greater height of supreme beauty than that in which the loving soul
learns the way to its Divine Lover. It is strangely reminiscent of
courtly life and courtly poetry, translated into the ecstatic state,
and etherealised into the very perfume of spirituality as the soul
becomes one with God. Having passed the distress of repentance, the
pain of confession, and the labour of penance, and having overcome the
love of the World, the tempting of the Devil, and its own self-will,
the soul, weary, and longing for her Divine Lover and God, cries out:
"Beautiful Youth, I long for thee. Where shall I find thee?"
Then says the youth: "I hear a voice which speaks somewhat of love.
Many days have I wooed her, but never have I heard her voice. Now I am
moved. I must go to meet her. She it is who bears grief and love
together. In the morning in the dew is the most intimate rapture which
first penetrates the soul."
Then speak her Chamberlains, which are the live senses: "Lady, thou
must adorn thyself. We have heard a whisper that the Prince comes to
meet thee in the dew, and the sweet song of the birds. Tarry not,
Lady."
So she puts on a shift of gentle humility, so humble that nothing
could be more so, and over it a white robe of pure chastity, so pure
that she cannot endure thoughts, words, or desires which might stain
it. Then she wraps herself in a cloak of holy desire, which she has
wrought in gold with all the virtues. So she goes into the wood, which
is the company of holy people. The sweetest nightingales sing there,
day and night, of the right union with God. She tries to join in the
festal dance, that is, to imitate the example of the elect. Then comes
the youth and says to her: "Thou shalt dance merrily even as my
Elect." And she answers: "I cannot dance, Lord, if Thou dost not lead
me. If Thou wilt that I leap joyfully, Thou must first Thyself sing.
Then will I leap for love, from love to knowledge, from knowledge to
fruition, from fruition to beyond all human senses. There will I
remain, and circle evermore."[25]
[25] It may be recalled that Dante (_Par._ xxiv.) sees the
Saints in Paradise as circling lights from whence issues
divine song, and again (_Par._ xxv.) "wheeling round in such
guise as their burning love befitted."
Then speaks the youth: "Thy dance of praise is well done. Thou shalt
have thy will, for thou art heartily wearied. Come at mid-day to the
shady fountain, to the bed of love. There shalt thou be refreshed."
Then, weary of the dance, the soul says to her Chamberlains, the
senses: "Withdraw from me, I must go where I may cool myself."
Then say the senses: "Lady, wilt thou be refreshed with the loving
tears of St. Mary Magdalene? They may well suffice thee."
"Be silent, sirs; you know not what I mean. Hinder me not. I would
drink for a space of the unmingled wine."
"Lady, in the Virgin's chastity the great love is reached."
"That may be. For me it is not the highest."
"Lady, thou mightst cool thyself in the martyrs' blood."
"I have been martyred many a day, so that I have no need to come to
that now."
"Lady, bright are the angels, and lovely in love's hue. Wouldst thou
cool thyself, be lifted up with them."
"The bliss of the angels brings me love's woe unless I see their Lord,
my Bridegroom."
"Lady, if thou comest there, thou wilt be blinded quite, so fiery hot
is the Godhead, as thou thyself well knowest, for the fire and the
glow which make heaven and all the holy ones burn and shine, all flow
from His divine breath, and from His human mouth, through the wisdom
of the Holy Ghost. How couldest thou endure it for an hour?"
And the soul answers: "The fish cannot drown in the water, the bird
cannot sink in the air, gold cannot perish in the fire, where it gains
its clear and shining worth. God has granted to each creature to
cherish its own nature. How can I withstand my nature? I must go from
all things to God, who is my Father by Nature, my Brother through His
Humanity, my Bridegroom through Love, and I am His for ever."
Silenced by this wondrous flight of holy passion, we bid farewell to
Mechthild. She lived for her time, and she lives for us, as one of
"humanity's pioneers on the only road to rest." "Out of the depths,"
she cried to Heaven. We leave her in the music of the spheres.
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ART-PATRON AND PHILANTHROPIST, MAHAUT, COUNTESS
OF ARTOIS
It has been well said that "out of things unlikely and remote may be
won romance and beauty." Perhaps the truth of this reflection has
never been more signally exemplified than in the case of Mahaut,
Countess of Artois and Burgundy, the record of whose life, in the
absence of any contemporary biographer, has been ably deciphered from
such commonplace material as the household accounts of her
stewards.[26] This great lady, one of the greatest patrons of art of
her time, lived at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the
fourteenth century. She was a great-niece of St. Louis. No poet has
sung of her. It is merely through the prose of daily expenditure that
she is made known to us. She stands before us, not the ideal creation
of the mediæval romancer, but a real woman, with her virtues and
failings, her joys and sorrows, real by very reason of this union of
contrasts, a woman trying to grapple with difficulties forced upon her
by her position, and by an age when intrigue and cunning were as
freely resorted to, and as deftly handled, as the sword and the lance.
[26] Richard (Jules Marie), _Une Petite Nièce de S. Louis:
Mahaut, Comtesse d'Artois_.
Dehaisnes (M. le Chanoine), _L'Histoire de l'art dans la
Flandre, l'Artois, et le Hainaut avant le XVme siècle_.
Mahaut was the daughter of Robert the Second, Count of Artois, a
valiant and chivalrous man, and of Amicie de Courtenay, of whom it was
said that she was esteemed whilst she lived, and mourned of all when
she died. Her brother, Philip, predeceased his father, leaving one
son, Robert. In accordance with local custom, Mahaut, on the death of
her father, inherited Artois, but her nephew, Robert, on attaining his
majority at the age of fourteen, set up a counter-claim. This family
feud was a constant source of trouble and vexation to her, since
Robert again and again returned to the attack, not only appealing to
the king to consider his cause, and fabricating spurious documents as
a means of gaining his end, but also employing unscrupulous agents to
spread false charges against her. He further took advantage of the
growing discontent amongst the nobles, who were gradually realising
that their power was waning, to attach them to his cause, and to
induce them to join him in harassing Mahaut by making raids upon her
lands and her castles. She, however, through her extraordinary
personality, was able to triumph over all this opposition, which, far
from marring, only seemed to add lustre to the work she had set
herself to do.
Mahaut was religious, artistic, and literary. All these
characteristics, together with the circumstance of wealth, she
inherited, and right well did she make use of her inheritance.
Being religious, and living in an age when the frenzy for crusading
had subsided and when architecture was the ruling passion, she
expended her zeal in building religious houses and hospitals.
Being artistic, she made her favourite castle at Hesdin, and the town
around its walls, a centre of art life. Here, seemingly, she favoured
all the arts, including to a certain extent music, then still in its
infancy, for although she apparently had no regular minstrel or
minstrels in her employ as was customary in the houses of the
noblesse, she seems to have engaged them for Church festivals and
sundry fêtes, and we know that on one occasion she hired a minstrel to
soothe her sick child with the sweet soft music of the harp, thus
suggesting that she herself had felt the power of music to minister to
both body and soul.
Being literary, Mahaut collected what MSS. and books she could, and
the list of them serves to show what might be found in a library of
the early fourteenth century. Her religious books included a Bible in
French,[27] a Psalter, a Gradual, various Books of Hours for private
devotion, Lives of the Saints and of the Fathers, and the Miracles of
Our Lady. Philosophy was represented by a French translation of
Boëthius (probably a copy of a translation made by order of King
Philip le Bel, by Jean de Meun, the writer of the second portion of
_The Romance of the Rose_), Law by a verse translation of the laws of
Normandy, History by the Chronicles of the Kings of France, and Travel
by _The Romance of the Great Kan_, known to us as _The Travels of
Marco Polo_. But by far the largest category consisted of Romances,
such as that of Oger le Danois from the national Epic, and another of
Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance of Troy, Percival le
Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and the Violet, the story which forms the
chief episode in the play of Cymbeline. Of course there was no great
choice, but that Mahaut read them and loved them we may be certain,
since we know that she took some with her on her journeyings, and to
preserve them from the wear and tear of travel, had leather wallets
made to protect them. Mahaut was, in truth, the first wealthy
individual of the age to spend her substance with the express purpose
of surrounding herself with beauty of every kind. The foremost thought
of a man in a like case would probably have been to add to his power.
_Her_ thought was of beauty, a quality much more far-reaching and less
transient, and one which, even like Time itself, triumphs over the
changes of fame and fortune.
[27] The Bible was first translated into French, and reduced
in size so that it could be carried in the hand, between 1200
and 1250.
Though Mahaut did not live the allotted three score years and ten, she
lived long enough to see seven kings on the throne of France, two of
whom--Philip the Fifth and Charles the Fourth--were her sons-in-law.
She was a mere child when her great-uncle, King Louis, died in 1270.
In 1285, the year in which Philip the Fourth, surnamed le Bel,
ascended the throne, she wedded Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy, a
widower of forty-five, a companion in arms of her father, and a brave
and generous man, who died fighting for his country, but one
absolutely incapable in administration, and, as a consequence, always
in debt and in the clutches of the usurer. There are few documents to
throw any light on her life until after Otho's death in 1303. This may
be due partly to the fact that she only came into her great
possessions on her father's death in 1302, and partly to the
circumstance that the careless and luxurious expenditure of her
husband in no small degree dissipated her resources, and naturally
prevented, for the time, any material encouragement of art. Doubtless
also much of her time was spent in superintending the education of her
children--two daughters who were destined to marry kings of France,
and a son who was born a peer of the realm, and inheritor of one of
its richest territories. But adverse fate, by the disgrace of one of
her daughters, and the death of her son, intervened to darken these
brilliant prospects, and forms a grey background to her otherwise
wonderful and glorious career.
The more the life of this remarkable woman is studied, the more
apparent it becomes that what gives it its peculiar charm and worth is
the sense she possessed of the value of all human endeavour, whether
in great things or in simple. To her the humblest matters of home
life, and the affairs connected with the administration of her
domains, had each their particular significance. The ordering of a
small grooved tablet on which her little boy could arrange the letters
of the alphabet claimed her attention equally with the founding and
arranging of a hospital. In her capacity as ruler we see the same wide
and reasonable outlook on life, for whilst strict as an administrator,
in personal relations she was charitable and sympathetic. Sometimes a
rebellious baron was deprived of his fief and banished, or was
condemned to expiate his misdeed by making a pilgrimage to sundry
shrines. But Mahaut was practical withal, and recognised human
frailty, and as the pilgrimage was for correction, no pardon was
granted unless the offender brought from each of the sanctuaries a
certificate that his vow had been fulfilled. On the other hand, if any
were sick or in trouble, she was solicitous for their relief, and even
aided them personally where possible. She thus put into practice the
charge of her saintly kinsman, King Louis the Ninth, who always
counselled those about him to have compassion on all mental or
physical suffering, since the heart may be stricken as well as the
body.
As Mahaut had no biographer, and contemporary history merely treats
her as if she were one of many pawns on a chess-board, her stewards'
entries furnish the only materials from which we can weave some
outline of her life, an outline, nevertheless, which enables us to
reason somewhat concerning her inner life, the pattern, as it were,
that is not wrought for the world.
When, in 1302, Mahaut took over the reins of government in Artois,
Paris was the great centre of art and literature as well as of the
science of the day, a condition largely due to the genius of Philip
Augustus, and fostered by succeeding kings. Thither, from far and
near, flocked scholars, poets, and artists alike. Some of these took
up their abode permanently within its walls. Others passed to and fro,
thus creating that constant interchange of thought which is essential
to vitality, so that it was said that "the goddess of Wisdom, after
having dwelt in Athens and Rome, had taken up her abode in Paris."
There, at least twice a year, came Mahaut to her sumptuous dwelling,
the Hôtel d'Artois, situated near the Temple, and extending with its
gardens and its outbuildings to the walls built by Philip Augustus.
Here all who loved the arts and learning were made welcome, and it is
interesting to think it possible, nay even probable, that during one
of her many sojourns there she may have met and talked with Dante.
Amongst the special treasures to be found there, mention is made of
four figure-pictures, one of which is said to have been of Roman
workmanship, and round in form--certainly, as far as is known, a
rarity at that time. We also find a record of finely wrought
embroideries and tapestries on the walls, and of windows painted
either with armorial bearings and figures, or with simple foliage like
the delicate ivy and hawthorn to be seen enriching the pages of Books
of Hours of the fourteenth century. Special mention is made of a
window, evidently over the altar in the private Chapel, in which was
represented the Crucifixion. In the large hall were tables on
trestles, easily removed before the dance began or minstrels or
jugglers displayed their skill, dressers to hold the gold and silver
plate and from which to serve the banquet, and settles with footboards
so necessary when the rushes were only renewed at lengthy intervals.
But if the hall was somewhat sparsely furnished, its ceiling and walls
(the latter on occasions hung with embroideries carried from castle to
castle as the Countess journeyed) were made bright with colour, and
beautiful with design. How bright, and how beautiful, we can infer
almost with certainty from examples in the Castle of Chillon of
thirteenth and fourteenth century decoration lately rescued from under
a coat of whitewash,[28] and from the comparison made by Brunetto
Latini (1230-1294), in his _Tesoro_, of the Italian with the French
feudal castle, in which he says of the one that it is only built for
war, with ditches, palisades, and high towers and walls, and of the
other that it lies in the midst of meadows and gardens, _with large
painted chambers_.
[28] _Chillon_, Albert Naef, Genève, 1908.
Mahaut's cousin, the cold and impersonal Philip le Bel, was on the
throne. For the most part war had ceased in the land, but still there
was war in high places, for Philip, avaricious by nature, and finding
himself a king under altering conditions--the Papacy fallen into
disregard, the Nobility weakened, and the Nation growing, but without
any adequate provision made to meet the needs of this growth--left no
stone unturned to supply this want and gratify his greed. On the
question of the subsidies of the clergy and the relation between
things spiritual and temporal, he quarrelled with the Pope, Boniface
the Eighth, and brought about the removal of the Holy See from Rome to
Avignon. He robbed and ruined the Templars, and despoiled the Jews and
Lombards, the financiers of the day. With him no trickery was too
base, no cruelty too cold-blooded. Gold was his God. Dante, who was
his contemporary, refers (_Purg._ vii. 109) to "his wicked and foul
life" (_la vita sua viziata e lorda_), and (_Par._ xix. 118) to his
"debasement of the coinage" (_falseggiando la moneta_), as well as to
his self-seeking greed. Such, with the added glamour of art and
learning, was the courtly atmosphere of the Time. The bourgeoisie,
encouraged by the king who sought to aggrandise the monarchy at the
expense of the nobles, was growing rich, and politically gaining in
power, and Philip ere long discovered that he had helped merely to
change the centre of power, and not to crush it.
But Paris does not seem to have attracted Mahaut as did her castle at
Hesdin. Here she was in the midst of her own domains, surrounded by
her liegemen and retainers, and able to be in constant touch with her
artificers and workers, whatever their art or industry. By the
thirteenth century the dwelling of the Noble was no longer a grim
castle, suggestive only of a place of defence, with narrow slits in
the walls for the admission of air and light and for the discharge of
arrows, but was more like a fortified country-house. The encompassing
walls enclosed a wide area, within which was sheltered a village and
everything necessary to the growth and development of a community.
From Hesdin Mahaut journeyed constantly through her County of Artois,
visiting her castles, the towns or villages around them, and the
various religious houses and hospitals she had founded, and attending
in general to the well-being of her subjects. For her it was not
enough that she was born to reign. She realised that, without
administration, reigning through the accident of birth is mere
puppet's work, and leads to naught. Her daily life was the visible
expression of this belief, as she herself was an example of the woman
who comprehends the just proportion between personal and public work.
That her subjects responded to her sympathy, and held her in
affectionate regard, is proved by their kindly and sympathetic concern
if she were ill or on a journey, and by the offerings they made to her
on special anniversaries and other festive occasions. We read of gifts
not only of herrings, sturgeon, game, wine, dogs, peacocks, swans,
pasties, and whipped cream, but also of the strangely assorted tribute
of a dead bear and twelve cheeses, as well as of one which must have
contrasted pleasantly with this sundry and singular good cheer--a
parrakeet in a beautifully painted cage. Mahaut, as we have said, was
a constant traveller, and though travelling was then no easy matter,
the roads could not have been over-much beset with difficulties seeing
that she journeyed in all weathers, either on horseback or in a
horse-litter, or in a chariot without springs, and with no mean
retinue. In truth, her following was like a glorified Canterbury
pilgrimage. First came the Countess, accompanied by one or more
knights, her ladies-in-waiting, her chaplain and confessor, her
physician, her secretary, her treasurer and steward, and sundry petty
officers of her household. Then followed the servants, the cook with
his scullions, the shoemaker who could also do necessary repairs to
the harness, the laundress riding astride as was the manner of
serving-women, and a score of lackeys and dependants of all sorts in
charge of the carts containing the necessaries of travel. These
necessaries were generally packed in wooden coffers, some of which
were simple chests, whilst others opened like a cupboard and were
fitted with drawers. To preserve such coffers from damp and damage,
they were put into osier cases covered with cow-hide. And with all
this motley company and baggage, there are but few records of
accidents. The accounts tell of a small occasional expenditure in
consequence of the breakdown of a chariot, or the fall of a valet from
his horse, or the upsetting into a river of a cart conveying the
Countess's wardrobe. But such misadventures were not taken very
seriously by these folk, seasoned to discomfort. Valet or chariot was
mended, or the floating garments were recovered, and on went the
easy-going company, singing by the way, and with horns blowing as they
neared some castle or village where a halt was to be made for the
night. The absence of any mention of the removal of furniture from
castle to castle during these periodical wanderings, save a small bed
for Mahaut's own use, leads us to infer that greater luxury then
prevailed than in the days of her great-uncle, Louis the Ninth, when
even Royalty itself thought it no hardship to have beds and other
necessary pieces of furniture carried by beasts of burden from place
to place according to the movements of the Court. This frugal and
homely custom on one occasion very nearly ended in a tragedy. The
devout Isabelle, Louis's sister, was praying in the early morning, as
was her wont, within her curtained bed, and either lost in prayer or
overcome with fatigue by the length of her orisons, did not notice the
arrival of the packers, who rolled up the bed without drawing the
curtains, and the praying Princess within must have been smothered had
not her lady-in-waiting, Agnes de Harcourt, heard her stifled cries,
and hastened to her rescue. This quaint episode so amused Louis, that
he ever after recounted it when telling of the piety of his sister.
Let us now go in imagination to the Castle of Hesdin, and see
something of its treasures and of the daily life of the Countess
Mahaut.