when there was no security to property and no redress of evils, the
allodialist parted with his lands to some powerful chieftain, and
obtained promise of protection. He even resigned the privilege of
freedom to save his wretched life. He became a serf,--a semi-bondman,
chained to the soil, but protected from outrage. Nothing but
inconceivable miseries, which have not been painted by historians, can
account for the almost simultaneous change in the ownership of land in
all European countries. We can conceive of nothing but blank despair
among the people who attempted to cultivate land. And there must have
been the grossest ignorance and the lowest degradation when men were
willing to submit to the curtailment of personal freedom and the loss of
their lands, in order to find protectors.
Thus Feudalism arose in the ninth and tenth centuries from the absolute
wreck of property and hopes. It was virtually the surrender of land for
the promise of protection. It was the great necessity of that anarchical
age. Like all institutions, it grew out of the needs of the times. Yet
its universal acceptance seems to prove that the change was beneficial.
Feudalism, especially in its early ages, is not to be judged by the
institutions of our times, any more than is the enormous growth of
spiritual power which took place when this social and political
revolution was going on. Wars and devastations and untold calamities and
brutal forces were the natural sequence of barbaric invasions, and of
the progressive fall of the old civilization, continued from generation
to generation for a period of two or three hundred years, with scarcely
any interruption. You get no relief from such a dispensation of Divine
Providence, unless you can solve the question why the Roman Empire was
permitted to be swept away. If it must be destroyed, from the prevalence
of the same vices which have uniformly undermined all empires,--utter
and unspeakable rottenness and depravity,--in spite of Christianity,
whether nominal or real; if eternal justice must bear sway on this
earth, bringing its fearful retributions for the abuse of privileges and
general wickedness,--then we accept the natural effects of that violence
which consummated the ruin. The natural consequences of two hundred
years of pillage and warfare and destruction of ancient institutions
were, and could have been nothing other than, miseries, misrule,
sufferings, poverty, insecurity, and despair. A universal conflagration
must destroy everything that past ages had valued. As a relief from what
was felt to be intolerable, and by men who were brutal, ignorant,
superstitious, and degraded, all from the effect of the necessary evils
which war creates, a sort of semi-slavery was felt to be preferable, as
the price of dependence and protection.
Dependence and protection are the elemental principles of Feudalism.
These were the hard necessities which the age demanded. And for three
hundred years, it cannot be doubted, the relation between master and
serf was beneficial. It resulted in a more peaceful state of
society,--not free from great evils, but still a healthful change from
the disorders of the preceding epoch. The peasant could cultivate his
land comparatively free from molestation. He was still poor. Sometimes
he was exposed to heavy exactions. He was bound to give a portion of the
profits of his land to his lordly proprietor; and he was bound to render
services in war. But, as he was not bound to serve over forty days, he
was not led on distant expeditions; he was not carried far from home. He
was not exposed to the ambition of military leaders. His warlike
services seem to be confined to the protection of his master's castle
and family, or to the assault of some neighboring castle. He was simply
made to participate in baronial quarrels; and as these quarrels were
frequent, his life was not altogether peaceful.
But war on a large scale was impossible in the feudal age. The military
glory of the Roman conquerors was unknown, and also that of modern
European monarchs. The peasant was bound to serve under the banner of a
military chieftain only for a short time: then he returned to his farm.
His great military weapon was the bow,--the weapon of semi-barbarians.
The spear, the sword, the battle-axe were the weapons of the baronial
family,--the weapons of knights, who fought on horseback, cased in
defensive armor. The peasant fought on foot; and as the tactics of
ancient warfare were inapplicable, and those of modern warfare unknown,
the strength of armies was in cavalry and not in the infantry, as in
modern times. But armies were not large from the ninth to the twelfth
century,--not until the Crusades arose. Nor were they subject to a rigid
discipline. They were simply an armed rabble. They were more like
militia than regular forces; they fostered military virtues, without the
demoralization of standing armies. In the feudal age there were no
standing armies. Even at so late a period as the time of Queen Elizabeth
that sovereign had to depend on the militia for the defence of the realm
against the Spaniards. Standing armies are the invention of great
military monarchs or a great military State. The bow and arrow were used
equally to shoot men and shoot deer; but they rarely penetrated the
armor of knights, or their force was broken by the heavy shield: they
took effect only on the undefended bodies of the peasantry. Hence there
was a great disproportion of the slain in battle between peasants and
their mounted masters. War, even when confined to a small sphere, has
its terrors. The sufferers were the common people, whose lives were not
held of much account. History largely confines itself to battles. Hence
we are apt to lose sight of the uneventful life of the people in
quiet times.
But the barons were not always fighting. In the intervals of war the
peasant enjoyed the rude pleasures of his home. He grew up with strong
attachments, having no desire to migrate or travel. Gradually the
sentiment of loyalty was born,--loyalty to his master and to his
country. His life was rough, but earnest. He had great simplicity of
character. He became honest, industrious, and frugal. He was contented
with but few pleasures,--rural fêtes and village holidays. He had no
luxuries and no craving for them. Measured by our modern scale of
pleasures he led a very inglorious, unambitious, and rude life.
Contentment is one of the mysteries of existence. We should naturally
think that excitement and pleasure and knowledge would make people
happy, since they stimulate the intellectual powers; but on the contrary
they seem to produce unrest and cravings which are never satisfied. And
we should naturally think that a life of isolation, especially with no
mental resources,--a hard rural existence, with but few comforts and no
luxuries,--would make people discontented. Yet it does not seem to be so
in fact, as illustrated by the apparent contentment of people doomed to
hard labor in the most retired and dreary retreats. We wonder at their
placitude, as we travel in remote and obscure sections of the country. A
poor farmer, whose house is scarcely better than a hovel, surrounded
with chickens and pigs, and with only a small garden,--unadorned and
lonely and repulsive,--has no cravings which make the life of the
favored rich sometimes unendurable. The poorer he is, and therefore the
more miserable as we should think, the more contented he seems to be;
while a fashionable woman or _ennuied_ man, both accustomed to the
luxuries and follies of city life, with all its refinements and
gratification of intellectual and social pleasures, will sometimes pine
in a suburban home, with all the gilded glories of rich furniture,
books, beautiful gardens, greenhouses, luxurious living, horses,
carriages, and everything that wealth can furnish.
So that civilization would seem often a bitter mockery, showing that
intellectual life only stimulates the cravings of the soul, but does not
satisfy them. And when people are poor but cultivated, the unhappiness
seems to be still greater; demonstrating that cultivated intellect alone
opens to the mind the existence of evils which are intensified by the
difficulty of their removal, and on which the mind dwells with feelings
kindred to despair. I have sometimes doubted whether an obscure farmer's
daughter is any happier with her piano, and her piles of cheaply
illustrated literature and translations of French novels, and her
smatterings of science learned in normal schools, since she has learned
too often to despise her father and mother and brother, and her
uneducated rural beau, and all her surroundings, with poverty and unrest
and aspiration for society eating out her soul. The happiness produced
merely by intellectual pleasures and social frivolities is very small at
the best, compared with that produced by the virtues of the heart and
the affections kindled by deeds of devotion, or the duties which take
the mind from itself. Intellectual pleasures give only a brief
satisfaction, unless directed to a practical end, like the earnest
imparting of knowledge in educational pursuits, or the pursuit of art
for itself alone,--to create, and not to devour, as the epicure eats his
dinner. Where is the happiness of devouring books with no attempt to
profit by them, except in the temporary pleasure of satisfying an
appetite? So even the highest means of happiness may become a savor of
death unto death when perverted or unimproved. Never should we stimulate
the intellect merely to feed upon itself. Unless intellectual culture is
directed to what is useful, especially to the necessities or improvement
of others, it is a delusion and a snare. Better far to be ignorant, but
industrious and useful in any calling however humble, than to cram the
mind with knowledge that leads to no good practical result. The buxom
maiden of rural life, in former days absorbed in the duties of home,
with no knowledge except that gained in a district school in the winter,
with all her genial humanities in the society of equals no more aspiring
than herself, is to me a far more interesting person than the
pale-faced, languid, discontented, envious girl who has just returned
from a school beyond her father's means, even if she can play upon an
instrument, and has worn herself thin in exhausting studies under the
stimulus of ambitious competition, or the harangues of a pedant who
thinks what he calls "education" to be the end of life,--an education
which reveals her own insignificance, or leads her to strive for an
unattainable position.
I am forced to make these remarks to show that the Mediaeval peasant was
not necessarily miserable because he was ignorant, or isolated, or poor.
In so doing I may excite the wrath of some who think a little knowledge
is _not_ a dangerous thing, and may appear to be throwing cold water on
one of the noblest endeavors of modern times. But I do not sneer at
education. I only seek to show that it will not make people happy,
unless it is directed into useful channels; and that even ignorance may
be bliss when it is folly to be wise. A benevolent Providence tempers
all conditions to the necessities of the times. The peasantry of Europe
became earnest and stalwart warriors and farmers, even under the
grinding despotism of feudal masters. With their beer and brown bread,
and a fowl in the pot on a Sunday, they grew up to be hardy, bold,
strong, healthy, and industrious. They furnished a material on which
Christianity and a future civilization could work. They became
patriotic, religious, and kind-hearted. They learned to bear their evils
in patience. They were more cheerful than the laboring classes of our
day, with their partial education,--although we may console ourselves
with the reflection that these are passing through the fermenting
processes of a transition from a lower to a higher grade of living. Look
at the picture of them which art has handed down: their faces are ruddy,
genial, sympathetic, although coarse and vulgar and boorish. And they
learned to accept the inequalities of life without repining insolence.
They were humble, and felt that there were actually some people in the
world superior to themselves. I do not paint their condition as
desirable or interesting by our standard, but as endurable. They were
doubtless very ignorant; but would knowledge have made them any happier?
Knowledge is for those who can climb by it to positions of honor and
usefulness, not for those who cannot rise above the condition in which
they were born,--not for those who will be snubbed and humiliated and
put down by arrogant wealth and birth. Better be unconscious of
suffering, than conscious of wrongs which cannot be redressed.
Let no one here misunderstand and pervert me. I am not exalting the
ignorance and brutality of the feudal ages. I am not decrying the
superior advantages of our modern times. I only state that ignorance and
brutality were the necessary sequences of the wars and disorders of a
preceding epoch, but that this very ignorance and brutality were
accompanied by virtues which partially ameliorated the evils of the day;
that in the despair of slavery were the hopes of future happiness; that
religion took a deep hold of the human mind, even though blended with
puerile and degrading superstitions; that Christianity, taking hold of
the hearts of a suffering people, taught lessons which enabled them to
bear their hardships with resignation; that cheerfulness was not
extinguished; and that so many virtues were generated by the combined
influence of suffering and Christianity, that even with ignorance human
nature shone with greater lustre than among those by whom knowledge is
perverted. It was not until the evil and injustice of Feudalism were
exposed by political writers, and were meditated upon by the people who
had arisen by education and knowledge, that they became unendurable; and
then the people shook off the yoke. But how impossible would have been a
French Revolution in the thirteenth century! What readers would a
Rousseau have found among the people in the time of Louis VII.? If
knowledge breaks fetters when the people are strong enough to shake them
off, ignorance enables them to bear those fetters when emancipation is
impossible.
The great empire of Charlemagne was divided at his death (in A.D. 814)
among his three sons,--one of whom had France, another Italy, and the
third Germany. In forty-five years afterwards we find seven kingdoms,
instead of three,--France, Navarre, Provence, Burgundy, Lorraine,
Germany, and Italy. In a few years more there were twenty-nine
hereditary fiefs. And as early as the tenth century France itself was
split up into fifty-five independent sovereignties; and these small
sovereignties were again divided into dukedoms and baronies. All these
dukes and barons, however, acknowledged the King of France as their
liege lord; yet he was not richer or more powerful than some of the
dukes who swore fealty to him. The Duke of Burgundy at one time had
larger territories and more power than the King of France himself. So
that the central authority of kings was merely nominal; their power
extended scarcely beyond the lands they individually controlled. And all
the countries of Europe were equally ruled by petty kings. The kings of
England seem to have centralized around their thrones more power than
other European monarchs until the time of the Crusades, when they were
checked, not so much by nobles as by Act of Parliament.
Now all Europe was virtually divided among these petty sovereigns,
called dukes, earls, counts, and barons. Each one was virtually
independent. He coined money, administered justice, and preserved order.
He ruled by hereditary right, and his estate descended to his oldest
son. His revenues were derived by the extorted contributions of those
who cultivated his lands, and by certain perquisites, among which were
the privilege of wardship, and the profits of an estate during the
minority of its possessor, and reliefs, or fines paid on the alienation
of a vassal's feud; and the lord could bestow a female ward in marriage
on whomever he pleased, and on her refusal take possession of
her estate.
These lordly proprietors of great estates,--or nobles,--so powerful and
independent, lived in castles. These strongholds were necessary in such
turbulent times. They were large or small, according to the wealth or
rank of the nobles who occupied them, but of no architectural beauty.
They were fortresses, generally built on hills, or cragged rocks, or in
inaccessible marshes, or on islands in rivers,--anywhere where defence
was easiest. The nobles did not think of beautiful situations, or
fruitful meadows, so much as of the safety and independence of the
feudal family. They therefore lived in great isolation, travelling but
little, and only at short distances (it was the higher clergy only who
travelled). Though born to rank and power, they were yet rude, rough,
unpolished. They were warriors. They fought on horseback, covered with
defensive armor. They were greedy and quarrelsome, and hence were
engaged in perpetual strife,--in the assault on castles and devastation
of lands. These castles were generally gloomy, heavy, and uncomfortable,
yet were very numerous in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They were
occupied by the feudal family, perhaps the chaplain, strangers of rank,
bards, minstrels, and servants, who lived on the best the country
afforded, but without the luxuries of our times. They lived better than
the monks, as they had no vows to restrain them. But in their dreary
castles the rooms were necessarily small, dark, and damp, except the
banqueting hall. They were poorly lighted, there being no glass in the
narrow windows, nor chimneys, nor carpets, nor mirrors, nor luxurious
furniture, nor crockery, nor glassware, nor stoves, nor the refinements
of cookery. The few roads of the country were travelled only by
horsemen, or people on foot. There were no carriages, only a few heavy
lumbering wagons. Tea and coffee were unknown, as also tropical fruits
and some of our best vegetables. But game of all kinds was plenty and
cheap; so also were wine and beer, and beef and mutton, and pork and
poultry. The feudal family was illiterate, and read but few books. The
chief pleasures were those of the chase,--hunting and hawking,--and
intemperate feasts. What we call "society" was impossible, although the
barons may have exchanged visits with each other. They rarely visited
cities, which at that time were small and uninteresting. The lordly
proprietor of ten thousand acres may have been jolly, frank, and
convivial, but he was still rough, and had little to say on matters of
great interests. Circumscribed he was of necessity, ignorant and
prejudiced. Conscious of power, however, he was proud and insolent to
inferiors. He was merely a physical man,--ruddy, healthy, strong indeed,
but without refinement, or knowledge, or social graces. His castle was a
fort and not a palace; and here he lived with boisterous or sullen
companions, as rough and ignorant as himself. His wife and daughters
were more interesting, but without those attainments which grace and
adorn society. They made tapestries and embroideries, and rode
horseback, and danced well, and were virtuous; but were primitive,
uneducated, and supercilious. Their beauty was of the ruddy sort,
--physical, but genial. They were very fond of ornaments and gay
dresses; and so were their lords on festive occasions, for
semi-barbarism delights in what is showy and glittering,--purple, and
feathers, and trinkets.
Feudalism was intensely aristocratic. A line was drawn between the
noble and ignoble classes almost as broad as that which separates
liberty from slavery. It was next to impossible for a peasant, or
artisan, or even a merchant to pass that line. The exclusiveness of the
noble class was intolerable. It held in scorn any profession but arms;
neither riches nor learning was of any account. It gloried in the pride
of birth, and nourished a haughty scorn of plebeian prosperity. It was
not until cities and arts and commerce arose that the arrogance of the
baron was rebuked, or his iron power broken. Haughty though ignorant, he
had no pity or compassion for the poor and miserable. His peasantry were
doomed to perpetual insults. Their cornfields were trodden down by the
baronial hunters; they were compelled even to grind their corn in the
landlord's mill, and bake their bread in his oven. They had no redress
of injuries, and were scorned as well as insulted. What knight would arm
himself for them; what gentle lady wept at their sorrows? The feeling of
personal consequence was entirely confined to the feudal family. The
poorest knight took precedence over the richest merchant. Pride of birth
was carried to romantic extravagance, so that marriages seldom took
place between different classes. A beautiful peasant girl could never
rise above her drudgeries; and she never dreamed of rising, for the
members of the baronial family were looked up to as superior beings. A
caste grew up as rigid and exclusive as that of India. The noble and
ignoble classes were not connected by any ties; there was nothing in
common between them. Even the glory of successful warfare shed no
radiance on a peasant's hut. He fought for his master, and not for
himself, and scarcely for his country. He belonged to his master as
completely as if he could be bought and sold. Christianity teaches the
idea of a universal brotherhood; Feudalism suppressed or extinguished
it. Peasants had no rights, only duties,--and duties to hard and
unsympathetic masters. Can we wonder that a relation so unequal should
have been detested by the people when they began to think? Can we wonder
it should have created French Revolutions? When we remember how the
people toiled for a mail-clad warrior, how they fought for his
interests, how they died for his renown, how they were curtailed in
their few pleasures, how they were not permitted even to shoot a
pheasant or hare in their own grounds, we are amazed that such signal
injustice should ever have been endured. It is impossible that this
injustice should not have been felt; and no man ever became reconciled
to injustice, unless reduced to the condition of a brute. Religious
tyranny may be borne, for the priest invokes a supreme authority which
all feel to be universally binding. But all tyranny over the body--the
utter extinction of liberty--is hateful even to the most degraded
Hottentot.
Why, then, was such an unjust and unequal relation permitted to exist
so long? What good did it accomplish? What were its extenuating
features? Why was it commended by historians as a good institution for
the times?
It created a hardy agricultural class, inured them to the dangers and
the toils of war, bound them by local attachments, and fostered a
patriotic spirit. It developed the virtues of obedience, and submission
to evils. It created a love of home and household duties. It was
favorable to female virtue. It created the stout yeomanry who could be
relied upon in danger. It made law and order possible. It defended the
people from robbers. It laid a foundation for warlike prowess. It was
favorable to growth of population, for war did not sweep off the people
so much as those dire plagues and pestilences which were common in the
Middle Ages. It was preferable to the disorders and conflagrations and
depredations of preceding times. The poor man was oppressed, but he was
safe so long as his lord could protect him. It was a hard discipline,
but a discipline which was healthy; it preserved the seed if it did not
bear the fruits of civilization. The peasantry became honest, earnest,
sincere. They were made susceptible of religious impressions. They
became attached to all the institutions of the Church; the parish church
was their retreat, their consolation, and their joy. The priest
tyrannized over the soul and the knight over the body, but the flame of
piety burned steadily and warmly.