French.[752] But after the diffusion of heretical
opinions, or, what was much the same thing, of free inquiry, it became
expedient to secure the orthodox faith from lawless interpretation.
Accordingly, the council of Toulouse in 1229 prohibited the laity from
possessing the Scriptures; and this precaution was frequently repeated
upon subsequent occasions.[753]
The ecclesiastical history of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries
teems with new sectaries and schismatics, various in their aberrations
of opinion, but all concurring in detestation of the established
church.[754] They endured severe persecutions with a sincerity and
firmness which in any cause ought to command respect. But in general we
find an extravagant fanaticism among them; and I do not know how to look
for any amelioration of society from the Franciscan seceders, who
quibbled about the property of things consumed by use, or from the
mystical visionaries of different appellations, whose moral practice was
sometimes more than equivocal. Those who feel any curiosity about such
subjects, which are by no means unimportant, as they illustrate the
history of the human mind, will find them treated very fully by Mosheim.
But the original sources of information are not always accessible in
this country, and the research would perhaps be more fatiguing than
profitable.
[Sidenote: Lollards of England.]
I shall, for an opposite reason, pass lightly over the great revolution
in religious opinion wrought in England by Wicliffe, which will
generally be familiar to the reader from our common historians. Nor am I
concerned to treat of theological inquiries, or to write a history of
the church. Considered in its effects upon manners, the sole point which
these pages have in view, the preaching of this new sect certainly
produced an extensive reformation. But their virtues were by no means
free from some unsocial qualities, in which, as well as in their
superior attributes, the Lollards bear a very close resemblance to the
Puritans of Elizabeth's reign; a moroseness that proscribed all cheerful
amusements, an uncharitable malignity that made no distinction in
condemning the established clergy, and a narrow prejudice that applied
the rules of the Jewish law to modern institutions.[755] Some of their
principles were far more dangerous to the good order of society, and
cannot justly be ascribed to the Puritans, though they grew afterwards
out of the same soil. Such was the notion, which is imputed also to the
Albigenses, that civil magistrates lose their right to govern by
committing sin, or, as it was quaintly expressed in the seventeenth
century, that dominion is founded in grace. These extravagances,
however, do not belong to the learned and politic Wicliffe, however they
might be adopted by some of his enthusiastic disciples.[756] Fostered by
the general ill-will towards the church, his principles made vast
progress in England, and, unlike those of earlier sectaries, were
embraced by men of rank and civil influence. Notwithstanding the check
they sustained by the sanguinary law of Henry IV., it is highly probable
that multitudes secretly cherished them down to the era of the
Reformation.
[Sidenote: Hussites of Bohemia.]
From England the spirit of religious innovation was propagated into
Bohemia; for though John Huss was very far from embracing all the
doctrinal system of Wicliffe, it is manifest that his zeal had been
quickened by the writings of that reformer.[757] Inferior to the
Englishman in ability, but exciting greater attention by his constancy
and sufferings, as well as by the memorable war which his ashes kindled,
the Bohemian martyr was even more eminently the precursor of the
Reformation. But still regarding these dissensions merely in a temporal
light, I cannot assign any beneficial effect to the schism of the
Hussites, at least in its immediate results, and in the country where it
appeared. Though some degree of sympathy with their cause is inspired by
resentment at the ill faith of their adversaries, and by the
associations of civil and religious liberty, we cannot estimate the
Taborites and other sectaries of that description but as ferocious and
desperate fanatics.[758] Perhaps beyond the confines of Bohemia more
substantial good may have been produced by the influence of its
reformation, and a better tone of morals inspired into Germany. But I
must again repeat that upon this obscure and ambiguous subject I assert
nothing definitely, and little with confidence. The tendencies of
religious dissent in the four ages before the Reformation appear to have
generally conduced towards the moral improvement of mankind; and facts
of this nature occupy a far greater space in a philosophical view of
society during that period, than we might at first imagine; but every
one who is disposed to prosecute this inquiry will assign their
character according to the result of his own investigations.
[Sidenote: Institution of chivalry.]
But the best school of moral discipline which the middle ages afforded
was the institution of chivalry. There is something perhaps to allow for
the partiality of modern writers upon this interesting subject; yet our
most sceptical criticism must assign a decisive influence to this great
source of human improvement. The more deeply it is considered, the more
we shall become sensible of its importance.
There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits which have from time
to time moved over the face of the waters, and given a predominant
impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the
spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honour. It was the principal
business of chivalry to animate and cherish the last of these three. And
whatever high magnanimous energy the love of liberty or religious zeal
has ever imparted was equalled by the exquisite sense of honour which
this institution preserved.
[Sidenote: Its origin.]
It appears probable that the custom of receiving arms at the age of
manhood with some solemnity was of immemorial antiquity among the
nations that overthrew the Roman empire. For it is mentioned by Tacitus
to have prevailed among their German ancestors; and his expressions
might have been used with no great variation to describe the actual
ceremonies of knighthood.[759] There was even in that remote age a sort
of public trial as to the fitness of the candidate, which, though
perhaps confined to his bodily strength and activity, might be the germ
of that refined investigation which was thought necessary in the perfect
stage of chivalry. Proofs, though rare and incidental, might be adduced
to show that in the time of Charlemagne, and even earlier, the sons of
monarchs at least did not assume manly arms without a regular
investiture. And in the eleventh century it is evident that this was a
general practice.[760]
This ceremony, however, would perhaps of itself have done little towards
forming that intrinsic principle which characterized the genuine
chivalry. But in the reign of Charlemagne we find a military distinction
that appears, in fact as well as in name, to have given birth to that
institution. Certain feudal tenants, and I suppose also alodial
proprietors, were bound to serve on horseback, equipped with the coat
of mail. These were called Caballarii, from which the word chevaliers is
an obvious corruption.[761] But he who fought on horseback, and had been
invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner, wanted nothing more to
render him a knight. Chivalry therefore may, in a general sense, be
referred to the age of Charlemagne. We may, however, go further, and
observe that these distinctive advantages above ordinary combatants were
probably the sources of that remarkable valour and that keen thirst for
glory, which became the essential attributes of a knightly character.
For confidence in our skill and strength is the usual foundation of
courage; it is by feeling ourselves able to surmount common dangers,
that we become adventurous enough to encounter those of a more
extraordinary nature, and to which more glory is attached. The
reputation of superior personal prowess, so difficult to be attained in
the course of modern warfare, and so liable to erroneous
representations, was always within the reach of the stoutest knight, and
was founded on claims which could be measured with much accuracy. Such
is the subordination and mutual dependence in a modern army, that every
man must be content to divide his glory with his comrades, his general,
or his soldiers. But the soul of chivalry was individual honour, coveted
in so entire and absolute a perfection that it must not be shared with
an army or a nation. Most of the virtues it inspired were what we may
call independent, as opposed to those which are founded upon social
relations. The knights-errant of romance perform their best exploits
from the love of renown, or from a sort of abstract sense of justice,
rather than from any solicitude to promote the happiness of mankind. If
these springs of action are less generally beneficial, they are,
however, more connected with elevation of character than the
systematical prudence of men accustomed to social life. This solitary
and independent spirit of chivalry, dwelling, as it were, upon a rock,
and disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal
dignity, without any calculation of their consequences, is not unlike
what we sometimes read of Arabian chiefs or the North American
Indians.[762] These nations, so widely remote from each other, seem to
partake of that moral energy, which, among European nations far remote
from both of them, was excited by the spirit of chivalry. But the most
beautiful picture that was ever portrayed of this character is the
Achilles of Homer, the representative of chivalry in its most general
form, with all its sincerity and unyielding rectitude, all its
courtesies and munificence. Calmly indifferent to the cause in which he
is engaged, and contemplating with a serious and unshaken look the
premature death that awaits him, his heart only beats for glory and
friendship. To this sublime character, bating that imaginary completion
by which the creations of the poet, like those of the sculptor,
transcend all single works of nature, there were probably many parallels
in the ages of chivalry; especially before a set education and the
refinements of society had altered a little the natural unadulterated
warrior of a ruder period. One illustrious example from this earlier age
is the Cid Ruy Diaz, whose history has fortunately been preserved much
at length in several chronicles of ancient date and in one valuable
poem; and though I will not say that the Spanish hero is altogether a
counterpart of Achilles in gracefulness and urbanity, yet was he
inferior to none that ever lived in frankness, honour, and
magnanimity.[763]
[Sidenote: Its connexion with feudal service.]
[Sidenote: This connexion broken.]
In the first state of chivalry, it was closely connected with the
military service of fiefs. The Caballarii in the Capitularies, the
Milites of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were landholders who
followed their lord or sovereign into the field. A certain value of land
was termed in England a knight's fee, or in Normandy feudum loricae, fief
de haubert, from the coat of mail which it entitled and required the
tenant to wear; a military tenure was said to be by service in chivalry.
To serve as knights, mounted and equipped, was the common duty of
vassals; it implied no personal merit, it gave of itself a claim to no
civil privileges. But this knight-service founded upon a feudal
obligation is to be carefully distinguished from that superior chivalry,
in which all was independent and voluntary. The latter, in fact, could
hardly flourish in its full perfection till the military service of
feudal tenure began to decline; namely, in the thirteenth century. The
origin of this personal chivalry I should incline to refer to the
ancient usage of voluntary commendation, which I have mentioned in a
former chapter. Men commended themselves, that is, did homage and
professed attachment to a prince or lord; generally indeed for
protection or the hope of reward, but sometimes probably for the sake of
distinguishing themselves in his quarrels. When they received pay, which
must have been the usual case, they were literally his soldiers, or
stipendiary troops. Those who could afford to exert their valour without
recompense were like the knights of whom we read in romance, who served
a foreign master through love, or thirst of glory, or gratitude. The
extreme poverty of the lower nobility, arising from the subdivision of
fiefs, and the politic generosity of rich lords, made this connexion as
strong as that of territorial dependence. A younger brother, leaving the
paternal estate, in which he took a slender share, might look to wealth
and dignity in the service of a powerful count. Knighthood, which he
could not claim as his legal right, became the object of his chief
ambition. It raised him in the scale of society, equalling him in dress,
in arms, and in title, to the rich landholders. As it was due to his
merit, it did much more than equal him to those who had no pretensions
but from wealth; and the territorial knights became by degrees ashamed
of assuming the title till they could challenge it by real desert.
[Sidenote: Effect of the crusades on chivalry.]
This class of noble and gallant cavaliers serving commonly for pay, but
on the most honourable footing, became far more numerous through the
crusades; a great epoch in the history of European society. In these
wars, as all feudal service was out of the question, it was necessary
for the richer barons to take into their pay as many knights as they
could afford to maintain; speculating, so far as such motives operated,
on an influence with the leaders of the expedition, and on a share of
plunder, proportioned to the number of their followers. During the
period of the crusades, we find the institution of chivalry acquire its
full vigour as an order of personal nobility; and its original connexion
with feudal tenure, if not altogether effaced, became in a great measure
forgotten in the splendour and dignity of the new form which it wore.
[Sidenote: Chivalry connected with religion.]
The crusaders, however, changed in more than one respect the character
of chivalry. Before that epoch it appears to have had no particular
reference to religion. Ingulfus indeed tells us that the Anglo-Saxons
preceded the ceremony of investiture by a confession of their sins, and
other pious rites, and they received the order at the hands of a priest,
instead of a knight. But this was derided by the Normans as effeminacy,
and seems to have proceeded from the extreme devotion of the English
before the Conquest.[764] We can hardly perceive indeed why the
assumption of arms to be used in butchering mankind should be treated as
a religious ceremony. The clergy, to do them justice, constantly opposed
the private wars in which the courage of those ages wasted itself; and
all bloodshed was subject in strictness to a canonical penance. But the
purposes for which men bore arms in a crusade so sanctified their use,
that chivalry acquired the character as much of a religious as a
military institution. For many centuries, the recovery of the Holy Land
was constantly at the heart of a brave and superstitious nobility; and
every knight was supposed at his creation to pledge himself, as occasion
should arise, to that cause. Meanwhile, the defence of God's law against
infidels was his primary and standing duty. A knight, whenever present
at mass, held the point of his sword before him while the gospel was
read, to signify his readiness to support it. Writers of the middle ages
compare the knightly to the priestly character in an elaborate parallel,
and the investiture of the one was supposed analogous to the ordination
of the other. The ceremonies upon this occasion were almost wholly
religious. The candidate passed nights in prayer among priests in a
church; he received the sacraments; he entered into a bath, and was clad
with a white robe, in allusion to the presumed purification of his life;
his sword was solemnly blessed; every thing, in short, was contrived to
identify his new condition with the defence of religion, or at least of
the church.[765]
[Sidenote: And with gallantry.]
To this strong tincture of religion which entered into the composition
of chivalry from the twelfth century, was added another ingredient
equally distinguishing. A great respect for the female sex had always
been a remarkable characteristic of the Northern nations. The German
women were high-spirited and virtuous; qualities which might be causes
or consequences of the veneration with which they were regarded. I am
not sure that we could trace very minutely the condition of women for
the period between the subversion of the Roman empire and the first
crusade; but apparently man did not grossly abuse his superiority; and
in point of civil rights, and even as to the inheritance of property,
the two sexes were placed perhaps as nearly on a level as the nature of
such warlike societies would admit. There seems, however, to have been
more roughness in the social intercourse between the sexes than we find
in later periods. The spirit of gallantry which became so animating a
principle of chivalry, must be ascribed to the progressive refinement of
society during the twelfth and two succeeding centuries. In a rude state
of manners, as among the lower people in all ages, woman has not full
scope to display those fascinating graces, by which nature has designed
to counterbalance the strength and energy of mankind. Even where those
jealous customs that degrade alike the two sexes have not prevailed, her
lot is domestic seclusion; nor is she fit to share in the boisterous
pastimes of drunken merriment to which the intercourse of an unpolished
people is confined. But as a taste for the more elegant enjoyments of
wealth arises, a taste which it is always her policy and her delight to
nourish, she obtains an ascendency at first in the lighter hour, and
from thence in the serious occupations of life. She chases, or brings
into subjection, the god of wine, a victory which might seem more
ignoble were it less difficult, and calls in the aid of divinities more
propitious to her ambition. The love of becoming ornament is not perhaps
to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which
woman has received from nature to give effect to those charms that are
her defence; and when commerce began to minister more effectually to the
wants of luxury, the rich furs of the North, the gay silks of Asia, the
wrought gold of domestic manufacture, illumined the halls of chivalry,
and cast, as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over
beauty which the choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to
bestow. Courtesy had always been the proper attribute of knighthood;
protection of the weak its legitimate duty; but these were heightened to
a pitch of enthusiasm when woman became their object. There was little
jealousy shown in the treatment of that sex, at least in France, the
fountain of chivalry; they were present at festivals, at tournaments,
and sat promiscuously in the halls of their castle. The romance of
Perceforest (and romances have always been deemed good witnesses as to
manners) tells of a feast where eight hundred knights had each of them
a lady eating off his plate.[766] For to eat off the same plate was an
usual mark of gallantry or friendship.
Next therefore, or even equal to devotion, stood gallantry among the
principles of knighthood. But all comparison between the two was saved
by blending them together. The love of God and the ladies was enjoined
as a single duty. He who was faithful and true to his mistress was held
sure of salvation in the theology of castles though not of
cloisters.[767] Froissart announces that he had undertaken a collection
of amorous poetry with the help of God and of love; and Boccace returns
thanks to each for their assistance in the Decameron. The laws sometimes
united in this general homage to the fair. "We will," says James II. of
Aragon, "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company
with a lady, pass safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of
murder."[768] Louis II., duke of Bourbon, instituting the order of the
Golden Shield, enjoins his knights to honour above all the ladies, and
not to permit any one to slander them, "because from them after God
comes all the honour that men can acquire."[769]
The gallantry of those ages, which was very often adulterous, had
certainly no right to profane the name of religion; but its union with
valour was at least more natural, and became so intimate, that the same
word has served to express both qualities. In the French and English
wars especially, the knights of each country brought to that serious
conflict the spirit of romantic attachment which had been cherished in
the hours of peace. They fought at Poitiers or Verneuil as they had
fought at tournaments, bearing over their armour scarves and devices as
the livery of their mistresses, and asserting the paramount beauty of
her they served in vaunting challenges towards the enemy. Thus in the
middle of a keen skirmish at Cherbourg, the squadrons remained
motionless, while one knight challenged to a single combat the most
amorous of the adversaries. Such a defiance was soon accepted, and the
battle only recommenced when one of the champions had lost his life for
his love.[770] In the first campaign of Edward's war some young English
knights wore a covering over one eye, vowing, for the sake of their
ladies, never to see with both till they should have signalized their
prowess in the field.[771] These extravagances of chivalry are so common
that they form part of its general character, and prove how far a course
of action which depends upon the impulses of sentiment may come to
deviate from common sense.
It cannot be presumed that this enthusiastic veneration, this
devotedness in life and death, were wasted upon ungrateful natures. The
goddesses of that idolatry knew too well the value of their worshippers.
There has seldom been such adamant about the female heart, as can resist
the highest renown for valour and courtesy, united with the steadiest
fidelity. "He loved," says Froissart of Eustace d'Auberthicourt, "and
afterwards married lady Isabel, daughter of the count of Juliers. This
lady too loved lord Eustace for the great exploits in arms which she
heard told of him, and she sent him horses and loving letters, which
made the said lord Eustace more bold than before, and he wrought such
feats of chivalry, that all in his company were gainers."[772] It were
to be wished that the sympathy of love and valour had always been as
honourable. But the morals of chivalry, we cannot deny, were not pure.
In the amusing fictions which seem to have been the only popular reading
of the middle ages, there reigns a licentious spirit, not of that
slighter kind which is usual in such compositions, but indicating a
general dissoluteness in the intercourse of the sexes. This has often
been noticed of Boccaccio and the early Italian novelists; but it
equally characterized the tales and romances of France, whether metrical
or in prose, and all the poetry of the Troubadours.[773] The violation
of marriage vows passes in them for an incontestable privilege of the
brave and the fair; and an accomplished knight seems to have enjoyed as
undoubted prerogatives, by general consent of opinion, as were claimed
by the brilliant courtiers of Louis XV.
[Sidenote: Virtues deemed essential to chivalry.]
But neither that emulous valour which chivalry excited, nor the religion
and gallantry which were its animating principles, alloyed as the latter
were by the corruption of those ages, could have rendered its
institution materially conducive to the moral improvement of society.
There were, however, excellences of a very high class which it equally
encouraged. In the books professedly written to lay down the duties of
knighthood, they appear to spread over the whole compass of human
obligations. But these, like other books of morality, strain their
schemes of perfection far beyond the actual practice of mankind. A
juster estimate of chivalrous manners is to be deduced from romances.
Yet in these, as in all similar fictions, there must be a few ideal
touches beyond the simple truth of character; and the picture can only
be interesting when it ceases to present images of mediocrity or
striking imperfection. But they referred their models of fictitious
heroism to the existing standard of moral approbation; a rule, which, if
it generally falls short of what reason and religion prescribe, is
always beyond the average tenor of human conduct. From these and from
history itself we may infer the tendency of chivalry to elevate and
purify the moral feelings. Three virtues may particularly be noticed as
essential in the estimation of mankind to the character of a knight;
loyalty, courtesy, and munificence.
[Sidenote: Loyalty.]
The first of these in its original sense may be defined, fidelity to
engagements; whether actual promises, or such tacit obligations as bound
a vassal to his lord and a subject to his prince. It was applied also,
and in the utmost strictness, to the fidelity of a lover towards the
lady he served. Breach of faith, and especially of an express promise,
was held a disgrace that no valour could redeem. False, perjured,
disloyal, recreant, were the epithets which he must be compelled to
endure who had swerved from a plighted engagement even towards an
enemy. This is one of the most striking changes produced by chivalry.
Treachery, the usual vice of savage as well as corrupt nations, became
infamous during the vigour of that discipline. As personal rather than
national feelings actuated its heroes, they never felt that hatred, much
less that fear of their enemies, which blind men to the heinousness of
ill faith. In the wars of Edward III., originating in no real animosity,
the spirit of honourable as well as courteous behaviour towards the foe
seems to have arrived at its highest point. Though avarice may have been
the primary motive of ransoming prisoners instead of putting them to
death, their permission to return home on the word of honour in order to
procure the stipulated sum--an indulgence never refused--could only be
founded on experienced confidence in the principles of chivalry.[774]
[Sidenote: Courtesy.]
[Sidenote: Liberality.]
A knight was unfit to remain a member of the order if he violated his
faith; he was ill acquainted with its duties if he proved wanting in
courtesy. This word expressed the most highly refined good breeding,
founded less upon a knowledge of ceremonious politeness, though this was
not to be omitted, than on the spontaneous modesty, self-denial, and
respect for others, which ought to spring from his heart. Besides the
grace which this beautiful virtue threw over the habits of social life,
it softened down the natural roughness of war, and gradually introduced
that indulgent treatment of prisoners which was almost unknown to
antiquity. Instances of this kind are continual in the later period of
the middle ages. An Italian writer blames the soldier who wounded
Eccelin, the famous tyrant of Padua, after he was taken. "He deserved,"
says he, "no praise, but rather the greatest infamy for his baseness;
since it is as vile an act to wound a prisoner, whether noble or
otherwise, as to strike a dead body."[775] Considering the crimes of
Eccelin, this sentiment is a remarkable proof of generosity. The
behaviour of Edward III. to Eustace de Ribaumont, after the capture of
Calais, and that, still more exquisitely beautiful, of the Black Prince
to his royal prisoner at Poitiers, are such eminent instances of
chivalrous virtue, that I omit to repeat them only because they are so
well known. Those great princes too might be imagined to have soared far
above the ordinary track of mankind. But in truth, the knights who
surrounded them and imitated their excellences, were only inferior in
opportunities of displaying the same virtue. After the battle of
Poitiers, "the English and Gascon knights," says Froissart, "having
entertained their prisoners, went home each of them with the knights or
squires he had taken, whom he then questioned upon their honour what
ransom they could pay without inconvenience, and easily gave them
credit; and it was common for men to say, that they would not straiten
any knight or squire so that he should not live well and keep up his
honour."[776] Liberality, indeed, and disdain of money, might be
reckoned, as I have said, among the essential virtues of chivalry. All
the romances inculcate the duty of scattering their wealth with
profusion, especially towards minstrels, pilgrims, and the poorer
members of their own order. The last, who were pretty numerous, had a
constant right to succour from the opulent; the castle of every lord,
who respected the ties of knighthood, was open with more than usual
hospitality to the traveller whose armour announced his dignity, though
it might also conceal his poverty.[777]
[Sidenote: Justice.]
Valour, loyalty, courtesy, munificence, formed collectively the
character of an accomplished knight, so far as was displayed in the
ordinary tenor of his life, reflecting these virtues as an unsullied
mirror. Yet something more was required for the perfect idea of
chivalry, and enjoined by its principles; an active sense of justice, an
ardent indignation against wrong, a determination of courage to its
best end, the prevention or redress of injury. It grew up as a salutary
antidote in the midst of poisons, while scarce any law but that of the
strongest obtained regard, and the rights of territorial property, which
are only rights as they conduce to general good, became the means of
general oppression. The real condition of society, it has sometimes been
thought, might suggest stories of knight-errantry, which were wrought up
into the popular romances of the middle ages. A baron, abusing the
advantage of an inaccessible castle in the fastnesses of the Black
Forest or the Alps, to pillage the neighbourhood and confine travellers
in his dungeon, though neither a giant nor a Saracen, was a monster not
less formidable, and could perhaps as little be destroyed without the
aid of disinterested bravery. Knight-errantry, indeed, as a profession,
cannot rationally be conceived to have had any existence beyond the
precincts of romance. Yet there seems no improbability in supposing that
a knight, journeying through uncivilized regions in his way to the Holy
Land, or to the court of a foreign sovereign, might find himself engaged
in adventures not very dissimilar to those which are the theme of
romance. We cannot indeed expect to find any historical evidence of such
incidents.
[Sidenote: Resemblance of chivalrous to eastern manners.]
The characteristic virtues of chivalry bear so much resemblance to those
which eastern writers of the same period extol, that I am a little
disposed to suspect Europe of having derived some improvement from
imitation of Asia. Though the crusades began in abhorrence of infidels,
this sentiment wore off in some degree before their cessation; and the
regular intercourse of commerce, sometimes of alliance, between the
Christians of Palestine and the Saracens, must have removed part of the
prejudice, while experience of their enemy's courage and generosity in
war would with those gallant knights serve to lighten the remainder. The
romancers expatiate with pleasure on the merits of Saladin, who actually
received the honour of knighthood from Hugh of Tabaria, his prisoner. An
ancient poem, entitled the Order of Chivalry, is founded upon this
story, and contains a circumstantial account of the ceremonies, as well
as duties, which the institution required.[778] One or two other
instances of a similar kind bear witness to the veneration in which the
name of knight was held among the eastern nations. And certainly the
Mohammedan chieftains were for the most part abundantly qualified to
fulfil the duties of European chivalry. Their manners had been polished
and courteous, while the western kingdoms were comparatively barbarous.
[Sidenote: Evils produced by the spirit of chivalry.]
The principles of chivalry were not, I think, naturally productive of
many evils. For it is unjust to class those acts of oppression or
disorder among the abuses of knighthood, which were committed in spite
of its regulations, and were only prevented by them from becoming more
extensive. The licence of times so imperfectly civilized could not be
expected to yield to institutions, which, like those of religion, fell
prodigiously short in their practical result of the reformation which
they were designed to work. Man's guilt and frailty have never admitted
more than a partial corrective. But some bad consequences may be more
fairly ascribed to the very nature of chivalry. I have already mentioned
the dissoluteness which almost unavoidably resulted from the prevailing
tone of gallantry. And yet we sometimes find in the writings of those
times a spirit of pure but exaggerated sentiment; and the most fanciful
refinements of passion are mingled by the same poets with the coarsest
immorality. An undue thirst for military renown was another fault that
chivalry must have nourished; and the love of war, sufficiently
pernicious in any shape, was more founded, as I have observed, on
personal feelings of honour, and less on public spirit, than in the
citizens of free states. A third reproach may be made to the character
of knighthood, that it widened the separation between the different
classes of society, and confirmed that aristocratical spirit of high
birth, by which the large mass of mankind were kept in unjust
degradation. Compare the generosity of Edward III. towards Eustace de
Ribaumont at the siege of Calais with the harshness of his conduct
towards the citizens. This may be illustrated by a story from
Joinville, who was himself imbued with the full spirit of chivalry, and
felt like the best and bravest of his age. He is speaking of Henry count
of Champagne, who acquired, says he, very deservedly, the surname of
Liberal, and adduces the following proof of it. A poor knight implored
of him on his knees one day as much money as would serve to marry his
two daughters. One Arthault de Nogent, a rich burgess, willing to rid
the count of this importunity, but rather awkward, we must own, in the
turn of his argument, said to the petitioner; My lord has already given
away so much that he has nothing left. Sir Villain, replied Henry,
turning round to him, you do not speak truth in saying that I have
nothing left to give, when I have got yourself. Here, Sir Knight, I give
you this man and warrant your possession of him. Then, says Joinville,
the poor knight was not at all confounded, but seized hold of the
burgess fast by the collar, and told him he should not go till he had
ransomed himself. And in the end he was forced to pay a ransom of five
hundred pounds. The simple-minded writer who brings this evidence of the
count of Champagne's liberality is not at all struck with the facility
of a virtue that is exercised at the cost of others.[779]
[Sidenote: Circumstances tending to promote it.]
There is perhaps enough in the nature of this institution and its
congeniality to the habits of a warlike generation to account for the
respect in which it was held throughout Europe. But several collateral
circumstances served to invigorate its spirit. Besides the powerful
efficacy with which the poetry and romance of the middle ages stimulated
those susceptible minds which were alive to no other literature, we may
enumerate four distinct causes tending to the promotion of chivalry.
[Sidenote: Regular education for knighthood.]
The first of these was the regular scheme of education, according to
which the sons of gentlemen from the age of seven years, were brought up
in the castles of superior lords, where they at once learned the whole
discipline of their future profession, and imbibed its emulous and
enthusiastic spirit. This was an inestimable advantage to the poorer
nobility, who could hardly otherwise have given their children the
accomplishments of their station. From seven to fourteen these boys were
called pages or varlets; at fourteen they bore the name of esquire. They
were instructed in the management of arms, in the art of horsemanship,
in exercises of strength and activity. They became accustomed to
obedience and courteous demeanour, serving their lord or lady in offices
which had not yet become derogatory to honourable birth, and striving to
please visitors, and especially ladies, at the ball or banquet. Thus
placed in the centre of all that could awaken their imaginations, the
creed of chivalrous gallantry, superstition, or honour must have made
indelible impressions. Panting for the glory which neither their
strength nor the established rules permitted them to anticipate, the
young scions of chivalry attended their masters to the tournament, and
even to the battle, and riveted with a sigh the armour they were
forbidden to wear.[780]
[Sidenote: Encouragement of princes. Tournaments.]
It was the constant policy of sovereigns to encourage this institution,
which furnished them with faithful supports, and counteracted the
independent spirit of feudal tenure. Hence they displayed a lavish
magnificence in festivals and tournaments, which may be reckoned a
second means of keeping up the tone of chivalrous feeling. The kings of
France and England held solemn or plenary courts at the great festivals,
or at other times, where the name of knight was always a title to
admittance; and the masque of chivalry, if I may use the expression, was
acted in pageants and ceremonies fantastical enough in our apprehension,
but well calculated for those heated understandings. Here the peacock
and the pheasant, birds of high fame in romance, received the homage of
all true knights.[781] The most singular festival of this kind was that
celebrated by Philip duke of Burgundy, in 1453. In the midst of the
banquet a pageant was introduced, representing the calamitous state of
religion in consequence of the recent capture of Constantinople. This
was followed by the appearance of a pheasant, which was laid before the
duke, and to which the knights present addressed their vows to undertake
a crusade, in the following very characteristic preamble: I swear
before God my Creator in the first place, and the glorious Virgin his
mother, and next before the ladies and the pheasant.[782] Tournaments
were a still more powerful incentive to emulation. These may be
considered to have arisen about the middle of the eleventh century; for
though every martial people have found diversion in representing the
image of war, yet the name of tournaments, and the laws that regulated
them, cannot be traced any higher.[783] Every scenic performance of
modern times must be tame in comparison of these animating combats. At a
tournament, the space enclosed within the lists was surrounded by
sovereign princes and their noblest barons, by knights of established
renown, and all that rank and beauty had most distinguished among the
fair. Covered with steel, and known only by their emblazoned shield or
by the favours of their mistresses, a still prouder bearing, the
combatants rushed forward to a strife without enmity, but not without
danger. Though their weapons were pointless, and sometimes only of wood,
though they were bound by the laws of tournaments to strike only upon
the strong armour of the trunk, or, as it was called, between the four
limbs, those impetuous conflicts often terminated in wounds and death.
The church uttered her excommunications in vain against so wanton an
exposure to peril; but it was more easy for her to excite than to
restrain that martial enthusiasm. Victory in a tournament was little
less glorious, and perhaps at the moment more exquisitely felt, than in
the field; since no battle could assemble such witnesses of valour.
"Honour to the sons of the brave," resounded amidst the din of martial
music from the lips of the minstrels, as the conqueror advanced to
receive the prize from his queen or his mistress; while the surrounding
multitude acknowledged in his prowess of that day an augury of triumphs
that might in more serious contests be blended with those of his
country.[784]
[Sidenote: Privileges of knighthood.]
Both honorary and substantial privileges belonged to the condition of
knighthood, and had of course a material tendency to preserve its
credit. A knight was distinguished abroad by his crested helmet, his
weighty armour, whether of mail or plate, bearing his heraldic coat, by
his gilded spurs, his horse barded with iron, or clothed in housing of
gold; at home, by richer silks and more costly furs than were permitted
to squires, and by the appropriated colour of scarlet. He was addressed
by titles of more respect.[785] Many civil offices, by rule or usage,
were confined to his order. But perhaps its chief privilege was to form
one distinct class of nobility extending itself throughout great part of
Europe, and almost independent, as to its rights and dignities, of any
particular sovereign. Whoever had been legitimately dubbed a knight in
one country became, as it were, a citizen of universal chivalry, and
might assume most of its privileges in any other. Nor did he require the
act of a sovereign to be thus distinguished. It was a fundamental
principle that any knight might confer the order; responsible only in
his own reputation if he used lightly so high a prerogative. But as all
the distinctions of rank might have been confounded, if this right had
been without limit, it was an equally fundamental rule, that it could
only be exercised in favour of gentlemen.[786]
The privileges annexed to chivalry were of peculiar advantage to the
vavassors, or inferior gentry, as they tended to counterbalance the
influence which territorial wealth threw into the scale of their feudal
suzerains. Knighthood brought these two classes nearly to a level; and
it is owing perhaps in no small degree to this institution that the
lower nobility saved themselves, notwithstanding their poverty, from
being confounded with the common people.
[Sidenote: Connexion of chivalry with military service.]
[Sidenote: Knights-bannerets and bachelors.]
Lastly, the customs of chivalry were maintained by their connexion with
military service. After armies, which we may call comparatively regular,
had superseded in a great degree the feudal militia, princes were
anxious to bid high for the service of knights, the best-equipped and
bravest warriors of the time, on whose prowess the fate of battles was
for a long period justly supposed to depend. War brought into relief the
generous virtues of chivalry, and gave lustre to its distinctive
privileges. The rank was sought with enthusiastic emulation through
heroic achievements, to which, rather than to mere wealth and station,
it was considered to belong. In the wars of France and England, by far
the most splendid period of this institution, a promotion of knights
followed every success, besides the innumerable cases where the same
honour rewarded individual bravery.[787] It may here be mentioned that
an honorary distinction was made between knights-bannerets and
bachelors.[788] The former were the richest and best accompanied. No man
could properly be a banneret unless he possessed a certain estate, and
could bring a certain number of lances into the field.[789] His
distinguishing mark was the square banner, carried by a squire at the
point of his lance; while the knight-bachelor had only the coronet or
pointed pendant. When a banneret was created, the general cut off this
pendant to render the banner square.[790] But this distinction, however
it elevated the banneret, gave him no claim to military command, except
over his own dependents or men at arms. Chandos was still a
knight-bachelor when he led part of the prince of Wales's army into
Spain. He first raised his banner at the battle of Navarette; and the
narration that Froissart gives of the ceremony will illustrate the
manners of chivalry and the character of that admirable hero, the
conqueror of Du Guesclin and pride of English chivalry, whose fame with
posterity has been a little overshadowed by his master's laurels.[791]
What seems more extraordinary is, that mere squires had frequently the
command over knights. Proofs of this are almost continual in Froissart.
But the vast estimation in which men held the dignity of knighthood led
them sometimes to defer it for great part of their lives, in hope of
signalizing their investiture by some eminent exploit.
[Sidenote: Decline of chivalry.]
These appear to have been the chief means of nourishing the principles
of chivalry among the nobility of Europe. But notwithstanding all
encouragement, it underwent the usual destiny of human institutions. St.
Palaye, to whom we are indebted for so vivid a picture of ancient
manners, ascribes the decline of chivalry in France to the profusion
with which the order was lavished under Charles VI., to the
establishment of the companies of ordonnance by Charles VII., and to the
extension of knightly honours to lawyers, and other men of civil
occupation, by Francis I.[792] But the real principle of decay was
something different from these three subordinate circumstances, unless
so far as it may bear some relation to the second. It was the invention
of gunpowder that eventually overthrew chivalry. From the time when the
use of fire-arms became tolerably perfect the weapons of former warfare
lost their efficacy, and physical force was reduced to a very
subordinate place in the accomplishments of a soldier. The advantages of
a disciplined infantry became more sensible; and the lancers, who
continued till almost the end of the sixteenth century to charge in a
long line, felt the punishment of their presumption and indiscipline.
Even in the wars of Edward III., the disadvantageous tactics of chivalry
must have been perceptible; but the military art had not been
sufficiently studied to overcome the prejudices of men eager for
individual distinction. Tournaments became less frequent; and, after the
fatal accident of Henry II., were entirely discontinued in France.
Notwithstanding the convulsions of the religious wars, the sixteenth
century was more tranquil than any that had preceded; and thus a large
part of the nobility passed their lives in pacific habits, and if they
assumed the honours of chivalry, forgot their natural connexion with
military prowess. This is far more applicable to England, where, except
from the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry VI., chivalry, as a
military institution, seems not to have found a very congenial
soil.[793] To these circumstances, immediately affecting the military
condition of nations, we must add the progress of reason and literature,
which made ignorance discreditable even in a soldier, and exposed the
follies of romance to a ridicule which they were very ill calculated to
endure.
The spirit of chivalry left behind it a more valuable successor. The
character of knight gradually subsided in that of gentleman; and the one
distinguishes European society in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, as much as the other did in the preceding ages. A jealous
sense of honour, less romantic, but equally elevated, a ceremonious
gallantry and politeness, a strictness in devotional observances, a high
pride of birth and feeling of independence upon any sovereign for the
dignity it gave, a sympathy for martial honour, though more subdued by
civil habits, are the lineaments which prove an indisputable descent.
The cavaliers of Charles I. were genuine successors of Edward's knights;
and the resemblance is much more striking, if we ascend to the civil
wars of the League. Time has effaced much also of this gentlemanly, as
it did before of the chivalrous character. From the latter part of the
seventeenth century its vigour and purity have undergone a tacit decay,
and yielded, perhaps in every country, to increasing commercial wealth,
more diffused instruction, the spirit of general liberty in some, and of
servile obsequiousness in others, the modes of life in great cities, and
the levelling customs of social intercourse.[794]
[Sidenote: Literature.]
It is now time to pass to a very different subject. The third head under
which I classed the improvements of society during the four last
centuries of the middle ages was that of literature. But I must apprise
the reader not to expect any general view of literary history, even in
the most abbreviated manner. Such an epitome would not only be
necessarily superficial, but foreign in many of its details to the
purposes of this chapter, which, attempting to develop the circumstances
that gave a new complexion to society, considers literature only so far
as it exercised a general and powerful influence. The private
researches, therefore, of a single scholar, unproductive of any material
effect in his generation, ought not to arrest us, nor indeed would a
series of biographical notices, into which literary history is apt to
fall, be very instructive to a philosophical inquirer. But I have still
a more decisive reason against taking a large range of literary history
into the compass of this work, founded on the many contributions which
have been made within the last forty years in that department, some of
them even since the commencement of my own labour.[795] These have
diffused so general an acquaintance with the literature of the middle
ages, that I must, in treating the subject, either compile secondary
information from well-known books, or enter upon a vast field of
reading, with little hope of improving upon what has been already said,
or even acquiring credit for original research. I shall, therefore,
confine myself to four points: the study of civil law; the institution
of universities; the application of modern languages to literature, and
especially to poetry; and the revival of ancient learning.
[Sidenote: Civil law.]
The Roman law had been nominally preserved ever since the destruction of
the empire; and a great portion of the inhabitants of France and Spain,
as well as Italy, were governed by its provisions. But this was a mere
compilation from the Theodosian code; which itself contained only the
more recent laws promulgated after the establishment of Christianity,
with some fragments from earlier collections. It was made by order of
Alaric king of the Visigoths about the year 500, and it is frequently
confounded, with the Theodosian code by writers of the dark ages.[796]
The code of Justinian, reduced into system after the separation of the
two former countries from the Greek empire, never obtained any authority
in them; nor was it received in the part of Italy subject to the
Lombards. But that this body of laws was absolutely unknown in the West
during any period seems to have been too hastily supposed. Some of the
more eminent ecclesiastics, as Hincmar and Ivon of Chartres,
occasionally refer to it, and bear witness to the regard which the Roman
church had uniformly paid to its decisions.[797]
The revival of the study of jurisprudence, as derived from the laws of
Justinian, has generally been ascribed to the discovery made of a copy
of the Pandects at Amalfi, in 1135, when that city was taken by the
Pisans. This fact, though not improbable, seems not to rest upon
sufficient evidence.[798] But its truth is the less material, as it
appears to be unequivocally proved that the study of Justinian's system
had recommenced before that era. Early in the twelfth century a
professor named Irnerius[799] opened a school of civil law at Bologna,
where he commented, if not on the Pandects, yet on the other books, the
Institutes and Code, which were sufficient to teach the principles and
inspire the love of that comprehensive jurisprudence. The study of law,
having thus revived, made a surprising progress; within fifty years
Lombardy was full of lawyers, on whom Frederic Barbarossa and Alexander
III., so hostile in every other respect, conspired to shower honours and
privileges. The schools of Bologna were pre-eminent throughout this
century for legal learning. There seem also to have been seminaries at
Modena and Mantua; nor was any considerable city without distinguished
civilians. In the next age they became still more numerous, and their
professors more conspicuous, and universities arose at Naples, Padua,
and other places, where the Roman law was the object of peculiar
regard.[800]
There is apparently great justice in the opinion of Tiraboschi, that by
acquiring internal freedom and the right of determining controversies by
magistrates of their own election, the Italian cities were led to
require a more extensive and accurate code of written laws than they had
hitherto possessed. These municipal judges were chosen from among the
citizens, and the succession to offices was usually so rapid, that
almost every freeman might expect in his turn to partake in the public
government, and consequently in the administration of justice. The
latter had always indeed been exercised in the sight of the people by
the count and his assessors under the Lombard and Carlovingian
sovereigns; but the laws were rude, the proceedings tumultuary, and the
decisions perverted by violence. The spirit of liberty begot a stronger
sense of right; and right, it was soon perceived, could only be secured
by a common standard. Magistrates holding temporary offices, and little
elevated in those simple times above the citizens among whom they were
to return, could only satisfy the suitors, and those who surrounded
their tribunal, by proving the conformity of their sentences to
acknowledged authorities. And the practice of alleging reasons in giving
judgment would of itself introduce some uniformity of decision and some
adherence to great rules of justice in the most arbitrary tribunals;
while, on the other hand, those of a free country lose part of their
title to respect, and of their tendency to maintain right, whenever,
either in civil or criminal questions, the mere sentence of a judge is
pronounced without explanation of its motives.
The fame of this renovated jurisprudence spread very rapidly from Italy
over other parts of Europe. Students flocked from all parts of Bologna;
and some eminent masters of that school repeated its lessons in distant
countries. One of these, Placentinus, explained the Digest at Montpelier
before the end of the twelfth century; and the collection of Justinian
soon came to supersede the Theodosian code in the dominions of
Toulouse.[801] Its study continued to flourish in the universities of
both these cities; and hence the Roman law, as it is exhibited in the
system of Justinian, became the rule of all tribunals in the southern
provinces of France. Its authority in Spain is equally great, or at
least is only disputed by that of the canonists;[802] and it forms the
acknowledged basis of decision in all the Germanic tribunals, sparingly
modified by the ancient feudal customaries, which the jurists of the
empire reduce within narrow bounds.[803] In the northern parts of
France, where the legal standard was sought in local customs, the civil
law met naturally with less regard. But the code of St. Louis borrows
from that treasury many of its provisions, and it was constantly cited
in pleadings before the parliament of Paris, either as obligatory by way
of authority, or at least as written wisdom, to which great deference
was shown.[804] Yet its study was long prohibited in the university of
Paris, front a disposition of the popes to establish exclusively their
decretals, though the prohibition was silently disregarded.[805]
[Sidenote: Its introduction into England.]
As early as the reign of Stephen, Vacarius, a lawyer of Bologna, taught
at Oxford with great success; but the students of scholastic theology
opposed themselves, from some unexplained reason, to this new
jurisprudence, and his lectures were interdicted.[806] About the time of
Henry III. and Edward I. the civil law acquired some credit in England;
but a system entirely incompatible with it had established itself in our
courts of justice; and the Roman jurisprudence was not only soon
rejected, but became obnoxious.[807] Every where, however, the clergy
combined its study with that of their own canons; it was a maxim that
every canonist must be a civilian, and that no one could be a good
civilian unless he were also a canonist. In all universities, degrees
are granted in both laws conjointly; and in all courts of ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, the authority of Justinian is cited, when that of Gregory
or Clement is wanting.[808]
[Sidenote: The elder civilians little regarded.]
I should earn little gratitude for my obscure diligence, were I to dwell
on the forgotten teachers of a science that attracts so few. These elder
professors of Roman jurisprudence are infected, as we are told, with the
faults and ignorance of their time; failing in the exposition of ancient
law through incorrectness of manuscripts and want of subsidiary
learning, or perverting their sense through the verbal subtleties of
scholastic philosophy. It appears that, even a hundred years since,
neither Azzo and Accursius, the principal civilians of the thirteenth
century, nor Bartolus and Baldus, the more conspicuous luminaries of the
next age, nor the later writings of Accolti, Fulgosius, and
Panormitanus, were greatly regarded as authorities; unless it were in
Spain, where improvement is always odious, and the name of Bartolus
inspired absolute deference.[809] In the sixteenth century, Alciatus and
the greater Cujacius became, as it were, the founders of a new and more
enlightened academy of civil law, from which the latter jurists derived
their lessons. The laws of Justinian, stripped of their impurer alloy,
and of the tedious glosses of their commentators, will form the basis of
other systems, and mingling, as we may hope, with the new institutions
of philosophical legislators, continue to influence the social relations
of mankind, long after their direct authority shall have been abrogated.
The ruins of ancient Rome supplied the materials of a new city; and the
fragments of her law, which have already been wrought into the recent
codes of France and Prussia, will probably, under other names, guide far
distant generations by the sagacity of Modestinus and Ulpian.[810]
[Sidenote: Public schools established by Charlemagne.]
The establishment of public schools in France is owing to Charlemagne.
At his accession, we are assured that no means of obtaining a learned
education existed in his dominions;[811] and in order to restore in some
degree the spirit of letters, he was compelled to invite strangers from
countries where learning was not so thoroughly extinguished. Alcuin of
England, Clement of Ireland, Theodulf of Germany, were the true Paladins
who repaired to his court. With the help of these he revived a few
sparks of diligence, and established schools in different cities of his
empire; nor was he ashamed to be the disciple of that in his own palace
under the care of Alcuin.[812] His two next successors, Louis the
Debonair and Charles the Bald, were also encouragers of letters; and
the schools of Lyons, Fulda, Corvey, Rheims, and some other cities,
might be said to flourish in the ninth century.[813] In these were
taught the trivium and quadrivium, a long-established division of
sciences: the first comprehending grammar, or what we now call
philology, logic, and rhetoric; the second, music, arithmetic, geometry,
and astronomy.[814] But in those ages scarcely anybody mastered the
latter four; and to be perfect in the three former was exceedingly rare.
All those studies, however, were referred to theology, and that in the
narrowest manner; music, for example, being reduced to church chanting,
and astronomy to the calculation of Easter.[815] Alcuin was, in his old
age, against reading the poets;[816] and this discouragement of secular
learning was very general; though some, as for instance Raban, permitted
a slight tincture of it, as subsidiary to religious instruction.[817]
[Sidenote: University of Paris.]
[Sidenote: Abelard.]
About the latter part of the eleventh century a greater ardour for
intellectual pursuits began to show itself in Europe, which in the
twelfth broke out into a flame. This was manifested in the numbers who
repaired to the public academies or schools of philosophy. None of these
grew so early into reputation as that of Paris. This cannot indeed, as
has been vainly pretended, trace its pedigree to Charlemagne. The first
who is said to have read lectures at Paris was Remigius of Auxerre,
about the year 900.[818] For the two next centuries the history of this
school is very obscure; and it would be hard to prove an unbroken
continuity, or at least a dependence and connexion of its professors. In
the year 1100 we find William of Champeaux teaching logic, and
apparently some higher parts of philosophy, with much credit. But this
preceptor was eclipsed by his disciple, afterwards his rival and
adversary, Peter Abelard, to whose brilliant and hardy genius the
university of Paris appears to be indebted for its rapid advancement.
Abelard was almost the first who awakened mankind in the ages of
darkness to a sympathy with intellectual excellence. His bold theories,
not the less attractive perhaps for treading upon the bounds of heresy,
his imprudent vanity, that scorned the regularly acquired reputation of
older men, allured a multitude of disciples, who would never have
listened to an ordinary teacher. It is said that twenty cardinals and
fifty bishops had been among his hearers.[819] Even in the wilderness,
where he had erected the monastery of Paraclete, he was surrounded by
enthusiastic admirers, relinquishing the luxuries, if so they might be
called, of Paris, for the coarse living and imperfect accommodation
which that retirement could afford.[820] But the whole of Abelard's life
was the shipwreck of genius; and of genius, both the source of his own
calamities and unserviceable to posterity. There are few lives of
literary men more interesting or more diversified by success and
adversity, by glory and humiliation, by the admiration of mankind and
the persecution of enemies; nor from which, I may add, more impressive
lessons of moral prudence may be derived.[821] One of Abelard's pupils
was Peter Lombard, afterwards archbishop of Paris, and author of a work
called the Book of Sentences, which obtained the highest authority among
the scholastic disputants. The resort of students to Paris became
continually greater; they appear, before the year 1169, to have been
divided into nations;[822] and probably they had an elected rector and
voluntary rules of discipline about the same time. This, however, is not
decisively proved; but in the last year of the twelfth century they
obtained their earliest charter from Philip Augustus.[823]
[Sidenote: University of Oxford.]
The opinion which ascribes the foundation of the university of Oxford to
Alfred, if it cannot be maintained as a truth, contains no intrinsic
marks of error. Ingulfus, abbot of Croyland, in the earliest authentic
passage that can be adduced to this point,[824] declares that he was
sent from Westminster to the school at Oxford, where he learned
Aristotle, with the first and second books of Tully's Rhetoric.[825]
Since a school for dialectics and rhetoric subsisted at Oxford, a town
of but middling size and not the seat of a bishop, we are naturally led
to refer its foundation to one of our kings, and none who had reigned
after Alfred appears likely to have manifested such zeal for learning.
However, it is evident that the school of Oxford was frequented under
Edward the Confessor. There follows an interval of above a century,
during which we have, I believe, no contemporary evidence of its
continuance. But in the reign of Stephen, Vacarius read lectures there
upon civil law; and it is reasonable to suppose that a foreigner would
not have chosen that city, if he had not found a seminary of learning
already established. It was probably inconsiderable, and might have been
interrupted during some part of the preceding century.[826] In the
reign of Henry II., or at least of Richard I., Oxford became a very
flourishing university, and in 1201, according to Wood, contained 3000
scholars.[827] The earliest charters were granted by John.
[Sidenote: University of Bologna.]
[Sidenote: Encouragement given to universities.]
If it were necessary to construe the word university in the strict sense
of a legal incorporation, Bologna might lay claim to a higher antiquity
than either Paris or Oxford. There are a few vestiges of studies pursued
in that city even in the eleventh century;[828] but early in the next
the revival of the Roman jurisprudence, as has been already noticed,
brought a throng of scholars round the chairs of its professors.
Frederic Barbarossa in 1158, by his authentic, or rescript, entitled
Habita, took these under his protection, and permitted them to be tried
in civil suits by their own judges. This exemption from the ordinary
tribunals, and even from those of the church, was naturally coveted by
other academies; it was granted to the university of Paris by its
earliest charter from Philip Augustus, and to Oxford by John. From this
time the golden age of universities commenced; and it is hard to say
whether they were favoured more by their sovereigns or by the see of
Rome. Their history indeed is full of struggles with the municipal
authorities, and with the bishops of their several cities, wherein they
were sometimes the aggressors, and generally the conquerors. From all
parts of Europe students resorted to these renowned seats of learning
with an eagerness for instruction which may astonish those who reflect
how little of what we now deem useful could be imparted. At Oxford,
under Henry III., it is said that there were 30,000 scholars; an
exaggeration which seems to imply that the real number was very
great.[829] A respectable contemporary writer asserts that there were
full 10,000 at Bologna about the same time.[830] I have not observed any
numerical statement as to Paris during this age; but there can be no
doubt that it was more frequented than any other. At the death of
Charles VII. in 1453, it is said to have contained 25,000 students.[831]
In the thirteenth century other universities sprang up in different
countries; Padua and Naples under the patronage of Frederic II., a
zealous and useful friend to letters,[832] Toulouse and Montpelier,
Cambridge and Salamanca.[833] Orleans, which had long been distinguished
as a school of civil law, received the privileges of incorporation early
in the fourteenth century, and Angers before the expiration of the same
age.[834] Prague, the earliest and most eminent of German universities,
was founded in 1350; a secession from thence of Saxon students, in
consequence of the nationality of the Bohemians and the Hussite schism,
gave rise to that of Leipsic.[835] The fifteenth century produced
several new academical foundations in France and Spain.
A large proportion of scholars in most of those institutions were drawn
by the love of science from foreign countries. The chief universities
had their own particular departments of excellence. Paris was unrivalled
for scholastic theology; Bologna and Orleans, and afterwards Bourges,
for jurisprudence; Montpelier for medicine. Though national prejudices,
as in the case of Prague, sometimes interfered with this free resort of
foreigners to places of education, it was in general a wise policy of
government, as well as of the universities themselves, to encourage it.
The thirty-fifth article of the peace of Bretigni provides for the
restoration of former privileges to students respectively in the French
and English universities.[836] Various letters patent will be found in
Rymer's collection, securing to Scottish as well as French natives a
safe passage to their place of education. The English nation, including
however the Flemings and Germans,[837] had a separate vote in the
faculty of arts at Paris. But foreign students were not, I believe, so
numerous in the English academies.
If endowments and privileges are the means of quickening a zeal for
letters, they were liberally bestowed in the last three of the middle
ages. Crevier enumerates fifteen colleges founded in the university of
Paris during the thirteenth century, besides one or two of a still
earlier date. Two only, or at most three, existed in that age at Oxford,
and but one at Cambridge. In the next two centuries these universities
could boast, as every one knows, of many splendid foundations, though
much exceeded in number by those of Paris. Considered as ecclesiastical
institutions it is not surprising that the universities obtained,
according to the spirit of their age, an exclusive cognizance of civil
or criminal suits affecting their members. This jurisdiction was,
however, local as well as personal, and in reality encroached on the
regular police of their cities. At Paris the privilege turned to a
flagrant abuse, and gave rise to many scandalous contentions.[838] Still
more valuable advantages were those relating to ecclesiastical
preferments, of which a large proportion was reserved in France to
academical graduates. Something of the same sort, though less extensive,
may still be traced in the rules respecting plurality of benefices in
our English church.
[Sidenote: Causes of their celebrity.]
[Sidenote: Scholastic philosophy.]
This remarkable and almost sudden transition from a total indifference
to all intellectual pursuits cannot be ascribed perhaps to any general
causes. The restoration of the civil, and the formation of the canon
law, were indeed eminently conducive to it, and a large proportion of
scholars in most universities confined themselves to jurisprudence. But
the chief attraction to the studious was the new scholastic philosophy.
The love of contention, especially with such arms as the art of
dialectics supplies to an acute understanding, is natural enough to
mankind. That of speculating upon the mysterious questions of
metaphysics and theology is not less so. These disputes and
speculations, however, appear to have excited little interest till,
after the middle of the eleventh century, Roscelin, a professor of
logic, revived the old question of the Grecian schools respecting
universal ideas, the reality of which he denied. This kindled a spirit
of metaphysical discussion, which Lanfranc and Anselm, successively
archbishops of Canterbury, kept alive; and in the next century Abelard
and Peter Lombard, especially the latter, completed the scholastic
system of philosophizing. The logic of Aristotle seems to have been
partly known in the eleventh century, although that of Augustin was
perhaps in higher estimation;[839] in the twelfth it obtained more
decisive influence. His metaphysics, to which the logic might be
considered as preparatory, were introduced through translations from the
Arabic, and perhaps also from the Greek, early in the ensuing
century.[840] This work, condemned at first by the decrees of popes and
councils on account of its supposed tendency to atheism, acquired by
degrees an influence, to which even popes and councils were obliged to
yield. The Mendicant Friars, established throughout Europe in the
thirteenth century, greatly contributed to promote the Aristotelian
philosophy; and its final reception into the orthodox system of the
church may chiefly be ascribed to Thomas Aquinas, the boast of the
Dominican order, and certainly the most distinguished metaphysician of
the middle ages. His authority silenced all scruple's as to that of
Aristotle, and the two philosophers were treated with equally implicit
deference by the later schoolmen.[841]
This scholastic philosophy, so famous for several ages, has since passed
away and been forgotten. The history of literature, like that of empire,
is full of revolutions. Our public libraries are cemeteries of departed
reputation, and the dust accumulating upon their untouched volumes speaks
as forcibly as the grass that waves over the ruins of Babylon. Few, very
few, for a hundred years past, have broken the repose of the immense works
of the schoolmen. None perhaps in our own country have acquainted
themselves particularly with their contents. Leibnitz, however, expressed
a wish that some one conversant with modern philosophy would undertake to
extract the scattered particles of gold which may be hidden in their
abandoned mines. This wish has been at length partially fulfilled by three
or four of those industrious students and keen metaphysicians, who do
honour to modern Germany. But most of their works are unknown to me except
by repute, and as they all appear to be formed on a very extensive plan, I
doubt whether even those laborious men could afford adequate time for this
ungrateful research. Yet we cannot pretend to deny that Roscelin, Anselm,
Abelard, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and
Ockham, were men of acute and even profound understandings, the giants of
their own generation. Even with the slight knowledge we possess of their
tenets, there appear through the cloud of repulsive technical barbarisms
rays of metaphysical genius which this age ought not to despise. Thus in
the works of Anselm is found the celebrated argument of Des Cartes for the
existence of a Deity, deduced from the idea of an infinitely perfect
being. One great object that most of the schoolmen had in view was, to
establish the principles of natural theology by abstract reasoning. This
reasoning was doubtless liable to great difficulties. But a modern writer,
who seems tolerably acquainted with the subject, assures us that it would
be difficult to mention any theoretical argument to prove the divine
attributes, or any objection capable of being raised against the proof,
which we do not find in some of the scholastic philosophers.[842] The most
celebrated subjects of discussion, and those on which this class of
reasoners were most divided, were the reality of universal ideas,
considered as extrinsic to the human mind and the freedom of will. These
have not ceased to occupy the thoughts of metaphysicians.[843]
But all discovery of truth by means of these controversies was rendered
hopeless by two insurmountable obstacles, the authority of Aristotle and
that of the church. Wherever obsequious reverence is substituted for
bold inquiry, truth, if she is not already at hand, will never be
attained. The scholastics did not understand Aristotle, whose original
writings they could not read;[844] but his name was received with
implicit faith. They learned his peculiar nomenclature, and fancied that
he had given them realities. The authority of the church did them still
more harm. It has been said, and probably with much truth, that their
metaphysics were injurious to their theology. But I must observe in
return that their theology was equally injurious to their metaphysics.
Their disputes continually turned upon questions either involving
absurdity and contradiction, or at best inscrutable by human
comprehension. Those who assert the greatest antiquity of the Roman
Catholic doctrine as to the real presence, allow that both the word and
the definition of transubstantiation are owing to the scholastic
writers. Their subtleties were not always so well received. They
reasoned at imminent peril of being charged with heresy, which Roscelin,
Abelard, Lombard, and Ockham did not escape. In the virulent factions
that arose out of their metaphysical quarrels, either party was eager to
expose its adversary to detraction and persecution. The Nominalists were
accused, one hardly sees why, with reducing, like Sabellius, the persons
of the Trinity to modal distinctions. The Realists, with more pretence,
incurred the imputation of holding a language that savoured of
atheism.[845] In the controversy which the Dominicans and Franciscans,
disciples respectively of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, maintained
about grace and freewill, it was of course still more easy to deal in
mutual reproaches of heterodoxy. But the schoolmen were in general
prudent enough not to defy the censures of the church; and the popes, in
return for the support they gave to all exorbitant pretensions of the
Holy See, connived at this factious wrangling, which threatened no
serious mischief, as it did not proceed from any independent spirit of
research. Yet with all their apparent conformity to the received creed,
there was, as might be expected from the circumstances, a great deal of
real deviation from orthodoxy, and even of infidelity. The scholastic
mode of dispute, admitting of no termination and producing no
conviction, was the sure cause of scepticism; and the system of
Aristotle, especially with the commentaries of Averroes, bore an aspect
very unfavourable to natural religion.[846] The Aristotelian philosophy,
even in the hands of the Master, was like a barren tree that conceals
its want of fruit by profusion of leaves. But the scholastic ontology
was much worse. What could be more trifling than disquisitions about the
nature of angels, their modes of operation, their means of conversing,
or (for these were distinguished) the morning and evening state of their
understandings?[847] Into such follies the schoolmen appear to have
launched, partly because there was less danger of running against a
heresy in a matter where the church had defined so little--partly from
their presumption, which disdained all inquiries into the human mind, as
merely a part of physics--and in no small degree through a spirit of
mystical fanaticism, derived from the oriental philosophy and the later
Platonists, which blended itself with the cold-blooded technicalities of
the Aristotelian school.[848] But this unproductive waste of the
faculties could not last for ever. Men discovered that they had given
their time for the promise of wisdom, and been cheated in the bargain.
What John of Salisbury observes of the Parisian dialecticians in his own
time, that, after several years' absence, he found them not a step
advanced and still employed in urging and parrying the same arguments,
was equally applicable to the period of centuries. After three or four
hundred years, the scholastics had not untied a single knot, nor added
one unequivocal truth to the domain of philosophy. As this became more
evident, the enthusiasm for that kind of learning declined; after the
middle of the fourteenth century few distinguished teachers arose among
the schoolmen, and at the revival of letters their pretended science had
no advocates left, but among the prejudiced or ignorant adherents of
established systems. How different is the state of genuine philosophy,
the zeal for which will never wear out by length of time or change of
fashion, because the inquirer, unrestrained by authority, is perpetually
cheered by the discovery of truth in researches, which the boundless
riches of nature seem to render indefinitely progressive![849]
Yet, upon a general consideration, the attention paid in the
universities to scholastic philosophy, may be deemed a source of
improvement in the intellectual character, when we compare it with the
perfect ignorance of some preceding ages. Whether the same industry
would not have been more profitably directed if the love of metaphysics
had not intervened, is another question. Philology, or the principles of
good taste, degenerated through the prevalence of school-logic. The
Latin compositions of the twelfth century are better than those of the
three that followed--at least on the northern side of the Alps. I do
not, however, conceive that any real correctness of taste or general
elegance of style was likely to subsist in so imperfect a condition of
society. These qualities seem to require a certain harmonious
correspondence in the tone of manners before they can establish a
prevalent influence over literature. A more real evil was the diverting
of studious men from mathematical science. Early in the twelfth century
several persons, chiefly English, had brought into Europe some of the
Arabian writings on geometry and physics. In the thirteenth the works of
Euclid were commented upon by Campano,[850] and Roger Bacon was fully
acquainted with them.[851] Algebra, as far as the Arabians knew it,
extending to quadratic equations, was actually in the hands of some
Italians at the commencement of the same age, and preserved for almost
three hundred years as a secret, though without any conception of its
importance. As abstract mathematics require no collateral aid, they may
reach the highest perfection in ages of general barbarism; and there
seems to be no reason why, if the course of study had been directed that
way, there should not have arisen a Newton or a La Place, instead of an
Aquinas or an Ockham. The knowledge displayed by Roger Bacon and by
Albertus Magnus, even in the mixed mathematics, under every disadvantage
from the imperfection of instruments and the want of recorded
experience, is sufficient to inspire us with regret that their
contemporaries were more inclined to astonishment than to emulation.
These inquiries indeed were subject to the ordeal of fire, the great
purifier of books and men; for if the metaphysician stood a chance of
being burned as a heretic, the natural philosopher was in not less
jeopardy as a magician.[852]
[Sidenote: Cultivation of the new languages.]
[Sidenote: Division of the Romance tongue into two dialects.]
[Sidenote: Troubadours of Provence.]
A far more substantial cause of intellectual improvement was the
development of those new languages that sprang out of the corruption of
Latin. For three or four centuries after what was called the Romance
tongue was spoken in France, there remain but few vestiges of its
employment in writing; though we cannot draw an absolute inference from
our want of proof, and a critic of much authority supposes translations
to have been made into it for religious purposes from the time of
Charlemagne.[853] During this period the language was split into two
very separate dialects, the regions of which may be considered, though
by no means strictly, as divided by the Loire. These were called the
Langue d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc; or in more modern terms, the French
and Provencal dialects. In the latter of these I know of nothing which
can even by name be traced beyond the year 1100. About that time Gregory
de Bechada, a gentleman of Limousin, recorded the memorable events of
the first crusade, then recent, in a metrical history of great
length.[854] This poem has altogether perished; which, considering the
popularity of its subject, as M. Sismondi justly remarks, would probably
not have been the case if it had possessed any merit. But very soon
afterwards a multitude of poets, like a swarm of summer insects,
appeared in the southern provinces of France. These were the celebrated
Troubadours, whose fame depends far less on their positive excellence
than on the darkness of preceding ages, on the temporary sensation they
excited, and their permanent influence on the state of European poetry.
From William count of Poitou, the earliest troubadour on record, who
died in 1126, to their extinction, about the end of the next century,
there were probably several hundred of these versifiers in the language
of Provence, though not always natives of France. Millot has published
the lives of one hundred and forty-two, besides the names of many more
whose history is unknown; and a still greater number, it cannot be
doubted, are unknown by name. Among those poets are reckoned a king of
England (Richard I.), two of Aragon, one of Sicily, a dauphin of
Auvergne, a count of Foix, a prince of Orange, many noblemen and several
ladies. One can hardly pretend to account for this sudden and transitory
love of verse; but it is manifestly one symptom of the rapid impulse
which the human mind received in the twelfth century, and
contemporaneous with the severer studies that began to flourish in the
universities. It was encouraged by the prosperity of Languedoc and
Provence, undisturbed, comparatively with other countries, by internal
warfare, and disposed by the temper of their inhabitants to feel with
voluptuous sensibility the charm of music and amorous poetry. But the
tremendous storm that fell upon Languedoc in the crusade against the
Albigeois shook off the flowers of Provencal verse; and the final
extinction of the fief of Toulouse, with the removal of the counts of
Provence to Naples, deprived the troubadours of their most eminent
patrons. An attempt was made in the next century to revive them, by
distributing prizes for the best composition in the Floral Games of
Toulouse, which have sometimes been erroneously referred to a higher
antiquity.[855] This institution perhaps still remains; but even in its
earliest period it did not establish the name of any Provencal poet. Nor
can we deem these fantastical solemnities, styled Courts of Love, where
ridiculous questions of metaphysical gallantry were debated by poetical
advocates, under the presidency and arbitration of certain ladies, much
calculated to bring forward any genuine excellence. They illustrate,
however, what is more immediately my own object, the general ardour for
poetry and the manners of those chivalrous ages.[856]
[Sidenote: Their poetical character.]
The great reputation acquired by the troubadours, and panegyrics
lavished on some of them by Dante and Petrarch, excited a curiosity
among literary men, which has been a good deal disappointed by further
acquaintance. An excellent French antiquary of the last age, La Curne de
St. Palaye, spent great part of his life in accumulating manuscripts of
Provencal poetry, very little of which had ever been printed.
Translations from part of this collection, with memorials of the
writers, were published by Millot; and we certainly do not often meet
with passages in his three volumes which give us any poetical
pleasure.[857] Some of the original poems have since been published, and
the extracts made from them by the recent historians of southern
literature are rather superior. The troubadours chiefly confined
themselves to subjects of love, or rather gallantry, and to satires
(sirventes), which are sometimes keen and spirited. No romances of
chivalry, and hardly any tales, are found among their works. There seems
a general deficiency of imagination, and especially of that vivid
description which distinguishes works of genius in the rudest period of
society. In the poetry of sentiment, their favourite province, they
seldom attain any natural expression, and consequently produce no
interest. I speak, of course, on the presumption that the best specimens
have been exhibited by those who have undertaken the task. It must be
allowed, however, that we cannot judge of the troubadours at a greater
disadvantage than through the prose translations of Millot. Their poetry
was entirely of that class which is allied to music, and excites the
fancy or feelings rather by the power of sound than any stimulancy of
imagery and passion. Possessing a flexible and harmonious language, they
invented a variety of metrical arrangements, perfectly new to the
nations of Europe. The Latin hymns were striking, but monotonous, the
metre of the northern French unvaried; but in Provencal poetry, almost
every length of verse, from two syllables to twelve, and the most
intricate disposition of rhymes, were at the choice of the troubadour.
The canzoni, the sestine, all the lyric metres of Italy and Spain were
borrowed from his treasury. With such a command of poetical sounds, it
was natural that he should inspire delight into ears not yet rendered
familiar to the artifices of verse; and even now the fragments of these
ancient lays, quoted by M. Sismondi and M. Ginguene, seem to possess a
sort of charm that has evaporated in translation. Upon this harmony, and
upon the facility with which mankind are apt to be deluded into an
admiration of exaggerated sentiment in poetry, they depended for their
influence. And however vapid the songs of Provence may seem to our
apprehensions, they were undoubtedly the source from which poetry for
many centuries derived a great portion of its habitual language.[858]
[Sidenote: Northern French poetry and prose.]
It has been maintained by some antiquaries, that the northern Romance,
or what we properly call French, was not formed until the tenth century,
the common dialect of all France having previously resembled that of
Languedoc. This hypothesis may not be indisputable; but the question is
not likely to be settled, as scarcely any written specimens of Romance,
even of that age, have survived.[859] In the eleventh century, among
other more obscure productions, both in prose and metre, there appears
what, if unquestioned as to authenticity, would be a valuable monument
of this language; the laws of William the Conqueror. These are preserved
in a manuscript of Ingulfus's History of Croyland, a blank being left in
other copies where they should be inserted.[860] They are written in an
idiom so far removed from the Provencal, that one would be disposed to
think the separation between these two species of Romance of older
standing than is commonly allowed. But it has been thought probable that
these laws, which in fact were nearly a repetition of those of Edward
the Confessor, were originally published in Anglo-Saxon, the only
language intelligible to the people, and translated, at a subsequent
period, by some Norman monk into French.[861]