Produced by Renald Levesque
WOMAN
VOLUME V
WOMEN OF MEDIAEVAL FRANCE
BY
PIERCE BUTLER, PH. D.
OF TULANE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA
[Illustration 1:
ODETTE DE CHAMPDIVERS AND CHARLES VI.
After the painting by Albrecht de Vriendt.
The king, now often idiotic when he was not raving,... To amuse and
distract him, and also to strengthen the Burgundian influence, the Duke
of Burgundy provided him with a fair child as playmate and mistress. To
the sway once held by Valentine over Charles there now succeeded Odette.
She was little more than a child, but she became mistress as well as
playfellow of the mad king. Of humble origin (daughter of a horse
dealer), she wears in court history a name better than that she was born
to, Odette de Champdivers; and the people, indulgent of the sin of the
mad king, called her "la petite reine" She was happy, it seems, and kind
to the king, amused him, was loved by him; and, more true to him than
was quite pleasing to the Burgundians, did not play false to France in
later years when Burgundy and England were leagued together.]
Woman
In all ages and in all countries
VOLUME V
WOMEN OF MEDIAEVAL FRANCE
BY
PIERCE BUTLER, PH. D.
Of Tulane University of Louisiana
ILLUSTRATED
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE BARRIE & SONS, PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT. 1907, BY GEORGE BARRIE & SONS Entered at Stationers' Hall,
London
TO
M. L. B. AND J. P. B.
PREFACE
IT is the customary privilege of the author to meet you at the
threshold, as it were, bid you welcome, and in his own person explain
more fully and freely than he may elsewhere the plan and intent of his
book. After you have crossed this imaginary boundary you may judge for
yourself, weigh and consider, and condemn even with scant regard for the
author's feelings; for as a guest it is your privilege. But here outside
I am still speaking as one with authority and unabashed; for I know not,
and will not let myself fancy, how the reader will censure me. Though
the little that need be said may be said briefly, I trust the reader
will be a reader gentle enough to permit me graciously this word of
general comment upon the whole work.
From the mediaeval _Ladies' Book_, of a kind that will be referred to in
the following pages, to the very latest volume of _Social England_, or
more aptly, perhaps, to the most local and frivolous _Woman's World_
edited by an Eve in your daily paper, all the little repositories of
ebbing gossip help immensely in the composition of a picture of the life
of any period. They are not history; by the dignified historian of a few
generations ago they were neglected if not scorned; but more and more
are they coming to their own as material for history. In like manner the
volume hardly claims to be a formal history, but rather ancillary to
history. It has been the aim to present pictures from history, scenes
from the lives of historic women, but above and through all to give as
definite an idea as might be of the life of women at various periods in
the history of mediaeval France.
The keenness of your appetite for the repast spread will be the measure
of the author's success. But whether I have been successful or not, the
purpose was as has been said. Figures more or less familiar in history
have been selected as the centrepieces; but scarcely anywhere have I
felt myself bound to expound at length the political history of France:
that was a business in which few women had a controlling voice, however
lively their interest may have been, however pitifully or tragically
their fate may have been influenced by battle or politics or mere
masculine capricious passion.
"Theirs not to reason why;
Theirs but to do or die,"
may be said of the soldier. Of these women of mediaeval France, as of
all in the good days of old, it might be better said that it was not
even theirs to do; the relief of action was not theirs; but to suffer
and to die, without question. Yet the life was not all pain and
suffering and sadness, as the scenes depicted will show. It is merely
that the laughter has fallen fainter and fainter and died away--comedy
perishes too often with the age that laughed at it--while the tears have
left their stain.
With this little hint to the reader I have done, and let the book tell
him more if he please. To those who helped me in the writing of, nay,
who made it possible to write this book, my gratitude is none the less
strong that I do not write them down in the catalogue. Many a page will
bring back vividly to them as well as to me the circumstances under
which it was written. May these memories sweeten my thanks to them.
PIERCE BUTLER.
New Orleans.
CHAPTER I
IN THE DAYS OF THE CAPETIAN KINGS
In the older conception, history was a record chiefly of battles, of
intrigues, of wicked deeds; it was true that the evil that men did lived
after them; at least, the even tenor of their ways was passed over
without notice by the chroniclers, and only a salient point, a great
battle or a great crime, attracted attention. If little but deeds of
violence is recorded about men, still less notice does the average
mediaeval chronicler condescend to bestow upon women. History has been
unjust to women, and this is preeminently the case in the history of
France at the period with which we are to begin in this chapter. The age
of the good King Robert was an age of warfare; the basic principle of
feudalism was military service; and what position could women occupy in
a social system dependent upon force? The general attitude toward women
is hinted at by the very fact that, in the great war epic of Roland, the
love story, upon which a modern poet would have laid much stress, is
entirely subordinated; it is the hero and his marvellous valor that the
poet keeps before us. The heroine, if she can be so called, the sister
of Roland's brother in arms, Oliver, is not once named by the hero. In
the midst of the battle, when Roland proposes to sound his horn to
summon Charlemagne to his aid, Oliver reproaches him:
"Par ceste meie barbe!
Se puis vedeir ma gente soror Aide,
Vos ne gerrez jamais entre sa brace."
(By my beard! if I live to see my sister, the beautiful Aude, you shall
never be her husband!) After this she is mentioned no more until
Charlemagne returns to Aix with the sad news of Roland's heroic death.
Then comes to him _la belle Aude_ to ask where is her betrothed Roland.
"Thou askest me for one who is dead," says Charlemagne; "but I will give
thee a better man, my son and heir, Louis." "I understand thee not,"
replies Aude. "God forbid that I should survive Roland!" She falls
fainting at the emperor's feet, and when he lifts her up he finds her
dead. Then he calls four countesses, who bear the body into a convent
and inter it, with great pomp, near the altar. (II. 3705-3731.) _La
belle Aude_ has fulfilled her mission when she dies for love of Roland.
If she had been on the battlefield, she might have dressed Roland's
wounds, since the role of physician and nurse was frequently played by
women. Otherwise there is little use for women in an age of warfare, and
so we shall find most of the good women passed over in silence, and only
those of more masculine traits prominent in the earlier parts of our
story.
Before we can begin the story of those women whose names have come down
to us from the France of the year 1000, it is necessary to have some
sort of understanding of the social, if not of the political, condition
of France, to learn what sort of influences environed and moulded the
lives of women in those days. Such a survey of society, indeed, will be
useful for the whole period of the Middle Ages, and will serve as a
background for the figures of the women we shall have to consider,
whether they be saints or sinners.
At the beginning of the reign of the good King Robert, the France over
which he ruled was still scarcely consolidated. The power of the kings
of France hardly yet extended, in reality, over more than the little
duchy of France, a territory bounded, roughly, by the cities of Orleans
on the south, Sens on the east, Saint-Denis on the north, and Chartres
on the west. Not only were the more powerful barons, counts, and dukes,
among whom the land was parcelled out, subject to the kings only at
their good pleasure, but the very people over whom they directly ruled
were still dimly conscious of the fact that they sprang from different
races. Even as late as the middle of the tenth century we hear of
"Goths, Romans, and Salians" as more or less distinct. The fusion of the
several races on the soil of France was, however, at that time probably
complete in all but name, if we except the Celts in Brittany; even the
latest arrivals in France, the Norsemen, had ceased to be mere wandering
freebooters and were fast developing, like the rest of France, a caste
of hereditary nobles whose title and power depended upon the tenure of
land.
We may roughly divide the society of the period into four classes. In
the first we must place the nobles and their bands of retainers. In the
second we find the churchmen, the greater among whom are hardly to be
distinguished from the secular nobility, Below these, and a long
distance below, come the inhabitants of the larger towns, the merchants
and the better class of artisans. At the bottom, trodden down to the
very soil from which they are forced to extract food for all the rest,
and perhaps, if any is left, for themselves, come the peasantry.
Since the disruption of the great conglomerate empire of Charlemagne,
the power of the nominal kings of France had been gradually restricted.
Powerless to protect the kingdom from the attacks of foreign enemies,
the king was also powerless to preserve order within it. Personal
immunity from force could be obtained only by the use of force; and if
one were not strong enough to protect one's self, the only way was to
purchase protection from a stronger neighbor. This was the reason for
the growth of the complicated system of feudalism, with whose remote
origins and exact details we are not here concerned.
As regards the influence of the feudal system upon the position of
women, it might be safe to say that feudalism at first made little
change in their condition. They enjoyed neither more nor less rights
than during the ages of barbaric _Sturm und Drang_; but certainly they
found a little greater security against violence and oppression, since
greater security was the general aim and the general effect of
feudalism. The weak must always occupy a relatively better position in a
compactly organized society than in a democracy of violence; and so the
feudal system, retaining for women such small civil rights as they
already possessed, added a greater personal security.
This was not all. Though the transmission of property, on which all
social standing was based, was regularly from male to male, and though
female heirs might be passed over or disposed of by violence or
chicanery, there were exceptions, which become more numerous as we go
on. It cannot be said that there was at any time absolute prohibition of
a daughter's inheriting from her father. In the Salic law, so called,
there was a provision that "no part _of the salic land_ shall pass to a
woman;" but all land was not salic, or allodial, and this provision was
later held to apply particularly to the lands of the crown, and hence to
the crown itself, as we shall see. Under the feudal system, the fief was
held on condition of military service, and each vassal, as a rule, must
_servir son fief_ (do the service of his fief) in person; but it was
expressly stipulated that ecclesiastics, women, and children could
perform this service by proxy, generally through a seneschal or baillie.
Though warlike churchmen not infrequently led their vassals in person,
witness the Bishop of Beauvais at the battle of Bouvines, "who shed no
blood, though he brake many bones with his club," women appeared but
rarely in the earlier time as Amazons, and then half in sport, as in the
case of Queen Eleanor in the second Crusade.
But, however they chose to perform their duty in the _host_ summoned by
the sovereign's _ban general_, women were recognized as members of the
feudal nobility. At the very top we find them, among the immediate great
vassals of the crown, the _pairs de France_. We find, for example,
Mathilde, or Mahault, Countess of Artois, sitting as a peer in the
assembly which rendered judgment against the claims of her nephew,
Robert, to the countship of Artois, in 1309; and the same countess
receives a special summons to attend the court of peers in 1315; and in
the next year, at the coronation of Philip V., she is among the peers
who hold the crown over the king's head. This function was also
performed by another Countess of Artois at the consecration of Charles
V., in 1364.
In less exalted stations, too, women held fiefs, and there may
frequently have been personal reasons for the suzerain's preferring
female vassals. For first by custom, and then by written law (see the
_Assises de Jerusalem_ and the _Etablissements de Saint Louis_), the
suzerain exercised a right of guardianship over his female vassals,
maids or widows, as long as they were unmarried. In England very serious
abuses followed from this right of wardship, as it was called, and the
unfortunate French girls and children who were subjected to it were no
better off than the English. We are not especially concerned here with
the case of minor heirs under _garde-noble_, or ward, except where these
heirs were girls. The girl so situated must not marry without the
consent of the lord who held the _garde-noble_ of her person and of her
domain. If she did so she was liable to fines and even to forfeiture of
her fief; and this power was one which the feudal lords did not hesitate
to exercise. We find Saint Louis objecting to the marriage of Jeanne,
heiress of the county of Ponthieu, to the King of England, and to the
marriage of the Countess of Flanders, widow of Count Ferrand, to Simon
de Montfort, a vassal of the King of England. Both these instances show
the reason which, in such a system as feudalism, underlay a power
apparently so arbitrary; the suzerain, in mere self-defence, could not
allow one of his fiefs to fall into the possession of a possible enemy.
There was another right, a corollary to this one. The lord could compel
his female ward to marry in order that the military duties of the fief
might be performed by a man. Saint Louis compelled Matilda of Flanders
to marry Thomas, Prince of Savoy. The famous _Assises de Jerusalem_,
organizing one of the most compact bodies which feudalism developed, to
defend the Holy Sepulchre in the midst of hostile infidels, contains
express provisions on this subject. According to this code, the baron
could say to his female vassal: "Dame, you owe service of marriage." He
then designated three suitable candidates, and she had to choose from
among them. The regulations of the so-called _Etablissements de Saint
Louis_ on this subject are so interesting that we may give a paraphrase
of a considerable portion of them. "When a lady becomes a widow, and is
advanced in years, and has a daughter, the seigneur to whom she owes
allegiance may come to her and say: 'Dame, I wish you to give me surety
that you will not marry your daughter without my advice and consent, or
without the advice and consent of her father's relatives; for she is the
daughter of my liegeman, and therefore I do not wish her to be deprived
of this advice.' Then it behooves the lady to give him due surety. And
when the girl shall be of marriageable age, if the lady find anyone who
asks her in marriage, she must come before the seigneur and the
relatives of the girl's father and say to them: 'Sire, my daughter is
asked in marriage, and I will not give her without your consent, nor
should I do so. Now give me your good and faithful counsel; for a
certain man has asked for her' (and she must give his name). And if the
seigneur say: 'I do not wish this man to have her, for so-and-so, who is
richer and of better rank than the one you have named, has asked me for
her, and will take her willingly' (and he shall name the man); or if the
relatives on the father's side say: 'We know a richer and a better man
than either of those you have named to us' (and they shall name him);
then shall they deliberate and choose the best of the three and the one
most advantageous to the demoiselle. And he who is chosen as the best
should be really thought so, for no one should make a mockery of law.
And if the lady marry her daughter without the consent of her seigneur
and of the relatives on the father's side, after she had been forbidden
to do so, she shall lose her movable goods," on which the seigneur is
given the power of distraint. There is in this enactment elaborate
provision for satisfying everybody but the person one would think most
interested the young lady. Her consent to the arrangement was, to the
mediaeval mind, a matter of small moment.
The powers thus given to the seigneur by formal law were certainly
exercised by right of custom, and probably with far less restraint of
justice than that provided for in the _Etablissements_. For caprice,
tyranny, or avarice might be satisfied by forcing an unfortunate ward
into marriage. Frequently, the unscrupulous baron forced his ward to
marry the highest bidder, or proposed some absolutely impossible
candidate for her hand merely to have her buy her freedom. "You will
either marry this decrepit old knight, to whose rank and wealth you
cannot reasonably object, or you will pay me so much." We can well
imagine that the impulse of youth would suggest surrender of almost any
worldly wealth to have "freedom in her love." The romances are full of
incidents akin to this, where the authority of either father or guardian
was exerted in vain; and the romances, however fantastic in some
respects, are but the reflections of actual conditions.
The unmarried woman, whether princess or mere demoiselle, was in a
condition almost as dependent as the serf. If she did not choose to
marry, or if her face or her fortune could not tempt anyone to ask her
in marriage, she might enter a monastery. Indeed, a father unwilling or
unable to provide a suitable dower for her might force her to become a
nun. The eldest son must be provided for first. If the patrimony were
small and the family large, younger sons had to fend for themselves, and
daughters had to take what they could get. The convent was the cheapest
and the safest place in which to establish them.
Yet in the age of feudalism there were certain safeguards for women,
whether these were altogether of feudal origin or merely survivals of
homely, common-sense custom. To cite but a few examples, we find in the
_Assises de Jerusalem_ most stringent provisions for the punishment of
seduction or crimes of violence against women. The statute provides that
the seducer, if he be able to do so and is approved by the parents,
shall marry the girl. In another connection, we learn that in Paris it
was for a while customary to marry such a couple, whether they would or
not, in the obscure little church of Sainte-Marine, and with a ring of
straw as a symbol of their shame. In case marriage was not acceptable to
the parents of the girl, the seducer might provide for her suitably in a
convent, and he himself might be punished by mutilation, confiscation of
his goods, and banishment. The husband had to secure to his wife a
certain proportion of, if not all, her dowry, and in the book of the
customs of Anjou we find it definitely stated that: _Il est usage que
gentil home puit doer sa fame a porte de mostier dou tierz de sa terre_
(It is the custom for a gentleman to endow his wife with the third of
his goods at the church door). Then, to protect widows from oppressive
feudal reliefs, as they were called, the _Etablissements de Saint Louis_
ordain that "no lady shall pay a redemption fee (to secure succession to
the fief), except in case she marry. But if she marry, her husband shall
pay the fee to the seigneur whose vassal she is. And if what is offered
does not please the seigneur, he can claim but the revenues of the fief
for one year."
Once admitted to the recognized class of the nobility, either as a wife
or as one of the greater vassals, a woman's position was decidedly
improved. Her rights were not many, but yet the feudal chatelaine
occupied a position of some dignity and importance. She was regarded as
in some sort the representative of her husband during his presence as
well as during his absence. The _Assises de Jerusalem_ provide, among
other things, that she shall not be proceeded against in court as the
representative of her husband until a respite of a year and a day has
elapsed, to allow for his possible return; and in the chateau, at all
times the lady had charge of domestic affairs, and on state occasions
shared the dignity of her husband.
The feudal chateau of a great baron was not only a fortress to secure
him against his enemies; it was also a home for his family and for
scores of dependents and retainers, and frequently a hostelry for the
entertainment of travellers of high and low degree. The moat, the
drawbridge and portcullis, the strong walls pierced with narrow slits to
admit scant light and air in time of peace and to deliver arrows in time
of war, the battlements, and the lofty tower of strength, all these are
familiar in our conceptions of the feudal castle. Many of us have
followed Marmion in his mad dash under the descending portcullis and
across the drawbridge of Lord Angus's castle; and we have watched the
arrows flying against the walls of Front de Boeuf's donjon and old mad
Ursula raving on its battlements. But the other features of the
dwellings, though sometimes described with equal care by the great Sir
Walter and his disciples, attract less attention and fade sooner from
our memories. Such a manor hall as that of Cedric the Saxon should be
kept in mind if we wish to get a fair idea of the actual life of the
better classes, not only in England but in France, for the main features
of the architecture and of the furnishings were the same. The nature and
extent of the fortifications might vary greatly, according to the power
or ambition of the owner; but the domestic arrangements of the feudal
home would be substantially the same in all.
The main portion of the house was given up to a huge hall. Entering the
gateway of the outer wall, one found one's self in a court, around which
were ranged the great hall, the smaller sleeping apartments, the
domestic offices, and the stables. Every possible provision was made for
men and animals to live within the enclosure in case of siege. The great
hall itself was usually at least thirty or forty feet in length, and
often so wide that its high, vaulted roof had to be supported on a row
of columns extending down the middle. In the ceiling was a hole, or
_louvre_, to allow the smoke to escape when fire was lighted on the
hearth in the centre of the floor for chimneys were used as yet, if at
all, only in the smaller rooms. At one end of the hall there was
probably a slightly elevated dais, or platform, on which were the seats
for the lord and lady, and perhaps for distinguished guests. In the tall
ogival windows, which were glazed only in the houses of the very
wealthy, were window seats, and along the rude board or table in the
body of the hall were rough benches and stools for the retainers and
guests of lesser rank. And if the lord were rich, there would be a
gallery, at the opposite end from the dais, for the minstrels who played
during banquets. Armorial bearings and weapons and armor hung upon the
walls. If the roof were so broad as to require the support of pillars,
these and the arches of the roof were decorated with carving. Sometimes
a further effect of color might be added by tapestries upon the walls,
and sometimes, though rarely, by mural paintings, as we are told in the
lay of _Guingamor_:
"La chambre est paint tut entur;
Venus, la devesse d'amur,
Fu tres bein en la paintur."
(The room is painted all about; Venus, the goddess of Love, was
beautifully pictured in the painting.)
The floor of the hall might be of wood, though at the early period of
which we write it was very commonly of earth. There were no carpets,
except in palaces of great luxury, even at a much later date; instead,
the floor was covered with rushes or straw. Straw was anciently one of
the symbols of investiture; in the Salic law the person conveying an
estate cast a wisp of straw into the bosom of him to whom the property
was to be conveyed. With this custom in mind, we can understand the
anecdote told by Alberic des Troisfontaines of William the Conqueror.
The floor of the room in which he was born was covered with straw. The
newborn child, having been placed on the floor for a moment, seized in
his tiny hands a bit of the straw, which he held vigorously. _"Parfoi!"_
cried the midwife, _"cet enfant commence jeune a conquerir."_ Obviously,
the anecdote, with its allusion to the Conquest, was made up long after
the event, but it serves to show that even in the mansions of the well
to do straw was the usual floor covering; and even much later we do not
find the old coverings of rushes, branches, or straw displaced by
carpets. In 1373 the inhabitants of a certain town (Aubervilliers) were
exempted from a feudal tax on condition of their furnishing annually
forty cartloads of straw to the hotel, or palace, of Charles V., twenty
to that of the queen, and ten to that of the dauphin. On special
occasions the ordinary straw might be displaced by fresh green boughs
upon the floor and against the walls. Froissart tells us that on a very
warm day "the count of Foix entered his chamber and found it all strewn
with verdure and full of fresh new boughs; the walls all about were
covered with green boughs to make the room more fresh and fragrant....
When he felt himself in this fresh new chamber, he said: 'This greenery
refreshes me greatly, for assuredly this has been a hot day.'" When the
rushes or straw remained long on the floor without being renewed, as was
assuredly often the case, trampled on by men and used as a couch by the
dogs of the establishment, the effect must have been quite other than
refreshing. This must have been the case in many a private house, but
especially in such public places as the great churches and the great
university of the Sorbonne, whose students sat on the floor upon straw,
and had to pay twenty-five sous each to the chancellor for furnishing
it.
In the hall of the castle thus rudely furnished the inmates lived a
large part of their lives. There the household assembled for meals.
There the minstrel, if one chanced to be present, recited his romance.
There the lord in person, or his seneschal or baillie, held his court to
administer justice. It was the common room of the house, and usually
contained all there was in the way of decoration. Comfort even here was
hardly to be found; one can fancy that the fire on the open hearth gave
out more smoke than heat, and the windows, often entirely unglazed and
ill-fitting, let in more cold than light.
The smaller apartments were even less pretentious in the way of comfort.
Opening out of the hall, or arranged around the court, were little
cubby-holes of places to serve as sleeping apartments. The furniture in
them was of the simplest description, and one was not even sure of
finding a bedstead; for unless the occupant were outrageously affected
by what the old folks doubtless called the degenerate effeminacy of the
age--in the year 1000--his bed was apt to be made on the floor, or in a
bunk against the wall. Sometimes there was a larger apartment opening
from the rear of the hall and destined for the private use of the lord
and his lady. As luxury increased, this apartment gradually became
better furnished, and at length there developed the lady's bower, where
she might retire with her maids. Of these there would often be a goodly
number, some mere domestics, some young girls of good family sent to
learn polite manners and domestic arts under the lady of the castle. In
the bower also tapestries would be hung on the walls, and, in place of
arms, perhaps there would be the various musical instruments in popular
use, particularly the harp, in various forms, known as _psalterions,
cythares, decacordes_; the rote, which was what we should now call a
viol; various forms of violins, such as the rebec and the lute; guitars;
and perhaps flutes. The use of these instruments was, of course, not
unknown to the ladies themselves, and we find many references in the
romances to maidens at the courts playing upon the harp and singing,
though the professional minstrel or the page in training was oftener the
performer.
In the bower, the lady was not occupied with mere amusements. We are apt
to forget that our more complex civilization has taught us to rely upon
others to do many things which even our great-grand-mothers had to do
for themselves. Placed in the position of Robinson Crusoe, even with the
help of the simple tools which Defoe allows him to have, how helpless
would be the average man of to-day, simply because, from long dependence
on the little conveniences of modern life,--from Lucifer matches and
cooking stoves to ready-made clothing and ready-made houses,--he would
have lost the use of the most elementary faculties. So the female
Crusoe, in a feudal castle lone island, far from the conveniences of
town and shops, must, if she expected to get any comfort for herself and
those around her, know how to do innumerable small things that even the
modern shopgirl finds done for her as a matter of course.
She must know how to make bread, without question. In the romance of
King Florus a faithful wife disguises herself as a page and accompanies
her husband without his recognizing her. They fall upon evil days, and
the wife-page earns a living for herself and her master by starting a
bakery and eventually an inn. The lady of the manor must not only know
how to make the greater part of the clothing that she wears, but must
know how to weave the cloth of which her gown is made, and to spin the
yarn from which cloth and thread alike must come, and to card the wool
or prepare the flax before that. If soap be considered necessary,--and
there seems to have been no excessive use of it,--it would be wise for
her to know how to make it, since there might be no place near by where
soap could be bought. Candles, too, of a rude sort, or some sort of
rushlight, for domestic use, it would be well to know how to make; and,
of course, she should know how to make cheeses and to cure meats for use
during the long months when fresh meats might not be had. Even on the
tables of the rich, salt meats were the staple article. Unable to
provide for the feeding of large flocks through the winter--forage was
scarce, root crops were little cultivated for stock, and the omnipotent
potato had not yet come to its own,--the lord's steward would have a
large number of animals slaughtered just at the beginning of winter, and
the flesh of these had to be salted down. The good housewife would, of
course, know something of the process. Though in large households the
management of the male servants, the outdoor servants generally, fell to
the steward or baillie, the lady even here undoubtedly had to give a
general supervision, and had to provide work for and maintain discipline
among the women of the household. It must have required no small amount
of ability and tact, therefore, successfully to be the lady of the
chateau.
We need not pause here to consider the amusements and the traditional
occupations of women, such as fine sewing and embroidery, or music and
the care of flowers. These can best be noticed when we examine the
romances of a later age.
For women of the upper classes feudalism was not, we may say, entirely
unjust or evil in its operations; but as feudalism meant oppression
verging on slavery for Jacques Bonhomme, the peasant, his wife Jeanne
could hardly have been in better case. With peasant marriages the
seigneur could interfere even more tyrannically than with those of his
feudal wards. In some places the bride and groom owed to the seigneur
certain gifts called _mets de manage_. On the day of the wedding these
"must be brought to the chateau by the bride, accompanied by musicians;
the said mets shall consist of a leg of mutton, two fowls, two quarts of
wine, four loaves of bread, four candles, and some salt, under pain of a
fine of sixty sous." In some places that most infamous right known _par
excellence_ as the _droit du seigneur_ was claimed, and we find a writer
even as late as the seventeenth century recording the fact that the
husband was sometimes required to purchase his bride's exemption from
this right.
At the early date of which we write, however, there is little or no
information to be had about the peasantry; the monkish chroniclers
mention them but rarely, and then unsympathetically. Popular literature,
with its _lais, contes, fabliaux_, or rude dramas in which Jacques and
Jeanne appear, did not yet exist. We may, however, guess from the
barbarity with which they were treated how near to that of the brutes
was their condition.
About the year 997, soon after the death of the glorious Duke Robert the
Fearless, the peasants of Normandy began to murmur against the wrongs
they had to suffer. "The seigneurs," they said, "only do us harm; on
account of them we have neither gain nor profit from our labor. Every
day they take from us our work animals for feudal services. And then
there are the laws, old and new, and pleas and lawsuits without end,
about coinage, about forest rights, about roads, about milling our
grain, about _hommage_. There are so many constables and bailiffs that
we have not one hour of peace; every day they are pouncing down on us,
seizing our goods, chasing us away from our land. There is no guarantee
for us against the seigneurs and their men, and no contract holds good
with them. Why do we allow ourselves to be treated thus, instead of
trying to right our wrongs? Are we not men as they are? Courage is all
we need. Let us therefore bind ourselves together by an oath, swearing
to sustain each other. And if they make war upon us, have we not, for
one knight, thirty or even forty young peasants, active, and fit to
fight with clubs, with pikes, with bows and arrows, yea, with stones if
there be no better weapons? Let us learn how to resist the knights, and
we shall be free to cut the trees, to hunt, to fish at our own sweet
will; and we will do as we please upon the water, in the fields, and in
the forests." They held secret meetings, and finally formed some sort of
an organization. But the seigneurs got wind of their designs. The young
Duke Richard sent for his uncle, Raoul, Count of Evreux. "Sire," said
Raoul, "do not you stir a foot, but leave it all to me." He collected a
force of knights and men at arms, and, informed by a spy of the meeting
place of the peasants, bore down upon them suddenly and arrested all the
ringleaders. Then came the punishment, the like of which was not
uncommon, though the victims were more numerous than usual. Some were
empaled outright; some were cooked before a slow fire; some were
sprinkled with molten lead. Others had their eyes torn out, their hands
cut off, their legs scorched; and of these victims the few who survived
were sent back among their fellows to inspire terror.
One can well believe that these horrors and the ever present sight of
those who had suffered from them kept the peasants in awe, as the old
chroniclers exultantly tell us. The account as given in Wace's _Roman de
Rou_ has in our eyes a pathos and a poetic grandeur far greater than the
chronicler's enthusiastic record of the deeds of the great Norman dukes.
With us the democratic spirit, or mere humanity, is so much stronger
than with him that we read his lines with feelings of pity and
indignation quite unforeseen by him. Is it not pitiful, this cry of the
peasants?
"Nus sumes homes cum il sunt,
Tex membres avum cum il unt,
Et altresi grant cors avum,
Et altretant sofrir poum."
(We are men even as they are, we have limbs and bodies like theirs, and
can suffer as much.) One hears the echo of Shy lock's "Hath not a Jew
eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections,
passions?" The feudal ages would have answered Jew and peasant alike
with an emphatic "No!"
The barbarism in the suppression of this revolt is merely a typical
instance of the prevailing cruelty of manners. It was not the peasant
alone, regarded as hardly the same flesh and blood, to whom the seigneur
was cruel. Let us look at a few of these famous knights, and first at
the deeds of one notoriously wicked even in his own day. This was
Foulques, surnamed Nerra, the black, Count of Anjou, and ancestor of the
Plantagenet line. This same Foulques was twice married. His first wife,
Elizabeth, accused of adultery--probably because he wished to get rid of
her,--he disposed of by violent methods. One account reports that he had
her burned alive; another, that he had her thrown over a precipice; and
as she survived this, he, scandalized by her refusal to die in this more
picturesque fashion, stabbed her himself. One is reminded of Nero, that
most cheerful of the Roman murderer-emperors, who contrived an elaborate
machine to drown his mother, and, when she swam ashore, was so irritated
by the failure of his scheme that he had her summarily decapitated.
Foulques's second wife was so ill used that she fled to the Holy Land.
The pious count once burned down the church of Saint-Florent at Saumur,
calling out to the saint: "Let me burn your old church here, and I'll
build you a far finer one in Angers." And later he did build a huge
abbey, which no one of the neighboring bishops would consecrate; but a
judicious application to Rome, backed by a present, brought a cardinal
to consecrate it; and the wrath of Heaven was shown, says the
chronicler, for the new church was destroyed by lightning. At length the
devout Foulques, who had made two previous pilgrimages to the Holy Land,
was so smitten by remorse that he undertook a third. When he arrived at
Jerusalem he had himself tied to a hurdle and dragged through the
streets, while two of his servants flogged him, and he cried out at
every blow: "Have mercy, O Lord, on the perjured traitor, Foulques!" We
are not told--but it is probable--that the servants who did the flogging
either did not survive very long, or else were wise enough to flog very
gently. Foulques, however, died on his way back from Jerusalem.
Then there is the story of the chatelaine of the magnificent castle of
Ivri, Alberede, or Aubree, wife of Raoul, Count of Evreux, half-brother
of Richard I. She employed Lanfred, the most accomplished architect of
the time, who had built the strong castle of Ponthiviers (about 1090),
to build the castle of Ivri, stronger and more cunningly devised than
any other. When he had finished, in order that he might build no better
castle, or might not reveal the secrets of the fortifications of Ivri,
she had his head cut off. But Count Raoul was a prudent man, and took
the hint. He had Alberede executed too.
One Norman gentleman, Ascelin de Goel, having had the good luck to
capture his feudal lord, held him for ransom; and in order that he might
be encouraged to pay more, had him exposed at an open north window, in
his shirt, and poured cold water over him, that the winter winds might
freeze it. And even the mild and saintly King Robert, in his war against
the Duke of Burgundy, laid waste the country far and wide, massacred
defenceless peasants, and did not spare even monasteries and churches,
since peasants and monasteries alike were regarded as but the goods of
the duke, which it was his right to destroy.
The Church had some redress for the evils suffered. The pious and
superstitious king was tormented nearly all his life by the threats of
eternal damnation which the Church held over him. This brings us to a
consideration of the influence of the Church upon manners in general and
upon the condition of women.
Though there were many ambitious, greedy, and cruel priests; though many
of them lived in open defiance of the Church's prohibition of marriage
among the clergy,--there were several married bishops at an earlier
period, and one of these, the Bishop of Dole, actually plundered his
church to dower his daughters,--the Church as a whole unquestionably
stood for the best in manners and in morals. After Charlemagne's vain
attempts to revive popular education, what learning there was existed
only among the clergy. Though themselves forming part of the feudal
nobility and holding fiefs for which they owed military service, the
bishops, abbots, and priors almost always espoused the cause of the weak
and the oppressed. Within the precincts of the church the poor fugitive
from violence done in the name of justice was offered sanctuary, and the
right of sanctuary was usually respected.
Within the walls of the monastery women were offered safety. There were
many, of course, who might choose the quiet and the comparative ease of
the cloister life from motives little better than worldly, and others
who might enter with sentiments of romantic devoutness which it is hard
for most of us to appreciate in this day; and both were doubtless
satisfied with what they found in the convent. But there were many
others who had been forced into a life absolutely distasteful to them
and alien to their temperaments. How many of these withered away in
discontent! how many revolted more actively and led lives that brought
reproach and disgrace upon the Church! Among the earliest of the satires
against social abuses we find those against hypocritical, avaricious,
gluttonous, or licentious monks and nuns; and the stream of satire runs
throughout the Middle Ages. Monks live in the _pays de Cocagne_, to gain
admittance to which one had to wallow seven years in filth; monks and
nuns are in Rabelais's _Abbe de Theleme_, and _en leur reigle n'estoit
que ceste clause: fais ce que vouldra_; and monks and nuns again play
anything but edifying roles in the _fabliaux_ and their successors, the
short tales such as one finds in the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_.
Monasteries for women abounded all over France, most of them under some
form of the Benedictine rule. Within their own monasteries women could
govern themselves, though the whole convent was usually dependent upon
male ecclesiastical control, either attached to a neighboring monastery,
or under the jurisdiction of a bishop. In the great double monastic
community of Fontevrault, established about noo by Robert d'Arbrissel,
women were exalted above men; the nuns sang and prayed, the monks
worked, and the entire establishment was under the guidance of the
abbess.
The abbess or prioress occupied a position of responsibility and dignity
not unlike that of the chatelaine. She too had the control of a large
domestic establishment, and she was responsible not only for religious
discipline but for the temporal provision for her nuns. The abbess had
the power of a bishop within the limits of her convent, and bore a
crosier as the sign of her rank. She might even hold some feudal tenure
in the name of her convent. She drew revenues from her holdings and was
in every sense the executive head of her house. At first--always under
some of the stricter rules--the abbess carried on business outside the
convent through some male agent. Greater freedom undoubtedly prevailed
at times, however, and the rule against her leaving the convent was
ignored. She was in some cases appointed, but usually elected from among
the nuns, though cases are found, of course, where the abbess was the
mere creature of some powerful lay or ecclesiastical authority. To
become abbess of a nunnery was not considered beneath even a princess of
the blood; and in some convents probably the same caste distinctions
were observed as prevailed outside, and the nuns were nothing more than
elegant retired ladies of birth and fashion.
The abbess appointed her subordinates, who varied in number and rank
according to the power of the convent. There was generally a
sub-prioress, second in authority to the abbess, and certain minor
executive officers, whose duties were nevertheless important, such as
the chaplain, the sexton, and the cellaress. The chaplain was in most
cases a monk chosen to celebrate Mass for the nuns, since women were not
allowed to become actual priests; but in some cases the officer called
the chaplain was a nun, whether or not she could officiate in all
capacities. The sexton was a nun whose duties were to ring the bells for
services, to keep in order the chapel, the altar, and the sacred
vessels, and sometimes to act as a treasurer. The most interesting of
these officers, however, and the one whose position must have been
really most trying, was the cellaress. It was she who had general
supervision of the commissariat. She was usually chosen upon the advice,
if not by the election, of the whole community, and it was especially
important that she should be a tactful person and a judicious manager.
As housekeeper of the establishment, she had to control the servants and
to satisfy the nuns. In providing food and drink for the household, she
had to manage receipts and disbursements of considerable amounts. Very
frequently a farm was attached to the nunnery, or there were several
farms whose produce was to be used for the support of the institution.
For whatever was bought or sold the cellaress had to make an accounting.
With the proceeds of her sales or of the rent of the farms under her
control, or with the money allowed her, she had to buy such provisions
as were needed: grain, flesh, fish,--usually a very large item,
especially in the Lenten season,--condiments, such as preserved fruits,
spices, salt, etc., and, where the rule did not utterly forbid it, wine
or ale. Of these details we shall speak more fully in connection with
the rules for a model nunnery which Abelard wrote for Heloise and upon
which she based her government of the famous monastery of the Paraclete.
[Illustration 2:
DROIT DU SEIGNEUR.
After the painting by Lucien Melingue.
As feudalism meant oppression verging on slavery for Jacques Bonhomme,
the peasant, his wife Jeanne could hardly have been in better case. With
peasant marriages the seigneur could interfere even more tyrannically
than with those of his feudal wards. In some places the bride and groom
owed to the seigneur certain gifts called _mets de mariage...._ and that
most infamous right known as the _droit du seigneur_ was claimed, and we
find a writer even as late as the seventeenth century recording the fact
that the husband was sometimes required to purchase his bride's
exemption from this right.]
Aside from the protection they afforded to women who might otherwise
have been utterly lost in the rough world, the monasteries were of great
importance in other ways. Whatever it may have become during the period
of the decline of monastic purity, the life in the nunneries, even in
the comparatively dark period about the year 1000, was not an idle one.
The day was carefully portioned off into periods of work, of religious
devotion, and of leisure, which long custom fixed into a routine. The
occupations included what we should now class chiefly as artistic work,
though much of it was at the time really useful in a more homely
way,--weaving of hangings and tapestries for the church, embroidery,
painting and illuminating, and copying of manuscripts. This last was, of
course, work of the highest utility, though the artistic skill displayed
in the writing itself and in the beautiful illuminations made it also an
art. We have few names of actual scribes of either sex, since they
rarely signed the manuscripts they copied; but among these few there are
some of women. The magnificent tapestries, sometimes large enough to
cover in one piece the side of a church, are perhaps the most noteworthy
of the products of the monasteries. So famous was the work of the nuns
in this particular that tradition assigned to them, though perhaps
mistakenly, the production of one of the most famous historical
authorities for the Norman Conquest, the Bayeux tapestries, said to have
been wrought for Bishop Odo of Bayeux by nuns under the direction of
Queen Matilda.
Most important of all in the activities of the convent was education. At
the time of which we write, the standard of learning in the convents was
higher than one would think, and higher than it was some centuries
later; for Latin was still used familiarly among some of the women
educated in convents. The most famous instance of learning is that of
the Saxon nun Hrotsvith, or Roswitha, of the tenth century, who wrote
legends of the saints, dramas on the model of the comedies of Terence,
and chronicles. There were other learned nuns, though none famous in the
French literature of the time, all of whom gained their knowledge in
convents; for it was in convents alone that women could ordinarily
receive any education at all. One of the main purposes of the convent
was to train young girls. Sometimes there was only such training as
would fit them to became novices and eventually nuns, and the degree of
education was of course determined in part by social standing; that is,
a princess would be more carefully trained than a mere demoiselle; but
some convents became famous schools, where education was given for its
own sake, not merely to train those who meant to become nuns. In many
cases, children of both sexes were taught, and girls and boys together
learned Latin. In the romance of _Flore et Blancheflore_, the hero
recalls how he and Blancheflore loved when they were children at school,
"and told each other of our love in Latin, and none understood us." But
the girls were probably better educated, in our sense of the word, than
the boys; for teaching a boy to avoid breaking Priscian's head was then
less necessary than teaching him to break that of his opponent in
battle.
Leaving the convents out of the question, the Church helped the cause of
woman and of humanity by its constant endeavor to repress violence.
About the year 1030 France was afflicted by a succession of bad crops,
resulting, together with the constant waste and ravages of petty wars,
in the most frightful famine. The people in their misery became almost
inhuman; men died in such multitudes that it was impossible to bury
them, and the wolves fed on their flesh; human flesh was actually
offered for sale in the market of Tournus; and one monster, near Macon,
living as a hermit, enticed unwary travellers into his den and there
slew and devoured them! When found out he had a pile of forty-eight
human skulls, those of his victims. In the midst of this horrible state
of affairs the bishops and abbots of all parts of France met in council
and decreed punishment upon whoever should carry arms, and upon whoever
should use violence against defenceless persons, merchants, monks, and
women; not even the refuge of the altar was to protect him who disobeyed
this decree. Raising their hands to heaven all those present cried out,
_Pax! pax! pax!_ in witness of the eternal peace compact, the _Paix de
Dieu_--the Peace of God. Wars had caused much of their distress, and the
kingdom was indeed weary of war, but the millennium had not yet
come,--philosophers still tell us that it is "just beyond the sky
line,"--and the Peace of God was ineffective.
Failing to suppress war, the Church next sought, with more practical
wisdom, to modify its horrors. In 1041 was proclaimed the _Treve de
Dieu_--the Truce of God. All private feuds were to cease during the
period from Wednesday evening to Monday morning, under penalty of fine,
banishment, and exclusion from Christian communion. Then the days of the
great feasts were included in the period of truce, as well as Advent and
Lent. "Churches and unfortified cemeteries," says the chronicler Ranulph
Glaber, "as well as the persons of all clerks and monks, provided they
did not carry arms, were put under the perpetual protection of the Truce
of God. For the future, when making war upon the seigneur, men were
forbidden to kill, to mutilate, or to carry off as captives the poor
people of the country, or to destroy maliciously implements of labor and
crops." This last provision in particular is very interesting. Of
course, powerful barons broke the truce again and again; but it was
there as a real moral force of restraint, and the Church did not forget
to contend for its observance, so that it must have had some effect. To
no class in society could peace have been more welcome, more essential,
than to women, always the sufferers in war.
We have left to the last one most important question in considering the
moral influence of the Church. Surely, the sanctity of the marriage tie
is one of the foundation stones of morality and of civilization; upon it
rests the home, where woman has always found her greatest and surest
happiness. The Church had been struggling for centuries, and was to
struggle some time longer, to make effective its opposition to marriage
among the clergy. Among the secular priests, those not connected with a
monastic order, marriage or concubinage had not by any means ceased, and
we find even bishops leading scandalous lives. But the Church continued
to fulminate its decrees, and the evil grew slowly less and less, till
it existed only among the lower orders of the clergy and in
out-of-the-way places. Monks and nuns alike took the three vows of
poverty, of chastity, and of obedience. We are not concerned with the
general question of whether or not priests should be married, or whether
or not it is wisdom to force the observance of a vow of perpetual
chastity upon young men and women who may have taken such a vow without
duly considering their own temperaments, or who have been compelled to
take it against their wills. Despite the scandals,--scandal has always a
noisy tongue,--there should be no doubt that in the great majority of
cases the vow of chastity was sincerely kept. Within its own limits the
Church discouraged and was soon utterly to forbid marriage; what did it
do to sanctify and to protect marriage outside of the ranks of the
clergy?
Marriage was made one of the seven great sacraments of the Church, and
the breach of the marriage tie was one of the sins most severely
punished. Adultery had been severely punished under the customary laws
of the Franks, usually by the death of both parties with frightful
tortures; and the Church added to the physical punishment inflicted by
the civil law in this world the threat of eternal torments in the next.
Nevertheless, according to the testimony of many who are satirists and
of some who are not, it was the unmarried priest who was the most
frequent offender. An anecdote will illustrate the prevailing looseness
of clerical morals. Wace tells us that a sacristan of Saint-Ouen, in
Rouen, fell in love with a lady who lived across the little river Robec.
As he was stealing across to meet her one dark night, his foot slipped
on the plank by which he was crossing the stream, and he tumbled therein
and was drowned. A devil was just about to pitchfork his soul and carry
it off when an angel appeared, contending that the sacristan had not yet
committed the sin. The case was submitted to Duke Richard, who ordered
that the soul should be returned to the body, and that he would then
judge according to the sacristan's actions. Presto! it was done; and the
monk, his ardor cooled by the ducking, went back to his abbey and
confessed to the abbot. A popular proverb makes the story survive: "Sir
monk, step lightly, and take good care when you cross the plank." Not
only in the Church, but in the world, immorality was too common and too
easily pardoned. It is significant that illegitimacy was the rule rather
than the exception among the Norman dukes, and that William the
Conqueror, himself illegitimate, was conspicuous in his age for marital
fidelity.
The moral theory of the Church was correct enough, however it failed in
practice. Every precaution was taken--indeed, too many were taken--to
prevent hasty and ill-assorted marriages. The banns had to be read three
times in the church; the contracting parties must be of proper age; they
must have the consent of parent or guardian; they must not be related
within the degrees prohibited by the Church; they must not be bound by
any previous vow of chastity or be guilty of any mortal sin.
These provisions would seem to be in the main wise enough, and yet out
of one of them grew a considerable moral evil. Divorce had been
recognized by the Salic law: "Seeing that discord troubles their union,
and that charity reigns not in it, N. and M., husband and wife, have
agreed to separate and to leave each other free either to retire to a
monastery or to remarry," without question or opposition from either
party. So ran one of the formulas; and as a sign of the divorce the keys
of the house were taken from the wife, or a piece of linen was torn
before her. The Church, however, opposed divorce, and declared it
contrary to the spirit of Christianity. Yet, if one were wealthy or
powerful, it was easy to have a marriage annulled, on one pretext or
another. The most frequent was the plea for divorce for reasons of
conscience, since the contracting parties, being within the prohibited
degrees of relationship,--a fact which they had not known at the time of
the marriage,--were guilty of incest in the eyes of the Church, and
prayed to be relieved from the danger of perilling their immortal souls
by deadly sin. Other pleas were resorted to, but this seems to have been
a favorite one. By a subtile division of a hair "'twixt south and
southwest side," this might be considered as not divorce, but the mere
annulment of a contract which had been illegal and unsanctified from the
start; and the distinction was an important one, since the rich noble or
the monarch who had disposed of an objectionable wife in this way, and
who had absolved himself by proper penances and by sufficient gifts to
the Church, might, and generally did, remarry.
It is with the story of a divorce or forced separation that we are
concerned in the case of Queen Bertha. Robert, the son of Hugues Caput,
and the first real king of the Capetian line, was a devoted friend of
Eudes, Count of Champagne and Blois, who proudly styles himself, in his
charters, _Comes Ditissimus_,--richest count of France,--and whom Robert
had honored with the title of count or seneschal of the royal palace.
This Eudes had a beautiful and virtuous wife, Bertha, daughter of King
Conrad the Pacific of Aries, and descended from the great Emperor Henry,
the Fowler. Robert, then married to a princess named Rosella, was
godfather to one of the children of Eudes and his fair cousin Bertha.
Both Princess Rosella and the Comes Ditissimus died. Bertha and Robert
already loved each other, it would seem, since neither mourned very
long. Within a few months they were married, in spite of the protests of
Hugues Capet, who would have liked a more powerful alliance for his son
and heir. Although Bertha and Robert were cousins, it was only in the
fourth degree. This actual relationship, though within the proscribed
degrees, would have been overlooked probably, as well as the spiritual
relationship established by Robert's having stood godfather to one of
Bertha's children, had it not been for the prince's ill luck in
incurring the enmity of certain powerful and active churchmen.
Archambaud, Archbishop of Tours, had issued a special dispensation, and
had blessed the marriage in the presence and with the consent of several
other bishops. But to understand fully the violent opposition which the
marriage encountered from the papal party we must go back to an episode
in the reign of Hugues Capet.
In the course of the last effort of Carl, the heir of the Carlovingian
line, to recover dominion, the Archbishop of Rheims had betrayed Hugues
Capet, and had agreed to introduce Carl's forces into Rheims. It was
proved that this man, Arnoul, or Arnulph, had surrendered the keys of
the city to the emissaries of Carl, and he himself confessed his guilt.
Accordingly, with the sanction of an ecclesiastical court, Arnoul was
deprived of his see, which was given to Gerbert, the tutor of the young
King Robert. The papal party refused to recognize the jurisdiction of
the court which had deposed Arnoul, and which still kept him imprisoned
at Orleans, and a special legate was sent to France to protest against
this action at the very time of Robert's marriage to Bertha. The legate
raised his voice in protest against the incestuous and sinful marriage.
Thinking to appease him, Robert released Arnoul and restored him to his
archbishopric; but to do this he had to depose Gerbert, and by so doing
he made an enemy of one of the most active and able men in the Church,
famous as a theologian, and afterward to become Pope Silvester II.
For a time, however, Bertha and Robert, who loved each other devotedly
and lived in a simple piety quite in contrast to the licentious habits
of the period, were left unmolested. The bribe to Rome was sufficient
for the moment to purchase for them innocent happiness. Robert was most
singularly devout, and was ranked almost as a saint by the
ecclesiastical chroniclers who preserve his story for us. Though a
handsome and well-formed man, and not altogether unfit for martial
exercises, he delighted in pastimes rather befitting a monkish scholar
than a soldier. He was gentle and kind to those about him, especially
the poor and the unfortunate, and was devoted to music. He himself
composed a number of Latin hymns for the Church, some of which are still
retained, notably the sequence to the Holy Spirit, _Adsit nobis gratia_,
and he set many others to tunes of his own composing. He was innocently
vain of his powers as a musician and singer, and on a pilgrimage to Rome
in after years, 1016, he deposited on the altar of Saint Peter his Latin
poems set to music. The very graces and virtues for which his
contemporaries praise Robert are the ones that make him manifestly out
of place as King of France in the year 1000, and the misery of his
domestic career is only more pitiful than the disorder which reigned in
his kingdom. That one of the most pious kings of France should
nevertheless have begun his career in opposition to the Church is very
remarkable.
While Bertha and Robert were enjoying their brief respite from
persecution, the papacy itself was struggling for existence.. At last
the Emperor Otho fought his way into Rome, seized the leader of the
popular party, John Crescentius, "Senator and Consul of Rome," and
pitched him over the walls of the castle of Saint Angelo. The unhappy
Pope, John XVI. was replaced by the emperor's nominee, Gregory V. Almost
as soon as Gregory was seated he summoned a council (998), in which
Gerbert, now Robert's bitter enemy, sat as Bishop of Ravenna. This
council, largely controlled by the vindictive Gerbert, threatened the
kingdom of France with a universal interdict, suspending all religious
rites but those of baptism and extreme unction, if Robert would not
repudiate Bertha. The decree commanded "that King Robert, who has,
contrary to the holy canons of the Church, married his cousin, Bertha,
shall forsake her at once, and shall perform a penance of seven years,
in accordance with the rules and customs of the Church. If he obey not,
may he be anathema! And so also be it as regards Bertha! That
Archambaud, Archbishop of Tours, who consecrated this incestuous union,
and all the bishops who sanctioned it by their presence, be refused the
Holy Communion until such time as they shall have come to Rome to make
amends to the Holy See!"
One can imagine that, to a nature as devout as Robert's, such a curse
was almost overwhelming. Yet he and Bertha endured for some time the
horrors which this excommunication brought upon them, and Robert
resisted with far more spirit than one would have supposed him to
possess. The curse fell upon France, and upon its king and queen, who
were surely no more morally guilty than their unfortunate subjects.
Awful were the effects of the curse, according to Petrus Damianus, who
records with pious unction most of the signs and wonders with which the
age was filled. All save a few of the lowest servants fled from the
accursed presence of Robert and his queen, and even these menials, when
they had prepared the king's food, deemed the very vessels from which he
had eaten polluted by his touch, and purified them by fire or destroyed
them. Bertha was reported to be a foul witch, and to have the foot of a
goose, and was nicknamed _la reine pedauque_, or _pied d'oie_ (Queen
Goose-foot). In her agitation and misery, the child she should have
borne was prematurely brought forth. The charitable Damianus tells us
that it was currently reported to be of monstrous form, having the head
and neck of a swan and not of a human being.
Whether these horrors were direct effects of God's wrath or had birth in
the zealous imagination of a writer whose interest it was to lay on the
colors in his description of the blasting effects of excommunication,
Robert and Bertha had to resign themselves to the cruel separation.
Robert's superstitious fears were worked on by his monkish advisers,
particularly Abbo, Abbot of Fleury, "who incessantly reprimanded the
king, in public and in, private." This holy man, says the biographer of
Robert, "continued his reproaches until the good King acknowledged his
fault and abandoned the wife whom it was not permitted him to possess."
The separation seems to have taken place definitely about the year 1006,
and Robert was to be miserable in his domestic life all the rest of his
days.
He and Bertha had passed part of their married life together in the
midst of a veritable reign of terror. All over Christendom the belief
was general that the end of the work! was at hand. The lurid prophecies
of the Apocalypse were supplemented by texts believed to be prophetic of
the Judgment Day, raked together from all parts of the Scriptures and
from what superstitious ignorance regarded as almost of equal authority,
the Sibylline Leaves. Preachers took as their text the horrors of the
approaching dissolution of the world, when, according to Revelations:
"The stars of heaven fell unto the earth... and the heavens departed as
a scroll when it is rolled together;" or in the magnificent words of a
hymn written long after: _Dies irae, dies illa Solvet, saeclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sybilla_. (Day of wrath! O day of mourning! See
fulfilled the prophet's warning! Heaven and earth in ashes burning!)
They supplemented this picture by accounts of the torments of hell as
reported in the legends of those who had been granted a vision of them.
"Repent ye! repent ye! for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Woe unto
him who in that day shall be found still a sinner!" There was naturally
a paralysis of all useful activities. What was the use of preparing for
the morrow, if there was to be no morrow? During the last year of the
century the terror reached its highest point, and only absolute needs
were attended to. There were great donations to the Lord on the part of
tardy sinners who thought thus to purchase remission of their sins. But
there were also those who refused to repent, and who resolved, since
their life was to be short, to make it as merry as it could be. While
the former crowded the churches, weeping and praying and surrendering
themselves to the terrors suggested by the priest, the latter gave
themselves up to the wildest dissipation. The year 1000 passed away, and
still the stars were in heaven, and the wicked on earth began to breathe
more freely; and when the next year went by without any Day of Judgment,
courage revived, and the Church began to make use of the immense gifts
which impulsive sinners had turned over to her. New cathedrals and new
abbeys rose all over the land.
The pathos of the story of Bertha is heightened when we look at her
successor on the throne. Even in her own day Constance, daughter of
Guilhelm Taillefer, Count of Toulouse, was considered harsh and cruel;
one chronicler euphemistically expresses this when he says: "There was
as much constancy in her heart as in her name." She probably came by her
nature honestly enough, for her mother was Arsinda, sister of that
Foulques Nerra of cheerful memory, who, indeed, according to some
accounts, forced the weak Robert to marry his niece. She was, says the
chronicler, surnamed Candida on account of her excessive fairness, and
is not infrequently called Blanche, the "fair queen." Into the rather
primitive court of the French king, surrounded by his monks and probably
longing for the banished Bertha, she came with a scandalous display of
luxury and frivolity.
The south of France, in contact with Italy, with the cultured Moors of
Spain, and, through its Mediterranean ports, with the most advanced
civilization then known, that of the Arabs, was far in advance of the
northern provinces in civilization, or at least in luxury and knowledge
of the arts usually accompanying civilization. Provence, especially,
with its ancient port of Marseilles to recall memories of the most
cultured nation of antiquity, was in material prosperity and in arts
already advancing to that stage of civilization which was to make her,
in the course of the next century, the mother of the first real
literature France had known and of the first extended protest against
the Church of Rome. The troubadours were soon to make Provence and the
Provencal tongue famous, and the Albigenses, with their heresy, were to
invite the destruction of this gay, brilliant, but unsound society. The
south was already far more gay and pleasure loving than the north, where
the ravages of wars foreign and domestic had been more terrible. And out
of the south came Queen Constance, _la Blanche_, to a court where the
king was more monk than king.
The northerners, always disliking the men of Provence, exclaimed in
horror against the manners and the costume of the horde of Provencal
attendants whom Constance brought with her. "The favor of the queen,"
says Glaber, "attracted into France and Bourgogne many natives of
Aquitaine and Auvergne. These vain and frivolous men showed themselves
to be as ill-regulated in their morals as they were immodest in their
dress. Their armor and the furnishings of their horses were
extraordinary. Their hair fell scarce to the middle of their heads (the
fashion of shaving the back of the head was strange in northern France,
though afterward so prevalent that William's Norman knights were
reported by Harold's spies to be all shaven-crowned monks); they shaved
their beards off as smooth as play actors; they wore boots indecently
turned up in long points at the toes, robes cut off short, reaching to
the knees and divided behind and before; in walking they hopped along!"
Alas for France! the French and the Burgundians, formerly the most
honest and sober of all nations, eagerly followed the "sinful example"
set by the queen's favorites. The whole nation copied these indecent
costumes, and short hair, short robes, and sinfully pointed shoes became
the fashion. As the Puritans inveighed against Babylonish apparel, the
livery of the "scarlet woman," in the shape of Cavalier curls and long
plumes, so the divines of France made a crusade against this livery of
the devil. They declared that the finger of Satan was in all this, and
that the pointed shoes would infallibly carry their wearers to the realm
of the master whose livery they wore. One can hear the very voice of Ben
Jonson's Ananias, the Puritan, as he testifies against the costume of
the Spaniard: "They are profane, lewd, superstitious, and idolatrous
breeches."
Nevertheless, the satanic livery was never utterly thrown aside; and
clothes were not the only things satanic about the new queen. Constance,
high-tempered and energetic, reigned over France through or in spite of
King Robert. Coming of a forceful and warlike race, she must have found
many things distasteful in the weakness and superstition which were the
chief traits she noted in her husband. She and her kinsfolk left him
free to compose hymns, while they ruled France. But when one of his
favorites, Hugues de Beauvais, whom he had made count of the palace,
suggested to Robert that he might get rid of Constance and send for the
ever-regretted Bertha, Constance notified her strenuous uncle Foulques.
Foulques promptly despatched a dozen brave knights, with orders to slay
Hugues whenever and wherever they found him: they found him and murdered
him in the very presence of the king. Robert was too weak to resist
effectively, made his peace with the queen, and gave himself up more and
more to religious devotions.
He used to go to the church of Saint-Denis and sing with the choir and
challenge the singers to a trial of skill. When Constance one day asked
him to compose some song in her honor, he responded with a stave of his
hymn: _O! Constantia martyrum_ (O! faith and constancy of the martyrs),
with which she was as well pleased as if the reference had not been a
bit ambiguous. On a certain occasion, as he was besieging a castle on
the feast of Saint Hippolytus, to whom he professed a special devotion,
he left the army and repaired to Saint-Denis to sing hymns in honor of
the saint. While he was thus engaged, the walls of the castle fell, and
the king's troops entered in; a manifest reward for his singing _Agnus
Dei, dona nobis pacem!_ While he was one day at prayers, shedding many
tears, as was his wont, the vain and worldly-minded Constance adorned
his lance with silver ornaments. The king, finding this sinful waste,
looked out of his door and saw a poor man near by. He sent him off to
get some sort of tool to cut off the decorations, shut himself up in a
room with the fellow, stripped the lance of its silver gewgaws, and gave
them to him, bidding him begone in haste lest the queen see him.
Constance asked what had become of the silver, and Robert "swore by the
Lord's name, though not in earnest," that he knew not what had become of
it.
In spite of this pious perjury, we are told that Robert had a great
horror of lying. The proof of this statement is very interesting. He had
a reliquary made of crystal, set in a golden case, and containing no
relic. Upon this his nobles, ignorant of the deceit, could swear without
danger of risking their souls, in case the oath was false. And as common
folk had souls, too, and might endanger them by false swearing, he had a
similar reliquary, made of silver, in which was deposited nothing more
sacred than an egg. He was constantly endeavoring to shield the petty
malefactors whom his unworldliness had tempted to wrongdoing, and whom
Constance would have punished. It was his habit to have the poor fed
from his table, and on one occasion he had a fellow concealed under the
table at his feet. The man found time between bites to cut off a heavy
gold ornament attached to the king's knee. "What enemy of God, my good
lord, has dishonored your gold-adorned robe?" cried Constance.
"Undoubtedly," said Robert, "he who took it wanted it more than I, and
with God's aid it will be of service to him." One day he saw a young
clerk named Ogger steal a candlestick from the altar in his chapel. The
priests were much disturbed over its loss; and the queen, in a rage,
swore by the soul of her father that she would have the eyes of the
priests torn from their sockets if they did not account for what had
been stolen from the sanctuary. The priests questioned Robert, who,
denying all knowledge of the theft, at once sent for the thief. "Friend
Ogger," said he, "haste thee hence, lest my inconstant Constancy eat
thee up. What thou hast taken will be enough to carry thee to thy own
country. The Lord be with thee." When the thief was beyond danger of
pursuit, Robert cheerfully said: "Why all this pother about a
candlestick? The Lord has given it to some of his poor."
One can well understand that however churchmen might commend this sort
of meekness it was most irritating to Constance. She was full of energy
and vigor, and never jested, says her biographer, about anything. She
and her uncle Foulques, whom Robert had made governor of Paris, ruled
France and fought against the turbulent and rebellious barons, chief
among whom was Eudes II., Count of Blois, of Chartres, of Tours, and of
Champagne, the son of the deposed queen, Bertha. She led in the first
important attack upon heresy. Certain clerks in the city of Orleans
developed a secret, heretical sect which gained many proselytes, among
others a certain Etienne, who had been the confessor of Queen Constance.
Their secret was discovered; they were brought to trial, refused to
recant, and were ordered to execution. As they marched from the church
where they had been tried to the immense funeral pyre, they passed
Constance in the porch of the church. Recognizing Etienne among the
thirteen prisoners, she attacked him furiously, and with a whip put out
one eye of the defenceless victim. This vindictive queen, aggravating
the tortures of the first victims of the new religious persecutions, is
not a pleasant figure in French.
As Robert grew older and it became necessary to determine on a
successor,--the right of the oldest son was not yet altogether
fixed,--Constance began to intrigue against her husband. Robert was in
the habit of saying: "My hen pecks, but she gives me plenty of
chickens." They had had six children; but had lost their eldest son,
Hugues, in 1025. Of the three remaining sons, Eudes, the eldest, was an
idiot; Henry, the second, was his father's choice; and Robert, the
youngest, was favored by Constance, "with her habitual spirit of
contradiction." She said, with some reason, that Henry was weak,
inactive, deceitful, and negligent of affairs, and could no more be king
than his father could; whereas Robert had far more energy and sense than
his brothers. For once, the king resisted, and with the consent of the
peers assured the succession to Henry. Constance fomented ill feeling
between the two sons, and between Henry and his father. Robert, with the
notion that injustice had been done him, was soon in revolt against his
father. But the queen had always been so harsh to all her children that
none of them seem to have had faith in her or affection for her, and the
two brothers, Henry and Robert, soon became reconciled to each other and
made a joint invasion of their father's dominions, pillaging his castles
and territories. The poor king, after many ravages had been committed,
at length bribed his sons to let him sing his last hymns in peace. Henry
was to succeed to the throne, and Robert became Duke of Burgundy.
The peace thus made did not long outlast King Robert. He died in July,
1031, and the monks mourned their friend and protector, and many of the
poor sincerely bewailed the loss of their "good father"; but there is no
sign of any excessive grief on the part of Constance. She soon gave the
kingdom cause to mourn in other fashion; for no sooner was Henry I.
seated on his throne than his mother began to stir up rebellion against
him. She had always been violent in private as in public life, and
treated Henry in particular "as if she hated him like a stepmother." Her
intrigues now were so far successful that she won over to her side most
of the direct vassals of the crown, and the greater number of the towns
in the duchy of France declared themselves in favor of placing Robert,
Duke of Burgundy, on the throne. By surrendering the county of Sens to
her old enemy, Eudes, Count of Blois, Constance gained his aid. This
plot of a mother against her son was successful in all but one main
point: the other son, in whose name she was preparing to wage civil war,
took no active part against his brother, and appears to have remained
quietly in Burgundy. Perhaps he was wise enough to understand that what
Constance was really scheming for was the continuance of her own power,
and that if placed on the throne he would have been completely under her
control.
In this crisis of the affairs of the kingdom, Henry, fleeing with a
following of but twelve vavasours, called upon Normandy for aid; and
most effective aid he had from one whose name was to become famous, a
nucleus for the gathering of romance. This was Duke Robert of Normandy,
surnamed Robert the Devil, who carried on a predatory warfare so savage
and so successful that most of the revolted lords near the borders of
Normandy "bowed their heads before him." Old Foulques Nerra, probably in
one of his edifying fits of repentance, at length brought Constance to a
reconciliation with Henry, reproaching her with the brutal fury with
which she was treating her son. The miserable queen, who had caused so
much unhappiness to her husband and to her sons, did not long survive
the peace, dying at Melun in July, 1032. Her ally Eudes continued the
struggle some little while, but was at last vanquished and forced to
disgorge half of the county of Sens which Constance had given him as a
bribe.
Thus ends the life of one of the first of the French queens who really
took an active part in affairs. Beautiful, witty, and full of graces and
caprices essentially feminine, as well as of some masculine qualities,
she yet appears to have inspired no love, nothing but dread, in anyone
who came near her; and the chroniclers of the time seem to delight in
telling anecdotes illustrative of her wickedness as contrasted with
Robert's saintliness. But we must remember that at least she
accomplished something, and that her enemies tell her story.
At the period of which we write, Normandy was all powerful, and the
Capets had come to look upon her dukes now as their most dangerous foes
and now as their most useful friends. Duke Robert the Magnificent, as
his courtiers called him, or Robert the Devil, as literature knows him,
had an amour which is interesting as showing that class distinctions
were not so rigid as one might think. According to Wace's story of the
romance:
"A Faleize ont li Dus hante,...
Une meschine i ont amee,
Arlot ont nom, de burgeis nee."
(The duke did much frequent Falaise,... There he loved a girl named
Arietta, born of a burgess of the town). Arietta, the tanner's daughter,
was to become a figure of romance in the story of Robert the Devil; but,
romance or no romance, she was the mother of the greatest of the Norman
dukes, William the Conqueror, born in 1028. William had hard work to
keep his place in Normandy, but we cannot stop to tell of the long and
successful struggle which he waged against the haughty barons who
refused to bow to the illegitimate son of the tanner's daughter. We all
know the story of how the citizens of Alencon, which he was besieging,
beat skins upon the walls of one of their redoubts, crying: "Work for
the tanner!" and how William captured the redoubt, cut off the hands and
feet of the unlucky jokers, and threw them over the town walls.
With a man of such temper, it is not unnatural that there should have
arisen a curious story of his courtship, which began soon after this
episode at Alencon. Engaged in constant conflict with his neighbors,
William determined at least to secure the friendship of Flanders. He
sought the hand of Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, Count of Flanders.
Mauger, William's uncle, objected to the marriage, because Matilda and
William were cousins, and caused the clergy to prohibit it. The Pope
issued a special pronouncement against it. With him William could not
proceed after the manner which doubtless most commended itself to him,
but when the Italian Lanfranc, at the monastic school of Bee, dared to
pronounce the marriage sinful, William promptly gave orders to burn down
the farms from which the monks drew their sustenance, and to banish
Lanfranc. But a shrewd display of courage and wit on Lanfranc's part
made William his friend; and soon it was agreed that if William would
found two monasteries the sin of his marriage would be forgiven him.
The chronicles of Tours report that Matilda herself objected to wedding
the bastard of Normandy. The match, however, had been agreed to by her
father, and William had set his heart on it. As proof of his
determination, if not of his lover-like devotion, he waited for her as
she came out of church one day, and whipped her till she consented to
marry him! And as some writers assert, even after the marriage he
continued to use this sort of suasion with his duchess, finally causing
her death by his brutality. Despite this unlovely beginning, the
marriage was a happy one. Matilda was beautiful, virtuous, and of strong
character, so that she won her husband's confidence and love. In an age
of scandalous marital infidelity, he was faithful to her. She was his
faithful friend and counsellor through life; and when he went on that
perilous voyage of adventure to win the English crown, it was she who
was left in charge of the duchy of Normandy; she who was praying for her
husband's safety in the priory she had founded at Rouen, when she heard
the news of the great victory of Hastings, and christened the church
Bonne Nouvelle; she who welcomed him back to his capital of Rouen after
the success in England.
The purity and devotion of the Conqueror's queen present a picture very
different from that of Bertrade de Montfort, who, like the wicked
Constance, was connected with the house of Anjou. Philip I., a pitiable
_roi faineant_, had married, in 1071, Bertha of Holland, by whom he had
had three children. Having wearied of her, he sent her off to the
chateau of Montreuil, prepared for her long before as a wedding bower,
and then discovering one of those convenient relationships we have
mentioned, succeeded in having his marriage annulled. Having thus
relieved his conscience, it was but natural that he should begin to look
about him--he may have looked before--for a wife whom he might keep for
a while without distressing his conscience. He found this helpmeet in
Bertrade de Montfort, with whom he fell in love while on a trip to
Tours, in 1092. It is true that "a good man could find naught to admire
in her but her beauty," and that her husband, another Foulques of Anjou,
was still living. But these are small matters when one is King of France
and has one's heart set upon some particular lady. Foulques was not an
attractive man; he seems to have had something like a club foot, and to
have worn long, pointed shoes to hide his deformity; besides, he had
already been twice divorced. Bertrade, young, beautiful, ambitious, was
quite ready to go to the king and replace the unhappy Bertha. She eloped
on the night following the king's visit to her husband, found an escort
waiting for her at Meung-sur-Loire, and was conducted to Philip at
Orleans.
Philip and Bertrade decided to get married, for the duchess was anxious
to be called queen. They were indignant because most of the bishops
suggested that the proceeding was rather irregular, since Foulques was
not only still living but at that moment actually preparing to bring
back his runaway spouse by force of arms. Nevertheless, by large gifts,
the king persuaded one bishop to consecrate his union with Bertrade.
Foulques and the friends of the deposed queen, Bertha, made forays into
Philip's territory, but accomplished nothing. Meanwhile, Philip incited
one of his barons to make war on and imprison the Bishop of Chartres,
who had dared to denounce the marriage with Bertrade. The whole power of
the Church was soon enlisted against him, and Pope Urban II. despatched
a special legate to dissolve the marriage, or to excommunicate Philip if
he did not leave his paramour. The Bishop of Chartres was promptly
released, and Philip attempted to forestall further action on the part
of his enemies by calling a special council at Rheims to try the bishop
on a frivolous charge. But the legate summoned another council at Autun,
which issued a decree of excommunication against Philip and Bertrade in
October, 1094.
Though Queen Bertha was now dead, the ecclesiastical censure still held
good. According to one of the conditions of the decree, Philip was to
put off his crown. He obeyed this to the letter, refused to wear any
insignia of royalty, and feigned to have ceased all intercourse with
Bertrade. The Pope gave him till All Saints' Day, 1095, to reform, being
afraid to use extreme measures while a rival Pope, already sustained by
the German Emperor, might entice the King of France into his following.
All Saints' Day came and went, and still Philip and Bertrade were living
as man and wife. Once more Philip was excommunicated, by a council held
at Clermont; he again made fine promises of reformation, broke his word,
and even had the audacity to have Bertrade consecrated as queen.
Excommunication after excommunication was pronounced against him, and
the kingdom was put under an interdict; he continued to make most
generous promises about sending Bertrade back where she belonged, and
still never did he do what he promised.
The terrors of excommunication had evidently lost their force, or else
laymen and clerks alike were too much occupied with other important work
before the council of Clermont, work whose effects were to influence
profoundly the whole history of Europe and to bring about great social
as well as great political changes: men were talking of the First
Crusade. In the mighty stir of preparation, in the wild enthusiasm of
that great movement, the king and his paramour were for the moment lost
sight of. While men and women, and even children, were listening to the
fierce eloquence of Peter the Hermit, and in inspired frenzy shouting
out their approval: _Dieu le veult! Dieu le veult!_ who could stop to
think of the idle and shifty King of France? Were they not all going to
battle in the service of a greater king than he?
Yet the motives of even these first Crusaders were in some cases far
from that consistent purity which one would expect. Among the leaders is
one Guilhelm, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitiers, a gay and famous
troubadour, who has founded in his own domain a _maison de plaisir_
where the inmates are dressed like nuns, a sort of Persian heaven ("A
Persian's heaven is easily made 'Tis but black eyes and lemonade"); who
bids an affecting farewell "to brilliant tourneys, to grandeur and to
riches, to all that enchained his heart, for he goes in the service of
God to find remission for his sins;" and who yet carries with him on
this holy war a perfect swarm of the beauties (_examina puellarum_) who
enchained his heart, and continued to enchain it, probably, until they
were captured by the Turks. But this Guilhelm gives a still more
interesting proof of the motives of his pious warfare. Two papal legates
came to Poitiers in November, 1100, to hold a council. Having preached
the Crusade, they next proceeded to renew the curse of excommunication
upon Philip, who was still living with Bertrade. The good Count
Guilhelm, with the red cross already upon his breast, stirred up a mob
against the legates, led the way into the church where the council was
sitting, and encouraged his followers to stone the assembled bishops.
There were broken heads, and there was some bloodshed, but enough of the
bishops stood their ground to pronounce the excommunication once more.
Bertrade bore the censures with amazing effrontery, and jested about how
the bells of the churches, silent during their stay, would begin to ring
as they left a town; and she actually forced some priests to hold a
service for her. But repeated curses, or the debauchery in which he had
all his life indulged, seem to have undermined Philip's constitution. At
any rate, he determined to relieve himself of the cares of government.
In spite of the protests of Bertrade, who wished to prevent the power of
the sceptre from going to the son of Queen Bertha, Philip, in 1100,
associated his son Louis in the government.
The young man proved himself a vigorous ruler, and won the love of his
subjects by attempts to punish some of the robber barons who made life
miserable for merchants and travellers. He became too popular to be
altogether agreeable to his amiable stepmother, who set about planning
to get rid of him. Louis went to visit the English king, Henry
Beauclerc, in 1102, and was received with all the courtesy and honor due
his rank. Bertrade despatched after him letters, sealed with the royal
seal of Philip, instructing Henry to seize Louis and confine him in
prison for the rest of his days. But Henry was either too wise or too
humane to perpetrate this outrage, and sent the young prince back with
every honor. Louis was furious; Philip denied all knowledge of the
infamous letters; and Louis, guessing whence they came, planned to kill
Bertrade.
She, however, was not easily to be caught, and began devising means to
procure the death of Louis. She first had resort to three clerks, who
proposed to destroy the prince by means of sorcery, if they could
conduct their incantations unmolested for nine days. But one of them
confessed the plot, and the black art was abandoned for some surer
method. The queen had Louis poisoned. He languished for several days,
unable to eat or to sleep, and given over by the best physicians in
France. At length, one who had learned some of the art of the Saracens
volunteered his services; and under his care Louis's life was saved,
though he bore traces of the poisoning all the rest of his days.
Queen Bertrade, like an affectionate mother, had hoped to see one of her
own sons seated upon the throne, and was much grieved at Louis's
recovery. Philip, completely under her influence, actually implored his
son to forgive this second direct attempt upon his life; and Bertrade,
in a great fright now that her crime had failed and had been found out,
cringed before Louis like a common servant, and at length won his
forgiveness.
Philip determined to be reconciled to the Church. At a council held at
the close of 1104 he appeared as a sincere penitent,--barefooted, with
unkempt hair and beard,--and solemnly swore never to live with Bertrade
again. The curse of excommunication was removed; the council discreetly
went about its business; and Philip went outside, and put on his shoes,
and had his hair cut, and put on his crown, and had one ready for
Bertrade, too. But the Church was tired of contending with him, and took
no further notice of his irregularities, though what happened soon
afterward was, if possible, more scandalous than all that had gone
before.
Bertrade had the address to reconcile her two husbands; and in 1106 she
and Philip actually went to visit Foulques, in Angers, where all three
hobnobbed most amicably, sitting at the same table, or occupying seats
of honor in the church, with Philip seated by Bertrade's side and
Foulques on a stool at her feet. One can hardly credit a statement like
this, but there seems to have been no limit to Bertrade's effrontery,
and the complete subjection of Foulques is recorded in the Latin life of
Louis the Fat: "Although he was banished outright from her bed, she so
mollified him that... often sitting on a stool at her feet, he submitted
in all things to her will."
Foulques, though he sat at the feet of his wife and the king's paramour,
and though he ceased to make active claim to his share of Bertrade, has
recorded his and his wife's infamy for us. One of his charters, for
example, is dated thus: "This donation was made in the year one thousand
and ninety-five after the incarnation of Our Lord, Urban being Pope, and
France befouled by the adultery of the infamous King Philip." But this
was in the salad days of his wrath, before Bertrade had induced him to
sit on a stool at her feet and submit to her will in all things.
In the year 1108, Philip, feeling his sins and his diseases lie heavy
upon him, determined to take an allopathic dose of repentance to purify
himself from the first before the second carried him off. He addressed
special prayers to Saint Benedict, ordered that his wicked body should
not be buried in the royal tombs at Saint-Denis, and clothed himself in
the habit of a Benedictine monk. Thus he expired, having existed--not
reigned--as king for forty-eight years, and was succeeded immediately by
Louis the Fat, who was crowned within five days after the death of his
father.
This haste was not altogether without excuse, for Bertrade was still
alive, and not wasting her time in prayers to Saint Benedict. Taking
advantage of the disturbed state of the kingdom, she managed to form a
coalition, headed by her brother, Amauri de Montfort, and by the
successor of her Angevin husband, to dethrone Louis and put in his place
her own son, Philip, Count of Mantes. But Louis was too active to be
caught as the conspirators had planned. He summoned Philip to appear
before the court of peers of the duchy of France, and, on his refusal,
seized upon the strongholds of his enemies before they were prepared,
and deprived Philip of his county of Mantes.
Bertrade's last card was played, and she succumbed to her defeat. Though
still in the height of her beauty, with not a wrinkle on her brow, she
retired to the convent of Haute Bruyere, a dependency of the famous
monastery of Fontevrault. Whether or not she was truly penitent for the
evil life she had led we do not know. But there was to be short time
left her for the cultivation of the monastic virtues; for the austerity
of the new life soon wore her out, and she died in the convent.