than all those which I have enumerated: dearth may come upon the people
who inhabit the land, or, what is worse, there may come failure in the
morals, the intelligence, or the counsels of those who are to govern the
land. For something can be done to help a country where there is famine,
if capable men are in control and there is prosperity in the neighboring
lands. But if dearth comes upon the people or the morals of the nation,
far greater misfortunes will arise. For one cannot buy from other
countries with money either morals or insight, if what was formerly in
the land should be lost or destroyed. But even though there be failure
of harvest on a peasant’s farm, which has always been good and which he
and his kinsmen before him have owned a long time, he will not take such
an angry dislike to it that, caring no longer what becomes of it, he
will proceed forthwith to dispose of it; much rather will he plan to
garner and store grass and chaff as carefully as he once garnered good
and clean grain, or even more so, and in this way provide for his
household as best he can, until God wills that times shall improve. In
this way, too, a king must act, if he should suffer the misfortune of
dearth upon the morals or the intelligence of his realm: he must not
renounce the kingdom, but necessity may force him to rate the men of
little wit as high as the wise were rated earlier while the kingdom
stood highest in prosperity and morals. Sometimes punishment will serve
and sometimes prayer; something may also be gained through instruction;
but the land must be maintained in every way possible until God wills
that times shall improve.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXXVI
THE CAUSES OF SUCH PERIODS OF DEARTH AND WHAT FORMS THE DEARTH MAY TAKE
_Son._ I see clearly now that troubles may befall men in many ways, the
mighty as well as the humble, kings as well as cotters. But as you have
given me this freedom and have allowed me to question you in our
conversation, I shall ask you to enlarge somewhat fully upon this speech
before we take up another. What is your opinion as to the causes of such
a severe dearth as may come upon the minds of men, so that all is ruined
at the same time, insight and national morals? And do you think such
losses should be traced to the people who inhabit the realm or to the
king and the men who manage the state with him?
_Father._ What you have now asked about has its origin in various facts
and occurrences of a harmful character. I believe, however, that such
misfortunes would rarely appear among the people who inhabit and till
the land, if the men who govern the realm were discreet and the king
himself were wise. But when God, because of the sins of the people,
determines to visit a land with a punishment that means destruction to
morals and intellect, He will carry out His decision promptly, though in
various ways, as soon as He wills it. Instances of this have occurred
frequently and in various places, where trouble has come when a
chieftain, who possessed both wealth and wisdom and who had been highly
honored by the king, having sat in his council and shared largely with
him in the government, departed this life leaving four or five sons in
his place, all in their early youth or childhood. Then the king and the
whole realm have suffered immediate injury: the king has lost a good
friend, an excellent adviser, and a strong bulwark. Next the man’s
possessions are divided into five parts, and all his projects are
disturbed. His household sinks in importance, since each of the sons has
but a fifth of all the power that the father derived from his means
while he was living, and has even less of his insight and knowledge of
manners, being a mere child. Greater still will the change be if he
leaves no son at his decease but as many daughters as I have now counted
sons; but the very greatest change will come if neither sons nor
daughters survive him; for then it is likely that his possessions will
be split up among distant relatives, unless a near kinsman be found.
Now if many such events should occur at one time in a kingdom, vigor
would disappear from the king’s council, though he himself be very
capable. And if it should happen (for there are cases of such events as
well as of the others) that a king depart this life and leave a young
son who succeeds to the paternal kingdom, though a mere child, and young
counsellors come into the places of the old and wise advisers who were
before,—if all these things that we have now recounted should happen at
one time, then it is highly probable that all the government of the
realm would be stricken with dearth, and that, when the government goes
to ruin, the morals of the nation would also fail to some extent.
There still remains the one contingency which is most likely to bring on
such years of dearth as produce the greatest evils; and unfortunately
there are no fewer instances of such issues than of those that we have
just mentioned. If a king who has governed a kingdom should happen to
die, and leave behind three or four sons, and the men who are likely to
be made counsellors be all young and full of temerity, though wealthy
and of good ancestry, since they have sprung from families that formerly
conducted the government with the king,—now if a kingdom should come
into such unfortunate circumstances as have been described, with several
heirs at the same time, and the evil counsel is furthermore taken to
give them all the royal title and dignity, then that realm must be
called a rudderless ship or a decayed estate; it may be regarded almost
as a ruined kingdom, for it is sown with the worst seeds of famine and
the grains of unpeace. For the petty kings, having rent the realm
asunder, will quickly divide the loyalty of the people who inhabit the
land, both of the rich and of the poor; and each of these lords will
then try to draw friends about him, as many as he can. Thereupon each
will begin to survey his realm as to population and wealth; and when he
recalls what his predecessor possessed, each will feel that he has too
little. Then the friends, too, of each one will remind him of and tell
about how much the king who ruled before him possessed in wealth and
numbers and what great undertakings he set out upon; and it seems as if
in every suggestion each one tries to urge his lord to seize upon more
than he already has. After that these lords begin to treasure those
riches that are of the least profit to the kingdom, namely envy: trivial
matters are carefully garnered and great wrath is blown out of them.
Soon the love of kinship begins to decay; he who was earlier called
friend and relative is now looked upon as an evil-doer, for soon each
one begins to be suspicious of the others. But when suspicion and evil
rumors begin to appear, wicked men think that good times are at hand,
and they all bring out their plows. Before long the seeds of hostility
begin to sprout, avarice and iniquity flourish, and men grow bold in
manslaying, high-handed robbery, and theft.
Now if it happens that one of these princes should wish to punish the
aforesaid vices in his kingdom, the wicked take refuge in the service of
some other master; and, though they have been driven from home because
of their misdeeds, they pretend to have come in innocence to escape the
cruel wrath of their lord. The one to whom they have fled gives
protection in temerity rather than in mercy; for he wishes to acquire
friends in the other’s realm, who may prove useful to himself and
hostile to the other in case they should come to disagreement. But those
who had to flee because of their evil conduct and law-breaking soon
begin to show hostility toward the lord whose subjects they formerly
were and to rouse as much enmity as they can between him and the one to
whom they have come. They take revenge for their exile by carrying
murder, rapine, and plundering into the kingdom, as if they were
guiltless and all the blame lay with the lord. Soon immorality begins to
multiply, for God shows His wrath in this way, that where the four
boundaries of the territories of these chiefs touch, he places a moving
wheel which turns on a restless axle. After that each one forgets all
brotherly love, and kinship is wrecked. Nothing is now spared, for
whenever the people are divided into many factions through loyalty to
different chiefs, and these fall out, the masses will rashly pursue
their desires, and the morals of the nation go to ruin. For then
everyone makes his own moral code according to his own way of thinking;
and no one fears punishment any longer when the rulers fall out and are
weakened thereby.
When each one looks only to his own tricks and wiles, great misfortunes
of all kinds will come upon the land. Murder and quarrels will multiply;
many women will be carried off as captives of war and violated, while
others will be ensnared and seduced into fornication; children will be
begotten in adultery and unlawful co-habitation. Some take their
kinswomen or sisters-in-law, while others seduce wives away from their
husbands; and thus all forms of whoredom are committed and degeneracy
will come to light in all the generations that are begotten in such
immorality. Every form of crime will be committed. Peasants and subjects
become defiant and disobedient; they are not careful to avoid crimes,
and though they commit many, they atone for few only. Trusting in their
own strength and numbers, they attend seditious meetings; and they
choose as their part what is likely to bring a dangerous outcome, for
they place all men on the same level, the discreet and decent ones with
the coarse and stupid, and they screen foolish and iniquitous men from
punishment, though these deserve it every day. And this they do either
by swearing falsely and giving false witness in their behalf, or by
making a foolhardy and crafty defence at the court of trial, so that the
guilty have to answer for nothing before the kingsmen who assist the
king in carrying out the law. For the unthinking mob seem to imagine
that the king was appointed to be their opponent; and a foolish man
regards himself fortunate and highly favored in the eyes of thoughtless
people, if he can maintain himself for some time in opposition to royal
authority and the prescriptions of law. And if such men have disputes to
settle anywhere, the wicked will support the foolish one, so that he may
prevail in the controversy; thus the upright and the peaceful are robbed
of their dues. If the greedy or the quarrelsome is slain because of his
avarice, his stupid kinsmen who survive him will feel that their family
has been greatly injured and impaired thereby; and if at some earlier
time there was slain one of their family who was both wise and peaceful,
and whose wisdom and even temper proved useful to many, and if this one
was atoned for with a payment to the kindred, they will now ask as large
a fine for the unwise as what was formerly taken for the prudent one;
otherwise there will be revenge by manslaying.
But when God sees that such misjudgments, born of perversity and
unwisdom, are decreed, He turns the injustice back upon those who first
began to pass unfair and unfounded judgments. For as soon as the foolish
or the avaricious sees that he is held in high regard, even more than
the wise with his even temper, and that his avarice and folly are turned
to honor and advancement, he will do according to his nature and the
custom of all foolish men: he will become more grasping and will operate
more widely in his greed. And when the mob begins to regard that as
worthy of praise and renown which is evil and should be hated by all,
the second and the third will learn it and the one after the other,
until it becomes common custom; and he alone will be counted a worthy
man who is grasping and knows how to detract unjustly from another’s
honor to his own profit. After that the one deals greedily with the
other, till misfortune turns against the very ones whose folly and
wickedness originally began these evil practices. For one will finally
bring evil upon another, wounds or other afflictions, and thus all old
and lawful ordinances must decay. Now everyone holds that the king and
other great lords should temper the severity of the laws with mercy; but
none of the commoners seems willing to deal justly with another; indeed,
each would rather demand more than what he was entitled to from the
beginning. But when all lawful ordinances and right punishments are
ignored and unlaw and malice take their place, and this condition
becomes so general that God is wearied, He applies the punishment that
is able to reach all, since the guilt has touched all. He throws hatred
and enmity down among the chiefs who are placed in control of the realm;
when things go ill there may also come failure of crops; and the chiefs
soon begin to quarrel, for each finds complaints in the other’s kingdom,
which are finally settled with slaughter and strife.
But whenever famine, murder, and warfare begin to arrive together and
visit all those who inhabit the realm, the kingdom will be brought near
to utter weakness and ruin, if the period should continue any length of
time. Though laws and useful customs may have been observed and
maintained to some extent in the times mentioned earlier, they will be
wholly forgotten whenever such times appear as those that we have just
now described; for in warfare the best men and those of the noblest
kinship are destroyed. But failure of crops, rapine, and unpeace of
every sort that may then appear will rob those of wealth who are in
possession of it and have acquired it honestly, while he gets it who can
most readily deprive others by theft and plunder. And when such a time
comes upon a nation, it will suffer loss in good morals and capable men,
wealth and security, and every blessing as long as God permits the
plague to continue. But He metes out according to His mercy, for He is
able to save such a country, when He finds that the people have been
sufficiently chastised for their sins. Now you can imagine how highly
moral the people will become, if such a nation is saved by God’s grace
and again brought under the rule of a single monarch, and how prosperous
the realm may become in the period immediately following such an unrest
as I have just described. For then the kingdom was rent, the morals of
the people were confused, and their loyalty was divided among a number
of lords, each one of whom was striving to contrive and employ against
the others cunning, deception, disloyalty, and evil in every form.[247]
Footnote 247:
In this chapter the author has summed up the history of Norwegian
kingship in the twelfth century, when minorities were frequent and
joint kingships almost the rule. Three boys were proclaimed kings in
1103; two kings shared the power in 1130; the royal title fell to
three children in 1136. At no time was the realm actually divided, the
theory being that the administration and the revenues might be
divided, while the monarchy remained a unit. The century was a period
of great calamities; pretenders were numerous; and civil war raged at
intervals. For a fuller discussion of the theory of Norwegian kingship
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see above, pp. 35 ff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XXXVII
THE DUTIES, ACTIVITIES, AND AMUSEMENTS OF THE ROYAL GUARDSMEN
_Son._ It is perfectly evident that if all these misfortunes should
befall a kingdom and the period of trouble were to continue for some
time, the realm would decline. There surely must be instances of such an
issue, and we may safely conclude that wherever such events come to
pass, there will be much evil and manifold misfortunes before they
cease. I also see clearly that if the morals or laws of a kingdom are
undermined by such troubles as you have described, even though God
should purpose to rescue it finally from distress and unpeace and bring
it again under one ruler after such troublous times, the people who
survive are likely to be both wicked and vicious; and there will surely
be need, as you have said, of good instruction and at times even of very
severe punishment. Furthermore, even if the kingdom did possess
tolerable morals for a time before the unpeace came, he who is to
undertake the government, though he be very wise, will need to use great
determination and severity for a long period, if the realm is to be
replaced on its earlier footing.
I have been deeply interested in your discussion of what may bring the
greatest damage to a kingdom (and it may be rendered worthless through
loss of morals, population, and wealth, if such conditions should
arise); and I have now been sufficiently informed as to how matters may
shape themselves, if misfortune means to come; and I see clearly what
great losses and damage may follow such events. Now it seems to me that
we have dwelt rather long upon facts which must bring distress to
everyone who wishes to be reputed a moral man (wherefore all, both rich
and poor, should implore the Lord to let no such times come in their
days), and I will therefore return to what I began with and ask you to
point out the manners and customs which you think would be becoming to
me, if I were employed in the royal service, no matter what times might
come, though I will pray the Lord that as long as I live there may be
peace and quiet and prosperous times.
_Father._ No one knows how God will order such things during the days of
any man’s lifetime. But if a man determines to be a kingsman and there
happens to be much distress and many disasters at the time because of
too many rulers or unpeace in some form, he must be careful to join the
service of the one who has obtained the power in the most legal manner
and is most likely to observe the customs that rightful and well-bred
kings have observed before his day. He is then least likely to incur
danger in accounting for his service, whether he be called to account in
this world or in the next. But you have asked what customs you should
observe if you were bound to a royal service, and on that point I can
very well inform you.
This should be the first principle of all your conduct, never to let
your heart be wanting in reverence and fear of God, to love him above
everything else, and next to him to love righteousness. Train yourself
to be fair, upright, and temperate in all things. Always keep in mind
the day of death and guard carefully against vices. Remember that many a
man lives but a brief time, while his deeds live long after him; and it
is of great importance what is remembered about him. Some have reached
fame through good deeds, and these always live after them, for one’s
honor lives forever, though the man himself be dead. Some win fame by
evil deeds and these men, though they be dead, bear a burden of lasting
disgrace when their deeds are recalled; their kinsmen, too, and all
their descendants after their days have to bear the same dishonor.
Those, however, are most numerous who drop away like cattle and are
remembered neither for good nor for evil; but you shall know of a truth
that such is surely not the purpose of mankind; for all other creatures
were made for the pleasure and subsistence of man, while man was created
to enjoy the glories of both this and the other world, if he is to
realize the purpose of his creation. Every one, therefore, while he
still lives, should strive to leave a few such deeds after him as will
cause him to be remembered with favor after he has departed this life.
But this is above all the duty of kings and other mighty chiefs and of
all those who seek their society and enter their service; for after that
a man is no longer looked upon as a churl, but is honored as a governor
or a chief; and thus he ought to be honored, if he strives to observe
the customs that are becoming to himself and his dignity.
Take heed lest you vacillate in friendship among several chiefs, as
fickle men do; for no one who acts thus can be firm in purpose. Love
your lord highly and without guile as long as you stay in his service,
and never seek the society or the confidence of his enemies, if you wish
to remain a man of honor. Above your lord you must love God alone, but
no other man. These are the things that you must especially avoid, lest
they bring you an evil name: perjury and false testimony, brothels,
drinking bouts, except in the king’s house or in decent gatherings,
casting dice for silver, lust after bribes, and all other evil
covetousness; for these things are a great disgrace to every kingsman in
this world and his soul will be in peril in the other world, if he is
found guilty of such vices. Never get drunk, wherever you are; for it
may fall out at any time that you will be summoned to hear a dispute or
to supervise something, or that you will have important business of your
own to look after. Now if such demands should come to a man while he is
drunk, he will be found wholly incompetent; wherefore drunkenness should
be avoided by everyone, and most of all by kingsmen and others who wish
to be reputed as worthy men, for such are most frequently called to hear
suits at law and to other important duties. Moreover, they ought to set
good examples for all, as some may wish to learn decorum from their
behavior.
If you are a kingsman you must observe the same prudence in your address
and habits, and do not forget this. You should frequently be seen in
your lord’s presence. Early in the morning you must escort him to
church, if he observes that custom, as by right he ought to do; listen
attentively to the service while you are in the church, and call
devoutly upon God for mercy. When the king leaves the church, join him
at once and keep sufficiently near him to be in sight, so that he may be
able to call you for any purpose, if he should wish to do so. But do not
keep so close to him as to make him feel annoyed by your presence, when
he wishes to speak with men whom he has called to converse with him, or
to discuss such matters as he wishes to keep secret. Never show an
interest in those affairs which you see that your lord wishes to keep to
himself, unless he summons you to share knowledge with him. But if
anything should come up that your lord confides to you but wishes to
have kept secret, keep it carefully in discreet silence; do not babble
about such affairs as should be hidden in your fidelity.
You must also make a habit of going to the royal apartments early in the
morning before the king has arisen; but be sure to come carefully washed
and bathed and wearing your best raiment; and wait near the king’s
chamber until he has arisen. Go into the king’s chamber if he calls you,
but at no other time; but wherever it is that the king summons you, you
must come into his presence without your mantle. If it is early in the
morning and you have not seen him before, wish him a good day in the
words that I have already taught you; but approach only so near as to
leave him sufficient room to confer with the men who are nearest to him,
and remain standing there. But if he calls you to come nearer, wishing
to speak with you in private, then kneel before him but only so near
that you can readily hear his words; and come without your mantle.
However, if he invites you to be seated, you may put on your cloak, if
you like, and be seated where he indicates.
Now when it happens that the king goes out to seek diversion, whether it
be in town or in the country, or wherever he is sojourning, and you and
your comrades accompany him, the retinue looks best, whether you are
armed or not, if you walk in equal numbers on either side of the king,
though never in compact groups. Wherever you go he should walk in your
midst, and you and your companions should be arranged in equal numbers
before and behind him and on either side. But none of you must walk so
near the king that he has not sufficient space to converse with those
whom he summons to him, whether he wishes to speak with them openly or
in private. And even though he call no one to have speech with him, keep
the order such that there is plenty of space around him on all sides.
But when the king rides out for amusement and you and your comrades
accompany him, arrange the order of riding in the way that I have
suggested about your walking; only keep at a greater distance, so that
no dirt can splash from your horses upon the king, even though you ride
quite rapidly.