his claim. William, the Lord of Normandy, watching the sea from the
cliffs of the Caux country, found it still angry day after day and
week after week, with the cold north-east wind blowing strong upon
the land, so that he could not venture, and when he did there was
shipwreck; but his mariners lay apart after the mischance, waiting
orders, until at last he bade them beat up the coast to the great
and wide bay of the Somme, where stood his Port of St. Valery, half
sheltered from the gale.
Now some days before the Feast of St. Michael, in that same year,
the strong cold wind from the north that had blown so long died down
at last, and the sea heaved only and did not break, and a warmer air
came up from the south-west, like a piece of summer again. So that,
upon St. Michael’s Eve, Duke William put all that great host on
board, his fifty thousand men and his many knights, and his horses
and his provisions, and in the afternoon, the tide making outward
from the bay, all his hundreds of boats set sail, making a cloud
together upon the sea, and all that night, under the lighter breeze,
they ran for English land.
When the morning broke, which was St. Michael’s Day, they saw, high
and white in the dawn, the great cliff jutting forward, behind which
was their harbour; and one hour and another, as the sun rose, those
miles of sails drifted forward upon the flood eastward to behind
the lee of the head until, in the third hour of the day, the square
walls and the bright red roofs of a town stood close before them,
and inland beside them a great sheet of water, shoal, but with
fairways known to mariners, and a narrow entry from the sea; and
this was Pevensey Haven. Then the men, looking out from the baskets
on the mastheads of the great ships, called to the helmsmen below
to shift the helm by this board and by that, that they might follow
the fairway in. The smaller ships were beached within, all along the
level sand, until at last, what with the greater vessels lying secure
at anchor, and the lesser ones drawn up in rank beyond the high-tide
mark, all his fleet was still and his great host made land. This was
the way in which William, the Bastard of Falaise, Duke of Normandy,
came with so many thousands to the kingdom of England, which he would
win.
THE SERFS
(1087)
At Marmoutier the monks St. Martin had lived now for seven hundred
years, the lords of much land. Before their ancient caves in the
rocks, which had been their cells and which ran into the low cliff to
the north of the river, stood now great buildings of stone. A vast
church was there, round arched, enormous, heavy, and a great gateway
with its gate-houses, upon the summits of which men had carved two
angels, the one blowing a trumpet and the other sheathing a sword.
And all around were barns and further buildings, the habitations of
the monks, and their cellars, and their kitchens, their great hall,
their place of account.
In this last, the place of account, in a smaller chamber apart, whose
window without glass took in the full sun of morning, sat three
clerks, monks of Marmoutier, two young, one old. Now the old one was
the procurator, and his name was Augustine, for he was called after
that saint; but the two others were in the service of the accounts,
wrote at his bidding, and found for him what was owing and upon what
date, and from whom, whether in money or in service, throughout all
the wide lands of Marmoutier that were its dower. Of these two young
clerks the youngest, who was but a novice, still bore his name in the
world, which was Raoul; but the elder, who was already a priest, had
now his name in religion, which was Leo.
They were nearly at the end of their business and at the last of the
lists, for the morning was far gone, and very soon the bell would
toll for the chief meal. Outside the air was filled with the scent of
hay, for it was summer and the time of mowing. There was a noise of
scythes far off. It mixed with the running of the river.
There was a difficulty and a doubt. The old procurator, Augustine,
in the place of accounts that day had a troubled face, desiring to
do right by young Walter (Reginald in his father’s name), a keen
possessor, loving the land of his mother and his home near the
monastery of Marmoutier. For on that farm called Hauterive, in the
good pastures behind the dykes of the Loire, there was uncertain
custom, and upon the same land service to two lords, the monastery
and this same Walter (Reginald in his father’s name). And the
procurator would not decide until he had spoken fairly with that lay
lord.
For with the wealthy villeins upon this wealthy farm (which was full
four furlongs of the river side) all along the Loire it was a custom
as old as the woods that they should serve their lords upon Monday
and Friday. So much was sure. But there was a division among them,
some coming to the castle gate and some to the monastery gate; and in
the time of Reginald, who was cunning and not just, some had gone to
the castle who should have come to the abbey: which was a wrong. But
now that Walter the young man, the heir, had possession (his father
just dead), they could make a firm pact together, the monks and he,
and each have his due of labour, for Walter was mild and equable; and
also it was here at Marmoutier that he had learnt as a boy the Seven
Arts, and the Psalms as well.
When, therefore, he came in (which he did without retinue) the old
man greeted him friendly, and they sat down to the pact.
But still there was issue between them upon these wealthy villeins of
Hauterive.
“Brother Raoul,” said Lord Walter, “what now is written down?”
“Give me the parchment,” said Father Augustine, the procurator. Then
he said, “My lord, there is but one sentence as yet written here and
the beginning of the next, but more cannot be written until we know
that you will sign.”
Then the young lord said, “Read me what is written that I may hear.”
And the procurator read out,--
“We, the monks of Marmoutier and Walter, Lord, hold in common sundry
serfs, men and women, now to be divided between us in severalty.
Therefore at this present, being the 6th day of June, in the year of
the Incarnation, 1087, and Bernard being abbot, we have proceeded to
the division of the men children and of the women children of----”
Then old Father Augustine looked up from the parchment and said, “My
lord, until we have agreed, it can go no further.”
Walter, the young lord, rubbed his shaven chin with his hand, and
looked sidelong at Novice Raoul. For Novice Raoul, being the son of
one of the villeins adjacent, could bear witness.
Brother Raoul spoke,--
“The farm which my father has in villeinage marches, Father
Procurator, with Hauterive farm, and as a boy, before I came to holy
service here and to the special following of God, my father and I,
on those two work days of the week that are due to the lord, went in
company with those of Hauterive, who were more wealthy than we from
the goodness of their land; and I can bear witness to custom.”
“Of the elders,” here said the young lord, “there is no question,
for I freely allow what Abbot Bernard has written me and Father
Procurator here--to wit, that Renaud, whose house is called the
‘Village House,’ is due for the two days’ labour at the monastery
gates, and Guascelin, the other villein upon Hauterive land, is due
at the castle gates.”
The monks nodded, agreeing.
“We have but to agree upon the children, their dues of labour, as
they come to that age when the custom of the manor demands it. This
must be settled.”
“So we have set it on the parchment,” said Leo, the monk who had not
yet spoken. “So we have set it, lest, when they grow older, quarrels,
as in the time of your father, should arise.”
Then the Father Procurator spoke again,--
“If Renaud of the Village House chooses to redeem in coin, we shall
settle it upon our admitted rule, Lord Walter--two-thirds to the
monastery, one-third to the castle.”
“That would be but just,” the young man assented.
“He will not redeem!” broke in Novice Raoul quickly.
“Surely,” said his colleague Leo mildly, “he is rich enough! It
is the best land on all the river side, and there are one hundred
arpents of it, and it has a vineyard too!”
But Raoul laughed, remembering his father’s neighbour.
“Yes, the Serf has money lent out; but for that very reason will not
Renaud of the Village House redeem. For he loves the very metal.
Also he has other labour of his own cotters on his land. And when
his children grow up and pay their dues of labour days, Renaud will
be glad to see them go to the monastery gate or to the castle gate,
though he lose their arms and hands for that day, for he will say to
himself, ‘There they go a-saving of many pence in redemption, and
their food also this day they will have from the lord, or from the
abbot.’ He will not redeem! He will in no way diminish his hoard!”
“See now,” said Father Augustine, who waited every moment for the
bell and was weary of this long business over a small thing--“see
now, if we admit this rule of a third the matter is quickly settled,
for this Renaud has six children--two sons and four daughters;
Guascelin three, or four if you shall count a very young child still
in her cradle.”
When he had said these last words they all laughed, thinking of the
baby and of what haymaking it could do. Then the young lord, to save
them further delays, rose as to agree.
“Read me the list,” said he, “and take you in the one the first
four names, in the other the first two. As for the one that is in
the cradle, she can wait;” and at that they all laughed again. “It
will be many years before we need speak of any labour in our fields
from her. Perhaps she will wed out of villeinage, or perhaps with
her portion she will farm free land, or perhaps she will be a nun.
So engross the matter thus, and we will have secured peace and a
settlement between us.”
Then Brother Raoul carefully wrote the square letters with his pen,
adding, “We then have received for our lot of the children of Renaud
of the Village House one boy, Bartholomew, and three daughters,
Hersende, and Milesende, and Letgarde. And of the children of
Guascelin one daughter, Aremburge, and one son, Walter. A very young
girl child in her cradle is excepted from this allotment. She shall
be between us, if she lives, until some settlement shall allot her to
one or to the other lordship.” And with that his writing was done.
With these as witnesses, the procurator set the abbey seal, and
Walter his seal also and the mark by which he was known, and so was
the settlement concluded, just as the bell rang for the prayer and
the chief meal.
Outside in the warm air the noise of the scythe ceased to the sound
of the bell, and there was nothing heard but the gentle wash of the
river running by its bank of reeds--the broad river Loire, low in the
summer drought, and showing above its streams of blue water white
sand-banks sparkling in the sun.
JERUSALEM
(_July 15, 1099_)
It was Friday, the 15th of July, in the year of the Incarnation,
1099, and about noon. A little sun stood right up in the height of
heaven, blazing as no sun shines upon our tempered and well-watered
lands, for it was the sun of Syria, a burning eye.
The rolling upland was brown and bare, scorched for weeks; the
harvest long gathered, and all grass for forage lacking. Across
its sweep rose a little town of tents, deplorable with use, torn,
patched, and dirty; at long cords stood tethered the lean horses,
their heads patiently drooping in the heat, and here and there a gap
where one of them had fallen and would not rise again. Beyond the
camp a dusty, winding track, very wide, just marked by shallow ruts,
led away to the horizon and to the crest against the northern sky,
whence could be seen, very far off to the westward, the Levantine
Sea. Along that faint, broad line ominous wreckage was studded at
intervals too close--carts broken down, glistening white bones, and
little heaps of refuse which hid the dead. Of the millions that
had marched out from Europe three years before to the rescuing of
Christ’s grave, a handful were here, still breaking against the
long, low wall of the city. Of twenty that had left the pleasant
fields at home, in Picardy or in Touraine, from the Garonne, from
the cool flats of Vendée, but one had lived or had persevered to see
Jerusalem. And now for all these days the last effort had still been
quite unavailing. But it was Friday, the day upon which Christ had
died; it was noon, the hour of His Crucifixion.
In the camp, which looked southward towards the low wall of the city,
the serfs were now painfully bearing water up from the stagnant
pools below, or were attending the fires for the cooking of meat,
against the hour when, once again, as for so many days, the armed men
should come back at evening sullen and once again defeated; from that
camp, I say, the serfs could see, all along the wall, the assault
proceeding. Beyond, within the city itself, glaring in the intense
light, was the low, whitewashed dome, the Sepulchre, and Golgotha was
just before.
It was by groups that the desperate attempt was made, as it had
been made day after day during that intolerable heat of the Eastern
summer. One could see little figures running with the short scaling
ladders, bucklers lifted in a tortoise to shield the bearers; the
ladders rapidly put against the wall; men swarming up, now one group
just getting a foothold, but soon thrust back again; bodies falling,
heavy in their armour, to the ground; the ladders here and there
along the half-mile of front broken or thrust outward, and whole
lines of men that had mounted them crashing again to earth. While
underneath the wall, cowering close in the dead ground, free from
arrows above, were other groups that fiercely picked the ground with
their steel, and that thrust into the gaps faggots to which they
would set fire. The smoke rose, blackening the stones, but none
crumbled, and there was no breach.
In two spots near either end of the line great beams had been
mounted, swung on ropes from tripods, and these, with regular thud,
pounded at the lower courses of the huge blocks that built up the
rampart; while in one place a tall scaffolding, or tower of wood,
having upon its every tier a hundred archers and slingers, poured
missiles down upon the defenders of the battlements.
Far off as the camp was, one could hear above the regular pulse of
the battering rams a noise like that of the assaulting sea in a
storm when it bursts upon the shore and when the shingle screams
under the retreating wave. And the high calls upon the God of Islam,
which for now so many months and years had rendered a haunting sound
in their ears, pierced through the general din. Voices were calling
also from the minarets.
Very far away to the south, beyond the whole expanse of the city,
could just be seen a squat, strong mass of masonry overtopping the
houses. It was the Tower of David. And there these men, who were so
fiercely pushing the assault from the north under so intolerable
a strain of heat and clamour, knew that the men of Toulouse, the
southerners under their Count, were pressing and besieging also.
For beyond that Tower of David, higher than it and feathery against
the sky, was yet another tall scaffolding of poles lashed together,
black with tiny figures of the Christian soldiers, shooting down upon
the defence and attempting to master its fire. But of that distant
struggle no rumour could be heard; there could only be seen the
general movement of men against the sky.
The general tide of this assault upon the northern wall perpetually
repulsed, perpetually returning, sounded hour after hour. Noon was
past, and the seventh hour and the eighth. The dust of the conflict
had already mellowed the light of the sun, which no longer stood in
the zenith, but was partly declined. The time was near that ninth
hour when Jesus had cried out that God had forsaken Him, and had
dropped His head and died.
The men watching the camp, the serfs, listless in their fatigue and
broken by the noonday heat now past, thought they heard a new note
in the distant noises from the wall. One looked up, and another, and
there was almost eagerness in their gestures. Those with keener eyes
pointed to a place a little east of the centre of the line, where,
as it seemed, a blacker and a denser mass was gathering. It was like
a swarm of bees. They saw the little figures racing up to join the
edges of the rapidly swelling mound of men. The many ladders there
concentrated were hidden beneath this cloak and moving garment of
human bodies, and the whole surface of it running upwards in a slope
to the very height of the battlements glittered and twinkled, like
beaded stuff, with the points of steel, with the steel caps, and with
the little bristles of swords ever mounting.
The camp was afoot, every serf was standing and looking. The wounded,
such as could still know their names or the place in which they
lay, such as could still move, were warned by their servants in the
excitement, and crawled to the gaps of the tents. Such labourers as
had fallen asleep were roused and stood, in their turn, straining
their eyes at the wall, and one or two in their eagerness began to
run forward, unarmed as they were, across the brown, burnt earth
between the camp and Jerusalem. Was there a breach? There was no sign
of it. No crash of boulders, no sudden rising of that cloud which
booms up as from an explosion when a wall gives way. The regular
thud of the battering rams continued far to the right and far to the
left uninterruptedly, but between them this climbing, struggling,
increasing mass of men gave forth a louder and a louder note. They
were upon the edge of victory.
Then in one critical moment (it was just three o’clock) the
desperation of those cries turned into a very different roar of
cheers, and it was apparent that the wall was gained. One could see
the besiegers spreading along the height of it, to the right and
to the left, enfilading its defence, holding a wider and a wider
gap, and the swords at either end of the line hacking and sweeping
their way forward. And now (so many men having poured up the wall
and along it) scraps of the many scaling ladders could be seen,
and separate streams of men hurrying up them and reinforcing the
lengthening line above that held the battlements. Until at last all
the defence was brushed away, from east to west, and for a half-mile
in one unbroken series the Crusaders were the masters of the rampart,
and already men were hauling the scaling ladders over to descend
into the city beyond. The men at the battering rams ran hard for the
check-ropes, hanging desperately upon them to stop the swing, and the
thuds ceased for the first time in all those hours. From the wooden
tower also the attackers were scrambling down and racing towards the
wall, and bringing new ladders and climbing it, now undefended. A
lamentable confusion, masked by the screen of masonry, made up of
scream and clamour, rose from the streets of the city within, as
victory pressed on through the houses. Jerusalem had fallen; and
already the first man in the race had thrust his palms against the
walls of the Sepulchre, and sinking to his knees, collapsing, kissed
it.
There is in the hills that shut in the garden of the Cotentin, in
the depths of Normandy, a happy town with pastures and with orchards
all around. It is called the Silent Valley, Sourdeval. Here had a
child been born in the castle of the place to the lord of it, and
they had given him the name Robert, after the last great duke who was
the leader of them all. This child Robert, grown a man, had armed
himself and mounted himself, and followed the Crusade, and he it was
who sprang first upon the wall of Jerusalem on that great day: Robert
of Sourdeval, in the country of Avranches, under the shadow of the
shrine which is called “St. Michael in peril of the sea.” But even as
he leapt upon the wall, and in the moment of his exaltation, he saw
southward, upon the Tower of David, a great banner suddenly catching
the sun, and he knew that it was the banner of Toulouse. From the
south also the city had been forced, and he cried as he saw that
banner, “Ville gagnée!”
* * * * *
Of the men who had followed and endured till the end and had entered
Jerusalem, one from the Pyrenees, three years later, came home. A
ship had taken him across the seas, pirates had captured it off
Cyrene, and had shackled him as a galley slave; in the Balearics he
had escaped by night with a Christian fisherman for guide. They had
made Narbonne, and so this man had come, darkened by the Eastern sun
and lean and broken from the wars, home at last to his farm. There
he found all those who had mourned him for dead, and his old father
living still by the turf fire, but too forgetful of the world to
welcome him. And as he told the old man of the wars, that old man
only felt dimly in his fading mind (which was not wholly forgetful of
Aragon and of Leon and the Cid Campeador) that all the world was full
of fighting against Mahound.
Already five years past Huesca had been forced by Christian arms, and
already three years past the Cid was dead.
THE LOSS OF AQUITAINE
(_March 21, 1152_)
Easter came early in the year 1152, and that Lent was cold.
In the week before Palm Sunday, the middle week of March, the sodden
roads of the great plains to the north and to the east of Orleans
had trains upon them of men and wagons making all for Beaugency, two
days below Orleans down the river--Beaugency, the little town at the
opening of its shallow valley, standing upon the north bank of the
Loire and facing the poor sun of this winter end.
There stood in the town of Beaugency, near the stream, a strong and
simple castle, flanked with huge round towers. Many men have passed
into possession of it, have rebuilt, and changed, and blazoned, and
pulled down its stones in seven hundred years, but some of those
towers still stand. It was, in this year 1152, Church land. It held
of Amiens; and hither the Archbishop of Sens had summoned the Court
and the king, Louis, and his queen, Eleanor, many lawyers and many
barons, and the great prelates like himself--of Rheims, of Rouen,
of Bordeaux. Their tenants for assessors, their squires and hosts
of serving men and troops of horse and mules came crowding into the
little place, turning for a moment this half-forgotten town into a
capital; and the innkeepers were still dreaming of gold, and every
house was making itself a sort of crowded hostelry; every barn was a
stable.
The matter upon which this writ of the archbishop’s had gone out
to his king and the Court, to the Queen Eleanor, and all their
train, and to his fellow bishops, and to the barons of France and
of Aquitaine, was the great divorce. For now that Louis, the king,
had come back shamefully defeated from the Crusade (tortured by
rumours that were more than rumours of the queen’s contempt and
unfaithfulness, heavily warned that no son had been born of her
to continue the Capetian line), he was for ridding himself of his
burden. And this, although that burden meant the mastery of half
the south, and rule direct from Paris over whatever lay between
the Pyrenees and the garden of the Loire; between the mountains of
Auvergne and the sea. For Eleanor had Aquitaine for her dower.
The king was a man of thirty. He was the heir to that constant effort
of the monarchy to turn province by province from a proud fief into
an immediate possession of the Crown. No wider sweep of that net had
been thrown than when, in his boyhood, there had been brought to
Rheims, as a wife for him, the girl who was heiress of all Aquitaine.
He could also remember how, so many years before, that marriage had
filled all his thoughts and all his heart in the new discovery of the
south coming upon his cloistered mind. But life had turned sour.
* * * * *