according to the standard of the times. The barons paid fines and gave
mortgages, and a great many of them were obliged to tear down their
robber castles, which they had built without permission from the duke.
This is the reason that there are so few ruins in Normandy of the
towers of that date. The Master of St. Saviour's was obliged to take
himself off to Brittany, but there was evidently no confiscation of
his great estates, for we find him back again at court the very next
year, high in the duke's favor and holding an honorable position.
He lived forty-four years after this, an uncommon lifetime for a
Norman knight, and followed the Conqueror to England, but he got
no reward in lands and honor, as so many of his comrades did. Guy
of Burgundy stayed at court a little while, and then went back to
his native province and devoted himself to making plots against his
brother, Count William. Grimbald de Plessis fared the worst of all the
conspirators; he was taken to Rouen and put into prison weighted down
with chains, and given the poorest of lodgings. He confessed that he
had tried to murder William that night at Valognes, when the court
jester gave warning, and said that a knight called Salle had been his
confederate. Salle denied the charge stoutly and challenged De Plessis
to fight a judicial combat, but before the day came the [Pg213]
scheming, unlucky baron from the Saxon lands was found dead in his
dungeon. The fetters had ground their way into his very bones, and he
was buried in his chains, for a warning, while his estates were seized
and part of them given to the church of Bayeux.
Now, at last, the Norman priests and knights knew that they had a
master. For some time it was surprisingly quiet in Normandy, and the
country was unexpectedly prosperous. The great duchy stood in a higher
rank among her sister kingdoms than ever before, and though there was
another revolt and serious attacks from envious neighbors, yet the
Saxons of the Bessin and the Danes of the Côtentin were overthrown,
and Normandy was more unitedly Norman-French than ever. There had been
a long struggle that had lasted from Richard the Fearless' boyhood
until now, but it was ended at last, to all intents and purposes. Even
now there is a difference between the two parts of Normandy, though so
many years have passed; but the day was not far off after this battle
of Val-ès-dunes when the young conqueror could muster a great army and
cross the channel into England. "The Count of Rouen," says Freeman,
"had overcome Saxons and Danes within his own dominions, and he was
about to weld them into his most trusty weapons, wherewith to overcome
Saxons and Danes beyond the sea."
Perhaps nothing will show the barbarous cruelty of these times or
William's fierce temper better than the story of Alençon and its
punishment. William Talvas, the young duke's old enemy, formed a
rebellious league with Geoffry of Anjou, and they undertook [Pg214]
to hold Alençon against the Normans. When William came within sight of
the city, he discovered that they had sufficient self-confidence to
mock at him and insult him. They even spread raw skins over the edge
of the city walls, and beat them vigorously, yelling that there was
plenty of work for the tanner, and giving even plainer hints at what
they thought of his mother's ancestry.
William was naturally put into a great rage, and set himself and his
army down before the walls his enemies thought so invincible. He swore
"by the splendor of God" that he would treat them as a man lops a tree
with an axe, and, sure enough, when the siege was over, and Alençon
was at the Conqueror's mercy, he demanded thirty-two captives of war,
and nose, hands, and feet were chopped off, and presently thrown back
over the walls into the town.
[Illustration]
[Pg215]
[Illustration]
XI.
THE ABBEY OF BEC.
"He heard across the howling seas,
Chime convent bells on wintry nights."
—MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The only way of escaping from the obligations of feudalism and
constant warfare was by forsaking the follies of the world altogether
for the shelter of a convent, and there devoting one's time and
thought to holy things. A monastic life often came to be only an
excuse for devotion to art or to letters, or served merely to cover
the distaste for military pursuits. It was not alone ecclesiasticism
and a love for holy living and thoughts of heaven that inspired
rigid seclusion and monkish scorn of worldliness. Not only popular
superstition or recognition of true spiritual life and growth of the
Church made up the Church's power, but the presence of so much secular
thought and wisdom in the fold. Men of letters, of science, and
philosophy made it often more than a match for the militant element of
society, the soldiery of Normandy, and the great captains, who could
only prove their valor by the strength of their strategy and their
swords. William was quick to recognize the vast strength of the clergy
and the [Pg216] well-protected force of cloistered public opinion.
A soldier and worldly man himself, he arrayed himself on the side of
severe self-repression and knightly chastity and purity of life, and
kept the laws of the convent in high honor; while he mixed boldly with
the rude warfare of his age. He did not think himself less saintly
because he was guilty of secret crimes against his rivals. A skilful
use of what an old writer calls "the powder of succession" belonged as
much to his military glory as any piece of field-tactics and strategy.
He was anxious to stand well in the Pope's estimation, and the ban and
malediction of the Church was something by all means to be avoided.
The story of his marriage shows his bold, adventurous character and
determination in a marked way, and his persistence in gaining his ends
and winning the approval of his superior, in spite of obstacles that
would have daunted a weaker man. To gain a point to which the Church
objected he must show himself stronger than the Church.
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF CATHEDRAL, CHARTRES.]
So there were two great forces at work in Normandy: this military
spirit, the love of excitement, of activity, and adventure; and this
strong religious feeling, which often made the other its willing
servant, and was sometimes by far the most powerful of the two.
Whether superstition or true, devout acceptance and unfolding of
the ideas of the Christian religion moved the Normans and their
contemporaries to most active service of the Church, we will not
stop to discuss. The presence of the best scholars and saints in any
age is a leaven and inspiration of that age, and men cannot help
being more or less [Pg217] influenced by the dwelling among them of
Christ's true disciples and ministers. That there was a large amount
of credulity, of superstitious rites and observances, we cannot doubt,
neither can we question that these exercised an amazing control over
ignorant minds. Standing so near to a pagan ancestry, the people of
large, and, relatively speaking, remote districts of Normandy, were no
doubt confused by lingering vestiges of the older forms of belief. As
yet, religion, in spite of the creeds of [Pg218] knighthood, showed
itself more plainly in stone and mortar, in vestments, and fasts,
and penances, and munificent endowments, than in simple truth and
godliness of life. A Norman nobleman, in the time of the Conqueror,
or earlier, thought that his estate would lack its chief ornament
if he did not plant a company of monks in some corner of it. It was
the proper thing for a rich man to found a monastery or religious
house of some sort or other, and this was a most blessed thing for
the scholars of their time. The profession of letters was already
becoming dignified and respectable, and the students of the Venerable
Bede, and other noble teachers from both north and south, had already
scattered good seeds through the states of Europe. It was in this
time that many great schools were founded, and in the more peaceful
years of the early reign of the Conqueror, religion and learning found
time to strike a deeper root in Normandy than ever before. There was
more wealth for them to be nourished with, the farms were productive,
and the great centres of industry and manufacture, like Falaise,
were thriving famously. It was almost as respectable to be a monk as
to be a soldier. There is something very beautiful in these earlier
brotherhoods—a purer fashion of thought and of life, a simplicity of
devotion to the higher duties of existence. But we can watch here, as
in the later movements in England and Italy, a gradual change from
poverty and holiness of life, to a love of riches and a satisfaction
with corrupt ceremonies and petty authority. The snare of worldliness
finds its victims always, and the temptation was easy then, [Pg219]
as it is easy now, to forget the things that belong to the spirit. We
have seen so much of the sword and shield in this short history that
we turn gladly away for a little space to understand what influences
were coming from the great abbeys of Bec and Saint Evreuil, and to
make what acquaintance we can with the men who dwelt there, and held
for their weapons only their mass-books and their principles of
education and of holy living. Lanfranc we must surely know, for he was
called the right-hand man of the Conqueror; and now let us go back a
little way and take a quick survey of the founding of the Abbey of
Bec, and trace its history, for that will help us to understand the
monastic life, and the wave of monasticism that left so plain a mark
upon the headlands and valleys of Normandy. Both in England and Norman
France, you can find the same red-roofed villages clustered about high
square church towers, with windows in the gray stone walls that look
like dim fret-work or lace-work. The oldest houses are low and small,
but the oldest minsters and parish churches are very noble buildings.
The first entrance into one of the old cathedrals is an event in one's
life never to be forgotten. It grows more beautiful the longer one
thinks of it; that first impression of height and space, of silence
and meditation; the walls are stored with echoes of prayers and
chanting voices; the windows are like faded gardens, with their sober
tints and gleams of brighter color. The saints are pictured on them
awkwardly enough, but the glory of heaven beams through the old glass
upon the worn tombstones in [Pg220] the floor; the very dust in the
rays of sunlight that strike across the wide, solemn spaces, seems
sacred dust, and of long continuance. We shut out this busy world when
we go into the cathedral door, and look about us as if this were a
waiting-room from whence one might easily find conveyance to the next
world. There is a feeling of nearness to heaven as we walk up the
great aisle of what our ancestors called, reverently enough, God's
house. One is suddenly reminded of many unseen things that the world
outside gives but little chance to think about. We are on the journey
heavenward indeed. There where many centuries have worn away the trace
of worldliness and the touch of builders' tools, so that the building
itself seems almost to have grown by its own life and strength, you
think about the builders and planners of such dignity and splendor
more than any thing, after all. Who were the men that dared to lift
the roof and plant the tall pillars, and why did they, in those poor,
primitive times, give all they had to make this one place so rich and
high. The bells ring a lazy, sweet chime for answer, and if you catch
a glimpse of some brown old books in the sacristy, and even spell out
the quaint records, you are hardly satisfied. We can only call them
splendid monuments of the spirit of the time (almost uncivilized,
according to our standard) when nevertheless there was a profound
sentiment of worship and reverence.
[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.]
Besides this, we are reminded that the lords of church and state were
able, if it pleased them, to command the entire service of their
vassals. All the [Pg222] liberties and aids and perquisites that
belonged to rank ceased where the lowest rank ended, at the peasant.
He was at anybody's command and mercy who chanced to be his master;
he had but precious few rights and claims of his own. When Christ
taught his disciples that whosoever would be chief among them must
become as a servant, he suggested a truth and order of relationship
most astonishing and contrary to all precedent. He that would be chief
among Hebrews or Normans, chief, alas, even in our own day, is still
misled by the old idea that the greatest is the master of many men.
Worldly power and heavenly service are always apt to be mistaken for
each other.
In an age when every man claimed the right of private war against
every other man, unless he were lord or vassal, we naturally look
for ferocity, and understand that the line between private war and
simple robbery and murder was not very clearly kept. Those who were
comparatively unable to defend themselves were the chief sufferers,
and of course many peace-loving men were obliged to take on the
appearance of fighters, and be ready for constant warfare in all its
shapes. There was only the one alternative—first to the universal
dissension of a nationality of armed men, and later to the more
orderly and purposeful system of knighthood,—simply to retreat
from the world altogether and lead a strictly religious life. The
famous order of the Benedictine monks was built up in Normandy with
surprising devotion. A natural love and respect for learning, which
had long been smouldering half-neglected, [Pg223] now burst into
a quick blaze in the hearts of many of the descendants of the old
Norse skalds and Sagamen. While the Augustinian order of monks is
chiefly famous for building great cathedrals, and the mendicant
friars have left many a noble hospital as their monuments, so the
Benedictines turned their energies toward the forming of great
schools. The time has passed when the Protestant world belittled
itself by contemptuously calling the monks lazy, sensual, and idle,
and by seeing no good in these ancient communities. Learning of every
sort, and the arts, as well, would have been long delayed in their
development, if it had not been for such quiet retreats, where those
men and women who chose could turn their thoughts toward better
employments than the secular world encouraged or even allowed. The
Benedictines were the most careful fosterers of scholarship; their
brethren of monastic fame owed them a great deal in every way.
There was a noble knight named Herluin, who lived in the time of Duke
Robert the Devil, and who was for thirty-seven years a knight-at-arms.
He was a descendant of one of Rolf's companions, his lineage was of
the very best, and his estates made part of the original grant of
Charles the Simple. Herluin was vassal to Count Gilbert of Brionne,
and had proved himself a brave and loyal knight, both to his overlord
and the duke. He was high in favor, and unusually tender-hearted and
just to those in trouble. We cannot help wishing that it had seemed
possible to such a man that he should stay in the world and leaven
society by his example, but to a thoughtful [Pg224] and gentle soul
like Herluin the cloister offered great temptations. There was still
great turbulence even among ecclesiastics—the worst of them "bore
arms and lived the life of heathen Danes.... The faith of Herluin
nearly failed him when he saw the disorder of one famous monastery,
but he was comforted by accidentally beholding the devotions of one
godly brother, who spent the whole night in secret prayer. He was thus
convinced that the salt of the earth had not as yet wholly lost its
savor."[7]
[7] Freeman.
Our pious knight forsook the world, and with a few companions devoted
himself to building a small monastery on his own estate at Burneville,
near Brionne. The church was consecrated, and its founder received
benediction from his bishop, who ordained him a priest and made him
abbot of the little community. Herluin was very diligent in learning
to read, and achieved this mighty task without neglecting any of the
work which he imposed upon himself day by day. Soon he grew famous
in all that part of Normandy for his sanctity and great wisdom in
explaining the Bible. But it was discovered that the site of his
flourishing young establishment was not well chosen; an abbey must
possess supplies of wood and water, and so the colony was removed to
the valley of a small stream that flows into the Lisle, near the town
of Brionne. In the old speech of the Normans this brook was called
a beck; we have the word yet in verse and provincial speech; and it
gave a name to the most famous and longest remembered perhaps of all
the Norman [Pg225] monasteries. Mr. Freeman says: "The hills are
still thickly wooded; the beck still flows through rich meadows and
under trees planted by the waterside, by the walls of what was once
the renowned monastery to which it gave its name. But of the days of
Herluin no trace remains besides these imperishable works of nature.
A tall tower, of rich and fanciful design, one of the latest works of
mediæval skill, still attracts the traveller from a distance; but of
the mighty minster itself, all traces, save a few small fragments,
have perished.... The truest memorial of that illustrious abbey is now
to be found in the parish church of the neighboring village. In that
lowly shelter is still preserved the effigy with which after-times had
marked the resting-place of the founder. Such are all the relics which
now remain of the house which once owned Lanfranc and Anselm as its
inmates.
"In this valley it was that Herluin finally fixed his infant
settlement, devoting to it his own small possession."
"By loving this world," he said, when he pleaded for his poor peasants
in Gilbert of Brionne's court—"By loving this world and by obeying man
I have hitherto much neglected God and myself. I have been altogether
intent on training my body, and I have gained no education for my
soul. If I have ever deserved well of thee, let me pass what remains
of life in a monastery. Let me keep thy affection and with me give to
God what I had of thee."
Herluin was not left alone in his enterprise; one companion after
another joined him, and presently [Pg226] there was a busy company of
monks at Bec. They subjected themselves to all sorts of self-denials
and privations, working hard at building their new home, at ditching,
gardening, or wood-cutting, and chanting their prayers with entire
devotion. Herluin allowed himself one scanty meal a day, and went
about his work poorly dressed, but serving God in most humble fashion.
This was the story of many small religious houses and their founders,
but we cannot help tracing the beginning of the abbey of Bec with
particular interest for the sake of Lanfranc, who has kept its memory
alive and made it famous in Norman and English history.
The story of this friar of Bec, who came to be archbishop of
Canterbury, and whose influence and power were only second, a few
years later, to William the Conqueror's own, reads like a romance, as
indeed does many another story of that romantic age. He was born at
Pavia, the City of the Hundred Towers, in Lombardy, and belonged to
an illustrious family. He was discovered in early boyhood to be an
uncommon scholar, and even in his university course he became well
known by his brilliant talents and fine gift of oratory. He was looked
upon as almost invincible in debate while he was still a school-boy,
and when he left college it was supposed that he would give the
benefit of his attainments and growth to his native city. For a little
while he did stay there, and began his career, but he appears to have
been made restless by a love of change and adventure, and a desire to
see the world, and next we find him going northward with a [Pg227]
company of admiring scholars, as if on pilgrimage, but in the wrong
direction! The enthusiastic little procession crossed the St. Bernard
pass into France and for some reason went to Avranches, where Lanfranc
taught a school and quickly became celebrated. In spite of the more
common profession or trade of fighting, there was never a time when
learning or the profession of letters was more honored, and the
Normans yielded to none of their contemporaries in the respect they
had for scholars.
Lanfranc became dissatisfied with the honor and glory of his success
at Avranches; and presently, in quest of something more deep and
satisfying—more in accordance with the craving of his spiritual
nature, left his flourishing school and again started northward.
The country was very wild and unsafe for a solitary wayfarer; and
presently, so the tradition runs, he was attacked by a band of
robbers, beaten, and left tied to a tree without food or money or any
prospect of immediate release. The long hours of the night wore away
and he grew more and more desperate; at last he bethought himself of
spiritual aid as a last resort, and tried to repeat the service of
the church. Alas! he could not remember the prayers and hymns, and in
his despair he vowed a pious vow to God that he would devote himself
to a holy life if his present sufferings might be ended. In good
season some charcoal burners played the welcome part of deliverers and
Lanfranc, yet aching with the pinch of his fetters and their galling
knots, begged to know of some holy house near by, and was directed to
Herluin's hermitage and the humble brotherhood of Bec. [Pg228]
The little colony of holy men was all astir that day. Soldiers and
sober gentlemen were tilling the soil and patiently furthering their
rural tasks. Herluin himself, the former knight-at-arms, was clad
in simple monkish garb, and playing the part of master-mason in the
building of a new oven. Out from the neighboring thicket comes a
strange figure, pale yet from his uncomforted vigil, and prays to
be numbered with those who give their lives to the service of God.
"This is surely a Lombard!" says Herluin, wonderstruck and filled
with sympathy; and when he discovers the new brother's name and eager
devotion, he kneels before him in love and reverence. It was a great
day for the abbey of Bec.
Such learning and ability to teach as Lanfranc's could not be hidden;
indeed the church believed in using a man's great gifts, and each
member was bound to give of his bounty in her service. The brothers
who could till the ground and hew timber and build ovens kept at their
tasks, and all the while Lanfranc, the theologian and teacher, the
man of letters, gathered a company of scholars from far and wide. Bec
became a famous centre of learning, and even from Italy and Greece
young men journeyed to his school, and, as years went by, he was
venerated more and more. His quick understanding and cleverness saved
him many a disaster, and we recognize in him a charming inheritance
of wit and good humor. He had the individuality and characteristics
of his Italian ancestry, while he was that rare man in any social
circle of his age, or even a later age,—a true man of the world. A
Norman of the Normans in his adopted [Pg229] home, he was yet able to
see Normandy, not as the world itself, but only a factor in it, and
to put it and its ambitions and possessions in their true relation
to wider issues. There was no such churchman-statesman as Lanfranc
in the young duchy, and his fame and glory were felt more and more.
William the duke himself might well set his wits at work to conquer
this formidable opponent of his marriage, and win him over to his
following, and the first attack was not by conciliatory measures.
Lanfranc received a formidable order to quit the country and leave his
abbey of Bec on penalty of worse punishment.
The future archbishop of English Canterbury meekly obeyed his temporal
lord, and set out through the forest with a pitiful straggling escort
affectingly futile in its appearance. He himself was mounted on
the worst old stumbling horse in the despoiled abbey stables, and
presently they meet the duke out hunting in most gallant array with
a lordly following of knights and gentlemen. It looks surprisingly
as if shrewd Lanfranc had arranged the scene beforehand. Along he
comes on his feeble steed, limping slowly on the forest path; he, the
greatest prior and book-man of Normandy, turned out of the house and
home that his own learning had made famous through Christendom. "Under
Lanfranc," says the chronicler, "the Normans first fathomed the art
of letters, for under the six dukes of Normandy scarce any one among
the Normans applied himself to liberal studies, nor was there any
learning found till God, the provider of all things, brought Lanfranc
to Normandy." All this, no doubt, flashed through [Pg230] William's
mind, and the prior of Bec's Italian good-humor proved itself the best
of weapons. "Give me a better horse," he cried, "and you shall see me
go away faster." The duke laughed in spite of himself, and Lanfranc
won a chance of pleading his cause. Before they parted they were
sworn friends, and the prior's knowledge of civil law and of theology
and of human nature (not least by any means of his famous gifts) were
for once and all at the duke's service. He supported the cause of the
unlawful marriage, and even won a dispensation from the Pope, long
desired and almost hopeless, in William's favor.