NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII.
It is rather a curious speculative question, and such only, we may presume, it will long continue, whether bishops are entitled, on charges of treason or felony, to a trial by the peers. If this question be considered either theoretically or according to ancient authority, I think the affirmative proposition is beyond dispute. Bishops were at all times members of the great national council, and fully equal to lay lords in temporal power as well as dignity. Since the Conquest they have held their temporalities of the crown by a baronial tenure, which, if there be any consistency in law, must unequivocally distinguish them from commoners—since any one holding by barony might be challenged on a jury, as not being the peer of the party whom he was to try. It is true that they take no share in the judicial power of the house of lords in cases of treason or felony; but this is merely in conformity to those ecclesiastical canons which prohibited the clergy from partaking in capital judgment, and they have always withdrawn from the house on such occasions under a protestation of their right to remain. Had it not been for this particularity, arising wholly out of their own discipline, the question of their peerage could never have come into dispute. As for the common argument that they are not tried as peers because they have no inheritable nobility, I consider it as very frivolous, since it takes for granted the precise matter in controversy, that an inheritable nobility is necessary to the definition of peerage, or to its incidental privileges.
If we come to constitutional precedents, by which, when sufficiently numerous and unexceptionable, all questions of this kind are ultimately to be determined, the weight of ancient authority seems to be in favour of the prelates. In the fifteenth year of Edward III. (1340), the king brought several charges against archbishop Stratford. He came to parliament with a declared intention of defending himself before his peers. The king insisted upon his answering in the court of exchequer. Stratford however persevered, and the house of lords, by the king's consent, appointed twelve of their number, bishops, earls, and barons, to report whether peers ought to answer criminal charges in parliament, and not elsewhere. This committee reported to the king in full parliament that the peers of the land ought not to be arraigned, nor put on trial, except in parliament and by their peers. The archbishop upon this prayed the king, that, inasmuch as he had been notoriously defamed, he might be arraigned in full parliament before the peers, and there make answer; which request the king granted. (Rot. Parl. vol. ii. p. 127. Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. i. p. 543.) The proceedings against Stratford went no further; but I think it impossible not to admit that his right to trial as a peer was fully recognised both by the king and lords.
This is, however, the latest, and perhaps the only instance of a prelate's obtaining so high a privilege. In the preceding reign of Edward II., if we can rely on the account of Walsingham (p. 119), Adam Orleton, the factious bishop of Hereford, had first been arraigned before the house of lords, and subsequently convicted by a common jury; but the transaction was of a singular nature, and the king might probably be influenced by the difficulty of obtaining a conviction from the temporal peers, of whom many were disaffected to him, in a case where privilege of clergy was vehemently claimed. But about 1357 a bishop of Ely, being accused of harbouring one guilty of murder, though he demanded a trial by the peers, was compelled to abide the verdict of a jury. (Collier, p. 557.) In the 31st of Edw. III. (1358) the abbot of Missenden was hanged for coining. (2 Inst. p. 635.) The abbot of this monastery appears from Dugdale to have been summoned by writ in the 49th of Henry III. If he actually held by barony, I do not perceive any strong distinction between his case and that of a bishop. The leading precedent, however, and that upon which lawyers principally found their denial of this privilege to the bishops, is the case of Fisher, who was certainly tried before an ordinary jury; nor am I aware that any remonstrance was made by himself, or complaint by his friends, upon this ground. Cranmer was treated in the same manner; and from these two, being the most recent precedents, though neither of them in the best of times, the great plurality of law-books have drawn a conclusion that bishops are not entitled to trial by the temporal peers. Nor can there be much doubt that, whenever the occasion shall occur, this will be the decision of the house of lords.
There are two peculiarities, as it may naturally appear, in the above-mentioned resolution of the lords in Stratford's case. The first is, that they claim to be tried, not only before their peers, but in parliament. And in the case of the bishop of Ely it is said to have been objected to his claim of trial by his peers, that parliament was not then sitting. (Collier, ubi sup.) It is most probable, therefore, that the court of the lord high steward, for the special purpose of trying a peer, was of more recent institution—as appears also from Sir E. Coke's expressions. (4 Inst. p. 58.) The second circumstance that may strike a reader is, that the lords assert their privilege in all criminal cases, not distinguishing misdemeanors from treasons and felonies. But in this they were undoubtedly warranted by the clear language of Magna Charta, which makes no distinction of the kind. The practice of trying a peer for misdemeanors by a jury of commoners, concerning the origin of which I can say nothing, is one of those anomalies which too often render our laws capricious and unreasonable in the eyes of impartial men.
Since writing the above note I have read Stillingfleet's treatise on the judicial power of the bishops in capital cases—a right which, though now, I think, abrogated by non-claim and a course of contrary precedents, he proves beyond dispute to have existed by the common law and constitutions of Clarendon, to have been occasionally exercised, and to have been only suspended by their voluntary act. In the course of this argument he treats of the peerage of the bishops, and produces abundant evidence from the records of parliament that they were styled peers, for which, though convinced from general recollection, I had not leisure or disposition to search. But if any doubt should remain, the statute 25 E. III. c. 6, contains a legislative declaration of the peerage of bishops. The whole subject is discussed with much perspicuity and force by Stillingfleet, who seems however not to press very greatly the right of trial by peers, aware no doubt of the weight of opposite precedents. (Stillingfleet's Works, vol. iii. p. 820.) In one distinction, that the bishops vote in their judicial functions as barons, but in legislation as magnates, which Warburton has brought forward as his own in the Alliance of Church and State, Stillingfleet has perhaps not taken the strongest ground, nor sufficiently accounted for their right of sitting in judgment on the impeachment of a commoner. Parliamentary impeachment, upon charges of high public crimes, seems to be the exercise of a right inherent in the great council of the nation, some traces of which appear even before the Conquest (Chron. Sax. p. 164, 169), independent of and superseding that of trial by peers, which, if the 29th section of Magna Charta be strictly construed, is only required upon indictments at the king's suit. And this consideration is of great weight in the question, still unsettled, whether a commoner can be tried by the lords upon an impeachment for treason.
The treatise of Stillingfleet was written on occasion of the objection raised by the commons to the bishops voting on the question of Lord Danby's pardon, which he pleaded in bar of his impeachment. Burnet seems to suppose that their right to final judgment had never been defended, and confounds judgment with sentence. Mr. Hargrave, strange to say, has made a much greater blunder, and imagined that the question related to their right of voting on a bill of attainder, which no one, I believe, ever disputed. (Notes on Co. Litt. 134 b.)
The constitution of parliament in this period, antecedent to the Great Charter, has been minutely and scrupulously investigated by the Lords' Committee on the Dignity of a Peer in 1819. Two questions may be raised as to the lay portion of the great council of the nation from the Conquest to the reign of John:—first, Did it comprise any members, whether from the counties or boroughs, not holding themselves, nor deputed by others holding in chief of the crown by knight-service or grand serjeanty? secondly, Were all such tenants in capite personally, or in contemplation of law, assisting, by advice and suffrage, in councils held for the purpose of laying on burthens, or for permanent and important legislation?
The former of these questions they readily determine. The committee have discovered no proof, nor any likelihood from analogy, that the great council, in these Norman reigns, was composed of any who did not hold in chief of the crown by a military tenure, or one in grand serjeanty; and they exclude, not only tenants in petty serjeanty and socage, but such as held of an escheated barony, or, as it was called, de honore.
They found more difficulty in the second question. It has generally been concluded, and I may have taken it for granted in my text, that all military tenants in capite were summoned, or ought to have been summoned, to any great council of the realm, whether for the purpose of levying a new tax, or any other affecting the public weal. The committee, however, laudably cautious in drawing any positive inference, have moved step by step through this obscure path with a circumspection as honourable to themselves as it renders their ultimate judgment worthy of respect.
"The council of the kingdom, however composed (they are adverting to the reign of Henry I.), must have been assembled by the king's command; and the king, therefore, may have assumed the power of selecting the persons to whom he addressed the command, especially if the object of assembling such a council was not to impose any burthen on any of the subjects of the realm exempted from such burthens except by their own free grants. Whether the king was at this time considered as bound by any constitutional law to address such command to any particular persons, designated by law as essential parts of such an assembly for all purposes, the committee have been unable to ascertain. It has generally been considered as the law of the land that the king had a right to require the advice of any of his subjects, and their personal services, for the general benefit of the kingdom; but as, by the terms of the charters of Henry and of his father, no aid could be required of the immediate tenants of the crown by military service, beyond the obligation of their respective tenures, if the crown had occasion for any extraordinary aid from those tenants, it must have been necessary, according to law, to assemble all persons so holding, to give their consent to the imposition. Though the numbers of such tenants of the crown were not originally very great, as far as appears from Domesday, yet, if it was necessary to convene all to form a constitutional legislative assembly, the distances of their respective residences, and the inconvenience of assembling at one time, in one spot, all those who thus held of the crown, and upon whom the maintenance of the Conquest itself must for a considerable time have importantly depended, must have produced difficulties, even in the reign of the Conqueror; and the increase of their numbers by subdivision of tenures must have greatly increased the difficulty in the reign of his son Henry: and at length, in the reigns of his successors, it must have been almost impossible to have convened such an assembly, except by general summons of the greater part of the persons who were to form it; and unless those who obeyed the summons could bind those who did not, the powers of the assembly when convened must have been very defective." (p. 40.)
Though I do not perceive why we should assume any great subdivision of tenures before the statute of Quia Emptores, in 18 Edw. I., which prohibited subinfeudation, it is obvious that the committee have pointed out the inconvenience of a scheme which gave all tenants in capite (more numerous in Domesday than they perhaps were aware) a right to assist at great councils. Still, as it is manifest from the early charters, and explicitly admitted by the committee, that the king could raise no extraordinary contribution from his immediate vassals by his own authority, and as there was no feudal subordination between one of these and another, however differing in wealth, it is clear that they were legally entitled to a voice, be it through general or special summons, in the imposition of taxes which they were to pay. It will not follow that they were summoned, or had an acknowledged right to be summoned, on the few other occasions when legislative measures were in contemplation, or in the determinations taken by the king's great council. This can only be inferred by presumptive proof or constitutional analogy.
The eleventh article of the Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164 declares that archbishops, bishops, and all persons of the realm who hold of the king in capite, possess their lands as a barony, and are bound to attend in the judgments of the king's court like other barons. It is plain, from the general tenor of these constitutions, that "universæ personæ regni" must be restrained to ecclesiastics; and the only words which can be important in the present discussion are "sicut barones cæteri." "It seems," says the committee, "to follow that all those termed the king's barons were tenants in chief of the king; but it does not follow that all tenants in chief of the king were the king's barons, and as such bound to attend his court. They might not be bound to attend unless they held their lands of the king in chief 'sicut baroniam,' as expressed in this article with respect to the archbishops and other clergy." (p. 44.) They conclude, however, that "upon the whole the Constitutions of Clarendon, if the existing copies be correct, afford strong ground for presuming that owing suit to the king's great court rendered the tenant one of the king's barons or members of that court, though probably in general none attended who were not specially summoned. It has been already observed that this would not include all the king's tenants in chief, and particularly those who did not hold of him as of his crown, or even to all who did hold of him as of his crown, but not by knight-service or grand serjeanty, which were alone deemed military and honourable tenures; though, whether all who held of the king as of his crown, by knight-service or grand serjeanty, did originally owe suit to the king's court, or whether that obligation was confined to persons holding by a particular tenure, called tenure per baroniam, as has been asserted, the Constitutions of Clarendon do not assist to ascertain." (p. 45.) But this, as they point out, involves the question whether the Curia Regis, mentioned in these constitutions, was not only a judicial but a legislative assembly, or one competent to levy a tax on military tenants, since by the terms of the charter of Henry I., confirmed by that of Henry II., all such tenants were clearly exempted from taxation, except by their own consents.
They touch slightly on the reign of Richard I. with the remark that "the result of all which they have found with respect to the constitution of the legislative assemblies of the realm still leaves the subject in great obscurity." (p. 49.) But it is remarkable that they have never alluded to the presence of tenants in chief, knights as well as barons, at the parliament of Northampton under Henry II. They come, however, rather suddenly to the conclusion that "the records of the reign of John seem to give strong ground for supposing that all the king's tenants in chief by military tenure, if not all the tenants in chief,[a] were at one time deemed necessary members of the common councils of the realm, when summoned for extraordinary purposes, and especially for the purpose of obtaining a grant of any extraordinary aid to the king; and this opinion accords with what has generally been deemed originally the law in France, of other countries where what is called the feudal system of tenures has been established." (p. 54.) It cannot surely admit of a doubt, and has been already affirmed more than once by the committee, that for an extraordinary grant of money the consent of military tenants in chief was required long before the reign of John. Nor was that a reign, till the enactment of the Great Charter, when any fresh extension of political liberty was likely to have become established. But the difficulty may still remain with respect to "extraordinary purposes" of another description.
They observe afterwards that "they have found no document before the Great Charter of John in which the term 'majores barones' has been used, though in some subsequent documents words of apparently similar import have been used. From the instrument itself it might be presumed that the term 'majores barones' was then a term in some degree understood; and that the distinction had, therefore, an earlier origin, though the committee have not found the term in any earlier instrument." (p. 67.) But though the Dialogue on the Exchequer, generally referred to the reign of Henry II., is not an instrument, it is a law-book of sufficient reputation, and in this we read—"Quidam de rege tenent in capite quæ ad coronam pertinent; baronias scilicet majores seu minores." (Lib. ii. cap. 10.) It would be trifling to dispute that the tenant of a baronia major might be called a baro major. And what could the secundæ dignitatis barones at Northampton have been but tenants in capite holding fiefs by some line or other distinguishable from a superior class?[]
It appears, therefore, on the whole, that in the judgment of the committee, by no means indulgent in their requisition of evidence, or disposed to take the more popular side, all the military tenants in capite were constitutionally members of the commune concilium of the realm during the Norman constitution. This commune concilium the committee distinguish from a magnum concilium, though it seems doubtful whether there were any very definite line between the two. But that the consent of these tenants was required for taxation they repeatedly acknowledge. And there appears sufficient evidence that they were occasionally present for other important purposes. It is, however, very probable that writs of summons were actually addressed only to those of distinguished name, to those resident near the place of meeting, or to the servants and favourites of the crown. This seems to be deducible from the words in the Great Charter, which limit the king's engagement to summon all tenants in chief, through the sheriff, to the case of his requiring an aid or scutage, and still more from the withdrawing of this promise in the first year of Henry III. The privilege of attending on such occasions, though legally general, may never have been generally exercised.
The committee seem to have been perplexed about the word magnates employed in several records to express part of those present in great councils. In general they interpret it, as well as the word proceres, to include persons not distinguished by the name "barones;" a word which in the reign of Henry III. seems to have been chiefly used in the restricted sense it has latterly acquired. Yet in one instance, a letter addressed to the justiciar of Ireland, 1 Hen. III., they suppose the word magnates to "exclude those termed therein 'alii quamplurimi;' and consequently to be confined to prelates, earls, and barons. This may be deemed important in the consideration of many other instruments in which the word magnates has been used to express persons constituting the 'commune concilium regni.'" But this strikes me as an erroneous construction of the letter. The words are as follows:—"Convenerunt apud Glocestriam plures regni nostri magnates, episcopi, abbates, comites, et barones, qui patri nostro viventi semper astiterunt fideliter et devotè, et alii quamplurimi; applaudentibus clero et populo, &c., publicè fuimus in regem Angliæ inuncti et coronati." (p. 77.) I think that magnates is a collective word, including the "alii quamplurimi." It appears to me that magnates, and perhaps some other Latin words, correspond to the witan of the Anglo-Saxons, expressing the legislature in general, under which were comprised those who held peculiar dignities, whether lay or spiritual. And upon the whole we may be led to believe that the Norman great council was essentially of the same composition as the witenagemot which had preceded it; the king's thanes being replaced by the barons of the first or second degree, who, whatever may have been the distinction between them, shared one common character, one source of their legislative rights—the derivation of their lands as immediate fiefs from the crown.
The result of the whole inquiry into the constitution of parliament down to the reign of John seems to be—1. That the Norman kings explicitly renounced all prerogative of levying money on the immediate military tenants of the crown, without their consent given in a great council of the realm; this immunity extending also to their sub-tenants and dependants. 2. That all these tenants in chief had a constitutional right to attend, and ought to be summoned; but whether they could attend without a summons is not manifest. 3. That the summons was usually directed to the higher barons, and to such of a second class as the king pleased, many being omitted for different reasons, though all had a right to it. 4. That on occasions when money was not to be demanded, but alterations made in the law, some of these second barons, or tenants in chief, were at least occasionally summoned, but whether by strict right or usage does not fully appear. 5. That the irregularity of passing many of them over when councils were held for the purpose of levying money, led to the provision in the Great Charter of John by which the king promises that they shall all be summoned through the sheriff on such occasions; but the promise does not extend to any other subject of parliamentary deliberation. 6. That even this concession, though but the recognition of a known right, appeared so dangerous to some in the government that it was withdrawn in the first charter of Henry III.
The charter of John, as has just been observed, while it removes all doubt, if any could have been entertained, as to the right of every military tenant in capite to be summoned through the sheriff, when an aid or scutage was to be demanded, will not of itself establish their right of attending parliament on other occasions. We cannot absolutely assume any to have been, in a general sense, members of the legislature except the prelates and the majores barones. But who were these, and how distinguished? For distinguished they must now have become, and that by no new provision, since none is made. The right of personal summons did not constitute them, for it is on majores barones, as already a determinate rank, that the right is conferred. The extent of property afforded no definite criterion; at least some baronies, which appear to have been of the first class, comprehended very few knights' fees: yet it seems probable that this was the original ground of distinction.[c]
The charter, as renewed in the first year of Henry III., does not only omit the clause prohibiting the imposition of aids and scutages without consent, and providing for the summons of all tenants in capite before either could be levied, but gives the following reason for suspending this and other articles of king John's charter:—"Quia vero quædam capitula in priori cartâ continebantur, quæ gravia et dubitabilia videbantur, sicut de scutagiis et auxiliis assidendis ... placuit supra-dictis prælatis et magnatibus ea esse in respectu, quousque plenius consilium habuerimus, et tunc faciemus plurissimè, tam de his quam de aliis quæ occurrerint emendanda, quæ ad communem omnium utilitatem pertinuerint, et pacem et statum nostrum et regni nostri." This charter was made but twenty-four days after the death of John; and we may agree with the committee (p. 77) in thinking it extraordinary that these deviations from the charter of Runnymede, in such important particulars, have been so little noticed. It is worthy of consideration in what respects the provisions respecting the levying of money could have appeared grave and doubtful. We cannot believe that the earl of Pembroke, and the other barons who were with the young king, himself a child of nine years old and incapable of taking a part, meant to abandon the constitutional privilege of not being taxed in aids without their consent. But this they might deem sufficiently provided for by the charters of former kings and by general usage. It is not, however, impossible that the government demurred to the prohibition of levying scutage, which stood on a different footing from extraordinary aids; for scutage appears to have been formerly taken without consent of the tenants; and in the second charter of Henry III. there is a clause that it should be taken as it had been in the time of Henry II. This was a certain payment for every knight's fee; but if the original provision of the Runnymede charter had been maintained, none could have been levied without consent of parliament.
It seems also highly probable that, before the principle of representation had been established, the greater barons looked with jealousy on the equality of suffrage claimed by the inferior tenants in capite. That these were constitutionally members of the great council, at least in respect of taxation, has been sufficiently shown; but they had hitherto come in small numbers, likely to act always in subordination to the more potent aristocracy. It became another question whether they should all be summoned, in their own counties, by a writ selecting no one through favour, and in its terms compelling all to obey. And this question was less for the crown, which might possibly find its advantage in the disunion of its tenants, than for the barons themselves. They would naturally be jealous of a second order, whom in their haughtiness they held much beneath them, yet by whom they might be outnumbered in those councils where they had bearded the king. No effectual or permanent compromise could be made but by representation, and the hour for representation was not come.
The Lords' committee, though not very confidently, take the view of Brady and Blackstone, confining the electors of knights to tenants in capite. They admit that "the subsequent usage, and the subsequent statutes founded on that usage, afford ground for supposing that in the 49th of Henry III. and in the reign of Edward I. the knights of the shires returned to parliament were elected at the county courts and by the suitors of those courts. If the knights of the shires were so elected in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., it seems important to discover, if possible, who were the suitors of the county courts in these reigns" (p. 149). The subject, they are compelled to confess, after a discussion of some length, remains involved in great obscurity, which their industry has been unable to disperse. They had, however, in an earlier part of their report (p. 30), thought it highly probable that the knights of the shires in the reign of Edward III. represented a description of persons who might in the reign of the Conqueror have been termed barons. And the general spirit of their subsequent investigation seems to favour this result, though they finally somewhat recede from it, and admit at least that, before the close of Edward III.'s reign, the elective franchise extended to freeholders.
The question, as the committee have stated it, will turn on the character of those who were suitors to the county court. And, if this may be granted, I must own that to my apprehension there is no room for the hypothesis that the county court was differently constituted in the reign of Edward I. or of Edward III. from what it was very lately, and what it was long before those princes sat on the throne. In the Anglo-Saxon period we find this court composed of thanes, but not exclusively of royal thanes, who were comparatively few. In the laws of Henry I. we still find sufficient evidence that the suitors of the court were all who held freehold lands, terrarum domini; or, even if we please to limit this to lords of manors, which is not at all probable, still without distinction of a mesne or immediate tenure. Vavassors, that is, mesne tenants, are particularly mentioned in one enumeration of barons attending the court. In some counties a limitation to tenants in capite would have left this important tribunal very deficient in numbers. And as in all our law-books we find the county court composed of freeholders, we may reasonably demand evidence of two changes in its constitution, which the adherents to the theory of restrained representation must combine—one which excluded all freeholders except those who held immediately of the crown; another which restored them. The notion that the county court was the king's court baron (Report, p. 150), and thus bore an analogy to that of the lord in every manor, whether it rests on any modern legal authority or not, seems delusive. The court baron was essentially a feudal institution; the county court was from a different source; it was old Teutonic, and subsisted in this and other countries before the feudal jurisdictions had taken root. It is a serious error to conceive that, because many great alterations were introduced by the Normans, there was nothing left of the old system of society.[d]
It may, however, be naturally inquired why, if the king's tenants in chief were exclusively members of the national council before the era of county representation, they did not retain that privilege; especially if we conceive, as seems on the whole probable, that the knights chosen in 38 Henry III. were actually representatives of the military tenants of the crown. The answer might be that these knights do not appear to have been elected in the county court; and when that mode of choosing knights of the shire was adopted, it was but consonant to the increasing spirit of liberty, and to the weight also of the barons, whose tenants crowded the court, that no freeholder should be debarred of his equal suffrage. But this became the more important, and we might almost add necessary, when the feudal aids were replaced by subsidies on movables; so that, unless the mesne freeholders could vote at county elections, they would have been taxed without their consent and placed in a worse condition than ordinary burgesses. This of itself seems almost a decisive argument to prove that they must have joined in the election of knights of the shire after the Confirmatio Chartarum. If we were to go down so late as Richard II., and some pretend that the mesne freeholders did not vote before the reign of Henry IV., we find Chaucer's franklin, a vavassor, capable even of sitting in parliament for his shire. For I do not think Chaucer ignorant of the proper meaning of that word. And Allen says (Edinb. Rev. xxviii. 145)—"In the earliest records of the house of commons we have found many instances of sub-vassals who have represented their counties in parliament."
If, however, it should be suggested that the practice of admitting the votes of mesne tenants at county elections may have crept in by degrees, partly by the constitutional principle of common consent, partly on account of the broad demarcation of tenants in capite by knight-service from barons, which the separation of the houses of parliament produced, thus tending, by diminishing the importance of the former, to bring them down to the level of other freeholders; partly, also, through the operation of the statute Quia Emptores (18 Edward I.), which, by putting an end to subinfeudation, created a new tenant of the crown upon every alienation of land, however partial, by one who was such already, and thus both multiplied their numbers and lowered their dignity; this supposition, though incompatible with the argument built on the nature of the county court, would be sufficient to explain the facts, provided we do not date the establishment of the new usage too low. The Lords' committee themselves, after much wavering, come to the conclusion that "at length, if not always, two persons were elected by all the freeholders of the county, whether holding in chief of the crown or of others" (p. 331). This they infer from the petitions of the commons that the mesne tenants should be charged with the wages of knights of the shire; since it would not be reasonable to levy such wages from those who had no voice in the election. They ultimately incline to the hypothesis that the change came in silently, favoured by the growing tendency to enlarge the basis of the constitution, and by the operation of the statute Quia Emptores, which may not have been of inconsiderable influence. It appears by a petition in 51 Edward III. that much confusion had arisen with respect to tenures; and it was frequently disputed whether lands were held of the king or of other lords. This question would often turn on the date of alienation; and, in the hurry of an election, the bias being always in favour of an extended suffrage, it is to be supposed that the sheriff would not reject a claim to vote which he had not leisure to investigate.
It now appears more probable to me than it did that some of the greater towns, but almost unquestionably London, did enjoy the right of electing magistrates with a certain jurisdiction before the Conquest. The notion which I found prevailing among the writers of the last century, that the municipal privileges of towns on the continent were merely derived from charters of the twelfth century, though I was aware of some degree of limitation which it required, swayed me too much in estimating the condition of our own burgesses. And I must fairly admit that I have laid too much stress on the silence of Domesday Book; which, as has been justly pointed out, does not relate to matters of internal government, unless when they involve some rights of property.
I do not conceive, nevertheless, that the municipal government of Anglo-Saxon boroughs was analogous to that generally established in our corporations from the reign of Henry II. and his successors. The real presumption has been acutely indicated by Sir F. Palgrave, arising from the universal institution of the court-leet, which gave to an alderman, or otherwise denominated officer, chosen by the suitors, a jurisdiction, in conjunction with themselves as a jury, over the greater part of civil disputes and criminal accusations, as well as general police, that might arise within the hundred. Wherever the town or borough was too large to be included within a hundred, this would imply a distinct jurisdiction, which may of course be called municipal. It would be similar to that which, till lately, existed in some towns—an elective high bailiff or principal magistrate, without a representative body of aldermen and councillors. But this is more distinctly proved with respect to London, which, as is well known, does not appear in Domesday, than as to any other town. It was divided into wards, answering to hundreds in the county; each having its own wardmote, or leet, under its elected alderman. "The city of London, as well within the walls, as its liberties without the walls, has been divided from time immemorial into wards, bearing nearly the same relation to the city that the hundred anciently did to the shire. Each ward is, for certain purposes, a distinct jurisdiction. The organisation of the existing municipal constitution of the city is, and always has been, as far as can be traced, entirely founded upon the ward system." (Introduction to the French Chronicle of London.—Camden Society, 1844.)
Sir F. Palgrave extends this much further:—"There were certain districts locally included within the hundreds, which nevertheless constituted independent bodies politic. The burgesses, the tenants, the resiants of the king's burghs and manors in ancient demesne, owed neither suit nor service to the hundred leet. They attended at their own leet, which differed in no essential respect from the leet of the hundred. The principle of frank-pledge required that each friborg should appear by its head as its representative; and consequently, the jurymen of the leet of the burgh or manor are usually described under the style of the twelve chief pledges. The legislative and remedial assembly of the burgh or manor was constituted by the meeting of the heads of its component parts. The portreeve, constable, headborough, bailiff, or other the chief executive magistrate, was elected or presented by the leet jury. Offences against the law were repressed by their summary presentments. They who were answerable to the community for the breach of the peace punished the crime. Responsibility and authority were conjoined. In their legislative capacity they bound their fellow-townsmen by making by-laws." (Edin. Rev. xxxvi. 309.) "Domesday Book," he says afterwards, "does not notice the hundred court, or the county-court; because it was unnecessary to inform the king or his justiciaries of the existence of the tribunals which were in constant action throughout all the land. It was equally unnecessary to make a return of the leets which they knew to be inherent in every burgh. Where any special municipal jurisdiction existed, as in Chester, Stamford, and Lincoln, then it became necessary that the franchise should be recorded. The twelve lagemen in the two latter burghs were probably hereditary aldermen. In London and in Canterbury aldermen occasionally held their sokes by inheritance.[e] The negative evidence extorted out of Domesday has, therefore, little weight." (p. 313.)
It seems, however, not unquestionable whether this representation of an Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman municipality is not urged rather beyond the truth. The portreeve of London, their principal magistrate, appears to have been appointed by the crown. It was not till 1188 that Henry Fitzalwyn, ancestor of the present Lord Beaumont,[f] became the first mayor of London. But he also was nominated by the crown, and remained twenty-four years in office. In the same year the first sheriffs are said to have been made (facti). But John, immediately after his accession in 1199, granted the citizens leave to choose their own sheriffs. And his charter of 1215 permits them to elect annually their mayor. (Maitland's Hist. of London, p. 74, 76.) We read, however, under the year 1200, in the ancient chronicle lately published, that twenty-five of the most discreet men of the city were chosen and sworn to advise for the city, together with the mayor. These were evidently different from the aldermen, and are the original common council of the city. They were perhaps meant in a later entry (1229):—"Omnes aldermanni et magnates civitatis per assensum universorum civium," who are said to have agreed never to permit a sheriff to remain in office during two consecutive years.
The city and liberties of London were not wholly under the jurisdiction of the several wardmotes and their aldermen. Landholders, secular and ecclesiastical, possessed their exclusive sokes, or jurisdictions, in parts of both. One of these has left its name to the ward of Portsoken. The prior of the Holy Trinity, in right of this district, ranked as an alderman, and held a regular wardmote. The wards of Farringdon are denominated from a family of that name, who held a part of them by hereditary right as their territorial franchise. These sokes gave way so gradually before the power of the citizens, with whom, as may be supposed, a perpetual conflict was maintained, that there were nearly thirty of them in the early part of the reign of Henry III., and upwards of twenty in that of Edward I. With the exception of Portsoken, they were not commensurate with the city wards, and we find the juries of the wards, in the third of Edward I., presenting the sokes as liberties enjoyed by private persons or ecclesiastical corporations, to the detriment of the crown. But, though the lords of these sokes trenched materially on the exclusive privileges of the city, it is remarkable that, no condition but inhabitancy being required in the thirteenth century for civic franchises, both they and their tenants were citizens, having individually a voice in municipal affairs, though exempt from municipal jurisdiction. I have taken most of this paragraph from a valuable though short notice of the state of London in the thirteenth century, published in the fourth volume of the Archæological Journal (p. 273).
The inference which suggests itself from these facts is that London, for more than two centuries after the Conquest, was not so exclusively a city of traders, a democratic municipality, as we have been wont to conceive. And as this evidently extends back to the Anglo-Saxon period, it both lessens the improbability that the citizens bore at times a part in political affairs, and exhibits them in a new light, as lords and tenants of lords, as well as what of course they were in part, engaged in foreign and domestic commerce. It will strike every one, in running over the list of mayors and sheriffs in the thirteenth century, that a large proportion of the names are French; indicating, perhaps, that the territorial proprietors whose sokes were intermingled with the city had influence enough, through birth and wealth, to obtain an election. The general polity, Saxon and Norman, was aristocratic; whatever infusion there might be of a more popular scheme of government, and much certainly there was, could not resist, even if resistance had been always the people's desire, the joint predominance of rank, riches, military habits, and common alliance, which the great baronage of the realm enjoyed. London, nevertheless, from its populousness, and the usual character of cities, was the centre of a democratic power, which, bursting at times into precipitate and needless tumult easily repressed by force, kept on its silent course till, near the end of the thirteenth century, the rights of the citizens and burgesses in the legislature were constitutionally established. [1848.]
If Fitz-Stephen rightly informs us that in London there were 126 parish churches, besides 13 conventual ones, we may naturally think the population much underrated at 40,000. But the fashion of building churches in cities was so general, that we cannot apply a standard from modern times. Norwich contained sixty parishes.
Even under Henry II., as we find by Fitz-Stephen, the prelates and nobles had town houses. "Ad hæc omnes fere episcopi, abbates, et magnates Angliæ, quasi cives et municipes sunt urbis Lundoniæ; sua ibi habentes ædificia præclara; ubi se recipiunt, ubi divites impensas faciunt, ad concilia, ad conventus celebres in urbem evocati, à domino rege vel metropolitano suo, seu propriis tracti negotiis." The eulogy of London by this writer is very curious; its citizens were thus early distinguished by their good eating, to which they added amusements less congenial to later liverymen, hawking, cock-fighting, and much more. The word cockney is not improbably derived from cocayne, the name of an imaginary land of ease and jollity.
The city of London within the walls was not wholly built, many gardens and open spaces remaining. And the houses were never more than a single story above the ground-floor, according to the uniform type of English dwellings in the twelfth and following centuries. On the other hand, the liberties contained many inhabitants; the streets were narrower than since the fire of 1666; and the vast spaces now occupied by warehouses might have been covered by dwelling-houses. Forty thousand, on the whole, seems rather a low estimate for these two centuries; but it is impossible to go beyond the vaguest conjecture.
The population of Paris in the middle ages has been estimated with as much diversity as that of London. M. Dulaure, on the basis of the taille in 1313, reckons the inhabitants at 49,110.[g] But he seems to have made unwarrantable assumptions where his data were deficient. M. Guérard, on the other hand (Documens Inédits, 1841), after long calculations, brings the population of the city in 1292 to 215,861. This is certainly very much more than we could assign to London, or probably any European city; and, in fact, his estimate goes on two arbitrary postulates. The extent of Paris in that age, which is tolerably known, must be decisive against so high a population.[h]
The Winton Domesday, in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries of London, furnishes some important information as to that city, which, as well as London, does not appear in the great Domesday Book. This record is of the reign of Henry I. Winchester had been, as is well known, the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kings. It has been observed that "the opulence of the inhabitants may possibly be gathered from the frequent recurrence of the trade of goldsmith in it, and the populousness of the town from the enumeration of the streets." (Cooper's Public Records, i. 226.) Of these we find sixteen. "In the petition from the city of Winchester to king Henry VI. in 1450, no less than nine of these streets are mentioned as having been ruined." As York appears to have contained about 10,000 inhabitants under the Confessor, we may probably compute the population of Winchester at nearly twice that number.
The Lords' committee extenuate the presumption that either knights or burgesses sat in any of these parliaments. The "cunctarum regni civitatum pariter et burgorum potentiores," mentioned by Wikes in 1269 or 1270, they suppose to have been invited in order to witness the ceremony of translating the body of Edward the Confessor to his tomb newly prepared in Westminster Abbey (p. 161). It is evident, indeed, that this assembly acted afterwards as a parliament in levying money. But the burgesses are not mentioned in this. It cannot, nevertheless, be presumed from the silence of the historian, who had previously informed us of their presence at Westminster, that they took no part. It may be perhaps, more doubtful whether they were chosen by their constituents or merely summoned as "potentiores."
The words of the statute of Marlbridge (51 Hen. III.), which are repeated in French by that of Gloucester (6 Edw. I.), do not satisfy the committee that there was any representation either of counties or boroughs. "They rather import a selection by the king of the most discreet men of every degree" (p. 183). And the statutes of 13 Edw. I., referring to this of Gloucester, assert it to have been made by the king, "with prelates, earls, barons, and his council," thus seeming to exclude what would afterwards have been called the lower house. The assembly of 1271, described in the Annals of Waverley, "seems to have been an extraordinary convention, warranted rather by the particular circumstances under which the country was placed than by any constitutional law" (p. 173). It was, however, a case of representation; and following several of the like nature, at least as far as counties were concerned, would render the principle familiar. The committee are even unwilling to admit that "la communauté de la terre illocques summons" in the statute of Westminster I., though expressly distinguished from the prelates, earls, and barons, appeared in consequence of election (p. 173). But, if not elected, we cannot suppose less than that all the tenants in chief, or a large number of them, were summoned; which, after the experience of representation, was hardly a probable course.
The Lords' committee, I must still incline to think, have gone too far when they come to the conclusion that, on the whole view of the evidence collected on the subject, from the 49th of Hen. III. to the 18th of Edw. I., there seems strong ground for presuming that, after the 49th of Hen. III., the constitution of the legislative assembly returned generally to its old course; that the writs issued in the 49th of Henry III., being a novelty, were not afterwards precisely followed, as far as appears, in any instance; and that the writs issued in the 11th of Edw. I., "for assembling two conventions, at York and Northampton, of knights, citizens, burgesses, and representatives of towns, without prelates, earls, and barons, were an extraordinary measure, probably adopted for the occasion, and never afterwards followed; and that the writs issued in the 18th of Edw. I., for electing two or three knights for each shire without corresponding writs for election of citizens or burgesses, and not directly founded on or conformable to the writs issued in the 49th of Henry III., were probably adopted for a particular purpose, possibly to sanction one important law [the statute Quia Emptores], and because the smaller tenants in chief of the crown rarely attended the ordinary legislative assemblies when summoned, or attended in such small numbers that a representation of them by knights chosen for the whole shire was deemed advisable, to give sanction to a law materially affecting all the tenants in chief, and those holding under them" (p. 204).
The election of two or three knights for the parliament of 18th Edw. I., which I have overlooked in my text, appears by an entry on the close roll of that year, directed to the sheriff of Northumberland; and it is proved from the same roll that similar writs were directed to all the sheriffs in England. We do not find that the citizens and burgesses were present in this parliament; and it is reasonably conjectured that, the object of summoning it being to procure a legislative consent to the statute Quia Emptores, which put an end to the subinfeudation of lands, the towns were thought to have little interest in the measure. It is, however, another early precedent for county representation; and that of 22nd of Edw. I. (see the writ in Report of Committee, p. 209) is more regular. We do not find that the citizens and burgesses were summoned to either parliament.
But, after the 23rd of Edward I., the legislative constitution seems not to have been unquestionably settled, even in the essential point of taxation. The Confirmation of the Charters, in the 25th year of that reign, while it contained a positive declaration that no "aids, tasks, or prises should be levied in future, without assent of the realm," was made in consideration of a grant made by an assembly in which representatives of cities and boroughs do not appear to have been present. Yet, though the words of the charter or statute are prospective, it seems to have long before been reckoned a clear right of the subject, at least by himself, not to be taxed without his consent. A tallage on royal towns and demesnes, nevertheless, was set without authority of parliament four years afterwards. This "seems to show, either that the king's right to tax his demesnes at his pleasure was not intended to be included in the word tallage in that statute [meaning the supposed statute de tallagio non concedendo], or that the king acted in contravention of it. But if the king's cities and boroughs were still liable to tallage at the will of the crown, it may not have been deemed inconsistent that they should be required to send representatives for the purpose of granting a general aid to be assessed on the same cities and boroughs, together with the rest of the kingdom, when such general aid was granted, and yet should be liable to be tallaged at the will of the crown when no such general aid was granted" (p. 244).
If in these later years of Edward's reign the king could venture on so strong a measure as the imposition of a tallage without consent of those on whom it was levied, it is less surprising that no representatives of the commons appear to have been summoned to one parliament, or perhaps two, in his twenty-seventh year, when some statutes were enacted. But, as this is merely inferred from the want of any extant writ, which is also the case in some parliaments where, from other sources, we can trace the commons to have been present, little stress should be laid upon it.
In the remarks which I have offered in these notes on the Report of the Lords' Committee, I have generally abstained from repeating any which Mr. Allen brought forward. But the reader should have recourse to his learned criticism in the Edinburgh Review. It will appear that the committee overlooked not a few important records, both in the reign of Edward I. and that of his son.
Two considerable authorities have, since the first publication of this work, placed themselves, one very confidently, one much less so, on the side of our older lawyers and in favour of the antiquity of borough representation. Mr. Allen, who, in his review of my volumes (Edinb. Rev. xxx. 169), observes, as to this point,—"We are inclined, in the main, to agree with Mr. Hallam," lets us know, two or three years afterwards, that the scale was tending the other way, when, in his review of the Report of the Lords' Committee, who give a decided opinion that cities and boroughs were on no occasion called upon to assist at legislative meetings before the forty-ninth of Henry III., and are much disposed to believe that none were originally summoned to parliament, except cities and boroughs of ancient demesne, or in the hands of the king at the time when they received the summons, he says,—"We are inclined to doubt the first of these propositions, and convinced that the latter is entirely erroneous." (Edinb. Rev. xxxv. 30.) He allows, however, that our kings had no motive to summon their cities and boroughs to the legislature, for the purpose of obtaining money, "this being procured through the justices in eyre, or special commissioners; and therefore, if summoned at all, it is probable that the citizens and burgesses were assembled on particular occasions only, when their assistance or authority was wanted to confirm or establish the measures in contemplation by the government." But as he alleges no proof that this was ever done, and merely descants on the importance of London and other cities both before and after the Conquest, and as such an occasional summons to a great council, for the purpose of advice, would by no means involve the necessity of legislative consent, we can hardly reckon this very acute writer among the positive advocates of a high antiquity for the commons in parliament.
Sir Francis Palgrave has taken much higher ground, and his theory, in part at least, would have been hailed with applause by the parliaments of Charles I. According to this, we are not to look to feudal principles for our great councils of advice and consent. They were the aggregate of representatives from the courts-leet of each shire and each borough, and elected by the juries to present the grievances of the people and to suggest their remedies. The assembly summoned by William the Conqueror appears to him not only, as it did to lord Hale, "a sufficient parliament," but a regular one; "proposing the law and giving the initiation to the bill which required the king's consent." (Ed. Rev. xxxvi. 327.) "We cannot," he proceeds, "discover any essential difference between the powers of these juries and the share of the legislative authority which was enjoyed by the commons at a period when the constitution assumed a more tangible shape and form." This is supported with that copiousness and variety of illustration which distinguish his theories, even when there hangs over them something not quite satisfactory to a rigorous inquirer, and when their absolute originality on a subject so beaten is of itself reasonably suspicious. Thus we come in a few pages to the conclusion—"Certainly there is no theory so improbable, so irreconcilable to general history or to the peculiar spirit of our constitution, as the opinions which are held by those who deny the substantial antiquity of the house of commons. No paradox is so startling as the assumption that the knights and burgesses who stole into the great council between the close of the reign of John and the beginning of the reign of Edward should convert themselves at once into the third estate of the realm, and stand before the king and his peers in possession of powers and privileges which the original branches of the legislature could neither dispute nor withstand" (p. 332). "It must not be forgotten that the researches of all previous writers have been directed wholly in furtherance of the opinions which have been held respecting the feudal origin of parliament. No one has considered it as a common-law court."
I do not know that it is necessary to believe in a properly feudal origin of parliament, or that this hypothesis is generally received. The great council of the Norman kings was, as in common with Sir F. Palgrave and many others I believe, little else than a continuation of the witenagemot, the immemorial organ of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy in their relation to the king. It might be composed, perhaps, more strictly according to feudal principles; but the royal thanes had always been consenting parties. Of the representation of courts-leet we may require better evidence: aldermen of London, or persons bearing that name, perhaps as landowners rather than citizens (see a former note), may possibly have been occasionally present; but it is remarkable that neither in historians nor records do we find this mentioned; that aldermen, in the municipal sense, are never enumerated among the constituents of a witenagemot or a council, though they must, on the representative theory, have composed a large portion of both. But, waiving this hypothesis, which the author seems not here to insist upon, though he returns to it in the Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, why is it "a startling paradox to deny the substantial antiquity of the house of commons"? By this I understand him to mean that representatives from counties and boroughs came regularly, or at least frequently, to the great councils of Saxon and Norman kings. Their indispensable consent in legislation I do not apprehend him to affirm, but rather the reverse:—"The supposition that in any early period the burgesses had a voice in the solemn acts of the legislature is untenable." (Rise and Progress, &c., i. 314.) But they certainly did, at one time or other, obtain this right, "or convert themselves," as he expresses it, "into the third estate of the realm;" so that upon any hypothesis a great constitutional change was wrought in the powers of the commons. The revolutionary character of Montfort's parliament in the 49th of Hen. III. would sufficiently account both for the appearance of representatives from a democracy so favourable to that bold reformer and for the equality of power with which it was probably designed to invest them. But whether in the more peaceable times of Edward I. the citizens or burgesses were recognised as essential parties to every legislative measure, may, as I have shown, be open to much doubt.
I cannot upon the whole overcome the argument from the silence of all historians, from the deficiency of all proof as to any presence of citizens and burgesses, in a representative character as a house of commons, before the 49th year of Henry III.; because after this time historians and chroniclers exactly of the same character as the former, or even less copious and valuable, do not omit to mention it. We are accustomed in the sister kingdoms, so to speak, of the continent, founded on the same Teutonic original, to argue against the existence of representative councils, or other institutions, from the same absence of positive testimony. No one believes that the three estates of France were called together before the time of Philip the Fair. No one strains the representation of cities in the cortes of Castile beyond the date at which we discover its existence by testimony. It is true that unreasonable inferences may be made from what is usually called negative evidence; but how readily and how often are we deceived by a reliance on testimony! In many instances the negative conclusion carries with it a conviction equal to a great mass of affirmative proof. And such I reckon the inference from the language of Roger Hoveden, of Matthew Paris, and so many more who speak of councils and parliaments full of prelates and nobles, without a syllable of the burgesses. Either they were absent, or they were too insignificant to be named; and in that case it is hard to perceive any motive for requiring their attendance.
A record, which may be read in Brady's History of England (vol. ii. Append. p. 66) and in Rymer (t. iv. p. 1237), relative to the proceedings on Edward II.'s flight into Wales and subsequent detention, recites that, "the king having left his kingdom without government, and gone away with notorious enemies of the queen, prince, and realm, divers prelates, earls, barons, and knights, then being at Bristol in the presence of the said queen and duke (prince Edward, duke of Cornwall), by the assent of the whole commonalty of the realm there being, unanimously elected the said duke to be guardian of the said kingdom; so that the said duke and guardian should rule and govern the said realm in the name and by the authority of the king his father, he being thus absent." But the king being taken and brought back into England, the power thus delegated to the guardian ceased of course; whereupon the bishop of Hereford was sent to press the king to permit that the great seal, which he had with him, the prince having only used his private seal, should be used in all things that required it. Accordingly the king sent the great seal to the queen and prince. The bishop is said to have been thus commissioned to fetch the seal by the prince and queen, and by the said prelates and peers, with the assent of the said commonalty then being at Hereford. It is plain that these were mere words of course; for no parliament had been convoked, and no proper representatives could have been either at Bristol or Hereford. However, this is a very curious record, inasmuch as it proves the importance attached to the forms of the constitution at this period.
The Lords' committee dwell much on an enactment in the parliament held at York in 15 Edw. II. (1322), which they conceived to be the first express recognition of the constitutional powers of the lower house. It was there enacted that "for ever thereafter all manner of ordinances or provisions made by the subjects of the king or his heirs, by any power or authority whatsoever, concerning the royal power of the king or his heirs, or against the estate of the crown, should be void and of no avail or force whatsoever; but the matters to be established for the estate of the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, should be treated, accorded, and established in parliament by the king, and by the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm, according as had been before accustomed. This proceeding, therefore, declared the legislative authority to reside only in the king, with the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and commons assembled in parliament; and that every legislative act not done by that authority should be deemed void and of no effect. By whatever violence this statute may have been obtained, it declared the constitutional law of the realm on this important subject." (p. 282.) The violence, if resistance to the usurpation of a subject is to be called such, was on the part of the king, who had just sent the earl of Lancaster to the scaffold, and the present enactment was levelled at the ordinances which had been forced upon the crown by his faction. The lords ordainers, nevertheless, had been appointed with consent of the commons, as has been mentioned in the text; so that this provision in 15 Edward II. seems rather to limit than to enhance the supreme power of parliament, if it were meant to prohibit any future enactment of the same kind by its sole authority. But the statute is declaratory in its nature; nor can we any more doubt that the legislative authority was reposed in the king, lords, and commons before this era than that it was so ever afterwards. Unsteady as the constitutional usage had been through the reign of Edward I., and willing as both he and his son may have been to prevent its complete establishment, the necessity of parliamentary consent both for levying money and enacting laws must have become an article of the public creed before his death. If it be true that even after this declaratory statute laws were made without the assent or presence of the commons, as the Lords' committee incline to hold (p. 285, 286, 287), it was undeniably an irregular and unconstitutional proceeding; but this can only show that we ought to be very slow in presuming earlier proceedings of the same nature to have been more conformable to the spirit of the existing constitution. The Lords' committee too often reason from the fact to the right, as well as from the words to the fact; both are fallacious, and betray them into some vacillation and perplexity. They do not, however, question, on the whole, but that a new constitution of the legislative assemblies of the realm had been introduced before the 15th year of Edward II., and that "the practice had prevailed so long before as to give it, in the opinion of the parliament then assembled, the force and effect of a custom, which the parliament declared should thereafter be considered as established law." (p. 293.) This appears to me rather an inadequate exposition of the public spirit, of the tendency towards enlarging the basis of the constitution, to which the "practice and custom" owed its origin; but the positive facts are truly stated.
Writs are addressed in 11th of Edw. II. "comitibus, majoribus baronibus, et prælatis," whence the Lords' committee infer that the style used in John's charter was still preserved (Report, p. 277). And though in those times there might be much irregularity in issuing writs of summons, the term "majores barones" must have had an application to definite persons. Of the irregularity we may judge by the fact that under Edward I. about eighty were generally summoned; under his son never so many as fifty, sometimes less than forty, as may be seen in Dugdale's Summonitiones ad Parliamentum. The committee endeavour to draw an inference from this against a subsisting right of tenure. But if it is meant that the king had an acknowledged prerogative of omitting any baron at his discretion, the higher English nobility must have lost its notorious privileges, sanctioned by long usage, by the analogy of all feudal governments, and by the charter of John, which, though not renewed in terms, nor intended to be retained in favour of the lesser barons, or tenants in capite, could not, relatively to the rights of the superior order, have been designedly relinquished.
The committee wish to get rid of tenure as conferring a right to summons; they also strongly doubt whether the summons conferred an hereditary nobility; but they assert that, in the 15th of Edward III., "those who may have been deemed to have been in the reign of John distinguished as majores barones by the honour of a personal writ of summons, or by the extent and influence of their property, from the other tenants in chief of the crown, were now clearly become, with the earls and the newly created dignity of duke, a distinct body of men denominated peers of the land, and having distinct personal rights; while the other tenants in chief, whatsoever their rights may have been in the reign of John, sunk into the general mass." (p. 314.)
The appellation "peers of the land" is said to occur for the first time in 14 Edw. II. (p. 281), and we find them very distinctly in the proceedings against Bereford and others at the beginning of the next reign. They were, of course, entitled to trial by their own order. But whether all laymen summoned by particular writs to parliament were at that time considered as peers, and triable by the rest as such, must be questionable; unless we could assume that the writ of summons already ennobled the blood, which is at least not the opinion of the committee. If, therefore, the writ did not constitute an hereditary peer, nor tenure in chief by barony give a right to sit in parliament, we should have a difficulty in finding any determinate estate of nobility at all, exclusive of earls, who were, at all times and without exception, indisputably noble; an hypothesis manifestly paradoxical, and contradicted by history and law. If it be said that prescription was the only title, this may be so far granted that the majores barones had by prescription, antecedent to any statute or charter, been summoned to parliament: but this prescription would not be broken by the omission, through negligence or policy, of an individual tenant by barony in a few parliaments. The prescription was properly in favour of the class, the majores barones generally, and as to them it was perfect, extending itself in right, if not always in fact, to every one who came within its scope.
In the Third Report of the Lords' Committee, apparently drawn by the same hand as the Second, they "conjecture that after the establishment of the commons' house of parliament as a body by election, separate and distinct from the lords, all idea of a right to a writ of summons to parliament by reason of tenure had ceased, and that the dignity of baron, if not conferred by patent, was considered as derived only from the king's writ of summons." (Third Report, p. 226.) Yet they have not only found many cases of persons summoned by writ several times whose descendants have not been summoned, and hesitate even to approve the decision of the house on the Clifton barony in 1673, when it was determined that the claimant's ancestor, by writ of summons and sitting in parliament, was a peer, but doubt whether "even at this day the doctrine of that case ought to be considered as generally applicable, or may be limited by time and circumstances."[] (p. 33.)
It seems, with much deference to more learned investigators, rather improbable that, either before or after the regular admission of the knights and burgesses by representation, and consequently the constitution of a distinct lords' house of parliament, a writ of summons could have been lawfully withheld at the king's pleasure from any one holding such lands by barony as rendered him notoriously one of the majores barones. Nor will this be much affected by arguments from the inexpediency or supposed anomaly of permitting the right of sitting as a peer of parliament to be transferred by alienation. The Lords' committee dwell at length upon them. And it is true that, in our original feudal constitution, the fiefs of the crown could not be alienated without its consent. But when this was obtained, when a barony had passed by purchase, it would naturally draw with it, as an incident of tenure, the privilege of being summoned to parliament, or, in language more accustomed in those times, the obligation of doing suit and service to the king in his high court. Nor was the alienee, doubtless, to be taxed without his own consent, any more than another tenant in capite. What incongruity, therefore, is there in the supposition that, after tenants in fee simple acquired by statute the power of alienation without previous consent of the crown, the new purchaser stood on the same footing in all other respects as before the statute? It is also much to be observed that the claim to a summons might be gained by some methods of purchase, using that word, of course, in the legal sense. Thus the husbands of heiresses of baronies were frequently summoned, and sat as tenants by courtesy after the wife's death; though it must be owned that the committee doubt, in their Third Report (p. 47), whether tenancy by courtesy of a dignity was ever allowed as a right. Thus, too, every estate created in tail male was a diversion of the inheritance by the owner's sole will from its course according to law. Yet in the case of the barony of Abergavenny, even so late as the reign of James I., the heir male, being in seisin of the lands, was called by writ as baron, to the exclusion of the heir general. Surely this was an authentic recognition, not only of baronial tenure as the foundation of a right to sit in parliament, but of its alienability by the tenant.[k]
If it be asked whether the posterity of a baron aliening the lands which gave him a right to be summoned to the king's court would be entitled to the privileges of peerage by nobility of blood, it is true that, according to Collins, whose opinion the committee incline to follow, there are instances of persons in such circumstances being summoned. But this seems not to prove anything to the purpose. The king, no one doubts, from the time of Edward I., used to summon by writ many who had no baronial tenure; and the circumstance of having alienated a barony could not render any one incapable of attending parliament by a different title. It is very hard to determine any question as to times of much irregularity; but it seems that the posterity of one who had parted with his baronial lands would not, in those early times, as a matter of course, remain noble. A right by tenure seems to exclude a right by blood; not necessarily, because two collateral titles may coexist, but in the principle of the constitution. A feudal principle was surely the more ancient; and what could be more alien to this than a baron, a peer, an hereditary counsellor, without a fief? Nobility, that is, gentility of birth, might be testified by a pedigree or a bearing; but a peer was to be in arms for the crown, to grant his own money as well as that of others, to lead his vassals, to advise, to exhort, to restrain the sovereign. The new theory came in by degrees, but in the decay of every feudal idea; it was the substitution of a different pride of aristocracy for that of baronial wealth and power; a pride nourished by heralds, more peaceable, more indolent, more accommodated to the rules of fixed law and vigorous monarchy. It is difficult to trace the progress of this theory, which rested on nobility of blood, but yet so remarkably modified by the original principle of tenure, that the privileges of this nobility were ever confined to the actual possessor, and did not take his kindred out of the class of commoners. This sufficiently demonstrates that the phrase is, so to say, catachrestic, not used in a proper sense; inasmuch as the actual seisin of the peerage as an hereditament, whether by writ or by patent, is as much requisite at present for nobility, as the seisin of an estate by barony was in the reign of Henry III.
Tenure by barony appears to have been recognised by the house of lords in the reign of Henry VI., when the earldom of Arundel was claimed as annexed to the "castle, honour, and lordship aforesaid." The Lords' committee have elaborately disproved the allegations of descent and tenure, on which this claim was allowed. (Second Report, p. 406-426.) But all with which we are concerned is the decision of the crown and of the house in the 11th year of Henry VI., whether it were right or wrong as to the particular facts of the case. And here we find that the king, by the advice and assent of the lords, "considering that Richard Fitzalan, &c., was seised of the castle, honour, and lordship in fee, and by reason of his possession thereof, without any other reason or creation, was earl of Arundel, and held the name, style, and honour of earl of Arundel, and the place and seat of earl of Arundel in parliament and councils of the king," &c., admits him to the same seat and place as his ancestors, earls of Arundel, had held. This was long afterwards confirmed by act of parliament (3 Car. I.), reciting the dignity of earl of Arundel to be real and local, &c., and settling the title on certain persons in tail, with provisions against alienation of the castle and honour. This appears to establish a tenure by barony in Arundel, as a recent determination had done in Abergavenny. Arundel was a very peculiar instance of an earldom by tenure. For we cannot doubt that all earls were peers of parliament by virtue of that rank, though, in fact, all held extensive lands of the crown. But in 1669 a new doctrine, which probably had long been floating among lawyers and in the house of lords, was laid down by the king in council on a claim to the title of Fitzwalter. The nature of a barony by tenure having been discussed, it was found "to have been discontinued for many ages, and not in being" (a proposition not very tenable, if we look at the Abergavenny case, even setting aside that of Arundel as peculiar in its character, and as settled by statute); "and so not fit to be received, or to admit any pretence of right to succession thereto." It is fair to observe that some eminent judges were present on this occasion. The committee justly say that "this decision" (which, after all, was not in the house of lords) "may perhaps be considered as amounting to a solemn opinion that, although in early times the right to a writ of summons to parliament as a baron may have been founded on tenure, a contrary practice had prevailed for ages, and that, therefore, it was not to be taken as then forming part of the constitutional law of the land." (p. 446.) Thus ended barony by tenure. The final decision, for such it has been considered, and recent attempts to revive the ancient doctrine have been defeated, has prevented many tedious investigations of claims to baronial descent, and of alienations in times long past. For it could not be pretended that every fraction of a barony gave a right to summons; and, on the other hand, alienations of parcels, and descents to coparceners, must have been common, and sometimes difficult to disprove. It was held, indeed, by some, that the caput baroniæ, or principal lordship, contained, as it were, the vital principle of the peerage, and that its owner was the true baron; but this assumption seems uncertain.
It is not very easy to reconcile this peremptory denial of peerage by tenure with the proviso in the recent statute taking away tenure by knight-service, and, inasmuch as it converts all tenure into socage, that also by barony, "that this act shall not infringe or hurt any title of honour, feudal or other, by which any person hath or may have right to sit in the lords' house of parliament, as to his or their title of honour, or sitting in parliament, and the privilege belonging to them as peers." (Stat. 12 Car. II. c. 24, s. 11.)
Surely this clause was designed to preserve the incident to baronial tenure, the privilege of being summoned to parliament, while it destroyed its original root, the tenure itself. The privy council, in their decision on the Fitzwalter claim, did not allude to this statute, probably on account of the above proviso, and seem to argue that, if tenure by barony was no longer in being, the privilege attached to it must have been extinguished also. It is, however, observable that tenure by barony is not taken away by the statute, except by implication. No act indeed can be more loosely drawn than this, which was to change essentially the condition of landed property throughout the kingdom. It literally abolishes all tenure in capite; though this is the basis of the crown's right to escheat, and though lands in common socage, which the act with a strange confusion opposes to socage in capite, were as much holden of the king or other lord as those by knight-service. Whether it was intended by the silence about tenure by barony to pass it over as obsolete, or this arose from negligence alone, it cannot be doubted that the proviso preserving the right of sitting in parliament by a feudal honour was introduced in order to save that privilege, as well for Arundel and Abergavenny as for any other that might be entitled to it.[m]
The equitable jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery has been lately traced, in some respects, though not for the special purpose mentioned in the text, higher than the reign of Richard II. This great minister of the crown, as he was at least from the time of the Conquest,[n] always till the reign of Edward III. an ecclesiastic of high dignity, and honourably distinguished as the keeper of the king's conscience, was peculiarly intrusted with the duty of redressing the grievances of the subject, both when they sprung from misconduct of the government, through its subordinate officers, and when the injury had been inflicted by powerful oppressors. He seems generally to have been the chief or president of the council, when it exerted that jurisdiction which we have been sketching in the text, and which will be the subject of another note. But he is more prominent when presiding in a separate tribunal as a single judge.
The Court of Chancery is not distinctly to be traced under Henry III. For a passage in Matthew Paris, who says of Radulfus de Nevil—"Erat regis fidelissimus cancellarius, et inconcussa columna veritatis, singulis sua jura, præcipue pauperibus, justè reddens et indilatè," may be construed of his judicial conduct in the council. This province naturally, however, led to a separation of the two powers. And in the reign of Edward I. we find the king sending certain of the petitions addressed to him, praying extraordinary remedies, to the chancellor and master of the rolls, or to either separately, by writ under the privy seal, which was the usual mode by which the king delegated the exercise of his prerogative to his council, directing them to give such remedy as should appear to be consonant to honesty (or equity, honestati). "There is reason to believe," says Mr. Spence (Equitable Jurisdiction, p. 335), "that this was not a novelty." But I do not know upon what grounds this is believed. Writs, both those of course and others, issued from Chancery in the same reign. (Palgrave's Essay on King's Council, p. 15.) Lord Campbell has given a few specimens of petitions to the council, and answers endorsed upon them, in the reign of Edward I., communicated to him by Mr. Hardy from the records of the Tower. In all these the petitions are referred to the chancellor for justice. The entry, at least as given by lord Campbell, is commonly so short that we cannot always determine whether the petition was on account of wrongs by the crown or others. The following is rather more clear than the rest:—"18 Edw. I. The king's tenants of Aulton complain that Adam Gordon ejected them from their pasture, contrary to the tenor of the king's writ. Resp. Veniant partes coram cancellario, et ostendat ei Adam quare ipsos ejecit, et fiat iis justitia." Another is a petition concerning concealment of dower, for which, perhaps, there was no legal remedy.
In the reign of Edward II. the peculiar jurisdiction of the chancellor was still more distinctly marked. "From petitions and answers lately discovered, it appears that during this reign the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery was considerably extended, as the 'consuetudo cancellariæ' is often familiarly mentioned. We find petitions referred to the chancellor in his court, either separately, or in conjunction with the king's justices, or the king's serjeants; on disputes respecting the wardship of infants, partition, dower, rent-charges, tithes, and goods of felons. The chancellor was in full possession of his jurisdiction over charities, and he superintended the conduct of coroners. Mere wrongs, such as malicious prosecutions and trespasses to personal property, are sometimes the subject of proceedings before him; but I apprehend that those were cases where, from powerful combinations and confederacies, redress could not be obtained in the courts of common law." (Lives of Chanc. vol. i. p. 204.)
Lord Campbell, still with materials furnished by Mr. Hardy, has given not less than thirty-eight entries during the reign of Edward II., where the petition, though sometimes directed to the council, is referred to the chancellor for determination. One only of these, so far as we can judge from their very brief expression, implies anything of an equitable jurisdiction. It is again a case of dower, and the claimant is remitted to the Chancery; "et fiat sibi ibidem justitia, quia non potest juvari per communem legem per breve de dote." This case is in the Rolls of Parliament (i. 340), and had been previously mentioned by Mr. Bruce in a learned memoir on the Court of Star-Chamber. (Archæologia, xxv. 345.) It is difficult to say whether this fell within the modern rules of equity, but the general principle is evidently the same.
Another petition is from the commonalty of Suffolk to the council, complaining of false indictments and presentments in courts-leet. It is answered—"Si quis sequi voluerit adversus falsos indicatores et procuratores de falsis indictamentis, sequatur in Cancell. et habebit remedium consequens." Several other entries in this list are illustrative of the jurisdiction appertaining, in fact at least, to the council and the chancellor; and being of so early a reign form a valuable accession to those which later records have furnished to Sir Matthew Hale and others.
The Court of Chancery began to decide causes as a court of equity, according to Mr. Hardy, in the reign of Edward III., probably about 22 Edw. III. (Introduction to Close Rolls, p. 28.) Lord Campbell would carry this jurisdiction higher, and the instances already mentioned may be sufficient just to prove that it had begun to exist. It certainly seems no unnatural supposition that the great principle of doing justice, by which the council and the chancellor professed to guide their exercise of judicature, may have led them to grant relief in some of those numerous instances where the common law was defective or its rules too technical and unbending. But, as has been observed, the actual entries, as far as quoted, do not afford many precedents of equity. Mr. Hardy, indeed, suggests (p. 25) that the Curia Regis in the Norman period proceeded on equitable principles; and that this led to the removal of plaints into it from the county-court. This is, perhaps, not what we should naturally presume. The subtle and technical spirit of the Norman lawyers is precisely that which leads, in legal procedure, to definite and unbending rules; while in the lower courts, where Anglo-Saxon thanes had ever judged by the broad rules of justice, according to the circumstances of the case, rather than a strict line of law which did not yet exist, we might expect to find all the uncertainty and inconsistency which belongs to a system of equity, until, as in England, it has acquired by length of time the uniformity of law, but none at least of the technicality so characteristic of our Norman common law, and by which the great object of judicial proceedings was so continually defeated. This, therefore, does not seem to me a probable cause of the removal of suits from the county-court or court-baron to those of Westminster. The true reason, as I have observed in another place, was the partiality of these local tribunals. And the expense of trying a suit before the justices in eyre might not be very much greater than in the county-court.
I conceive, therefore, that the three supreme courts at Westminster proceeded upon those rules of strict law which they had chiefly themselves established; and this from the date of their separation from the original Curia Regis. But whether the king's council may have given more extensive remedies than the common law afforded, as early at least as the reign of Henry III., is what we are not competent, apparently, to affirm or deny. We are at present only concerned with the Court of Chancery. And it will be interesting to quote the deliberate opinion of a late distinguished writer, who has taken a different view of the subject from any of his predecessors.
"After much deliberation," says Lord Campbell, "I must express my clear conviction that the chancellor's equitable jurisdiction is as indubitable and as ancient as his common-law jurisdiction, and that it may be traced in a manner equally satisfactory. The silence of Bracton, Glanvil, Fleta, and other early juridical writers, has been strongly relied upon to disprove the equitable jurisdiction of the chancellor; but they as little notice his common-law jurisdiction, most of them writing during the subsistence of the Aula Regia; and they all speak of the Chancery, not as a court, but merely as an office for the making and sealing of writs. There are no very early decisions of the chancellors on points of law any more than of equity, to be found in the Year-books or old abridgments.... By 'equitable jurisdiction' must be understood the extraordinary interference of the chancellor, without common-law process or regard to the common-law rules of proceeding, upon the petition of a party grieved who was without adequate remedy in a court of common law; whereupon the opposite party was compelled to appear and to be examined, either personally or upon written interrogatories: and evidence being heard on both sides, without the interposition of a jury, an order was made secundum æquum et bonum, which was enforced by imprisonment. Such a jurisdiction had belonged to the Aula Regia, and was long exercised by parliament; and, when parliament was not sitting, by the king's ordinary council. Upon the dissolution of the Aula Regia many petitions, which parliament or the council could not conveniently dispose of, were referred to the chancellor, sometimes with and sometimes without assessors. To avoid the circuity of applying to parliament or the council, the petition was very soon, in many instances, addressed originally to the chancellor himself." (Lives of Chancellors, i. 7.)
In the latter part of Edward III.'s long reign this equitable jurisdiction had become, it is likely, of such frequent exercise, that we may consider the following brief summary by Lord Campbell as probable by analogy and substantially true, if not sustained in all respects by the evidence that has yet been brought to light:—"The jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery was now established in all matters where its own officers were concerned, in petitions of right where an injury was alleged to be done to a subject by the king or his officers in relieving against judgments in courts of law (lord C. gives two instances), and generally in cases of fraud, accident, and trust." (p. 291.)
In the reign of Richard II. the writ of subpœna was invented by John de Waltham, master of the rolls; and to this a great importance seems to have been attached at the time, as we may perceive by the frequent complaints of the commons in parliament, and by the traditionary abhorrence in which the name of the inventor was held. "In reality," says lord Campbell, "he first framed it in its present form when a clerk in Chancery in the latter end of the reign of Edward III.; but the invention consisted in merely adding to the old clause, Quibusdam certis de causis, the words 'Et hoc sub pœna centum librarum nullatenus omittas;' and I am at a loss to conceive how such importance was attached to it, or how it was supposed to have brought about so complete a revolution in equitable proceedings, for the penalty was never enforced; and if the party failed to appear, his default was treated, according to the practice prevailing in our own time, as a contempt of court, and made the foundation of compulsory process." (p. 296.)
The commons in parliament, whose sensitiveness to public grievances was by no means accompanied by an equal sagacity in devising remedies, had, probably without intention, vastly enhanced the power of the chancellor by a clause in a remedial act passed in the thirty-sixth year of Edward III., that, "If any man that feeleth himself aggrieved contrary to any of the articles above written, or others contained in divers statutes, will come into the Chancery, or any for him, and thereof make his complaint, he shall presently there have remedy by force of the said articles or statutes, without elsewhere pursuing to have remedy." Yet nothing could be more obvious than that the breach of any statute was cognizable before the courts of law. And the mischief of permitting men to be sued vexatiously before the chancellor becoming felt, a statute was enacted, thirty years indeed after this time (17 Ric. II. c. 6), analogous altogether to those in the late reign respecting the jurisdiction of the council, which, reciting that "people be compelled to come before the king's council, or in the Chancery, by writs grounded on untrue suggestions," provides that "the chancellor for the time being, presently after that such suggestions be duly found and proved untrue, shall have power to ordain and award damages, according to his discretion, to him which is so troubled unduly as aforesaid." "This remedy," lord Campbell justly remarks, "which was referred to the discretion of the chancellor himself, whose jurisdiction was to be controlled, proved, as might be expected, wholly ineffectual; but it was used as a parliamentary recognition of his jurisdiction, and a pretence for refusing to establish any other check on it." (p. 247.)
A few years before this statute the commons had petitioned (13 Ric. II., Rot. Parl. iii. 269) that the chancellor might make no order against the common law, and that no one should appear before the chancellor where remedy was given by the common law. "This carries with it an admission," as lord C. observes, "that a power of jurisdiction did reside in the chancellor, so long as he did not determine against the common law, nor interfere where the common law furnished a remedy. The king's answer, 'that it should continue as the usage had been heretofore,' clearly demonstrates that such an authority, restrained within due bounds, was recognised by the constitution of the country." (p. 305.)
The act of 17 Ric. II. seems to have produced a greater regularity in the proceedings of the court, and put an end to such hasty interference, on perhaps verbal suggestions, as had given rise to this remedial provision. From the very year in which the statute was enacted we find bills in Chancery, and the answers to them, regularly filed; the grounds of demanding relief appear, and the chancellor renders himself in every instance responsible for the orders he has issued, by thus showing that they came within his jurisdiction. There are certainly many among the earlier bills in Chancery, which, according to the statute law and the great principle that they were determinable in other courts, could not have been heard; but we are unable to pronounce how far the allegation usually contained or implied, that justice could not be had elsewhere, was founded on the real circumstances. A calendar of these early proceedings (in abstract) is printed in the Introduction to the first volume of the Calendar of Chancery Proceedings in the Reign of Elizabeth, and may also be found in Cooper's Public Records, i. 356.
The struggle, however, in behalf of the common law was not at an end. It is more than probable that the petitions against encroachments of Chancery, which fill the rolls under Henry IV., Henry V., and in the minority of Henry VI., emanated from that numerous and jealous body whose interests as well as prejudices were so deeply affected. Certain it is that the commons, though now acknowledging an equitable jurisdiction, or rather one more extensive than is understood by the word "equitable," in the greatest judicial officer of the crown, did not cease to remonstrate against his transgression of these boundaries. They succeeded so far, in 1436, as to obtain a statute (15 Hen. VI. c. 4) in these words:—"For that divers persons have before this time been greatly vexed and grieved by writs of subpœna, purchased for matters determinable by the common law of this land, to the great damage of such persons so vexed, in suspension and impediment of the common law as aforesaid; Our lord the king doth command that the statutes thereof made shall be duly observed, according to the form and effect of the same, and that no writ of subpœna be granted from henceforth until surety be found to satisfy the party so grieved and vexed for his damages and expenses, if so be that the matter cannot be made good which is contained in the bill." It was the intention of the commons, as appears by the preamble of this statute, and more fully by their petition in Rot. Parl. (iv. 101), that the matters contained in the bill on which the subpœna was issued should be not only true in themselves, but such as could not be determined at common law. But the king's answer appears rather equivocal.
The principle seems nevertheless to have been generally established, about the reign of Henry VI., that the Court of Chancery exercises merely a remedial jurisdiction, not indeed controllable by courts of law, unless possibly in such circumstances as cannot be expected, but bound by its general responsibility to preserve the limits which ancient usage and innumerable precedents have imposed. It was at the end of this reign, and not in that of Richard II., according to the writer so often quoted, that the great enhancement of the chancellor's authority, by bringing feoffments to uses within it, opened a new era in the history of our law. And this the judges brought on themselves by their narrow adherence to technical notions. They now began to discover this; and those of Edward IV., as lord Campbell well says, were "very bold men," having repealed the statute de donis by their own authority in Taltarum's case—a stretch of judicial power beyond any that the Court of Chancery had ventured upon. They were also exceedingly jealous of that court; and in one case, reported in the Year-books (22 Edw. IV. 37), advised a party to disobey an injunction from the Court of Chancery, telling him that, if the chancellor committed him to the Fleet, they would discharge the prisoner by habeas corpus. (Lord Campbell, p. 394.) The case seems to have been one where, in modern times, no injunction would have been granted, the courts of law being competent to apply a remedy.
This intricate subject has been illustrated, since the first publication of these volumes, in an Essay upon the original Authority of the King's Council, by Sir Francis Palgrave (1834), written with remarkable perspicuity and freedom from diffusiveness. But I do not yet assent to the judgment of the author as to the legality of proceedings before the council, which I have represented as unconstitutional, and which certainly it was the object of parliament to restrain.
"It seems," he says, "that in the reign of Henry III. the council was considered as a court of peers within the terms of Magna Charta; and before which, as a court of original jurisdiction, the rights of tenants holding in capite or by barony were to be discussed and decided, and it unquestionably exercised a direct jurisdiction over all the king's subjects" (p. 34). The first volume of Close Rolls, published by Mr. Hardy since Sir F. Palgrave's Essay, contains no instances of jurisdiction exercised by the council in the reign of John. But they begin immediately afterwards, in the minority of Henry III.; so that we have not only the fullest evidence that the council took on itself a coercive jurisdiction in matters of law at that time, but that it had not done so before: for the Close Rolls of John are so full as to render the negative argument satisfactory. It will, of course, be understood that I take the facts on the authority of Mr. Hardy (Introduction to Close Rolls, vol. ii.), whose diligence and accuracy are indisputable. Thus this exercise of judicial power began immediately after the Great Charter. And yet, if it is to be reconciled with the twenty-ninth section, it is difficult to perceive in what manner that celebrated provision for personal liberty against the crown, which has always been accounted the most precious jewel in the whole coronet, the most valuable stipulation made at Runnymede, and the most enduring to later times, could merit the fondness with which it has been regarded. "Non super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terræ." If it is alleged that the jurisdiction of the king's council was the law of the land, the whole security falls to the ground and leaves the grievance as it stood, unredressed. Could the judgment of the council have been reckoned, as Sir P. Palgrave supposes, a "judicium parium suorum," except perhaps in the case of tenants in chief? The word is commonly understood of that trial per pais which, in one form or another, is of immemorial antiquity in our social institutions.
"Though this jurisdiction," he proceeds, "was more frequently called into action when parliament was sitting, still it was no less inherent in the council at all other times; and until the middle of the reign of Edward III. no exception had ever been taken to the form of its proceedings." He subjoins indeed in a note, "Unless the statute of 5 Edw. III. c. 9, may be considered as an earlier testimony against the authority of the council. This, however, is by no means clear, and there is no corresponding petition in the parliament roll from which any further information could be obtained" (p. 34).
The irresistible conclusion from this passage is, that we have been wholly mistaken in supposing the commons under Edward III. and his successors to have resisted an illegal encroachment of power in the king's ordinary council, while it had in truth been exercising an ancient jurisdiction, never restrained by law and never complained of by the subject. This would reverse our constitutional theory to no small degree, and affect so much the spirit of my own pages, that I cannot suffer it to pass, coming on an authority so respectable, without some comment. But why is it asserted that this jurisdiction was inherent in the council? Why are we to interpret Magna Charta otherwise than according to the natural meaning of the words and the concurrent voice of parliament? The silence of the commons in parliament under Edward II. as to this grievance will hardly prove that it was not felt, when we consider how few petitions of a public nature, during that reign, are on the rolls. But it may be admitted that they were not so strenuous in demanding redress, because they were of comparatively recent origin as an estate of parliament, as they became in the next long reign, the most important, perhaps, in our early constitutional history.
It is doubted by Sir F. Palgrave whether the statute of 5 Edw. III. c. 9, can be considered as a testimony against the authority of the council. It is, however, very natural so to interpret it, when we look at the subsequent statutes and petitions of the commons, directed for more than a century to the same object. "No man shall be taken," says lord Coke (2 Inst. 46), "that is, restrained of liberty, by petition or suggestion to the king or to his council, unless it be by indictment or presentment of good and lawful men, where such deeds be done. This branch and divers other parts of this act have been wholly explained by divers acts of parliament, &c., quoted in the margent." He then gives the titles of six statutes, the first being this of 5 Edw. III. c. 9. But let us suppose that the petition of the commons in 25 Edw. III. demanded an innovation in law, as it certainly did in long-established usage. And let us admit what is justly pointed out by Sir F. Palgrave, that the king's first answer to their petition is not commensurate to its request, and reserves, though it is not quite easy to see what, some part of its extraordinary jurisdiction.[o] Still the statute itself, enacted on a similar petition in a subsequent parliament, is explicit that "none shall be taken by petition or suggestion to the king or his council, unless it be by indictment or presentment" (in a criminal charge), "or by writ original at the common law" (in a civil suit), "nor shall be put out of his franchise of freehold, unless he have been duly put to answer, and forejudged of the same by due course of law."
Lord Hale has quoted a remarkable passage from a Year-book, not long after these statutes of 25 Edw. III. and 28 Edw. III., which, if Sir F. Palgrave had not overlooked, he would have found not very favourable to his high notions of the king's prerogative in council. "In after ages," says Hale, "the constant opinion and practice was to disallow any reversals of judgment by the council, which appears by the notable case in Year-book, 39 Edw. III. 14." (Jurisdiction of Lords' House, p. 41.) It is indeed a notable case, wherein the chancellor before the council reverses a judgment of a court of law. "Mes les justices ne pristoient nul regard al reverser devant le council, par ceo que ce ne fust place ou jugement purroit estre reverse." If the council could not exercise this jurisdiction on appeal, which is not perhaps expressly taken away by any statute, much less against the language of so many statutes could they lawfully entertain any original suit. Such, however, were the vacillations of a motley assembly, so steady the perseverance of government in retaining its power, so indefinite the limits of ancient usage, so loose the phrases of remedial statutes, passing sometimes by their generality the intentions of those who enacted them, so useful, we may add, and almost indispensable, was a portion of those prerogatives which the crown exercised through the council and chancery, that we find soon afterwards a statute (37 Edw. III. c. 18), which recognises in some measure those irregular proceedings before the council, by providing only that those who make suggestions to the chancellor and great council, by which men are put in danger against the form of the charter, shall give security for proving them. This is rendered more remedial by another act next year (38 Edw. III. c. 9), which, however, leaves the liberty of making such suggestions untouched. The truth is, that the act of 25 Edw. III. went to annihilate the legal and equitable jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery—the former of which had been long exercised, and the latter was beginning to spring up. But the 42 Edw. III. c. 3, which seems to go as far as the former in the enacting words, will be found, according to the preamble, to regard only criminal charges.
Sir Francis Palgrave maintains that the council never intermitted its authority, but on the contrary "it continually assumed more consistency and order. It is probable that the long absences of Henry V. from England invested this body with a greater degree of importance. After every minority and after every appointment of a select or extraordinary council by authority of the legislature, we find that the ordinary council acquired a fresh impulse and further powers. Hence the next reign constitutes a new era" (p. 80). He proceeds to give the same passage which I have quoted from Rot. Parl. 8 Hen. VI., vol. v. p. 343, as well as one in an earlier parliament (2 Hen. VI. p. 28). But I had neglected to state the whole case where I mention the articles settled in parliament for the regulation of the council. In the first place, this was not the king's ordinary council, but one specially appointed by the lords in parliament for the government of the realm during his minority. They consisted of certain lords spiritual and temporal, the chancellor, the treasurer, and a few commoners. These commissioners delivered a schedule of provisions "for the good and the governance of the land, which the lords that be of the king's council desireth" (p. 28). It does not explicitly appear that the commons assented to these provisions; but it may be presumed, at least in a legal sense, by their being present and by the schedule being delivered into parliament, "baillez en meme le parlement." But in the 8 Hen. VI., where the same provision as to the jurisdiction of this extraordinary council is repeated, the articles are said, after being approved by the lords spiritual and temporal, to have been read "coram domino rege in eodem parliamento, in presentia trium regni statuum" (p. 343). It is always held that what is expressly declared to be done in presence of all the estates is an act of parliament.
We find, therefore, a recognition of the principle which had always been alleged in defence of the ordinary council in this parliamentary confirmation—the principle that breaches of the law, which the law could not, through the weakness of its ministers, or corruption, or partiality, sufficiently repress, must be reserved for the strong arm of royal authority. "Thus," says Sir Francis Palgrave, "did the council settle and define its principles and practice. A new tribunal was erected, and one which obtained a virtual supremacy over the common law. The exception reserved to their 'discretion' of interfering wherever their lordships felt too much might on one side, and too much unmight on the other, was of itself sufficient to embrace almost every dispute or trial" (p. 81).
But, in the first place, this latitude of construction was not by any means what the parliament meant to allow, nor could it be taken, except by wilfully usurping powers never imparted; and, secondly, it was not the ordinary council which was thus constituted during the king's minority; nor did the jurisdiction intrusted to persons so specially named in parliament extend to the regular officers of the crown. The restraining statutes were suspended for a time in favour of a new tribunal. But I have already observed that there was always a class of cases precisely of the same kind as those mentioned in the act creating this tribunal, tacitly excluded from the operation of those statutes, wherein the coercive jurisdiction of the king's ordinary council had great convenience, namely, where the course of justice was obstructed by riots, combinations of maintenance, or overawing influence. And there is no doubt that, down to the final abolition of the Court of Star Chamber (which was no other than the consilium ordinarium under a different name), these offences were cognizable in it, without the regular forms of the common law.[p]
"From the reign of Edward IV. we do not trace any further opposition to the authority either of the chancery or of the council. These courts had become engrafted on the constitution; and if they excited fear or jealousy, there was no one who dared to complain. Yet additional parliamentary sanction was not considered as unnecessary by Henry VII., and in the third year of his reign an act was passed for giving the Court of Star Chamber, which had now acquired its determinate name, further authority to punish divers misdemeanours." (Palgrave, p. 97.)
It is really more than we can grant that the jurisdiction of the consilium ordinarium had been engrafted on the constitution, when the statute-book was full of laws to restrain, if not to abrogate it. The acts already mentioned, in the reign of Henry VI., by granting a temporary and limited jurisdiction to the council, demonstrate that its general exercise was not acknowledged by parliament. We can only say that it may have continued without remonstrance in the reign of Edward IV. I have observed in the text that the Rolls of Parliament under Edward IV. contain no complaints of grievances. But it is not quite manifest that the council did exercise in that reign as much jurisdiction as it had once done. Lord Hale tells us that "this jurisdiction was gradually brought into great disuse, though there remain some straggling footsteps of their proceedings till near 3 Hen. VII." (Hist. of Lords' Jurisdiction, p. 38.) And the famous statute in that year, which erected a new court, sometimes improperly called the Court of Star Chamber, seems to have been prompted by a desire to restore, in a new and more legal form, a jurisdiction which was become almost obsolete, and, being in contradiction to acts of parliament, could not well be rendered effective without one.[q]
We cannot but discover, throughout the learned and luminous Essay on the Authority of the King's Council, a strong tendency to represent its exercise as both constitutional and salutary. The former epithet cannot, I think, be possibly applicable in the face of statute law; for what else determines our constitution? But it is a problem with some, whether the powers actually exerted by this anomalous court, admitting them to have been, at least latterly, in contravention of many statutes, may not have been rendered necessary by the disorderly condition of society and the comparative impotence of the common law. This cannot easily be solved with the defective knowledge that we possess. Sometimes, no doubt, the "might on one side, and unmight on the other," as the answer to a petition forcibly expresses it, afforded a justification which, practically at least, the commons themselves were content to allow. But were these exceptional instances so frequent as not to leave a much greater number wherein the legal remedy by suit before the king's justices of assise might have been perfectly effectual? For we are not concerned with the old county-courts, which were perhaps tumultuary and partial enough, but with the regular administration, civil and criminal, before the king's justices of oyer and terminer and of gaol delivery. Had not they, generally speaking, in the reign of Edward III. and his successors, such means of enforcing the execution of law as left no sufficient pretext for recurring to an arbitrary tribunal? Liberty, we should remember, may require the sacrifice of some degree of security against private wrong, which a despotic government, with an unlimited power of restraint, can alone supply. If no one were permitted to travel on the high road without a licence, or, as now so usual, without a passport, if no one could keep arms without a registry, if every one might be indefinitely detained on suspicion, the evil doers of society would be materially impeded, but at the expense, to a certain degree, of every man's freedom and enjoyment. Freedom being but a means to the greatest good, times might arise when it must yield to the security of still higher blessings; but the immediate question is, whether such were the state of society in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Now, that it was lawless and insecure, comparatively with our own times or the times of our fathers, is hardly to be disputed. But if it required that arbitrary government which the king's council were anxious to maintain, the representatives of the commons in parliament, knights and burgesses, not above the law, and much interested in the conservation of property, must have complained very unreasonably for more than a hundred years. They were apparently as well able to judge as our writers can be; and if they reckoned a trial by jury at nisi prius more likely, on the whole, to insure a just adjudication of a civil suit, than one before the great officers of state and other constituent members of the ordinary council, it does not seem clear to me that we have a right to assert the contrary. This mode of trial by jury, as has been seen in another place, had acquired, by the beginning of the fifteenth century, its present form; and considering the great authority of the judges of assise, it may not, probably, have given very frequent occasion for complaint of partiality or corrupt influence.
The learned author of the Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in England has founded his historical theory on the confusion which he supposes to have grown up between the ideal king of the constitution and the personal king on the throne. By the former he means the personification of abstract principles, sovereign power, and absolute justice, which the law attributes to the genus king, but which flattery or other motives have transferred to the possessor of the crown for the time being, and have thus changed the Teutonic cyning, the first man of the commonwealth, the man of the highest weregild, the man who was so much responsible that he might be sued for damages in his own courts or deposed for misgovernment, into the sole irresponsible person of indefeasible prerogatives, of attributes almost divine, whom Bracton and a long series of subsequent lawyers raised up to a height far beyond the theory of our early constitution.
This is supported with great acuteness and learning; nor is it possible to deny that the king of England, as the law-books represent him, is considerably different from what we generally conceive an ancient German chieftain to have been. Yet I doubt whether Mr. Allen has not laid too much stress on this, and given to the fictions of law a greater influence than they possessed in those times to which his inquiry relates; and whether, also, what he calls the monarchical theory was so much derived from foreign sources as he apprehends. We have no occasion to seek, in the systems of civilians or the dogmas of churchmen, what arose from a deep-seated principle of human nature. A king is a person; to persons alone we attach the attributes of power and wisdom; on persons we bestow our affection or our ill-will. An abstraction, a politic idea of royalty, is convenient for lawyers; it suits the speculative reasoner, but it never can become so familiar to a people, especially one too rude to have listened to such reasoners, as the simple image of the king, the one man whom we are to love and to fear. The other idea is a sort of monarchical pantheism, of which the vanishing point is a republic. And to this the prevalent theory, that kings are to reign but not to govern, cannot but lead. It is a plausible, and in the main, perhaps, for the times we have reached, a necessary theory; but it renders monarchy ultimately scarcely possible. And it was neither the sentiment of the Anglo-Saxons, nor of the Norman baronage; the feudal relation was essentially and exclusively personal; and if we had not enough, in a more universal feeling of human nature, to account for loyalty, we could not mistake its inevitable connexion with the fealty and homage of the vassal. The influence of Roman notions was not inconsiderable upon the continent; but they never prevailed very much here; and though, after the close alliance between the church and state established by the Reformation, the whole weight of the former was thrown into the scale of the crown, the mediæval clergy, as I have observed in the text, were anything rather than upholders of despotic power.
It may be very true that, by considering the monarchy as a merely political institution, the scheme of prudent men to avoid confusion, and confer the minimum of personal authority on the reigning prince, the principle of his irresponsibility seems to be better maintained. But the question to which we are turning our eyes is not a political one; it relates to the positive law and positive sentiments of the English nation in the mediæval period. And here I cannot put a few necessary fictions grown up in the courts, such as, the king never dies, the king can do no wrong, the king is everywhere, against the tenor of our constitutional language, which implies an actual and active personality. Mr. Allen acknowledges that the act against the Despensers under Edward II., and re-confirmed after its repeal, for promulgating the doctrine that allegiance had more regard to the crown than to the person of the king, "seems to establish, as the deliberate opinion of the legislature, that allegiance is due to the person of the king generally, and not merely to his crown or politic capacity, so as to be released and destroyed by his misgovernment of the kingdom" (p. 14); which, he adds, is not easily reconcilable with the deposition of Richard II. But that was accomplished by force, with whatever formalities it may have been thought expedient to surround it.
We cannot, however, infer from the declaration of the legislature, that allegiance is due to the king's person and not to his politic capacity, any such consequence as that it is not, in any possible case, to be released by his misgovernment. This was surely not in the spirit of any parliament under Edward II. or Edward III.; and it is precisely because allegiance is due to the person, that, upon either feudal or natural principles, it might be cancelled by personal misconduct. A contrary language was undoubtedly held under the Stuarts; but it was not that of the mediæval period.
The tenet of our law, that all the soil belongs theoretically to the king, is undoubtedly an enormous fiction, and very repugnant to the barbaric theory preserved by the Saxons, that all unappropriated land belonged to the folk, and was unalienable without its consent.[r] It was, however, but an extension of the feudal tenure to the whole kingdom, and rested on the personality of feudal homage. William established it more by his power than by any theory of lawyers; though doubtless his successors often found lawyers as ready to shape the acts of power into a theory as if they had originally projected them. And thus grew up the high schemes of prerogative, which, for many centuries, were in conflict with those of liberty. We are not able, nevertheless, to define the constitutional authority of the Saxon kings; it was not legislative, nor was that of William and his successors ever such; it was not exclusive of redress for private wrong, nor was this ever the theory of English law, though the method of remedy might not be sufficiently effective; yet it had certainly grown before the Conquest, with no help from Roman notions, to something very unlike that of the German kings in Tacitus.
The reduction of the free ceorls into villenage, especially if as general as is usually assumed, is one of the most remarkable innovations during the Anglo-Norman period; and one which, as far as our published records extend, we cannot wholly explain. Observations have been made on it by Mr. Wright, in the Archæologia (vol. xxx. p. 225). After adverting to the oppression of the peasants in Normandy, which produced several rebellions, he proceeds thus:—"These feelings of hatred and contempt for the peasantry were brought into our island by the Norman barons in the latter half of the eleventh century. The Saxon laws and customs continued; but the Normans acted as the Franks had done towards the Roman coloni; they enforced with harshness the laws which were in their own favour, and gradually threw aside, or broke through, those which were in favour of the miserable serf."
In the Laws of Henry I. we find the weregild of the twyhinder, or villein, set at 200 shillings in Wessex, "quæ caput regni est et legum" (c. 70). But this expression argues an Anglo-Saxon source; and, in fact, so much in that treatise seems to be copied, without regard to the change of times, from old authorities, mixed up with provisions of a feudal or Norman character, that we hardly know how to distinguish what belongs to each period. It is far from improbable that villenage, in the sense the word afterwards bore, that is, an absolutely servile tenure of lands, not only without legal rights over them, but with an incapacity of acquiring either immovable or movable property against the lord, may have made considerable strides before the reign of Henry II.[] But unless light should be thrown on its history by the publication of more records, it seems almost impossible to determine the introduction of predial villenage more precisely than to say it does not appear in the laws of England at the Conquest, and it does so in the time of Glanvil. Mr. Wright's Memoir in the Archæologia, above quoted, contains some interesting matter; but he has too much confounded the theow, or Anglo-Saxon slave, with the ceorl; not even mentioning the latter, though it is indisputable that villanus is the equivalent of ceorl, and servus of theow.
But I suspect that we go a great deal too far in setting down the descendants of these ceorls, that is, the whole Anglo-Saxon population except thanes and burgesses, as almost universally to be counted such villeins as we read of in our law-books, or in concluding that the cultivators of the land, even in the thirteenth century, were wholly, or at least generally, servile. It is not only evident that small freeholders were always numerous, but we are, perhaps, greatly deceived in fancying that the occupiers of villein tenements were usually villeins. Terre-tenants en villenage and tenants par copie, who were undoubtedly free, appear in the early Year-books, and we know not why they may not always have existed.[t] This, however, is a subject which I am not sufficiently conversant with records to explore; it deserves the attention of those well-informed and diligent antiquaries whom we possess. Meantime it is to be observed that the lands occupied by villani or bordarii, according to the Domesday survey, were much more extensive than the copyholds of the present day; and making every allowance for enfranchisements, we can hardly believe that all these lands, being, in fact, by far the greater part of the soil, were the villenagia of Glanvil's and Bracton's age. It would be interesting to ascertain at what time the latter were distinguished from libera tenementa; at what time, that is, the distinction of territorial servitude, independent as it was of the personal state of the occupant, was established in England.
This identity of condition between the villein regardant and in gross appears to have been, even lately, called in question, and some adhere to the theory which supposes an inferiority in the latter. The following considerations will prove that I have not been mistaken in rejecting it:—
I. It will not be contended that the words "regardant" and "in gross" indicate of themselves any specific difference between the two, or can mean anything but the title by which the villein was held; prescriptive and territorial in one case, absolute in the other. For the proof, therefore, of any such difference we require some ancient authority, which has not been given. II. The villein regardant might be severed from the manor, with or without land, and would then become a villein in gross. If he was sold as a domestic serf, he might, perhaps, be practically in a lower condition than before, but his legal state was the same. If he was aliened with lands, parcel of the manor, as in the case of its descent to coparceners who made partition, he would no longer be regardant, because that implied a prescriptive dependence on the lord, but would occupy the same tenements and be in exactly the same position as before. "Villein in gross," says Littleton, "is where a man is seised of a manor whereunto a villein is regardant, and granteth the same villein by deed to another; then he is a villein in gross, and not regardant." (Sect. 181.) III. The servitude of all villeins was so complete that we cannot conceive degrees in it. No one could purchase lands or possess goods of his own; we do not find that any one, being strictly a villein, held by certain services; "he must have regard," says Coke, "to that which is commanded unto him; or, in the words of Bracton, 'a quo præstandum servitium incertum et indeterminatum, ubi scire non poterit vespere quod servitium fieri debet mane.'" (Co. Lit. 120, b.) How could a villein in gross be lower than this? It is true that the villein had one inestimable advantage over the American negro, that he was a freeman, except relatively to his lord; possibly he might be better protected against personal injury; but in his incapacity of acquiring secure property, or of refusing labour, he was just on the same footing. It may be conjectured that some villeins in gross were descended from the servi, of whom we find 25,000 enumerated in Domesday. Littleton says, "If a man and his ancestors, whose heir he is, have been seised of a villein and of his ancestors, as of villeins in gross, time out of memory of man, these are villeins in gross." (Sect. 182.)
It has been often asserted that villeins in gross seem not to have been a numerous class, and it might not be easy to adduce distinct instances of them in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, though we should scarcely infer, from the pains Littleton takes to describe them, that none were left in his time. But some may be found in an earlier age. In the ninth of John, William sued Ralph the priest for granting away lands which he held to Canford priory. Ralph pleaded that they were his freehold. William replied that he held them in villenage, and that he (the plaintiff) had sold one of Ralph's sisters for four shillings. (Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. iii. p. 860, 4to. edition.) And Mr. Wright has found in Madox's Formulare Anglicanum not less than five instances of villeins sold with their family and chattels, but without land. (Archæologia, xxx. 228.) Even where they were sold along with land, unless it were a manor, they would, as has been observed before, have been villeins in gross. I have, however, been informed that in valuations under escheats in the old records a separate value is never put upon villeins; their alienation without the land was apparently not contemplated. Few cases concerning villeins in gross, it has been said, occur in the Year-books; but villenage of any kind does not furnish a great many; and in several I do not perceive, in consulting the report, that the party can be shown to have been regardant. One reason why villeins in gross should have become less and less numerous was that they could, for the most part, only be claimed by showing a written grant, or by prescription through descent; so that, if the title-deed were lost, or the descent unproved, the villein became free.
Manumissions were often, no doubt, gratuitous; in some cases the villein seems to have purchased his freedom. For though in strictness, as Glanvil tells us, he could not "libertatem suam suis denariis quærere," inasmuch as all he possessed already belonged to the lord, it would have been thought a meanness to insist on so extreme a right. In order, however, to make the deed more secure, it was usual to insert the name of a third person as paying the consideration-money for the enfranchisement. (Archæologia, xxx. 228.)
It appears not by any means improbable that regular money payments, or other fixed liabilities, were often substituted instead of uncertain services for the benefit of the lord as well as the tenant. And when these had lasted a considerable time in any manor, the villenage of the latter, without any manumission, would have expired by desuetude. But, perhaps, an entry of his tenure on the court-roll, with a copy given to himself, would operate of itself, in construction of law, as a manumission. This I do not pretend to determine.
The public history of Europe in the middle ages inadequately represents the popular sentiment, or only when it is expressed too loudly to escape the regard of writers intent sometimes on less important subjects. But when we descend below the surface, a sullen murmur of discontent meets the ear, and we perceive that mankind was not more insensible to wrongs and sufferings than at present. Besides the various outbreakings of the people in several counties, and their complaints in parliament, after the commons obtained a representation, we gain a conclusive insight into the spirit of the times by their popular poetry. Two very interesting collections of this kind have been lately published by the Camden Society, through the diligence of Mr. Thomas Wright; one, the Poems attributed to Walter Mapes; the other, the Political Songs of England, from John to Edward II.
Mapes lived under Henry II., and has long been known as the reputed author of humorous Latin verses; but it seems much more probable, that the far greater part of the collection lately printed is not from his hand. They may pass, not for the production of a single person, but rather of a class, during many years, or, in general words, a century, ending with the death of Henry III. in 1272. Many of them are professedly written by an imaginary Golias.
"They are not the expressions of hostility of one man against an order of monks, but of the indignant patriotism of a considerable portion of the English nation against the encroachments of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny." (Introduction to Poems ascribed to Walter Mapes, p. 21.) The poems in this collection reflect almost entirely on the pope and the higher clergy. They are all in rhyming Latin, and chiefly, though with exceptions, in the loose trochaic metre called Leonine. The authors, therefore, must have been clerks, actuated by the spirit which, in a church of great inequality in its endowments, and with a very numerous body of poor clergy, is apt to gain strength, but certainly, as ecclesiastical history bears witness, not one of mere envious malignity towards the prelates and the court of Rome. These deserved nothing better, in the thirteenth century, than biting satire and indignant reproof, and the poets were willing enough to bestow both.
But this popular poetry of the middle ages did not confine itself to the church. In the collection entitled 'Political Songs' we have some reflecting on Henry III., some on the general administration. The famous song on the battle of Lewes in 1264 is the earliest in English; but in the reign of Edward I. several occur in that language. Others are in French or in Latin; one complaining of the taxes is in an odd mixture of these two languages; which, indeed, is not without other examples in mediæval poetry. These Latin songs could not, of course, have been generally understood. But what the priests sung in Latin, they said in English; the lower clergy fanned the flame, and gave utterance to what others felt. It may, perhaps, be remarked, as a proof of general sympathy with the democratic spirit which was then fermenting, that we have a song of exultation on the great defeat which Philip IV. had just sustained at Courtrai, in 1302, by the burgesses of the Flemish cities, on whose liberties he had attempted to trample (p. 187). It is true that Edward I. was on ill terms with France, but the political interests of the king would not, perhaps, have dictated the popular ballad.
It was an idle exaggeration in him who said that, if he could make the ballads of a people, any one might make their laws. Ballads, like the press, and especially that portion of the press which bears most analogy to them, generally speaking, give vent to a spirit which has been at work before. But they had, no doubt, an influence in rendering more determinate, as well as more active, that resentment of wrong, that indignation at triumphant oppression, that belief in the vices of the great, which, too often for social peace and their own happiness, are cherished by the poor. In comparison, indeed, with the efficacy of the modern press, the power, of ballads is trifling. Their lively sprightliness, the humorous tone of their satire, even their metrical form, sheathe the sting; and it is only in times when political bitterness is at its height that any considerable influence can be attached to them, and then it becomes undistinguishable from more energetic motives. Those which we read in the collection above mentioned appear to me rather the signs of popular discontent than greatly calculated to enhance it. In that sense they are very interesting, and we cannot but desire to see the promised continuation to the end of Richard II.'s reign.[] They are said to have become afterwards less frequent, though the wars of the Roses were likely to bring them, forward.
Some of the political songs are written in France, though relating to our kings John and Henry III. Deducting these, we have two in Latin for the former reign; seven in Latin, three in French (or what the editor calls Anglo-Norman, which is really the same thing), one in a mixture of the two, and one in English, for the reign of Henry III. In the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. we have eight in Latin, three in French, nine in English, and four in mixed languages; a style employed probably for amusement. It must be observed that a large proportion of these songs contain panegyric and exultation on victory rather than satire; and that of the satire much is general, and much falls on the church; so that the animadversions on the king and the nobility are not very frequent, though with considerable boldness; but this is more shown in the Latin than the English poems.
FOOTNOTES:
[a] This hypothetical clause is somewhat remarkable. Grand serjeanty is of course included by parity under military service. But did any hold of the king in socage, except on his demesne lands? There might be some by petty serjeanty. Yet the committee, as we have just seen, absolutely exclude these from any share in the great councils of the Conqueror and his immediate descendants.
[] Mr. Spence has ingeniously conjectured, observing that in some passages of Domesday (he quotes two, but I only find one) the barons who held more than six manors paid their relief directly to the king, while those who had six or less paid theirs to the sheriff (Yorkshire, 298, b), that "this may tend to solve the disputed question as to what constituted one of the greater barons mentioned in the Magna Charta of John and other early Norman documents; for, by analogy to the mode in which the relief was paid, the greater barons were summoned by particular writs, the rest by one general summons through the sheriff." History of Equitable Jurisdiction, p. 40.
[c] See quotation from Spence's Equitable Jurisdiction, a little above. The barony of Berkeley was granted in 1 Ric. I., to be holden by the service of five knights, which was afterwards reduced to three. Nicolas's Report of Claim to Barony of L'Isle, Appendix, p. 318.
[d] A charter of Henry I., published in the new edition of Rymer (i. p. 12), fully confirms what is here said. Sciatis quod concedo et præcipio, ut à modo comitatus mei et hundreda in illis locis et iisdem terminis sedeant, sicut sederunt in tempore regis Edwardi, et non aliter. Ego enim, quando voluero, faciam ea satis summoneri propter mea dominica necessaria ad voluntatem meam. Et si modo exurgat placitum de divisione terrarum, si est inter barones meos dominicos, tractetur placitum in curea mea. Et si est inter vavassores duorum dominorum, tractetur in comitatu. Et hoc duello fiat, nisi in eis remanserit. Et volo et præcipio, ut omnes de comitatu eant ad comitatus et hundreda, sicut fecerunt in tempore regis Edwardi. But it is also easily proved from the Leges Henrici Primi.
[e] See the ensuing part of this note.
[f] This pedigree is elaborately, and with pious care, traced by Mr. Stapleton, in his excellent introduction to the old chronicle of London, already quoted. The name Alwyn appears rather Saxon than Norman, so that we may presume the first mayor to have been of English descent; but whether he were a merchant, or a landholder living in the city, must be undecided.
[g] Hist. de Paris, vol. iii. p. 231.
[h] John of Troyes says, in 1467, that from sixty to eighty thousand men appeared in arms. Dulaure (Hist. de Paris, vol. iii. p. 505) says this gives 120,000 for the whole population; but it gives double, which is incredible. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the houses were still cottages: only four streets were paved; they were very narrow and dirty, and often inundated by the Seine. Ib. p. 198.
[] This doubt was soon afterwards changed into a proposition, strenuously maintained by the supposed compiler of these Reports, lord Redesdale, on the claim to the barony of L'Isle in 1829. The ancestor had been called by writ to several parliaments of Edw. III.; and having only a daughter, the negative argument from the omission of his posterity is of little value; for though the husbands of heiresses were frequently summoned, this does not seem to have been an universal practice. It was held by lord Redesdale, that, at least until the statute of 5 Richard II. c. 4, no hereditary or even personal right to the peerage was created by the writ of summons. The house of lords rejected the claim, though the language of their resolution is not conclusive as to the principle. The opinion of lord R. has been ably impugned by Sir Harris Nicolas, in his Report of the L'Isle Peerage, 1829.
[k] The Lords' committee (Second Report, p. 436) endeavour to elude the force of this authority; but it manifestly appears that the Nevilles were preferred to the Fanes for the particular barony in question; though some satisfaction was made to the claimant of the latter family by calling her to a different peerage.
[m] The continuance of barony by tenure has been controverted by Sir Harris Nicolas, in some remarks on such a claim preferred by the present earl Fitzharding while yet a commoner, in virtue of the possession of Berkeley castle, published as an Appendix to his Report of the L'Isle Peerage. In the particular case there seem to have been several difficulties, independently of the great one, that, in the reign of Charles II., barony by tenure had been finally condemned. But there is surely a great general difficulty on the opposite side, in the hypothesis that, while it is acknowledged that there were, in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., certain known persons holding by barony and called peers of the realm, it could have been agreeable to the feudal or to the English constitution that the king, by refusing to the posterity of such barons a writ of summons to parliament, might deprive them of their nobility, and reduce them for ever to the rank of commoners.
[n] It has been doubted, notwithstanding the authority of Spelman, and some earlier but rather precarious testimony, whether the chancellor before the Conquest was any more than a scribe or secretary. Palgrave, in the Quarterly Review, xxxiv. 291. The Anglo-Saxon charters, as far as I have observed, never mention him as a witness; which seems a very strong circumstance. Ingulfus, indeed, has given a pompous account of chancellor Turketul; and, if the history ascribed to Ingulfus be genuine, the office must have been of high dignity. Lord Campbell assumes this in his Lives of the Chancellors.
[o] The words of the petition and answer are the following:—
"Item, que nul franc homme ne soit mys a respondre de son franc tenement, ne de riens qui touche vie et membre, fyns ou redemptions, par apposailles devant le conseil notre seigneur le roi, ne devant ses ministres queconques, sinoun par proces de ley de ces en arere use."
"Il plest a notre seigneur le roi que les leies de son roialme soient tenuz et gardez en lour force, et que nul homme soit tenu a respondre de son fraunk tenement, sinoun par processe de ley: mes de chose que touche vie ou membre, contemptz ou excesse, soit fait come ad este use ces en arere." Rot. Par. ii. 228.
It is not easy to perceive what was reserved by the words "chose que touche vie ou membre;" for the council never determined these. Possibly it regarded accusations of treason or felony, which they might entertain as an inquest, though they would ultimately be tried by a jury. Contempts are easily understood; and by excesses were meant riots and seditions. These political offences, which could not be always safely tried in a lower court, it was the constant intention of the government to reserve for the council.
[p] See Note in p. 145, for the statute 31 H. VI. c. 2.
[q] See Constitutional History of England, vol. i. p. 49. (1842.)
[r] It has been mentioned in a former note, on Mr. Allen's authority, that the folcland had acquired the appellation terra regis before the Conquest.
[] A presumptive proof of this may be drawn from a chapter in the Laws of Henry I. c. 81, where the penalty payable by a villein for certain petty offences is set at thirty pence; that of a cotset at fifteen; and of a theow at six. The passage is extremely obscure; and this proportion of the three classes of men is almost the only part that appears evident. The cotset, who is often mentioned in Domesday, may thus have been an inferior villein, nearly similar to what Glanvil and later law-books call such.
[t] The following passage in the Chronicle of Brakelond does not mention any manumission of the ceorl on whom abbot Samson conferred a manor:—Unum solum manerium carta sua confirmavit cuidam Anglico natione, glebæ adscripto, de cujus fidelitate plenius confidebat quia bonus agricola erat, et quia nesciebat loqui Gallicè. p. 24.
[] Mr. Wright has given a few specimens in Essays on the Literature and Popular Superstitions of England in the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 257. In fact we may reckon Piers Plowman an instance of popular satire, though far superior to the rest.
CHAPTER IX.[a]
ON THE STATE OF SOCIETY IN EUROPE DURING THE MIDDLE AGES.
PART I.
Introduction—Decline of Literature in the latter Period of the Roman Empire—Its Causes—Corruption of the Latin Language—Means by which it was effected—Formation of new Languages—General Ignorance of the Dark Ages—Scarcity of Books—Causes that prevented the total Extinction of Learning—Prevalence of Superstition and Fanaticism—General Corruption of Religion—Monasteries—their Effects—Pilgrimages—Love of Field Sports—State of Agriculture—of Internal and Foreign Trade down to the End of the Eleventh Century—Improvement of Europe dated from that Age.
It has been the object of every preceding chapter of this work, either to trace the civil revolutions of states during the period of the middle ages, or to investigate, with rather more minute attention, their political institutions. There remains a large tract to be explored, if we would complete the circle of historical information, and give to our knowledge that copiousness and clear perception which arise from comprehending a subject under numerous relations. The philosophy of history embraces far more than the wars and treaties, the factions and cabals of common political narration; it extends to whatever illustrates the character of the human species in a particular period, to their reasonings and sentiments, their arts and industry. Nor is this comprehensive survey merely interesting to the speculative philosopher; without it the statesman would form very erroneous estimates of events, and find himself constantly misled in any analogical application of them to present circumstances. Nor is it an uncommon source of error to neglect the general signs of the times, and to deduce a prognostic from some partial coincidence with past events, where a more enlarged comparison of all the facts that ought to enter into the combination would destroy the whole parallel. The philosophical student, however, will not follow the antiquary into his minute details; and though it is hard to say what may not supply matter for a reflecting mind, there is always some danger of losing sight of grand objects in historical disquisition, by too laborious a research into trifles. I may possibly be thought to furnish, in some instances, an example of the error I condemn. But in the choice and disposition of topics to which the present chapter relates, some have been omitted oh account of their comparative insignificance, and others on account of their want of connexion with the leading subject. Even of those treated I can only undertake to give a transient view; and must bespeak the reader's candour to remember that passages which, separately taken, may often appear superficial, are but parts of the context of a single chapter, as the chapter itself is of an entire work.
The Middle Ages, according to the division I have adopted, comprise about one thousand years, from the invasion of France by Clovis to that of Naples by Charles VIII. This period, considered as to the state of society, has been esteemed dark through ignorance, and barbarous through poverty and want of refinement. And although this character is much less applicable to the last two centuries of the period than to those which preceded its commencement, yet we cannot expect to feel, in respect of ages at best imperfectly civilized and slowly progressive, that interest which attends a more perfect development of human capacities, and more brilliant advances in improvement. The first moiety indeed of these ten ages is almost absolutely barren, and presents little but a catalogue of evils. The subversion of the Roman empire, and devastation of its provinces, by barbarous nations, either immediately preceded, or were coincident with the commencement of the middle period. We begin in darkness and calamity; and though the shadows grow fainter as we advance, yet we are to break off our pursuit as the morning breathes upon us, and the twilight reddens into the lustre of day.
Decline of learning in Roman empire.
No circumstance is so prominent on the first survey of society during the earlier centuries of this period as the depth of ignorance in which it was immersed; and as from this, more than any single cause, the moral and social evils which those ages experienced appear to have been derived and perpetuated, it deserves to occupy the first place in the arrangement of our present subject. We must not altogether ascribe the ruin of literature to the barbarian destroyers of the Roman empire. So gradual, and, apparently, so irretrievable a decay had long before spread over all liberal studies, that it is impossible to pronounce whether they would not have been almost equally extinguished if the august throne of the Cæsars had been left to moulder by its intrinsic weakness. Under the paternal sovereignty of Marcus Aurelius the approaching declension of learning might be scarcely perceptible to an incurious observer. There was much indeed to distinguish his times from those of Augustus; much lost in originality of genius, in correctness of taste, in the masterly conception and consummate finish of art, in purity of the Latin, and even of the Greek language. But there were men who made the age famous, grave lawyers, judicious historians, wise philosophers; the name of learning was honourable, its professors were encouraged; and along the vast surface of the Roman empire there was perhaps a greater number whose minds were cultivated by intellectual discipline than under the more brilliant reign of the first emperor.
Its causes.
It is not, I think, very easy to give a perfectly satisfactory solution of the rapid downfall of literature between the ages of Antonine and of Diocletian. Perhaps the prosperous condition of the empire from Trajan to Marcus Aurelius, and the patron age which those good princes bestowed on letters, gave an artificial health to them for a moment, and suspended the operation of a disease which had already begun to undermine their vigour. Perhaps the intellectual energies of mankind can never remain stationary; and a nation that ceases to produce original and inventive minds, born to advance the landmarks of knowledge or skill, will recede from step to step, till it loses even the secondary merits of imitation and industry. During the third century, not only there were no great writers, but even few names of indifferent writers have been recovered by the diligence of modern inquiry.[] Law neglected, philosophy perverted till it became contemptible, history nearly silent, the Latin tongue growing rapidly barbarous, poetry rarely and feebly attempted, art more and more vitiated; such were the symptoms by which the age previous to Constantine announced the decline of human intellect. If we cannot fully account for this unhappy change, as I have observed, we must, however, assign much weight to the degradation of Rome and Italy in the system of Severus and his successors, to the admission of barbarians into the military and even civil dignities of the empire, to the discouraging influence of provincial and illiterate sovereigns, and to the calamities which followed for half a century the first invasion of the Goths and the defeat of Decius. To this sickly condition of literature the fourth century supplied no permanent remedy. If under the house of Constantine the Roman world suffered rather less from civil warfare or barbarous invasions than in the preceding age, yet every other cause of decline just enumerated prevailed with aggravated force; and the fourth century set in storms, sufficiently destructive in themselves, and ominous of those calamities which humbled the majesty of Rome at the commencement of the ensuing period, and overwhelmed the Western Empire in absolute and final ruin before its termination.
The diffusion of literature is perfectly distinguishable from its advancement; and whatever obscurity we may find in explaining the variations of the one, there are a few simple causes which seem to account for the other. Knowledge will be spread over the surface of a nation in proportion to the facilities of education; to the free circulation of books; to the emoluments and distinctions which literary attainments are found to produce; and still more to the reward which they meet in the general respect and applause of society. This cheering incite ment, the genial sunshine of approbation, has at all times promoted the cultivation of literature in small republics rather than large empires, and in cities compared with the country. If these are the sources which nourish literature, we should naturally expect that they must have become scanty or dry when learning languishes or expires. Accordingly, in the later ages of the Roman empire a general indifference towards the cultivation of letters became the characteristic of its inhabitants. Laws were indeed enacted by Constantine, Julian, Theodosius, and other emperors, for the encouragement of learned men and the promotion of liberal education. But these laws, which would not perhaps have been thought necessary in better times, were unavailing to counteract the lethargy of ignorance in which even the native citizens of the empire were contented to repose. This alienation of men from their national literature may doubtless be imputed in some measure to its own demerits. A jargon of mystical philosophy, half fanaticism and half imposture, a barren and inflated eloquence, a frivolous philology, were not among those charms of wisdom by which man is to be diverted from pleasure or aroused from indolence.
In this temper of the public mind there was little probability that new compositions of excellence would be produced, and much doubt whether the old would be preserved. Since the invention of printing, the absolute extinction of any considerable work seems a danger too improbable for apprehension. The press pours forth in a few days a thousand volumes, which, scattered like seeds in the air over the republic of Europe, could hardly be destroyed without the extirpation of its inhabitants. But in the times of antiquity manuscripts were copied with cost, labour, and delay; and if the diffusion of knowledge be measured by the multiplication of books, no unfair standard, the most golden ages of ancient learning could never bear the least comparison with the three last centuries. The destruction of a few libraries by accidental fire, the desolation of a few provinces by unsparing and illiterate barbarians, might annihilate every vestige of an author, or leave a few scattered copies, which, from the public indifference, there was no inducement to multiply, exposed to similar casualties in succeeding times.
We are warranted by good authorities to assign, as a collateral cause of this irretrievable revolution the neglect of heathen literature by the Christian church. I am not versed enough in ecclesiastical writers to estimate the degree of this neglect; nor am I disposed to deny that the mischief was beyond recovery before the accession of Constantine. From the primitive ages, however, it seems that a dislike of pagan learning was pretty general among Christians. Many of the fathers undoubtedly were accomplished in liberal studies, and we are indebted to them for valuable fragments of authors whom we have lost. But the literary character of the church is not to be measured by that of its more illustrious leaders. Proscribed and persecuted, the early Christians had not perhaps access to the public schools, nor inclination to studies which seemed, very excusably, uncongenial to the character of their profession. Their prejudices, however, survived the establishment of Christianity. The fourth council of Carthage in 398 prohibited the reading of secular books by bishops. Jerome plainly condemns the study of them except for pious ends. All physical science especially was held in avowed contempt, as inconsistent with revealed truths. Nor do there appear to have been any canons made in favour of learning, or any restriction on the ordination of persons absolutely illiterate.[c] There was indeed abundance of what is called theological learning displayed in the controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries; and those who admire such disputations may consider the principal champions in them as contributing to the glory, or at least retarding the decline, of literature. But I believe rather that polemical disputes will be found not only to corrupt the genuine spirit of religion, but to degrade and contract the faculties. What keenness and subtlety these may sometimes acquire by such exercise is more like that worldly shrewdness we see in men whose trade it is to outwit their neighbours than the clear and calm discrimination of philosophy. However this may be, it cannot be doubted that the controversies agitated in the church during these two centuries must have diverted studious minds from profane literature, and narrowed more and more the circle of that knowledge which they were desirous to attain.
The torrent of irrational superstitions which carried all before it in the fifth century, and the progress of ascetic enthusiasm, had an influence still more decidedly inimical to learning. I cannot indeed conceive any state of society more adverse to the intellectual improvement of mankind than one which admitted of no middle line between gross dissoluteness and fanatical mortification. An equable tone of public morals, social and humane, verging neither to voluptuousness nor austerity, seems the most adapted to genius, or at least to letters, as it is to individual comfort and national prosperity. After the introduction of monkery and its unsocial theory of duties, the serious and reflecting part of mankind, on whom science most relies, were turned to habits which, in the most favourable view, could not quicken the intellectual energies; and it might be a difficult question whether the cultivators and admirers of useful literature were less likely to be found among the profligate citizens of Rome and their barbarian conquerors or the melancholy recluses of the wilderness.
Such therefore was the state of learning before the subversion of the Western Empire. And we may form some notion how little probability there was of its producing any excellent fruits, even if that revolution had never occurred, by considering what took place in Greece during the subsequent ages; where, although there was some attention shown to preserve the best monuments of antiquity, and diligence in compiling from them, yet no one original writer of any superior merit arose, and learning, though plunged but for a short period into mere darkness, may be said to have languished in a middle region of twilight for the greater part of a thousand years.
But not to delay ourselves in this speculation, the final settlement of barbarous nations in Gaul, Spain, and Italy consummated the ruin of literature. Their first irruptions were uniformly attended with devastation; and if some of the Gothic kings, after their establishment, proved humane and civilized sovereigns, yet the nation gloried in its original rudeness, and viewed with no unreasonable disdain arts which had neither preserved their cultivators from corruption nor raised them from servitude. Theodoric, the most famous of the Ostrogoth kings in Italy, could not write his name, and is said to have restrained his countrymen from attending those schools of learning by which he, or rather perhaps his minister Cassiodorus, endeavoured to revive the studies of his Italian subjects. Scarcely one of the barbarians, so long as they continued unconfused with the native inhabitants, acquired the slightest tincture of letters; and the praise of equal ignorance was soon aspired to and attained by the entire mass of the Roman laity. They, however, could hardly have divested themselves so completely of all acquaintance with even the elements of learning, if the language in which books were written had not ceased to be their natural dialect. This remarkable change in the speech of France, Spain, and Italy is most intimately connected with the extinction of learning; and there is enough of obscurity as well as of interest in the subject to deserve some discussion.
Corruption of the Latin language.
It is obvious, on the most cursory view of the French and Spanish languages, that they, as well as the Italian, are derived from one common source, the Latin. That must therefore have been at some period, and certainly not since the establishment of the barbarous nations in Spain and Gaul, substituted in ordinary use for the original dialects of those countries which are generally supposed to have been Celtic, not essentially differing from those which are spoken in Wales and Ireland. Rome, says Augustin, imposed not only her yoke, but her language, upon conquered nations. The success of such an attempt is indeed very remarkable. Though it is the natural effect of conquest, or even of commercial intercourse, to ingraft fresh words and foreign idioms on the stock of the original language, yet the entire disuse of the latter, and adoption of one radically different, scarcely takes place in the lapse of a far longer period than that of the Roman dominion in Gaul. Thus, in part of Britany the people speak a language which has perhaps sustained no essential alteration from the revolution of two thousand years; and we know how steadily another Celtic dialect has kept its ground in Wales, notwithstanding English, laws and government, and the long line of contiguous frontier which brings the natives of that principality into contact with Englishmen. Nor did the Romans ever establish their language (I know not whether they wished to do so) in this island, as we perceive by that stubborn British tongue which has survived two conquests.[d]
In Gaul and in Spain, however, they did succeed, as the present state of the French and peninsular languages renders undeniable, though by gradual changes, and not, as the Benedictine authors of the Histoire Littéraire de la France seem to imagine, by a sudden and arbitrary innovation.[e] This is neither possible in itself, nor agreeable to the testimony of Irenæus, bishop of Lyons at the end of the second century, who laments the necessity of learning Celtic.[f] But although the inhabitants of these provinces came at length to make use of Latin so completely as their mother tongue that few vestiges of their original Celtic could perhaps be discovered in their common speech, it does not follow that they spoke with the pure pronunciation of Italians, far less with that conformity to the written sounds which we assume to be essential to the expression of Latin words.
Ancient Latin pronunciation.
It appears to be taken for granted that the Romans pronounced their language as we do at present, so far at least as the enunciation of all the consonants, however we may admit our deviations from the classical standard in propriety of sounds and in measure of time. Yet the example of our own language, and of French, might show us that orthography may become a very inadequate representative of pronunciation. It is indeed capable of proof that in the purest ages of Latinity some variation existed between these two. Those numerous changes in spelling which distinguish the same words in the poetry of Ennius and of Virgil are best explained by the supposition of their being accommodated, to the current pronunciation. Harsh combinations of letters, softened down through delicacy of ear or rapidity of utterance, gradually lost their place in the written language. Thus exfregit and adrogavit assumed a form representing their more liquid sound; and auctor was latterly spelled autor, which has been followed in French and Italian. Autor was probably so pronounced at all times; and the orthography was afterwards corrected or corrupted, whichever we please to say, according to the sound. We have the best authority to assert that the final m was very faintly pronounced, rather it seems as a rest and short interval between two syllables than an articulate letter; nor indeed can we conceive upon what other ground it was subject to elision before a vowel in verse, since we cannot suppose that the nice ears of Rome would have submitted to a capricious rule of poetry for which Greece presented no analogy.[g]
A decisive proof, in my opinion, of the deviation which took place, through the rapidity of ordinary elocution, from the strict laws of enunciation, may be found in the metre of Terence. His verses, which are absolutely refractory to the common laws of prosody, may be readily scanned by the application of this principle. Thus, in the first act of the Heautontimorumenos, a part selected at random, I have found, I. Vowels contracted or dropped so as to shorten the word by a syllable; in rei, viâ, diutius, ei, solius, eam, unius, suam, divitias, senex, voluptatem, illius, semel; II. The proceleusmatic foot, or four short syllables, instead of the dactyl; scen. i. v. 59, 73, 76, 88, 109; scen. ii. v. 36; III. The elision of s in words ending with us or is short, and sometimes even of the whole syllable, before the next word beginning with a vowel; in scen. i. v. 30, 81, 98, 101, 116, 119; scen. ii. v. 28. IV. The first syllable of ille is repeatedly shortened, and indeed nothing is more usual in Terence than this licence; whence we may collect how ready this word was for abbreviation into the French and Italian articles. V. The last letter of apud is cut off, scen. i. v. 120; and scen. ii. v. 8. VI. Hodie is used as a pyrrhichius, in scen. ii. v. 11. VII. Lastly, there is a clear instance of a short syllable, the antepenultimate of impulerim, lengthened on account of the accent at the 113th verse of the first scene.
Its corruption by the populace,
and the provincials.
These licences are in all probability chiefly colloquial, and would not have been adopted in public harangues, to which the precepts of rhetorical writers commonly relate. But if the more elegant language of the Romans, since such we must suppose to have been copied by Terence for his higher characters, differed so much in ordinary discourse from their orthography, it is probable that the vulgar went into much greater deviations. The popular pronunciation errs generally, we might say perhaps invariably, by abbreviation of words, and by liquefying consonants, as is natural to the rapidity of colloquial speech.[h] It is by their knowledge of orthography and etymology that the more educated part of the community is preserved from these corrupt modes of pronunciation. There is always therefore a standard by which common speech may be rectified; and in proportion to the diffusion of knowledge and politeness the deviations from it will be more slight and gradual. But in distant provinces, and especially where the language itself is but of recent introduction, many more changes may be expected to occur. Even in France and England there are provincial dialects, which, if written with all their anomalies of pronunciation as well as idiom, would seem strangely out of unison with the regular language; and in Italy, as is well known, the varieties of dialect are still more striking. Now, in an advancing state of society, and especially with such a vigorous political circulation as we experience in England, language will constantly approximate to uniformity, as provincial expressions are more and more rejected for incorrectness or inelegance. But, where literature is on the decline, and public misfortunes contract the circle of those who are solicitous about refinement, as in the last ages of the Roman empire, there will be no longer any definite standard of living speech, nor any general desire to conform to it if one could be found; and thus the vicious corruptions of the vulgar will entirely predominate. The niceties of ancient idiom will be totally lost, while new idioms will be formed out of violations of grammar sanctioned by usage, which, among a civilized people, would have been proscribed at their appearance.
Such appears to have been the progress of corruption in the Latin language. The adoption of words from the Teutonic dialects of the barbarians, which took place very freely, would not of itself have destroyed the character of that language, though it sullied its purity. The worst law Latin of the middle ages is still Latin, if its barbarous terms have been bent to the regular inflections. It is possible, on the other hand, to write whole pages of Italian, wherein every word shall be of unequivocal Latin derivation, though the character and personality, if I may so say, of the language be entirely dissimilar. But, as I conceive, the loss of literature took away the only check upon arbitrary pronunciation and upon erroneous grammar. Each people innovated through caprice, imitation of their neighbours, or some of those indescribable causes which dispose the organs of different nations to different sounds. The French melted down the middle consonants; the Italians omitted the final. Corruptions arising out of ignorance were mingled with those of pronunciation. It would have been marvellous if illiterate and semi-barbarous provincials had preserved that delicate precision in using the inflections of tenses which our best scholars do not clearly attain. The common speech of any people whose language is highly complicated will be full of solecisms. The French inflections are not comparable in number or delicacy to the Latin, and yet the vulgar confuse their most ordinary forms.
But, in all probability, the variation of these derivative languages from popular Latin has been considerably less than it appears. In the purest ages of Latinity the citizens of Rome itself made use of many terms which we deem barbarous, and of many idioms which we should reject as modern. That highly complicated grammar, which the best writers employed, was too elliptical and obscure, too deficient in the connecting parts of speech, for general use. We cannot indeed ascertain in what degree the vulgar Latin differed from that of Cicero or Seneca. It would be highly absurd to imagine, as some are said to have done, that modern Italian was spoken at Rome under Augustus.[] But I believe it may be asserted not only that much the greater part of those words in the present language of Italy which strike us as incapable of a Latin etymology are in fact derived from those current in the Augustan age, but that very many phrases which offended nicer ears prevailed in the same vernacular speech, and have passed from thence into the modern French and Italian. Such, for example, was the frequent use of prepositions to indicate a relation between two parts of a sentence which a classical writer would have made to depend on mere inflection.[k]
From the difficulty of retaining a right discrimination of tense seems to have proceeded the active auxiliary verb. It is possible that this was borrowed from the Teutonic languages of the barbarians, and accommodated both by them and by the natives to words of Latin origin. The passive auxiliary is obtained by a very ready resolution of any tense in that mood, and has not been altogether dispensed with even in Greek, while in Latin it is used much more frequently. It is not quite so easy to perceive the propriety of the active habeo or teneo, one or both of which all modern languages have adopted as their auxiliaries in conjugating the verb. But in some instances this analysis is not improper; and it may be supposed that nations, careless of etymology or correctness, applied the same verb by a rude analogy to cases where it ought not strictly to have been employed.[m]
Next to the changes founded on pronunciation and to the substitution of auxiliary verbs for inflections, the usage of the definite and indefinite articles in nouns appears the most considerable step in the transmutation of Latin into its derivative languages. None but Latin, I believe, has ever wanted this part of speech; and the defect to which custom reconciled the Romans would be an insuperable stumbling-block to nations who were to translate their original idiom into that language. A coarse expedient of applying unus, ipse, or ille to the purposes of an article might perhaps be no unfrequent vulgarism of the provincials; and after the Teutonic tribes brought in their own grammar, it was natural that a corruption should become universal, which in fact supplied a real and essential deficiency.
Pronunciation no longer regulated by quantity.
That the quantity of Latin syllables is neglected, or rather lost, in modern pronunciation, seems to be generally admitted. Whether, indeed, the ancient Romans, in their ordinary speaking, distinguished the measure of syllables with such uniform musical accuracy as we imagine, giving a certain time to those termed long, and exactly half that duration to the short, might very reasonably be questioned; though this was probably done, or attempted to be done, by every reader of poetry. Certainly, however, the laws of quantity were forgotten, and an accentual pronunciation came to predominate, before Latin had ceased to be a living language. A Christian writer named Commodianus, who lived before the end of the third century according to some, or, as others think, in the reign of Constantine, has left us a philological curiosity, in a series of attacks on the pagan superstitions, composed in what are meant to be verses, regulated by accent instead of quantity, exactly as we read Virgil at present.[n]
It is not improbable that Commodianus may have written in Africa, the province in which more than any the purity of Latin was debased. At the end of the fourth century St. Augustin assailed his old enemies, the Donatists, with nearly the same arms that Commodianus had wielded against heathenism. But as the refined and various music of hexameters was unlikely to be relished by the vulgar, he prudently adopted a different measure.[o] All the nations of Europe seem to love the trochaic verse; it was frequent on the Greek and Roman stage; it is more common than any other in the popular poetry of modern languages. This proceeds from its simplicity, its liveliness, and its ready accommodation to dancing and music. In St. Austin's poem he united to a trochaic measure the novel attraction of rhyme.
As Africa must have lost all regard to the rules of measure in the fourth century, so it appears that Gaul was not more correct in the next two ages. A poem addressed by Auspicius bishop of Toul to count Arbogastes, of earlier date probably than the invasion of Clovis, is written with no regard to quantity.[p] The bishop by whom this was composed is mentioned by his contemporaries as a man of learning. Probably he did not choose to perplex the barbarian to whom he was writing (for Arbogastes is plainly a barbarous name) by legitimate Roman metre. In the next century Gregory of Tours informs us that Chilperic attempted to write Latin verses; but the lines could not be reconciled to any division of feet; his ignorance having confounded long and short syllables together.[q] Now Chilperic must have learned to speak Latin like other kings of the Franks, and was a smatterer in several kinds of literature. If Chilperic therefore was not master of these distinctions, we may conclude that the bishops and other Romans with whom he conversed did not observe them; and that his blunders in versification arose from ignorance of rules, which, however fit to be preserved in poetry, were entirely obsolete in the living Latin of his age. Indeed the frequency of false quantities in the poets even of the fifth, but much more of the sixth century, is palpable. Fortunatus is quite full of them. This seems a decisive proof that the ancient pronunciation was lost. Avitus tells us that few preserved the proper measure of syllables in singing. Yet he was bishop of Vienne, where a purer pronunciation might be expected than in the remoter parts of Gaul.[r]
Change of Latin into Romance.
Defective, however, as it had become in respect of pronunciation, Latin was still spoken in France during the sixth and seventh centuries. We have compositions of that time, intended for the people, in grammatical language. A song is still extant in rhyme and loose accentual measure, written upon a victory of Clotaire II. over the Saxons in 622, and obviously intended for circulation among the people.[] Fortunatus says, in his Life of St. Aubin of Angers, that he should take care not to use any expression unintelligible to the people.[t] Baudemind, in the middle of the seventh century, declares, in his Life of St. Amand, that he writes in a rustic and vulgar style, that the reader may be excited to imitation.[] Not that these legends were actually perused by the populace, for the very art of reading was confined to a few. But they were read publicly in the churches, and probably with a pronunciation accommodated to the corruptions of ordinary language. Still the Latin syntax must have been tolerably understood; and we may therefore say that Latin had not ceased to be a living language, in Gaul at least, before the latter part of the seventh century. Faults indeed against the rules of grammar, as well as unusual idioms, perpetually occur in the best writers of the Merovingian period, such as Gregory of Tours; while charters drawn up by less expert scholars deviate much further from purity.[x]
The corrupt provincial idiom became gradually more and more dissimilar to grammatical Latin; and the lingua Romana rustica, as the vulgar patois (to borrow a word that I cannot well translate) had been called, acquired a distinct character as a new language in the eighth century.[y] Latin orthography, which had been hitherto pretty well maintained in books, though not always in charters, gave way to a new spelling, conformably to the current pronunciation. Thus we find lui, for illius, in the Formularies of Marculfus; and Tu lo juva in a liturgy of Charlemagne's age, for Tu illum juva. When this barrier was once broken down, such a deluge of innovation poured in that all the characteristics of Latin were effaced in writing as well as speaking, and the existence of a new language became undeniable. In a council held at Tours in 813 the bishops are ordered to have certain homilies of the fathers translated into the rustic Roman, as well as the German tongue.[z] After this it is unnecessary to multiply proofs of the change which Latin had undergone.
Its corruption in Italy.
In Italy the progressive corruptions of the Latin language were analogous to those which occurred in France, though we do not find in writings any unequivocal specimens of a new formation at so early a period. But the old inscriptions, even of the fourth and fifth centuries, are full of solecisms and corrupt orthography. In legal instruments under the Lombard kings the Latin inflections are indeed used, but with so little regard to propriety that it is obvious the writers had not the slightest tincture of grammatical knowledge. This observation extends to a very large proportion of such documents down to the twelfth century, and is as applicable to France and Spain as it is to Italy. In these charters the peculiar characteristics of Italian orthography and grammar frequently appear. Thus we find, in the eighth century, diveatis for debeatis, da for de in the ablative, avendi for habendi, dava for dabat, cedo a deo, and ad ecclesia, among many similar corruptions.[a] Latin was so changed, it is said by a writer of Charlemagne's age, that scarcely any part of it was popularly known. Italy indeed had suffered more than France itself by invasion, and was reduced to a lower state of barbarism, though probably, from the greater distinctness of pronunciation habitual to the Italians, they lost less of their original language than the French. I do not find, however, in the writers who have treated this subject, any express evidence of a vulgar language distinct from Latin earlier than the close of the tenth century, when it is said in the epitaph of Pope Gregory V., who died in 999, that he instructed the people in three dialects—the Frankish or German, the vulgar, and the Latin.[]
Ignorance consequent on the disuse of Latin.
When Latin had thus ceased to be a living language, the whole treasury of knowledge was locked up from the eyes of the people. The few who might have imbibed a taste for literature, if books had been accessible to them, were reduced to abandon pursuits that could only be cultivated through a kind of education not easily within their reach. Schools, confined to cathedrals and monasteries, and exclusively designed for the purposes of religion, afforded no encouragement or opportunities to the laity.[c] The worst effect was, that, as the newly-formed languages were hardly made use of in writing, Latin being still preserved in all legal instruments and public correspondence, the very use of letters, as well as of books, was forgotten. For many centuries, to sum up the account of ignorance in a word, it was rare for a layman, of whatever rank, to know how to sign his name.[d] Their charters, till the use of seals became general, were subscribed with the mark of the cross. Still more extraordinary it was to find one who had any tincture of learning. Even admitting every indistinct commendation of a monkish biographer (with whom a knowledge of church-music would pass for literature[e]), we could make out a very short list of scholars. None certainly were more distinguished as such than Charlemagne and Alfred. But the former, unless we reject a very plain testimony, was incapable of writing;[f] and Alfred found difficulty in making a translation from the pastoral instruction of St. Gregory, on account of his imperfect knowledge of Latin.[g]
Whatever mention, therefore, we find of learning and the learned during these dark ages, must be understood to relate only to such as were within the pale of clergy, which indeed was pretty extensive, and comprehended many who did not exercise the offices of religious ministry. But even the clergy were, for a long period, not very materially superior, as a body, to the uninstructed laity. A cloud of ignorance overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights, who owe much of their distinction to the surrounding darkness. In the sixth century the best writers in Latin were scarcely read;[h] and perhaps from the middle of this age to the eleventh there was, in a general view of literature, little difference to be discerned. If we look more accurately, there will appear certain gradual shades of twilight on each side of the greatest obscurity. France reached her lowest point about the beginning of the eighth century; but England was at that time more respectable, and did not fall into complete degradation till the middle of the ninth. There could be nothing more deplorable than the state of letters in Italy and in England during the succeeding century; but France cannot be denied to have been uniformly, though very slowly, progressive from the time of Charlemagne.[]
Of this prevailing ignorance it is easy to produce abundant testimony. Contracts were made verbally, for want of notaries capable of drawing up charters; and these, when written, were frequently barbarous and ungrammatical to an incredible degree. For some considerable intervals scarcely any monument of literature has been preserved, except a few jejune chronicles, the vilest legends of saints, or verses equally destitute of spirit and metre. In almost every council the ignorance of the clergy forms a subject for reproach. It is asserted by one held in 992 that scarcely a single person was to be found in Rome itself who knew the first elements of letters.[k] Not one priest of a thousand in Spain, about the age of Charlemagne, could address a common letter of salutation to another.[m] In England, Alfred declares that he could not recollect a single priest south of the Thames (the most civilized part of England), at the time of his accession, who understood the ordinary prayers, or could translate Latin into his mother tongue.[n] Nor was this better in the time of Dunstan, when, it is said, none of the clergy knew how to write or translate a Latin letter.[o] The homilies which they preached were compiled for their use by some bishops, from former works of the same kind, or the writings of the fathers.
Scarcity of books.
This universal ignorance was rendered unavoidable, among other causes, by the scarcity of books, which could only be procured at an immense price. From the conquest of Alexandria by the Saracens at the beginning of the seventh century, when the Egyptian papyrus almost ceased to be imported into Europe, to the close of the eleventh, about which time the art of making paper from cotton rags seems to have been introduced, there were no materials for writing except parchment, a substance too expensive to be readily spared for mere purposes of literature.[p] Hence an unfortunate practice gained ground, of erasing a manuscript in order to substitute another on the same skin. This occasioned the loss of many ancient authors, who have made way for the legends of saints, or other ecclesiastical rubbish.
Want of eminent men in literature.
If we would listen to some literary historians, we should believe that the darkest ages contained many individuals, not only distinguished among their contemporaries, but positively eminent for abilities and knowledge. A proneness to extol every monk of whose production a few letters or a devotional treatise survives, every bishop of whom it is related that he composed homilies, runs through the laborious work of the Benedictines of St. Maur, the Literary History of France, and, in a less degree, is observable even in Tiraboschi, and in most books of this class. Bede, Alcuin, Hincmar, Raban, and a number of inferior names, become real giants of learning in their uncritical panegyrics. But one might justly say that ignorance is the smallest defect of the writers of these dark ages. Several of them were tolerably acquainted with books; but that wherein they are uniformly deficient is original argument or expression. Almost every one is a compiler of scraps from the fathers, or from such semi-classical authors as Boethius, Cassiodorus, or Martianus Capella.[q] Indeed I am not aware that there appeared more than two really considerable men in the republic of letters from the sixth to the middle of the eleventh century—John, surnamed Scotus or Erigena, a native of Ireland; and Gerbert, who became pope by the name of Silvester II.: the first endowed with a bold and acute metaphysical genius; the second excellent, for the time when he lived, in mathematical science and mechanical inventions.[r]
Causes of the preservation of learning—religion.
If it be demanded by what cause it happened that a few sparks of ancient learning survived throughout this long winter, we can only ascribe their preservation to the establishment of Christianity. Religion alone made a bridge, as it were, across the chaos, and has linked the two periods of ancient and modern civilization. Without this connecting principle, Europe might indeed have awakened to intellectual pursuits, and the genius of recent times needed not to be invigorated by the imitation of antiquity. But the memory of Greece and Rome would have been feebly preserved by tradition, and the monuments of those nations might have excited, on the return of civilization, that vague sentiment of speculation and wonder with which men now contemplate Persepolis or the Pyramids. It is not, however, from religion simply that we have derived this advantage, but from religion as it was modified in the dark ages. Such is the complex reciprocation of good and evil in the dispensations of Providence, that we may assert, with only an apparent paradox, that, had religion been more pure, it would have been less permanent, and that Christianity has been preserved by means of its corruptions. The sole hope for literature depended on the Latin language; and I do not see why that should not have been lost, if three circumstances in the prevailing religious system, all of which we are justly accustomed to disapprove, had not conspired to maintain it—the papal supremacy, the monastic institutions, and the use of a Latin liturgy. 1. A continual intercourse was kept up, in consequence of the first, between Rome and the several nations of Europe; her laws were received by the bishops, her legates presided in councils; so that a common language was as necessary in the church as it is at present in the diplomatic relations of kingdoms. 2. Throughout the whole course of the middle ages there was no learning, and very little regularity of manners, among the parochial clergy. Almost every distinguished man was either the member of a chapter or of a convent. The monasteries were subjected to strict rules of discipline, and held out, at the worst, more opportunities for study than the secular clergy possessed, and fewer for worldly dissipations. But their most important service was as secure repositories for books. All our manuscripts have been preserved in this manner, and could hardly have descended to us by any other channel; at least there were intervals when I do not conceive that any royal or private libraries existed.[] 3. Monasteries, however, would probably have contributed very little towards the preservation of learning, if the Scriptures and the liturgy had been translated out of Latin when that language ceased to be intelligible. Every rational principle of religious worship called for such a change; but it would have been made at the expense of posterity. One might presume, if such refined conjectures were consistent with historical caution, that the more learned and sagacious ecclesiastics of those times, deploring the gradual corruption of the Latin tongue, and the danger of its absolute extinction, were induced to maintain it as a sacred language, and the depository, as it were, of that truth and that science which would be lost in the barbarous dialects of the vulgar. But a simpler explanation is found in the radical dislike of innovation which is natural to an established clergy. Nor did they want as good pretexts, on the ground of convenience, as are commonly alleged by the opponents of reform. They were habituated to the Latin words of the church-service, which had become, by this association, the readiest instruments of devotion, and with the majesty of which the Romance jargon could bear no comparison. Their musical chants were adapted to these sounds, and their hymns depended, for metrical effect, on the marked accents and powerful rhymes which the Latin language affords. The vulgate Latin of the Bible was still more venerable. It was like a copy of a lost original; and a copy attested by one of the most eminent fathers, and by the general consent of the church. These are certainly no adequate excuses for keeping the people in ignorance; and the gross corruption of the middle ages is in a great degree assignable to this policy. But learning, and consequently religion, have eventually derived from it the utmost advantage.
Superstitions.
In the shadows of this universal ignorance a thousand superstitions, like foul animals of night, were propagated and nourished. It would be very unsatisfactory to exhibit a few specimens of this odious brood, when the real character of those times is only to be judged by their accumulated multitude. In every age it would be easy to select proofs of irrational superstition, which, separately considered, seem to degrade mankind from its level in the creation; and perhaps the contemporaries of Swedenborg and Southcote have no right to look very contemptuously upon the fanaticism of their ancestors. There are many books from which a sufficient number of instances may be collected to show the absurdity and ignorance of the middle ages in this respect. I shall only mention two, as affording more general evidence than any local or obscure superstition. In the tenth century an opinion prevailed everywhere that the end of the world was approaching. Many charters begin with these words, "As the world is now drawing to its close." An army marching under the emperor Otho I. was so terrified by an eclipse of the sun, which it conceived to announce this consummation, as to disperse hastily on all sides. As this notion seems to have been founded on some confused theory of the millennium, it naturally died away when the seasons proceeded in the eleventh century with their usual regularity.[t] A far more remarkable and permanent superstition was the appeal to Heaven in judicial controversies, whether through the means of combat or of ordeal. The principle of these was the same; but in the former it was mingled with feelings independent of religion—the natural dictates of resentment in a brave man unjustly accused, and the sympathy of a warlike people with the display of skill and intrepidity. These, in course of time, almost obliterated the primary character of judicial combat, and ultimately changed it into the modern duel, in which assuredly there is no mixture of superstition.[] But, in the various tests of innocence which were called ordeals, this stood undisguised and unqualified. It is not necessary to describe what is so well known—the ceremonies of trial by handling hot iron, by plunging the arm into boiling fluids, by floating or sinking in cold water, or by swallowing a piece of consecrated bread. It is observable that, as the interference of Heaven was relied upon as a matter of course, it seems to have been reckoned nearly indifferent whether such a test was adopted as must, humanly considered, absolve all the guilty, or one that must convict all the innocent. The ordeals of hot iron or water were, however, more commonly used; and it has been a perplexing question by what dexterity these tremendous proofs were eluded. They seem at least to have placed the decision of all judicial controversies in the hands of the clergy, who must have known the secret, whatever that might be, of satisfying the spectators that an accused person had held a mass of burning iron with impunity. For several centuries this mode of investigation was in great repute, though not without opposition from some eminent bishops. It does discredit to the memory of Charlemagne that he was one of its warmest advocates.[x] But the judicial combat, which indeed might be reckoned one species of ordeal, gradually put an end to the rest; and as the church acquired better notions of law, and a code of her own, she strenuously exerted herself against all these barbarous superstitions.[y]
Enthusiastic risings.
But the religious ignorance of the middle ages sometimes burst out in ebullitions of epidemical enthusiasm, more remarkable than these superstitious usages, though proceeding in fact from similar causes. For enthusiasm is little else than superstition put in motion, and is equally founded on a strong conviction of supernatural agency without any just conceptions of its nature. Nor has any denomination of Christians produced, or even sanctioned, more fanaticism than the church of Rome. These epidemical frenzies, however, to which I am alluding, were merely tumultuous, though certainly fostered by the creed of perpetual miracles which the clergy inculcated, and drawing a legitimate precedent for religious insurrection from the crusades. For these, among other evil consequences, seem to have principally excited a wild fanaticism that did not sleep for several centuries.[z]
The first conspicuous appearance of it was in the reign of Philip Augustus, when the mercenary troops, dismissed from the pay of that prince and of Henry II., committed the greatest outrages in the south of France. One Durand, a carpenter, deluded it is said by a contrived appearance of the Virgin, put himself at the head of an army of the populace, in order to destroy these marauders. His followers were styled Brethren of the White Caps, from the linen coverings of their heads. They bound themselves not to play at dice nor frequent taverns, to wear no affected clothing, to avoid perjury and vain swearing. After some successes over the plunderers, they went so far as to forbid the lords to take any dues from their vassals, on pain of incurring the indignation of the brotherhood. It may easily be imagined that they were soon entirely discomfited, so that no one dared to own that he had belonged to them.[a]
During the captivity of St. Louis in Egypt, a more extensive and terrible ferment broke out in Flanders, and spread from thence over great part of France. An impostor declared himself commissioned by the Virgin to preach a crusade, not to the rich and noble, who for their pride had been rejected of God, but the poor. His disciples were called Pastoureaux, the simplicity of shepherds having exposed them more readily to this delusion. In a short time they were swelled by the confluence of abundant streams to a moving mass of a hundred thousand men, divided into companies, with banners bearing a cross and a lamb, and commanded by the impostor's lieutenants. He assumed a priestly character, preaching, absolving, annulling marriages. At Amiens, Bourges, Orleans, and Paris itself, he was received as a divine prophet. Even the regent Blanche, for a time, was led away by the popular tide. His main topic was reproach of the clergy for their idleness and corruption—a theme well adapted to the ears of the people, who had long been uttering similar strains of complaint. In some towns his followers massacred the priests and plundered the monasteries. The government at length began to exert itself; and the public sentiment turning against the authors of so much confusion, this rabble was put to the sword or dissipated.[] Seventy years afterwards an insurrection, almost exactly parallel to this, burst out under the same pretence of a crusade. These insurgents, too, bore the name of Pastoureaux, and their short career was distinguished by a general massacre of the Jews.[c]
But though the contagion of fanaticism spreads much more rapidly among the populace, and in modern times is almost entirely confined to it, there were examples, in the middle ages, of an epidemical religious lunacy, from which no class was exempt. One of these occurred about the year 1260, when a multitude of every rank, age, and sex, marching two by two in procession along the streets and public roads, mingled groans and dolorous hymns with the sound of leathern scourges which they exercised upon their naked backs. From this mark of penitence, which, as it bears at least all the appearance of sincerity, is not uncommon in the church of Rome, they acquired the name of Flagellants. Their career began, it is said, at Perugia, whence they spread over the rest of Italy, and into Germany and Poland. As this spontaneous fanaticism met with no encouragement from the church, and was prudently discountenanced by the civil magistrate, it died away in a very short time.[d] But it is more surprising that, after almost a century and a half of continual improvement and illumination, another irruption of popular extravagance burst out under circumstances exceedingly similar.[e] "In the month of August 1399," says a contemporary historian, "there appeared all over Italy a description of persons, called Bianchi, from the white linen vestment that they wore. They passed from province to province, and from city to city, crying out Misericordia! with their faces covered and bent towards the ground, and bearing before them a great crucifix. Their constant song was Stabat Mater dolorosa. This lasted three months; and whoever did not attend their procession was reputed a heretic."[f] Almost every Italian writer of the time takes notice of these Bianchi; and Muratori ascribes a remarkable reformation of manners (though certainly a very transient one) to their influence.[g] Nor were they confined to Italy, though no such meritorious exertions are imputed to them in other countries. In France their practice of covering the face gave such opportunity to crimes as to be prohibited by the government;[h] and we have an act on the rolls of the first parliament of Henry IV., forbidding any one, "under pain of forfeiting all his worth, to receive the new sect in white clothes, pretending to great sanctity," which had recently appeared in foreign parts.[]
Pretended miracles.
The devotion of the multitude was wrought to this feverish height by the prevailing system of the clergy. In that singular polytheism, which had been grafted on Christianity, nothing was so conspicuous as the belief of perpetual miracles—if indeed those could properly be termed miracles which, by their constant recurrence, even upon trifling occasions, might seem within the ordinary dispensations of Providence. These superstitions arose in what are called primitive times, and are certainly no part of popery, if in that word we include any especial reference to the Roman see. But successive ages of ignorance swelled the delusion to such an enormous pitch, that it was as difficult to trace, we may say without exaggeration, the real religion of the Gospel in the popular belief of the laity, as the real history of Charlemagne in the romance of Turpin. It must not be supposed that these absurdities were produced, as well as nourished, by ignorance. In most cases they were the work of deliberate imposture. Every cathedral or monastery had its tutelar saint, and every saint his legend, fabricated in order to enrich the churches under his protection, by exaggerating his virtues, his miracles, and consequently his power of serving those who paid liberally for his patronage.[k] Many of those saints were imaginary persons; sometimes a blundered inscription added a name to the calendar, and sometimes, it is said, a heathen god was surprised at the company to which he was introduced, and the rites with which he was honoured.[m]
Mischiefs arising from this superstition.
It would not be consonant to the nature of the present work to dwell upon the erroneousness of this religion; but its effect upon the moral and intellectual character of mankind was so prominent, that no one can take a philosophical view of the middle ages without attending more than is at present fashionable to their ecclesiastical history. That the exclusive worship of saints, under the guidance of an artful though illiterate priesthood, degraded the understanding and begot a stupid credulity and fanaticism, is sufficiently evident. But it was also so managed as to loosen the bonds of religion and pervert the standard of morality. If these inhabitants of heaven had been represented as stern avengers, accepting no slight atonement for heavy offences, and prompt to interpose their control over natural events for the detection and punishment of guilt, the creed, however impossible to be reconciled with experience, might have proved a salutary check upon a rude people, and would at least have had the only palliation that can be offered for a religious imposture, its political expediency. In the legends of those times, on the contrary, they appeared only as perpetual intercessors, so good-natured and so powerful, that a sinner was more emphatically foolish than he is usually represented if he failed to secure himself against any bad consequences. For a little attention to the saints, and especially to the Virgin, with due liberality to their servants, had saved, he would be told, so many of the most atrocious delinquents, that he might equitably presume upon similar luck in his own case.
This monstrous superstition grew to its height in the twelfth century. For the advance that learning then made was by no means sufficient to counteract the vast increase of monasteries, and the opportunities which the greater cultivation of modern languages afforded for the diffusion of legendary tales. It was now, too, that the veneration paid to the Virgin, in early times very great, rose to an almost exclusive idolatry. It is difficult to conceive the stupid absurdity and the disgusting profaneness of those stories which were invented by the monks to do her honour. A few examples have been thrown into a note.[n]
Not altogether unmixed with good.
Whether the superstition of these dark ages had actually passed that point when it becomes more injurious to public morals and the welfare of society than the entire absence of all religious notions is a very complex question, upon which I would by no means pronounce an affirmative decision.[o] A salutary influence, breathed from the spirit of a more genuine religion, often displayed itself among the corruptions of a degenerate superstition. In the original principles of monastic orders, and the rules by which they ought at least to have been governed, there was a character of meekness, self-denial, and charity that could not wholly be effaced. These virtues, rather than justice and veracity, were inculcated by the religious ethics of the middle ages; and in the relief of indigence it may, upon the whole, be asserted that the monks did not fall short of their profession.[p] This eleemosynary spirit indeed remarkably distinguishes both Christianity and Mohammedism from the moral systems of Greece and Rome, which were very deficient in general humanity and sympathy with suffering. Nor do we find in any single instance during ancient times, if I mistake not, those public institutions for the alleviation of human miseries which have long been scattered over every part of Europe. The virtues of the monks assumed a still higher character when they stood forward as protectors of the oppressed. By an established law, founded on very ancient superstition, the precincts of a church afforded sanctuary to accused persons. Under a due administration of justice this privilege would have been simply and constantly mischievous, as we properly consider it to be in those countries where it still subsists. But in the rapine and tumult of the middle ages the right of sanctuary might as often be a shield to innocence as an immunity to crime. We can hardly regret, in reflecting on the desolating violence which prevailed, that there should have been some green spots in the wilderness where the feeble and the persecuted could find refuge. How must this right have enhanced the veneration for religious institutions! How gladly must the victims of internal warfare have turned their eyes from the baronial castle, the dread and scourge of the neighbourhood, to those venerable walls within which not even the clamour of arms could be heard to disturb the chant of holy men and the sacred service of the altar! The protection of the sanctuary was never withheld. A son of Chilperic king of France having fled to that of Tours, his father threatened to ravage all the lands of the church unless they gave him up. Gregory the historian, bishop of the city, replied in the name of his clergy that Christians could not be guilty of an act unheard of among pagans. The king was as good as his word, and did not spare the estate of the church, but dared not infringe its privileges. He had indeed previously addressed a letter to St. Martin, which was laid on his tomb in the church, requesting permission to take away his son by force; but the honest saint returned no answer.[q]
Vices of the monks and clergy.
The virtues indeed, or supposed virtues, which had induced a credulous generation to enrich so many of the monastic orders, were not long preserved. We must reject, in the excess of our candour, all testimonies that the middle ages present, from the solemn declaration of councils and reports of judicial inquiry to the casual evidence of common fame in the ballad or romance, if we would extenuate the general corruption of those institutions. In vain new rules of discipline were devised, or the old corrected by reforms. Many of their worst vices grew so naturally out of their mode of life, that a stricter discipline could have no tendency to extirpate them. Such were the frauds I have already noticed, and the whole scheme of hypocritical austerities. Their extreme licentiousness was sometimes hardly concealed by the cowl of sanctity. I know not by what right we should disbelieve the reports of the visitation under Henry VIII., entering as they do into a multitude of specific charges both probable in their nature and consonant to the unanimous opinion of the world.[r] Doubtless there were many communities, as well as individuals, to whom none of these reproaches would apply. In the very best view, however, that can be taken of monasteries, their existence is deeply injurious to the general morals of a nation. They withdraw men of pure conduct and conscientious principles from the exercise of social duties, and leave the common mass of human vice more unmixed. Such men are always inclined to form schemes of ascetic perfection, which can only be fulfilled in retirement; but in the strict rules of monastic life, and under the influence of a grovelling superstition, their virtue lost all its usefulness. They fell implicitly into the snares of crafty priests, who made submission to the church not only the condition but the measure of all praise. "He is a good Christian," says Eligius, a saint of the seventh century, "who comes frequently to church; who presents an oblation that it may be offered to God on the altar; who does not taste the fruits of his land till he has consecrated a part of them to God; who can repeat the Creed or the Lord's Prayer. Redeem your souls from punishment while it is in your power; offer presents and tithes to churches, light candles in holy places, as much as you can afford, come more frequently to church, implore the protection of the saints; for, if you observe these things, you may come with security at the day of judgment to say, Give unto us, Lord, for we have given unto thee."[]
With such a definition of the Christian character, it is not surprising that any fraud and injustice became honourable when it contributed to the riches of the clergy and glory of their order. Their frauds, however, were less atrocious than the savage bigotry with which they maintained their own system and infected the laity. In Saxony, Poland, Lithuania, and the countries on the Baltic Sea, a sanguinary persecution extirpated the original idolatry. The Jews were everywhere the objects of popular insult and oppression, frequently of a general massacre, though protected, it must be confessed, by the laws of the church, as well as in general by temporal princes.[t] Of the crusades it is only necessary to repeat that they began in a tremendous eruption of fanaticism, and ceased only because that spirit could not be constantly kept alive. A similar influence produced the devastation of Languedoc, the stakes and scaffolds of the Inquisition, and rooted in the religious theory of Europe those maxims of intolerance which it has so slowly, and still perhaps so imperfectly, renounced.
From no other cause are the dictates of sound reason and the moral sense of mankind more confused than by this narrow theological bigotry. For as it must often happen that men to whom the arrogance of a prevailing faction imputes religious error are exemplary for their performance of moral duties, these virtues gradually cease to make their proper impression, and are depreciated by the rigidly orthodox as of little value in comparison with just opinions in speculative points. On the other hand, vices are forgiven to those who are zealous in the faith. I speak too gently, and with a view to later times; in treating of the dark ages it would be more correct to say that crimes were commended. Thus Gregory of Tours, a saint of the church, after relating a most atrocious story of Clovis—the murder of a prince whom he had previously instigated to parricide—continues the sentence: "For God daily subdued his enemies to his hand, and increased his kingdom; because he walked before him in uprightness, and did what was pleasing in his eyes."[]
Commutation of penances.
It is a frequent complaint of ecclesiastical writers that the rigorous penances imposed by the primitive canons upon delinquents were commuted in a laxer state of discipline for less severe atonements, and ultimately indeed for money.[x] We must not, however, regret that the clergy should have lost the power of compelling men to abstain fifteen years from eating meat, or to stand exposed to public derision at the gates of a church. Such implicit submissiveness could only have produced superstition and hypocrisy among the laity, and prepared the road for a tyranny not less oppressive than that of India or ancient Egypt. Indeed the two earliest instances of ecclesiastical interference with the rights of sovereigns—namely, the deposition of Wamba in Spain and that of Louis the Debonair—were founded upon this austere system of penitence. But it is true that a repentance redeemed by money or performed by a substitute could have no salutary effect on the sinner; and some of the modes of atonement which the church most approved were particularly hostile to public morals. None was so usual as pilgrimage, whether to Jerusalem or Rome, which were the great objects of devotion; or to the shrine of some national saint—a James of Compostella, a David, or a Thomas à Becket. This licensed vagrancy was naturally productive of dissoluteness, especially among the women. Our English ladies, in their zeal to obtain the spiritual treasures of Rome, are said to have relaxed the necessary caution about one that was in their own custody.[y] There is a capitulary of Charlemagne directed against itinerant penitents, who probably considered the iron chain around their necks an expiation of future as well as past offences.[z]
The crusades may be considered as martial pilgrimages on an enormous scale, and their influence upon general morality seems to have been altogether pernicious. Those who served under the cross would not indeed have lived very virtuously at home; but the confidence in their own merits, which the principle of such expeditions inspired, must have aggravated the ferocity and dissoluteness of their ancient habits. Several historians attest the depravation of morals which existed both among the crusaders and in the states formed out of their conquests.[a]
Want of law.
While religion had thus lost almost every quality that renders it conducive to the good order of society, the control of human law was still less efficacious. But this part of my subject has been anticipated in other passages of the present work; and I shall only glance at the want of regular subordination, which rendered legislative and judicial edicts a dead letter, and at the incessant private warfare, rendered legitimate by the usages of most continental nations. Such hostilities, conducted as they must usually have been with injustice and cruelty, could not fail to produce a degree of rapacious ferocity in the general disposition of a people. And this certainly was among the characteristics of every nation for many centuries.
Degradation of morals.
It is easy to infer the degradation of society during the dark ages from the state of religion and police. Certainly there are a few great landmarks of moral distinctions so deeply fixed in human nature, that no degree of rudeness can destroy, nor even any superstition remove them. Wherever an extreme corruption has in any particular society defaced these sacred archetypes that are given to guide and correct the sentiments of mankind, it is in the course of Providence that the society itself should perish by internal discord or the sword of a conqueror. In the worst ages of Europe there must have existed the seeds of social virtues, of fidelity, gratitude, and disinterestedness, sufficient at least to preserve the public approbation of more elevated principles than the public conduct displayed. Without these imperishable elements there could have been no restoration of the moral energies; nothing upon which reformed faith, revived knowledge, renewed law, could exercise their nourishing influences. But history, which reflects only the more prominent features of society, cannot exhibit the virtues that were scarcely able to struggle through the general depravation. I am aware that a tone of exaggerated declamation is at all times usual with those who lament the vices of their own time; and writers of the middle ages are in abundant need of allowance on this score. Nor is it reasonable to found any inferences as to the general condition of society on single instances of crimes, however atrocious, especially when committed under the influence of violent passion. Such enormities are the fruit of every age, and none is to be measured by them. They make, however, a strong impression at the moment, and thus find a place in contemporary annals, from which modern writers are commonly glad to extract whatever may seem to throw light upon manners. I shall, therefore, abstain from producing any particular cases of dissoluteness or cruelty from the records of the middle ages, lest I should weaken a general proposition by offering an imperfect induction to support it, and shall content myself with observing that times to which men sometimes appeal, as to a golden period, were far inferior in every moral comparison to those in which we are thrown.[] One crime, as more universal and characteristic than others, may be particularly noticed. All writers agree in the prevalence of judicial perjury. It seems to have almost invariably escaped human punishment; and the barriers of superstition were in this, as in every other instance, too feeble to prevent the commission of crimes. Many of the proofs by ordeal were applied to witnesses as well as those whom they accused; and undoubtedly trial by combat was preserved in a considerable degree on account of the difficulty experienced in securing a just cause against the perjury of witnesses. Robert king of France, perceiving how frequently men forswore themselves upon the relics of saints, and less shocked apparently at the crime than at the sacrilege, caused an empty reliquary of crystal to be used, that those who touched it might incur less guilt in fact, though not in intention. Such an anecdote characterizes both the man and the times.[c]
Love of field sports.
The favourite diversions of the middle ages, in the intervals of war, were those of hunting and hawking. The former must in all countries be a source of pleasure; but it seems to have been enjoyed in moderation by the Greeks and the Romans. With the northern invaders, however, it was rather a predominant appetite than an amusement; it was their pride and their ornament, the theme of their songs, the object of their laws, and the business of their lives. Falconry, unknown as a diversion to the ancients, became from the fourth century an equally delightful occupation.[d] From the Salic and other barbarous codes of the fifth century to the close of the period under our review, every age would furnish testimony to the ruling passion for these two species of chace, or, as they were sometimes called, the mysteries of woods and rivers. A knight seldom stirred from his house without a falcon on his wrist or a greyhound that followed him. Thus are Harold and his attendants represented, in the famous tapestry of Bayeux. And in the monuments of those who died anywhere but on the field of battle, it is usual to find the greyhound lying at their feet, or the bird upon their wrists. Nor are the tombs of ladies without their falcon; for this diversion, being of less danger and fatigue than the chace, was shared by the delicate sex.[e]
It was impossible to repress the eagerness with which the clergy, especially after the barbarians were tempted by rich bishoprics to take upon them the sacred functions, rushed into these secular amusements. Prohibitions of councils, however frequently repeated, produced little effect. In some instances a particular monastery obtained a dispensation. Thus that of St. Denis, in 774, represented to Charlemagne that the flesh of hunted animals was salutary for sick monks, and that their skins would serve to bind the books in the library.[f] Reasons equally cogent, we may presume, could not be wanting in every other case. As the bishops and abbots were perfectly feudal lords, and often did not scruple to lead their vassals into the field, it was not to be expected that they should debar themselves of an innocent pastime. It was hardly such indeed, when practised at the expense of others. Alexander III., by a letter to the clergy of Berkshire, dispenses with their keeping the archdeacon in dogs and hawks during his visitation.[g] This season gave jovial ecclesiastics an opportunity of trying different countries. An archbishop of York, in 1321, seems to have carried a train of two hundred persons, who were maintained at the expense of the abbeys on his road, and to have hunted with a pack of hounds from parish to parish.[h] The third council of Lateran, in 1180, had prohibited this amusement on such journeys, and restricted bishops to a train of forty or fifty horses.[]
Though hunting had ceased to be a necessary means of procuring food, it was a very convenient resource, on which the wholesomeness and comfort, as well as the luxury, of the table depended. Before the natural pastures were improved, and new kinds of fodder for cattle discovered, it was impossible to maintain the summer stock during the cold season. Hence a portion of it was regularly slaughtered and salted for winter provision. We may suppose that, when no alternative was offered but these salted meats, even the leanest venison was devoured with relish. There was somewhat more excuse therefore for the severity with which the lords of forests and manors preserved the beasts of chace than if they had been considered as merely objects of sport. The laws relating to preservation of game were in every country uncommonly rigorous. They formed in England that odious system of forest laws which distinguished the tyranny of our Norman kings. Capital punishment for killing a stag or wild boar was frequent, and perhaps warranted by law, until the charter of John.[k] The French code was less severe, but even Henry IV. enacted the pain of death against the repeated offence of chasing deer in the royal forests. The privilege of hunting was reserved to the nobility till the reign of Louis IX., who extended it in some degree to persons of lower birth.[m]
This excessive passion for the sports of the field produced those evils which are apt to result from it—a strenuous idleness which disdained all useful occupations, and an oppressive spirit towards the peasantry. The devastation committed under the pretence of destroying wild animals, which had been already protected in their depredations, is noticed in serious authors, and has also been the topic of popular ballads.[n] What effect this must have had on agriculture it is easy to conjecture. The levelling of forests, the draining of morasses, and the extirpation of mischievous animals which inhabit them, are the first objects of man's labour in reclaiming the earth to his use; and these were forbidden by a landed aristocracy, whose control over the progress of agricultural improvement was unlimited, and who had not yet learned to sacrifice their pleasures to their avarice.
Bad state of agriculture;
These habits of the rich, and the miserable servitude of those who cultivated the land, rendered its fertility unavailing. Predial servitude indeed, in some of its modifications, has always been the great bar to improvement. In the agricultural economy of Rome the labouring husbandman, a menial slave of some wealthy senator, had not even that qualified interest in the soil which the tenure of villenage afforded to the peasant of feudal ages. Italy, therefore, a country presenting many natural impediments, was but imperfectly reduced into cultivation before the irruption of the barbarians.[o] That revolution destroyed agriculture with every other art, and succeeding calamities during five or six centuries left the finest regions of Europe unfruitful and desolate. There are but two possible modes in which the produce of the earth can be increased; one by rendering fresh land serviceable, the other by improving the fertility of that which is already cultivated. The last is only attainable by the application of capital and of skill to agriculture, neither of which could be expected in the ruder ages of society. The former is, to a certain extent, always practicable while waste lands remain; but it was checked by laws hostile to improvement, such as the manerial and commonable rights in England, and by the general tone of manners.
Till the reign of Charlemagne there were no towns in Germany, except a few that had been erected on the Rhine and Danube by the Romans. A house with its stables and farm-buildings, surrounded by a hedge or enclosure, was called a court, or, as we find it in our law-books, a curtilage; the toft or homestead of a more genuine English dialect. One of these, with the adjacent domain of arable fields and woods, had the name of a villa or manse. Several manses composed a march; and several marches formed a pagus or district.[p] From these elements in the progress of population arose villages and towns. In France undoubtedly there were always cities of some importance. Country parishes contained several manses or farms of arable land, around a common pasture, where every one was bound by custom to feed his cattle.[q]
of internal trade;
The condition even of internal trade was hardly preferable to that of agriculture. There is not a vestige perhaps to be discovered for several centuries of any considerable manufacture; I mean, of working up articles of common utility to an extent beyond what the necessities of an adjacent district required.[r] Rich men kept domestic artisans among their servants; even kings, in the ninth century, had their clothes made by the women upon their farms;[] but the peasantry must have been supplied with garments and implements of labour by purchase; and every town, it cannot be doubted, had its weaver, its smith, and its currier. But there were almost insuperable impediments to any extended traffic—the insecurity of moveable wealth, and difficulty of accumulating it; the ignorance of mutual wants; the peril of robbery in conveying merchandise, and the certainty of extortion. In the domains of every lord a toll was to be paid in passing his bridge, or along his highway, or at his market.[t] These customs, equitable and necessary in their principle, became in practice oppressive, because they were arbitrary, and renewed in every petty territory which the road might intersect. Several of Charlemagne's capitularies repeat complaints of these exactions, and endeavour to abolish such tolls as were not founded on prescription.[] One of them rather amusingly illustrates the modesty and moderation of the landholders. It is enacted that no one shall be compelled to go out of his way in order to pay toll at a particular bridge, when he can cross the river more conveniently at another place.[x] These provisions, like most others of that age, were unlikely to produce much amendment. It was only the milder species, however, of feudal lords who were content with the tribute of merchants. The more ravenous descended from their fortresses to pillage the wealthy traveller, or shared in the spoil of inferior plunderers, whom they both protected and instigated. Proofs occur, even in the later periods of the middle ages, when government had regained its energy, and civilization had made considerable progress, of public robberies systematically perpetrated by men of noble rank. In the more savage times, before the twelfth century, they were probably too frequent to excite much attention. It was a custom in some places to waylay travellers, and not only to plunder, but to sell them as slaves, or compel them to pay a ransom. Harold son of Godwin, having been wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, was imprisoned by the lord, says an historian, according to the custom of that territory.[y] Germany appears to have been, upon the whole, the country where downright robbery was most unscrupulously practised by the great. Their castles, erected on almost inaccessible heights among the woods, became the secure receptacles of predatory bands, who spread terror over the country. From these barbarian lords of the dark ages, as from a living model, the romances are said to have drawn their giants and other disloyal enemies of true chivalry. Robbery, indeed, is the constant theme both of the Capitularies and of the Anglo-Saxon laws; one has more reason to wonder at the intrepid thirst of lucre, which induced a very few merchants to exchange the products of different regions, than to ask why no general spirit of commercial activity prevailed.
and of foreign commerce.
Under all these circumstances it is obvious that very little oriental commerce could have existed in these western countries of Europe. Destitute as they have been created, speaking comparatively, of natural productions fit for exportation, their invention and industry are the great resources from which they can supply the demands of the East. Before any manufactures were established in Europe, her commercial intercourse with Egypt and Asia must of necessity have been very trifling; because, whatever inclination she might feel to enjoy the luxuries of those genial regions, she wanted the means of obtaining them. It is not therefore necessary to rest the miserable condition of oriental commerce upon the Saracen conquests, because the poverty of Europe is an adequate cause; and, in fact, what little traffic remained was carried on with no material inconvenience through the channel of Constantinople. Venice took the lead in trading with Greece and more eastern countries.[z] Amalfi had the second place in the commerce of those dark ages. These cities imported, besides natural productions, the fine clothes of Constantinople; yet as this traffic seems to have been illicit, it was not probably extensive.[a] Their exports were gold and silver, by which, as none was likely to return, the circulating money of Europe was probably less in the eleventh century than at the subversion of the Roman empire; furs, which were obtained from the Sclavonian countries; and arms, the sale of which to pagans or Saracens was vainly prohibited by Charlemagne and by the Holy See.[] A more scandalous traffic, and one that still more fitly called for prohibitory laws, was carried on in slaves. It is an humiliating proof of the degradation of Christendom, that the Venetians were reduced to purchase the luxuries of Asia by supplying the slave-market of the Saracens.[c] Their apology would perhaps have been, that these were purchased from their heathen neighbours; but a slave-dealer was probably not very inquisitive as to the faith or origin of his victim. This trade was not peculiar to Venice. In England it was very common, even after the Conquest, to export slaves to Ireland, till, in the reign of Henry II., the Irish came to a non-importation agreement, which put a stop to the practice.[d]
From this state of degradation and poverty all the countries of Europe have recovered, with a progression in some respects tolerably uniform, in others more unequal; and the course of their improvement, more gradual and less dependent upon conspicuous civil revolutions than their decline, affords one of the most interesting subjects into which a philosophical mind can inquire. The commencement of this restoration has usually been dated from about the close of the eleventh century; though it is unnecessary to observe that the subject does not admit of anything approximating to chronological accuracy. It may, therefore, be sometimes not improper to distinguish the first six of the ten centuries which the present work embraces under the appellation of the dark ages; an epithet which I do not extend to the twelfth and three following. In tracing the decline of society from the subversion of the Roman empire, we have been led, not without connexion, from ignorance to superstition, from superstition to vice and lawlessness, and from thence to general rudeness and poverty. I shall pursue an inverted order in passing along the ascending scale, and class the various improvements which took place between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries under three principal heads, as they relate to the wealth, the manners, or the taste and learning of Europe. Different arrangements might probably be suggested, equally natural and convenient; but in the disposition of topics that have not always an unbroken connexion with each other, no method can be prescribed as absolutely more scientific than the rest. That which I have adopted appears to me as philosophical and as little liable to transitions as any other.
FOOTNOTES:
[a] The subject of the present chapter, so far as it relates to the condition of literature in the middle ages, has been again treated by me in the first and second chapters of a work, published in 1836, the Introduction to the History of Literature in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. Some things will be found in it more exactly stated, others newly supplied from recent sources.
[] The authors of Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. i., can only find three writers of Gaul, no inconsiderable part of the Roman Empire, mentioned upon any authority; two of whom are now lost. In the preceding century the number was considerably greater.
[c] Mosheim, Cent. 4. Tiraboschi endeavours to elevate higher the learning of the early Christians, t. ii. p. 328. Jortin, however, asserts that many of the bishops in the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon could not write their names. Remarks on Ecclesiast. Hist. vol. ii. p. 417.
[d] Gibbon roundly asserts that "the language of Virgil and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption, was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Great Britain, and Pannonia, that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms were preserved only in the mountains or among the peasants." Decline and Fall, vol. i. p. 60 (8vo. edit.). For Britain he quotes Tacitus's Life of Agricola as his voucher. But the only passage in this work that gives the least colour to Gibbon's assertion is one in which Agricola is said to have encouraged the children of British chieftains to acquire a taste for liberal studies, and to have succeeded so much by judicious commendation of their abilities, ut qui modo linguam Romanam abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent. (c. 21.) This, it is sufficiently obvious, is very different from the national adoption of Latin as a mother tongue.
[e] t. vii. preface.
[f] It appears, by a passage quoted from the digest by M. Bonamy, Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xxiv. p. 589, that Celtic was spoken in Gaul, or at least parts of it, as well as Punic in Africa.
[g] Atque eadem illa litera, quoties ultima est, et vocalem verbi sequentis ita contingit, ut in eam transire possit, etiam si scribitur, tamen parum exprimitur, ut Multum ille, et Quantum erat: adeo ut pene cujusdam novæ literæ sonum reddat. Neque enim eximitur, sed obscuratur, et tantùm aliqua inter duos vocales velut nota est, ne ipsæ coeant. Quintilian, Institut. 1. ix. c. 4, p. 585, edit. Capperonier.
[h] The following passage of Quintilian is an evidence both of the omission of harsh or superfluous letters by the best speakers, and of the corrupt abbreviations usual with the worst. Dilucida vero erit pronunciatio primum, si verba tota exegerit, quorum pars devorari, pars destitui solet, plerisque extremas syllabas non proferentibus, dum priorum sono indulgent. Ut est autem necessaria verborum explanatio, ita omnes computare et velut adnumerare literas, molestum et odiosum.—Nam et vocales frequentissimè coeunt, et consonantium quædam insequente vocali dissimulantur; utriusque exemplum posuimus; Multum ille et terris. Vitatur etiam duriorum inter se congressus, unde pellexit et collegit, et quæ alio loco dicta sunt. 1. ii. c. 3, p. 696.
[] Tiraboschi (Storia dell. Lett. Ital. t. iii. preface, p. v.) imputes this paradox to Bembo and Quadrio; but I can hardly believe that either of them could maintain it in a literal sense.
[k] M. Bonamy, in an essay printed in Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, t. xxiv., has produced several proofs of this from the classical writers on agriculture and other arts, though some of his instances are not in point, as any schoolboy would have told him. This essay, which by some accident had escaped my notice till I had nearly finished the observations in my text, contains, I think, the best view that I have seen of the process of transition by which Latin was changed into French and Italian. Add however, the preface to Tiraboschi's third volume and the thirty-second dissertation of Muratori.
[m] See Lanzi, Saggio della Lingua Etrusca, t. i. c. 431; Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscrip. t. xxiv. p. 632.
[n] No description can give so adequate a notion of this extraordinary performance as a short specimen. Take the introductory lines; which really, prejudices of education apart, are by no means inharmonious:—
Præfatio nostra viam erranti demonstrat,
Respectumque bonum, cum venerit sæculi meta,
Æternum fieri, quod discredunt inscia corda.
Ego similiter erravi tempore multo,
Fana prosequendo, parentibus insciis ipsis.
Abstuli me tandem inde, legendo de lege.
Testificor Dominum, doleo, proh! civica turba
Inscia quod perdit, pergens deos quærere vanos.
Ob ea perdoctus ignoros instruo verum.
Commodianus however did not keep up this excellence in every part. Some of his lines are not reducible to any pronunciation, without the summary rules of Procrustes; as for instance:—
Paratus ad epulas, et refugiscere præcepta; or, Capillos inficitis, oculos fuligine relinitis.
It must be owned that this text is exceedingly corrupt, and I should not despair of seeing a truly critical editor, unscrupulous as his fraternity are apt to be, improve his lines into unblemished hexameters. Till this time arrives, however, we must consider him either as utterly ignorant of metrical distinctions, or at least as aware that the populace whom he addressed did not observe them in speaking. Commodianus is published by Dawes at the end of his edition of Minucius Felix. Some specimens are quoted in Harris's Philological Inquiries.
[o] Archæologia, vol. xiv. p. 188. The following are the first lines:—
Abundantia peccatorum solet fratres conturbare;
Propter hoc Dominus noster voluit nos præmonere,
Comparans regnum cœlorum reticulo misso in mare,
Congreganti multos pisces, omne genus hinc et inde,
Quos cum traxissent ad littus, tunc cœperunt separare,
Bonos in vasa miserunt, reliquos malos in mare.
This trash is much below the level of Augustin; but it could not have been later than his age.
[p] Recueil des Historiens, t. i. p. 814; it begins in the following manner:—
Præcelso expectabili bis Arbogasto comiti
Auspicius, qui diligo, salutem dico plurimam.
Magnas cœlesti Domino rependo corde gratias
Quod te Tullensi proxime magnum in urbe vidimus.
Multis me tuis artibus lætificabas antea,
Sed nunc fecisti maximo me exultare gaudio.
[q] Chilpericus rex ... confecit duos libros, quorum versiculi debiles nullis pedibus subsistere possunt: in quibus, dum non intelligebat, pro longis syllabas breves posuit, et pro brevibus longas statuebat. 1. vi. c. 46.
[r] Mém. de l'Académie des Inscriptions, t. xvii. Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. ii. p. 28. It seems rather probable that the poetry of Avitus belongs to the fifth century, though not very far from its termination. He was the correspondent of Sidonius Apollinaris, who died in 489, and we may presume his poetry to have been written rather early in life.
[] One stanza of this song will suffice to show that the Latin language was yet unchanged:—
De Clotario est canere rege Francorum,
Qui ivi pugnare cum gente Saxonum,
Quam graviter provenisset missis Saxonum,
Si non fuisset inclitus Faro de gente
Burgundionum.
[t] Præcavendum est, ne ad aures populi minus aliquid intelligibile proferatur. Mém. de l'Acad. t. xvii. p. 712.
[] Rustico et plebeio sermone propter exemplum et imitationem. Id. ibid.
[x] Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. iii. p. 5. Mém. de l'Académie, t. xxiv. p. 617. Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, t. iv. p. 485.
[y] Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. vii. p. 12. The editors say that it is mentioned by name even in the seventh century, which is very natural, as the corruption of Latin had then become striking. It is familiarly known that illiterate persons understand a more correct language than they use themselves; so that the corruption of Latin might have gone to a considerable length among the people, while sermons were preached, and tolerably comprehended, in a purer grammar.
[z] Mém. de l'Acad. des Insc. t. xvii. See two memoirs in this volume by du Clos and le Bœuf, especially the latter, as well as that already mentioned in t. xxiv. p. 582, by M. Bonamy.
[a] Muratori, Dissert. i. and xliii.
Usus Franciscâ, vulgari, et voce Latinâ.
Instituit populos eloquio tripici.
[c] Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. vi. p. 20. Muratori, Dissert. xliii.
[d] Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, t. ii. p. 419. This became, the editors say, much less unusual about the end of the thirteenth century; a pretty late period! A few signatures to deeds appear in the fourteenth century; in the next they are more frequent. Ibid. The emperor Frederic Barbarossa could not read (Struvius, Corpus Hist. German. t. i. p. 377), nor John king of Bohemia in the middle of the fourteenth century (Sismondi, t. v. p. 205), nor Philip the Hardy, king of France, although the son of St. Louis. (Velly, t. vi. p. 426.)
[e] Louis IV., king of France, laughing at Fulk count of Anjou, who sang anthems among the choristers of Tours, received the following pithy epistle from his learned vassal: Noveritis, domines quod rex illiteratus est asinus coronatus. Gesta Comitum Andegavensium. In the same book, Geoffrey, father of our Henry II., is said to be optime literatus; which perhaps imports little more learning than his ancestor Fulk possessed.
[f] The passage in Eginhard, which has occasioned so much dispute, speaks for itself: Tentabat et scribere, tabulasque et codicillos ad hoc in lecticula sub cervicalibus circumferre solebat, ut, cum vacuum tempus esset, manum effigiandis literis assuefaceret; sed parum prosperè successit labor præposterus ac serò inchoatus.
Many are still unwilling to believe that Charlemagne could not write. M. Ampère observes that the emperor asserts himself to have been the author of the Libri Carolini, and is said by some to have composed verses. Hist. Litt. de la France, iii. 37. But did not Henry VIII. claim a book against Luther, which was not written by himself? Qui facit per alium, facit per se, is in all cases a royal prerogative. Even if the book were Charlemagne's own, might he not have dictated it? I have been informed that there is a manuscript at Vienna with autograph notes of Charlemagne in the margin. But is there sufficient evidence of their genuineness? The great difficulty is to get over the words which I have quoted from Eginhard. M. Ampère ingeniously conjectures that the passage does not relate to simple common writing, but to calligraphy; the art of delineating characters in a beautiful manner, practised by the copyists, and of which a contemporaneous specimen may be seen in the well-known Bible of the British Museum. Yet it must be remembered that Charlemagne's early life passed in the depths of ignorance; and Eginhard gives a fair reason why he failed in acquiring the art of writing, that he began too late. Fingers of fifty are not made for a new skill. It is not, of course, implied by the words, that he could not write his own name; but that he did not acquire such a facility as he desired. [1848.]
[g] Spelman, Vit. Alfred. Append.
[h] Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. iii. p. 5.
[] These four dark centuries, the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh, occupy five large quarto volumes of the Literary History of France, by the fathers of St. Maur. But the most useful part will be found in the general view at the commencement of each volume; the remainder is taken up with biographies, into which a reader may dive at random, and sometimes bring up a curious fact. I may refer also to the 14th volume of Leber, Collections Relatives à l'Histoire de France, where some learned dissertations by the Abbés Lebeuf and Goujet, a little before the middle of the last century, are reprinted. [[Note I.]]
Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura, t. iii., and Muratori's forty-third Dissertation, are good authorities for the condition of letters in Italy; but I cannot easily give references to all the books which I have consulted.
[k] Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 198.
[m] Mabillon, De Re Diplomaticâ, p. 55. The reason alleged, indeed, is that they were wholly occupied with studying Arabic, in order to carry on a controversy with the Saracens. But, as this is not very credible, we may rest with the main fact that they could write no Latin.
[n] Spelman, Vit. Alfred. Append. The whole drift of Alfred's preface to this translation is to defend the expediency of rendering books into English, on account of the general ignorance of Latin. The zeal which this excellent prince shows for literature is delightful. Let us endeavour, he says, that all the English youth, especially the children of those who are free-born, and can educate them, may learn to read English before they take to any employment. Afterwards such as please may be instructed in Latin. Before the Danish invasion indeed, he tells us, churches were well furnished with books; but the priests got little good from them, being written in a foreign language which they could not understand.
[o] Mabillon, De Re Diplomaticâ, p. 55. Ordericus Vitalis, a more candid judge of our unfortunate ancestors than other contemporary annalists, says that the English were, at the Conquest, rude and almost illiterate, which he ascribes to the Danish invasion. Du Chesne, Hist. Norm. Script. p. 518. However, Ingulfus tells us that the library of Croyland contained above three hundred volumes, till the unfortunate fire that destroyed that abbey in 1091. Gale, XV Scriptores, t. i. 93. Such a library was very extraordinary in the eleventh century, and could not have been equalled for some ages afterwards. Ingulfus mentions at the same time a nadir, as he calls it, or planetarium, executed in various metals. This had been presented to abbot Turketul in the tenth century by a king of France, and was, I make no doubt, of Arabian or Greek manufacture.
[p] Parchment was so scarce that none could be procured about 1120 for an illuminated copy of the Bible. Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, Dissert. II. I suppose the deficiency was of skins beautiful enough for this purpose; it cannot be meant that there was no parchment for legal instruments.
Manuscripts written on papyrus, as may be supposed from the fragility of the material, as well as the difficulty of procuring it, are of extreme rarity. That in the British Museum, being a charter to a church at Ravenna in 572, is in every respect the most curious: and indeed both Mabillon and Muratori seem never to have seen anything written on papyrus, though they trace its occasional use down to the eleventh or twelfth centuries. Mabillon, De Re Diplomaticâ, 1. ii.; Muratori, Antichità Italiane, Dissert. xliii. p. 602. But the authors of the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique speak of several manuscripts on this material as extant in France and Italy. t. i. p. 493.
As to the general scarcity and high price of books in the middle ages, Robertson (Introduction to Hist. Charles V. note x.), and Warton in the above-cited dissertation, not to quote authors less accessible, have collected some of the leading facts; to whom I refer the reader.
[q] Lest I should seem to have spoken too peremptorily, I wish it to be understood that I pretend to hardly any direct acquaintance with these writers, and found my censure on the authority of others, chiefly indeed on the admissions of those who are too disposed to fall into a strain of panegyric. See Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. iv. p. 281 et alibi.
[r] John Scotus, who, it is almost needless to say, must not be confounded with the still more famous metaphysician Duns Scotus, lived under Charles the Bald, in the middle of the ninth century. It admits of no doubt that John Scotus was, in a literary and philosophical sense, the most remarkable man of the dark ages; no one else had his boldness, his subtlety in threading the labyrinths of metaphysical speculations which, in the west of Europe, had been utterly disregarded. But it is another question whether he can be reckoned an original writer; those who have attended most to his treatise De Divisione Naturæ, the most abstruse of his works, consider it as the development of an oriental philosophy, acquired during his residence in Greece, and nearly coinciding with some of the later Platonism of the Alexandrian school, but with a more unequivocal tendency to pantheism. This manifests itself in some extracts which have latterly been made from the treatise De Divisione Naturæ; but though Scotus had not the reputation of unblemished orthodoxy, the drift of his philosophy was not understood in that barbarous period. He might, indeed, have excited censure by his intrepid preference of reason to authority. "Authority," he says, "springs from reason, not reason from authority—true reason needs not be confirmed by any authority." La véritable importance historique, says Ampère, de Scot Erigène n'est donc pas dans ses opinions; celles-ci n'ont d'autre intérêt que leur date et le lieu où elles apparaissent. Sans doute, il est piquant et bizarre de voir ces opinions orientales et alexandrines surgir au IXe siècle, à Paris, à la cour de Charles le Chauve; mais ce qui n'est pas seulement piquant et bizarre, ce qui intéresse le développement de l'esprit humain, c'est que la question ait été posée, dès lors, si nettement entre l'autorité et la raison, et si énergiquement résolue en faveur de la seconde. En un mot, par ses idées, Scot Erigène est encore un philosophe de l'antiquité Grecque; et par l'indépendance hautement accusée de son point de vue philosophique, il est déjà un dévancier de la philosophie moderne. Hist. Litt. iii. 146.
Silvester II. died in 1003. Whether he first brought the Arabic numeration into Europe, as has been commonly said, seems uncertain; it was at least not much practised for some centuries after his death.
[] Charlemagne had a library at Aix-la-Chapelle, which he directed to be sold at his death for the benefit of the poor. His son Louis is said to have collected some books. But this rather confirms, on the whole, my supposition that, in some periods, no royal or private libraries existed, since there were not always princes or nobles with the spirit of Charlemagne, or even Louis the Debonair.
"We possess a catalogue," says M. Ampère (quoting d'Achery's Spicilegium, ii. 310), "of the library in the abbey of St. Riquier, written in 831; it consists of 256 volumes, some containing several works. Christian writers are in great majority; but we find also the Eclogues of Virgil, the Rhetoric of Cicero, the History of Homer, that is, the works ascribed to Dictys and Dares." Ampère, iii. 236. Can anything be lower than this, if nothing is omitted more valuable than what is mentioned? The Rhetoric of Cicero was probably the spurious books Ad Herennium. But other libraries must have been somewhat better furnished than this; else the Latin authors would have been still less known in the ninth century than they actually were.
In the gradual progress of learning, a very small number of princes thought it honourable to collect books. Perhaps no earlier instance can be mentioned than that of a most respectable man, William III., duke of Guienne, in the first part of the eleventh century. Fuit dux iste, says a contemporary writer, a pueritia doctus literis, et satis notitiam Scripturarum habuit; librorum copiam in palatio suo servavit; et si forte a frequentia causarum et tumultu vacaret, lectioni per seipsum operam dabat longioribus noctibus elucubrans in libris, donec somno vinceretur. Rec. des Hist. x. 155.
[t] Robertson, Introduction to Hist. Charles V. note 13; Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 380; Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. vi.
[] Duelling, in the modern sense of the word, exclusive of casual frays and single combat during war, was unknown before the sixteenth century. But we find one anecdote which seems to illustrate its derivation from the judicial combat. The dukes of Lancaster and Brunswick, having some differences, agreed to decide them by duel before John king of France. The lists were prepared with the solemnity of a real trial by battle; but the king interfered to prevent the engagement. Villaret, t. ix. p. 71. The barbarous practice of wearing swords as a part of domestic dress, which tended very much to the frequency of duelling, was not introduced till the latter part of the 15th century. I can only find one print in Montfaucon's Monuments of the French monarchy where a sword is worn without armour before the reign of Charles VIII.: though a few, as early as the reign of Charles VI., have short daggers in their girdles. The exception is a figure of Charles VII. t. iii. pl. 47.
[x] Baluzii Capitularia, p. 444. It was prohibited by Louis the Debonair; a man, as I have noticed in another place, not inferior, as a legislator, to his father. Ibid. p. 668. "The spirit of party," says a late writer, "has often accused the church of having devised these barbarous methods of discovering truth—the duel and the ordeal; nothing can be more unjust. Neither one nor the other is derived from Christianity; they existed long before in the Germanic usages." Ampère, Hist. Litt. de la France, iii. 180. Any one must have been very ignorant who attributed the invention of ordeals to the church. But during the dark ages they were always sanctioned. Agobard, from whom M. Ampère gives a quotation, in the reign of Louis the Debonair wrote strongly against them; but this was the remonstrance of a superior man in an age that was ill-inclined to hear him.
[y] Ordeals were not actually abolished in France, notwithstanding the law of Louis above-mentioned, so late as the eleventh century (Bouquet, t. xi. p. 430), nor in England till the reign of Henry III. Some of the stories we read, wherein accused persons have passed triumphantly through these severe proofs, are perplexing enough: and perhaps it is safer, as well as easier, to deny than to explain them. For example, a writer in the Archæologia (vol. xv. p. 172) has shown that Emma, queen of Edward the Confessor, did not perform her trial by stepping between, as Blackstone imagines, but upon nine red-hot ploughshares. But he seems not aware that the whole story is unsupported by any contemporary or even respectable testimony. A similar anecdote is related of Cunegunda, wife of the emperor Henry II., which probably gave rise to that of Emma. There are, however, medicaments, as is well known, that protect the skin to a certain degree against the effect of fire. This phenomenon would pass for miraculous, and form the basis of those exaggerated stories in monkish books.
[z] The most singular effect of this crusading spirit was witnessed in 1211, when a multitude, amounting, as some say, to 90,000, chiefly composed of children, and commanded by a child, set out for the purpose of recovering the Holy Land. They came for the most part from Germany, and reached Genoa without harm. But, finding there an obstacle which their imperfect knowledge of geography had not anticipated, they soon dispersed in various directions. Thirty thousand arrived at Marseilles, where part were murdered, part probably starved, and the rest sold to the Saracens. Annali di Muratori, A.D. 1211; Velly, Hist. de France, t. iv. p. 206.
[a] Velly, t. iii. p. 295; Du Cange, v. Capuciati.
[] Velly, Hist. de France, t. v. p. 7; Du Cange, v. Pastorelli.
[c] Velly, Hist. de France, t. viii. p. 99. The continuator of Nangis says, sicut fumus subitò evanuit tota illa commotio. Spicilegium, t. iii. p. 77.
[d] Velly, t. v. p. 279; Du Cange, v. Verberatio.
[e] Something of a similar kind is mentioned by G. Villani, under the year 1310. 1. viii. c. 122.
[f] Annal. Mediolan. in Murat. Script. Rer. Ital. t. xvi. p. 832; G. Stella. Ann. Genuens. t. xvii. p. 1072; Chron. Foroliviense, t. xix. p. 874; Ann. Bonincontri, t. xxi. p. 79.
[g] Dissert. 75. Sudden transitions from profligate to austere manners were so common among individuals, that we cannot be surprised at their sometimes becoming in a manner national. Azarius, a chronicler of Milan, after describing the almost incredible dissoluteness of Pavia, gives an account of an instantaneous reformation wrought by the preaching of a certain friar. This was about 1350. Script. Rer. Ital. t. xvi. p. 375.
[h] Villaret, t. xii. p. 327.
[] Rot. Parl. v. iii. p. 428.
[k] This is confessed by the authors of Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. ii. p. 4, and indeed by many catholic writers. I need not quote Mosheim, who more than confirms every word of my text.
[m] Middleton's Letter from Rome. If some of our eloquent countryman's positions should be disputed, there are still abundant catholic testimonies that imaginary saints have been canonized.
[n] Le Grand d'Aussy has given us, in the fifth volume of his Fabliaux, several of the religious tales by which the monks endeavoured to withdraw the people from romances of chivalry. The following specimens will abundantly confirm my assertions, which may perhaps appear harsh and extravagant to the reader.
There was a man whose occupation was highway robbery; but whenever he set out on any such expedition, he was careful to address a prayer to the Virgin. Taken at last, he was sentenced to be hanged. While the cord was round his neck he made his usual prayer, nor was it ineffectual. The Virgin supported his feet "with her white hands," and thus kept him alive two days, to the no small surprise of the executioner, who attempted to complete his work with strokes of a sword. But the same invisible hand turned aside the weapon, and the executioner was compelled to release his victim, acknowledging the miracle. The thief retired into a monastery, which is always the termination of these deliverances.
At the monastery of St. Peter, near Cologne, lived a monk perfectly dissolute and irreligious, but very devout towards the Apostle. Unluckily he died suddenly without confession. The fiends came as usual to seize his soul. St. Peter, vexed at losing so faithful a votary, besought God to admit the monk into Paradise. His prayer was refused; and though the whole body of saints, apostles, angels, and martyrs joined at his request to make interest, it was of no avail. In this extremity he had recourse to the Mother of God. "Fair lady," he said, "my monk is lost if you do not interfere for him; but what is impossible for us will be but sport to you, if you please to assist us. Your Son, if you but speak a word, must yield, since it is in your power to command him." The Queen Mother assented, and, followed by all the virgins, moved towards her Son. He who had himself given the precept, Honour thy father and thy mother, no sooner saw his own parent approach than he rose to receive her; and taking her by the hand inquired her wishes. The rest may be easily conjectured. Compare the gross stupidity, or rather the atrocious impiety of this tale, with the pure theism of the Arabian Nights, and judge whether the Deity was better worshipped at Cologne or at Bagdad.
It is unnecessary to multiply instances of this kind. In one tale the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped from the convent, and performs her duties ten years, till, tired of a libertine life, she returns unsuspected. This was in consideration of her having never omitted to say an Ave as she passed the Virgin's image. In another, a gentleman, in love with a handsome widow, consents, at the instigation of a sorcerer, to renounce God and the saints, but cannot be persuaded to give up the Virgin, well knowing that if he kept her his friend he should obtain pardon through her means. Accordingly she inspired his mistress with so much passion that he married her within a few days.
These tales, it may be said, were the production of ignorant men, and circulated among the populace. Certainly they would have excited contempt and indignation in the more enlightened clergy. But I am concerned with the general character of religious notions among the people: and for this it is better to take such popular compositions, adapted to what the laity already believed, than the writings of comparatively learned and reflecting men. However, stories of the same cast are frequent in the monkish historians. Matthew Paris, one of the most respectable of that class, and no friend to the covetousness or relaxed lives of the priesthood, tells us of a knight who was on the point of being damned for frequenting tournaments, but saved by a donation he had formerly made to the Virgin. p. 290.
[o] This hesitation about so important a question is what I would by no means repeat. Beyond every doubt, the evils of superstition in the middle ages, though separately considered very serious, are not to be weighed against the benefits of the religion with which they were so mingled. The fashion of the eighteenth century, among protestants especially, was to exaggerate the crimes and follies of mediæval ages—perhaps I have fallen into it a little too much; in the present we seem more in danger of extenuating them. We still want an inflexible impartiality in all that borders on ecclesiastical history, which, I believe, has never been displayed on an extensive scale. A more captivating book can hardly be named than the Mores Catholici of Mr. Digby; and it contains certainly a great deal of truth; but the general effect is that of a mirage, which confuses and deludes the sight. If those "ages of faith" were as noble, as pure, as full of human kindness, as he has delineated them, we have had a bad exchange in the centuries since the Reformation. And those who gaze at Mr. Digby's enchantments will do well to consider how they can better escape this consequence than he has done. Dr. Maitland's Letters on the Dark Ages, and a great deal more that comes from the pseudo-Anglican or Anglo-catholic press, converge to the same end; a strong sympathy with the mediæval church, a great indulgence to its errors, and indeed a reluctance to admit them, with a corresponding estrangement from all that has passed in the last three centuries. [1848.]
[p] I am inclined to acquiesce in this general opinion; yet an account of expenses at Bolton Abbey, about the reign of Edward II., published in Whitaker's History of Craven, p. 51, makes a very scanty show of almsgiving in this opulent monastery. Much, however, was no doubt given in victuals. But it is a strange error to conceive that English monasteries before the dissolution fed the indigent part of the nation, and gave that general relief which the poor-laws are intended to afford.
Piers Plowman is indeed a satirist; but he plainly charges the monks with want of charity.
Little had lordes to do to give landes from their heires
To religious that have no ruthe though it raine on their aultres;
In many places there the parsons be themself at ease,
Of the poor they have no pitie and that is their poor charitie.
[q] Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. i. p. 374.
[r] See Fosbrooke's British Monachism (vol. i. p. 127, and vol. ii. p. 8) for a farrago of evidence against the monks. Clemangis, a French theologian of considerable eminence at the beginning of the fifteenth century, speaks of nunneries in the following terms:—Quid aliud sunt hoc tempore puellarum monasteria, nisi quædam non dico Dei sanctuaria, sed Veneris execranda prostibula, sed lascivorum et impudicorum juvenum ad libidines explendas receptacula? ut idem sit hodie puellam velare, quod et publicè ad scortandum exponere. William Prynne, from whose records (vol. ii. p. 229) I have taken this passage, quotes it on occasion of a charter of king John, banishing thirty nuns of Ambresbury into different convents, propter vitæ suæ turpitudinem.
[] Mosheim, cent. vii. c. 3. Robertson has quoted this passage, to whom perhaps I am immediately indebted for it. Hist. Charles V., vol. i. note 11.
I leave this passage as it stood in former editions. But it is due to justice that this extract from Eligius should never be quoted in future, as the translator of Mosheim has induced Robertson and many others, as well as myself, to do. Dr. Lingard has pointed out that it is a very imperfect representation of what Eligius has written; for though he has dwelled on these devotional practices as parts of the definition of a good Christian, he certainly adds a great deal more to which no one could object. Yet no one is, in fact, to blame for this misrepresentation, which, being contained in popular books, has gone forth so widely. Mosheim, as will appear on referring to him, did not quote the passage as containing a complete definition of the Christian character. His translator, Maclaine, mistook this, and wrote, in consequence, the severe note which Robertson has copied. I have seen the whole passage in d'Achery's Spicilegium (vol. v. p. 213, 4to. edit.), and can testify that Dr. Lingard is perfectly correct. Upon the whole, this is a striking proof how dangerous it is to take any authorities at second-hand.—Note to Fourth Edition. Much clamour has been made about the mistake of Maclaine, which was innocent and not unnatural. It has been commented upon, particularly by Dr. Arnold, as a proof of the risk we run of misrepresenting authors by quoting them at second-hand. And this is perfectly true, and ought to be constantly remembered. But, so long as we acknowledge the immediate source of our quotation, no censure is due, since in works of considerable extent this use of secondary authorities is absolutely indispensable, not to mention the frequent difficulty of procuring access to original authors [1848.]
[t] Mr. Turner has collected many curious facts relative to the condition of the Jews, especially in England. Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 95. Others may be found dispersed in Velly's History of France; and many in the Spanish writers, Mariana and Zurita. The following are from Vaissette's History of Languedoc. It was the custom at Toulouse to give a blow on the face to a Jew every Easter; this was commuted in the twelfth century for a tribute. t. ii. p. 151. At Beziers another usage prevailed, that of attacking the Jews' houses with stones from Palm Sunday to Easter. No other weapon was to be used; but it generally produced bloodshed. The populace were regularly instigated to the assault by a sermon from the bishop. At length a prelate wiser than the rest abolished this ancient practice, but not without receiving a good sum from the Jews. p. 485.
[] Greg. Tur. 1. ii. c. 40. Of Theodebert, grandson of Clovis, the same historian says, Magnum se et in omni bonitate præcipuum reddidit. In the next paragraph we find a story of his having two wives, and looking so tenderly on the daughter of one of them, that her mother tossed her over a bridge into the river. 1. iii. c. 25. This indeed is a trifle to the passage in the text. There are continual proofs of immorality in the monkish historians. In the history of Ramsey Abbey, one of our best documents for Anglo-Saxon times, we have an anecdote of a bishop who made a Danish nobleman drunk, that he might cheat him of an estate, which is told with much approbation. Gale, Script. Anglic. t. i. p. 441. Walter de Hemingford recounts with excessive delight the well-known story of the Jews who were persuaded by the captain of their vessel to walk on the sands at low water, till the rising tide drowned them; and adds that the captain was both pardoned and rewarded for it by the king, gratiam promeruit et præmium. This is a mistake, inasmuch as he was hanged; but it exhibits the character of the historian, Hemingford, p. 21.
[x] Fleury, Troisième Discours sur l'Histoire Ecclésiastique.
[y] Henry, Hist. of England, vol. ii. c. 7.
[z] Du Cange, v. Peregrinatio. Non sinantur vagari isti nudi cum ferro, qui dicunt se datâ pœnitentiâ ire vagantes. Melius videtur, ut si aliquod inconsuetum et capitale crimen commiserint, in uno loco permaneant laborantes et servientes et pœnitentiam agentes, secundum quod canonicè iis impositum sit.
[a] I. de Vitriaco, in Gesta Dei per Francos, t. i.; Villani, 1. vii. c. 144.
[] Henry has taken pains in drawing a picture, not very favourable, of Anglo-Saxon manners. Book II. chap. 7. This perhaps is the best chapter, as the volume is the best volume, of his unequal work. His account of the Anglo-Saxons is derived in a great degree from William of Malmsbury, who does not spare them. Their civil history, indeed, and their laws, speak sufficiently against the character of that people. But the Normans had little more to boast of in respect of moral correctness. Their luxurious and dissolute habits are as much noticed as their insolence. Vid. Ordericus Vitalis, p. 602; Johann. Sarisburiensis Policraticus, p. 194; Velly, Hist. de France, t. iii. p. 59. The state of manners in France under the first two races of kings, and in Italy both under the Lombards and the subsequent dynasties, may be collected from their histories, their laws, and those miscellaneous facts which books of every description contain. Neither Velly, nor Muratori, Dissert. 23, are so satisfactory as we might desire.
[c] Velly, Hist. de France, t. ii. p. 335. It has been observed, that Quid mores sine legibus? is as just a question as that of Horace; and that bad laws must produce bad morals. The strange practice of requiring numerous compurgators to prove the innocence of an accused person had a most obvious tendency to increase perjury.
[d] Muratori, Dissert. 23, t. i. p. 306 (Italian); Beckman's Hist. of Inventions, vol. i. p. 319; Vie privée des Français, t. ii. p. 1.
[e] Vie privée des Français, t. i. p. 320; t. ii. p. 11.
[f] Ibid. t. i. p. 324.
[g] Rymer, t. i. p. 61.
[h] Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 340, and of Whalley, p. 171.
[] Velly, Hist. de France, t. iii. p. 236.
[k] John of Salisbury inveighs against the game-laws of his age, with an odd transition from the Gospel to the Pandects. Nec veriti sunt hominem pro unâ bestiolâ perdere, quem unigentius Dei Filius sanguine redemit suo. Quæ feræ naturæ sunt, et de jure occupantium fiunt, sibi audet humana temeritas vindicare, &c. Polycraticon, p. 18.
[m] Le Grand, Vie privée des Français, t. i. p. 325.
[n] For the injuries which this people sustained from the seigniorial rights of the chace, in the eleventh century, see the Recueil des Historiens, in the valuable preface to the eleventh volume, p. 181. This continued to be felt in France down to the revolution, to which it did not perhaps a little contribute. (See Young's Travels in France.) The monstrous privilege of free-warren (monstrous, I mean, when not originally founded upon the property of the soil) is recognised by our own laws; though, in this age, it is not often that a court and jury will sustain its exercise. Sir Walter Scott's ballad of the Wild Huntsman, from a German original, is well known; and, I believe, there are several others in that country not dissimilar in subject.
[o] Muratori, Dissert. 21. This dissertation contains ample evidence of the wretched state of culture in Italy, at least in the northern parts, both before the irruption of the barbarians, and, in a much greater degree, under the Lombard kings.
[p] Schmidt, Hist. des Allem. t. i. p. 408. The following passage seems to illustrate Schmidt's account of German villages in the ninth century, though relating to a different age and country. "A toft," says Dr. Whitaker, "is a homestead in a village, so called from the small tufts of maple, elm, ash, and other wood, with which dwelling-houses were anciently overhung. Even now it is impossible to enter Craven without being struck with the insulated homesteads, surrounded by their little garths, and overhung with tufts of trees. These are the genuine tofts and crofts of our ancestors, with the substitution only of stone for the wooden crocks and thatched roofs of antiquity." Hist. of Craven, p. 380.
[q] It is laid down in the Speculum Saxonicum, a collection of feudal customs which prevailed over most of Germany, that no one might have a separate pasture for his cattle unless he possessed three mansi. Du Cange, v. Mansus. There seems to have been a price paid, I suppose to the lord, for agistment in the common pasture.
[r] The only mention of a manufacture, as early as the ninth or tenth centuries, that I remember to have met with, is in Schmidt, t. ii. p. 146, who says that cloths were exported from Friesland to England and other parts. He quotes no authority, but I am satisfied that he has not advanced the fact gratuitously.
[] Schmidt, t. i. p. 411; t. ii. p. 146.
[t] Du Cange, Pedagium, Pontaticum, Teloneum, Mercatum, Stallagium, Lastagium, &c.
[] Baluz. Capit. p. 621 et alibi.
[x] Ut nullus cogatur ad pontem ire ad fluvium transeundum propter telonei causas quando ille in alio loco compendiosius illud flumen transire potest. p. 764 et alibi.
[y] Eadmer apud Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, t. xi. preface, p. 192. Pro ritu illius loci, a domino terræ captivitati addicitur.
[z] Heeren has frequently referred to a work published in 1789, by Marini, intitled, Storia civile e politica del Commerzio de' Veneziani, which casts a new light upon the early relations of Venice with the East. Of this book I know nothing; but a memoir by de Guignes, in the thirty-seventh volume of the Academy of Inscriptions, on the commerce of France with the East before the crusades, is singularly unproductive; the fault of the subject, not of the author.
[a] There is an odd passage in Luitprand's relation of his embassy from the Emperor Otho to Nicephorus Phocas. The Greeks making a display of their dress, he told them that in Lombardy the common people wore as good clothes as they. How, they said, can you procure them? Through the Venetian and Amalfitan dealers, he replied, who gain their subsistence by selling them to us. The foolish Greeks were very angry, and declared that any dealer presuming to export their fine clothes should be flogged, Luitprandi Opera, p. 155, edit. Antwerp. 1640.
[] Baluz. Capitul. p. 775. One of the main advantages which the Christian nations possessed over the Saracens was the coat of mail, and other defensive armour; so that this prohibition was founded upon very good political reasons.
[c] Schmidt, Hist. des Allem, t. ii. p. 146; Heeren, sur l'Influence des Croisades, p. 316. In Baluze we find a law of Carloman, brother to Charlemagne: Ut mancipia Christiana paganis non vendantur. Capitularia, t. i. p. 150, vide quoque, p. 361.
[d] William of Malmsbury accuses the Anglo-Saxon nobility of selling their female servants, even when pregnant by them, as slaves to foreigners, p. 102. I hope there were not many of these Yaricoes; and should not perhaps have given credit to an historian rather prejudiced against the English, if I had not found too much authority for the general practice. In the canons of a council at London in 1102 we read, Let no one from henceforth presume to carry on that wicked traffic by which men of England have hitherto been sold like brute animals. Wilkins's Concilia, t. i. p. 383. And Giraldus Cambrensis says that the English before the Conquest were generally in the habit of selling their children and other relations to be slaves in Ireland, without having even the pretext of distress or famine, till the Irish, in a national synod, agreed to emancipate all the English slaves in the kingdom. Id. p. 471. This seems to have been designed to take away all pretext for the threatened invasion of Henry II. Lyttelton, vol. iii. p. 70.
Progress of Commercial Improvement in Germany, Flanders, and England—in the North of Europe—in the Countries upon the Mediterranean Sea—Maritime Laws—Usury—Banking Companies—Progress of Refinement in Manners—Domestic Architecture—Ecclesiastical Architecture—State of Agriculture in England—Value of Money—Improvement of the Moral Character of Society—its Causes—Police—Changes in Religious Opinion—Various Sects—Chivalry—its Progress, Character, and Influence—Causes of the Intellectual Improvement of European Society—1. The Study of Civil Law—2. Institution of Universities—their Celebrity—Scholastic Philosophy—3. Cultivation of Modern Languages—Provençal Poets—Norman Poets—French Prose Writers—Italian—early Poets in that Language—Dante—Petrarch—English Language—its Progress—Chaucer—4. Revival of Classical Learning—Latin Writers of the Twelfth Century—Literature of the Fourteenth Century—Greek Literature—its Restoration in Italy—Invention of Printing.
European commerce.
The geographical position of Europe naturally divides its maritime commerce into two principal regions—one comprehending those countries which border on the Baltic, the German and the Atlantic oceans; another, those situated around the Mediterranean Sea. During the four centuries which preceded the discovery of America, and especially the two former of them, this separation was more remarkable than at present, inasmuch as their intercourse, either by land or sea, was extremely limited. To the first region belonged the Netherlands, the coasts of France, Germany, and Scandinavia, and the maritime districts of England. In the second we may class the provinces of Valencia and Catalonia, those of Provence and Languedoc, and the whole of Italy.
Woollen manufacture of Flanders.
1. The former, or northern division, was first animated by the woollen manufacture of Flanders. It is not easy either to discover the early beginnings of this, or to account for its rapid advancement. The fertility of that province and its facilities of interior navigation were doubtless necessary causes; but there must have been some temporary encouragement from the personal character of its sovereigns, or other accidental circumstances. Several testimonies to the flourishing condition of Flemish manufactures occur in the twelfth century, and some might perhaps be found even earlier.[a] A writer of the thirteenth asserts that all the world was clothed from English wool wrought in Flanders.[] This, indeed, is an exaggerated vaunt; but the Flemish stuffs were probably sold wherever the sea or a navigable river permitted them to be carried. Cologne was the chief trading city upon the Rhine; and its merchants, who had been considerable even under the emperor Henry IV., established a factory at London in 1220. The woollen manufacture, notwithstanding frequent wars and the impolitic regulations of magistrates,[c] continued to flourish in the Netherlands (for Brabant and Hainault shared it in some degree with Flanders), until England became not only capable of supplying her own demand, but a rival in all the marts of Europe. "All Christian kingdoms, and even the Turks themselves," says an historian of the sixteenth century, "lamented the desperate war between the Flemish cities and their count Louis, that broke out in 1380. For at that time Flanders was a market for the traders of all the world. Merchants from seventeen kingdoms had their settled domiciles at Bruges, besides strangers from almost unknown countries who repaired thither."[d] During this war, and on all other occasions, the weavers both of Ghent and Bruges distinguished themselves by a democratical spirit, the consequence, no doubt, of their numbers and prosperity.[e] Ghent was one of the largest cities in Europe, and, in the opinion of many, the best situated.[f] But Bruges, though in circuit but half the former, was more splendid in its buildings, and the seat of far more trade; being the great staple both for Mediterranean and northern merchandise.[g] Antwerp, which early in the sixteenth century drew away a large part of this commerce from Bruges, was not considerable in the preceding ages; nor were the towns of Zealand and Holland much noted except for their fisheries, though those provinces acquired in the fifteenth century some share of the woollen manufacture.
Export of wool from England.
For the first two centuries after the Conquest our English towns, as has been observed in a different place, made some forward steps towards improvement, though still very inferior to those of the continent. Their commerce was almost confined to the exportation of wool, the great staple commodity of England, upon which, more than any other, in its raw or manufactured state, our wealth has been founded. A woollen manufacture, however, indisputably existed under Henry II.;[h] it is noticed in regulations of Richard I.; and by the importation of woad under John it may be inferred to have still flourished. The disturbances of the next reign, perhaps, or the rapid elevation of the Flemish towns, retarded its growth, though a remarkable law was passed by the Oxford parliament in 1261, prohibiting the export of wool and the importation of cloth. This, while it shows the deference paid by the discontented barons, who predominated in that parliament, to their confederates the burghers, was evidently too premature to be enforced. We may infer from it, however, that cloths were made at home, though not sufficiently for the people's consumption.[]
Prohibitions of the same nature, though with a different object, were frequently imposed on the trade between England and Flanders by Edward I. and his son. As their political connexions fluctuated, these princes gave full liberty and settlement to the Flemish merchants, or banished them at once from the country.[k] Nothing could be more injurious to England than this arbitrary vacillation. The Flemings were in every respect our natural allies; but besides those connexions with France, the constant enemy of Flanders, into which both the Edwards occasionally fell, a mutual alienation had been produced by the trade of the former people with Scotland, a trade too lucrative to be resigned at the king of England's request.[m] An early instance of that conflicting selfishness of belligerents and neutrals, which was destined to aggravate the animosities and misfortunes of our own time.[n]
English woollen manufacture.
A more prosperous era began with Edward III., the father, as he may almost be called, of English commerce, a title not indeed more glorious, but by which he may perhaps claim more of our gratitude than as the hero of Crecy. In 1331 he took advantage of discontents among the manufacturers of Flanders to invite them as settlers into his dominions.[o] They brought the finer manufacture of woollen cloths, which had been unknown in England. The discontents alluded to resulted from the monopolizing spirit of their corporations, who oppressed all artisans without the pale of their community. The history of corporations brings home to our minds one cardinal truth, that political institutions have very frequently but a relative and temporary usefulness, and that what forwarded improvement during one part of its course may prove to it in time a most pernicious obstacle. Corporations in England, we may be sure, wanted nothing of their usual character; and it cost Edward no little trouble to protect his colonists from the selfishness and from the blind nationality of the vulgar.[p] The emigration of Flemish weavers into England continued during this reign, and we find it mentioned, at intervals, for more than a century.
Increase of English commerce.
Commerce now became, next to liberty, the leading object of parliament. For the greater part of our statutes from the accession of Edward III. bear relation to this subject; not always well devised, or liberal, or consistent, but by no means worse in those respects than such as have been enacted in subsequent ages. The occupation of a merchant became honourable; and, notwithstanding the natural jealousy of the two classes, he was placed, in some measure, on a footing with landed proprietors. By the statute of apparel, in 37 Edw. III., merchants and artificers who had five hundred pounds value in goods and chattels might use the same dress as squires of one hundred pounds a year. And those who were worth more than this might dress like men of double that estate. Wool was still the principal article of export and source of revenue. Subsidies granted by every parliament upon this article were, on account of the scarcity of money, commonly taken in kind. To prevent evasion of this duty seems to have been the principle of those multifarious regulations which fix the staple, or market for wool, in certain towns, either in England, or, more commonly, on the continent. To these all wool was to be carried, and the tax was there collected. It is not easy, however, to comprehend the drift of all the provisions relating to the staple, many of which tend to benefit foreign at the expense of English merchants. By degrees the exportation of woollen cloths increased so as to diminish that of the raw material, but the latter was not absolutely prohibited during the period under review;[q] although some restrictions were imposed upon it by Edward IV. For a much earlier statute, in the 11th of Edward III., making the exportation of wool a capital felony, was in its terms provisional, until it should be otherwise ordered by the council; and the king almost immediately set it aside.[r]
Manufactures of France and Germany.
A manufacturing district, as we see in our own country, sends out, as it were, suckers into all its neighbourhood. Accordingly, the woollen manufacture spread from Flanders along the banks of the Rhine and into the northern provinces of France.[] I am not, however, prepared to trace its history in these regions. In Germany the privileges conceded by Henry V. to the free cities, and especially to their artisans, gave a soul to industry; though the central parts of the empire were, for many reasons, very ill-calculated for commercial enterprise during the middle ages.[t] But the French towns were never so much emancipated from arbitrary power as those of Germany or Flanders; and the evils of exorbitant taxation, with those produced by the English wars, conspired to retard the advance of manufactures in France. That of linen made some little progress; but this work was still, perhaps, chiefly confined to the labour of female servants.[]
Baltic trade.
The manufactures of Flanders and England found a market, not only in these adjacent countries, but in a part of Europe which for many ages had only been known enough to be dreaded. In the middle of the eleventh century a native of Bremen, and a writer much superior to most others of his time, was almost entirely ignorant of the geography of the Baltic; doubting whether any one had reached Russia by that sea, and reckoning Esthonia and Courland among its islands.[x] But in one hundred years more the maritime regions of Mecklenburg and Pomerania, inhabited by a tribe of heathen Sclavonians, were subdued by some German princes; and the Teutonic order some time afterwards, having conquered Prussia, extended a line of at least comparative civilization as far as the gulf of Finland. The first town erected on the coasts of the Baltic was Lubec, which owes its foundation to Adolphus count of Holstein, in 1140. After several vicissitudes it became independent of any sovereign but the emperor in the thirteenth century. Hamburgh and Bremen, upon the other side of the Cimbric peninsula, emulated the prosperity of Lubec; the former city purchased independence of its bishop in 1225. A colony from Bremen founded Riga in Livonia about 1162. The city of Dantzic grew into importance about the end of the following century. Konigsberg was founded by Ottocar king of Bohemia in the same age.
But the real importance of these cities is to be dated from their famous union into the Hanseatic confederacy. The origin of this is rather obscure, but it may certainly be nearly referred in point of time to the middle of the thirteenth century,[y] and accounted for by the necessity of mutual defence, which piracy by sea and pillage by land had taught the merchants of Germany. The nobles endeavoured to obstruct the formation of this league, which indeed was in great measure designed to withstand their exactions. It powerfully maintained the influence which the free imperial cities were at this time acquiring. Eighty of the most considerable places constituted the Hanseatic confederacy, divided into four colleges, whereof Lubec, Cologne, Brunswic, and Dantzic were the leading towns. Lubec held the chief rank, and became, as it were, the patriarchal see of the league; whose province it was to preside in all general discussions for mercantile, political, or military purposes, and to carry them into execution. The league had four principal factories in foreign parts, at London, Bruges, Bergen, and Novogorod; endowed by the sovereigns of those cities with considerable privileges, to which every merchant belonging to a Hanseatic town was entitled.[z] In England the German guildhall or factory was established by concession of Henry III.; and in later periods the Hanse traders were favoured above many others in the capricious vacillations of our mercantile policy.[a] The English had also their factories on the Baltic coast as far as Prussia and in the dominions of Denmark.[]
Rapid progress of English trade.
This opening of a northern market powerfully accelerated the growth of our own commercial opulence, especially after the woollen manufacture had begun to thrive. From about the middle of the fourteenth century we find continual evidences of a rapid increase in wealth. Thus, in 1363, Picard, who had been lord mayor some years before, entertained Edward III. and the Black Prince, the kings of France, Scotland, and Cyprus, with many of the nobility, at his own house in the Vintry, and presented them with handsome gifts.[c] Philpot, another eminent citizen in Richard II.'s time, when the trade of England was considerably annoyed by privateers, hired 1000 armed men, and despatched them to sea, where they took fifteen Spanish vessels with their prizes.[d] We find Richard obtaining a great deal from private merchants and trading towns. In 1379 he got 5000l. from London, 1000 marks from Bristol, and in proportion from smaller places. In 1386 London gave 4000l. more, and 10,000 marks in 1397.[e] The latter sum was obtained also for the coronation of Henry VI.[f] Nor were the contributions of individuals contemptible, considering the high value of money. Hinde, a citizen of London, lent to Henry IV. 2000l. in 1407, and Whittington one half of that sum. The merchants of the staple advanced 4000l. at the same time.[g] Our commerce continued to be regularly and rapidly progressive during the fifteenth century. The famous Canynges of Bristol, under Henry VI. and Edward IV., had ships of 900 tons burthen.[h] The trade and even the internal wealth of England reached so much higher a pitch in the reign of the last-mentioned king than at any former period, that we may perceive the wars of York and Lancaster to have produced no very serious effect on national prosperity. Some battles were doubtless sanguinary; but the loss of lives in battle is soon repaired by a flourishing nation; and the devastation occasioned by armies was both partial and transitory.
Intercourse with the south of Europe.
A commercial intercourse between these northern and southern regions of Europe began about the early part of the fourteenth century, or, at most, a little sooner. Until, indeed, the use of the magnet was thoroughly understood, and a competent skill in marine architecture, as well as navigation, acquired, the Italian merchants were scarce likely to attempt a voyage perilous in itself and rendered more formidable by the imaginary difficulties which had been supposed to attend an expedition beyond the straits of Hercules. But the English, accustomed to their own rough seas, were always more intrepid, and probably more skilful navigators. Though it was extremely rare, even in the fifteenth century, for an English trading vessel to appear in the Mediterranean,[] yet a famous military armament, that destined for the crusade of Richard I., displayed at a very early time the seamanship of our countrymen. In the reign of Edward II. we find mention in Rymer's collection of Genoese ships trading to Flanders and England. His son was very solicitous to preserve the friendship of that opulent republic; and it is by his letters to his senate, or by royal orders restoring ships unjustly seized, that we come by a knowledge of those facts which historians neglect to relate. Pisa shared a little in this traffic, and Venice more considerably; but Genoa was beyond all competition at the head of Italian commerce in these seas during the fourteenth century. In the next her general decline left it more open to her rival; but I doubt whether Venice ever maintained so strong a connexion with England. Through London and Bruges, their chief station in Flanders, the merchants of Italy and of Spain transported oriental produce to the farthest parts of the north. The inhabitants of the Baltic coast were stimulated by the desire of precious luxuries which they had never known; and these wants, though selfish and frivolous, are the means by which nations acquire civilization, and the earth is rendered fruitful of its produce. As the carriers of this trade the Hanseatic merchants resident in England and Flanders derived profits through which eventually of course those countries were enriched. It seems that the Italian vessels unloaded at the marts of London or Bruges, and that such part of their cargoes as were intended for a more northern trade came there into the hands of the German merchants. In the reign of Henry VI. England carried on a pretty extensive traffic with the countries around the Mediterranean, for whose commodities her wool and woollen cloths enabled her to pay.
Commerce of the Mediterranean countries.
Amalfi.
The commerce of the southern division, though it did not, I think, produce more extensively beneficial effects upon the progress of society, was both earlier and more splendid than that of England and the neighbouring countries. Besides Venice, which has been mentioned already, Amalfi kept up the commercial intercourse of Christendom with the Saracen countries before the first crusade.[k] It was the singular fate of this city to have filled up the interval between two periods of civilization, in neither of which she was destined to be distinguished. Scarcely known before the end of the sixth century, Amalfi ran a brilliant career, as a free and trading republic, which was checked by the arms of a conqueror in the middle of the twelfth. Since her subjugation by Roger king of Sicily, the name of a people who for a while connected Europe with Asia has hardly been repeated, except for two discoveries falsely imputed to them, those of the Pandects and of the compass.
Pisa, Genoa, Venice.
But the decline of Amalfi was amply compensated to the rest of Italy by the constant elevation of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice in the twelfth and ensuing ages. The crusades led immediately to this growing prosperity of the commercial cities. Besides the profit accruing from so many naval armaments which they supplied, and the continual passage of private adventurers in their vessels, they were enabled to open a more extensive channel of oriental traffic than had hitherto been known. These three Italian republics enjoyed immunities in the Christian principalities of Syria; possessing separate quarters in Acre, Tripoli, and other cities, where they were governed by their own laws and magistrates. Though the progress of commerce must, from the condition of European industry, have been slow, it was uninterrupted; and the settlements in Palestine were becoming important as factories, an use of which Godfrey and Urban little dreamed, when they were lost through the guilt and imprudence of their inhabitants.[m] Villani laments the injury sustained by commerce in consequence of the capture of Acre, "situated, as it was, on the coast of the Mediterranean, in the centre of Syria, and, as we might say, of the habitable world, a haven for all merchandize, both from the East and the West, which all the nations of the earth frequented for this trade."[n] But the loss was soon retrieved, not perhaps by Pisa and Genoa, but by Venice, who formed connexions with the Saracen governments, and maintained her commercial intercourse with Syria and Egypt by their licence, though subject probably to heavy exactions. Sanuto, a Venetian author at the beginning of the fourteenth century, has left a curious account of the Levant trade which his countrymen carried on at that time. Their imports it is easy to guess, and it appears that timber, brass, tin, and lead, as well as the precious metals, were exported to Alexandria, besides oil, saffron, and some of the productions of Italy, and even wool and woollen cloths.[o] The European side of the account had therefore become respectable.
The commercial cities enjoyed as great privileges at Constantinople as in Syria, and they bore an eminent part in the vicissitudes of the Eastern empire. After the capture of Constantinople by the Latin crusaders, the Venetians, having been concerned in that conquest, became, of course, the favoured traders under the new dynasty; possessing their own district in the city, with their magistrate or podestà, appointed at Venice, and subject to the parent republic. When the Greeks recovered the seat of their empire, the Genoese, who, from jealousy of their rivals, had contributed to that revolution, obtained similar immunities. This powerful and enterprising state, in the fourteenth century, sometimes the ally, sometimes the enemy, of the Byzantine court, maintained its independent settlement at Pera. From thence she spread her sails into the Euxine, and, planting a colony at Caffa in the Crimea, extended a line of commerce with the interior regions of Asia, which even the skill and spirit of our own times has not yet been able to revive.[p]
The French provinces which border on the Mediterranean Sea partook in the advantages which it offered. Not only Marseilles, whose trade had continued in a certain degree throughout the worst ages, but Narbonne, Nismes, and especially Montpelier, were distinguished for commercial prosperity.[q] A still greater activity prevailed in Catalonia. From the middle of the thirteenth century (for we need not trace the rudiments of its history) Barcelona began to emulate the Italian cities in both the branches of naval energy, war and commerce. Engaged in frequent and severe hostilities with Genoa, and sometimes with Constantinople, while their vessels traded to every part of the Mediterranean, and even of the English Channel, the Catalans might justly be reckoned among the first of maritime nations. The commerce of Barcelona has never since attained so great a height as in the fifteenth century.[r]
Their manufactures.
The introduction of a silk manufacture at Palermo, by Roger Guiscard in 1148, gave perhaps the earliest impulse to the industry of Italy. Nearly about the same time the Genoese plundered two Moorish cities of Spain, from which they derived the same art. In the next age this became a staple manufacture of the Lombard and Tuscan republics, and the cultivation of mulberries was enforced by their laws.[] Woollen stuffs, though the trade was perhaps less conspicuous than that of Flanders, and though many of the coarser kinds were imported from thence, employed a multitude of workmen in Italy, Catalonia, and the south of France.[t] Among the trading companies into which the middling ranks were distributed, those concerned in silk and woollens were most numerous and honourable.[]
Invention of the mariner's compass.
A property of a natural substance, long overlooked even though it attracted observation by a different peculiarity, has influenced by its accidental discovery the fortunes of mankind more than all the deductions of philosophy. It is, perhaps, impossible to ascertain the epoch when the polarity of the magnet was first known in Europe. The common opinion, which ascribes its discovery to a citizen of Amalfi in the fourteenth century, is undoubtedly erroneous. Guiot de Provins, a French poet, who lived about the year 1200, or, at the latest, under St. Louis, describes it in the most unequivocal language. James de Vitry, a bishop in Palestine, before the middle of the thirteenth century, and Guido Guinizzelli, an Italian poet of the same time, are equally explicit. The French, as well as Italians, claim the discovery as their own; but whether it were due to either of these nations, or rather learned from their intercourse with the Saracens, is not easily to be ascertained.[x] For some time, perhaps, even this wonderful improvement in the art of navigation might not be universally adopted by vessels sailing within the Mediterranean, and accustomed to their old system of observations. But when it became more established, it naturally inspired a more fearless spirit of adventure. It was not, as has been mentioned, till the beginning of the fourteenth century that the Genoese and other nations around that inland sea steered into the Atlantic Ocean towards England and Flanders. This intercourse with the northern countries enlivened their trade with the Levant by the exchange of productions which Spain and Italy do not supply, and enriched the merchants by means of whose capital the exports of London and of Alexandria were conveyed into each other's harbours.
Maritime laws.
The usual risks of navigation, and those incident to commercial adventure, produce a variety of questions in every system of jurisprudence, which, though always to be determined, as far as possible, by principles of natural justice, must in many cases depend upon established customs. These customs of maritime law were anciently reduced into a code by the Rhodians, and the Roman emperors preserved or reformed the constitutions of that republic. It would be hard to say how far the tradition of this early jurisprudence survived the decline of commerce in the darker ages; but after it began to recover itself, necessity suggested, or recollection prompted, a scheme of regulations resembling in some degree, but much more enlarged than those of antiquity. This was formed into a written code, Il Consolato del Mare, not much earlier, probably, than the middle of the thirteenth century; and its promulgation seems rather to have proceeded from the citizens of Barcelona than from those of Pisa or Venice, who have also claimed to be the first legislators of the sea.[y] Besides regulations simply mercantile, this system has defined the mutual rights of neutral and belligerent vessels, and thus laid the basis of the positive law of nations in its most important and disputed cases. The king of France and count of Provence solemnly acceded to this maritime code, which hence acquired a binding force within the Mediterranean Sea; and in most respects the law merchant of Europe is at present conformable to its provisions. A set of regulations, chiefly borrowed from the Consolato, was compiled in France under the reign of Louis IX., and prevailed in their own country. These have been denominated the laws of Oleron, from an idle story that they were enacted by Richard I., while his expedition to the Holy Land lay at anchor in that island.[z] Nor was the north without its peculiar code of maritime jurisprudence; namely, the Ordinances of Wisbuy, a town in the isle of Gothland, principally compiled from those of Oleron, before the year 1400, by which the Baltic traders were governed.[a]
Frequency of piracy.
Law of reprisals.
There was abundant reason for establishing among maritime nations some theory of mutual rights, and for securing the redress of injuries, as far as possible, by means of acknowledged tribunals. In that state of barbarous anarchy which so long resisted the coercive authority of civil magistrates, the sea held out even more temptation and more impunity than the land; and when the laws had regained their sovereignty, and neither robbery nor private warfare was any longer tolerated, there remained that great common of mankind, unclaimed by any king, and the liberty of the sea was another name for the security of plunderers. A pirate, in a well-armed quick-sailing vessel, must feel, I suppose, the enjoyments of his exemption from control more exquisitely than any other freebooter; and darting along the bosom of the ocean, under the impartial radiance of the heavens, may deride the dark concealments and hurried flights of the forest robber. His occupation is, indeed, extinguished by the civilization of later ages, or confined to distant climates. But in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, a rich vessel was never secure from attack; and neither restitution nor punishment of the criminals was to be obtained from governments who sometimes feared the plunderer and sometimes connived at the offence.[] Mere piracy, however, was not the only danger. The maritime towns of Flanders, France, and England, like the free republics of Italy, prosecuted their own quarrels by arms, without asking the leave of their respective sovereigns. This practice, exactly analogous to that of private war in the feudal system, more than once involved the kings of France and England in hostility.[c] But where the quarrel did not proceed to such a length as absolutely to engage two opposite towns, a modification of this ancient right of revenge formed part of the regular law of nations, under the name of reprisals. Whoever was plundered or injured by the inhabitant of another town obtained authority from his own magistrates to seize the property of any other person belonging to it, until his loss should be compensated. This law of reprisal was not confined to maritime places; it prevailed in Lombardy, and probably in the German cities. Thus, if a citizen of Modena was robbed by a Bolognese, he complained to the magistrates of the former city, who represented the case to those of Bologna, demanding redress. If this were not immediately granted, letters of reprisals were issued to plunder the territory of Bologna till the injured party should be reimbursed by sale of the spoil.[d] In the laws of Marseilles it is declared, "If a foreigner take anything from a citizen of Marseilles, and he who has jurisdiction over the said debtor or unjust taker does not cause right to be done in the same, the rector or consuls, at the petition of the said citizen, shall grant him reprisals upon all the goods of the said debtor or unjust taker, and also upon the goods of others who are under the jurisdiction of him who ought to do justice, and would not, to the said citizen of Marseilles."[e] Edward III. remonstrates, in an instrument published by Rymer, against letters of marque granted by the king of Aragon to one Berenger de la Tone, who had been robbed by an English pirate of 2000l., alleging that, inasmuch as he had always been ready to give redress to the party, it seemed to his counsellors that there was no just cause for reprisals upon the king's or his subjects' property.[f] This passage is so far curious as it asserts the existence of a customary law of nations, the knowledge of which was already a sort of learning. Sir E. Coke speaks of this right of private reprisals as if it still existed;[g] and, in fact, there are instances of granting such letters as late as the reign of Charles I.
Liability of aliens for each other's debts.
A practice, founded on the same principles as reprisal, though rather less violent, was that of attaching the goods or persons of resident foreigners for the debts of their countrymen. This indeed, in England, was not confined to foreigners until the statute of Westminster I. c. 23, which enacts that "no stranger who is of this realm shall be distrained in any town or market for a debt wherein he is neither principal nor surety." Henry III. had previously granted a charter to the burgesses of Lubec, that they should "not be arrested for the debt of any of their countrymen, unless the magistrates of Lubec neglected to compel payment."[h] But by a variety of grants from Edward II. the privileges of English subjects under the statute of Westminster were extended to most foreign nations.[] This unjust responsibility had not been confined to civil cases. One of a company of Italian merchants, the Spini, having killed a man, the officers of justice seized the bodies and effects of all the rest.[k]
Great profits of trade,
and high rate of interest.
Money dealings of the Jews.
If under all these obstacles, whether created by barbarous manners, by national prejudice, or by the fraudulent and arbitrary measures of princes, the merchants of different countries became so opulent as almost to rival the ancient nobility, it must be ascribed to the greatness of their commercial profits. The trading companies possessed either a positive or a virtual monopoly, and held the keys of those eastern regions, for the luxuries of which the progressive refinement of manners produced an increasing demand. It is not easy to determine the average rate of profit;[m] but we know that the interest of money was exceedingly high throughout the middle ages. At Verona, in 1228, it was fixed by law at twelve and a half per cent.; at Modena, in 1270, it seems to have been as high as twenty.[n] The republic of Genoa, towards the end of the fourteenth century, when Italy had grown wealthy, paid only from seven to ten per cent. to her creditors.[o] But in France and England the rate was far more oppressive. An ordinance of Philip the Fair, in 1311, allows twenty per cent. after the first year of the loan.[p] Under Henry III., according to Matthew Paris, the debtor paid ten per cent. every two months;[q] but this is absolutely incredible as a general practice. This was not merely owing to scarcity of money, but to the discouragement which a strange prejudice opposed, to one of the most useful and legitimate branches of commerce. Usury, or lending money for profit, was treated as a crime by the theologians of the middle ages; and though the superstition has been eradicated, some part of the prejudice remains in our legislation. This trade in money, and indeed a great part of inland trade in general, had originally fallen to the Jews, who were noted for their usury so early as the sixth century.[r] For several subsequent ages they continued to employ their capital and industry to the same advantage, with little molestation from the clergy, who always tolerated their avowed and national infidelity, and often with some encouragement from princes. In the twelfth century we find them not only possessed of landed property in Languedoc, and cultivating the studies of medicine and Rabbinical literature in their own academy at Montpelier, under the protection of the count of Toulouse, but invested with civil offices.[] Raymond Roger, viscount of Carcasonne, directs a writ "to his bailiffs, Christian and Jewish."[t] It was one of the conditions imposed by the church on the count of Toulouse, that he should allow no Jews to possess magistracy in his dominions.[] But in Spain they were placed by some of the municipal laws on the footing of Christians, with respect to the composition for their lives, and seem in no other European country to have been so numerous or considerable.[x] The diligence and expertness of this people in all pecuniary dealings recommended them to princes who were solicitous about the improvement of their revenue. We find an article in the general charter of privileges granted by Peter III. of Aragon, in 1283, that no Jew should hold the office of a bayle or judge. And two kings of Castile, Alonzo XI. and Peter the Cruel, incurred much odium by employing Jewish ministers in their treasury. But, in other parts of Europe, their condition had, before that time, begun to change for the worse—partly from the fanatical spirit of the crusades, which prompted the populace to massacre, and partly from the jealousy which their opulence excited. Kings, in order to gain money and popularity at once, abolished the debts due to the children of Israel, except a part which they retained as the price of their bounty. One is at a loss to conceive the process of reasoning in an ordinance of St. Louis, where, "for the salvation of his own soul and those of his ancestors, he releases to all Christians a third part of what was owing by them to Jews."[y] Not content with such edicts, the kings of France sometimes banished the whole nation from their dominions, seizing their effects at the same time; and a season of alternative severity and toleration continued till, under Charles VI., they were finally expelled from the kingdom, where they never afterwards possessed any legal settlement.[z] They were expelled from England under Edward I., and never obtained any legal permission to reside till the time of Cromwell. This decline of the Jews was owing to the transference of their trade in money to other hands. In the early part of the thirteenth century the merchants of Lombardy and of the south of France[a] took up the business of remitting money by bills of exchange,[] and of making profit upon loans. The utility of this was found so great, especially by the Italian clergy, who thus in an easy manner drew the income of their transalpine benefices, that in spite of much obloquy, the Lombard usurers established themselves in every country, and the general progress of commerce wore off the bigotry that had obstructed their reception. A distinction was made between moderate and exorbitant interest; and though the casuists did not acquiesce in this legal regulation, yet it satisfied, even in superstitious times, the consciences of provident traders.[c] The Italian bankers were frequently allowed to farm the customs in England, as a security perhaps for loans which, were not very punctually repaid.[d] In 1345 the Bardi at Florence, the greatest company in Italy, became bankrupt, Edward III. owing them, in principal and interest, 900,000 gold florins. Another, the Peruzzi, failed at the same time, being creditors to Edward for 600,000 florins. The king of Sicily owed 100,000 florins to each of these bankers. Their failure involved, of course, a multitude of Florentine citizens, and was a heavy misfortune to the state.[e]
Banks of Genoa and others.
The earliest bank of deposit, instituted for the accommodation of private merchants, is said to have been that of Barcelona, in 1401.[f] The banks of Venice and Genoa were of a different description. Although the former of these two has the advantage of greater antiquity, having been formed, as we are told, in the twelfth century, yet its early history is not so clear as that of Genoa, nor its political importance so remarkable, however similar might be its origin.[g] During the wars of Genoa in the fourteenth century, she had borrowed large sums of private citizens, to whom the revenues were pledged for repayment. The republic of Florence had set a recent, though not a very encouraging example of a public loan, to defray the expense of her war against Mastino della Scala, in 1336. The chief mercantile firms, as well as individual citizens, furnished money on an assignment of the taxes, receiving fifteen per cent. interest, which appears to have been above the rate of private usury.[h] The state was not unreasonably considered a worse debtor than some of her citizens, for in a few years these loans were consolidated into a general fund, or monte, with some deduction from the capital and a great diminution of interest; so that an original debt of one hundred florins sold only for twenty-five.[] But I have not found that these creditors formed at Florence a corporate body, or took any part, as such, in the affairs of the republic. The case was different at Genoa. As a security, at least, for their interest, the subscribers to public loans were permitted to receive the produce of the taxes by their own collectors, paying the excess into the treasury. The number and distinct classes of these subscribers becoming at length inconvenient, they were formed, about the year 1407, into a single corporation, called the bank of St. George, which was from that time the sole national creditor and mortgagee. The government of this was intrusted to eight protectors. It soon became almost independent of the state. Every senator, on his admission, swore to maintain the privileges of the bank, which were confirmed by the pope, and even by the emperor. The bank interposed its advice in every measure of government, and generally, as is admitted, to the public advantage. It equipped armaments at its own expense, one of which subdued the island of Corsica; and this acquisition, like those of our great Indian corporation, was long subject to a company of merchants, without any interference of the mother country.[k]
Increase of domestic expenditure.
The increasing wealth of Europe, whether derived from internal improvement or foreign commerce, displayed itself in more expensive consumption, and greater refinements of domestic life. But these effects were for a long time very gradual, each generation making a few steps in the progress, which are hardly discernible except by an attentive inquirer. It is not till the latter half of the thirteenth century that an accelerated impulse appears to be given to society. The just government and suppression of disorder under St. Louis, and the peaceful temper of his brother Alfonso, count of Toulouse and Poitou, gave France leisure to avail herself of her admirable fertility. England, that to a soil not greatly inferior to that of France united the inestimable advantage of an insular position, and was invigorated, above all, by her free constitution and the steady industriousness of her people, rose with a pretty uniform motion from the time of Edward I. Italy, though the better days of freedom had passed away in most of her republics, made a rapid transition from simplicity to refinement. "In those times," says a writer about the year 1300, speaking of the age of Frederic II., "the manners of the Italians were rude. A man and his wife ate off the same plate. There was no wooden-handled knives, nor more than one or two drinking cups in a house. Candles of wax or tallow were unknown; a servant held a torch during supper. The clothes of men were of leather unlined: scarcely any gold or silver was seen on their dress. The common people ate flesh but three times a week, and kept their cold meat for supper. Many did not drink wine in summer. A small stock of corn seemed riches. The portions of women were small; their dress, even after marriage, was simple. The pride of men was to be well provided with arms and horses; that of the nobility to have lofty towers, of which all the cities in Italy were full. But now frugality has been changed for sumptuousness; every thing exquisite is sought after in dress; gold, silver, pearls, silks, and rich furs. Foreign wines and rich meats are required. Hence usury, rapine, fraud, tyranny," &c.[m] This passage is supported by other testimonies nearly of the same time. The conquest of Naples by Charles of Anjou in 1266 seems to have been the epoch of increasing luxury throughout Italy. His Provençal knights with their plumed helmets and golden collars, the chariot of his queen covered with blue velvet and sprinkled with lilies of gold, astonished the citizens of Naples.[n] Provence had enjoyed a long tranquillity, the natural source of luxurious magnificence; and Italy, now liberated from the yoke of the empire, soon reaped the same fruit of a condition more easy and peaceful than had been her lot for several ages. Dante speaks of the change of manners at Florence from simplicity and virtue to refinement and dissoluteness, in terms very nearly similar to those quoted above.[o]
Throughout the fourteenth century there continued to be a rapid but steady progression in England of what we may denominate elegance, improvement, or luxury; and if this was for a time suspended in France, it must be ascribed to the unusual calamities which befell that country under Philip of Valois and his son. Just before the breaking out of the English wars an excessive fondness for dress is said to have distinguished not only the higher ranks, but the burghers, whose foolish emulation at least indicates their easy circumstances.[p] Modes of dress hardly perhaps deserve our notice on their own account; yet so far as their universal prevalence was a symptom of diffused wealth, we should not overlook either the invectives bestowed by the clergy on the fantastic extravagances of fashion, or the sumptuary laws by which it was endeavoured to restrain them.
Sumptuary laws.
The principle of sumptuary laws was partly derived from the small republics of antiquity, which might perhaps require that security for public spirit and equal rights—partly from the austere and injudicious theory of religion disseminated by the clergy. These prejudices united to render all increase of general comforts odious under the name of luxury; and a third motive more powerful than either, the jealousy with which the great regard anything like imitation in those beneath them, co-operated to produce a sort of restrictive code in the laws of Europe. Some of these regulations are more ancient; but the chief part were enacted, both in France and England, during the fourteenth century, extending to expenses of the table as well as apparel. The first statute of this description in our own country was, however, repealed the next year;[q] and subsequent provisions were entirely disregarded by a nation which valued liberty and commerce too much to obey laws conceived in a spirit hostile to both. Laws indeed designed by those governments to restrain the extravagance of their subjects may well justify the severe indignation which Adam Smith has poured upon all such interference with private expenditure. The kings of France and England were undoubtedly more egregious spendthrifts than any others in their dominions; and contributed far more by their love of pageantry to excite a taste for dissipation in their people than by their ordinances to repress it.
Domestic manners of Italy.
Mussus, an historian of Placentia, has left a pretty copious account of the prevailing manners among his countrymen about 1388, and expressly contrasts their more luxurious living with the style of their ancestors seventy years before, when, as we have seen, they had already made considerable steps towards refinement. This passage is highly interesting, because it shows the regular tenor of domestic economy in an Italian city rather than a mere display of individual magnificence, as in most of the facts collected by our own and the French antiquaries. But it is much too long for insertion in this place.[r] No other country, perhaps, could exhibit so fair a picture of middle life: in France the burghers, and even the inferior gentry, were for the most part in a state of poverty at this period, which they concealed by an affectation of ornament; while our English yeomanry and tradesmen were more anxious to invigorate their bodies by a generous diet than to dwell in well furnished houses, or to find comfort in cleanliness and elegance.[] The German cities, however, had acquired with liberty the spirit of improvement and industry. From the time that Henry V. admitted their artisans to the privileges of free burghers they became more and more prosperous;[t] while the steadiness and frugality of the German character compensated for some disadvantages arising out of their inland situation. Spire, Nuremberg, Ratisbon, and Augsburg were not indeed like the rich markets of London and Bruges, nor could their burghers rival the princely merchants of Italy; but they enjoyed the blessings of competence diffused over a large class of industrious freemen, and in the fifteenth century one of the politest Italians could extol their splendid and well furnished dwellings, their rich apparel, their easy and affluent mode of living, the security of their rights and just equality of their laws.[]
Civil architecture.
No chapter in the history of national manners would illustrate so well, if duly executed, the progress of social life as that dedicated to domestic architecture. The fashions of dress and of amusements are generally capricious and irreducible to rule; but every change in the dwellings of mankind, from the rudest wooden cabin to the stately mansion, has been dictated by some principle of convenience, neatness, comfort, or magnificence. Yet this most interesting field of research has been less beaten by our antiquaries than others comparatively barren. I do not pretend to a complete knowledge of what has been written by these learned inquirers; but I can only name one book in which the civil architecture of our ancestors has been sketched, loosely indeed, but with a superior hand, and another in which it is partially noticed. I mean by the first a chapter in the Appendix to Dr. Whitaker's History of Whalley; and by the second Mr. King's Essays on Ancient Castles in the Archæologia.[x] Of these I shall make free use in the following paragraphs.
The most ancient buildings which we can trace in this island, after the departure of the Romans, were circular towers of no great size, whereof many remain in Scotland, erected either on a natural eminence or on an artificial mound of earth. Such are Conisborough Castle in Yorkshire and Castleton in Derbyshire, built perhaps, according to Mr. King, before the Conquest.[y] To the lower chambers of those gloomy keeps there was no admission of light or air except through long narrow loop-holes and an aperture in the roof. Regular windows were made in the upper apartments. Were it not for the vast thickness of the walls, and some marks of attention both to convenience and decoration in these structures, we might be induced to consider them as rather intended for security during the transient inroad of an enemy than for a chieftain's usual residence. They bear a close resemblance, except by their circular form and more insulated situation, to the peels, or square towers of three or four stories, which are still found contiguous to ancient mansion-houses, themselves far more ancient, in the northern counties,[z] and seem to have been designed for places of refuge.
In course of time, the barons who owned these castles began to covet a more comfortable dwelling. The keep was either much enlarged, or altogether relinquished as a place of residence except in time of siege; while more convenient apartments were sometimes erected in the tower of entrance, over the great gateway, which led to the inner ballium or court-yard. Thus at Tunbridge Castle, this part of which is referred by Mr. King to the beginning of the thirteenth century, there was a room, twenty-eight feet by sixteen, on each side of the gateway; another above of the same dimensions, with an intermediate room over the entrance; and one large apartment on the second floor occupying the whole space, and intended for state. The windows in this class of castles were still little better than loop-holes on the basement story, but in the upper rooms often large and beautifully ornamented, though always looking inwards to the court. Edward I. introduced a more splendid and convenient style of castles, containing many habitable towers, with communicating apartments. Conway and Carnarvon will be familiar examples. The next innovation was the castle-palace—of which Windsor, if not quite the earliest, is the most magnificent instance. Alnwick, Naworth, Harewood, Spofforth, Kenilworth, and Warwick, were all built upon this scheme during the fourteenth century, but subsequent enlargements have rendered caution necessary to distinguish their original remains. "The odd mixture," says Mr. King, "of convenience and magnificence with cautious designs for protection and defence, and with the inconveniences of the former confined plan of a close fortress, is very striking." The provisions for defence became now, however, little more than nugatory; large arched windows, like those of cathedrals, were introduced into halls, and this change in architecture manifestly bears witness to the cessation of baronial wars and the increasing love of splendour in the reign of Edward III.
To these succeeded the castellated houses of the fifteenth century, such as Herstmonceux in Sussex, Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, and the older part of Knowle in Kent.[a] They resembled fortified castles in their strong gateways, their turrets and battlements, to erect which a royal licence was necessary; but their defensive strength could only have availed against a sudden affray or attempt at forcible dispossession. They were always built round one or two court-yards, the circumference of the first, when they were two, being occupied by the offices and servants' rooms, that of the second by the state-apartments. Regular quadrangular houses, not castellated, were sometimes built during the same age, and under Henry VII. became universal in the superior style of domestic architecture.[] The quadrangular form, as well from security and convenience as from imitation of conventual houses, which were always constructed upon that model, was generally preferred—even where the dwelling-house, as indeed was usual, only took up one side of the enclosure, and the remaining three contained the offices, stables, and farm-buildings, with walls of communication. Several very old parsonages appear to have been built in this manner.[c] It is, however, not very easy to discover any large fragments of houses inhabited by the gentry before the reign, at soonest, of Edward III., or even to trace them by engravings in the older topographical works, not only from the dilapidations of time, but because very few considerable mansions had been erected by that class. A great part of England affords no stone fit for building, and the vast though unfortunately not inexhaustible resources of her oak forests were easily applied to less durable and magnificent structures. A frame of massive timber, independent of walls and resembling the inverted hull of a large ship, formed the skeleton, as it were, of an ancient hall—the principal beams springing from the ground naturally curved, and forming a Gothic arch overhead. The intervals of these were filled up with horizontal planks; but in the earlier buildings, at least in some districts, no part of the walls was of stone.[d] Stone houses are, however, mentioned as belonging to citizens of London, even in the reign of Henry II.;[e] and, though not often perhaps regularly hewn stones, yet those scattered over the soil or dug from flint quarries, bound together with a very strong and durable cement, were employed in the construction of manerial houses, especially in the western counties and other parts where that material is easily procured.[f] Gradually even in timber buildings the intervals of the main beams, which now became perpendicular, not throwing off their curved springers till they reached a considerable height, were occupied by stone walls, or where stone was expensive, by mortar or plaster, intersected by horizontal or diagonal beams, grooved into the principal piers.[g] This mode of building continued for a long time, and is still familiar to our eyes in the older streets of the metropolis and other towns, and in many parts of the country.[h] Early in the fourteenth century the art of building with brick, which had been lost since the Roman dominion, was introduced probably from Flanders. Though several edifices of that age are constructed with this material, it did not come into general use till the reign of Henry VI.[] Many considerable houses as well as public buildings were erected with bricks during his reign and that of Edward IV., chiefly in the eastern counties, where the deficiency of stone was most experienced. Few, if any, brick mansion-houses of the fifteenth century exist, except in a dilapidated state; but Queen's College and Clare Hall at Cambridge, and part of Eton College, are subsisting witnesses to the durability of the material as it was then employed.
Meanness of ordinary mansion-houses.
It is an error to suppose that the English gentry were lodged in stately or even in well-sized houses. Generally speaking, their dwellings were almost as inferior to those of their descendants in capacity as they were in convenience. The usual arrangement consisted of an entrance-passage running through the house, with a hall on one side, a parlour beyond, and one or two chambers above, and on the opposite side, a kitchen, pantry, and other offices.[k] Such was the ordinary manor-house of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as appears not only from the documents and engravings, but as to the latter period, from the buildings themselves, sometimes, though not very frequently, occupied by families of consideration, more often converted into farm-houses or distinct tenements. Larger structures were erected by men of great estates during the reigns of Henry IV. and Edward IV.; but very few can be traced higher; and such has been the effect of time, still more through the advance or decline of families and the progress of architectural improvement, than the natural decay of these buildings, that I should conceive it difficult to name a house in England, still inhabited by a gentleman and not belonging to the order of castles, the principal apartments of which are older than the reign of Henry VII. The instances at least must be extremely few.[m]
France by no means appears to have made a greater progress than our own country in domestic architecture. Except fortified castles, I do not find in the work of a very miscellaneous but apparently diligent writer,[n] any considerable dwellings mentioned before the reign of Charles VII., and very few of so early a date.[o] Jacques Cœur, a famous merchant unjustly persecuted by that prince, had a handsome house at Paris, as well as another at Bourges.[p] It is obvious that the long calamities which France endured before the expulsion of the English must have retarded this eminent branch of national improvement.
Even in Italy, where from the size of her cities and social refinements of her inhabitants, greater elegance and splendour in building were justly to be expected, the domestic architecture of the middle ages did not attain any perfection. In several towns the houses were covered with thatch, and suffered consequently from destructive fires. Costanzo, a Neapolitan historian near the end of the sixteenth century, remarks the change of manners that had occurred since the reign of Joanna II. one hundred and fifty years before. The great families under the queen expended all their wealth on their retainers, and placed their chief pride in bringing them into the field. They were ill lodged, not sumptuously clothed, nor luxurious in their tables. The house of Caracciolo, high steward of that princess, one of the most powerful subjects that ever existed, having fallen into the hands of persons incomparably below his station, had been enlarged by them, as insufficient for their accommodation.[q] If such were the case in the city of Naples so late as the beginning of the fifteenth century, we may guess how mean were the habitations in less polished parts of Europe.
Invention of chimneys and glass windows.
The two most essential improvements in architecture during this period, one of which had been missed by the sagacity of Greece and Rome, were chimneys and glass windows. Nothing apparently can be more simple than the former; yet the wisdom of ancient times had been content to let the smoke escape by an aperture in the centre of the roof; and a discovery, of which Vitruvius had not a glimpse, was made, perhaps in this country, by some forgotten semi-barbarian. About the middle of the fourteenth century the use of chimneys is distinctly mentioned in England and in Italy; but they are found in several of our castles which bear a much older date.[r] This country seems to have lost very early the art of making glass, which was preserved in France, whence artificers were brought into England to furnish the windows in some new churches in the seventh century.[] It is said that in the reign of Henry III. a few ecclesiastical buildings had glazed windows.[t] Suger, however, a century before, had adorned his great work, the abbey of St. Denis, with windows, not only glazed but painted;[] and I presume that other churches of the same class, both in France and England, especially after the lancet-shaped window had yielded to one of ampler dimensions, were generally decorated in a similar manner. Yet glass is said not to have been employed in the domestic architecture of France before the fourteenth century;[x] and its introduction into England was probably by no means earlier. Nor indeed did it come into general use during the period of the middle ages. Glazed windows were considered as moveable furniture, and probably bore a high price. When the earls of Northumberland, as late as the reign of Elizabeth, left Alnwick Castle, the windows were taken out of their frames, and carefully laid by.[y]
Furniture of houses.
But if the domestic buildings of the fifteenth century would not seem very spacious or convenient at present, far less would this luxurious generation be content with their internal accommodations. A gentleman's house containing three or four beds was extraordinarily well provided; few probably had more than two. The walls were commonly bare, without wainscot or even plaster; except that some great houses were furnished with hangings, and that perhaps hardly so soon as the reign of Edward IV. It is unnecessary to add, that neither libraries of books nor pictures could have found a place among furniture. Silver plate was very rare, and hardly used for the table. A few inventories of furniture that still remain exhibit a miserable deficiency.[z] And this was incomparably greater in private gentlemen's houses than among citizens, and especially foreign merchants. We have an inventory of the goods belonging to Contarini, a rich Venetian trader, at his house in St. Botolph's Lane, A.D. 1481. There appear to have been no less than ten beds, and glass windows are especially noticed as moveable furniture. No mention however is made of chairs or looking-glasses.[a] If we compare this account, however trifling in our estimation, with a similar inventory of furniture in Skipton Castle, the great honour of the earls of Cumberland, and among the most splendid mansions of the north, not at the same period, for I have not found any inventory of a nobleman's furniture so ancient, but in 1572, after almost a century of continual improvement, we shall be astonished at the inferior provision of the baronial residence. There were not more than seven or eight beds in this great castle; nor had any of the chambers either chairs, glasses, or carpets.[] It is in this sense, probably, that we must understand Æneas Sylvius, if he meant any thing more than to express a traveller's discontent, when he declares that the kings of Scotland would rejoice to be as well lodged as the second class of citizens at Nuremberg.[c] Few burghers of that town had mansions, I presume, equal to the palaces of Dumferlin or Stirling, but it is not unlikely that they were better furnished.
Farm-houses and cottages.
In the construction of farm-houses and cottages, especially the latter, there have probably been fewer changes; and those it would be more difficult to follow. No building of this class can be supposed to exist of the antiquity to which the present work is confined; and I do not know that we have any document as to the inferior architecture of England, so valuable as one which M. de Paulmy has quoted for that of France, though perhaps more strictly applicable to Italy, an illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century, being a translation of Crescentio's work on agriculture, illustrating the customs, and, among other things, the habitations of the agricultural class. According to Paulmy, there is no other difference between an ancient and a modern farm-house than arises from the introduction of tiled roofs.[d] In the original work of Crescentio, a native of Bologna, who composed this treatise on rural affairs about the year 1300, an Italian farm-house, when built at least according to his plan, appears to have been commodious both in size and arrangement.[e] Cottages in England seem to have generally consisted of a single room without division of stories. Chimneys were unknown in such dwellings till the early part of Elizabeth's reign, when a very rapid and sensible improvement took place in the comforts of our yeomanry and cottagers.[f]
Ecclesiastical architecture.
It must be remembered that I have introduced this disadvantageous representation of civil architecture, as a proof of general poverty and backwardness in the refinements of life. Considered in its higher departments, that art is the principal boast of the middle ages. The common buildings, especially those of a public kind, were constructed with skill and attention to durability. The castellated style displays these qualities in great perfection; the means are well adapted to their objects, and its imposing grandeur, though chiefly resulting no doubt from massiveness and historical association, sometimes indicates a degree of architectural genius in the conception. But the most remarkable works of this art are the religious edifices erected in the twelfth and three following centuries. These structures, uniting sublimity in general composition with the beauties of variety and form, intricacy of parts, skilful or at least fortunate effects of shadow and light, and in some instances with extraordinary mechanical science, are naturally apt to lead those antiquaries who are most conversant with them into too partial estimates of the times wherein they were founded. They certainly are accustomed to behold the fairest side of the picture. It was the favourite and most honourable employment of ecclesiastical wealth, to erect, to enlarge, to repair, to decorate cathedral and conventual churches. An immense capital must have been expended upon these buildings in England between the Conquest and the Reformation. And it is pleasing to observe how the seeds of genius, hidden as it were under the frost of that dreary winter, began to bud in the first sunshine of encouragement. In the darkest period of the middle ages, especially after the Scandinavian incursions into France and England, ecclesiastical architecture, though always far more advanced than any other art, bespoke the rudeness and poverty of the times. It began towards the latter part of the eleventh century, when tranquillity, at least as to former enemies, was restored, and some degree of learning reappeared, to assume a more noble appearance. The Anglo-Norman cathedrals were perhaps as much distinguished above other works of man in their own age, as the more splendid edifices of a later period. The science manifested in them is not, however, very great; and their style, though by no means destitute of lesser beauties, is upon the whole an awkward imitation of Roman architecture, or perhaps more immediately of the Saracenic buildings in Spain and those of the lower Greek empire.[g] But about the middle of the twelfth century, this manner began to give place to what is improperly denominated the Gothic architecture;[h] of which the pointed arch, formed by the segments of two intersecting semicircles of equal radius and described about a common diameter, has generally been deemed the essential characteristic. We are not concerned at present to inquire whether this style originated in France or Germany, Italy or England, since it was certainly almost simultaneous in all these countries;[] nor from what source it was derived—a question of no small difficulty. I would only venture to remark, that whatever may be thought of the origin of the pointed arch, for which there is more than one mode of accounting, we must perceive a very oriental character in the vast profusion of ornament, especially on the exterior surface, which is as distinguishing a mark of Gothic buildings as their arches, and contributes in an eminent degree both to their beauties and to their defects. This indeed is rather applicable to the later than the earlier stage of architecture, and rather to continental than English churches. Amiens is in a far more florid style than Salisbury, though a contemporary structure. The Gothic species of architecture is thought by most to have reached its perfection, considered as an object of taste, by the middle or perhaps the close of the fourteenth century, or at least to have lost something of its excellence by the corresponding part of the next age; an effect of its early and rapid cultivation, since arts appear to have, like individuals, their natural progress and decay. The mechanical execution, however, continued to improve, and is so far beyond the apparent intellectual powers of those times, that some have ascribed the principal ecclesiastical structures to the fraternity of freemasons, depositaries of a concealed and traditionary science. There is probably some ground for this opinion; and the earlier archives of that mysterious association, if they existed, might illustrate the progress of Gothic architecture, and perhaps reveal its origin. The remarkable change into this new style, that was almost contemporaneous in every part of Europe, cannot be explained by any local circumstances, or the capricious taste of a single nation.[k]
Agriculture in some degree progressive.
It would be a pleasing task to trace with satisfactory exactness the slow, and almost perhaps insensible progress of agriculture and internal improvement during the latter period of the middle ages. But no diligence could recover the unrecorded history of a single village; though considerable attention has of late been paid to this interesting subject by those antiquaries, who, though sometimes affecting to despise the lights of modern philosophy, are unconsciously guided by their effulgence. I have already adverted to the wretched condition of agriculture during the prevalence of feudal tenures, as well as before their general establishment.[m] Yet even in the least civilized ages, there were not wanting partial encouragements to cultivation, and the ameliorating principle of human industry struggled against destructive revolutions and barbarous disorder. The devastation of war from the fifth to the eleventh century rendered land the least costly of all gifts, though it must ever be the most truly valuable and permanent. Many of the grants to monasteries, which strike us as enormous, were of districts absolutely wasted, which would probably have been reclaimed by no other means. We owe the agricultural restoration of a great part of Europe to the monks. They chose, for the sake of retirement, secluded regions which they cultivated with the labour of their hands.[n] Several charters are extant, granted to convents, and sometimes to laymen, of lands which they had recovered from a desert condition, after the ravages of the Saracens.[o] Some districts were allotted to a body of Spanish colonists, who emigrated, in the reign of Louis the Debonair, to live under a Christian sovereign.[p] Nor is this the only instance of agricultural colonies. Charlemagne transplanted part of his conquered Saxons into Flanders, a country at that time almost unpeopled; and at a much later period, there was a remarkable reflux from the same country, or rather from Holland to the coasts of the Baltic Sea. In the twelfth century, great numbers of Dutch colonists settled along the whole line between the Ems and the Vistula. They obtained grants of uncultivated land on condition of fixed rents, and were governed by their own laws under magistrates of their own election.[q]
There cannot be a more striking proof of the low condition of English agriculture in the eleventh century, than is exhibited by Domesday Book. Though almost all England had been partially cultivated, and we find nearly the same manors, except in the north, which exist at present, yet the value and extent of cultivated ground are inconceivably small. With every allowance for the inaccuracies and partialities of those by whom that famous survey was completed,[r] we are lost in amazement at the constant recurrence of two or three carucates in demesne, with other lands occupied by ten or a dozen villeins, valued altogether at forty shillings, as the return of a manor, which now would yield a competent income to a gentleman. If Domesday Book can he considered as even approaching to accuracy in respect of these estimates, agriculture must certainly have made a very material progress in the four succeeding centuries. This however is rendered probable by other documents. Ingulfus, abbot of Croyland under the Conqueror, supplies an early and interesting evidence of improvement.[] Richard de Rules, lord of Deeping, he tells us, being fond of agriculture, obtained permission from the abbey to inclose a large portion of marsh for the purpose of separate pasture, excluding the Welland by a strong dike, upon which he erected a town, and rendering those stagnant fens a garden of Eden.[t] In imitation of this spirited cultivator, the inhabitants of Spalding and some neighbouring villages by a common resolution divided their marshes amongst them; when some converting them to tillage, some reserving them for meadow, others leaving them in pasture, they found a rich soil for every purpose. The abbey of Croyland and villages in that neighbourhood followed this example.[] This early instance of parochial inclosure is not to be overlooked in the history of social progress. By the statute of Merton, in the 20th of Henry III., the lord is permitted to approve, that is, to inclose the waste lands of his manor, provided he leave sufficient common of pasture for the freeholders. Higden, a writer who lived about the time of Richard II., says, in reference to the number of hydes and vills of England at the Conquest, that by clearing of woods, and ploughing up wastes, there were many more of each in his age than formerly.[x] And it might be easily presumed, independently of proof, that woods were cleared, marshes drained, and wastes brought into tillage, during the long period that the house of Plantagenet sat on the throne. From manerial surveys indeed and similar instruments, it appears that in some places there was nearly as much ground cultivated in the reign of Edward III. as at the present day. The condition of different counties however was very far from being alike, and in general the northern and western parts of England were the most backward.[y]
The culture of arable land was very imperfect. Fleta remarks, in the reign of Edward I. or II., that unless an acre yielded more than six bushels of corn, the farmer would be a loser, and the land yield no rent.[z] And Sir John Cullum, from very minute accounts, has calculated that nine or ten bushels were a full average crop on an acre of wheat. An amazing excess of tillage accompanied, and partly, I suppose, produced this imperfect cultivation. In Hawsted, for example, under Edward I., there were thirteen or fourteen hundred acres of arable, and only forty-five of meadow ground. A similar disproportion occurs almost invariably in every account we possess.[a] This seems inconsistent with the low price of cattle. But we must recollect, that the common pasture, often the most extensive part of a manor, is not included, at least by any specific measurement, in these surveys. The rent of land differed of course materially; sixpence an acre seems to have been about the average for arable land in the thirteenth century,[] though meadow was at double or treble that sum. But the landlords were naturally solicitous to augment a revenue that became more and more inadequate to their luxuries. They grew attentive to agricultural concerns, and perceived that a high rate of produce, against which their less enlightened ancestors had been used to clamour, would bring much more into their coffers than it took away. The exportation of corn had been absolutely prohibited. But the statute of the 15th Henry VI. c. 2, reciting that "on this account, farmers and others who use husbandry, cannot sell their corn but at a low price, to the great damage of the realm," permits it to be sent any where but to the king's enemies, so long as the quarter of wheat shall not exceed 6s. 8d. in value, or that of barley 3s.
The price of wool was fixed in the thirty-second year of the same reign at a minimum, below which no person was suffered to buy it, though he might give more;[c] a provision neither wise nor equitable, but obviously suggested by the same motive. Whether the rents of land were augmented in any degree through these measures, I have not perceived; their great rise took place in the reign of Henry VIII., or rather afterwards.[d] The usual price of land under Edward IV. seems to have been ten years' purchase.[e]
Its condition in France and Italy.
It may easily be presumed that an English writer can furnish very little information as to the state of agriculture in foreign countries. In such works relating to France as have fallen within my reach, I have found nothing satisfactory, and cannot pretend to determine, whether the natural tendency of mankind to ameliorate their condition had a greater influence in promoting agriculture, or the vices inherent in the actual order of society, and those public misfortunes to which that kingdom was exposed, in retarding it.[f] The state of Italy was far different; the rich Lombard plains, still more fertilized by irrigation, became a garden, and agriculture seems to have reached the excellence which it still retains. The constant warfare indeed of neighbouring cities is not very favourable to industry; and upon this account we might incline to place the greatest territorial improvement of Lombardy at an era rather posterior to that of her republican government; but from this it primarily sprung; and without the subjugation of the feudal aristocracy, and that perpetual demand upon the fertility of the earth which an increasing population of citizens produced, the valley of the Po would not have yielded more to human labour than it had done for several preceding centuries.[g] Though Lombardy was extremely populous in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, she exported large quantities of corn.[h] The very curious treatise of Crescentius exhibits the full details of Italian husbandry about 1300, and might afford an interesting comparison to those who are acquainted with its present state. That state indeed in many parts of Italy displays no symptoms of decline. But whatever mysterious influence of soil or climate has scattered the seeds of death on the western regions of Tuscany, had not manifested itself in the middle ages. Among uninhabitable plains, the traveller is struck by the ruins of innumerable castles and villages, monuments of a time when pestilence was either unfelt, or had at least not forbad the residence of mankind. Volterra, whose deserted walls look down upon that tainted solitude, was once a small but free republic; Siena, round whom, though less depopulated, the malignant influence hovers, was once almost the rival of Florence. So melancholy and apparently irresistible a decline of culture and population through physical causes, as seems to have gradually overspread that portion of Italy, has not perhaps been experienced in any other part of Europe, unless we except Iceland.
Gardening.
The Italians of the fourteenth century seem to have paid some attention to an art, of which, both as related to cultivation and to architecture, our own forefathers were almost entirely ignorant. Crescentius dilates upon horticulture, and gives a pretty long list of herbs both esculent and medicinal.[] His notions about the ornamental department are rather beyond what we should expect, and I do not know that his scheme of a flower-garden could be much amended. His general arrangements, which are minutely detailed with evident fondness for the subject, would of course appear too formal at present; yet less so than those of subsequent times; and though acquainted with what is called the topiary art, that of training or cutting trees into regular figures, he does not seem to run into its extravagance. Regular gardens, according to Paulmy, were not made in France till the sixteenth or even seventeenth century;[k] yet one is said to have existed at the Louvre, of much older construction.[m] England, I believe, had nothing of the ornamental kind, unless it were some trees regularly disposed in the orchard of a monastery. Even the common horticultural art for culinary purposes, though not entirely neglected, since the produce of gardens is sometimes mentioned in ancient deeds, had not been cultivated with much attention.[n] The esculent vegetables now most in use were introduced in the reign of Elizabeth, and some sorts a great deal later.
Changes in value of money.
I should leave this slight survey of economical history still more imperfect, were I to make no observation on the relative values of money. Without something like precision in our notions upon this subject, every statistical inquiry becomes a source of confusion and error. But considerable difficulties attend the discussion. These arise principally from two causes; the inaccuracy or partial representations of historical writers, on whom we are accustomed too implicitly to rely, and the change of manners, which renders a certain command over articles of purchase less adequate to our wants than it was in former ages.
The first of these difficulties is capable of being removed by a circumspect use of authorities. When this part of statistical history began to excite attention, which was hardly perhaps before the publication of Bishop Fleetwood's Chronicon Preciosum, so few authentic documents had been published with respect to prices, that inquirers were glad to have recourse to historians, even when not contemporary, for such facts as they had thought fit to record. But these historians were sometimes too distant from the times concerning which they wrote, and too careless in their general character, to merit much regard; and even when contemporary, were often credulous, remote from the concerns of the world, and, at the best, more apt to register some extraordinary phenomenon of scarcity or cheapness, than the average rate of pecuniary dealings. The one ought, in my opinion, to be absolutely rejected as testimonies, the other to be sparingly and diffidently admitted.[o] For it is no longer necessary to lean upon such uncertain witnesses. During the last century a very laudable industry has been shown by antiquaries in the publication of account-books belonging to private persons, registers of expenses in convents, returns of markets, valuations of goods, tavern-bills, and in short every document, however trifling in itself, by which this important subject can be illustrated. A sufficient number of such authorities, proving the ordinary tenor of prices rather than any remarkable deviations from it, are the true basis of a table, by which all changes in the value of money should be measured. I have little doubt but that such a table might be constructed from the data we possess with tolerable exactness, sufficient at least to supersede one often quoted by political economists, but which appears to be founded upon very superficial and erroneous inquiries.[p]
It is by no means required that I should here offer such a table of values, which, as to every country except England, I have no means of constructing, and which, even as to England, would be subject to many difficulties.[q] But a reader unaccustomed to these investigations ought to have some assistance in comparing the prices of ancient times with those of his own. I will therefore, without attempting to ascend very high, for we have really no sufficient data as to the period immediately subsequent to the Conquest, much less that which preceded, endeavour at a sort of approximation for the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., previously to the first debasement of the coin by the latter in 1301, the ordinary price of a quarter of wheat appears to have been about four shillings, and that of barley and oats in proportion. A sheep was rather sold high at a shilling, and an ox might be reckoned at ten or twelve.[r] The value of cattle is, of course, dependent upon their breed and condition, and we have unluckily no early account of butcher's meat; but we can hardly take a less multiple than about thirty for animal food and eighteen or twenty for corn, in order to bring the prices of the thirteenth century to a level with those of the present day.[] Combining the two, and setting the comparative dearness of cloth against the cheapness of fuel and many other articles, we may perhaps consider any given sum under Henry III. and Edward I. as equivalent in general command over commodities to about twenty-four or twenty-five times their nominal value at present. Under Henry VI. the coin had lost one-third of its weight in silver, which caused a proportional increase of money prices;[t] but, so far as I can perceive, there had been no diminution in the value of that metal. We have not much information as to the fertility of the mines which supplied Europe during the middle ages; but it is probable that the drain of silver towards the East, joined to the ostentatious splendour of courts, might fully absorb the usual produce. By the statute 15 H. VI., c. 2, the price up to which wheat might be exported is fixed at 6s. 8d., a point no doubt above the average; and the private documents of that period, which are sufficiently numerous, lead to a similar result.[] Sixteen will be a proper multiple when we would bring the general value of money in this reign to our present standard.[x] [1816.]
But after ascertaining the proportional values of money at different periods by a comparison of the prices in several of the chief articles of expenditure, which is the only fair process, we shall sometimes be surprised at incidental facts of this class which seem irreducible to any rule. These difficulties arise not so much from the relative scarcity of particular commodities, which it is for the most part easy to explain, as from the change in manners and in the usual mode of living. We have reached in this age so high a pitch of luxury that we can hardly believe or comprehend the frugality of ancient times; and have in general formed mistaken notions as to the habits of expenditure which then prevailed. Accustomed to judge of feudal and chivalrous ages by works of fiction, or by historians who embellished their writings with accounts of occasional festivals and tournaments, and sometimes inattentive enough to transfer the manners of the seventeenth to the fourteenth century, we are not at all aware of the usual simplicity with which the gentry lived under Edward I. or even Henry VI. They drank little wine; they had no foreign luxuries; they rarely or never kept male servants except for husbandry; their horses, as we may guess by the price, were indifferent; they seldom travelled beyond their county. And even their hospitality must have been greatly limited, if the value of manors were really no greater than we find it in many surveys. Twenty-four seems a sufficient multiple when we would raise a sum mentioned by a writer under Edward I. to the same real value expressed in our present money, but an income of 10l. or 20l. was reckoned a competent estate for a gentleman; at least the lord of a single manor would seldom have enjoyed more. A knight who possessed 150l. per annum passed for extremely rich.[y] Yet this was not equal in command over commodities to 4000l. at present. But this income was comparatively free from taxation, and its expenditure lightened by the services of his villeins. Such a person, however, must have been among the most opulent of country gentlemen. Sir John Fortescue speaks of five pounds a year as "a fair living for a yeoman," a class of whom he is not at all inclined to diminish the importance.[z] So, when Sir William Drury, one of the richest men in Suffolk, bequeaths in 1493 fifty marks to each of his daughters, we must not imagine that this was of greater value than four or five hundred pounds at this day, but remark the family pride and want of ready money which induced country gentlemen to leave their younger children in poverty.[a] Or, if we read that the expense of a scholar at the university in 1514 was but five pounds annually, we should err in supposing that he had the liberal accommodation which the present age deems indispensable, but consider how much could be afforded for about sixty pounds, which will be not far from the proportion. And what would a modern lawyer say to the following entry in the churchwarden's accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, for 1476: "Also paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel giving, 3s. 8d., with four-pence for his dinner"?[] Though fifteen times the fee might not seem altogether inadequate at present, five shillings would hardly furnish the table of a barrister, even if the fastidiousness of our manners would admit of his accepting such a dole. But this fastidiousness, which considers certain kinds of remuneration degrading to a man of liberal condition, did not prevail in those simple ages. It would seem rather strange that a young lady should learn needlework and good breeding in a family of superior rank, paying for her board; yet such was the laudable custom of the fifteenth and even sixteenth centuries, as we perceive by the Paston Letters, and even later authorities.[c]
Labourers better paid than at present.
There is one very unpleasing remark which every one who attends to the subject of prices will be induced to make, that the labouring classes, especially those engaged in agriculture, were better provided with the means of subsistence in the reign of Edward III. or of Henry VI. than they are at present. In the fourteenth century Sir John Cullum observes a harvest man had fourpence a day, which enabled him in a week to buy a comb of wheat; but to buy a comb of wheat a man must now (1784) work ten or twelve days.[d] So, under Henry VI., if meat was at a farthing and a half the pound, which I suppose was about the truth, a labourer earning threepence a day, or eighteen pence in the week, could buy a bushel of wheat at six shillings the quarter, and twenty-four pounds of meat for his family. A labourer at present, earning twelve shillings a week, can only buy half a bushel of wheat at eighty shillings the quarter, and twelve pounds of meat at seven-pence.[e] Several acts of parliament regulate the wages that might be paid to labourers of different kinds. Thus the statute of labourers in 1350 fixed the wages of reapers during harvest at threepence a-day without diet, equal to five shillings at present; that of 23 H. VI., c. 12, in 1444, fixed the reapers' wages at five-pence and those of common workmen in building at 3-1/2d., equal to 6s. 8d. and 4s. 8d.; that of 11 H. VII., c. 22, in 1496, leaves the wages of labourers in harvest as before, but rather increases those of ordinary workmen. The yearly wages of a chief hind or shepherd by the act of 1444 were 1l. 4s., equivalent to about 20l., those of a common servant in husbandry 18s. 4d., with meat and drink; they were somewhat augmented by the statute of 1496.[f] Yet, although these wages are regulated as a maximum by acts of parliament, which may naturally be supposed to have had a view rather towards diminishing than enhancing the current rate, I am not fully convinced that they were not rather beyond it; private accounts at least do not always correspond with these statutable prices.[g] And it is necessary to remember that the uncertainty of employment, natural to so imperfect a state of husbandry, must have diminished the labourers' means of subsistence. Extreme dearth, not more owing to adverse seasons than to improvident consumption, was frequently endured.[h] But after every allowance of this kind I should find it difficult to resist the conclusion that, however the labourer has derived benefit from the cheapness of manufactured commodities and from many inventions of common utility, he is much inferior in ability to support a family to his ancestors three or four centuries ago. I know not why some have supposed that meat was a luxury seldom obtained by the labourer. Doubtless he could not have procured as much as he pleased. But, from the greater cheapness of cattle, as compared with corn, it seems to follow that a more considerable portion of his ordinary diet consisted of animal food than at present. It was remarked by Sir John Fortescue that the English lived far more upon animal diet than their rivals the French; and it was natural to ascribe their superior strength and courage to this cause.[] I should feel much satisfaction in being convinced that no deterioration in the state of the labouring classes has really taken place; yet it cannot, I think, appear extraordinary to those who reflect, that the whole population of England in the year 1377 did not much exceed 2,300,000 souls, about one-fifth of the results upon the last enumeration, an increase with which that of the fruits of the earth cannot be supposed to have kept an even pace.[k]
Improvement in the moral character of Europe.
The second head to which I referred, the improvements of European society in the latter period of the middle ages, comprehends several changes, not always connected, with each other, which contributed to inspire a more elevated tone of moral sentiment, or at least to restrain the commission of crimes. But the general effect of these upon the human character is neither so distinctly to be traced, nor can it be arranged with so much attention to chronology, as the progress of commercial wealth or of the arts that depend upon it. We cannot from any past experience indulge the pleasing vision of a constant and parallel relation between the moral and intellectual energies, the virtues and the civilization of mankind. Nor is any problem connected with philosophical history more difficult than to compare the relative characters of different generations, especially if we include a large geographical surface in our estimate. Refinement has its evils as well as barbarism; the virtues that elevate a nation in one century pass in the next to a different region; vice changes its form without losing its essence; the marked features of individual character stand out in relief from the surface of history, and mislead our judgment as to the general course of manners; while political revolutions and a bad constitution of government may always undermine or subvert the improvements to which more favourable circumstances have contributed. In comparing, therefore, the fifteenth with the twelfth century, no one would deny the vast increase of navigation and manufactures, the superior refinement of manners, the greater diffusion of literature. But should I assert that man had raised himself in the latter period above the moral degradation of a more barbarous age, I might be met by the question whether history bears witness to any greater excesses of rapine and inhumanity than in the wars of France and England under Charles VII., or whether the rough patriotism and fervid passions of the Lombards in the twelfth century were not better than the systematic treachery of their servile descendants three hundred years afterwards. The proposition must therefore be greatly limited; yet we can scarcely hesitate to admit, upon a comprehensive view, that there were several changes during the last four of the middle ages, which must naturally have tended to produce, and some of which did unequivocally produce, a meliorating effect, within the sphere of their operation, upon the moral character of society.
Elevation of the lower ranks.
The first and perhaps the most important of these, was the gradual elevation of those whom unjust systems of polity had long depressed; of the people itself, as opposed to the small number of rich and noble, by the abolition or desuetude of domestic and predial servitude, and by the privileges extended to corporate towns. The condition of slavery is indeed perfectly consistent with the observance of moral obligations; yet reason and experience will justify the sentence of Homer, that he who loses his liberty loses half his virtue. Those who have acquired, or may hope to acquire, property of their own, are most likely to respect that of others; those whom law protects as a parent are most willing to yield her a filial obedience; those who have much to gain by the good-will of their fellow citizens are most interested in the preservation of an honourable character. I have been led, in different parts of the present work, to consider these great revolutions in the order of society under other relations than that of their moral efficacy; and it will therefore be unnecessary to dwell upon them; especially as this efficacy is indeterminate, though I think unquestionable, and rather to be inferred from general reflections than capable of much illustration by specific facts.
Police.
We may reckon in the next place among the causes of moral improvement, a more regular administration of justice according to fixed laws, and a more effectual police. Whether the courts of judicature were guided by the feudal customs or the Roman law, it was necessary for them to resolve litigated questions with precision and uniformity. Hence a more distinct theory of justice and good faith was gradually apprehended; and the moral sentiments of mankind were corrected, as on such subjects they often require to be, by clearer and better grounded inferences of reasoning. Again, though it cannot be said that lawless rapine was perfectly restrained even at the end of the fifteenth century, a sensible amendment had been every where experienced. Private warfare, the licensed robbery of feudal manners, had been subjected to so many mortifications by the kings of France, and especially by St. Louis, that it can hardly be traced beyond the fourteenth century. In Germany and Spain it lasted longer; but the various associations for maintaining tranquillity in the former country had considerably diminished its violence before the great national measure of public peace adopted under Maximilian.[m] Acts of outrage committed by powerful men became less frequent as the executive government acquired more strength to chastise them. We read that St. Louis, the best of French kings, imposed a fine upon the lord of Vernon for permitting a merchant to be robbed in his territory between sunrise and sunset. For by the customary law, though in general ill observed, the lord was bound to keep the roads free from depredators in the day-time, in consideration of the toll he received from passengers.[n] The same prince was with difficulty prevented from passing a capital sentence on Enguerrand de Coucy, a baron of France, for a murder.[o] Charles the Fair actually put to death a nobleman of Languedoc for a series of robberies, notwithstanding the intercession of the provincial nobility.[p] The towns established a police of their own for internal security, and rendered themselves formidable to neighbouring plunderers. Finally, though not before the reign of Louis XI., an armed force was established for the preservation of police.[q] Various means were adopted in England to prevent robberies, which indeed were not so frequently perpetrated as they were on the continent, by men of high condition. None of these perhaps had so much efficacy as the frequent sessions of judges under commissions of gaol delivery. But the spirit of this country has never brooked that coercive police which cannot exist without breaking in upon personal liberty by irksome regulations, and discretionary exercise of power; the sure instrument of tyranny, which renders civil privileges at once nugatory and insecure, and by which we should dearly purchase some real benefits connected with its slavish discipline.
Religious sects.
I have some difficulty in adverting to another source of moral improvement during this period, the growth of religious opinions adverse to those of the established church, both on account of its great obscurity, and because many of these heresies were mixed up with an excessive fanaticism. But they fixed themselves so deeply in the hearts of the inferior and more numerous classes, they bore, generally speaking, so immediate a relation to the state of manners, and they illustrate so much that more visible and eminent revolution which ultimately rose out of them in the sixteenth century, that I must reckon these among the most interesting phenomena in the progress of European society.
Many ages elapsed, during which no remarkable instance occurs of a popular deviation from the prescribed line of belief; and pious Catholics console themselves by reflecting that their forefathers, in those times of ignorance, slept at least the sleep of orthodoxy, and that their darkness was interrupted by no false lights of human reasoning.[r] But from the twelfth century this can no longer be their boast. An inundation of heresy broke in that age upon the church, which no persecution was able thoroughly to repress, till it finally overspread half the surface of Europe. Of this religious innovation we must seek the commencement in a different part of the globe. The Manicheans afford an eminent example of that durable attachment to a traditional creed, which so many ancient sects, especially in the East, have cherished through the vicissitudes of ages, in spite of persecution and contempt. Their plausible and widely extended system had been in early times connected with the name of Christianity, however incompatible with its doctrines and its history. After a pretty long obscurity, the Manichean theory revived with some modification in the western parts of Armenia, and was propagated in the eighth and ninth centuries by a sect denominated Paulicians. Their tenets are not to be collected with absolute certainty from the mouths of their adversaries, and no apology of their own survives. There seems however to be sufficient evidence that the Paulicians, though professing to acknowledge and even to study the apostolical writings, ascribed the creation of the world to an evil deity, whom they supposed also to be the author of the Jewish law, and consequently rejected all the Old Testament. Believing, with the ancient Gnostics, that our Saviour was clothed on earth with an impassive celestial body, they denied the reality of his death and resurrection.[] These errors exposed them to a long and cruel persecution, during which a colony of exiles was planted by one of the Greek emperors in Bulgaria.[t] From this settlement they silently promulgated their Manichean creed over the western regions of Christendom. A large part of the commerce of those countries with Constantinople was carried on for several centuries by the channel of the Danube. This opened an immediate intercourse with the Paulicians, who may be traced up that river through Hungary and Bavaria, or sometimes taking the route of Lombardy into Switzerland and France.[] In the last country, and especially in its southern and eastern provinces, they became conspicuous under a variety of names; such as Catharists, Picards, Paterins, but above all, Albigenses. It is beyond a doubt that many of these sectaries owed their origin to the Paulicians; the appellation of Bulgarians was distinctively bestowed upon them; and, according to some writers, they acknowledged a primate or patriarch resident in that country.[x] The tenets ascribed to them by all contemporary authorities coincide so remarkably with those held by the Paulicians, and in earlier times by the Manicheans, that I do not see how we can reasonably deny what is confirmed by separate and uncontradicted testimonies, and contains no intrinsic want of probability.[y]
Waldenses.
But though, the derivation of these heretics called Albigenses from Bulgaria is sufficiently proved, it is by no means to be concluded that all who incurred the same imputation either derived their faith from the same country, or had adopted the Manichean theory of the Paulicians. From the very invectives of their enemies, and the acts of the Inquisition, it is manifest that almost every shade of heterodoxy was found among these dissidents, till it vanished in a simple protestation against the wealth and tyranny of the clergy. Those who were absolutely free from any taint of Manicheism are properly called Waldenses; a name perpetually confounded in later times with that of Albigenses, but distinguishing a sect probably of separate origin, and at least of different tenets. These, according to the majority of writers, took their appellation from Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, the parent, about the year 1160, of a congregation of seceders from the church, who spread very rapidly over France and Germany.[z] According to others, the original Waldenses were a race of uncorrupted shepherds, who in the valleys of the Alps had shaken off, or perhaps never learned, the system of superstition on which the Catholic church depended for its ascendency. I am not certain whether their existence can be distinctly traced beyond the preaching of Waldo, but it is well known that the proper seat of the Waldenses or Vaudois has long continued to be in certain valleys of Piedmont. These pious and innocent sectaries, of whom the very monkish historians speak well, appear to have nearly resembled the modern Moravians. They had ministers of their own appointment, and denied the lawfulness of oaths and of capital punishment. In other respects their opinions probably were not far removed from those usually called Protestant. A simplicity of dress, and especially the use of wooden sandals, was affected by this people.[a]
I have already had occasion to relate the severe persecution which nearly exterminated the Albigenses of Languedoc at the close of the twelfth century, and involved the counts of Toulouse in their ruin. The Catharists, a fraternity of the same Paulician origin, more dispersed than the Albigenses, had previously sustained a similar trial. Their belief was certainly a compound of strange errors with truth; but it was attended by qualities of a far superior lustre to orthodoxy, by a sincerity, a piety, and a self-devotion that almost purified the age in which they lived.[] It is always important to perceive that these high moral excellences have no necessary connexion with speculative truths; and upon this account I have been more disposed to state explicitly the real Manicheism of the Albigenses; especially as Protestant writers, considering all the enemies of Rome as their friends, have been apt to place the opinions of these sectaries in a very false light. In the course of time, undoubtedly, the system of their Paulician teachers would have yielded, if the inquisitors had admitted the experiment, to a more accurate study of the Scriptures, and to the knowledge which they would have imbibed from the church itself. And, in fact, we find that the peculiar tenets of Manicheism died away after the middle of the thirteenth century, although a spirit of dissent from the established creed broke out in abundant instances during the two subsequent ages.
We are in general deprived of explicit testimonies in tracing the revolutions of popular opinion. Much must therefore be left to conjecture; but I am inclined to attribute a very extensive effect to the preaching of these heretics. They appear in various countries nearly during the same period, in Spain, Lombardy, Germany, Flanders, and England, as well as France. Thirty unhappy persons, convicted of denying the sacraments, are said to have perished at Oxford by cold and famine in the reign of Henry II. In every country the new sects appear to have spread chiefly among the lower people, which, while it accounts for the imperfect notice of historians, indicates a more substantial influence upon the moral condition of society than the conversion of a few nobles or ecclesiastics.[c]
But even where men did not absolutely enlist under the banners of any new sect, they were stimulated by the temper of their age to a more zealous and independent discussion of their religious system. A curious illustration of this is furnished by one of the letters of Innocent III. He had been informed by the bishop of Metz, as he states to the clergy of the diocese, that no small multitude of laymen and women, having procured a translation of the gospels, epistles of St. Paul, the psalter, Job, and other books of Scripture, to be made for them into French, meet in secret conventicles to hear them read, and preach to each other, avoiding the company of those who do not join in their devotion, and having been reprimanded for this by some of their parish priests, have withstood them, alleging reasons from the Scriptures, why they should not be so forbidden. Some of them too deride the ignorance of their ministers, and maintain that their own books teach them more than they can learn from the pulpit, and that they can express it better. Although the desire of reading the Scriptures, Innocent proceeds, is rather praiseworthy than reprehensible, yet they are to be blamed for frequenting secret assemblies, for usurping the office of preaching, deriding their own ministers, and scorning the company of such as do not concur in their novelties. He presses the bishop and chapter to discover the author of this translation, which could not have been made without a knowledge of letters, and what were his intentions, and what degree of orthodoxy and respect for the Holy See those who used it possessed. This letter of Innocent III., however, considering the nature of the man, is sufficiently temperate and conciliatory. It seems not to have answered its end; for in another letter he complains that some members of this little association continued refractory and refused to obey either the bishop or the pope.[d]
In the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Vulgate had ceased to be generally intelligible, there is no reason to suspect any intention in the church to deprive the laity of the Scriptures. Translations were freely made into the vernacular languages, and perhaps read in churches, although the acts of saints were generally deemed more instructive. Louis the Debonair is said to have caused a German version of the New Testament to be made. Otfrid, in the same century, rendered the gospels, or rather abridged them, into German verse. This work is still extant, and is in several respects an object of curiosity.[e] In the eleventh or twelfth century we find translations of the Psalms, Job, Kings, and the Maccabees into French.[f] But after the diffusion of heretical opinions, or, what was much the same thing, of free inquiry, it became expedient to secure the orthodox faith from lawless interpretation. Accordingly, the council of Toulouse in 1229 prohibited the laity from possessing the Scriptures; and this precaution was frequently repeated upon subsequent occasions.[g]
The ecclesiastical history of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries teems with new sectaries and schismatics, various in their aberrations of opinion, but all concurring in detestation of the established church.[h] They endured severe persecutions with a sincerity and firmness which in any cause ought to command respect. But in general we find an extravagant fanaticism among them; and I do not know how to look for any amelioration of society from the Franciscan seceders, who quibbled about the property of things consumed by use, or from the mystical visionaries of different appellations, whose moral practice was sometimes more than equivocal. Those who feel any curiosity about such subjects, which are by no means unimportant, as they illustrate the history of the human mind, will find them treated very fully by Mosheim. But the original sources of information are not always accessible in this country, and the research would perhaps be more fatiguing than profitable.
Lollards of England.
I shall, for an opposite reason, pass lightly over the great revolution in religious opinion wrought in England by Wicliffe, which will generally be familiar to the reader from our common historians. Nor am I concerned to treat of theological inquiries, or to write a history of the church. Considered in its effects upon manners, the sole point which these pages have in view, the preaching of this new sect certainly produced an extensive reformation. But their virtues were by no means free from some unsocial qualities, in which, as well as in their superior attributes, the Lollards bear a very close resemblance to the Puritans of Elizabeth's reign; a moroseness that proscribed all cheerful amusements, an uncharitable malignity that made no distinction in condemning the established clergy, and a narrow prejudice that applied the rules of the Jewish law to modern institutions.[] Some of their principles were far more dangerous to the good order of society, and cannot justly be ascribed to the Puritans, though they grew afterwards out of the same soil. Such was the notion, which is imputed also to the Albigenses, that civil magistrates lose their right to govern by committing sin, or, as it was quaintly expressed in the seventeenth century, that dominion is founded in grace. These extravagances, however, do not belong to the learned and politic Wicliffe, however they might be adopted by some of his enthusiastic disciples.[k] Fostered by the general ill-will towards the church, his principles made vast progress in England, and, unlike those of earlier sectaries, were embraced by men of rank and civil influence. Notwithstanding the check they sustained by the sanguinary law of Henry IV., it is highly probable that multitudes secretly cherished them down to the era of the Reformation.
Hussites of Bohemia.
From England the spirit of religious innovation was propagated into Bohemia; for though John Huss was very far from embracing all the doctrinal system of Wicliffe, it is manifest that his zeal had been quickened by the writings of that reformer.[m] Inferior to the Englishman in ability, but exciting greater attention by his constancy and sufferings, as well as by the memorable war which his ashes kindled, the Bohemian martyr was even more eminently the precursor of the Reformation. But still regarding these dissensions merely in a temporal light, I cannot assign any beneficial effect to the schism of the Hussites, at least in its immediate results, and in the country where it appeared. Though some degree of sympathy with their cause is inspired by resentment at the ill faith of their adversaries, and by the associations of civil and religious liberty, we cannot estimate the Taborites and other sectaries of that description but as ferocious and desperate fanatics.[n] Perhaps beyond the confines of Bohemia more substantial good may have been produced by the influence of its reformation, and a better tone of morals inspired into Germany. But I must again repeat that upon this obscure and ambiguous subject I assert nothing definitely, and little with confidence. The tendencies of religious dissent in the four ages before the Reformation appear to have generally conduced towards the moral improvement of mankind; and facts of this nature occupy a far greater space in a philosophical view of society during that period, than we might at first imagine; but every one who is disposed to prosecute this inquiry will assign their character according to the result of his own investigations.
Institution of chivalry.
But the best school of moral discipline which the middle ages afforded was the institution of chivalry. There is something perhaps to allow for the partiality of modern writers upon this interesting subject; yet our most sceptical criticism must assign a decisive influence to this great source of human improvement. The more deeply it is considered, the more we shall become sensible of its importance.
There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits which have from time to time moved over the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honour. It was the principal business of chivalry to animate and cherish the last of these three. And whatever high magnanimous energy the love of liberty or religious zeal has ever imparted was equalled by the exquisite sense of honour which this institution preserved.
Its origin.
It appears probable that the custom of receiving arms at the age of manhood with some solemnity was of immemorial antiquity among the nations that overthrew the Roman empire. For it is mentioned by Tacitus to have prevailed among their German ancestors; and his expressions might have been used with no great variation to describe the actual ceremonies of knighthood.[o] There was even in that remote age a sort of public trial as to the fitness of the candidate, which, though perhaps confined to his bodily strength and activity, might be the germ of that refined investigation which was thought necessary in the perfect stage of chivalry. Proofs, though rare and incidental, might be adduced to show that in the time of Charlemagne, and even earlier, the sons of monarchs at least did not assume manly arms without a regular investiture. And in the eleventh century it is evident that this was a general practice.[p]
This ceremony, however, would perhaps of itself have done little towards forming that intrinsic principle which characterized the genuine chivalry. But in the reign of Charlemagne we find a military distinction that appears, in fact as well as in name, to have given birth to that institution. Certain feudal tenants, and I suppose also alodial proprietors, were bound to serve on horseback, equipped with the coat of mail. These were called Caballarii, from which the word chevaliers is an obvious corruption.[q] But he who fought on horseback, and had been invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner, wanted nothing more to render him a knight. Chivalry therefore may, in a general sense, be referred to the age of Charlemagne. We may, however, go further, and observe that these distinctive advantages above ordinary combatants were probably the sources of that remarkable valour and that keen thirst for glory, which became the essential attributes of a knightly character. For confidence in our skill and strength is the usual foundation of courage; it is by feeling ourselves able to surmount common dangers, that we become adventurous enough to encounter those of a more extraordinary nature, and to which more glory is attached. The reputation of superior personal prowess, so difficult to be attained in the course of modern warfare, and so liable to erroneous representations, was always within the reach of the stoutest knight, and was founded on claims which could be measured with much accuracy. Such is the subordination and mutual dependence in a modern army, that every man must be content to divide his glory with his comrades, his general, or his soldiers. But the soul of chivalry was individual honour, coveted in so entire and absolute a perfection that it must not be shared with an army or a nation. Most of the virtues it inspired were what we may call independent, as opposed to those which are founded upon social relations. The knights-errant of romance perform their best exploits from the love of renown, or from a sort of abstract sense of justice, rather than from any solicitude to promote the happiness of mankind. If these springs of action are less generally beneficial, they are, however, more connected with elevation of character than the systematical prudence of men accustomed to social life. This solitary and independent spirit of chivalry, dwelling, as it were, upon a rock, and disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal dignity, without any calculation of their consequences, is not unlike what we sometimes read of Arabian chiefs or the North American Indians.[r] These nations, so widely remote from each other, seem to partake of that moral energy, which, among European nations far remote from both of them, was excited by the spirit of chivalry. But the most beautiful picture that was ever portrayed of this character is the Achilles of Homer, the representative of chivalry in its most general form, with all its sincerity and unyielding rectitude, all its courtesies and munificence. Calmly indifferent to the cause in which he is engaged, and contemplating with a serious and unshaken look the premature death that awaits him, his heart only beats for glory and friendship. To this sublime character, bating that imaginary completion by which the creations of the poet, like those of the sculptor, transcend all single works of nature, there were probably many parallels in the ages of chivalry; especially before a set education and the refinements of society had altered a little the natural unadulterated warrior of a ruder period. One illustrious example from this earlier age is the Cid Ruy Diaz, whose history has fortunately been preserved much at length in several chronicles of ancient date and in one valuable poem; and though I will not say that the Spanish hero is altogether a counterpart of Achilles in gracefulness and urbanity, yet was he inferior to none that ever lived in frankness, honour, and magnanimity.[]
Its connexion with feudal service.
This connexion broken.
In the first state of chivalry, it was closely connected with the military service of fiefs. The Caballarii in the Capitularies, the Milites of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were landholders who followed their lord or sovereign into the field. A certain value of land was termed in England a knight's fee, or in Normandy feudum loricæ, fief de haubert, from the coat of mail which it entitled and required the tenant to wear; a military tenure was said to be by service in chivalry. To serve as knights, mounted and equipped, was the common duty of vassals; it implied no personal merit, it gave of itself a claim to no civil privileges. But this knight-service founded upon a feudal obligation is to be carefully distinguished from that superior chivalry, in which all was independent and voluntary. The latter, in fact, could hardly flourish in its full perfection till the military service of feudal tenure began to decline; namely, in the thirteenth century. The origin of this personal chivalry I should incline to refer to the ancient usage of voluntary commendation, which I have mentioned in a former chapter. Men commended themselves, that is, did homage and professed attachment to a prince or lord; generally indeed for protection or the hope of reward, but sometimes probably for the sake of distinguishing themselves in his quarrels. When they received pay, which must have been the usual case, they were literally his soldiers, or stipendiary troops. Those who could afford to exert their valour without recompense were like the knights of whom we read in romance, who served a foreign master through love, or thirst of glory, or gratitude. The extreme poverty of the lower nobility, arising from the subdivision of fiefs, and the politic generosity of rich lords, made this connexion as strong as that of territorial dependence. A younger brother, leaving the paternal estate, in which he took a slender share, might look to wealth and dignity in the service of a powerful count. Knighthood, which he could not claim as his legal right, became the object of his chief ambition. It raised him in the scale of society, equalling him in dress, in arms, and in title, to the rich landholders. As it was due to his merit, it did much more than equal him to those who had no pretensions but from wealth; and the territorial knights became by degrees ashamed of assuming the title till they could challenge it by real desert.
Effect of the crusades on chivalry.
This class of noble and gallant cavaliers serving commonly for pay, but on the most honourable footing, became far more numerous through the crusades; a great epoch in the history of European society. In these wars, as all feudal service was out of the question, it was necessary for the richer barons to take into their pay as many knights as they could afford to maintain; speculating, so far as such motives operated, on an influence with the leaders of the expedition, and on a share of plunder, proportioned to the number of their followers. During the period of the crusades, we find the institution of chivalry acquire its full vigour as an order of personal nobility; and its original connexion with feudal tenure, if not altogether effaced, became in a great measure forgotten in the splendour and dignity of the new form which it wore.
Chivalry connected with religion.
The crusaders, however, changed in more than one respect the character of chivalry. Before that epoch it appears to have had no particular reference to religion. Ingulfus indeed tells us that the Anglo-Saxons preceded the ceremony of investiture by a confession of their sins, and other pious rites, and they received the order at the hands of a priest, instead of a knight. But this was derided by the Normans as effeminacy, and seems to have proceeded from the extreme devotion of the English before the Conquest.[t] We can hardly perceive indeed why the assumption of arms to be used in butchering mankind should be treated as a religious ceremony. The clergy, to do them justice, constantly opposed the private wars in which the courage of those ages wasted itself; and all bloodshed was subject in strictness to a canonical penance. But the purposes for which men bore arms in a crusade so sanctified their use, that chivalry acquired the character as much of a religious as a military institution. For many centuries, the recovery of the Holy Land was constantly at the heart of a brave and superstitious nobility; and every knight was supposed at his creation to pledge himself, as occasion should arise, to that cause. Meanwhile, the defence of God's law against infidels was his primary and standing duty. A knight, whenever present at mass, held the point of his sword before him while the gospel was read, to signify his readiness to support it. Writers of the middle ages compare the knightly to the priestly character in an elaborate parallel, and the investiture of the one was supposed analogous to the ordination of the other. The ceremonies upon this occasion were almost wholly religious. The candidate passed nights in prayer among priests in a church; he received the sacraments; he entered into a bath, and was clad with a white robe, in allusion to the presumed purification of his life; his sword was solemnly blessed; every thing, in short, was contrived to identify his new condition with the defence of religion, or at least of the church.[]
And with gallantry.
To this strong tincture of religion which entered into the composition of chivalry from the twelfth century, was added another ingredient equally distinguishing. A great respect for the female sex had always been a remarkable characteristic of the Northern nations. The German women were high-spirited and virtuous; qualities which might be causes or consequences of the veneration with which they were regarded. I am not sure that we could trace very minutely the condition of women for the period between the subversion of the Roman empire and the first crusade; but apparently man did not grossly abuse his superiority; and in point of civil rights, and even as to the inheritance of property, the two sexes were placed perhaps as nearly on a level as the nature of such warlike societies would admit. There seems, however, to have been more roughness in the social intercourse between the sexes than we find in later periods. The spirit of gallantry which became so animating a principle of chivalry, must be ascribed to the progressive refinement of society during the twelfth and two succeeding centuries. In a rude state of manners, as among the lower people in all ages, woman has not full scope to display those fascinating graces, by which nature has designed to counterbalance the strength and energy of mankind. Even where those jealous customs that degrade alike the two sexes have not prevailed, her lot is domestic seclusion; nor is she fit to share in the boisterous pastimes of drunken merriment to which the intercourse of an unpolished people is confined. But as a taste for the more elegant enjoyments of wealth arises, a taste which it is always her policy and her delight to nourish, she obtains an ascendency at first in the lighter hour, and from thence in the serious occupations of life. She chases, or brings into subjection, the god of wine, a victory which might seem more ignoble were it less difficult, and calls in the aid of divinities more propitious to her ambition. The love of becoming ornament is not perhaps to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman has received from nature to give effect to those charms that are her defence; and when commerce began to minister more effectually to the wants of luxury, the rich furs of the North, the gay silks of Asia, the wrought gold of domestic manufacture, illumined the halls of chivalry, and cast, as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow. Courtesy had always been the proper attribute of knighthood; protection of the weak its legitimate duty; but these were heightened to a pitch of enthusiasm when woman became their object. There was little jealousy shown in the treatment of that sex, at least in France, the fountain of chivalry; they were present at festivals, at tournaments, and sat promiscuously in the halls of their castle. The romance of Perceforest (and romances have always been deemed good witnesses as to manners) tells of a feast where eight hundred knights had each of them a lady eating off his plate.[x] For to eat off the same plate was an usual mark of gallantry or friendship.
Next therefore, or even equal to devotion, stood gallantry among the principles of knighthood. But all comparison between the two was saved by blending them together. The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty. He who was faithful and true to his mistress was held sure of salvation in the theology of castles though not of cloisters.[y] Froissart announces that he had undertaken a collection of amorous poetry with the help of God and of love; and Boccace returns thanks to each for their assistance in the Decameron. The laws sometimes united in this general homage to the fair. "We will," says James II. of Aragon, "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company with a lady, pass safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of murder."[z] Louis II., duke of Bourbon, instituting the order of the Golden Shield, enjoins his knights to honour above all the ladies, and not to permit any one to slander them, "because from them after God comes all the honour that men can acquire."[a]
The gallantry of those ages, which was very often adulterous, had certainly no right to profane the name of religion; but its union with valour was at least more natural, and became so intimate, that the same word has served to express both qualities. In the French and English wars especially, the knights of each country brought to that serious conflict the spirit of romantic attachment which had been cherished in the hours of peace. They fought at Poitiers or Verneuil as they had fought at tournaments, bearing over their armour scarves and devices as the livery of their mistresses, and asserting the paramount beauty of her they served in vaunting challenges towards the enemy. Thus in the middle of a keen skirmish at Cherbourg, the squadrons remained motionless, while one knight challenged to a single combat the most amorous of the adversaries. Such a defiance was soon accepted, and the battle only recommenced when one of the champions had lost his life for his love.[] In the first campaign of Edward's war some young English knights wore a covering over one eye, vowing, for the sake of their ladies, never to see with both till they should have signalized their prowess in the field.[c] These extravagances of chivalry are so common that they form part of its general character, and prove how far a course of action which depends upon the impulses of sentiment may come to deviate from common sense.
It cannot be presumed that this enthusiastic veneration, this devotedness in life and death, were wasted upon ungrateful natures. The goddesses of that idolatry knew too well the value of their worshippers. There has seldom been such adamant about the female heart, as can resist the highest renown for valour and courtesy, united with the steadiest fidelity. "He loved," says Froissart of Eustace d'Auberthicourt, "and afterwards married lady Isabel, daughter of the count of Juliers. This lady too loved lord Eustace for the great exploits in arms which she heard told of him, and she sent him horses and loving letters, which made the said lord Eustace more bold than before, and he wrought such feats of chivalry, that all in his company were gainers."[d] It were to be wished that the sympathy of love and valour had always been as honourable. But the morals of chivalry, we cannot deny, were not pure. In the amusing fictions which seem to have been the only popular reading of the middle ages, there reigns a licentious spirit, not of that slighter kind which is usual in such compositions, but indicating a general dissoluteness in the intercourse of the sexes. This has often been noticed of Boccaccio and the early Italian novelists; but it equally characterized the tales and romances of France, whether metrical or in prose, and all the poetry of the Troubadours.[e] The violation of marriage vows passes in them for an incontestable privilege of the brave and the fair; and an accomplished knight seems to have enjoyed as undoubted prerogatives, by general consent of opinion, as were claimed by the brilliant courtiers of Louis XV.
Virtues deemed essential to chivalry.
But neither that emulous valour which chivalry excited, nor the religion and gallantry which were its animating principles, alloyed as the latter were by the corruption of those ages, could have rendered its institution materially conducive to the moral improvement of society. There were, however, excellences of a very high class which it equally encouraged. In the books professedly written to lay down the duties of knighthood, they appear to spread over the whole compass of human obligations. But these, like other books of morality, strain their schemes of perfection far beyond the actual practice of mankind. A juster estimate of chivalrous manners is to be deduced from romances. Yet in these, as in all similar fictions, there must be a few ideal touches beyond the simple truth of character; and the picture can only be interesting when it ceases to present images of mediocrity or striking imperfection. But they referred their models of fictitious heroism to the existing standard of moral approbation; a rule, which, if it generally falls short of what reason and religion prescribe, is always beyond the average tenor of human conduct. From these and from history itself we may infer the tendency of chivalry to elevate and purify the moral feelings. Three virtues may particularly be noticed as essential in the estimation of mankind to the character of a knight; loyalty, courtesy, and munificence.
Loyalty.
The first of these in its original sense may be defined, fidelity to engagements; whether actual promises, or such tacit obligations as bound a vassal to his lord and a subject to his prince. It was applied also, and in the utmost strictness, to the fidelity of a lover towards the lady he served. Breach of faith, and especially of an express promise, was held a disgrace that no valour could redeem. False, perjured, disloyal, recreant, were the epithets which he must be compelled to endure who had swerved from a plighted engagement even towards an enemy. This is one of the most striking changes produced by chivalry. Treachery, the usual vice of savage as well as corrupt nations, became infamous during the vigour of that discipline. As personal rather than national feelings actuated its heroes, they never felt that hatred, much less that fear of their enemies, which blind men to the heinousness of ill faith. In the wars of Edward III., originating in no real animosity, the spirit of honourable as well as courteous behaviour towards the foe seems to have arrived at its highest point. Though avarice may have been the primary motive of ransoming prisoners instead of putting them to death, their permission to return home on the word of honour in order to procure the stipulated sum—an indulgence never refused—could only be founded on experienced confidence in the principles of chivalry.[f]
Courtesy.
Liberality.
A knight was unfit to remain a member of the order if he violated his faith; he was ill acquainted with its duties if he proved wanting in courtesy. This word expressed the most highly refined good breeding, founded less upon a knowledge of ceremonious politeness, though this was not to be omitted, than on the spontaneous modesty, self-denial, and respect for others, which ought to spring from his heart. Besides the grace which this beautiful virtue threw over the habits of social life, it softened down the natural roughness of war, and gradually introduced that indulgent treatment of prisoners which was almost unknown to antiquity. Instances of this kind are continual in the later period of the middle ages. An Italian writer blames the soldier who wounded Eccelin, the famous tyrant of Padua, after he was taken. "He deserved," says he, "no praise, but rather the greatest infamy for his baseness; since it is as vile an act to wound a prisoner, whether noble or otherwise, as to strike a dead body."[g] Considering the crimes of Eccelin, this sentiment is a remarkable proof of generosity. The behaviour of Edward III. to Eustace de Ribaumont, after the capture of Calais, and that, still more exquisitely beautiful, of the Black Prince to his royal prisoner at Poitiers, are such eminent instances of chivalrous virtue, that I omit to repeat them only because they are so well known. Those great princes too might be imagined to have soared far above the ordinary track of mankind. But in truth, the knights who surrounded them and imitated their excellences, were only inferior in opportunities of displaying the same virtue. After the battle of Poitiers, "the English and Gascon knights," says Froissart, "having entertained their prisoners, went home each of them with the knights or squires he had taken, whom he then questioned upon their honour what ransom they could pay without inconvenience, and easily gave them credit; and it was common for men to say, that they would not straiten any knight or squire so that he should not live well and keep up his honour."[h] Liberality, indeed, and disdain of money, might be reckoned, as I have said, among the essential virtues of chivalry. All the romances inculcate the duty of scattering their wealth with profusion, especially towards minstrels, pilgrims, and the poorer members of their own order. The last, who were pretty numerous, had a constant right to succour from the opulent; the castle of every lord, who respected the ties of knighthood, was open with more than usual hospitality to the traveller whose armour announced his dignity, though it might also conceal his poverty.[]
Justice.
Valour, loyalty, courtesy, munificence, formed collectively the character of an accomplished knight, so far as was displayed in the ordinary tenor of his life, reflecting these virtues as an unsullied mirror. Yet something more was required for the perfect idea of chivalry, and enjoined by its principles; an active sense of justice, an ardent indignation against wrong, a determination of courage to its best end, the prevention or redress of injury. It grew up as a salutary antidote in the midst of poisons, while scarce any law but that of the strongest obtained regard, and the rights of territorial property, which are only rights as they conduce to general good, became the means of general oppression. The real condition of society, it has sometimes been thought, might suggest stories of knight-errantry, which were wrought up into the popular romances of the middle ages. A baron, abusing the advantage of an inaccessible castle in the fastnesses of the Black Forest or the Alps, to pillage the neighbourhood and confine travellers in his dungeon, though neither a giant nor a Saracen, was a monster not less formidable, and could perhaps as little be destroyed without the aid of disinterested bravery. Knight-errantry, indeed, as a profession, cannot rationally be conceived to have had any existence beyond the precincts of romance. Yet there seems no improbability in supposing that a knight, journeying through uncivilized regions in his way to the Holy Land, or to the court of a foreign sovereign, might find himself engaged in adventures not very dissimilar to those which are the theme of romance. We cannot indeed expect to find any historical evidence of such incidents.
Resemblance of chivalrous to eastern manners.
The characteristic virtues of chivalry bear so much resemblance to those which eastern writers of the same period extol, that I am a little disposed to suspect Europe of having derived some improvement from imitation of Asia. Though the crusades began in abhorrence of infidels, this sentiment wore off in some degree before their cessation; and the regular intercourse of commerce, sometimes of alliance, between the Christians of Palestine and the Saracens, must have removed part of the prejudice, while experience of their enemy's courage and generosity in war would with those gallant knights serve to lighten the remainder. The romancers expatiate with pleasure on the merits of Saladin, who actually received the honour of knighthood from Hugh of Tabaria, his prisoner. An ancient poem, entitled the Order of Chivalry, is founded upon this story, and contains a circumstantial account of the ceremonies, as well as duties, which the institution required.[k] One or two other instances of a similar kind bear witness to the veneration in which the name of knight was held among the eastern nations. And certainly the Mohammedan chieftains were for the most part abundantly qualified to fulfil the duties of European chivalry. Their manners had been polished and courteous, while the western kingdoms were comparatively barbarous.
Evils produced by the spirit of chivalry.
The principles of chivalry were not, I think, naturally productive of many evils. For it is unjust to class those acts of oppression or disorder among the abuses of knighthood, which were committed in spite of its regulations, and were only prevented by them from becoming more extensive. The licence of times so imperfectly civilized could not be expected to yield to institutions, which, like those of religion, fell prodigiously short in their practical result of the reformation which they were designed to work. Man's guilt and frailty have never admitted more than a partial corrective. But some bad consequences may be more fairly ascribed to the very nature of chivalry. I have already mentioned the dissoluteness which almost unavoidably resulted from the prevailing tone of gallantry. And yet we sometimes find in the writings of those times a spirit of pure but exaggerated sentiment; and the most fanciful refinements of passion are mingled by the same poets with the coarsest immorality. An undue thirst for military renown was another fault that chivalry must have nourished; and the love of war, sufficiently pernicious in any shape, was more founded, as I have observed, on personal feelings of honour, and less on public spirit, than in the citizens of free states. A third reproach may be made to the character of knighthood, that it widened the separation between the different classes of society, and confirmed that aristocratical spirit of high birth, by which the large mass of mankind were kept in unjust degradation. Compare the generosity of Edward III. towards Eustace de Ribaumont at the siege of Calais with the harshness of his conduct towards the citizens. This may be illustrated by a story from Joinville, who was himself imbued with the full spirit of chivalry, and felt like the best and bravest of his age. He is speaking of Henry count of Champagne, who acquired, says he, very deservedly, the surname of Liberal, and adduces the following proof of it. A poor knight implored of him on his knees one day as much money as would serve to marry his two daughters. One Arthault de Nogent, a rich burgess, willing to rid the count of this importunity, but rather awkward, we must own, in the turn of his argument, said to the petitioner; My lord has already given away so much that he has nothing left. Sir Villain, replied Henry, turning round to him, you do not speak truth in saying that I have nothing left to give, when I have got yourself. Here, Sir Knight, I give you this man and warrant your possession of him. Then, says Joinville, the poor knight was not at all confounded, but seized hold of the burgess fast by the collar, and told him he should not go till he had ransomed himself. And in the end he was forced to pay a ransom of five hundred pounds. The simple-minded writer who brings this evidence of the count of Champagne's liberality is not at all struck with the facility of a virtue that is exercised at the cost of others.[m]
Circumstances tending to promote it.
There is perhaps enough in the nature of this institution and its congeniality to the habits of a warlike generation to account for the respect in which it was held throughout Europe. But several collateral circumstances served to invigorate its spirit. Besides the powerful efficacy with which the poetry and romance of the middle ages stimulated those susceptible minds which were alive to no other literature, we may enumerate four distinct causes tending to the promotion of chivalry.
Regular education for knighthood.
The first of these was the regular scheme of education, according to which the sons of gentlemen from the age of seven years, were brought up in the castles of superior lords, where they at once learned the whole discipline of their future profession, and imbibed its emulous and enthusiastic spirit. This was an inestimable advantage to the poorer nobility, who could hardly otherwise have given their children the accomplishments of their station. From seven to fourteen these boys were called pages or varlets; at fourteen they bore the name of esquire. They were instructed in the management of arms, in the art of horsemanship, in exercises of strength and activity. They became accustomed to obedience and courteous demeanour, serving their lord or lady in offices which had not yet become derogatory to honourable birth, and striving to please visitors, and especially ladies, at the ball or banquet. Thus placed in the centre of all that could awaken their imaginations, the creed of chivalrous gallantry, superstition, or honour must have made indelible impressions. Panting for the glory which neither their strength nor the established rules permitted them to anticipate, the young scions of chivalry attended their masters to the tournament, and even to the battle, and riveted with a sigh the armour they were forbidden to wear.[n]
Encouragement of princes. Tournaments.
It was the constant policy of sovereigns to encourage this institution, which furnished them with faithful supports, and counteracted the independent spirit of feudal tenure. Hence they displayed a lavish magnificence in festivals and tournaments, which may be reckoned a second means of keeping up the tone of chivalrous feeling. The kings of France and England held solemn or plenary courts at the great festivals, or at other times, where the name of knight was always a title to admittance; and the masque of chivalry, if I may use the expression, was acted in pageants and ceremonies fantastical enough in our apprehension, but well calculated for those heated understandings. Here the peacock and the pheasant, birds of high fame in romance, received the homage of all true knights.[o] The most singular festival of this kind was that celebrated by Philip duke of Burgundy, in 1453. In the midst of the banquet a pageant was introduced, representing the calamitous state of religion in consequence of the recent capture of Constantinople. This was followed by the appearance of a pheasant, which was laid before the duke, and to which the knights present addressed their vows to undertake a crusade, in the following very characteristic preamble: I swear before God my Creator in the first place, and the glorious Virgin his mother, and next before the ladies and the pheasant.[p] Tournaments were a still more powerful incentive to emulation. These may be considered to have arisen about the middle of the eleventh century; for though every martial people have found diversion in representing the image of war, yet the name of tournaments, and the laws that regulated them, cannot be traced any higher.[q] Every scenic performance of modern times must be tame in comparison of these animating combats. At a tournament, the space enclosed within the lists was surrounded by sovereign princes and their noblest barons, by knights of established renown, and all that rank and beauty had most distinguished among the fair. Covered with steel, and known only by their emblazoned shield or by the favours of their mistresses, a still prouder bearing, the combatants rushed forward to a strife without enmity, but not without danger. Though their weapons were pointless, and sometimes only of wood, though they were bound by the laws of tournaments to strike only upon the strong armour of the trunk, or, as it was called, between the four limbs, those impetuous conflicts often terminated in wounds and death. The church uttered her excommunications in vain against so wanton an exposure to peril; but it was more easy for her to excite than to restrain that martial enthusiasm. Victory in a tournament was little less glorious, and perhaps at the moment more exquisitely felt, than in the field; since no battle could assemble such witnesses of valour. "Honour to the sons of the brave," resounded amidst the din of martial music from the lips of the minstrels, as the conqueror advanced to receive the prize from his queen or his mistress; while the surrounding multitude acknowledged in his prowess of that day an augury of triumphs that might in more serious contests be blended with those of his country.[r]
Privileges of knighthood.
Both honorary and substantial privileges belonged to the condition of knighthood, and had of course a material tendency to preserve its credit. A knight was distinguished abroad by his crested helmet, his weighty armour, whether of mail or plate, bearing his heraldic coat, by his gilded spurs, his horse barded with iron, or clothed in housing of gold; at home, by richer silks and more costly furs than were permitted to squires, and by the appropriated colour of scarlet. He was addressed by titles of more respect.[] Many civil offices, by rule or usage, were confined to his order. But perhaps its chief privilege was to form one distinct class of nobility extending itself throughout great part of Europe, and almost independent, as to its rights and dignities, of any particular sovereign. Whoever had been legitimately dubbed a knight in one country became, as it were, a citizen of universal chivalry, and might assume most of its privileges in any other. Nor did he require the act of a sovereign to be thus distinguished. It was a fundamental principle that any knight might confer the order; responsible only in his own reputation if he used lightly so high a prerogative. But as all the distinctions of rank might have been confounded, if this right had been without limit, it was an equally fundamental rule, that it could only be exercised in favour of gentlemen.[t]
The privileges annexed to chivalry were of peculiar advantage to the vavassors, or inferior gentry, as they tended to counterbalance the influence which territorial wealth threw into the scale of their feudal suzerains. Knighthood brought these two classes nearly to a level; and it is owing perhaps in no small degree to this institution that the lower nobility saved themselves, notwithstanding their poverty, from being confounded with the common people.
Connexion of chivalry with military service.
Knights-bannerets and bachelors.
Lastly, the customs of chivalry were maintained by their connexion with military service. After armies, which we may call comparatively regular, had superseded in a great degree the feudal militia, princes were anxious to bid high for the service of knights, the best-equipped and bravest warriors of the time, on whose prowess the fate of battles was for a long period justly supposed to depend. War brought into relief the generous virtues of chivalry, and gave lustre to its distinctive privileges. The rank was sought with enthusiastic emulation through heroic achievements, to which, rather than to mere wealth and station, it was considered to belong. In the wars of France and England, by far the most splendid period of this institution, a promotion of knights followed every success, besides the innumerable cases where the same honour rewarded individual bravery.[] It may here be mentioned that an honorary distinction was made between knights-bannerets and bachelors.[x] The former were the richest and best accompanied. No man could properly be a banneret unless he possessed a certain estate, and could bring a certain number of lances into the field.[y] His distinguishing mark was the square banner, carried by a squire at the point of his lance; while the knight-bachelor had only the coronet or pointed pendant. When a banneret was created, the general cut off this pendant to render the banner square.[z] But this distinction, however it elevated the banneret, gave him no claim to military command, except over his own dependents or men at arms. Chandos was still a knight-bachelor when he led part of the prince of Wales's army into Spain. He first raised his banner at the battle of Navarette; and the narration that Froissart gives of the ceremony will illustrate the manners of chivalry and the character of that admirable hero, the conqueror of Du Guesclin and pride of English chivalry, whose fame with posterity has been a little overshadowed by his master's laurels.[a] What seems more extraordinary is, that mere squires had frequently the command over knights. Proofs of this are almost continual in Froissart. But the vast estimation in which men held the dignity of knighthood led them sometimes to defer it for great part of their lives, in hope of signalizing their investiture by some eminent exploit.
Decline of chivalry.
These appear to have been the chief means of nourishing the principles of chivalry among the nobility of Europe. But notwithstanding all encouragement, it underwent the usual destiny of human institutions. St. Palaye, to whom we are indebted for so vivid a picture of ancient manners, ascribes the decline of chivalry in France to the profusion with which the order was lavished under Charles VI., to the establishment of the companies of ordonnance by Charles VII., and to the extension of knightly honours to lawyers, and other men of civil occupation, by Francis I.[] But the real principle of decay was something different from these three subordinate circumstances, unless so far as it may bear some relation to the second. It was the invention of gunpowder that eventually overthrew chivalry. From the time when the use of fire-arms became tolerably perfect the weapons of former warfare lost their efficacy, and physical force was reduced to a very subordinate place in the accomplishments of a soldier. The advantages of a disciplined infantry became more sensible; and the lancers, who continued till almost the end of the sixteenth century to charge in a long line, felt the punishment of their presumption and indiscipline. Even in the wars of Edward III., the disadvantageous tactics of chivalry must have been perceptible; but the military art had not been sufficiently studied to overcome the prejudices of men eager for individual distinction. Tournaments became less frequent; and, after the fatal accident of Henry II., were entirely discontinued in France. Notwithstanding the convulsions of the religious wars, the sixteenth century was more tranquil than any that had preceded; and thus a large part of the nobility passed their lives in pacific habits, and if they assumed the honours of chivalry, forgot their natural connexion with military prowess. This is far more applicable to England, where, except from the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry VI., chivalry, as a military institution, seems not to have found a very congenial soil.[c] To these circumstances, immediately affecting the military condition of nations, we must add the progress of reason and literature, which made ignorance discreditable even in a soldier, and exposed the follies of romance to a ridicule which they were very ill calculated to endure.
The spirit of chivalry left behind it a more valuable successor. The character of knight gradually subsided in that of gentleman; and the one distinguishes European society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as much as the other did in the preceding ages. A jealous sense of honour, less romantic, but equally elevated, a ceremonious gallantry and politeness, a strictness in devotional observances, a high pride of birth and feeling of independence upon any sovereign for the dignity it gave, a sympathy for martial honour, though more subdued by civil habits, are the lineaments which prove an indisputable descent. The cavaliers of Charles I. were genuine successors of Edward's knights; and the resemblance is much more striking, if we ascend to the civil wars of the League. Time has effaced much also of this gentlemanly, as it did before of the chivalrous character. From the latter part of the seventeenth century its vigour and purity have undergone a tacit decay, and yielded, perhaps in every country, to increasing commercial wealth, more diffused instruction, the spirit of general liberty in some, and of servile obsequiousness in others, the modes of life in great cities, and the levelling customs of social intercourse.[d]
Literature.
It is now time to pass to a very different subject. The third head under which I classed the improvements of society during the four last centuries of the middle ages was that of literature. But I must apprise the reader not to expect any general view of literary history, even in the most abbreviated manner. Such an epitome would not only be necessarily superficial, but foreign in many of its details to the purposes of this chapter, which, attempting to develop the circumstances that gave a new complexion to society, considers literature only so far as it exercised a general and powerful influence. The private researches, therefore, of a single scholar, unproductive of any material effect in his generation, ought not to arrest us, nor indeed would a series of biographical notices, into which literary history is apt to fall, be very instructive to a philosophical inquirer. But I have still a more decisive reason against taking a large range of literary history into the compass of this work, founded on the many contributions which have been made within the last forty years in that department, some of them even since the commencement of my own labour.[e] These have diffused so general an acquaintance with the literature of the middle ages, that I must, in treating the subject, either compile secondary information from well-known books, or enter upon a vast field of reading, with little hope of improving upon what has been already said, or even acquiring credit for original research. I shall, therefore, confine myself to four points: the study of civil law; the institution of universities; the application of modern languages to literature, and especially to poetry; and the revival of ancient learning.
Civil law.
The Roman law had been nominally preserved ever since the destruction of the empire; and a great portion of the inhabitants of France and Spain, as well as Italy, were governed by its provisions. But this was a mere compilation from the Theodosian code; which itself contained only the more recent laws promulgated after the establishment of Christianity, with some fragments from earlier collections. It was made by order of Alaric king of the Visigoths about the year 500, and it is frequently confounded, with the Theodosian code by writers of the dark ages.[f] The code of Justinian, reduced into system after the separation of the two former countries from the Greek empire, never obtained any authority in them; nor was it received in the part of Italy subject to the Lombards. But that this body of laws was absolutely unknown in the West during any period seems to have been too hastily supposed. Some of the more eminent ecclesiastics, as Hincmar and Ivon of Chartres, occasionally refer to it, and bear witness to the regard which the Roman church had uniformly paid to its decisions.[g]
The revival of the study of jurisprudence, as derived from the laws of Justinian, has generally been ascribed to the discovery made of a copy of the Pandects at Amalfi, in 1135, when that city was taken by the Pisans. This fact, though not improbable, seems not to rest upon sufficient evidence.[h] But its truth is the less material, as it appears to be unequivocally proved that the study of Justinian's system had recommenced before that era. Early in the twelfth century a professor named Irnerius[] opened a school of civil law at Bologna, where he commented, if not on the Pandects, yet on the other books, the Institutes and Code, which were sufficient to teach the principles and inspire the love of that comprehensive jurisprudence. The study of law, having thus revived, made a surprising progress; within fifty years Lombardy was full of lawyers, on whom Frederic Barbarossa and Alexander III., so hostile in every other respect, conspired to shower honours and privileges. The schools of Bologna were pre-eminent throughout this century for legal learning. There seem also to have been seminaries at Modena and Mantua; nor was any considerable city without distinguished civilians. In the next age they became still more numerous, and their professors more conspicuous, and universities arose at Naples, Padua, and other places, where the Roman law was the object of peculiar regard.[k]
There is apparently great justice in the opinion of Tiraboschi, that by acquiring internal freedom and the right of determining controversies by magistrates of their own election, the Italian cities were led to require a more extensive and accurate code of written laws than they had hitherto possessed. These municipal judges were chosen from among the citizens, and the succession to offices was usually so rapid, that almost every freeman might expect in his turn to partake in the public government, and consequently in the administration of justice. The latter had always indeed been exercised in the sight of the people by the count and his assessors under the Lombard and Carlovingian sovereigns; but the laws were rude, the proceedings tumultuary, and the decisions perverted by violence. The spirit of liberty begot a stronger sense of right; and right, it was soon perceived, could only be secured by a common standard. Magistrates holding temporary offices, and little elevated in those simple times above the citizens among whom they were to return, could only satisfy the suitors, and those who surrounded their tribunal, by proving the conformity of their sentences to acknowledged authorities. And the practice of alleging reasons in giving judgment would of itself introduce some uniformity of decision and some adherence to great rules of justice in the most arbitrary tribunals; while, on the other hand, those of a free country lose part of their title to respect, and of their tendency to maintain right, whenever, either in civil or criminal questions, the mere sentence of a judge is pronounced without explanation of its motives.
The fame of this renovated jurisprudence spread very rapidly from Italy over other parts of Europe. Students flocked from all parts of Bologna; and some eminent masters of that school repeated its lessons in distant countries. One of these, Placentinus, explained the Digest at Montpelier before the end of the twelfth century; and the collection of Justinian soon came to supersede the Theodosian code in the dominions of Toulouse.[m] Its study continued to flourish in the universities of both these cities; and hence the Roman law, as it is exhibited in the system of Justinian, became the rule of all tribunals in the southern provinces of France. Its authority in Spain is equally great, or at least is only disputed by that of the canonists;[n] and it forms the acknowledged basis of decision in all the Germanic tribunals, sparingly modified by the ancient feudal customaries, which the jurists of the empire reduce within narrow bounds.[o] In the northern parts of France, where the legal standard was sought in local customs, the civil law met naturally with less regard. But the code of St. Louis borrows from that treasury many of its provisions, and it was constantly cited in pleadings before the parliament of Paris, either as obligatory by way of authority, or at least as written wisdom, to which great deference was shown.[p] Yet its study was long prohibited in the university of Paris, front a disposition of the popes to establish exclusively their decretals, though the prohibition was silently disregarded.[q]
Its introduction into England.
As early as the reign of Stephen, Vacarius, a lawyer of Bologna, taught at Oxford with great success; but the students of scholastic theology opposed themselves, from some unexplained reason, to this new jurisprudence, and his lectures were interdicted.[r] About the time of Henry III. and Edward I. the civil law acquired some credit in England; but a system entirely incompatible with it had established itself in our courts of justice; and the Roman jurisprudence was not only soon rejected, but became obnoxious.[] Every where, however, the clergy combined its study with that of their own canons; it was a maxim that every canonist must be a civilian, and that no one could be a good civilian unless he were also a canonist. In all universities, degrees are granted in both laws conjointly; and in all courts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the authority of Justinian is cited, when that of Gregory or Clement is wanting.[t]
The elder civilians little regarded.
I should earn little gratitude for my obscure diligence, were I to dwell on the forgotten teachers of a science that attracts so few. These elder professors of Roman jurisprudence are infected, as we are told, with the faults and ignorance of their time; failing in the exposition of ancient law through incorrectness of manuscripts and want of subsidiary learning, or perverting their sense through the verbal subtleties of scholastic philosophy. It appears that, even a hundred years since, neither Azzo and Accursius, the principal civilians of the thirteenth century, nor Bartolus and Baldus, the more conspicuous luminaries of the next age, nor the later writings of Accolti, Fulgosius, and Panormitanus, were greatly regarded as authorities; unless it were in Spain, where improvement is always odious, and the name of Bartolus inspired absolute deference.[] In the sixteenth century, Alciatus and the greater Cujacius became, as it were, the founders of a new and more enlightened academy of civil law, from which the latter jurists derived their lessons. The laws of Justinian, stripped of their impurer alloy, and of the tedious glosses of their commentators, will form the basis of other systems, and mingling, as we may hope, with the new institutions of philosophical legislators, continue to influence the social relations of mankind, long after their direct authority shall have been abrogated. The ruins of ancient Rome supplied the materials of a new city; and the fragments of her law, which have already been wrought into the recent codes of France and Prussia, will probably, under other names, guide far distant generations by the sagacity of Modestinus and Ulpian.[x]
Public schools established by Charlemagne.
The establishment of public schools in France is owing to Charlemagne. At his accession, we are assured that no means of obtaining a learned education existed in his dominions;[y] and in order to restore in some degree the spirit of letters, he was compelled to invite strangers from countries where learning was not so thoroughly extinguished. Alcuin of England, Clement of Ireland, Theodulf of Germany, were the true Paladins who repaired to his court. With the help of these he revived a few sparks of diligence, and established schools in different cities of his empire; nor was he ashamed to be the disciple of that in his own palace under the care of Alcuin.[z] His two next successors, Louis the Debonair and Charles the Bald, were also encouragers of letters; and the schools of Lyons, Fulda, Corvey, Rheims, and some other cities, might be said to flourish in the ninth century.[a] In these were taught the trivium and quadrivium, a long-established division of sciences: the first comprehending grammar, or what we now call philology, logic, and rhetoric; the second, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.[] But in those ages scarcely anybody mastered the latter four; and to be perfect in the three former was exceedingly rare. All those studies, however, were referred to theology, and that in the narrowest manner; music, for example, being reduced to church chanting, and astronomy to the calculation of Easter.[c] Alcuin was, in his old age, against reading the poets;[d] and this discouragement of secular learning was very general; though some, as for instance Raban, permitted a slight tincture of it, as subsidiary to religious instruction.[e]
University of Paris.
Abelard.
About the latter part of the eleventh century a greater ardour for intellectual pursuits began to show itself in Europe, which in the twelfth broke out into a flame. This was manifested in the numbers who repaired to the public academies or schools of philosophy. None of these grew so early into reputation as that of Paris. This cannot indeed, as has been vainly pretended, trace its pedigree to Charlemagne. The first who is said to have read lectures at Paris was Remigius of Auxerre, about the year 900.[f] For the two next centuries the history of this school is very obscure; and it would be hard to prove an unbroken continuity, or at least a dependence and connexion of its professors. In the year 1100 we find William of Champeaux teaching logic, and apparently some higher parts of philosophy, with much credit. But this preceptor was eclipsed by his disciple, afterwards his rival and adversary, Peter Abelard, to whose brilliant and hardy genius the university of Paris appears to be indebted for its rapid advancement. Abelard was almost the first who awakened mankind in the ages of darkness to a sympathy with intellectual excellence. His bold theories, not the less attractive perhaps for treading upon the bounds of heresy, his imprudent vanity, that scorned the regularly acquired reputation of older men, allured a multitude of disciples, who would never have listened to an ordinary teacher. It is said that twenty cardinals and fifty bishops had been among his hearers.[g] Even in the wilderness, where he had erected the monastery of Paraclete, he was surrounded by enthusiastic admirers, relinquishing the luxuries, if so they might be called, of Paris, for the coarse living and imperfect accommodation which that retirement could afford.[h] But the whole of Abelard's life was the shipwreck of genius; and of genius, both the source of his own calamities and unserviceable to posterity. There are few lives of literary men more interesting or more diversified by success and adversity, by glory and humiliation, by the admiration of mankind and the persecution of enemies; nor from which, I may add, more impressive lessons of moral prudence may be derived.[] One of Abelard's pupils was Peter Lombard, afterwards archbishop of Paris, and author of a work called the Book of Sentences, which obtained the highest authority among the scholastic disputants. The resort of students to Paris became continually greater; they appear, before the year 1169, to have been divided into nations;[k] and probably they had an elected rector and voluntary rules of discipline about the same time. This, however, is not decisively proved; but in the last year of the twelfth century they obtained their earliest charter from Philip Augustus.[m]
University of Oxford.
The opinion which ascribes the foundation of the university of Oxford to Alfred, if it cannot be maintained as a truth, contains no intrinsic marks of error. Ingulfus, abbot of Croyland, in the earliest authentic passage that can be adduced to this point,[n] declares that he was sent from Westminster to the school at Oxford, where he learned Aristotle, with the first and second books of Tully's Rhetoric.[o] Since a school for dialectics and rhetoric subsisted at Oxford, a town of but middling size and not the seat of a bishop, we are naturally led to refer its foundation to one of our kings, and none who had reigned after Alfred appears likely to have manifested such zeal for learning. However, it is evident that the school of Oxford was frequented under Edward the Confessor. There follows an interval of above a century, during which we have, I believe, no contemporary evidence of its continuance. But in the reign of Stephen, Vacarius read lectures there upon civil law; and it is reasonable to suppose that a foreigner would not have chosen that city, if he had not found a seminary of learning already established. It was probably inconsiderable, and might have been interrupted during some part of the preceding century.[p] In the reign of Henry II., or at least of Richard I., Oxford became a very flourishing university, and in 1201, according to Wood, contained 3000 scholars.[q] The earliest charters were granted by John.
University of Bologna.
Encouragement given to universities.
If it were necessary to construe the word university in the strict sense of a legal incorporation, Bologna might lay claim to a higher antiquity than either Paris or Oxford. There are a few vestiges of studies pursued in that city even in the eleventh century;[r] but early in the next the revival of the Roman jurisprudence, as has been already noticed, brought a throng of scholars round the chairs of its professors. Frederic Barbarossa in 1158, by his authentic, or rescript, entitled Habita, took these under his protection, and permitted them to be tried in civil suits by their own judges. This exemption from the ordinary tribunals, and even from those of the church, was naturally coveted by other academies; it was granted to the university of Paris by its earliest charter from Philip Augustus, and to Oxford by John. From this time the golden age of universities commenced; and it is hard to say whether they were favoured more by their sovereigns or by the see of Rome. Their history indeed is full of struggles with the municipal authorities, and with the bishops of their several cities, wherein they were sometimes the aggressors, and generally the conquerors. From all parts of Europe students resorted to these renowned seats of learning with an eagerness for instruction which may astonish those who reflect how little of what we now deem useful could be imparted. At Oxford, under Henry III., it is said that there were 30,000 scholars; an exaggeration which seems to imply that the real number was very great.[] A respectable contemporary writer asserts that there were full 10,000 at Bologna about the same time.[t] I have not observed any numerical statement as to Paris during this age; but there can be no doubt that it was more frequented than any other. At the death of Charles VII. in 1453, it is said to have contained 25,000 students.[] In the thirteenth century other universities sprang up in different countries; Padua and Naples under the patronage of Frederic II., a zealous and useful friend to letters,[x] Toulouse and Montpelier, Cambridge and Salamanca.[y] Orleans, which had long been distinguished as a school of civil law, received the privileges of incorporation early in the fourteenth century, and Angers before the expiration of the same age.[z] Prague, the earliest and most eminent of German universities, was founded in 1350; a secession from thence of Saxon students, in consequence of the nationality of the Bohemians and the Hussite schism, gave rise to that of Leipsic.[a] The fifteenth century produced several new academical foundations in France and Spain.
A large proportion of scholars in most of those institutions were drawn by the love of science from foreign countries. The chief universities had their own particular departments of excellence. Paris was unrivalled for scholastic theology; Bologna and Orleans, and afterwards Bourges, for jurisprudence; Montpelier for medicine. Though national prejudices, as in the case of Prague, sometimes interfered with this free resort of foreigners to places of education, it was in general a wise policy of government, as well as of the universities themselves, to encourage it. The thirty-fifth article of the peace of Bretigni provides for the restoration of former privileges to students respectively in the French and English universities.[] Various letters patent will be found in Rymer's collection, securing to Scottish as well as French natives a safe passage to their place of education. The English nation, including however the Flemings and Germans,[c] had a separate vote in the faculty of arts at Paris. But foreign students were not, I believe, so numerous in the English academies.
If endowments and privileges are the means of quickening a zeal for letters, they were liberally bestowed in the last three of the middle ages. Crevier enumerates fifteen colleges founded in the university of Paris during the thirteenth century, besides one or two of a still earlier date. Two only, or at most three, existed in that age at Oxford, and but one at Cambridge. In the next two centuries these universities could boast, as every one knows, of many splendid foundations, though much exceeded in number by those of Paris. Considered as ecclesiastical institutions it is not surprising that the universities obtained, according to the spirit of their age, an exclusive cognizance of civil or criminal suits affecting their members. This jurisdiction was, however, local as well as personal, and in reality encroached on the regular police of their cities. At Paris the privilege turned to a flagrant abuse, and gave rise to many scandalous contentions.[d] Still more valuable advantages were those relating to ecclesiastical preferments, of which a large proportion was reserved in France to academical graduates. Something of the same sort, though less extensive, may still be traced in the rules respecting plurality of benefices in our English church.
Causes of their celebrity.
Scholastic philosophy.
This remarkable and almost sudden transition from a total indifference to all intellectual pursuits cannot be ascribed perhaps to any general causes. The restoration of the civil, and the formation of the canon law, were indeed eminently conducive to it, and a large proportion of scholars in most universities confined themselves to jurisprudence. But the chief attraction to the studious was the new scholastic philosophy. The love of contention, especially with such arms as the art of dialectics supplies to an acute understanding, is natural enough to mankind. That of speculating upon the mysterious questions of metaphysics and theology is not less so. These disputes and speculations, however, appear to have excited little interest till, after the middle of the eleventh century, Roscelin, a professor of logic, revived the old question of the Grecian schools respecting universal ideas, the reality of which he denied. This kindled a spirit of metaphysical discussion, which Lanfranc and Anselm, successively archbishops of Canterbury, kept alive; and in the next century Abelard and Peter Lombard, especially the latter, completed the scholastic system of philosophizing. The logic of Aristotle seems to have been partly known in the eleventh century, although that of Augustin was perhaps in higher estimation;[e] in the twelfth it obtained more decisive influence. His metaphysics, to which the logic might be considered as preparatory, were introduced through translations from the Arabic, and perhaps also from the Greek, early in the ensuing century.[f] This work, condemned at first by the decrees of popes and councils on account of its supposed tendency to atheism, acquired by degrees an influence, to which even popes and councils were obliged to yield. The Mendicant Friars, established throughout Europe in the thirteenth century, greatly contributed to promote the Aristotelian philosophy; and its final reception into the orthodox system of the church may chiefly be ascribed to Thomas Aquinas, the boast of the Dominican order, and certainly the most distinguished metaphysician of the middle ages. His authority silenced all scruple's as to that of Aristotle, and the two philosophers were treated with equally implicit deference by the later schoolmen.[g]
This scholastic philosophy, so famous for several ages, has since passed away and been forgotten. The history of literature, like that of empire, is full of revolutions. Our public libraries are cemeteries of departed reputation, and the dust accumulating upon their untouched volumes speaks as forcibly as the grass that waves over the ruins of Babylon. Few, very few, for a hundred years past, have broken the repose of the immense works of the schoolmen. None perhaps in our own country have acquainted themselves particularly with their contents. Leibnitz, however, expressed a wish that some one conversant with modern philosophy would undertake to extract the scattered particles of gold which may be hidden in their abandoned mines. This wish has been at length partially fulfilled by three or four of those industrious students and keen metaphysicians, who do honour to modern Germany. But most of their works are unknown to me except by repute, and as they all appear to be formed on a very extensive plan, I doubt whether even those laborious men could afford adequate time for this ungrateful research. Yet we cannot pretend to deny that Roscelin, Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Ockham, were men of acute and even profound understandings, the giants of their own generation. Even with the slight knowledge we possess of their tenets, there appear through the cloud of repulsive technical barbarisms rays of metaphysical genius which this age ought not to despise. Thus in the works of Anselm is found the celebrated argument of Des Cartes for the existence of a Deity, deduced from the idea of an infinitely perfect being. One great object that most of the schoolmen had in view was, to establish the principles of natural theology by abstract reasoning. This reasoning was doubtless liable to great difficulties. But a modern writer, who seems tolerably acquainted with the subject, assures us that it would be difficult to mention any theoretical argument to prove the divine attributes, or any objection capable of being raised against the proof, which we do not find in some of the scholastic philosophers.[h] The most celebrated subjects of discussion, and those on which this class of reasoners were most divided, were the reality of universal ideas, considered as extrinsic to the human mind and the freedom of will. These have not ceased to occupy the thoughts of metaphysicians.[]
But all discovery of truth by means of these controversies was rendered hopeless by two insurmountable obstacles, the authority of Aristotle and that of the church. Wherever obsequious reverence is substituted for bold inquiry, truth, if she is not already at hand, will never be attained. The scholastics did not understand Aristotle, whose original writings they could not read;[k] but his name was received with implicit faith. They learned his peculiar nomenclature, and fancied that he had given them realities. The authority of the church did them still more harm. It has been said, and probably with much truth, that their metaphysics were injurious to their theology. But I must observe in return that their theology was equally injurious to their metaphysics. Their disputes continually turned upon questions either involving absurdity and contradiction, or at best inscrutable by human comprehension. Those who assert the greatest antiquity of the Roman Catholic doctrine as to the real presence, allow that both the word and the definition of transubstantiation are owing to the scholastic writers. Their subtleties were not always so well received. They reasoned at imminent peril of being charged with heresy, which Roscelin, Abelard, Lombard, and Ockham did not escape. In the virulent factions that arose out of their metaphysical quarrels, either party was eager to expose its adversary to detraction and persecution. The Nominalists were accused, one hardly sees why, with reducing, like Sabellius, the persons of the Trinity to modal distinctions. The Realists, with more pretence, incurred the imputation of holding a language that savoured of atheism.[m] In the controversy which the Dominicans and Franciscans, disciples respectively of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, maintained about grace and freewill, it was of course still more easy to deal in mutual reproaches of heterodoxy. But the schoolmen were in general prudent enough not to defy the censures of the church; and the popes, in return for the support they gave to all exorbitant pretensions of the Holy See, connived at this factious wrangling, which threatened no serious mischief, as it did not proceed from any independent spirit of research. Yet with all their apparent conformity to the received creed, there was, as might be expected from the circumstances, a great deal of real deviation from orthodoxy, and even of infidelity. The scholastic mode of dispute, admitting of no termination and producing no conviction, was the sure cause of scepticism; and the system of Aristotle, especially with the commentaries of Averroes, bore an aspect very unfavourable to natural religion.[n] The Aristotelian philosophy, even in the hands of the Master, was like a barren tree that conceals its want of fruit by profusion of leaves. But the scholastic ontology was much worse. What could be more trifling than disquisitions about the nature of angels, their modes of operation, their means of conversing, or (for these were distinguished) the morning and evening state of their understandings?[o] Into such follies the schoolmen appear to have launched, partly because there was less danger of running against a heresy in a matter where the church had defined so little—partly from their presumption, which disdained all inquiries into the human mind, as merely a part of physics—and in no small degree through a spirit of mystical fanaticism, derived from the oriental philosophy and the later Platonists, which blended itself with the cold-blooded technicalities of the Aristotelian school.[p] But this unproductive waste of the faculties could not last for ever. Men discovered that they had given their time for the promise of wisdom, and been cheated in the bargain. What John of Salisbury observes of the Parisian dialecticians in his own time, that, after several years' absence, he found them not a step advanced and still employed in urging and parrying the same arguments, was equally applicable to the period of centuries. After three or four hundred years, the scholastics had not untied a single knot, nor added one unequivocal truth to the domain of philosophy. As this became more evident, the enthusiasm for that kind of learning declined; after the middle of the fourteenth century few distinguished teachers arose among the schoolmen, and at the revival of letters their pretended science had no advocates left, but among the prejudiced or ignorant adherents of established systems. How different is the state of genuine philosophy, the zeal for which will never wear out by length of time or change of fashion, because the inquirer, unrestrained by authority, is perpetually cheered by the discovery of truth in researches, which the boundless riches of nature seem to render indefinitely progressive![q]
Yet, upon a general consideration, the attention paid in the universities to scholastic philosophy, may be deemed a source of improvement in the intellectual character, when we compare it with the perfect ignorance of some preceding ages. Whether the same industry would not have been more profitably directed if the love of metaphysics had not intervened, is another question. Philology, or the principles of good taste, degenerated through the prevalence of school-logic. The Latin compositions of the twelfth century are better than those of the three that followed—at least on the northern side of the Alps. I do not, however, conceive that any real correctness of taste or general elegance of style was likely to subsist in so imperfect a condition of society. These qualities seem to require a certain harmonious correspondence in the tone of manners before they can establish a prevalent influence over literature. A more real evil was the diverting of studious men from mathematical science. Early in the twelfth century several persons, chiefly English, had brought into Europe some of the Arabian writings on geometry and physics. In the thirteenth the works of Euclid were commented upon by Campano,[r] and Roger Bacon was fully acquainted with them.[] Algebra, as far as the Arabians knew it, extending to quadratic equations, was actually in the hands of some Italians at the commencement of the same age, and preserved for almost three hundred years as a secret, though without any conception of its importance. As abstract mathematics require no collateral aid, they may reach the highest perfection in ages of general barbarism; and there seems to be no reason why, if the course of study had been directed that way, there should not have arisen a Newton or a La Place, instead of an Aquinas or an Ockham. The knowledge displayed by Roger Bacon and by Albertus Magnus, even in the mixed mathematics, under every disadvantage from the imperfection of instruments and the want of recorded experience, is sufficient to inspire us with regret that their contemporaries were more inclined to astonishment than to emulation. These inquiries indeed were subject to the ordeal of fire, the great purifier of books and men; for if the metaphysician stood a chance of being burned as a heretic, the natural philosopher was in not less jeopardy as a magician.[t]
Cultivation of the new languages.
Division of the Romance tongue into two dialects.
Troubadours of Provence.
A far more substantial cause of intellectual improvement was the development of those new languages that sprang out of the corruption of Latin. For three or four centuries after what was called the Romance tongue was spoken in France, there remain but few vestiges of its employment in writing; though we cannot draw an absolute inference from our want of proof, and a critic of much authority supposes translations to have been made into it for religious purposes from the time of Charlemagne.[] During this period the language was split into two very separate dialects, the regions of which may be considered, though by no means strictly, as divided by the Loire. These were called the Langue d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc; or in more modern terms, the French and Provençal dialects. In the latter of these I know of nothing which can even by name be traced beyond the year 1100. About that time Gregory de Bechada, a gentleman of Limousin, recorded the memorable events of the first crusade, then recent, in a metrical history of great length.[x] This poem has altogether perished; which, considering the popularity of its subject, as M. Sismondi justly remarks, would probably not have been the case if it had possessed any merit. But very soon afterwards a multitude of poets, like a swarm of summer insects, appeared in the southern provinces of France. These were the celebrated Troubadours, whose fame depends far less on their positive excellence than on the darkness of preceding ages, on the temporary sensation they excited, and their permanent influence on the state of European poetry. From William count of Poitou, the earliest troubadour on record, who died in 1126, to their extinction, about the end of the next century, there were probably several hundred of these versifiers in the language of Provence, though not always natives of France. Millot has published the lives of one hundred and forty-two, besides the names of many more whose history is unknown; and a still greater number, it cannot be doubted, are unknown by name. Among those poets are reckoned a king of England (Richard I.), two of Aragon, one of Sicily, a dauphin of Auvergne, a count of Foix, a prince of Orange, many noblemen and several ladies. One can hardly pretend to account for this sudden and transitory love of verse; but it is manifestly one symptom of the rapid impulse which the human mind received in the twelfth century, and contemporaneous with the severer studies that began to flourish in the universities. It was encouraged by the prosperity of Languedoc and Provence, undisturbed, comparatively with other countries, by internal warfare, and disposed by the temper of their inhabitants to feel with voluptuous sensibility the charm of music and amorous poetry. But the tremendous storm that fell upon Languedoc in the crusade against the Albigeois shook off the flowers of Provençal verse; and the final extinction of the fief of Toulouse, with the removal of the counts of Provence to Naples, deprived the troubadours of their most eminent patrons. An attempt was made in the next century to revive them, by distributing prizes for the best composition in the Floral Games of Toulouse, which have sometimes been erroneously referred to a higher antiquity.[y] This institution perhaps still remains; but even in its earliest period it did not establish the name of any Provençal poet. Nor can we deem these fantastical solemnities, styled Courts of Love, where ridiculous questions of metaphysical gallantry were debated by poetical advocates, under the presidency and arbitration of certain ladies, much calculated to bring forward any genuine excellence. They illustrate, however, what is more immediately my own object, the general ardour for poetry and the manners of those chivalrous ages.[z]
Their poetical character.
The great reputation acquired by the troubadours, and panegyrics lavished on some of them by Dante and Petrarch, excited a curiosity among literary men, which has been a good deal disappointed by further acquaintance. An excellent French antiquary of the last age, La Curne de St. Palaye, spent great part of his life in accumulating manuscripts of Provençal poetry, very little of which had ever been printed. Translations from part of this collection, with memorials of the writers, were published by Millot; and we certainly do not often meet with passages in his three volumes which give us any poetical pleasure.[a] Some of the original poems have since been published, and the extracts made from them by the recent historians of southern literature are rather superior. The troubadours chiefly confined themselves to subjects of love, or rather gallantry, and to satires (sirventes), which are sometimes keen and spirited. No romances of chivalry, and hardly any tales, are found among their works. There seems a general deficiency of imagination, and especially of that vivid description which distinguishes works of genius in the rudest period of society. In the poetry of sentiment, their favourite province, they seldom attain any natural expression, and consequently produce no interest. I speak, of course, on the presumption that the best specimens have been exhibited by those who have undertaken the task. It must be allowed, however, that we cannot judge of the troubadours at a greater disadvantage than through the prose translations of Millot. Their poetry was entirely of that class which is allied to music, and excites the fancy or feelings rather by the power of sound than any stimulancy of imagery and passion. Possessing a flexible and harmonious language, they invented a variety of metrical arrangements, perfectly new to the nations of Europe. The Latin hymns were striking, but monotonous, the metre of the northern French unvaried; but in Provençal poetry, almost every length of verse, from two syllables to twelve, and the most intricate disposition of rhymes, were at the choice of the troubadour. The canzoni, the sestine, all the lyric metres of Italy and Spain were borrowed from his treasury. With such a command of poetical sounds, it was natural that he should inspire delight into ears not yet rendered familiar to the artifices of verse; and even now the fragments of these ancient lays, quoted by M. Sismondi and M. Ginguené, seem to possess a sort of charm that has evaporated in translation. Upon this harmony, and upon the facility with which mankind are apt to be deluded into an admiration of exaggerated sentiment in poetry, they depended for their influence. And however vapid the songs of Provence may seem to our apprehensions, they were undoubtedly the source from which poetry for many centuries derived a great portion of its habitual language.[]
Northern French poetry and prose.
It has been maintained by some antiquaries, that the northern Romance, or what we properly call French, was not formed until the tenth century, the common dialect of all France having previously resembled that of Languedoc. This hypothesis may not be indisputable; but the question is not likely to be settled, as scarcely any written specimens of Romance, even of that age, have survived.[c] In the eleventh century, among other more obscure productions, both in prose and metre, there appears what, if unquestioned as to authenticity, would be a valuable monument of this language; the laws of William the Conqueror. These are preserved in a manuscript of Ingulfus's History of Croyland, a blank being left in other copies where they should be inserted.[d] They are written in an idiom so far removed from the Provençal, that one would be disposed to think the separation between these two species of Romance of older standing than is commonly allowed. But it has been thought probable that these laws, which in fact were nearly a repetition of those of Edward the Confessor, were originally published in Anglo-Saxon, the only language intelligible to the people, and translated, at a subsequent period, by some Norman monk into French.[e]
The use of a popular language became more common after the year 1100. Translations of some books of Scripture and acts of saints were made about that time, or even earlier, and there are French sermons of St. Bernard, from which extracts have been published, in the royal library at Paris.[f] In 1126, a charter was granted by Louis VI. to the city of Beauvais in French.[g] Metrical compositions are in general the first literature of a nation, and even if no distinct proof could be adduced, we might assume their existence before the twelfth century. There is however evidence, not to mention the fragments printed by Le Bœuf, of certain lives of saints translated into French verse by Thibault de Vernon, a canon of Rouen, before the middle of the preceding age. And we are told that Taillefer, a Norman minstrel, recited a song or romance on the deeds of Roland, before the army of his countrymen, at the battle of Hastings in 1066. Philip de Than, a Norman subject of Henry I., seems to be the earliest poet whose works as well as name have reached us, unless we admit a French, translation of the work of one Marbode upon precious stones to be more ancient.[h] This De Than wrote a set of rules for computation of time and an account of different calendars. A happy theme for inspiration without doubt! Another performance of the same author is a treatise on birds and beasts, dedicated to Adelaide, queen of Henry I.[] But a more famous votary of the muses was Wace, a native of Jersey, who about the beginning of Henry II.'s reign turned Geoffrey of Monmouth's history into French metre. Besides this poem, called le Brut d'Angleterre, he composed a series of metrical histories, containing the transactions of the dukes of Normandy, from Rollo, their great progenitor, who gave name to the Roman de Rou, down to his own age. Other productions are ascribed to Wace, who was at least a prolific versifier, and, if he seem to deserve no higher title at present, has a claim to indulgence, and even to esteem, as having far excelled his contemporaries, without any superior advantages of knowledge. In emulation, however, of his fame, several Norman writers addicted themselves to composing chronicles, or devotional treatises in metre. The court of our Norman kings was to the early poets in the Langue d'Oil, what those of Arles and Toulouse were to the troubadours. Henry I. was fond enough of literature to obtain the surname of Beauclerc; Henry II. was more indisputably an encourager of poetry; and Richard I. has left compositions of his own in one or other (for the point is doubtful) of the two dialects spoken in France.[k]
Norman romances and tales.
If the poets of Normandy had never gone beyond historical and religious subjects, they would probably have had less claim to our attention than their brethren of Provence. But a different and far more interesting species of composition began to be cultivated in the latter part of the twelfth century. Without entering upon the controverted question as to the origin of romantic fictions, referred by one party to the Scandinavians, by a second to the Arabs, by others to the natives of Britany, it is manifest that the actual stories upon which one early and numerous class of romances was founded are related to the traditions of the last people. These are such as turn upon the fable of Arthur; for though we are not entitled to deny the existence of such a personage, his story seems chiefly the creation of Celtic vanity. Traditions current in Britany, though probably derived from this island, became the basis of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin prose, which, as has been seen, was transfused into French metre by Wace.[m] The vicinity of Normandy enabled its poets to enrich their narratives with other Armorican fictions, all relating to the heroes who had surrounded the table of the son of Uther.[n] An equally imaginary history of Charlemagne gave rise to a new family of romances. The authors of these fictions were called Trouveurs, a name obviously identical with that of Troubadours. But except in name there was no resemblance between the minstrels of the northern and southern dialects. The invention of one class was turned to description, that of the other to sentiment; the first were epic in their form and style, the latter almost always lyric. We cannot perhaps give a better notion of their dissimilitude, than by saying that one school produced Chaucer, and the other Petrarch. Besides these romances of chivalry, the trouveurs displayed their powers of lively narration in comic tales or fabliaux, (a name sometimes extended to the higher romance,) which have aided the imagination of Boccace and La Fontaine. These compositions are certainly more entertaining than those of the troubadours; but, contrary to what I have said of the latter, they often gain by appearing in a modern dress. Their versification, which doubtless had its charm when listened to around the hearth of an ancient castle, is very languid and prosaic, and suitable enough to the tedious prolixity into which the narrative is apt to fall; and though we find many sallies of that arch and sprightly simplicity which characterizes the old language of France as well as England, it requires, upon the whole, a factitious taste to relish these Norman tales, considered as poetry in the higher sense of the word, distinguished from metrical fiction.
Roman de la Rose.
A manner very different from that of the fabliaux was adopted, in the Roman de la Rose, begun by William de Loris about 1250, and completed by John de Meun half a century later. This poem, which contains about 16,000 lines in the usual octo-syllable verse, from which the early French writers seldom deviated, is an allegorical vision, wherein, love and the other passions or qualities connected with it pass over the stage, without the intervention, I believe, of any less abstract personages. Though similar allegories were not unknown to the ancients, and, which is more to the purpose, maybe found in other productions of the thirteenth century, none had been constructed so elaborately as that of the Roman de la Rose. Cold and tedious as we now consider this species of poetry, it originated in the creative power of imagination, and appealed to more refined feeling than the common metrical narratives could excite. This poem was highly popular in the middle ages, and became the source of those numerous allegories which had not ceased in the seventeenth century.
Works in French prose.
The French language was employed in prose as well as in metre. Indeed it seems to have had almost an exclusive privilege in this respect. "The language of Oil," says Dante, in his treatise on vulgar speech, "prefers its claim to be ranked above those of Oc and Si (Provençal and Italian), on the ground that all translations or compositions in prose have been written therein, from its greater facility and grace, such as the books compiled from the Trojan and Roman stories, the delightful fables about Arthur, and many other works of history and science."[o] I have mentioned already the sermons of St. Bernard and translations from Scripture. The laws of the kingdom of Jerusalem purport to have been drawn up immediately after the first crusade, and though their language has been materially altered, there seems no doubt that they were originally compiled in French.[p] Besides some charters, there are said to have been prose romances before the year 1200.[q] Early in the next age Ville Hardouin, seneschal of Campagne, recorded the capture of Constantinople in the fourth crusade, an expedition, the glory and reward of which he had personally shared, and, as every original work of prior date has either perished or is of small importance, may be deemed the father of French prose. The Establishments of St. Louis, and the law treatise of Beaumanoir, fill up the interval of the thirteenth century, and before its conclusion we must suppose the excellent memoirs of Joinville to have been composed, since they are dedicated to Louis X. in 1315, when the author could hardly be less than ninety years of age. Without prosecuting any further the history of French literature, I will only mention the translations of Livy and Sallust, made in the reign and by the order of John, with those of Cæsar, Suetonius, Ovid, and parts of Cicero, which are, due to his successor Charles V.[r]
Spanish language.
I confess myself wholly uninformed as to the original formation of the Spanish language, and as to the epoch of its separation into the two principal dialects of Castile and Portugal, or Gallicia;[] nor should I perhaps have alluded to the literature of that peninsula, were it not for a remarkable poem which shines out among the minor lights of those times. This is a metrical life of the Cid Ruy Diaz, written in a barbarous style and with the rudest inequality of measure, but with a truly Homeric warmth and vivacity of delineation. It is much to be regretted that the author's name has perished; but its date has been referred by some to the middle of the twelfth century, while the hero's actions were yet recent, and before the taste of Spain had been corrupted by the Provençal troubadours, whose extremely different manner would, if it did not pervert the poet's genius, at least have impeded his popularity. A very competent judge has pronounced the poem of the Cid to be "decidedly and beyond comparison the finest in the Spanish language." It is at least superior to any that was written in Europe before the appearance of Dante.[t]
Early writers in the Italian.
A strange obscurity envelops the infancy of the Italian language. Though it is certain that grammatical Latin had ceased to be employed in ordinary discourse, at least from the time of Charlemagne, we have not a single passage of undisputed authenticity, in the current idiom, for nearly four centuries afterwards. Though Italian phrases are mixed up in the barbarous jargon of some charters, not an instrument is extant in that language before the year 1200, unless we may reckon one in the Sardinian dialect (which I believe was rather Provençal than Italian), noticed by Muratori.[] Nor is there a vestige of Italian poetry older than a few fragments of Ciullo d'Alcamo, a Sicilian, who must have written before 1193, since he mentions Saladin as then living.[x] This may strike us as the more remarkable, when we consider the political circumstances of Italy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. From the struggles of her spirited republics against the emperors and their internal factions, we might, upon all general reasoning, anticipate the early use and vigorous cultivation of their native language. Even if it were not yet ripe for historians and philosophers, it is strange that no poet should have been inspired with songs of triumph or invective by the various fortunes of his country. But, on the contrary, the poets of Lombardy became troubadours, and wasted their genius in Provençal love strains at the courts of princes. The Milanese and other Lombard dialects were, indeed, exceedingly rude; but this rudeness separated them more decidedly from Latin: nor is it possible that the Lombards could have employed that language intelligibly for any public or domestic purpose. And indeed in the earliest Italian compositions that have been published, the new language is so thoroughly formed, that it is natural to infer a very long disuse of that from which it was derived. The Sicilians claim the glory of having first adapted their own harmonious dialect to poetry. Frederic II. both encouraged their art and cultivated it; among the very first essays of Italian verse we find his productions and those of his chancellor Piero delle Vigne. Thus Italy was destined to owe the beginnings of her national literature to a foreigner and an enemy. These poems are very short and few; those ascribed to St. Francis about the same time are hardly distinguishable from prose; but after the middle of the thirteenth century the Tuscan poets awoke to a sense of the beauties which their native language, refined from the impurities of vulgar speech,[y] could display, and the genius of Italian literature was rocked upon the restless waves of the Florentine democracy. Ricordano Malespini, the first historian, and nearly the first prose writer in Italian, left memorials of the republic down to the year 1281, which was that of his death, and it was continued by Giacchetto Malespini to 1286. These are little inferior in purity of style to the best Tuscan authors; for it is the singular fate of that language to have spared itself all intermediate stages of refinement, and, starting the last in the race, to have arrived almost instantaneously at the goal. There is an interval of not much more than half a century between the short fragment of Ciullo d'Alcamo, mentioned above, and the poems of Guido Guinizzelli, Guitone d'Arezzo, and Guido Cavalcante, which, in their diction and turn of thought, are sometimes not unworthy of Petrarch.[z]
Dante.
But at the beginning of the next age arose a much greater genius, the true father of Italian poetry, and the first name in the literature of the middle ages. This was Dante, or Durante Alighieri, born in 1265, of a respectable family at Florence. Attached to the Guelf party, which had then obtained a final ascendency over its rival, he might justly promise himself the natural reward of talents under a free government, public trust and the esteem of his compatriots. But the Guelfs unhappily were split into two factions, the Bianchi and the Neri, with the former of whom, and, as it proved, the unsuccessful side, Dante was connected. In 1300 he filled the office of one of the Priori, or chief magistrates at Florence; and having manifested in this, as was alleged, some partiality towards the Bianchi, a sentence of proscription passed against him about two years afterwards, when it became the turn of the opposite faction to triumph. Banished from his country, and baffled in several efforts of his friends to restore their fortunes, he had no resource but at the courts of the Scalas at Verona, and other Italian princes, attaching himself in adversity to the Imperial interests, and tasting, in his own language, the bitterness of another's bread.[a] In this state of exile he finished, if he did not commence, his great poem, the Divine Comedy; a representation of the three kingdoms of futurity, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, divided into one hundred cantos, and containing about 14,000 lines. He died at Ravenna in 1321.
Dante is among the very few who have created the national poetry of their country. For notwithstanding the polished elegance of some earlier Italian verse, it had been confined to amorous sentiment; and it was yet to be seen that the language could sustain, for a greater length than any existing poem except the Iliad, the varied style of narration, reasoning, and ornament. Of all writers he is the most unquestionably original. Virgil was indeed his inspiring genius, as he declares himself, and as may sometimes be perceived in his diction; but his tone is so peculiar and characteristic, that few readers would be willing at first to acknowledge any resemblance. He possessed, in an extraordinary degree, a command of language, the abuse of which led to his obscurity and licentious innovations. No poet ever excelled him in conciseness, and in the rare talent of finishing his pictures by a few bold touches; the merit of Pindar in his better hours. How prolix would the stories of Francesca or of Ugolino have become in the hands of Ariosto, or of Tasso, or of Ovid, or of Spenser! This excellence indeed is most striking in the first part of his poem. Having formed his plan so as to give an equal length to the three regions of his spiritual world, he found himself unable to vary the images of hope or beatitude, and the Paradise is a continual accumulation of descriptions, separately beautiful, but uniform and tedious. Though images derived from light and music are the most pleasing, and can be borne longer in poetry than any others, their sweetness palls upon the sense by frequent repetition, and we require the intermixture of sharper flavours. Yet there are detached passages of great excellence in this third part of Dante's poem; and even in the long theological discussions which occupy the greater proportion of its thirty-three cantos, it is impossible not to admire the enunciation of abstract positions with remarkable energy, conciseness, and sometimes perspicuity. The first twelve cantos of the Purgatory are an almost continual flow of soft and brilliant poetry. The last seven are also very splendid; but there is some heaviness in the intermediate parts. Fame has justly given the preference to the Inferno, which displays throughout a more vigorous and masterly conception; but the mind of Dante cannot be thoroughly appreciated without a perusal of his entire poem.
The most forced and unnatural turns, the most barbarous licences of idiom, are found in this poet, whose power of expression is at other times so peculiarly happy. His style is indeed generally free from those conceits of thought which discredited the other poets of his country; but no sense is too remote for a word which he finds convenient for his measure or his rhyme. It seems indeed as if he never altered a line on account of the necessity of rhyme, but forced another, or perhaps a third, into company with it. For many of his faults no sufficient excuse can be made. But it is candid to remember, that Dante, writing almost in the infancy of a language which he contributed to create, was not to anticipate that words which he borrowed from the Latin, and from the provincial dialects, would by accident, or through the timidity of later writers, lose their place in the classical idiom of Italy. If Petrarch, Bembo, and a few more, had not aimed rather at purity than copiousness, the phrases which now appear barbarous, and are at least obsolete, might have been fixed by use in poetical language.
The great characteristic excellence of Dante is elevation of sentiment, to which his compressed diction and the emphatic cadences of his measure admirably correspond. We read him, not as an amusing poet, but as a master of moral wisdom, with reverence and awe. Fresh from the deep and serious, though somewhat barren studies of philosophy, and schooled in the severer discipline of experience, he has made of his poem a mirror of his mind and life, the register of his solicitudes and sorrows, and of the speculations in which he sought to escape their recollection. The banished magistrate of Florence, the disciple of Brunetto Latini, the statesman accustomed to trace the varying fluctuations of Italian faction, is for ever before our eyes. For this reason, even the prodigal display of erudition, which in an epic poem would be entirely misplaced, increases the respect we feel for the poet, though it does not tend to the reader's gratification. Except Milton, he is much the most learned of all the great poets, and, relatively to his age, far more learned than Milton. In one so highly endowed by nature, and so consummate by instruction, we may well sympathise with a resentment which exile and poverty rendered perpetually fresh. The heart of Dante was naturally sensible, and even tender; his poetry is full of simple comparisons from rural life; and the sincerity of his early passion for Beatrice pierces through the veil of allegory which surrounds her. But the memory of his injuries pursues him into the immensity of eternal light; and, in the company of saints and angels, his unforgiving spirit darkens at the name of Florence.[]
This great poem was received in Italy with that enthusiastic admiration which attaches itself to works of genius only in ages too rude to listen to the envy of competitors, or the fastidiousness of critics. Almost every library in that country contains manuscript copies of the Divine Comedy, and an account of those who have abridged or commented upon it would swell to a volume. It was thrice printed in the year 1472, and at least nine times within the fifteenth century. The city of Florence in 1373, with a magnanimity which almost redeems her original injustice, appointed a public professor to read lectures upon Dante; and it was hardly less honourable to the poet's memory that the first person selected for this office was Boccaccio. The universities of Pisa and Piacenza imitated this example; but it is probable that Dante's abstruse philosophy was often more regarded in their chairs than his higher excellences.[c] Italy indeed, and all Europe, had reason to be proud of such a master. Since Claudian, there had been seen for nine hundred years no considerable body of poetry, except the Spanish poem of the Cid, of which no one had heard beyond the peninsula, that could be said to pass mediocrity; and we must go much further back than Claudian to find any one capable of being compared with Dante. His appearance made an epoch in the intellectual history of modern nations, and banished the discouraging suspicion which long ages of lethargy tended to excite, that nature had exhausted her fertility in the great poets of Greece and Rome. It was as if, at some of the ancient games, a stranger had appeared upon the plain, and thrown his quoit among the marks of former casts which tradition had ascribed to the demigods. But the admiration of Dante, though it gave a general impulse to the human mind, did not produce imitators. I am unaware at least of any writer, in whatever language, who can be said to have followed the steps of Dante: I mean not so much in his subject as in the character of his genius and style. His orbit is still all his own, and the track of his wheels can never be confounded with that of a rival.[d]
Petrarch.
In the same year that Dante was expelled from Florence, a notary, by name Petracco, was involved in a similar banishment. Retired to Arezzo, he there became the father of Francis Petrarch. This great man shared of course, during his early years, in the adverse fortune of his family, which he was invincibly reluctant to restore, according to his father's wish, by the profession of jurisprudence. The strong bias of nature determined him to polite letters and poetry. These are seldom the fountains of wealth; yet they would perhaps have been such to Petrarch, if his temper could have borne the sacrifice of liberty for any worldly acquisitions. At the city of Avignon, where his parents had latterly resided, his graceful appearance and the reputation of his talents attracted one of the Colonna family, then bishop of Lombes in Gascony. In him, and in other members of that great house, never so illustrious as in the fourteenth century, he experienced the union of patronage and friendship. This, however, was not confined to the Colonnas. Unlike Dante, no poet was ever so liberally and sincerely encouraged by the great; nor did any perhaps ever carry to that perilous intercourse a spirit more irritably independent, or more free from interested adulation. He praised his friends lavishly because he loved them ardently; but his temper was easily susceptible of offence, and there must have been much to tolerate in that restlessness and jealousy of reputation which is perhaps the inevitable failing of a poet.[e] But every thing was forgiven to a man who was the acknowledged boast of his age and country. Clement VI. conferred one or two sinecure benefices upon Petrarch, and would probably have raised him to a bishopric if he had chosen to adopt the ecclesiastical profession. But he never took orders, the clerical tonsure being a sufficient qualification for holding canonries. The same pope even afforded him the post of apostolical secretary, and this was repeated by Innocent VI. I know not whether we should ascribe to magnanimity or to a politic motive the behaviour of Clement VI. towards Petrarch, who had pursued a course as vexatious as possible to the Holy See. For not only he made the residence of the supreme pontiffs at Avignon, and the vices of their court, the topic of invectives, too well founded to be despised, but he had ostentatiously put himself forward as the supporter of Nicola di Rienzi in a project which could evidently have no other aim than to wrest the city of Rome from the temporal sovereignty of its bishop. Nor was the friendship and society of Petrarch less courted by the most respectable Italian princes; by Robert king of Naples, by the Visconti, the Correggi of Parma, the famous doge of Venice, Andrew Dandolo, and the Carrara family of Padua, under whose protection he spent the latter years of his life. Stories are related of the respect shown to him by men in humbler stations which are perhaps still more satisfactory.[f] But the most conspicuous testimony of public esteem was bestowed by the city of Rome, in his solemn coronation as laureat poet in the Capitol. This ceremony took place in 1341; and it is remarkable that Petrarch had at that time composed no works which could, in our estimation, give him pretensions to so singular an honour.
The moral character of Petrarch was formed of dispositions peculiarly calculated for a poet. An enthusiast in the emotions of love and friendship, of glory, of patriotism, of religion, he gave the rein to all their impulses; and there is not perhaps a page in his Italian writing which does not bear the trace of one or other of these affections. By far the most predominant, and that which has given the greatest celebrity to his name, is his passion for Laura. Twenty years of unrequited and almost unaspiring love were lightened by song; and the attachment, which, having long survived the beauty of its object,[g] seems to have at one time nearly passed from the heart to the fancy, was changed to an intenser feeling, and to a sort of celestial adoration, by her death. Laura, before the time of Petrarch's first accidental meeting with her, was united in marriage with another; a fact which, besides some more particular evidence, appears to me deducible from the whole tenor of his poetry.[h] Such a passion is undoubtedly not capable of a moral defence; nor would I seek its palliation so much in the prevalent manners of his age, by which however the conduct of even good men is generally not a little influenced, as in the infirmity of Petrarch's character, which induced him both to obey and to justify the emotions of his heart. The lady too, whose virtue and prudence we are not to question, seems to have tempered the light and shadow of her countenance so as to preserve her admirer from despair, and consequently to prolong his sufferings and servitude.
The general excellences of Petrarch, are his command over the music of his native language, his correctness of style, scarcely two or three words that he has used having been rejected by later writers, his exquisite elegance of diction, improved by the perpetual study of Virgil; but, far above all, that tone of pure and melancholy sentiment which has something in it unearthly, and forms a strong contrast to the amatory poems of antiquity. Most of these are either licentious or uninteresting; and those of Catullus, a man endowed by nature with deep and serious sensibility, and a poet, in my opinion, of greater and more varied genius than Petrarch, are contaminated above all the rest with the most degrading grossness. Of this there is not a single instance in the poet of Vaucluse; and his strains, diffused and admired as they have been, may have conferred a benefit that criticism cannot estimate, in giving elevation and refinement to the imaginations of youth. The great defect of Petrarch was his want of strong original conception, which prevented him from throwing off the affected and overstrained manner of the Provençal troubadours, and of the earlier Italian poets. Among his poems the Triumphs are perhaps superior to the Odes, as the latter are to the Sonnets; and of the latter, those written subsequently to the death of Laura are in general the best. But that constrained and laborious measure cannot equal the graceful flow of the canzone, or the vigorous compression of the terza rima. The Triumphs have also a claim to superiority, as the only poetical composition of Petrarch that extends to any considerable length. They are in some degree perhaps an imitation of the dramatic Mysteries, and form at least the earliest specimens of a kind of poetry not uncommon in later times, wherein real and allegorical personages are intermingled in a masque or scenic representation.[]
English language.
None of the principal modern languages was so late in its formation, or in its application to the purposes of literature, as the English. This arose, as is well known, out of the Saxon branch of the Great Teutonic stock spoken in England till after the Conquest. From this mother dialect our English differs less in respect of etymology, than of syntax, idiom, and flexion. In so gradual a transition as probably took place, and one so sparingly marked by any existing evidence, we cannot well assign a definite origin to our present language. The question of identity is almost as perplexing in languages as in individuals. But, in the reign of Henry II., a version of Wace's poem of Brut, by one Layamon, a priest of Ernly-upon-Severn, exhibits as it were the chrysalis of the English language, in a very corrupt modification of the Anglo-Saxon.[k] Very soon afterwards the new formation was better developed; and some metrical pieces, referred by critics to the earlier part of the thirteenth century, differ but little from our legitimate grammar.[m] About the beginning of Edward I.'s reign, Robert, a monk of Gloucester, composed a metrical chronicle from the history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, which he continued to his own time. This work, with a similar chronicle of Robert Manning, a monk of Brunne (Bourne) in Lincolnshire, nearly thirty years later, stand at the head of our English poetry. The romance of Sir Tristrem, ascribed to Thomas of Erceldoune, surnamed the Rhymer, a Scottish minstrel, has recently laid claim to somewhat higher antiquity.[n] In the fourteenth century a great number of metrical romances were translated from the French. It requires no small portion of indulgence to speak favourably of any of these early English productions. A poetical line may no doubt occasionally be found; but in general the narration is as heavy and prolix as the versification is unmusical.[o] The first English writer who can be read with approbation is William Langland, the author of Piers Plowman's Vision, a severe satire upon the clergy. Though his measure is more uncouth than that of his predecessors, there is real energy in his conceptions, which he caught not from the chimeras of knight-errantry, but the actual manners and opinions of his time.
Cause of its slow progress.
The very slow progress of the English language, as an instrument of literature, is chiefly to be ascribed to the effects of the Norman conquest, in degrading the native inhabitants and transferring all power and riches to foreigners. The barons, without perhaps one exception, and a large proportion of the gentry, were of French descent, and preserved among themselves the speech of their fathers. This continued much longer than we should naturally have expected; even after the loss of Normandy had snapped the thread of French connexions, and they began to pride themselves in the name of Englishmen, and in the inheritance of traditionary English privileges. Robert of Gloucester has a remarkable passage, which proves that in his time, somewhere about 1290, the superior ranks continued to use the French language.[p] Ralph Higden, about the early part of Edward III.'s reign, though his expressions do not go the same length, asserts, that "gentlemen's children are taught to speak French, from the time they are rocked in their cradle; and uplandish (country) or inferior men will liken themselves to gentlemen, and learn with great business for to speak French, for to be the more told of." Notwithstanding, however, this predominance of French among the higher class, I do not think that some modern critics are warranted in concluding that they were in general ignorant of the English tongue. Men living upon their estates among their tenantry, whom they welcomed in their halls, and whose assistance they were perpetually needing in war and civil frays, would hardly have permitted such a barrier to obstruct their intercourse. For we cannot, at the utmost, presume that French was so well known to the English commonalty in the thirteenth century as English is at present to the same class in Wales and the Scottish Highlands. It may be remarked also, that the institution of trial by jury must have rendered a knowledge of English almost indispensable to those who administered justice. There is a proclamation of Edward I. in Rymer, where he endeavours to excite his subjects against the king of France by imputing to him the intention of conquering the country and abolishing the English language (linguam delere Anglicanam), and this is frequently repeated in the proclamations of Edward III.[q] In his time, or perhaps a little before, the native language had become more familiar than French in common use, even with the court and nobility. Hence the numerous translations of metrical romances, which are chiefly referred to his reign. An important change was effected in 1362 by a statute, which enacts that all pleas in courts of justice shall be pleaded, debated, and judged in English. But Latin was by this act to be employed in drawing the record; for there seems to have still continued a sort of prejudice against the use of English as a written language. The earliest English instrument known to exist is said to bear the date of 1343.[r] And there are but few entries in our own tongue upon the rolls of parliament before the reign of Henry VI., after whose accession its use becomes very common.[] Sir John Mandevile, about 1356, may pass for the father of English prose, no original work being so ancient as his Travels. But the translation of the Bible and other writings by Wicliffe, nearly thirty years afterwards, taught us the copiousness and energy of which our native dialect was capable; and it was employed in the fifteenth century by two writers of distinguished merit, Bishop Pecock and Sir John Fortescue.
Chaucer.
But the principal ornament of our English literature was Geoffrey Chaucer, who, with Dante and Petrarch, fills up the triumvirate of great poets in the middle ages. Chaucer was born in 1328, and his life extended to the last year of the fourteenth century. That rude and ignorant generation was not likely to feel the admiration of native genius as warmly as the compatriots of Petrarch; but he enjoyed the favour of Edward III., and still more conspicuously of John duke of Lancaster; his fortunes were far more prosperous than have usually been the lot of poets; and a reputation was established beyond competition in his lifetime, from which no succeeding generation has withheld its sanction. I cannot, in my own taste, go completely along with the eulogies that some have bestowed upon Chaucer, who seems to me to have wanted grandeur, where he is original, both in conception and in language. But in vivacity of imagination and ease of expression, he is above all poets of the middle time, and comparable perhaps to the greatest of those who have followed. He invented, or rather introduced from France, and employed with facility the regular iambic couplet; and though it was not to be expected that he should perceive the capacities latent in that measure, his versification, to which he accommodated a very licentious and arbitrary pronunciation, is uniform and harmonious.[t] It is chiefly, indeed, as a comic poet, and a minute observer of manners and circumstances, that Chaucer excels. In serious and moral poetry he is frequently languid and diffuse; but he springs like Antæus from the earth, when his subject changes to coarse satire, or merry narrative. Among his more elevated compositions, the Knight's Tale is abundantly sufficient to immortalize Chaucer, since it would be difficult to find any where a story better conducted, or told with more animation and strength of fancy. The second place may be given to his Troilus and Creseide, a beautiful and interesting poem, though enfeebled by expansion. But perhaps the most eminent, or at any rate the most characteristic testimony to his genius will be found in the prologue to his Canterbury Tales; a work entirely and exclusively his own, which can seldom be said of his poetry, and the vivid delineations of which perhaps very few writers but Shakspeare could have equalled. As the first original English poet, if we except Langland, as the inventor of our most approved measure, as an improver, though with too much innovation, of our language, and as a faithful witness to the manners of his age, Chaucer would deserve our reverence, if he had not also intrinsic claims for excellences, which do not depend upon any collateral considerations.
Revival of ancient learning.
In the twelfth century;
The last circumstance which I shall mention, as having contributed to restore society from the intellectual degradation into which it had fallen during the dark ages, is the revival of classical learning. The Latin language indeed, in which all legal instruments were drawn up, and of which all ecclesiastics availed themselves in their epistolary intercourse, as well as in their more solemn proceedings, had never ceased to be familiar. Though many solecisms and barbarous words occur in the writings of what were called learned men, they possessed a fluency of expression in Latin which does not often occur at present. During the dark ages, however, properly so called, or the period from the sixth to the eleventh century, we chiefly meet with quotations from the Vulgate or from theological writers. Nevertheless, quotations from the Latin poets are hardly to be called unusual. Virgil, Ovid, Statius, and Horace, are brought forward by those who aspired to some literary reputation, especially during the better periods of that long twilight, the reigns of Charlemagne and his son in France, part of the tenth century in Germany, and the eleventh in both. The prose writers of Rome are not so familiar, but in quotations we are apt to find the poets preferred; and it is certain that a few could be named who were not ignorant of Cicero, Sallust, and Livy. A considerable change took place in the course of the twelfth century. The polite literature, as well as the abstruser science of antiquity, became the subject of cultivation. Several writers of that age, in different parts of Europe, are distinguished more or less for elegance, though not absolute purity of Latin style; and for their acquaintance with those ancients, who are its principal models. Such were John of Salisbury, the acute and learned author of the Polycraticon, William of Malmsbury, Giraldus Cambrensis, Roger Hoveden, in England; and in foreign countries, Otho of Frisingen, Saxo Grammaticus, and the best perhaps of all I have named as to style, Falcandus, the historian of Sicily. In these we meet with frequent quotations from Livy, Cicero, Pliny, and other considerable writers of antiquity. The poets were now admired and even imitated. All metrical Latin before the latter part of the twelfth century, so far as I have seen, is of little value; but at this time, and early in the succeeding age, there appeared several versifiers who aspired to the renown of following the steps of Virgil and Statius in epic poetry. Joseph Iscanus, an Englishman, seems to have been the earliest of these; his poem on the Trojan war containing an address to Henry II. He wrote another, entitled Antiocheis, on the third crusade, most of which has perished. The wars of Frederic Barbarossa were celebrated by Gunther in his Ligurinus; and not long afterwards, Guillelmus Brito wrote the Philippis, in honour of Philip Augustus, and Walter de Chatillon the Alexandreis, taken from the popular romance of Alexander. None of these poems, I believe, have much intrinsic merit; but their existence is a proof of taste that could relish, though not of genius that could emulate antiquity.[]
much more the fourteenth.
Invention of linen paper.
Libraries.
In the thirteenth century there seems to have been some decline of classical literature, in consequence probably of the scholastic philosophy, which was then in its greatest vigour; at least we do not find so many good writers as in the preceding age. But about the middle of the fourteenth, or perhaps a little sooner, an ardent zeal for the restoration of ancient learning began to display itself. The copying of books, for some ages slowly and sparingly performed in monasteries, had already become a branch of trade;[x] and their price was consequently reduced. Tiraboschi denies that the invention of making paper from linen rags is older than the middle of that century; and although doubts may be justly entertained as to the accuracy of this position, yet the confidence with which so eminent a scholar advances it is at least a proof that paper manuscripts of an earlier date are very rare.[y] Princes became far more attentive to literature when it was no longer confined to metaphysical theology and canon law. I have already mentioned the translations from classical authors, made by command of John and Charles V. of France. These French translations diffused some acquaintance with ancient history and learning among our own countrymen.[z] The public libraries assumed a more respectable appearance. Louis IX. had formed one at Paris, in which it does not appear that any work of elegant literature was found.[a] At the beginning of the fourteenth century, only four classical manuscripts existed in this collection; of Cicero, Ovid, Lucan, and Boethius.[] The academical library of Oxford, in 1300, consisted of a few tracts kept in chests under St Mary's church. That of Glastonbury Abbey, in 1240, contained four hundred volumes, among which were Livy, Sallust, Lucan, Virgil, Claudian, and other ancient writers.[c] But no other, probably, of that age was so numerous or so valuable. Richard of Bury, chancellor of England, and Edward III., spared no expense in collecting a library, the first perhaps that any private man had formed. But the scarcity of valuable books was still so great, that he gave the abbot of St. Albans fifty pounds weight of silver for between thirty and forty volumes.[d] Charles V. increased the royal library at Paris to nine hundred volumes, which the duke of Bedford purchased and transported to London.[e] His brother Humphrey duke of Gloucester presented the university of Oxford with six hundred books, which seem to have been of extraordinary value, one hundred and twenty of them having been estimated at one thousand pounds. This indeed was in 1440, at which time such a library would not have been thought remarkably numerous beyond the Alps,[f] but England had made comparatively little progress in learning. Germany, however, was probably still less advanced. Louis, Elector Palatine, bequeathed in 1421 his library to the university of Heidelberg, consisting of one hundred and fifty-two volumes. Eighty-nine of these related to theology, twelve to canon and civil law, forty-five to medicine, and six to philosophy.[g]
Transcription of manuscripts.
Those who first undertook to lay open the stores of ancient learning found incredible difficulties from the scarcity of manuscripts. So gross and supine was the ignorance of the monks, within whose walls these treasures were concealed, that it was impossible to ascertain, except by indefatigable researches, the extent of what had been saved out of the great shipwreck of antiquity. To this inquiry Petrarch devoted continual attention. He spared no means to preserve the remains of authors, who were perishing from neglect and time. This danger was by no means passed in the fourteenth century. A treatise of Cicero upon Glory, which had been in his possession, was afterwards irretrievably lost.[h] He declares that he had seen in his youth the works of Varro; but all his endeavours to recover these and the second Decad of Livy were fruitless. He found, however, Quintilian, in 1350, of which there was no copy in Italy.[] Boccaccio, and a man of less general fame, Colluccio Salutato, were distinguished in the same honourable task. The diligence of these scholars was not confined to searching for manuscripts. Transcribed by slovenly monks, or by ignorant persons who made copies for sale, they required the continual emendation of accurate critics.[k] Though much certainly was left for the more enlightened sagacity of later times, we owe the first intelligible text of the Latin classics to Petrarch, Poggio, and their contemporary labourers in this vineyard for a hundred years before the invention of printing.
Industry of the fifteenth century.
Poggio.
What Petrarch began in the fourteenth century was carried on by a new generation with unabating industry. The whole lives of Italian scholars in the fifteenth century were devoted to the recovery of manuscripts and the revival of philology. For this they sacrificed their native language, which had made such surprising shoots in the preceding age, and were content to trace, in humble reverence, the footsteps of antiquity. For this too they lost the hope of permanent glory, which can never remain with imitators, or such as trim the lamp of ancient sepulchres. No writer perhaps of the fifteenth century, except Politian, can aspire at present even to the second class, in a just marshalling of literary reputation. But we owe them our respect and gratitude for their taste and diligence. The discovery of an unknown manuscript, says Tiraboschi, was regarded almost as the conquest of a kingdom. The classical writers, he adds, were chiefly either found in Italy, or at least by Italians; they were first amended and first printed in Italy, and in Italy they were first collected in public libraries.[m] This is subject to some exception, when fairly considered; several ancient authors were never lost, and therefore cannot be said to have been discovered; and we know that Italy did not always anticipate other countries in classical printing. But her superior merit is incontestable. Poggio Bracciolini, who stands perhaps at the head of the restorers of learning, in the earlier part of the fifteenth century, discovered in the monastery of St. Gall, among dirt and rubbish in a dungeon scarcely fit for condemned criminals, as he describes it, an entire copy of Quintilian, and part of Valerius Flaccus. This was in 1414; and soon afterwards, he rescued the poem of Silius Italicus, and twelve comedies of Plautus, in addition to eight that were previously known: besides Lucretius, Columella, Tertullian, Ammianus Marcellinus, and other writers of inferior note.[n] A bishop of Lodi brought to light the rhetorical treatises of Cicero. Not that we must suppose these books to have been universally unknown before; Quintilian, at least, is quoted by English writers much earlier. But so little intercourse prevailed among different countries, and the monks had so little acquaintance with the riches of their conventual libraries, that an author might pass for lost in Italy, who was familiar to a few learned men in other parts of Europe. To the name of Poggio we may add a number of others, distinguished in this memorable resurrection of ancient literature, and united, not always indeed by friendship, for their bitter animosities disgrace their profession, but by a sort of common sympathy in the cause of learning; Filelfo, Laurentius Valla, Niccolo Niccoli, Ambrogio Traversari, more commonly called Il Camaldolense, and Leonardo Aretino.
Greek language unknown in the West.
From the subversion of the Western Empire, or at least from the time when Rome ceased to pay obedience to the exarchs of Ravenna, the Greek language and literature had been almost entirely forgotten within the pale of the Latin church. A very few exceptions might be found, especially in the earlier period of the middle ages, while the eastern emperors retained their dominion over part of Italy.[o] Thus Charlemagne is said to have established a school for Greek at Osnaburg.[p] John Scotus seems to have been well acquainted with the language. And Greek characters may occasionally, though very seldom, be found in the writings of learned men; such as Lanfranc or William of Malmsbury.[q] It is said that Roger Bacon understood Greek; and that his eminent contemporary, Robert Grostete, bishop of Lincoln, had a sufficient intimacy with it to translate a part of Suidas. Since Greek was spoken with considerable purity by the noble and well educated natives of Constantinople, we may wonder that, even as a living language, it was not better known by the western nations, and especially in so neighbouring a nation as Italy. Yet here the ignorance was perhaps even more complete than in France or England. In some parts indeed of Calabria, which had been subject to the eastern empire till near the year 1100, the liturgy was still performed in Greek; and a considerable acquaintance with the language was of course preserved. But for the scholars of Italy, Boccaccio positively asserts, that no one understood so much as the Greek characters.[r] Nor is there probably a single line quoted from any poet in that language from the sixth to the fourteenth century.
Its study revives in the fourteenth century.
The first to lead the way in restoring Grecian learning in Europe were the same men who had revived the kindred muses of Latium, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Barlaam, a Calabrian by birth, during an embassy from the court of Constantinople in 1335, was persuaded to become the preceptor of the former, with whom he read the works of Plato.[] Leontius Pilatus, a native of Thessalonica, was encouraged some years afterwards by Boccaccio to give public lectures upon Homer at Florence.[t] Whatever might be the share of general attention that he excited, he had the honour of instructing both these great Italians in his native language. Neither of them perhaps reached an advanced degree of proficiency; but they bathed their lips in the fountain, and enjoyed the pride of being the first who paid the homage of a new posterity to the father of poetry. For some time little fruit apparently resulted from their example; but Italy had imbibed the desire of acquisitions in a new sphere of knowledge, which, after some interval, she was abundantly able to realize. A few years before the termination of the fourteenth century, Emanuel Chrysoloras, whom the emperor John Palæologus had previously sent into Italy, and even as far as England, upon one of those unavailing embassies, by which the Byzantine court strove to obtain sympathy and succour from Europe, returned to Florence as a public teacher of Grecian literature.[] His school was afterwards removed successively to Pavia, Venice, and Rome; and during nearly twenty years that he taught in Italy, most of those eminent scholars whom I have already named, and who distinguish the first half of that century, derived from his instruction their knowledge of the Greek tongue. Some, not content with being the disciples of Chrysoloras, betook themselves to the source of that literature at Constantinople; and returned to Italy, not only with a more accurate insight into the Greek idiom than they could have attained at home, but with copious treasures of manuscripts, few, if any, of which probably existed previously in Italy, where none had ability to read or value them; so that the principal authors of Grecian antiquity may be considered as brought to light by these inquirers, the most celebrated of whom are Guarino of Verona, Aurispa, and Filelfo. The second of these brought home to Venice in 1423 not less than two hundred and thirty-eight volumes.[x]
State of learning in Greece.
The fall of that eastern empire, which had so long outlived all other pretensions to respect that it scarcely retained that founded upon its antiquity, seems to have been providentially delayed till Italy was ripe to nourish the scattered seeds of literature that would have perished a few ages earlier in the common catastrophe. From the commencement of the fifteenth century even the national pride of Greece could not blind her to the signs of approaching ruin. It was no longer possible to inspire the European republic, distracted by wars and restrained by calculating policy, with the generous fanaticism of the crusades; and at the council of Florence, in 1439, the court and church of Constantinople had the mortification of sacrificing their long-cherished faith, without experiencing any sensible return of protection or security. The learned Greeks were perhaps the first to anticipate, and certainly not the last to avoid, their country's destruction. The council of Florence brought many of them into Italian connexions, and held out at least a temporary accommodation of their conflicting opinions. Though the Roman pontiffs did nothing, and probably could have done nothing effectual, for the empire of Constantinople, they were very ready to protect and reward the learning of individuals. To Eugenius IV., to Nicolas V., to Pius II., and some other popes of this age, the Greek exiles were indebted for a patronage which they repaid by splendid services in the restoration of their native literature throughout Italy. Bessarion, a disputant on the Greek side in the council of Florence, was well content to renounce the doctrine of single procession for a cardinal's hat—a dignity which he deserved for his learning, if not for his pliancy. Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and Gemistus Pletho, might equal Bessarion in merit, though not in honours. They all, however, experienced the patronage of those admirable protectors of letters, Nicolas V., Cosmo de' Medici, or Alfonso king of Naples. These men emigrated before the final destruction of the Greek empire; Lascaris and Musurus, whose arrival in Italy was posterior to that event, may be deemed perhaps still more conspicuous; but as the study of the Greek language was already restored, it is unnecessary to pursue the subject any further.
The Greeks had preserved, through the course of the middle ages, their share of ancient learning with more fidelity and attention than was shown in the west of Europe. Genius indeed, or any original excellence, could not well exist along with their cowardly despotism, and their contemptible theology, more corrupted by frivolous subtleties than that of the Latin church. The spirit of persecution, naturally allied to despotism and bigotry, had nearly, during one period, extinguished the lamp, or at least reduced the Greeks to a level with the most ignorant nations of the West. In the age of Justinian, who expelled the last Platonic philosophers, learning began rapidly to decline; in that of Heraclius it had reached a much lower point of degradation; and for two centuries, especially while the worshippers of images were persecuted with unrelenting intolerance, there is almost a blank in the annals of Grecian literature.[y] But about the middle of the ninth century it revived pretty suddenly, and with considerable success.[z] Though, as I have observed, we find in very few instances any original talent, yet it was hardly less important to have had compilers of such erudition as Photius, Suidas, Eustathius, and Tzetzes. With these certainly the Latins of the middle ages could not place any names in comparison. They possessed, to an extent which we cannot precisely appreciate, many of those poets, historians, and orators of ancient Greece, whose loss we have long regretted and must continue to deem irretrievable. Great havoc, however, was made in the libraries of Constantinople at its capture by the Latins—an epoch from which a rapid decline is to be traced in the literature of the eastern empire. Solecisms and barbarous terms, which sometimes occur in the old Byzantine writers, are said to deform the style of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[a] The Turkish ravages and destruction of monasteries ensued; and in the cheerless intervals of immediate terror there was no longer any encouragement to preserve the monuments of an expiring language, and of a name that was to lose its place among nations.[]
Literature not much improved beyond Italy.
That ardour for the restoration of classical literature which animated Italy in the first part of the fifteenth century, was by no means common to the rest of Europe. Neither England, nor France, nor Germany, seemed aware of the approaching change. We are told that learning, by which I believe is only meant the scholastic ontology, had begun to decline at Oxford from the time of Edward III.[c] And the fifteenth century, from whatever cause, is particularly barren of writers in the Latin language. The study of Greek was only introduced by Grocyn and Linacer under Henry VII., and met with violent opposition in the university of Oxford, where the unlearned party styled themselves Trojans, as a pretext for abusing and insulting the scholars.[d] Nor did any classical work proceed from the respectable press of Caxton. France, at the beginning of the fifteenth age, had several eminent theologians; but the reigns of Charles VII. and Louis XI. contributed far more to her political than her literary renown. A Greek professor was first appointed at Paris in 1458, before which time the language had not been publicly taught, and was little understood.[e] Much less had Germany thrown off her ancient rudeness. Æneas Sylvius, indeed, a deliberate flatterer, extols every circumstance in the social state of that country; but Campano, the papal legate at Ratisbon in 1471, exclaims against the barbarism of a nation, where very few possessed any learning, none any elegance.[f] Yet the progress of intellectual cultivation, at least in the two former countries, was uniform, though silent; libraries became more numerous, and books, after the happy invention of paper, though still very scarce, might be copied at less expense. Many colleges were founded in the English as well as foreign universities during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Nor can I pass over institutions that have so eminently contributed to the literary reputation of this country, and that still continue to exercise so conspicuous an influence over her taste and knowledge, as the two great schools of grammatical learning, Winchester and Eton—the one founded by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, in 1373; the other in 1432, by King Henry the Sixth.[g]
Invention of printing.
But while the learned of Italy were eagerly exploring their recent acquisitions of manuscripts, decyphered with difficulty and slowly circulated from hand to hand, a few obscure Germans had gradually perfected the most important discovery recorded in the annals of mankind. The invention of printing, so far from being the result of philosophical sagacity, does not appear to have been suggested by any regard to the higher branches of literature, or to bear any other relation than that of coincidence to their revival in Italy. The question why it was struck out at that particular time must be referred to that disposition of unknown causes which we call accident. Two or three centuries earlier, we cannot but acknowledge the discovery would have been almost equally acceptable. But the invention of paper seems to have naturally preceded those of engraving and printing. It is generally agreed that playing cards, which have been traced far back in the fourteenth century, gave the first notion of taking off impressions from engraved figures upon wood. The second stage, or rather second application of this art, was the representation of saints and other religious devices, several instances of which are still extant. Some of these are accompanied with an entire page of illustrative text, cut into the same wooden block. This process is indeed far removed from the invention that has given immortality to the names of Fust, Schœffer, and Gutenburg, yet it probably led to the consideration of means whereby it might be rendered less operose and inconvenient. Whether moveable wooden characters were ever employed in any entire work is very questionable—the opinion that referred their use to Laurence Coster, of Haarlem, not having stood the test of more accurate investigation. They appear, however, in the capital letters of some early printed books. But no expedient of this kind could have fulfilled the great purposes of this invention, until it was perfected by founding metal types in a matrix or mould, the essential characteristic of printing, as distinguished from other arts that bear some analogy to it.
The first book that issued from the presses of Fust and his associates at Mentz was an edition of the Vulgate, commonly called the Mazarine Bible, a copy having been discovered in the library that owes its name to Cardinal Mazarin at Paris. This is supposed to have been printed between the years 1450 and 1455.[h] In 1457 an edition of the Psalter appeared, and in this the invention was announced to the world in a boasting colophon, though certainly not unreasonably bold.[] Another edition of the Psalter, one of an ecclesiastical book, Durand's account of liturgical offices, one of the Constitutions of Pope Clement V., and one of a popular treatise on general science, called the Catholicon, filled up the interval till 1462, when the second Mentz Bible proceeded from the same printers.[k] This, in the opinion of some, is the earliest book in which cast types were employed—those of the Mazarine Bible having been cut with the hand. But this is a controverted point. In 1465 Fust and Schœffer published an edition of Cicero's Offices, the first tribute of the new art to polite literature. Two pupils of their school, Sweynheim and Pannartz, migrated the same year into Italy, and printed Donatus's grammar and the works of Lactantius at the monastery of Subiaco, in the neighbourhood of Rome.[m] Venice had the honour of extending her patronage to John of Spira, the first who applied the art on an extensive scale to the publication of classical writers.[n] Several Latin authors came forth from his press in 1470; and during the next ten years a multitude of editions were published in various parts of Italy. Though, as we may judge from their present scarcity, these editions were by no means numerous in respect of impressions, yet, contrasted with the dilatory process of copying manuscripts, they were like a new mechanical power in machinery, and gave a wonderfully accelerated impulse to the intellectual cultivation of mankind. From the era of these first editions proceeding from the Spiras, Zarot, Janson, or Sweynheim and Pannartz, literature must be deemed to have altogether revived in Italy. The sun was now fully above the horizon, though countries less fortunately circumstanced did not immediately catch his beams; and the restoration of ancient learning in France and England cannot be considered as by any means effectual even at the expiration of the fifteenth century. At this point, however, I close the present chapter. The last twenty years of the middle ages, according to the date which I have fixed for their termination in treating of political history, might well invite me by their brilliancy to dwell upon that golden morning of Italian literature. But, in the history of letters, they rather appertain to the modern than the middle period; nor would it become me to trespass upon the exhausted patience of my readers by repeating what has been so often and so recently told, the story of art and learning, that has employed the comprehensive research of a Tiraboschi, a Ginguené, and a Roscoe.
FOOTNOTES:
[a] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 270. Meyer ascribes the origin of Flemish trade to Baldwin count of Flanders in 958, who established markets at Bruges and other cities. Exchanges were in that age, he says, chiefly effected by barter, little money circulating in Flanders. Annales Flandrici, fol. 18 (edit. 1561).
[] Matthew Westmonast, apud Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 415.
[c] Such regulations scared away those Flemish weavers who brought their art into England under Edward III. Macpherson, p. 467, 494, 546. Several years later the magistrates of Ghent are said by Meyer (Annales Flandrici, fol. 156) to have imposed a tax on every loom. Though the seditious spirit of the Weavers' Company had perhaps justly provoked them, such a tax on their staple manufacture was a piece of madness, when English goods were just coming into competition.
[d] Terrâ marique mercatura, rerumque commercia et quæstus peribant. Non solum totius Europæ mercatores, verum etiam ipsi Turcæ aliæque sepositæ nationes ob bellum istud Flandriæ magno afficiebantur dolore. Erat nempe Flandria totius prope orbis stabile mercatoribus emporium. Septemdecim regnorum negotiatores tum Brugis sua certa habuere domicilia ac sedes, præter complures incognitas pæne gentes quæ undique confluebant. Meyer, fol. 205, ad ann. 1385.
[e] Meyer; Froissart; Comines.
[f] It contained, according to Ludovico Guicciardini, 35,000 houses, and the circuit of its walls was 45,640 Roman feet. Description des Pais Bas, p. 350, &c. (edit. 1609). Part of this enclosure was not built upon. The population of Ghent is reckoned by Guicciardini at 70,000, but in his time it had greatly declined. It is certainly, however, much exaggerated by earlier historians. And I entertain some doubts as to Guicciardini's estimate of the number of houses. If at least he was accurate, more than half of the city must since have been demolished or become uninhabited, which its present appearance does not indicate; for Ghent, though not very flourishing, by no means presents the decay and dilapidation of several Italian towns.
[g] Guicciardini, p. 362; Mém. de Comines, 1. v. c. 17; Meyer, fol. 354; Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 647, 651.
[h] Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk, thinks that a colony of Flemings settled as early as this reign at Worsted, a village in that county, and immortalized its name by their manufacture. It soon reached Norwich, though not conspicuous till the reign of Edward I. Hist. of Norfolk, vol. ii. Macpherson speaks of it for the first time in 1327. There were several guilds of weavers in the time of Henry II. Lyttelton, vol. ii. p. 174.
[] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 412, from Walter Hemingford. I am considerably indebted to this laborious and useful publication, which has superseded that of Anderson.
[k] Rymer, t. ii. p. 32, 50, 737, 949, 965; t. iii. p. 533, 1106, et alibi.
[m] Rymer, t. iii. p. 759. A Flemish factory was established at Berwick about 1286. Macpherson.
[n] In 1295 Edward I. made masters of neutral ships in English ports find security not to trade with France. Rymer, t. ii. p. 679.
[o] Rymer, t. iv. p. 491, &c. Fuller draws a notable picture of the inducements held out to the Flemings. "Here they should feed on fat beef and mutton, till nothing but their fulness should stint their stomachs; their beds should be good, and their bedfellows better, seeing the richest yeomen in England would not disdain to marry their daughters unto them, and such the English beauties that the most envious foreigners could not but commend them." Fuller's Church History, quoted in Blomefield's Hist. of Norfolk.
[p] Rymer, t. v. p. 137, 430, 540.
[q] In 1409 woollen cloths formed great part of our exports, and were extensively used over Spain and Italy. And in 1449, English cloths having been prohibited by the duke of Burgundy, it was enacted that, until he should repeal this ordinance, no merchandise of his dominions should be admitted into England. 27 H. VI. c. 1. The system of prohibiting the import of foreign wrought goods was acted upon very extensively in Edward IV.'s reign.
[r] Stat. 11 E. III. c. 1. Blackstone says that transporting wool out of the kingdom, to the detriment of our staple manufacture, was forbidden at common law (vol. iv. c. 19), not recollecting that we had no staple manufactures in the ages when the common law was formed, and that the export of wool was almost the only means by which this country procured silver, or any other article of which it stood in need, from the continent. In fact, the landholders were so far from neglecting this source of their wealth, that a minimum was fixed upon it, by a statute of 1343 (repealed indeed the next year, 18 E. III. c. 3), below which price it was not to be sold; from a laudable apprehension, as it seems, that foreigners were getting it too cheap. And this was revived in the 32nd of H. VI., though the act is not printed among the statutes. Rot. Parl. t. v. p. 275. The exportation of sheep was prohibited in 1338—Rymer, t. v. p. 36; and by act of Parliament in 1425—3 H. VI. c. 2. But this did not prevent our importing the wool of a foreign country, to our own loss. It is worthy of notice that English wool was superior to any other for fineness during these ages. Henry II., in his patent to the Weavers' Company, directs that, if any weaver mingled Spanish wool with English, it should be burned by the lord mayor. Macpherson, p. 382. An English flock transported into Spain about 1348 is said to have been the source of the fine Spanish wool. Ibid. p. 539. But the superiority of English wool, even as late as 1438, is proved by the laws of Barcelona forbidding its adulteration. p. 654. Another exportation of English sheep to Spain took place about 1465, in consequence of a commercial treaty. Rymer, t. xi. p. 534 et alibi. In return, Spain supplied England with horses, her breed of which was reckoned the best in Europe; so that the exchange was tolerably fair. Macpherson, p. 596. The best horses had been very dear in England, being imported from Spain and Italy. Ibid.
[] Schmidt, t. iv. p. 18.
[t] Considerable woollen manufactures appear to have existed in Picardy about 1315. Macpherson ad annum. Capmany, t. iii. part 2, p. 151.
[] The sheriffs of Wiltshire and Sussex are directed in 1253 to purchase for the king 1000 ells of fine linen, lineæ telæ pulchræ et delicate. This Macpherson supposes to be of domestic manufacture, which, however, is not demonstrable. Linen was made at that time in Flanders; and as late as 1417 the fine linen used in England was imported from France and the Low Countries. Macpherson, from Rymer, t. ix. p. 334. Velly's history is defective in giving no account of the French commerce and manufactures, or at least none that is at all satisfactory.
[x] Adam Bremensis, de Situ Daniæ, p. 13. (Elzevir edit.)
[y] Schmidt, t. iv. p. 8. Macpherson, p. 392. The latter writer thinks they were not known by the name of Hanse so early.
[z] Pfeffel, t. i. p. 443; Schmidt, t. iv. p. 18; t. v. p. 512; Macpherson's Annals, vol. i. p. 693.
[a] Macpherson, vol. i. passim.
[] Rymer, t. viii. p. 360.
[c] Macpherson (who quotes Stow), p. 415.
[d] Walsingham, p. 211.
[e] Rymer, t. vii. p. 210, 341; t. viii. p. 9.
[f] Rymer, t. x. p. 461.
[g] Rymer, t. viii. p. 488.
[h] Macpherson, p. 667.
[] Richard III., in 1485, appointed a Florentine merchant to be English consul at Pisa, on the ground that some of his subjects intended to trade to Italy. Macpherson, p. 705, from Rymer. Perhaps we cannot positively prove the existence of a Mediterranean trade at an earlier time; and even this instrument is not conclusive. But a considerable presumption arises from two documents in Rymer, of the year 1412, which inform us of a great shipment of wool and other goods made by some merchants of London for the Mediterranean, under supercargoes, whom, it being a new undertaking, the king expressly recommended to the Genoese republic. But that people, impelled probably by commercial jealousy, seized the vessels and their cargoes; which induced the king to grant the owners letters of reprisal against all Genoese property. Rymer, t. viii. p. 717, 773. Though it is not perhaps evident that the vessels were English, the circumstances render it highly probable. The bad success, however, of this attempt, might prevent its imitation. A Greek author about the beginning of the fifteenth century reckons the Ιγγληνοι among the nations who traded to a port in the Archipelago. Gibbon, vol. xii. p. 52. But these enumerations are generally swelled by vanity or the love of exaggeration; and a few English sailors on board a foreign vessel would justify the assertion. Benjamin of Tudela, a Jewish traveller, pretends that the port of Alexandria, about 1160, contained vessels not only from England, but from Russia, and even Cracow. Harris's Voyages, vol. i. p. 554.
[k] The Amalfitans are thus described by William of Apulia, apud Muratori, Dissert. 30.
Urbs hæc dives opum, populoque referta videtur,
Nulla magis locuples argento, vestibus, auro.
Partibus innumeris ac plurimus urbe moratur
Nauta, maris cœlique vias aperire peritus.
Huc et Alexandri diversa feruntur ab urbe,
Regis et Antiochi. Hæc [etiam?] freta plurima transit.
Hic Arabes, Indi, Siculi noscuntur, et Afri.
Hæc gens est totum prope nobilitata per orbem,
Et mercanda ferens et amans mercata referre.
[There must be, I suspect, some exaggeration about the commerce and opulence of Amalfi, in the only age when she possessed any at all. The city could never have been considerable, as we may judge from its position immediately under a steep mountain; and what is still more material, has a very small port. According to our notions of trade, she could never have enjoyed much; the lines quoted from William of Apulia are to be taken as a poet's panegyric. It is of course a question of degree; Amalfi was no doubt a commercial republic to the extent of her capacity; but those who have ever been on the coast must be aware how limited that was. At present she has, I believe, no foreign trade at all. 1848.]
[m] The inhabitants of Acre were noted, in an age not very pure, for the excess of their vices. In 1291 they plundered some of the subjects of a neighbouring Mohammedan prince, and, refusing reparation, the city was besieged and taken by storm. Muratori, ad ann. Gibbon, c. 59.
[n] Villani, 1. vii. c. 144.
[o] Macpherson, p. 490.
[p] Capmany, Memorias Historicas, t. iii. preface, p. 11; and part 2, p. 131. His authority is Balducci Pegalotti, a Florentine writer upon commerce about 1340, whose work I have never seen. It appears from Balducci that the route to China was from Asoph to Astrakan, and thence, by a variety of places which cannot be found in modern maps, to Cambalu, probably Pekin, the capital city of China, which he describes as being one hundred miles in circumference. The journey was of rather more than eight months, going and returning; and he assures us it was perfectly secure, not only for caravans, but for a single traveller with a couple of interpreters and a servant. The Venetians had also a settlement in the Crimea, and appear, by a passage in Petrarch's letters, to have possessed some of the trade through Tartary. In a letter written from Venice, after extolling in too rhetorical a manner the commerce of that republic, he mentions a particular ship that had just sailed for the Black Sea. Et ipsa quidem Tanaim it visura, nostri enim maris navigatio non ultra tenditur; eorum vero aliqui, quos hæc fert, illic iter [instituent] eam egressuri, nec antea substituri, quàm Gange et Caucaso superato, ad Indos atque extremos Seres et Orientalem perveniatur Oceanum. En quo ardens et inexplebilis habendi sitis hominum mentes rapit! Petrarcæ Opera, Senil. 1. ii. ep. 3, p. 760 edit. 1581.
[q] Hist. de Languedoc, t. iii. p. 531; t. iv. p. 517. Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xxxvii.
[r] Capmany, Memorias Historicas de Barcelona, t. i. part 2. See particularly p. 36.
[] Muratori, Dissert. 30. Denina, Rivoluzione d'Italia, 1. xiv. c. 11. The latter writer is of opinion that mulberries were not cultivated as an important object till after 1300, nor even to any great extent till after 1500; the Italian manufacturers buying most of their silk from Spain or the Levant.
[t] The history of Italian states, and especially Florence, will speak for the first country; Capmany attests the woollen manufacture of the second—Mem. Hist. de Barcel. t. i. part 3, p. 7, &c.; and Vaissette that of Carcassonne and its vicinity—Hist. de Lang. t. iv. p. 517.
[] None were admitted to the rank of burgesses in the town of Aragon who used any manual trade, with the exception of dealers in fine cloths. The woollen manufacture of Spain did not at any time become a considerable article of export, nor even supply the internal consumption, as Capmany has well shown. Memorias Historicas, t. iii. p. 325 et seqq., and Edinburgh Review, vol. x.
[x] Boucher, the French translator of Il Consolato del Mare, says that Edrissi, a Saracen geographer who lived about 1100, gives an account, though in a confused manner, of the polarity of the magnet. t. ii. p. 280. However, the lines of Guiot de Provins are decisive. These are quoted in Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. ix. p. 199; Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xxi. p. 192; and several other works. Guinizzelli has the following passage, in a canzone quoted by Ginguené, Hist. Littéraire de l'Italie, t. i. p. 413:—
In quelle parti sotto tramontana,
Sono li monti della calamita,
Che dan virtute all'aere
Di trarre il ferro; ma perchè lontana,
Vole di simil pietra aver aita,
A far la adoperare,
E dirizzar lo ago in ver la stella.
We cannot be diverted, by the nonsensical theory these lines contain, from perceiving the positive testimony of the last verse to the poet's knowledge of the polarity of the magnet. But if any doubt could remain, Tiraboschi (t. iv. p. 171) has fully established, from a series of passages, that this phenomenon was well known in the thirteenth century; and puts an end altogether to the pretensions of Flavio Gioja, if such a person, ever existed. See also Macpherson's Annals, p. 364 and 418. It is provoking to find an historian like Robertson asserting, without hesitation, that this citizen of Amalfi was the inventor of the compass, and thus accrediting an error which had already been detected.
It is a singular circumstance, and only to be explained by the obstinacy with which men are apt to reject improvement, that the magnetic needle was not generally adopted in navigation till very long after the discovery of its properties, and even after their peculiar importance had been perceived. The writers of the thirteenth century, who mention the polarity of the needle, mention also its use in navigation; yet Capmany has found no distinct proof of its employment till 1403, and does not believe that it was frequently on board Mediterranean ships at the latter part of the preceding age. Memorias Historicas, t. iii. p. 70. Perhaps however he has inferred too much from his negative proof; and this subject seems open to further inquiry.
[y] Boucher supposes it to have been compiled at Barcelona about 900; but his reasonings are inconclusive, t. i. p. 72; and indeed Barcelona at that time was little, if at all, better than a fishing-town. Some arguments might be drawn in favour of Pisa from the expressions of Henry IV.'s charter granted to that city in 1081. Consuetudines, quas habent de mari, sic iis observabimus sicut illorum est consuetudo. Muratori Dissert. 45. Giannone seems to think the collection was compiled about the reign of Louis IX. 1. xi. c. 6. Capmany, the last Spanish editor, whose authority ought perhaps to outweigh every other, asserts and seems to prove them to have been enacted by the mercantile magistrates of Barcelona, under the reign of James the Conqueror which is much the same period. Codigo de las Costumbres Maritimas de Barcelona, Madrid, 1791. But, by whatever nation they were reduced into their present form, these laws were certainly the ancient and established usages of the Mediterranean states: and Pisa may very probably have taken a great share in first practising what a century or two afterwards was rendered more precise at Barcelona.
[z] Macpherson, p. 358. Boucher supposes them to be registers of actual decisions.
[a] I have only the authority of Boucher for referring the Ordinances of Wisbuy to the year 1400. Beckman imagines them to be older than those of Oleron. But Wisbuy was not enclosed by a wall till 1288, a proof that it could not have been previously a town of much importance. It flourished chiefly in the first part of the fourteenth century, and was at that time an independent republic, but fell under the yoke of Denmark before the end of the same age.
[] Hugh Despenser seized a Genoese vessel valued at 14,300 marks, for which no restitution was ever made. Rym. t. iv. p. 701. Macpherson, A.D. 1336.
[c] The Cinque Ports and other trading towns of England were in a constant state of hostility with their opposite neighbours during the reigns of Edward I. and II. One might quote almost half the instruments in Rymer in proof of these conflicts, and of those with the mariners of Norway and Denmark. Sometimes mutual envy produced frays between different English towns. Thus, in 1254 the Winchelsea mariners attacked a Yarmouth galley, and killed some of her men. Matt. Paris, apud Macpherson.
[d] Muratori, Dissert. 53.
[e] Du Cange, voc. Laudum.
[f] Rymer, t. iv. p. 576. Videtur sapientibus et peritis, quod causa, de jure, non subfuit marcham seu reprisaliam in nostris, seu subditorum nostrorum, bonis concedendi. See too a case of neutral goods on board an enemy's vessel claimed by the owners, and a legal distinction taken in favour of the captors. t. vi. p. 14.
[g] 27 E. III. stat. ii. c. 17, 2 Inst. p. 205.
[h] Rymer, t. i. p. 839.
[] Idem, t. iii. p. 458, 647, 678, et infra. See too the ordinances of the staple, in 27 Edw. III., which confirm this among other privileges, and contain manifold evidence of the regard paid to commerce in that reign.
[k] Rymer, t. ii. p. 891. Madox, Hist. Exchequer, c. xxii. s. 7.
[m] In the remarkable speech of the Doge Mocenigo, quoted in another place, vol. i. p. 465, the annual profit made by Venice on her mercantile capital is reckoned at forty per cent.
[n] Muratori, Dissert. 16.
[o] Bizarri, Hist. Genuens. p. 797. The rate of discount on bills, which may not have exactly corresponded to the average annual interest of money, was ten per cent. at Barcelona in 1435. Capmany t. i. p. 209.
[p] Du Cange, v. Usura.
[q] Muratori, Diss. 16.
[r] Greg. Turon. I. iv.
[] Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 517; t. iii. p. 531.
[t] Id. t. iii. p. 121.
[] Id. p. 163.
[x] Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, p. 143.
[y] Martenne Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i. p. 984.
[z] Velly, t. iv. p. 136.
[a] The city of Cahors, in Quercy, the modern department of the Lot, produced a tribe of money-dealers. The Caursini are almost as often noticed as the Lombards. See the article in Du Cange. In Lombardy, Asti, a city of no great note in other respects, was famous for the same department of commerce.
[] There were three species of paper credit in the dealings of merchants: 1. General letters of credit, not directed to any one, which are not uncommon in the Levant: 2. Orders to pay money to a particular person: 3. Bills of exchange regularly negotiable. Boucher, t. ii. p. 621. Instances of the first are mentioned by Macpherson about 1200, p. 367. The second species was introduced by the Jews, about 1183 (Capmany, t. i. p. 297); but it may be doubtful whether the last stage of the progress was reached nearly so soon. An instrument in Rymer, however, of the year 1364 (t. vi. p. 495), mentions literæ cambitoriæ, which seem to have been negotiable bills; and by 1400 they were drawn in sets, and worded exactly as at present. Macpherson, p. 614, and Beckman, History of Inventions, vol. iii. p. 430, give from Capmany an actual precedent of a bill dated in 1404.
[c] Usury was looked upon with horror by our English divines long after the Reformation. Fleury, in his Institutions au Droit Ecclésiastique, t. ii. p. 129, has shown the subterfuges to which men had recourse in order to evade this prohibition. It is an unhappy truth, that great part of the attention devoted to the best of sciences, ethics and jurisprudence, has been employed to weaken principles that ought never to have been acknowledged.
One species of usury, and that of the highest importance to commerce, was always permitted, on account of the risk that attended it This was marine insurance, which could not have existed, until money was considered, in itself, as a source of profit. The earliest regulations on the subject of insurance are those of Barcelona in 1433; but the practice was, of course, earlier than these, though not of great antiquity. It is not mentioned in the Consolato del Mare, nor in any of the Hanseatic laws of the fourteenth century. Beckman, vol. i. p. 388. This author, not being aware of the Barcelonese laws on this subject published by Capmany, supposes, the first provisions regulating marine assurance to have been made at Florence in 1523.
[d] Macpherson, p. 487, et alibi. They had probably excellent bargains; in 1329 the Bardi farmed all the customs in England for 20l. a day. But in 1282 the customs had produced 8411l., and half a century of great improvement had elapsed.
[e] Villani, 1. xii. c. 55, 87. He calls these two banking-houses the pillars which sustained great part of the commerce of Christendom.
[f] Capmany, t. i. p. 213.
[g] Macpherson, p. 341, from Sanuto. The bank of Venice is referred to 1171.
[h] G. Villani, 1. xi. c. 49.
[] Matt. Villani, p. 227 (in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. t. xiv.).
[k] Bizarri, Hist. Genuens. p. 797 (Antwerp, 1579); Machiavelli, Storia Fiorentina, 1. viii.
[m] Ricobaldus Ferrarensis, apud Murat. Dissert. 23; Francisc. Pippinus, ibidem. Muratori endeavours to extenuate the authority of this passage, on account of some more ancient writers who complain of the luxury of their times, and of some particular instances of magnificence and expense. But Ricobaldi alludes, as Muratori himself admits, to the mode of living in the middle ranks, and not to that of courts, which in all ages might occasionally display considerable splendour. I see nothing to weaken so explicit a testimony of a contemporary, which in fact is confirmed by many writers of the next age, who, according to the practice of Italian chroniclers, have copied it as their own.
[n] Murat. Dissert. 23.
Bellincion Berti vid' io andar cinto
Di cuojo e d'osso, e venir dallo specchio
La donna sua senza 'l viso dipinto,
E vidi quel di Nerli, e quel del Vecchio
Esser contenti alla pelle scoverta,
E sue donne al fuso ed al pennechio.
Paradis. canto xv.
See too the rest of this canto. But this is put in the mouth of Cacciaguida, the poet's ancestor, who lived in the former half of the twelfth century. The change, however, was probably subsequent to 1250, when the times of wealth and turbulence began at Florence.
[p] Velly, t. xiii. p. 352. The second continuator of Nangis vehemently inveighs against the long beards and short breeches of his age; after the introduction of which novelties, he judiciously observes, the French were much more disposed to run away from their enemies than before. Spicilegium, t. iii. p. 105.
[q] 37 E. III. Rep. 38 E. III. Several other statutes of a similar nature were passed in this and the ensuing reign. In France, there were sumptuary laws as old as Charlemagne, prohibiting or taxing the use of furs; but the first extensive regulation was under Philip the Fair. Velly, t. vii. p. 64; t. xi. p. 190. These attempts to restrain what cannot be restrained continued even down to 1700. De la Mare, Traité de la Police, t. i. 1. iii.
[r] Muratori, Antichità Italiane, Dissert. 23, t. i. p. 325.
[] "These English," said the Spaniards who came over with Philip II., "have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the king." Harrison's Description of Britain, prefixed to Holingshed, vol. i. p. 315 (edit. 1807).
[t] Pfeffel, t. i. p. 293.
[] Æneas Sylvius, de Moribus Germanorum. This treatise is an amplified panegyric upon Germany, and contains several curious passages: they must be taken perhaps with some allowance; for the drift of the whole is to persuade the Germans, that so rich and noble a country could afford a little money for the poor pope. Civitates quas vocant liberas, cum Imperatori solùm subjiciuntur, cujus jugum est instar libertatis; nec profectò usquam gentium tanta libertas est, quantâ fruuntur hujuscemodi civitates. Nam populi quos Itali vocant liberos, hi potissimùm serviunt, sive Venetias inspectes, sive Florentiam aut Cænas, in quibus cives, præter paucos qui reliquos ducunt, loco mancipiorum habentur. Cum nec rebus suis uti, ut libet, vel fari quæ velint, et gravissimis opprimuntur pecuniarum exactionibus. Apud Germanos omnia læta sunt, omnia jucunda; nemo suis privatur bonis. Salvo cuique sua hæreditas est, nulli nisi nocenti magistratus nocent. Nec apud eos factiones sicut apud Italas urbes grassantur. Sunt autem supra centum civitates hâc libertate fruentes. p. 1058.
In another part of his work (p. 719) he gives a specious account of Vienna. The houses, he says, had glass windows and iron doors. Fenestræ undique vitreæ perlucent, et ostia plerumque ferrea. In domibus multa et munda supellex. Altæ domus magnificæque visuntur. Unum id dedecori est, quod tecta plerumque tigno contegunt, pauca latere. Cætera ædificia muro lapideo consistunt. Pictæ domus et exterius et interius splendent. Civitatis populus 50,000 communicantium creditur. I suppose this gives at least double for the total population. He proceeds to represent the manners of the city in a less favourable point of view, charging the citizens with gluttony and libertinism, the nobility with oppression, the judges with corruption, &c. Vienna probably had the vices of a flourishing city; but the love of amplification in so rhetorical a writer as Æneas Sylvius weakens the value of his testimony, on whichever side it is given.
[x] Vols. iv. and vi.
[y] Mr. Lysons refers Castleton to the age of William the Conqueror, but without giving any reasons. Lysons's Derbyshire, p. ccxxxvi. Mr. King had satisfied himself that it was built during the Heptarchy, and even before the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity; but in this he gave the reins, as usual, to his imagination, which as much exceeded his learning, as the latter did his judgment. Conisborough should seem, by the name, to have been a royal residence, which it certainly never was after the Conquest. But if the engravings of the decorative parts in the Archæologia, vol. vi. p. 244, are not remarkably inaccurate, the architecture is too elegant for the Danes, much more for the unconverted Saxons. Both these castles are enclosed by a court or ballium, with a fortified entrance, like those erected by the Normans.
[No doubt is now entertained but that Conisborough was built late in the Norman period. Mr. King's authority, which I followed for want of a better, is by no means to be depended upon. 1848.]
[z] Whitaker's Hist. of Whalley; Lysons's Cumberland, p. ccvi.
[a] The ruins of Herstmonceux are, I believe, tolerably authentic remains of Henry VI.'s age, but only a part of Haddon Hall is of the fifteenth century.
[] Archæologia, vol. vi.
[c] Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. iii. p. 242.
[d] Whitaker's Hist. of Whalley.
[e] Lyttelton, t. iv. p. 130.
[f] Harrison says, that few of the houses of the commonalty, except here and there in the west country towns, were made of stone. p. 314. This was about 1570.
[g] Hist. of Whalley.
[h] "The ancient manors and houses of our gentlemen," says Harrison, "are yet and for the most part, of strong timber, in framing whereof our carpenters have been and are worthily preferred before those of like science among all other nations. Howbeit such as are lately builded are either of brick or hard stone, or both." p. 316.
[] Archæologia, vol. i. p. 143; vol. iv. p. 91.
[k] Hist. of Whalley. In Strutt's View of Manners we have an inventory of furniture in the house of Mr. Richard Fermor, ancestor of the earl of Pomfret, at Easton in Northamptonshire, and another in that of Sir Adrian Foskewe. Both these houses appear to have been of the dimensions and arrangement mentioned.
[m] Single rooms, windows, doorways, &c., of an earlier date may perhaps not unfrequently be found; but such instances are always to be verified by their intrinsic evidence, not by the tradition of the place. [[Note II.]]
[n] Mélanges tirés d'une grande bibliothèque, par M. de Paulmy, t. iii. et xxxi. It is to be regretted that Le Grand d'Aussy never completed that part of his Vie privée des Français which was to have comprehended the history of civil architecture. Villaret has slightly noticed its state about 1380. t. ii. p. 141.
[o] Chenonceaux in Touraine was built by a nephew of Chancellor Duprat; Gaillon in the department of Eure by Cardinal Amboise; both at the beginning of the sixteenth century. These are now considered, in their ruins, as among the most ancient houses in France. A work by Ducerceau (Les plus excellens Batimens de France, 1607) gives accurate engravings of thirty houses; but with one or two exceptions, they seem all to have been built in the sixteenth century. Even in that age, defence was naturally an object in constructing a French mansion-house; and where defence is to be regarded, splendour and convenience must give way. The name of château was not retained without meaning.
[p] Mélanges tirés, &c. t. iii. For the prosperity and downfall of Jacques Cœur, see Villaret, t. xvi. p. 11; but more especially Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xx. p. 509. His mansion at Bourges still exists, and is well known to the curious in architectural antiquity. In former editions I have mentioned a house of Jacques Cœur at Beaumont-sur-Oise; but this was probably by mistake, as I do not recollect, nor can find, any authority for it.
[q] Giannone, Ist. di Napoli, t. iii. p. 280.
[r] Muratori, Antich. Ital. Dissert. 25, p. 390. Beckman, in his History of Inventions, vol. i., a work of very great research, cannot trace any explicit mention of chimneys beyond the writings of John Villani, wherein however they are not noticed as a new invention. Piers Plowman, a few years later than Villani, speaks of a "chambre with a chimney" in which rich men usually dined. But in the account-book of Bolton Abbey, under the year 1311, there is a charge pro faciendo camino in the rectory-house of Gargrave. Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 331. This may, I think, have been only an iron stove or fire-pan; though Dr. W. without hesitation translates it a chimney. However, Mr. King, in his observations on ancient castles, Archæol. vol. vi., and Mr. Strutt, in his View of Manners, vol. i., describe chimneys in castles of a very old construction. That at Conisborough in Yorkshire is peculiarly worthy of attention, and carries back this important invention to a remote antiquity.
In a recent work of some reputation, it is said:—"There does not appear to be any evidence of the use of chimney-shafts in England prior to the twelfth century. In Rochester Castle, which is in all probability the work of William Corbyl, about 1130, there are complete fireplaces with semicircular backs, and a shaft in each jamb, supporting a semicircular arch over the opening, and that is enriched with the zigzag moulding; some of these project slightly from the wall; the flues, however, go only a few feet up in the thickness of the wall, and are then turned out at the back, the apertures being small oblong holes. At the castle, Hedingham, Essex, which is of about the same date, there are fireplaces and chimneys of a similar kind. A few years later, the improvement of carrying the flue up the whole height of the wall appears; as at Christ Church, Hants; the keep at Newcastle; Sherborne Castle, &c. The early chimney-shafts are of considerable height, and similar; afterwards they assumed a great variety of forms, and during the fourteenth century they are frequently very short." Glossary of Ancient Architecture, p. 100, edit. 1845. It is said, too, here that chimneys were seldom used in halls till near the end of the fifteenth century; the smoke took its course, if it pleased, through a hole in the roof.
Chimneys are still more modern in France; and seem, according to Paulmy, to have come into common use since the middle of the seventeenth century. Jadis nos pères n'avoient qu'un unique chauffoir, qui étoit commun à toute une famille, et quelquefois à plusieurs. t. iii. p. 133. In another place, however, he says: Il parait que les tuyaux de cheminées étaient déjà très en usage en France, t. xxxi. p. 232.
[] Du Cange, v. Vitreæ; Bentham's History of Ely, p. 22.
[t] Matt Paris; Vitæ Abbatum St. Alb. 122.
[] Recueil des Hist. t. xii. p. 101.
[x] Paulmy, t. iii. p. 132. Villaret, t. xi. p. 141. Macpherson, p. 679.
[y] Northumberland Household Book, preface, p. 16. Bishop Percy says, on the authority of Harrison, that glass was not commonly used in the reign of Henry VIII.
[z] See some curious valuations of furniture and stock in trade at Colchester in 1296 and 1301. Eden's Introduct. to State of the Poor, p. 20 and 25, from the Rolls of Parliament. A carpenter's stock was valued at a shilling, and consisted of five tools. Other tradesmen were almost as poor; but a tanner's stock, if there is no mistake, was worth 9l. 7s. 10d., more than ten times any other. Tanners were principal tradesmen, the chief part of dress being made of leather. A few silver cups and spoons are the only articles of plate; and as the former are valued but at one or two shillings, they had, I suppose, but a little silver on the rim.
[a] Nicholl's Illustrations, p. 119. In this work, among several interesting facts of the same class, we have another inventory of the goods of "John Port, late the king's servant," who died about 1524: he seems to have been a man of some consideration and probably a merchant. The house consisted of a hall, parlour, buttery, and kitchen, with two chambers, and one smaller, on the floor above; a napery, or linen room, and three garrets, besides a shop, which was probably detached. There were five bedsteads in the house, and on the whole a great deal of furniture for those times; much more than I have seen in any other inventory. His plate is valued at 94l.; his jewels at 23l.; his funeral expenses come to 73l. 6s. 8d. p. 119.
[] Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 289. A better notion of the accommodations usual in the rank immediately below may be collected from two inventories published by Strutt, one of Mr. Fermor's house at Easton, the other Sir Adrian Foskewe's. I have mentioned the size of these gentlemen's houses already. In the former, the parlour had wainscot, a table and a few chairs; the chambers above had two best beds, and there was one servant's bed; but the inferior servants had only mattresses on the floor. The best chambers had window shutters and curtains. Mr. Fermor, being a merchant, was probably better supplied than the neighbouring gentry. His plate however consisted only of sixteen spoons, and a few goblets and ale pots. Sir Adrian Foskewe's opulence appears to have been greater; he had a service of silver plate, and his parlour was furnished with hangings. This was in 1539; it is not to be imagined that a knight of the shire a hundred years before would have rivalled even this scanty provision of moveables. Strutt's View of Manners, vol. iii. p. 63. These details, trifling as they may appear, are absolutely necessary in order to give an idea with some precision of a state of national wealth so totally different from the present.
[c] Cuperent tam egregiè Scotorum reges quàm mediocres Nurembergæ cives habitare. Æn. Sylv. apud Schmidt, Hist. des Allem. t. v. p. 510.
[d] t. iii. p. 127.
[e] Crescentius in Commodum Ruralium. (Lovaniæ, absque anno.) This old edition contains many coarse wooden cuts, possibly taken from the illuminations which Paulmy found in his manuscript.
[f] Harrison's account of England, prefixed to Hollingshed's Chronicles. Chimneys were not used in the farm-houses of Cheshire till within forty years of the publication of King's Vale-royal (1656); the fire was in the midst of the house, against a hob of clay, and the oxen lived under the same roof. Whitaker's Craven, p. 334.
[g] The Saracenic architecture was once conceived to have been the parent of the Gothic. But the pointed arch does not occur, I believe, in any Moorish buildings; while the great mosque of Cordova, built in the eighth century, resembles, except by its superior beauty and magnificence, one of our oldest cathedrals; the nave of Gloucester, for example, or Durham. Even the vaulting is similar, and seems to indicate some imitation, though perhaps of a common model. Compare Archæologia, vol. xvii. plate 1 and 2, with Murphy's Arabian Antiquities, plate 5. The pillars indeed at Cordova are of the Corinthian order, perfectly executed, if we may trust the engraving, and the work, I presume, of Christian architects; while those of our Anglo-Norman cathedrals are generally an imitation of the Tuscan shaft, the builders not venturing to trust their roofs to a more slender support, though Corinthian foliage is common in the capitals, especially those of smaller ornamental columns. In fact, the Roman architecture is universally acknowledged to have produced what we call the Saxon or Norman; but it is remarkable that it should have been adopted, with no variation but that of the singular horse-shoe arch, by the Moors of Spain.
The Gothic, or pointed arch, though very uncommon in the genuine Saracenic of Spain and the Levant, may be found in some prints from Eastern buildings; and is particularly striking in the façade of the great mosque at Lucknow, in Salt's designs for Lord Valentia's Travels. The pointed arch buildings in the Holy Land have all been traced to the age of the Crusades. Some arches, if they deserve the name, that have been referred to this class, are not pointed by their construction, but rendered such by cutting off and hollowing the projections of horizontal stones.
[h] Gibbon has asserted, what might justify this appellation, that "the image of Theodoric's palace at Verona, still extant on a coin, represents the oldest and most authentic model of Gothic architecture." vol. vii. p. 33. For this he refers to Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. 31, where we find an engraving, not indeed of a coin, but of a seal; the building represented on which is in a totally dissimilar style. The following passages in Cassiodorus, for which I am indebted to M. Ginguené, Hist. Littér. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 55, would be more to the purpose: Quid dicamus columnarum junceam proceritatem? moles illas sublimissimas fabricarum quasi quibusdam erectis hastilibus contineri. These columns of reedy slenderness, so well described by juncea proceritas, are said to be found in the cathedral of Montreal in Sicily, built in the eighth century. Knight's Principles of Taste, p. 162. They are not however sufficient to justify the denomination of Gothic, which is usually confined to the pointed arch style.
[] The famous abbot Suger, minister of Louis VI., rebuilt St. Denis about 1140. The cathedral of Laon is said to have been dedicated in 1114. Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. ix. p. 220. I do not know in what style the latter of these churches is built, but the former is, or rather was, Gothic. Notre Dame at Paris was begun soon after the middle of the twelfth century, and completed under St. Louis. Mélanges tirés d'une grande bibliothèque, t. xxxi. p. 108. In England, the earliest specimen I have seen of pointed arches is in a print of St. Botolphe's Priory at Colchester, said by Strutt to have been built in 1110. View of Manners, vol. i. plate 30. These are apertures formed by excavating the space contained by the intersection of semicircular, or Saxon arches; which are perpetually disposed, by way of ornament, on the outer as well as inner surface of old churches, so as to cut each other, and consequently to produce the figure of a Gothic arch; and if there is no mistake in the date, they are probably among the most ancient of that style in Europe. Those of the church of St. Cross near Winchester are of the reign of Stephen; and generally speaking, the pointed style, especially in vaulting, the most important object in the construction of a building, is not considered as older than Henry II. The nave of Canterbury cathedral, of the erection of which by a French architect about 1176 we have a full account in Gervase (Twysden, Decem Scriptores, col. 1289), and the Temple church, dedicated in 1183, are the most ancient English buildings altogether in the Gothic manner.
The subject of ecclesiastical architecture in the middle ages has been so fully discussed by intelligent and observant writers since these pages were first published, that they require some correction. The oriental theory for the origin of the pointed architecture, though not given up, has not generally stood its ground; there seems more reason to believe that it was first adopted in Germany, as Mr. Hope has shown; but at first in single arches, not in the construction of the entire building.
The circular and pointed forms, instead of one having at once supplanted the other, were concurrent in the same building, through Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, for some centuries. I will just add to the instances mentioned by Mr. Hope and others, and which every traveller may corroborate, one not very well known, perhaps as early as any,—the crypt of the cathedral at Basle, built under the reign of the emperor Henry II., near the commencement of the eleventh century, where two pointed with three circular arches stand together, evidently from want of space enough to preserve the same breadth with the necessary height. The same circumstance will be found, I think, in the crypt of St. Denis, near Paris, which, however, is not so old. The writings of Hope, Rickman, Whewell, and Willis are prominent among many that have thrown light on this subject. The beauty and magnificence of the pointed style is acknowledged on all sides; perhaps the imitation of it has been too servile, and with too much forgetfulness of some very important changes in our religious aspect rendering that simply ornamental which was once directed to a great object. [1848.]
[k] The curious subject of freemasonry has unfortunately been treated only by panegyrists or calumniators, both equally mendacious. I do not wish to pry into the mysteries of the craft; but it would be interesting to know more of their history during the period when they were literally architects. They are charged by an act of parliament, 3 H. VI. c. i., with fixing the price of their labour in their annual chapters, contrary to the statute of labourers, and such chapters are consequently prohibited. This is their first persecution; they have since undergone others, and are perhaps reserved for still more. It is remarkable, that masons were never legally incorporated, like other traders; their bond of union being stronger than any charter. The article Masonry in the Encyclopædia Britannica is worth reading.
[m] I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing a lively and eloquent passage from Dr. Whitaker. "Could a curious observer of the present day carry himself nine or ten centuries back, and ranging the summit of Pendle survey the forked vale of Calder on one side, and the bolder margins of Ribble and Hadder on the other, instead of populous towns and villages, the castle, the old tower-built house, the elegant modern mansion, the artificial plantation, the inclosed park and pleasure ground: instead of uninterrupted inclosures which have driven sterility almost to the summit of the fells, how great must then have been the contrast, when ranging either at a distance, or immediately beneath, his eye must have caught vast tracts of forest ground stagnating with bog or darkened by native woods, where the wild ox, the roe, the stag, and the wolf, had scarcely learned the supremacy of man, when, directing his view to the intermediate spaces, to the windings of the valleys, or the expanse of plains beneath, he could only have distinguished a few insulated patches of culture, each encircling a village of wretched cabins, among which would still be remarked one rude mansion of wood, scarcely equal in comfort to a modern cottage, yet then rising proudly eminent above the rest, where the Saxon lord, surrounded by his faithful cotarii, enjoyed a rude and solitary independence, owning no superior but his sovereign." Hist. of Whalley, p. 133. About a fourteenth part of this parish of Whalley was cultivated at the time of Domesday. This proportion, however, would by no means hold in the counties south of Trent.
[n] "Of the Anglo-Saxon husbandry we may remark," says Mr. Turner, "that Domesday Survey gives us some indication that the cultivation of the church lands was much superior to that of any other order of society. They have much less wood upon them, and less common of pasture; and what they had appears often in smaller and more irregular pieces; while their meadow was more abundant, and in more numerous distributions." Hist. of Anglo-Saxons, vol. ii. p. 167.
It was the glory of St. Benedict's reform, to have substituted bodily labour for the supine indolence of oriental asceticism. In the East it was more difficult to succeed in such an endeavour, though it had been made. "The Benedictins have been," says Guizot, "the great clearers of land in Europe. A colony, a little swarm of monks, settled in places nearly uncultivated, often in the midst of a pagan population, in Germany, for example, or in Britany; there, at once missionaries and labourers, they accomplished their double service through peril and fatigue." Civilis. en France, Leçon 14. The north-eastern parts of France, as far as the Lower Seine, were reduced into cultivation by the disciples of St. Columban, in the sixth and seventh centuries. The proofs of this are in Mabillon's Acta Sanctorum Ord. Bened. See Mém. de l'Acad. des Sciences Morales et Politiques, iii. 708.
Guizot has appreciated the rule of St. Benedict with that candid and favourable spirit which he always has brought to the history of the church: anxious, as it seems, not only to escape the imputation of Protestant prejudices by others, but to combat them in his own mind; and aware, also, that the partial misrepresentations of Voltaire had sunk into the minds of many who were listening to his lectures. Compared with the writers of the eighteenth century, who were too much alienated by the faults of the clergy to acknowledge any redeeming virtues, or even with Sismondi, who, coming in a moment of reaction, feared the returning influence of mediæval prejudices, Guizot stands forward as an equitable and indulgent arbitrator. In this spirit he says of the rule of St. Benedict—La pensée morale et la discipline générale en sont sévères; mais dans le détail de la vie elle est humaine et modérée; plus humaine, plus modérée que les lois barbares, que les mœurs générales du temps; et je ne doute pas que les frères, renfermés dans l'intérieur d'un monastère, n'y fussent gouvernés par une autorité, à tout prendre, et plus raisonnable, et d'une manière moins dure qu'ils ne l'eussent été dans la société civile.
[o] Thus, in Marca Hispanica, Appendix, p. 770, we have a grant from Lothaire I. in 834, to a person and his brother, of lands which their father, ab eremo in Septimaniâ trahens, had possessed by a charter of Charlemagne. See too p. 773, and other places. Du Cange, v. Eremus, gives also a few instances.
[p] Du Cange, v. Aprisio. Baluze, Capitularia, t. i. p. 549. They were permitted to decide petty suits among themselves, but for more important matters were to repair to the county-court. A liberal policy runs through the whole charter. See more on the same subject, id. p. 569.
[q] I owe this fact to M. Heeren, Essai sur l'Influence des Croisades, p. 226. An inundation in their own country is supposed to have immediately produced this emigration; but it was probably successive, and connected with political as well as physical causes of greater permanence. The first instrument in which they are mentioned is a grant from the bishop of Hamburgh in 1106. This colony has affected the local usages, as well as the denominations of things and places along the northern coast of Germany. It must be presumed that a large proportion of the emigrants were diverted from agriculture to people the commercial cities which grew up in the twelfth century upon that coast.
[r] Ingulfus tells us that the commissioners were pious enough to favour Croyland, returning its possessions inaccurately, both as to measurement and value; non ad verum pretium, nec ad verum spatium nostrum monasterium librabant misericorditer, præcaventes in futurum regis exactionibus. p. 79. I may just observe by the way, that Ingulfus gives the plain meaning of the word Domesday, which has been disputed. The book was so called, he says, pro suâ generalitate omnia tenementa totius terræ integrè continente; that is, it was as general and conclusive as the last judgment will be.
[] This of course is subject to the doubt as to the authenticity of Ingulfus.
[t] 1 Gale, XV Script. p. 77.
[] Communi plebiscito viritim inter se diviserunt, et quidam suas portiones agricolantes, quidam ad fœnum conservantes, quidam ut prius ad pasturam suorum animalium, separaliter jacere permittentes, terram pinguem et uberem repererunt. p. 94.
[x] 1 Gale, XV Script. p. 201.
[y] A good deal of information upon the former state of agriculture will be found in Cullum's History of Hawsted. Blomefield's Norfolk is in this respect among the most valuable of our local histories. Sir Frederic Eden, in the first part of his excellent work on the poor, has collected several interesting facts.
[z] 1. ii. c. 8.
[a] Cullum, p. 100, 220. Eden's State of Poor, &c. p. 48. Whitaker's Craven, p. 45, 336.
[] I infer this from a number of passages in Blomefield, Cullum, and other writers. Hearne says, that an acre was often called Solidata terræ; because the yearly rent of one on the best land was a shilling. Lib. Nig. Scacc. p. 31.
[c] Rot. Parl. vol. v. p. 275.
[d] A passage in Bishop Latimer's sermons, too often quoted to require repetition, shows that land was much underlet about the end of the fifteenth century. His father, he says, kept half a dozen husbandmen, and milked thirty cows, on a farm of three or four pounds a year. It is not surprising that he lived as plentifully as his son describes.
[e] Rymer, t. xii. p. 204.
[f] Velly and Villaret scarcely mention this subject; and Le Grand merely tells us that it was entirely neglected; but the details of such an art, even in its state of neglect, might be interesting.
[g] Muratori, Dissert. 21.
[h] Denina, 1. xi. c. 7.
[] Denina, 1. vi.
[k] t. iii. p. 145; t. xxxi. p. 258.
[m] De la Mare, Traité de la Police, t. iii. p. 380.
[n] Eden's State of Poor, vol. i. p. 51.
[o] Sir F. Eden, whose table of prices, though capable of some improvement, is perhaps the best that has appeared, would, I think, have acted better, by omitting all references to mere historians, and relying entirely on regular documents. I do not however include local histories, such as the Annals of Dunstaple, when they record the market-prices of their neighbourhood, in respect of which the book last mentioned is almost in the nature of a register. Dr. Whitaker remarks the inexactness of Stowe, who says that wheat sold in London, A.D. 1514, at 20s. a quarter: whereas it appears to have been at 9s. in Lancashire, where it was always dearer than in the metropolis. Hist. of Whalley, p. 97. It is an odd mistake, into which Sir F. Eden has fallen, when he asserts and argues on the supposition, that the price of wheat fluctuated in the thirteenth century, from 1s. to 6l. 8s. a quarter, vol. i. p. 18. Certainly, if any chronicler had mentioned such a price as the latter, equivalent to 150l. at present, we should either suppose that his text was corrupt, or reject it as an absurd exaggeration. But, in fact, the author has, through haste, mistaken 6s. 8d. for 6l. 8s., as will appear by referring to his own table of prices, where it is set down rightly. It is observed by Mr. Macpherson, a very competent judge, that the arithmetical statements of the best historians of the middle ages are seldom correct, owing partly to their neglect of examination, and partly to blunders of transcribers. Annals of Commerce, vol. i, p. 423.
[p] The table of comparative values by Sir George Shuckburgh (Philosoph. Transact. for 1798, p. 196) is strangely incompatible with every result to which my own reading has led me. It is the hasty attempt of a man accustomed to different studies; and one can neither pardon the presumption of obtruding such a slovenly performance on a subject where the utmost diligence was required, nor the affectation with which he apologizes for "descending from the dignity of philosophy."
[q] M. Guérard, editor of "Paris sous Philippe le Bel," in the Documens Inédits (1841, p. 365), after a comparison of the prices of corn, concludes that the value of silver has declined since that reign, in the ratio of five to one. This is much less than we allow in England. M. Leber (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. Nouvelle Série, xiv. 230) calculates the power of silver under Charlemagne, compared with the present day, to have been as nearly eleven to one. It fell afterwards to eight, and continued to sink during the middle ages; the average of prices during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, taking corn as the standard, was six to one; the comparison is of course only for France. This is an interesting paper, and contains tables worthy of being consulted.
[r] Blomefield's History of Norfolk, and Sir J. Cullum's of Hawsted, furnish several pieces even at this early period. Most of them are collected by Sir F. Eden. Fleta reckons 4s. the average price of a quarter of wheat in his time. 1. ii. c. 84. This writer has a digression on agriculture, whence however less is to be collected than we should expect.
[] The fluctuations of price have unfortunately been so great of late years, that it is almost as difficult to determine one side of our equation as the other. Any reader, however, has it in his power to correct my proportions, and adopt a greater or less multiple, according to his own estimate of current prices, or the changes that may take place from the time when this is written [1816].
[t] I have sometimes been surprised at the facility with which prices adjusted themselves to the quantity of silver contained in the current coin, in ages which appear too ignorant and too little commercial for the application of this mercantile principle. But the extensive dealings of the Jewish and Lombard usurers, who had many debtors in almost all parts of the country, would of itself introduce a knowledge, that silver, not its stamp, was the measure, of value. I have mentioned in another place (vol. i. p. 211) the heavy discontents excited by this debasement of the coin in France; but the more gradual enhancement of nominal prices in England seems to have prevented any strong manifestations of a similar spirit at the successive reductions in value which the coin experienced from the year 1300. The connexion however between commodities and silver was well understood. Wykes, an annalist of Edward I.'s age, tells us, that the Jews clipped our coin, till it retained hardly half its due weight, the effect of which was a general enhancement of prices, and decline of foreign trade: Mercatores transmarini cum mercimoniis suis regnum Angliæ minus solito frequentabant; necnon quod omnimoda venalium genera incomparabiliter solito fuerunt cariora. 2 Gale, XV Script. p. 107. Another chronicler of the same age complains of bad foreign money, alloyed with copper; nec erat in quatuor aut quinque ex iis pondus unius denarii argentii.... Eratque pessimum sæculum pro tali monetâ, et fiebant commutationes plurimæ in emptione et venditione rerum. Edward, as the historian informs us, bought in this bad money at a rate below its value, in order to make a profit; and fined some persons who interfered with his traffic. W. Hemingford, ad ann. 1299.
[] These will chiefly be found in Sir F. Eden's table of prices; the following may be added from the account-book of a convent between 1415 and 1425. Wheat varied from 4s. to 6s.—barley from 3s. 2d. to 4s. 10d.—oats from 1s. 8d. to 2s. 4d.—oxen from 12s. to 16s.—sheep from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 4d.—butter 3/4d. per lb.—eggs twenty-five for 1d.—cheese 1/2d. per lb. Lansdowne MSS., vol. i. No. 28 and 29. These prices do not always agree with those given in other documents of equal authority in the same period; but the value of provisions varied in different counties, and still more so in different seasons of the year.
[x] I insert the following comparative table of English money from Sir Frederick Eden. The unit, or present value, refers of course to that of the shilling before the last coinage, which reduced it.
| Value of pound sterling, present money. | Proportion. | ||
| £. s. d. | |||
| Conquest, | 1066 | 2 18 1½ | 2·906 |
| 28 E. I. | 1300 | 2 17 5 | 2·871 |
| 18 E. III. | 1344 | 2 12 5¼ | 2·622 |
| 20 E. III. | 1346 | 2 11 8 | 2·583 |
| 27 E. III. | 1353 | 2 6 6 | 2·325 |
| 13 H. IV. | 1412 | 1 18 9 | 1·937 |
| 4 E. IV. | 1464 | 1 11 0 | 0 1·55 |
| 18 H. VIII. | 1527 | 1 7 6¾ | 1·378 |
| 34 H. VIII. | 1543 | 1 3 3¼ | 1·163 |
| 36 H. VIII. | 1545 | 0 13 11½ | 0·698 |
| 37 H. VIII. | 1546 | 0 9 3¾ | 0·466 |
| 5 E. VI. | 1551 | 0 4 7¾ | 0·232 |
| 6 E. VI. | 1552 | 1 0 6¾ | 1·028 |
| 1 Mary | 1553 | 1 0 5¾ | 1·024 |
| 2 Eliz. | 1560 | 1 0 8 | 1·033 |
| 43 Eliz. | 1601 | 1 0 0 | 1·000 |
[y] Macpherson's Annals, p. 424, from Matt. Paris.
[z] Difference of Limited and Absolute Monarchy, p. 133.
[a] Hist. of Hawsted, p. 141.
[] Nicholls's Illustrations, p. 2. One fact of this class did, I own, stagger me. The great earl of Warwick writes to a private gentleman, Sir Thomas Tudenham, begging the loan of ten or twenty pounds to make up a sum he had to pay. Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 84. What way shall we make this commensurate to the present value of money? But an ingenious friend suggested, what I do not question is the case, that this was one of many letters addressed to the adherents of Warwick, in order to raise by their contributions a considerable sum. It is curious, in this light, as an illustration of manners.
[c] Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 224; Cullum's Hawsted, p. 182.
[d] Hist. of Hawsted, p. 228.
[e] Mr Malthus observes on this that I "have overlooked the distinction between the reigns of Edw. III. and Henry VIII. (perhaps a misprint for VI.), with regard to the state of the labouring classes. The two periods appear to have been essentially different in this respect." Principles of Political Economy, p. 293, 1st edit. He conceives that the earnings of the labourer in corn were unusually low in the latter years of Edward III., which appears to have been effected by the statute of labourers (25 E. III.), immediately after the great pestilence of 1350, though that mortality ought, in the natural course of things, to have considerably raised the real wages of labour. The result of his researches is that, in the reign of Edward III., the labourer could not purchase half a peck of wheat with a day's labour; from that of Richard II. to the middle of that of Henry VI., he could purchase nearly a peck; and from thence to the end of the century, nearly two pecks. At the time when the passage in the text was written [1816], the labourer could rarely have purchased more than a peck with a day's labour, and frequently a good deal less. In some parts of England this is the case at present [1846]; but in many counties the real wages of agricultural labourers are considerably higher than at that time, though not by any means so high as, according to Malthus himself, they were in the latter half of the fifteenth century. The excessive fluctuations in the price of corn, even taking averages of a long term of years, which we find through the middle ages, and indeed much later, account more than any other assignable cause for those in real wages of labour, which do not regulate themselves very promptly by that standard, especially when coercive measures are adopted to restrain them.
[f] See these rates more at length in Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 32, &c.
[g] In the Archæologia, vol. xviii. p. 281, we have a bailiffs account of expenses in 1387, where it appears that a ploughman had sixpence a week, and five shillings a year, with an allowance of diet; which seems to have been only pottage. These wages are certainly not more than fifteen shillings a week in present value [1816]; which, though materially above the average rate of agricultural labour, is less so than some of the statutes would lead us to expect. Other facts may be found of a similar nature.
[h] See that singular book, Piers Plowman's Vision, p. 145 (Whitaker's edition), for the different modes of living before and after harvest. The passage may be found in Ellis's Specimens, vol. i. p. 151.
[] Fortescue's Difference between Abs. and Lim. Monarchy, p. 19. The passages in Fortescue, which bear on his favourite theme, the liberty and consequent happiness of the English, are very important, and triumphantly refute those superficial writers who would make us believe that they were a set of beggarly slaves.
[k] Besides the books to which I have occasionally referred, Mr. Ellis's Specimens of English Poetry, vol. i. chap. 13, contain a short digression, but from well-selected materials, on the private life of the English in the middling and lower ranks about the fifteenth century. [I leave the foregoing pages with little alteration, but they may probably contain expressions which I would not now adopt. 1850.]
[m] Besides the German historians, see Du Cange, v. Ganerbium, for the confederacies in the empire, and Hermandatum for those in Castile. These appear to have been merely voluntary associations, and perhaps directed as much towards the prevention of robbery, as of what is strictly called private war. But no man can easily distinguish offensive war from robbery except by its scale; and where this was so considerably reduced, the two modes of injury almost coincide. In Aragon, there was a distinct institution for the maintenance of peace, the kingdom being divided into unions or juntas, with a chief officer, called Suprajunctarius, at their head. Du Cange, v. Juncta.
[n] Henault, Abrégé Chronol. à l'an. 1255. The institutions of Louis IX. and his successors relating to police form a part, though rather a smaller part than we should expect from the title, of an immense work, replete with miscellaneous information, by Delamare, Traité de la Police, 4 vols. in folio. A sketch of them may be found in Velly, t. v. p. 349, t. xviii. p. 437.
[o] Velly, t. v. p. 162, where this incident is told in an interesting manner from William de Nangis. Boulainvilliers has taken an extraordinary view of the king's behaviour. Hist. de l'Ancien Gouvernement, t. ii. p. 26. In his eyes princes and plebeians were made to be the slaves of a feudal aristocracy.
[p] Velly, t. viii. p. 132.
[q] Id. xviii. p. 437.
[r] Fleury, 3me Discours sur l'Hist. Ecclés.
[] The most authentic account of the Paulicians is found in a little treatise of Petrus Siculus, who lived about 870, under Basil the Macedonian. He had been employed on an embassy to Tephrica, the principal town of these heretics, so that he might easily be well informed; and, though he is sufficiently bigoted, I do not see any reason to question the general truth of his testimony, especially as it tallies so well with what we learn of the predecessors and successors of the Paulicians. They had rejected several of the Manichean doctrines, those, I believe, which were borrowed from the Oriental, Gnostic, and Cabbalistic philosophy of emanation; and therefore readily condemned Manes, προθύμως αναθεματίζουσι Μάνετα. But they retained his capital errors, so far as regarded the principle of dualism, which he had taken from Zerdusht's religion, and the consequences he had derived from it. Petrus Siculus enumerates six Paulician heresies. 1. They maintained the existence of two deities, the one evil, and the creator of this world; the other good, called πατὴρ ἐπουράνιος, the author of that which is to come. 2. They refused to worship the Virgin, and asserted that Christ brought his body from heaven. 3. They rejected the Lord's Supper. 4. And the adoration of the cross. 5. They denied the authority of the Old Testament, but admitted the New, except the epistles of St. Peter, and, perhaps, the Apocalypse. 6. They did not acknowledge the order of priests.
There seems every reason to suppose that the Paulicians, notwithstanding their mistakes, were endowed with sincere and zealous piety, and studious of the Scriptures. A Paulician woman asked a young man if he had read the Gospels: he replied that laymen were not permitted to do so, but only the clergy: οὐκ ἐξεστιν ἡμὶν τοῖς κοσμίκοις οὖσι ταῦτα ἀναγινώσκειν, ἐι μὴ τοῖς ἱέρευσι μόνοις. p. 57. A curious proof that the Scriptures were already forbidden in the Greek church, which I am inclined to believe, notwithstanding the leniency with which Protestant writers have treated it, was always more corrupt and more intolerant than the Latin.
[t] Gibbon, c. 54. This chapter of the historian of the Decline and Fall upon the Paulicians appears to be accurate, as well as luminous, and is at least far superior to any modern work on the subject.
[] It is generally agreed, that the Manicheans from Bulgaria did not penetrate into the west of Europe before the year 1000; and they seem to have been in small numbers till about 1140. We find them, however, early in the eleventh century. Under the reign of Robert in 1007 several heretics were burned at Orleans for tenets which are represented as Manichean. Velly, t. ii. p. 307. These are said to have been imported from Italy; and the heresy began to strike root in that country about the same time. Muratori, Dissert. 60 (Antichità Italiane, t. iii. p. 304). The Italian Manicheans were generally called Paterini, the meaning of which word has never been explained. We find few traces of them in France at this time; but about the beginning of the twelfth century, Guibert, bishop of Soissons, describes the heretics of that city, who denied the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and rejected the sacraments. Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. x. p. 451. Before the middle of that age, the Cathari, Henricians, Petrobussians, and others appear, and the new opinions attracted universal notice. Some of these sectaries, however, were not Manicheans. Mosheim, vol. iii. p. 116.
The acts of the inquisition of Toulouse, published by Limborch, from an ancient manuscript, contain many additional proofs that the Albigenses held the Manichean doctrine. Limborch himself will guide the reader to the principal passages, p. 30. In fact, the proof of Manicheism among the heretics of the twelfth century is so strong (for I have confined myself to those of Languedoc, and could easily have brought other testimony as to the Cathari), that I should never have thought of arguing the point, but for the confidence of some modern ecclesiastical writers.—What can we think of one who says, "It was not unusual to stigmatize new sects with the odious name of Manichees, though I know no evidence that there were any real remains of that ancient sect in the twelfth century"? Milner's History of the Church, vol. iii. p. 380. Though this writer was by no means learned enough for the task he undertook, he could not be ignorant of facts related by Mosheim and other common historians.
I will only add, in order to obviate cavilling, that I use the word Albigenses for the Manichean sects, without pretending to assert that their doctrines prevailed more in the neighbourhood of Albi than elsewhere. The main position is, that a large part of the Languedocian heretics against whom the crusade was directed had imbibed the Paulician opinions. If any one chooses rather to call them Catharists, it will not be material.
[x] M. Paris, p. 267. (A.D. 1223.) Circa dies istos, hæretici Albigenses constituerunt sibi Antipapam in finibus Bulgarorum, Croatiæ et Dalmatiæ, nomine Bartholomæum, &c. We are assured by good authorities that Bosnia was full of Manicheans and Arians as late as the middle of the fifteenth century. Æneas Sylvius, p. 407; Spondanus, ad an. 1460; Mosheim.
[y] There has been so prevalent a disposition among English divines to vindicate not only the morals and sincerity, but the orthodoxy of these Albigenses, that I deem it necessary to confirm what I have said in the text by some authorities, especially as few readers have it in their power to examine this very obscure subject. Petrus Monachus, a Cistercian monk, who wrote a history of the crusades against the Albigenses, gives an account of the tenets maintained by the different heretical sects. Many of them asserted two principles or creative beings: a good one for things invisible, an evil one for things visible; the former author of the New Testament, the latter of the Old. Novum Testamentum benigno deo, vetus vero maligno attribuebant; et illud omninò repudiabant, præter quasdam auctoritates, quæ de Veteri Testamento Novo sunt insertæ, quas ob Novi reverentiam Testamenti recipere dignum æstimabant. A vast number of strange errors are imputed to them, most of which are not mentioned by Alanus, a more dispassionate writer. Du Chesne, Scriptores Francorum, t. v. p. 556. This Alanus de Insulis, whose treatise against heretics, written about 1200, was published by Masson at Lyons, in 1612, has left, I think, conclusive evidence of the Manicheism of the Albigenses. He states their argument upon every disputed point as fairly as possible, though his refutation is of course more at length. It appears that great discrepancies of opinion existed among these heretics, but the general tenor of their doctrines is evidently Manichean. Aiunt hæretici temporis nostri quod duo sunt principia rerum, principium lucis et principium tenebrarum, &c. This opinion, strange as we may think it, was supported by Scriptural texts; so insufficient is a mere acquaintance with the sacred writings to secure unlearned and prejudiced minds from the wildest perversions of their meaning! Some denied the reality of Christ's body; others his being the Son of God; many the resurrection of the body; some even of a future state. They asserted in general the Mosaic law to have proceeded from the devil, proving this by the crimes committed during its dispensation, and by the words of St. Paul, "the law entered that sin might abound." They rejected infant baptism, but were divided as to the reason; some saying that infants could not sin, and did not need baptism; others, that they could not be saved without faith, and consequently that it was useless. They held sin after baptism to be irremissible. It does not appear that they rejected either of the sacraments. They laid great stress upon the imposition of hands, which seems to have been their distinctive rite.
One circumstance, which both Alanus and Robertus Monachus mention, and which other authorities confirm, is their division into two classes; the Perfect, and the Credentes, or Consolati, both of which appellations are used. The former abstained from animal food, and from marriage, and led in every respect an austere life. The latter were a kind of lay brethren, living in a secular manner. This distinction is thoroughly Manichean, and leaves no doubt as to the origin of the Albigenses. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manichéisme, t. ii. p. 762 and 777. This candid writer represents the early Manicheans as a harmless and austere set of enthusiasts, exactly what the Paulicians and Albigenses appear to have been in succeeding ages. As many calumnies were vented against one as the other.
The long battle as to the Manicheism of the Albigensian sectaries has been renewed since the publication of this work, by Dr. Maitland on one side, and Mr. Faber and Dr. Gilly on the other; and it is not likely to reach a termination; being conducted by one party with far less regard to the weight of evidence than to the bearing it may have on the theological hypotheses of the writers. I have seen no reason for altering what is said in the text.
The chief strength of the argument seems to me to lie in the independent testimonies as to the Manicheism of the Paulicians, in Petrus Siculus and Photius, on the one hand, and as to that of the Languedocian heretics in the Latin writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries on the other; the connexion of the two sects through Bulgaria being established by history, but the latter class of writers being unacquainted with the former. It is certain that the probability of general truth in these concurrent testimonies is greatly enhanced by their independence. And it will be found that those who deny any tinge of Manicheism in the Albigenses, are equally confident as to the orthodoxy of the Paulicians. [1848.]
[z] The contemporary writers seem uniformly to represent Waldo as the founder of the Waldenses; and I am not aware that they refer the locality of that sect to the valleys of Piedmont, between Exiles and Pignerol (see Leger's map), which have so long been distinguished as the native country of the Vaudois. In the acts of the Inquisition, we find Waldenses, sive pauperes de Lugduno, used as equivalent terms; and it can hardly be doubted that the poor men of Lyons were the disciples of Waldo. Alanus, the second book of whose treatise against heretics is an attack upon the Waldenses, expressly derives them from Waldo. Petrus Monachus does the same. These seem strong authorities, as it is not easy to perceive what advantage they could derive from misrepresentation. It has been however a position zealously maintained by some modern writers of respectable name, that the people of the valleys had preserved a pure faith for several ages before the appearance of Waldo. I have read what is advanced on this head by Leger (Histoire des Eglises Vaudoises) and by Allix (Remarks on the Ecclesiastical History of the Churches of Piedmont), but without finding any sufficient proof for this supposition, which nevertheless is not to be rejected as absolutely improbable. Their best argument is deduced from an ancient poem called La Noble Loiçon, an original manuscript of which is in the public library of Cambridge, and another in that of Geneva. This poem is alleged to bear date in 1100, more than half a century before the appearance of Waldo. But the lines that contain the date are loosely expressed, and may very well suit with any epoch before the termination of the twelfth century.
Ben ha mil et cent ans compli entierament,
Che fu scritta loro que sen al derier temp.
Eleven hundred years are now gone and past,
Since thus it was written; These times are the last.
See Literature of Europe in 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, chap. 1, § 33.
I have found however a passage in a late work, which remarkably illustrates the antiquity of Alpine protestantism, if we may depend on the date it assigns to the quotation. Mr. Planta's History of Switzerland, p. 93, 4to. edit., contains the following note:—"A curious passage, singularly descriptive of the character of the Swiss, has lately been discovered in a MS. chronicle of the Abbey of Corvey, which appears to have been written about the beginning of the twelfth century. Religionem nostram, et omnium Latinæ ecclesiæ Christianorum fidem, laici ex Suaviâ, Suiciâ, et Bavariâ humiliare voluerunt; homines seducti ab antiquâ progenie simplicium hominum, qui Alpes et viciniam habitant, et semper amant antiqua. In Suaviam, Bavariam et Italiam borealem sæpe intrant illorum (ex Suiciâ) mercatores, qui biblia ediscunt memoriter, et ritus ecclesiæ aversantur, quos credunt esse novos. Nolunt imagines venerari, reliquias sanctorum aversantur, olera comedunt, rarò masticantes carnem, alii nunquam. Appellamus eos idcircò Manichæos. Horum quidam ab Hungariâ ad eos convenerunt, &c." It is a pity that the quotation has been broken off, as it might have illustrated the connexion of the Bulgarians with these sectaries.
[a] The Waldenses were always considered as much less erroneous in their tenets than the Albigenses, or Manicheans. Erant præterea alii hæretici, says Robert Monachus in the passage above quoted, qui Waldenses dicebantur, a quodam Waldio nomine Lugdunensi. Hi quidem mali erant, sed comparatione aliorum hæreticorum longè minus perversi; in multis enim nobiscum conveniebant, in quibusdam dissentiebant. The only faults he seems to impute to them are the denial of the lawfulness of oaths and capital punishment, and the wearing wooden shoes. By this peculiarity of wooden sandals (sabots) they got the name of Sabbatati or Insabbatati. (Du Cange.) William du Puy, another historian of the same time, makes a similar distinction. Erant quidam Ariani, quidam Manichæi, quidam etiam Waldenses sive Lugdunenses, qui licet inter se dissidentes, omnes tamen in animarum perniciem contra fidem Catholicam conspirabant; et illi quidem Waldenses contra alios acutissimè disputant. Du Chesne, t. v. p. 666. Alanus, in his second book, where he treats of the Waldenses, charges them principally with disregarding the authority of the church and preaching without a regular mission. It is evident however from the acts of the Inquisition, that they denied the existence of purgatory; and I should suppose that, even at that time, they had thrown off most of the popish system of doctrine, which is so nearly connected with clerical wealth and power. The difference made in these records between the Waldenses and the Manichean sects shows that the imputations cast upon the latter were not indiscriminate calumnies. See Limborch, p. 201 and 228.
The History of Languedoc, by Vaissette and Vich, contains a very good account of the sectaries in that country; but I have not immediate access to the book. I believe that proof will be found of the distinction between the Waldenses and Albigenses in t. iii. p. 446. But I am satisfied that no one who has looked at the original authorities will dispute the proposition. These Benedictine historians represent the Henricians, an early set of reformers, condemned by the council of Lombez, in 1165, as Manichees. Mosheim considers them as of the Vaudois school. They appeared some time before Waldo.
[] The general testimony of their enemies to the purity of morals among the Languedocian and Lyonese sectaries is abundantly sufficient. One Regnier, who had lived among them, and became afterwards an inquisitor, does them justice in this respect. See Turner's History of England for several other proofs of this. It must be confessed that the Catharists are not free from the imputation of promiscuous licentiousness. But whether this was a mere calumny, or partly founded upon truth, I cannot determine. Their prototypes, the ancient Gnostics, are said to have been divided into two parties, the austere and the relaxed; both condemning marriage for opposite reasons. Alanus, in the book above quoted, seems to have taken up several vulgar prejudices against the Cathari. He gives an etymology of their name à catto; quia osculantur posteriora catti; in cujus specie, ut aiunt, appareret iis Lucifer, p. 146. This notable charge was brought afterwards against the Templars.
As to the Waldenses, their innocence is out of all doubt. No book can be written in a more edifying manner than La Noble Loiçon, of which large extracts are given by Leger, in his Histoire des Eglises Vaudoises. Four lines are quoted by Voltaire (Hist. Universelle, c. 69), as a specimen of the Provençal language, though they belong rather to the patois of the valleys. But as he has not copied them rightly, and as they illustrate the subject of this note, I shall repeat them here from Leger, p. 28.
Que sel se troba alcun bon que vollia amar Dio e temer Jeshu Xrist,
Que non vollia maudire, ni jura, ni mentir,
Ni avoutrar, ni aucire, ni penre de l'autruy,
Ni venjar se de li sio ennemie,
Illi dison quel es Vaudes e degne de murir.
[c] It would be difficult to specify all the dispersed authorities which attest the existence of the sects derived from the Waldenses and Paulicians in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. Besides Mosheim, who has paid considerable attention to the subject, I would mention some articles in Du Cange which supply gleanings; namely, Beghardi, Bulgari, Lollardi, Paterini, Picardi, Pifli, Populicani.
Upon the subject of the Waldenses and Albigenses generally, I have borrowed some light from Mr. Turner's History of England, vol. ii. p. 377, 393. This learned writer has seen some books that have not fallen into my way; and I am indebted to him for a knowledge of Alanus's treatise, which I have since read. At the same time I must observe, that Mr. Turner has not perceived the essential distinction between the two leading sects.
The name of Albigenses does not frequently occur after the middle of the thirteenth century; but the Waldenses, or sects bearing that denomination, were dispersed over Europe. As a term of different reproach was derived from the word Bulgarian, so vauderie, or the profession of the Vaudois, was sometimes applied to witchcraft. Thus in the proceedings of the Chambre Brulante at Arras, in 1459, against persons accused of sorcery, their crime is denominated vauderie. The fullest account of this remarkable story is found in the Memoirs of Du Clercq, first published in the general collection of Historical Memoirs, t. ix. p. 430, 471. It exhibits a complete parallel to the events that happened in 1682 at Salem in New England. A few obscure persons were accused of vauderie, or witchcraft. After their condemnation, which was founded on confessions obtained by torture, and afterwards retracted, an epidemical contagion of superstitious dread was diffused all around. Numbers were arrested, burned alive by order of a tribunal instituted for the detection of this offence, or detained in prison; so that no person in Arras thought himself safe. It was believed that many were accused for the sake of their possessions, which were confiscated to the use of the church. At length the duke of Burgundy interfered, and put a stop to the persecutions. The whole narrative in Du Clercq is interesting, as a curious document of the tyranny of bigots, and of the facility with which it is turned to private ends.
To return to the Waldenses: the principal course of their emigration is said to have been into Bohemia, where, in the fifteenth century, the name was borne by one of the seceding sects. By their profession of faith, presented to Ladislaus Posthumus, it appears that they acknowledged the corporal presence in the eucharist, but rejected purgatory and other Romish doctrines. See it in the Fasciculus Rerum expetendarum et fugiendarum, a collection of treatises illustrating the origin of the Reformation, originally published at Cologne in 1535, and reprinted at London in 1690.
[d] Opera Innocent III. p. 468, 537. A translation of the Bible had been made by direction of Peter Waldo; but whether this used in Lorrain was the same, does not appear. Metz was full of the Vaudois, as we find by other authorities.
[e] Schilteri Thesaurus Antiq. Teutonicorum.
[f] Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xvii. p. 720.
[g] The Anglo-Saxon versions are deserving of particular remark. It has been said that our church maintained the privilege of having part of the daily service in the mother tongue. "Even the mass itself," says Lappenberg, "was not read entirely in Latin." Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 202. This, however, is denied by Lingard, whose authority is probably superior. Hist. of Ang.-Sax. Church, i. 307. But he allows that the Epistle and Gospel were read in English, which implies an authorized translation. And we may adopt in a great measure Lappenberg's proposition, which follows the above passage: "The numerous versions and paraphrases of the Old and New Testament made those books known to the laity and more familiar to the clergy."
We have seen a little above, that the laity were not permitted by the Greek Church of the ninth century, and probably before, to read the Scriptures, even in the original. This shows how much more honest and pious the Western Church was before she became corrupted by ambition and by the captivating hope of keeping the laity in servitude by means of ignorance. The translation of the four Books of Kings into French has been published in the Collection de Documens Inédits, 1841. It is in a northern dialect, but the age seems not satisfactorily ascertained; the close of the eleventh century is the earliest date that can be assigned. Translations into the Provençal by the Waldensian or other heretics were made in the twelfth; several manuscripts of them are in existence, and one has been published by Dr. Gilly. [1848.]
[h] The application of the visions of the Apocalypse to the corruptions of Rome has commonly been said to have been first made by the Franciscan seceders. But it may be traced higher, and is remarkably pointed out by Dante.
Di voi pastor s' accorse 'l Vangelista,
Quando colei, chi siede sovra l'acque,
Puttaneggiar co' regi a lui fu vista.
Inferno, cant. xix.
[] Walsingham, p. 238; Lewis's Life of Pecock, p. 65. Bishop Pecock's answer to the Lollards of his time contains passages well worthy of Hooker, both for weight of matter and dignity of style, setting forth the necessity and importance of "the moral law of kinde, or moral philosophie," in opposition to those who derive all morality from revelation.
This great man fell afterwards under the displeasure of the church for propositions, not indeed heretical, but repugnant to her scheme of spiritual power. He asserted, indirectly, the right of private judgment, and wrote on theological subjects in English, which gave much offence. In fact, Pecock seems to have hoped that his acute reasoning would convince the people, without requiring an implicit faith. But he greatly misunderstood the principle of an infallible church. Lewis's Life of Pecock does justice to his character, which, I need not say, is unfairly represented by such historians as Collier, and such antiquaries as Thomas Hearne.
[k] Lewis's Life of Wicliffe, p. 115; Lenfant, Hist. du Concile de Constance, t. i. p. 213.
[m] Huss does not appear to have rejected any of the peculiar tenets of popery. Lenfant, p. 414. He embraced, like Wicliffe, the predestinarian system of Augustin, without pausing at any of those inferences, apparently deducible from it, which, in the heads of enthusiasts, may produce such extensive mischief. These were maintained by Huss (id. p. 328), though not perhaps so crudely as by Luther. Everything relative to the history and doctrine of Huss and his followers will be found in Lenfant's three works on the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle.
[n] Lenfant, Hist. de la Guerre des Hussites et du Concile de Basle; Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. v.
[o] Nihil neque publicæ neque privatæ rei nisi armati agunt. Sed arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris, quàm civitas suffecturum probaverit. Tum in ipso concilio, vel principum aliquis, vel pater, vel propinquus, scuto frameâque juvenem ornant; hæc apud eos toga, hic primus juventæ honos; ante hoc domûs pars videntur, mox reipublicæ. De Moribus German. c. 13.
[p] William of Malmsbury says that Alfred conferred knighthood on Athelstan, donatum chlamyde coccineâ, gemmato balteo, ense Saxonico cum vaginâ aureâ. 1. ii. c. 6. St. Palaye (Mémoires sur la Chevalerie, p. 2) mentions other instances; which may also be found in Du Cange's Glossary, v. Arma, and in his 22nd dissertation on Joinville.
[q] Comites et vassalli nostri qui beneficia habere noscuntur, et caballarii omnes ad placitum nostrum veniant bene preparati. Capitularia, A.D. 807, in Baluze, t. i. p. 460.
[r] We must take for this the more favourable representations of the Indian nations. A deteriorating intercourse with Europeans, or a race of European extraction, has tended to efface those virtues which possibly were rather exaggerated by earlier writers.
[] Since this passage was written, I have found a parallel drawn by Mr. Sharon Turner, in his valuable History of England, between Achilles and Richard Cœur de Lion; the superior justness of which I readily acknowledge. The real hero does not indeed excite so much interest in me as the poetical; but the marks of resemblance are very striking, whether we consider their passions, their talents, their virtues, their vices, or the waste of their heroism.
The two principal persons in the Iliad, if I may digress into the observation, appear to me representatives of the heroic character in its two leading varieties; of the energy which has its sole principle, of action within itself, and of that which borrows its impulse from external relations; of the spirit of honour, in short, and of patriotism. As every sentiment of Achilles is independent and self-supported, so those of Hector all bear reference to his kindred and his country. The ardour of the one might have been extinguished for want of nourishment in Thessaly; but that of the other might, we fancy, have never been kindled but for the dangers of Troy. Peace could have brought no delight to the one but from the memory of war; war had no alleviation to the other but from the images of peace. Compare, for example, the two speeches, beginning Il. Z. 441, and Il. II. 49; or rather compare the two characters throughout the Iliad. So wonderfully were those two great springs of human sympathy, variously interesting according to the diversity of our tempers, first touched by that ancient patriarch,
à quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.
[t] Ingulfus, in Gale, XV Scriptores, t. i. p. 70. William Rufus, however, was knighted by Archbishop Lanfranc, which looks as if the ceremony was not absolutely repugnant to the Norman practice.
[] Du Cange, v. Miles, and 22nd Dissertation on Joinville, St. Palaye, Mém. sur la Chevalerie, part ii. A curious original illustration of this, as well as of other chivalrous principles, will be found in l'Ordene de Chevalerie, a long metrical romance published in Barbazan's Fabliaux, t. i. p. 59 (edit. 1808).
[x] Y eut huit cens chevaliers séant à table; et si n'y eust celui qui n'eust une dame on une pucelle à son ecuelle. In Launcelot du Lac, a lady, who was troubled with a jealous husband, complains that it was a long time since a knight had eaten off her plate. Le Grand, t. i. p. 24.
[y] Le Grand, Fabliaux, t. iii. p. 438; St. Palaye, t. i. p. 41. I quote St. Palaye's Mémoires from the first edition in 1759, which is not the best.
[z] Statuimus, quod omnis homo, sive miles sive alius, qui iverit cum dominâ generosâ, salvus sit atque securus, nisi fuerit homicida. De Marca, Marca Hispanica, p. 1428.
[a] Le Grand, t. i. p. 120; St. Palaye, t. i. p. 13, 134, 221; Fabliaux, Romances, &c., passim.
[] St. Palaye, p. 222.
[c] Froissart, p. 33.
[d] St. Palaye, p. 268.
[e] The romances will speak for themselves; and the character of the Provençal morality may be collected from Millot, Hist. des Troubadours, passim; and from Sismondi, Littérature du Midi, t. i. p. 179, &c. See too St. Palaye, t. ii. p. 62 and 68.
[f] St. Palaye, part ii.
[g] Non laudem meruit, sed summæ potius opprobrium vilitatis; nam idem facinus est putandum captum nobilem vel ignobilem offendere, vel ferire, quàm gladio cædere cadaver. Rolandinus, in Script Rer. Ital. t. viii. p. 351.
[h] Froissart, 1. i. c. 161. He remarks in another place that all English and French gentlemen treat their prisoners well; not so the Germans, who put them in fetters, in order to extort more money, c. 136.
[] St Palaye, part iv. p. 312, 367, &c. Le Grand, Fabliaux, t. i. p. 115, 167. It was the custom in Great Britain, (says the romance of Perceforest, speaking of course in an imaginary history,) that noblemen and ladies placed a helmet on the highest point of their castles, as a sign that all persons of such rank travelling that road might boldly enter their houses like their own. St. Palaye, p. 367.
[k] Fabliaux de Barbasan, t. i.
[m] Joinville in Collection des Mémoires, t. i. p. 43.
[n] St. Palaye, part i.
[o] Du Cange, 5me Dissertation sur Joinville. St. Palaye, t. i. p. 87, 118. Le Grand, t. i. p. 14.
[p] St. Palaye, t. i. p. 191.
[q] Godfrey de Preuilly, a French knight, is said by several contemporary writers to have invented tournaments; which must of course be understood in a limited sense. The Germans ascribe them to Henry the Fowler; but this, according to Du Cange, is on no authority. 6me Dissertation sur Joinville.
[r] St. Palaye, part ii. and part iii. au commencement. Du Cange, Dissert. 6 and 7: and Glossary, v. Torneamentum. Le Grand, Fabliaux, t. i. p. 184.
[] St. Palaye, part iv. Selden's Titles of Honour, p. 806. There was not, however, so much distinction in England as in France.
[t] St. Palaye, vol. i. p. 70, has forgotten to make this distinction. It is, however, capable of abundant proof. Gunther, in his poem called Ligurinus, observes of the Milanese republic:
Quoslibet ex humili vulgo, quod Gallia fœdum
Judicat, accingi gladio concedit equestri.
Otho of Frisingen expresses the same in prose. It is said, in the Establishments of St. Louis, that if any one not being a gentleman on the father's side was knighted, the king or baron in whose territory he resides, may hack off his spurs on a dunghill, c. 130. The count de Nevers, having knighted a person who was not noble exparte paternâ, was fined in the king's court. The king, however, (Philip III.) confirmed the knighthood. Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, p. 98. Fuit propositum (says a passage quoted by Daniel) contra comitem Flandriensem, quod non poterat, nec debebat facere de villano militem, sine auctoritate regis. ibid. Statuimus, says James I. of Aragon, in 1234, ut nullus faciat militem nisi filium militis. Marca Hispanica, p. 1428. Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 592, produces other evidence to the same effect. And the emperor Sigismund having conferred knighthood, during his stay in Paris in 1415, on a person incompetent to receive it for want of nobility, the French were indignant at his conduct, as an assumption of sovereignty. Villaret, t. xiii. p. 397. We are told, however, by Giannone, 1. xx. c. 3, that nobility was not in fact required for receiving chivalry at Naples, though it was in France.
The privilege of every knight to associate qualified persons to the order at his pleasure, lasted very long in France; certainly down to the English wars of Charles VII. (Monstrelet, part ii. folio 50), and, if I am not mistaken, down to the time of Francis I. But in England, where the spirit of independence did not prevail so much among the nobility, it soon ceased. Selden mentions one remarkable instance in a writ of the 29th year of Henry III. summoning tenants in capite to come and receive knighthood from the king, ad recipiendum a nobis arma militaria; and tenants of mesne lords to be knighted by whomsoever they pleased, ad recipiendum arma de quibuscunque voluerint. Titles of Honour, p. 792. But soon after this time, it became an established principle of our law that no subject can confer knighthood except by the king's authority. Thus Edward III. grants to a burgess of Lyndia in Guienne (I know not what place this is) the privilege of receiving that rank at the hands of any knight, his want of noble birth notwithstanding. Rymer, t. v. p. 623. It seems, however, that a different law obtained in some places. Twenty-three of the chief inhabitants of Beaucaire, partly knights, partly burgesses, certified in 1298, that the immemorial usage of Beaucaire and of Provence had been, for burgesses to receive knighthood at the hands of noblemen, without the prince's permission. Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. iii. p. 530. Burgesses, in the great commercial towns, were considered as of a superior class to the roturiers, and possessed a kind of demi-nobility. Charles V. appears to have conceded a similar indulgence to the citizens of Paris. Villaret, t. x. p. 248.
[] St. Palaye, part iii. passim.
[x] The word bachelor has been sometimes derived from bas chevalier; in opposition to banneret. But this cannot be right. We do not find any authority for the expression bas chevalier, nor any equivalent in Latin, baccalaureus certainly not suggesting that sense; and it is strange that the corruption should obliterate every trace of the original term. Bachelor is a very old word, and is used in early French poetry for a young man, as bachelette is for a girl. So also in Chaucer:
"A yonge Squire,
A lover, and a lusty bachelor."
[y] Du Cange, Dissertation 9me sur Joinville. The number of men at arms, whom a banneret ought to command, was properly fifty. But Olivier de la Marche speaks of twenty-five as sufficient; and it appears that, in fact, knights-banneret often did not bring so many.
[z] Ibid. Olivier de la Marche (Collection des Mémoires, t. viii. p. 337) gives a particular example of this; and makes a distinction between the bachelor, created a banneret on account of his estate, and the hereditary banneret, who took a public opportunity of requesting the sovereign to unfold his family banner which he had before borne wound round his lance. The first was said relever banniere; the second, entrer en banniere. This difference is more fully explained by Daniel, Hist. de la Milice Françoise, p. 116. Chandos's banner was unfolded, not cut, at Navarette. We read sometimes of esquire-bannerets, that is, of bannerets by descent, not yet knighted.
[a] Froissart, part i. c. 241.
[] Mém. sur la Chevalerie, part v.
[c] The prerogative exercised by the kings of England of compelling men sufficiently qualified in point of estate to take on them the honour of knighthood was inconsistent with the true spirit of chivalry. This began, according to Lord Lyttelton, under Henry III. Hist. of Henry II. vol. ii. p. 238. Independently of this, several causes tended to render England less under the influence of chivalrous principles than France or Germany; such as, her comparatively peaceful state, the smaller share she took in the crusades, her inferiority in romances of knight-errantry, but above all, the democratical character of her laws and government. Still this is only to be understood relatively to the two other countries above named; for chivalry was always in high repute among us, nor did any nation produce more admirable specimens of its excellences.
I am not minutely acquainted with the state of chivalry in Spain, where it seems to have flourished considerably. Italy, except in Naples, and perhaps Piedmont, displayed little of its spirit; which neither suited the free republics of the twelfth and thirteenth, nor the jealous tyrannies of the following centuries. Yet even here we find enough to furnish Muratori with materials for his 53rd Dissertation.
[d] The well-known Memoirs of St. Palaye are the best repository of interesting and illustrative facts respecting chivalry. Possibly he may have relied a little too much on romances, whose pictures will naturally be overcharged. Froissart himself has somewhat of this partial tendency, and the manners of chivalrous times do not make so fair an appearance in Monstrelet. In the Memoirs of la Tremouille (Collect. des Mém. t. xiv. p. 169), we have perhaps the earliest delineation from the life of those severe and stately virtues in high-born ladies, of which our own country furnished so many examples in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which were derived from the influence of chivalrous principles. And those of Bayard in the same collection (t. xiv. and xv.) are a beautiful exhibition of the best effects of that discipline.
It appears to me that M. Guizot, to whose judgment I owe all deference, has dwelt rather too much on the feudal character of chivalry. Hist. de la Civilisation en France, Leçon 36. Hence he treats the institution as in its decline during the fourteenth century, when, if we can trust either Froissart or the romancers, it was at its height. Certainly, if mere knighthood was of right both in England and the north of France, a territorial dignity, which bore with it no actual presumption of merit, it was sometimes also conferred on a more honourable principle. It was not every knight who possessed a fief, nor in practice did every possessor of a fief receive knighthood.
Guizot justly remarks, as Sismondi has done, the disparity between the lives of most knights and the theory of chivalrous rectitude. But the same has been seen in religion, and can be no reproach to either principle. Partout la pensée morale des hommes s'élève et aspire fort au dessus de leur vie. Et gardez vous de croire que parce qu'elle ne gouvernait pas immédiatement les actions, parceque la pratique démontait sans cesse et étrangement la théorie, l'influence de la théorie fut nulle et sans valeur. C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions humaines; tot ou tard il devient efficace.
It may be thought by many severe judges, that I have over-valued the efficacy of chivalrous sentiments in elevating the moral character of the middle ages. But I do not see ground for withdrawing or modifying any sentence. The comparison is never to be made with an ideal standard, or even with one which a purer religion and a more liberal organization of society may have rendered effectual, but with the condition of a country where neither the sentiments of honour nor those of right prevail. And it seems to me that I have not veiled the deficiencies and the vices of chivalry any more than its beneficial tendencies.
A very fascinating picture of chivalrous manners has been drawn by a writer of considerable reading, and still more considerable ability, Mr. Kenelm Digby, in his Broad Stone of Honour. The bravery, the courteousness, the munificence, above all, the deeply religious character of knighthood and its reverence for the church, naturally took hold of a heart so susceptible of these emotions, and a fancy so quick to embody them. St. Palaye himself is a less enthusiastic eulogist of chivalry, because he has seen it more on the side of mere romance, and been less penetrated with the conviction of its moral excellence. But the progress of still deeper impression seems to have moderated the ardour of Mr. Digby's admiration for the historical character of knighthood; he has discovered enough of human alloy to render unqualified praise hardly fitting, in his judgment, for a Christian writer; and in the Mores Catholici, the second work of this amiable and gifted man, the colours in which chivalry appears are by no means so brilliant [1848.]
[e] Four very recent publications (not to mention that of Buhle on modern philosophy) enter much at large into the middle literature; those of M. Ginguené and M. Sismondi, the history of England by Mr. Sharon Turner, and the Literary History of the Middle Ages by Mr. Berington. All of these contain more or less useful information and judicious remarks; but that of Ginguené is among the most learned and important works of this century. I have no hesitation to prefer it, as far as its subjects extend, to Tiraboschi.
[A subsequent work of my own, Introduction to the History of Literature in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries, contains, in the first and second chapters, some additional illustrations of the antecedent period, to which the reader may be referred, as complementary to these pages. 1848.]
[f] Heineccius, Hist. Juris German. c. 1. p. 15.
[g] Giannone, 1. iv. c. 6. Selden, ad Fletam, p. 1071.
[h] Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 359. Ginguené, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 155.
[] Irnerius is sometimes called Guarnerius, sometimes Warnerius: the German W is changed into Gu by the Italians, and occasionally omitted, especially in latinizing, for the sake of euphony or purity.
[k] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 38; t. v. p. 55.
[m] Tiraboschi, t. v. Vaissette, Hist. de Languedoc, t. ii. p. 517; t. iii. p. 527; t. iv. p. 504.
[n] Duck, de Usu Juris Civilis, 1. ii. c. 6.
[o] Idem, 1. ii. 2.
[p] Duck, 1. ii. c. 5, s. 30, 31. Fleury, Hist. du Droit François, p. 74 (prefixed to Argou, Institutions au Droit François, edit. 1787), says that it was a great question among lawyers, and still undecided (i.e. in 1674), whether the Roman law was the common law in the pays coutumiers, as to those points wherein their local customs were silent. And, if I understand Denisart, (Dictionnaire des Décisions, art. Droit-écrit,) the affirmative prevailed. It is plain at least by the Causes Célèbres, that appeal was continually made to the principles of the civil law in the argument of Parisian advocates.
[q] Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. i. p. 316; t. ii. p. 275.
[r] Johan. Salisburiensis, apud Selden ad Fletam, p. 1082.
[] Selden, ubi supra, p. 1095-1104. This passage is worthy of attention. Yet, notwithstanding Selden's authority, I am not satisfied that he has not extenuated the effect of Bracton's predilection for the maxims of Roman jurisprudence. No early lawyer has contributed so much to form our own system as Bracton; and if his definitions and rules are sometimes borrowed from the civilians, as all admit, our common law may have indirectly received greater modification from that influence, than its professors were ready to acknowledge, or even than they knew. A full view of this subject is still, I think, a desideratum in the history of English law, which it would illustrate in a very interesting manner.
[t] Duck, De Usu Juris Civilis, 1. i. c. 87.
[] Gravina, Origines Juris Civilis, p. 196.
[x] Those who feel some curiosity about the civilians of the middle ages will find a concise and elegant account in Gravina, De Origine Juris Civilis, p. 166-206. (Lips. 1708.) Tiraboschi contains perhaps more information; but his prolixity is very wearisome. Besides this fault, it is evident that Tiraboschi knew very little of law, and had not read the civilians of whom he treats; whereas Gravina discusses their merits not only with legal knowledge, but with an acuteness of criticism which, to say the truth, Tiraboschi never shows except on a date or a name.
[The civil lawyers of the mediæval period are not at all forgotten on the continent, as the great work of Savigny, History of Roman Law in the Middle Ages, sufficiently proves. It is certain that the civil law must always be studied in Europe, nor ought the new codes to supersede it, seeing they are in great measure derived from its fountain; though I have heard that it is less regarded in France than formerly. In my earlier editions I depreciated the study of the civil law too much, and with too exclusive an attention to English notions.]
[y] Ante ipsum dominum Carolum regem in Galliâ nullum fuit studium liberalium artium. Monachus Engolismensis, apud Launoy, De Scholis per occidentem instauratis, p. 5. See too Histoire Littéraire de la France, t. iv. p. 1. "Studia liberalium artium" in this passage, must be understood to exclude literature, commonly so called, but not a certain measure of very ordinary instruction. For there were episcopal and conventual schools in the seventh and eighth centuries, even in France, especially Aquitaine; we need hardly repeat that in England, the former of these ages produced Bede and Theodore, and the men trained under them; the Lives of the Saints also lead us to take with some limitation the absolute denial of liberal studies before Charlemagne. See Guizot, Hist. de la Civilis. en France, Leçon 16; and Ampère, Hist. Litt. de la France, iii. p. 4. But, perhaps, philology, logic, philosophy, and even theology were not taught, as sciences, in any of the French schools for these two centuries; and consequently those established by Charlemagne justly make an epoch.
[z] Id. Ibid. There was a sort of literary club among them, where the members assumed ancient names. Charlemagne was called David; Alcuin, Horace; another, Dametas, &c.
[a] Hist. Littéraire, p. 217, &c.
[] This division of the sciences is ascribed to St. Augustin; and we certainly find it established early in the sixth century. Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophiæ, t. iii. p. 597.
[c] Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 126.
[d] Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. i. p. 28.
[e] Brucker, t. iii. p. 612. Raban Maurus was chief of the cathedral school at Fulda, in the ninth century.
[f] Crevier, p. 66.
[g] Crevier, p. 171; Brucker, p. 677; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 275.
[h] Brucker, p. 750.
[] A great interest has been revived in France for the philosophy, as well as the personal history of Abelard, by the publication of his philosophical writings, in 1836, under so eminent an editor as M. Cousin, and by the excellent work of M. de Rémusat, in 1845, with the title Abélard, containing a copious account both of the life and writings of that most remarkable man, the father, perhaps, of the theory as to the nature of universal ideas, now so generally known by the name of conceptualism.
[k] The faculty of arts in the university of Paris was divided into four nations; those of France, Picardy, Normandy, and England. These had distinct suffrages in the affairs of the university, and consequently, when united, outnumbered the three higher faculties of theology, law, and medicine. In 1169, Henry II. of England offers to refer his dispute with Becket to the provinces of the school of Paris.
[m] Crevier, t. i. p. 279. The first statute regulating the discipline of the university was given by Robert de Courçon, legate of Honorius III., in 1215, id. p. 296.
[n] No one probably would choose to rely on a passage found in one manuscript of Asserius, which has all appearance of an interpolation. It is evident from an anecdote in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 23 (Gutch's edition), that Camden did not believe in the authenticity of this passage, though he thought proper to insert it in the Britannia.
[o] 1 Gale, p. 75. The mention of Aristotle at so early a period might seem to throw some suspicion on this passage. But it is impossible to detach it from the context; and the works of Aristotle intended by Ingulfus were translations of parts of his Logic by Boethius and Victorin. Brucker, p. 678. A passage indeed in Peter of Blois's continuation of Ingulfus, where the study of Averroes is said to have taken place at Cambridge some years before he was born, is of a different complexion, and must of course be rejected as spurious. In the Gesta Comitum Andegavensium, Fulk, count of Anjou, who lived about 920, is said to have been skilled Aristotelicis et Ciceronianis ratiocinationibus.
[The authenticity of Ingulfus has been called in question, not only by Sir Francis Palgrave, but by Mr. Wright. Biogr. Liter., Anglo-Norman Period, p. 29. And this implies, apparently, the spuriousness of the continuation ascribed to Peter of Blois, in which the passage about Averroes throws doubt upon the whole. I have, in the Introduction to the History of Literature, retracted the degree of credence here given to the foundation of the university of Oxford by Alfred. If Ingulfus is not genuine, we have no proof of its existence as a school of learning before the middle of the twelfth century.]
[p] It may be remarked, that John of Salisbury, who wrote in the first years of Henry II.'s reign, since his Polycraticon is dedicated to Becket, before he became archbishop, makes no mention of Oxford, which he would probably have done if it had been an eminent seat of learning at that time.
[q] Wood's Hist. and Antiquities of Oxford, p. 177. The Benedictines of St. Maur say, that there was an eminent school of canon law at Oxford about the end of the twelfth century, to which many students repaired from Paris. Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 216.
[r] Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 259, et alibi; Muratori, Dissert. 43.
[] "But among these," says Anthony Wood, "a company of varlets, who pretended to be scholars, shuffled themselves in, and did act much villany in the university by thieving, whoring, quarrelling, &c. They lived under no discipline, neither had they tutors; but only for fashion's sake would sometimes thrust themselves into the schools at ordinary lectures, and when they went to perform any mischief, then would they be accounted scholars, that so they might free themselves from the jurisdiction of the burghers." p. 206. If we allow three varlets to one scholar, the university will still have been very fully frequented by the latter.
[t] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 47. Azarius, about the middle of the fourteenth century, says the number was about 13,000 in his time. Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. t. xvi. p. 325.
[] Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xvi. p. 341. This may perhaps require to be taken with allowance. But Paris owes a great part of its buildings on the southern bank of the Seine to the university. The students are said to have been about 12,000 before 1480. Crevier, t. iv. p. 410.
[x] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 43 and 46.
[y] The earliest authentic mention of Cambridge as a place of learning, if I mistake not, is in Matthew Paris, who informs us, that in 1209, John having caused three clerks of Oxford to be hanged on suspicion of murder, the whole body of scholars left that city, and emigrated, some to Cambridge, some to Reading, in order to carry on their studies (p. 191, edit. 1684). But it may be conjectured with some probability, that they were led to a town so distant as Cambridge by the previous establishment of academical instruction in that place. The incorporation of Cambridge is in 1231 (15 Hen. III.), so that there is no great difference in the legal antiquity of our two universities.
[z] Crevier, Hist. de l'Université de Paris, t. ii. p. 216; t. iii. p. 140.
[a] Pfeffel, Abrégé Chronologique de l'Hist. de l'Allemagne, p. 550, 607.
[] Rymer, t. vi. p. 292.
[c] Crevier, t. ii. p. 398.
[d] Crevier and Villaret, passim.
[e] Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosophiæ, t. iii. p. 678.
[f] Id. Ibid. Tiraboschi conceives that the translations of Aristotle made by command of Frederic II. were directly from the Greek, t. iv. p. 145; and censures Brucker for the contrary opinion. Buhle, however (Hist. de la Philosophie Moderne, t. i. p. 696), appears to agree with Brucker. It is almost certain that versions were made from the Arabic Aristotle: which itself was not immediately taken from the Greek, but from a Syriac medium. Ginguené, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 212 (on the authority of M. Langlés).
It was not only a knowledge of Aristotle that the scholastics of Europe derived from the Arabic language. His writings had produced in the flourishing Mohammedan kingdoms a vast number of commentators, and of metaphysicians trained in the same school. Of these Averroes, a native of Cordova, who died early in the thirteenth century, was the most eminent. It would be curious to examine more minutely than has hitherto been done the original writings of these famous men, which no doubt have suffered in translation. A passage from Al Gazel, which Mr. Turner has rendered from the Latin, with all the disadvantage of a double remove from the author's words, appears to state the argument in favour of that class of Nominalists, called Conceptualists, with more clearness and precision than any thing I have seen from the schoolmen. Al Gazel died in 1126, and consequently might have suggested this theory to Abelard, which however is not probable. Turner's Hist. of Engl. vol. i. p. 513.
[g] Brucker, Hist. Crit Philosophiæ, t. iii. I have found no better guide than Brucker. But he confesses himself not to have read the original writings of the scholastics; an admission which every reader will perceive to be quite necessary. Consequently, he gives us rather a verbose declamation against their philosophy than any clear view of its character. Of the valuable works lately published in Germany on the history of philosophy, I have only seen that of Buhle, which did not fall into my hands till I had nearly written these pages. Tiedemann and Tennemann are I believe, still untranslated.
[h] Buhle, Hist. de la Philos. Moderne, t. i. p. 723. This author raises upon the whole a favourable notion of Anselm and Aquinas; but he hardly notices any other.
[] Mr. Turner has with his characteristic spirit of enterprise examined some of the writings of our chief English schoolmen, Duns Scotus and Ockham (Hist of Eng. vol. i.), and even given us some extracts from them. They seem to me very frivolous, so far as I can collect their meaning. Ockham in particular falls very short of what I had expected; and his nominalism is strangely different from that of Berkeley. We can hardly reckon a man in the right, who is so by accident, and through sophistical reasoning. However, a well-known article in the Edinburgh Review, No. liii. p. 204, gives, from Tennemann, a more favourable account of Ockham.
Perhaps I may have imagined the scholastics to be more forgotten than they really are. Within a short time I have met with four living English writers who have read parts of Thomas Aquinas; Mr. Turner, Mr. Berington, Mr. Coleridge, and the Edinburgh Reviewer. Still I cannot bring myself to think that there are four more in this country who can say the same. Certain portions, however, of his writings are still read in the course of instruction of some Catholic universities.
[I leave this passage as it was written about 1814. But it must be owned with regard to the schoolmen, as well as the jurists, that I at that time underrated, or at least did not anticipate, the attention which their works have attracted in modern Europe, and that the passage in the text is more applicable to the philosophy of the eighteenth century than of the present. For several years past the metaphysicians of Germany and France have brushed the dust from the scholastic volumes; Tennemann and Buhle, Degerando, but more than all Cousin and Rémusat, in their excellent labours on Abelard, have restored the mediæval philosophy to a place in transcendental metaphysics, which, during the prevalence of the Cartesian school, and those derived from it, had been refused. 1848.]
[k] Roger Bacon, by far the truest philosopher of the middle ages, complains of the ignorance of Aristotle's translators. Every translator, he observes, ought to understand his author's subject, and the two languages from which and into which he is to render the work. But none hitherto, except Boethius, have sufficiently known the languages; nor has one, except Robert Grostete (the famous bishop of Lincoln), had a competent acquaintance with science. The rest make egregious errors in both respects. And there is so much misapprehension and obscurity in the Aristotelian writings as thus translated, that no one understands them. Opus Majus, p. 45.
[m] Brucker, p. 733, 912. Mr. Turner has fallen into some confusion as to this point, and supposes the nominalist system to have had a pantheistical tendency, not clearly apprehending its characteristics, p. 512.
[n] Petrarch gives a curious account of the irreligion that prevailed among the learned at Venice and Padua, in consequence of their unbounded admiration for Aristotle and Averroes. One of this school, conversing with him, after expressing much contempt for the Apostles and Fathers, exclaimed: Utinam tu Averroim pati posses, ut videres quanto ille tuis his nugatoribus major sit! Mém. de Pétrarque, t. iii. p. 759. Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 162.
[o] Brucker, p. 898.
[p] This mystical philosophy appears to have been introduced into Europe by John Scotus, whom Buhle treats as the founder of the scholastic philosophy; though, as it made no sensible progress for two centuries after his time, it seems more natural to give that credit to Roscelin and Anselm. Scotus, or Erigena, as he is perhaps more frequently called, took up, through the medium of a spurious work, ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, that remarkable system, which has from time immemorial prevailed in some schools of the East, wherein all external phenomena, as well as all subordinate intellects, are considered as emanating from the Supreme Being, into whose essence they are hereafter to be absorbed. This system, reproduced under various modifications, and combined with various theories of philosophy and religion, is perhaps the most congenial to the spirit of solitary speculation, and consequently the most extensively diffused of any which those high themes have engendered. It originated no doubt in sublime conceptions of divine omnipotence and ubiquity. But clearness of expression, or indeed of ideas, being not easily connected with mysticism, the language of philosophers adopting the theory of emanation is often hardly distinguishable from that of the pantheists. Brucker, very unjustly, as I imagine from the passages he quotes, accuses John Erigena of pantheism. Hist. Crit. Philos. p. 620. The charge would, however, be better grounded against some whose style might deceive an unaccustomed reader. In fact, the philosophy of emanation leads very nearly to the doctrine of an universal substance, which, begot the atheistic system of Spinoza, and which appears to have revived with similar consequences among the metaphysicians of Germany. How very closely the language of this oriental philosophy, or even that which regards the Deity as the soul of the world, may verge upon pantheism, will be perceived (without the trouble of reading the first book of Cudworth) from two famous passages of Virgil and Lucan. Georg. I. iv. v. 219; and Pharsalia, I. viii. v. 578.
[q] This subject, as well as some others in this part of the present chapter, has been touched in my Introduction to the Literature of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries.
[r] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 150.
[] There is a very copious and sensible account of Roger Bacon in Wood's History of Oxford, vol. i. p. 332 (Gutch's edition). I am a little surprised that Antony should have found out Bacon's merit.
The resemblance between Roger Bacon and his greater namesake is very remarkable. Whether Lord Bacon ever read the Opus Majus, I know not; but it is singular, that his favourite quaint expression, prærogativæ scientiarum, should be found in that work, though not used with the same allusion to the Roman comitia. And whoever reads the sixth part of the Opus Majus, upon experimental science, must be struck by it as the prototype, in spirit, of the Novum Organum. The same sanguine and sometimes rash confidence in the effect of physical discoveries, the same fondness for experiment, the same preference of inductive to abstract reasoning, pervade both works. Roger Bacon's philosophical spirit may be illustrated by the following passage: Duo sunt modi cognoscendi; scilicet per argumentum et experimentum. Argumentum concludit et facit nos concludere quæstionem; sed non certificat neque removet dubitationem, ut quiescat animus in intuitu veritatis, nisi eam inveniat viâ experientiæ; quia multi habent argumenta ad scibilia, sed quia non habent experientiam, negligunt ea, neque vitant nociva nec persequuntur bona. Si enim aliquis homo, qui nunquam vidit ignem, probavit per argumenta sufficientia quod ignis comburit et lædit res et destruit, nunquam propter hoc quiesceret animus audientis, nec ignem vitaret antequam poneret manum vel rem combustibilem ad ignem, ut per experientiam probaret quod argumentum edocebat; sed assumtâ experientiâ combustionis certificatur animus et quiescit in fulgore veritatis, quo argumentum non sufficit, sed experientia. p. 446.
[t] See the fate of Cecco d'Ascoli in Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 174.
[] Le Bœuf, Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. t. xvii. p. 711.
[x] Gregorius, cognomento Bechada, de Castro de Turribus, professione miles, subtilissimi ingenii vir, aliquantulum imbutus literis, horum gesta præliorum maternâ linguâ rhythmo vulgari, ut populus pleniter intelligeret, ingens volumen decenter composuit, et ut vera et faceta verba proferret, duodecim annorum spatium super hoc opus operam dedit. Ne verò vilesceret propter verbum vulgare, non sine præcepto episcopi Eustorgii, et consilio Gauberti Normanni, hoc opus aggressus est. I transcribe this from Heeren's Essai sur les Croisades, p. 447; whose reference is to Labbé, Bibliotheca nova MSS. t. ii. p. 296.
[y] De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 155. Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, t. i. p. 228.
[z] For the Courts of Love, see De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. ii. note 19. Le Grand. Fabliaux, t. i. p. 270. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Françoise. p. 94. I have never had patience to look at the older writers who have treated this tiresome subject.
[a] Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours Paris, 1774.
[] Two very modern French writers, M. Ginguené (Histoire Littéraire d'Italie, Paris, 1811) and M. Sismondi (Littérature du Midi de l'Europe, Paris, 1813), have revived the poetical history of the troubadours. To them, still more than to Millot and Tiraboschi, I would acknowledge my obligations for the little I have learned in respect of this forgotten school of poetry. Notwithstanding, however, the heaviness of Millot's work, a fault not imputable to himself, though Ritson as I remember, calls him, in his own polite style, "a blockhead," it will always be useful to the inquirer into the manners and opinions of the middle ages, from the numerous illustrations it contains of two general facts; the extreme dissoluteness of morals among the higher ranks, and the prevailing animosity of all classes against the clergy.
[c] Hist. Litt. de la France, t. vii. p. 58. Le Bœuf, according to these Benedictines, has published some poetical fragments of the tenth century; and they quote part of a charter as old as 940 in Romance. p. 59. But that antiquary, in a memoir printed in the seventeenth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions, which throws more light on the infancy of the French language than anything within my knowledge, says only that the earliest specimens of verse in the royal library are of the eleventh century au plus tard. p. 717. M. de la Rue is said to have found some poems of the eleventh century in the British Museum. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Françoise, p. 206. Le Bœuf's fragment may be found in this work, p. 379; it seems nearer to the Provençal than the French dialect.
[d] Gale, XV Script. t. i. p. 88.
[e] Ritson's Dissertation on Romance, p. 66. [The laws of William the Conqueror, published in Ingulfus, are translated from a Latin original; the French is of the thirteenth century. It is now doubted whether any French, except a fragment of a translation of Boethius, in verse, is extant of an earlier age than the twelfth. Introduction to Hist. of Literat. 3rd edit. p. 28.]
[f] Hist. Litt. t. ix. p. 149; Fabliaux par Barbasan, vol. i. p. 9, edit. 1808; Mém. de l'Académie des Inscr. t. xv. and xvii, p. 714, &c.
[g] Mabillon speaks of this as the oldest French instrument he had seen. But the Benedictines quote some of the eleventh century. Hist. Litt. t. vii. p. 59. This charter is supposed by the authors of Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique to be translated from the Latin, t. iv. p. 519. French charters, they say, are not common before the age of Louis IX.; and this is confirmed by those published in Martenne's Thesaurus Anecdotorum, which are very commonly in French from his reign, but hardly ever before.
[h] Ravalière, Révol. de la Langue Françoise, p. 116, doubts the age of this translation.
[] Archæologia, vols. xii. and xiii.
[k] Millot says that Richard's sirventes (satirical songs) have appeared in French as well as Provençal, but that the former is probably a translation. Hist. des Troubadours, vol. i. p. 54. Yet I have met with no writer who quotes them in the latter language, and M. Ginguené, as well as Le Grand d'Aussy, considers Richard as a trouveur.
[Raynouard has since published, in Provençal, the song of Richard on his captivity, which had several times appeared in French. It is not improbable that he wrote it in both dialects. Leroux de Lincy, Chants Historiques Français, vol. i. p. 55. Richard also composed verses in the Poitevin dialect, spoken at that time in Maine and Anjou, which resembles the Langue d'Oc more than that of northern France, though, especially in the latter countries, it gave way not long afterwards. Id. p. 77.]
[m] This derivation of the romantic stories of Arthur, which Le Grand d'Aussy ridiculously attributes to the jealousy entertained by the English of the renown of Charlemagne, is stated in a very perspicuous and satisfactory manner by Mr. Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances.
[n] [Though the stories of Arthur were not invented by the English out of jealousy of Charlemagne, it has been ingeniously conjectured and rendered highly probable by Mr. Sharon Turner, that the history by Geoffrey of Monmouth was composed with a political view to display the independence and dignity of the British crown, and was intended, consequently, as a counterpoise to that of Turpin, which never became popular in England. It is doubtful, in my judgment, whether Geoffrey borrowed so much from Armorican traditions as he pretended.]
[o] Prose e Rime di Dante, Venez. 1758, t. iv. p. 261. Dante's words, biblia cum Trojanorum Romanorumque gestibus compilata, seem to bear no other meaning than what I have given. But there may be a doubt whether biblia is ever used except for the Scriptures; and the Italian translator renders it, cioè la bibbia, i fatti de i Trojani, e de i Romani. In this case something is wrong in the original Latin, and Dante will have alluded to the translations of parts of Scripture made into French, as mentioned in the text.
[p] The Assises de Jérusalem have undergone two revisions; one, in 1250, by order of John d'Ibelin, count of Jaffa, and a second in 1369, by sixteen commissioners chosen by the states of the kingdom of Cyprus. Their language seems to be such as might be expected from the time of the former revision.
[q] Several prose romances were written or translated from the Latin about 1170, and afterwards. Mr. Ellis seems inclined to dispute their antiquity. But, besides the authorities of La Ravalière and Tressan, the latter of which is not worth much, a late very extensively informed writer seems to have put this matter out of doubt. Roquefort Flamericourt, Etat de la Poésie Française dans les 12me et 13me siècles, Paris, 1815 p. 147.
[r] Villaret, Hist. de France, t. xi. p. 121; De Sade, Vie de Pétrarque, t. iii. p. 548. Charles V. had more learning than most princes of his time. Christine de Pisan, a lady who has written memoirs, or rather an eulogy of him, says that his father le fist introdire en lettres moult suffisamment, et tant que competemment entendoit son Latin, et souffisamment scavoit les regles de grammaire; la quelle chose pleust a dieu qu'ainsi fust accoutumée entre les princes. Collect. de Mém. t. v. p. 103, 190, &c.
[] The earliest Spanish that I remember to have seen is an instrument in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, t. i. p. 263; the date of which is 1095. Persons more conversant with the antiquities of that country may possibly go further back. Another of 1101 is published in Marina's Teoria de las Cortes, t. iii. p. 1. It is in a Vidimus by Peter the Cruel, and cannot, I presume, have been a translation from the Latin. Yet the editors of Nouveau Tr. de Diplom. mention a charter of 1243, as the earliest they are acquainted with in the Spanish language. t. iv. p. 525.
Charters in the German language, according to the same work, first appear in the time of the emperor Rodolph, after 1272, and became usual in the next century. p. 523. But Struvius mentions an instrument of 1235, as the earliest in German. Corp. Hist. Germ. p. 457.
[t] An extract from this poem was published in 1808 by Mr. Southey, at the end of his "Chronicle of the Cid," the materials of which it partly supplied, accompanied by an excellent version by a gentleman, who is distinguished, among many other talents, for an unrivalled felicity in expressing the peculiar manner of authors whom he translates or imitates. M. Sismondi has given other passages in the third volume of his History of Southern Literature. This popular and elegant work contains some interesting and not very common information as to the early Spanish poets in the Provençal dialect, as well as those who wrote in Castilian.
[] Dissert. 32.
[x] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 340.
[y] Dante, in his treatise De vulgari Eloquentiâ, reckons fourteen or fifteen dialects, spoken in different parts of Italy, all of which were debased by impure modes of expression. But the "noble, principal, and courtly Italian idiom," was that which belonged to every city, and seemed to belong to none, and which, if Italy had a court, would be the language of that court. p. 274, 277.
Allowing for the metaphysical obscurity in which Dante chooses to envelop the subject, this might perhaps be said at present. The Florentine dialect has its peculiarities, which distinguish it from the general Italian language, though these are seldom discerned by foreigners, nor always by natives, with whom Tuscan is the proper denomination of their national tongue.
[z] Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 309-377. Ginguené, vol. i. c. 6. The style of the Vita Nuova of Dante, written soon after the death of his Beatrice, which happened in 1290, is hardly distinguishable, by a foreigner, from that of Machiavel or Castiglione. Yet so recent was the adoption of this language, that the celebrated master of Dante, Brunetto Latini, had written his Tesoro in French; and gives as a reason for it, that it was a more agreeable and useful language than his own. Et se aucuns demandoit pourquoi chis livre est ecris en Romans, selon la raison de France, pour chose que nous sommes Ytalien, je diroie que ch'est pour chose que nous sommes en France; l'autre pour chose que la parleure en est plus delitable et plus commune a toutes gens. There is said to be a manuscript history of Venice down to 1275, in the Florentine library, written in French by Martin de Canale, who says that he has chosen that language, parceque la langue franceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus delitable a lire et a oir que nulle autre. Ginguené, vol. i. p. 384.
Tu proverai si (says Cacciaguida to him) come sà di sale
Il pane altrui, e come è duro calle
Il scendere e 'l salir per altrui scale.
Paradis. cant. 16.
[] Paradiso, cant. 16.
[c] Velli, Vita di Dante. Tiraboschi.
[d] The source from which Dante derived the scheme and general idea of his poem has been a subject of inquiry in Italy. To his original mind one might have thought the sixth Æneid would have sufficed. But besides several legendary visions of the 12th and 13th centuries, it seems probable that he derived hints from the Tesoretto of his master in philosophical studies, Brunetto Latini. Ginguené, t. ii. p. 8.
[e] There is an unpleasing proof of this quality in a letter to Boccaccio on Dante, whose merit he rather disingenuously extenuates; and whose popularity evidently stung him to the quick. De Sade, t. iii. p. 512. Yet we judge so ill of ourselves, that Petrarch chose envy as the vice from which of all others he was most free. In his dialogue with St. Augustin, he says: Quicquid libuerit, dicito; modo me non accuses invidiæ. Aug. Utinam non tibi magis superbia quam invidia nocuisset: nam hoc crimine, me judice, liber es. De Contemptu Mundi, edit. 1581, p. 342.
I have read in some modern book, but know not where to seek the passage, that Petrarch did not intend to allude to Dante in the letter to Boccaccio mentioned above, but rather to Zanobi Strata, a contemporary Florentine poet, whom, however forgotten at present, the bad taste of a party in criticism preferred to himself.—Matteo Villani mentions them together as the two great ornaments of his age. This conjecture seems probable, for some expressions are not in the least applicable to Dante. But whichever was intended, the letter equally shows the irritable humour of Petrarch.
[f] A goldsmith of Bergamo, by name Henry Capra, smitten with an enthusiastic love of letters, and of Petrarch, earnestly requested the honour of a visit from the poet. The house of this good tradesman was full of representations of his person, and of inscriptions with his name and arms. No expense had been spared in copying all his works as they appeared. He was received by Capra with a princely magnificence; lodged in a chamber hung with purple, and a splendid bed on which no one before or after him was permitted to sleep. Goldsmiths, as we may judge by this instance, were opulent persons; yet the friends of Petrarch dissuaded him from the visit, as derogatory to his own elevated station. De Sade, t. iii. p. 496.
[g] See the beautiful sonnet, Erano i capei d'oro all'aura sparsi. In a famous passage of his Confessions, he says: Corpus illud egregium morbis et crebris partubus exhaustum, multum pristini vigoris amisit. Those who maintain the virginity of Laura are forced to read perturbationibus, instead of partubus. Two manuscripts in the royal library at Paris have the contraction ptbus, which leaves the matter open to controversy. De Sade contends that "crebris" is less applicable to "perturbationibus" than to "partubus." I do not know that there is much in this; but I am clear that corpus exhaustum partubus is much the more elegant Latin expression of the two.
[] [I leave this as it stood. But my own taste has changed. I retract altogether the preference here given to the Triumphs above the Canzoni, and doubt whether the latter are superior to the Sonnets. This at least is not the opinion of Italian critics, who ought to be the most competent. 1848.]
[k] A sufficient extract from this work of Layamon has been published by Mr. Ellis, in his Specimens of Early English Poetry, vol. i. p. 61. This extract contains, he observes, no word which we are under the necessity of ascribing to a French origin.
[Layamon, as is now supposed, wrote in the reign of John. See Sir Frederick Madden's edition, and Mr. Wright's Biographia Literaria. The best reason seems to be that he speaks of Eleanor, queen of Henry, as then dead, which took place in 1204. But it requires a vast knowledge of the language to find a date by the use or disuse of particular forms; the idiom of one part of England not being similar to that of another in grammatical flexions. See Quarterly Review for April 1848.
The entire work of Layamon contains a small number of words taken from the French; about fifty in the original text, and about forty more in that of a manuscript, perhaps half a century later, and very considerably altered in consequence of the progress of our language. Many of these words derived from the French express new ideas, as admiral, astronomy, baron, mantel, &c. "The language of Layamon," says Sir Frederick Madden, "belongs to that transition period in which the groundwork of Anglo-Saxon phraseology and grammar still existed, although gradually yielding to the influence of the popular forms of speech. We find in it, as in the later portion of the Saxon Chronicle, marked indications of a tendency to adopt those terminations and sounds which characterize a language in a state of change, and which are apparent also in some other branches of the Teutonic tongue. The use of a as an article—the change of the Anglo-Saxon terminations a and an into e and en, as well as the disregard of inflections and genders—the masculine forms given to neuter nouns in the plural—the neglect of the feminine terminations of adjectives and pronouns, and confusion between the definite and indefinite declensions—the introduction of the preposition to before infinitives, and occasional use of weak preterites of verbs and participles instead of strong—the constant recurrence of er for or in the plurals of verbs—together with the uncertainty of the rule for the government of prepositions—all these variations, more or less visible in the two texts of Layamon, combined with the vowel-changes, which are numerous, though not altogether arbitrary, will show at once the progress made in two centuries, in departing from the ancient and purer grammatical forms, as found in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts." Preface, p. xxviii.]
[m] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, Ellis's Specimens.
[n] This conjecture of Scott has not been favourably received by later critics.
[o] Warton printed copious extracts from some of these. Ritson gave several of them entire to the press. And Mr. Ellis has adopted the only plan which could render them palatable, by intermingling short passages, where the original is rather above its usual mediocrity, with his own lively analysis.
[p] The evidences of this general employment and gradual disuse of French in conversation and writing are collected by Tyrwhitt, in a dissertation on the ancient English language, prefixed to the fourth volume of his edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales; and by Ritson, in the preface to his Metrical Romances, vol. i. p. 70.
[q] Rymer, t. v. p. 490; t. vi. p. 642, et alibi.
[r] Ritson, p. 80. There is one in Rymer of the year 1385.
[] [[Note IV.]]
[t] See Tyrwhitt's essay on the language and versification of Chaucer, in the fourth volume of his edition of the Canterbury Tales. The opinion of this eminent critic has lately been controverted by Dr. Nott, who maintains the versification of Chaucer to have been wholly founded on accentual and not syllabic regularity. I adhere, however, to Tyrwhitt's doctrine.
[] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. i. Dissertation II. Roquefort, Etat de la Poésie Française du douzième Siècle p. 18. The following lines from the beginning of the eighth book of the Philippis seem a fair, or rather a favourable specimen of these epics. But I am very superficially acquainted with any of them.
Solverat interea zephyris melioribus annum
Frigore depulso veris tepor, et renovari
Cœperat et viridi gremio juvenescere tellus;
Cum Rea læta Jovis rideret ad oscula mater,
Cum jam post tergum Phryxi vectore relicto
Solis Agenorei premeret rota terga juvenci.
The tragedy of Eccerinus (Eccelin da Romano), by Albertinus Mussatus, a Paduan, and author of a respectable history, deserves some attention, as the first attempt to revive the regular tragedy. It was written soon after 1300. The language by no means wants animation, notwithstanding an unskilful conduct of the fable. The Eccerinus is printed in the tenth volume of Muratori's collection.
[x] Booksellers appear in the latter part of the twelfth century. Peter of Blois mentions a law book which he had procured a quodam publico mangone librorum. Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. ix. p. 84. In the thirteenth century there were many copyists by occupation in the Italian universities. Tiraboschi, t. iv. p. 72. The number of these at Milan before the end of that age is said to have been fifty. Ibid. But a very small proportion of their labour could have been devoted to purposes merely literary. By a variety of ordinances, the first of which bears date in 1275, the booksellers of Paris were subjected to the control of the university. Crevier, t. ii. p. 67, 286. The pretext of this was, lest erroneous copies should obtain circulation. And this appears to have been the original of those restraints upon the freedom of publication, which since the invention of printing have so much retarded the diffusion of truth by means of that great instrument.
[y] Tiraboschi, t. v. p. 85. On the contrary side are Montfaucon, Mabillon, and Muratori; the latter of whom carries up the invention of our ordinary paper to the year 1000. But Tiraboschi contends that the paper used in manuscripts of so early an age was made from cotton rags, and, apparently from the inferior durability of that material, not frequently employed. The editors of Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique are of the same opinion, and doubt the use of linen paper before the year 1300. t. i. p. 517, 521. Meerman, well known as a writer upon the antiquities of printing, offered a reward for the earliest manuscript upon linen paper, and, in a treatise upon the subject, fixed the date of its invention between 1270 and 1300. But M. Schwandner of Vienna is said to have found in the imperial library a small charter bearing the date of 1243 on such paper. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. i. p. 394. Tiraboschi, if he had known this, would probably have maintained the paper to be made of cotton, which he says it is difficult to distinguish. He assigns the invention of linen paper to Pace da Fabiano of Treviso. But more than one Arabian writer asserts the manufacture of linen paper to have been carried on at Samarcand early in the eighth century, having been brought thither from China. And what is more conclusive, Casiri positively declares many manuscripts in the Escurial of the eleventh and twelfth centuries to be written on that substance. Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispanica, t. ii. p. 9. This authority appears much to outweigh the opinion of Tiraboschi in favour of Pace da Fabiano, who must perhaps take his place at the table of fabulous heroes with Bartholomew Schwartz and Flavio Gioja. But the material point, that paper was very little known in Europe till the latter part of the fourteenth century, remains as before. See Introduction to History of Literature, c. i. § 58.
[z] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 122.
[a] Velly, t. v. p. 202; Crevier, t. ii. p. 36.
[] Warton, vol. i; Dissert. II.
[c] Ibid.
[d] Warton, vol. i. Dissert. II. Fifty-eight books were transcribed in this abbey under one abbot, about the year 1300. Every considerable monastery had a room, called Scriptorium, where this work was performed. More than eighty were transcribed at St. Albans under Whethamstede, in the time of Henry VI. ibid. See also Du Cange, V Scriptores. Nevertheless we must remember, first, that the far greater part of these books were mere monastic trash, or at least useless in our modern apprehension; secondly, that it depended upon the character of the abbot, whether the scriptorium should be occupied or not. Every head of a monastery was not a Whethamstede. Ignorance and jollity, such as we find in Bolton Abbey, were their more usual characteristics. By the account books of this rich monastery, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, three books only appear to have been purchased in forty years. One of those was the Liber Sententiarum of Peter Lombard, which cost thirty shillings, equivalent to near forty pounds at present. Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 330.
[e] Ibid.; Villaret, t. xi. p. 117.
[f] Niccolo Niccoli, a private scholar, who contributed essentially to the restoration of ancient learning, bequeathed a library of eight hundred volumes to the republic of Florence. This Niccoli hardly published any thing of his own; but earned a well-merited reputation by copying and correcting manuscripts. Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 114; Shepherd's Poggio, p. 319. In the preceding century Colluccio Salutato had procured as many as eight hundred volumes. Ibid. p. 23. Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, p. 55.
[g] Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. v. p. 520.
[h] He had lent it to a needy man of letters, who pawned the book, which was never recovered. De Sade, t. i. p. 57.
[] Tiraboschi, p. 89.
[k] Idem, t. v. p. 83; De Sade, t. i p. 88.
[m] Tiraboschi, p. 101.
[n] Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 104; and Shepherd's Life of Poggio, p. 106, 110; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, p. 38.
[o] Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. ii. p. 374; Tiraboschi, t. iii. p. 124, et alibi. Bede extols Theodore primate of Canterbury and Tobias bishop of Rochester for their knowledge of Greek. Hist. Eccles. c. 9 and 24. But the former of these prelates, if not the latter, was a native of Greece.
[p] Hist. Littéraire de la France, t. iv. p. 12
[q] Greek characters are found in a charter of 943, published in Martenne, Thesaurus Anecdot. t. i. p. 74. The title of a treatise περὶ φύσεων μερίσμου, and the word θεοτόκος, occur in William of Malmsbury, and one or two others in Lanfranc's Constitutions. It is said that a Greek psalter was written in an abbey at Tournay about 1105. Hist. Litt. de la France, t. ix. p. 102. This was, I should think, a very rare instance of a Greek manuscript, sacred or profane, copied in the western parts of Europe before the fifteenth century. But a Greek psalter written in Latin characters at Milan in the 9th century was sold some years ago in London. John of Salisbury is said by Crevier to have known a little Greek, and he several times uses technical words in that language. Yet he could not have been much more learned than his neighbours; since, having found the word οὐσία in St. Ambrose, he was forced to ask the meaning of one John Sarasin, an Englishman, because, says he, none of our masters here (at Paris) understand Greek. Paris, indeed, Crevier thinks, could not furnish any Greek scholar in that age except Abelard and Heloise, and probably neither of them knew much. Hist. de l'Univers. de Paris, t. i. p. 259.
The ecclesiastical language, it may be observed, was full of Greek words Latinized. But this process had taken place before the fifth century; and most of them will be found in the Latin dictionaries. A Greek word was now and then borrowed, as more imposing than the correspondent Latin. Thus the English and other kings sometimes called themselves Basileus, instead of Rex.
It will not be supposed that I have professed to enumerate all the persons of whose acquaintance with the Greek tongue some evidence may be found; nor have I ever directed my attention to the subject with that view. Doubtless the list might be more than doubled. But, if ten times the number could be found, we should still be entitled to say, that the language was almost unknown, and that it could have had no influence on the condition of literature. [See Introduction to Hist. of Literature, chap. 2, § 7.]
[r] Nemo est qui Græcas literas nôrit; at ego in hoc Latinitati compatior, quæ sic omnino Græca abjecit studia, ut etiam non noscamus characteres literarum. Genealogiæ Deorum, apud Hodium de Græcis Illustribus, p. 3.
[] Mém. de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 407.
[t] Mém. de Pétrarque, t. i. p. 447; t. iii. p. 634. Hody de Græcis Illust. p. 2. Boccace speaks modestly of his own attainments in Greek: etsi non satis plené perceperim, percepi tamen quantum potui; nee dubium, si permansisset homo ille vagus diutius penes nos, quin plenius percepissem. id. p. 4.
[] Hody places the commencement of Chrysoloras's teaching as early as 1391. p. 3. But Tiraboschi, whose research was more precise, fixes it at the end of 1396 or beginning of 1397, t. vii. p. 126.
[x] Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 102; Roscoe's Lorenzo de' Medici, vol. i. p. 43.
[y] The authors most conversant with Byzantine learning agree in this. Nevertheless, there is one manifest difference between the Greek writers of the worst period, such as the eighth century, and those who correspond to them in the West. Syncellus, for example, is of great use in chronology, because he was acquainted with many ancient histories now no more. But Bede possessed nothing which we have lost; and his compilations are consequently altogether unprofitable. The eighth century, the Sæculum Iconoclasticum of Cave, low as it was in all polite literature, produced one man, John Damascenus, who has been deemed the founder of scholastic theology, and who at least set the example of that style of reasoning in the East. This person, and Michael Psellus, a philosopher of the eleventh century, are the only considerable men, as original writers, in the annals of Byzantine literature.
[z] The honour of restoring ancient or heathen literature is due to the Cæsar Bardas, uncle and minister of Michael II. Cedrenus speaks of it in the following terms: ἐπεμελήθη δὲ καὶ τῆς ἔξω σοφίας, (ἢν γὰρ ἐκ πόλλου χρόνου παραῤῥυεῖσα, καὶ πρὸς τῇ μηδὲν ὅλως χωρήσασα τῇ τῶν κρατοῦντων ἀργίᾳ καὶ αμαθίᾳ) διατρίβας ἑκάστῃ τῶν επιστήμων άφορισὰς, τῶν μὲν ἄλλων ὅπῃ περ ἔτυχε, τῆς δ' ἐπὶ πασῶν ἐπόχου φιλοσοφίας κατ' ἀυτὰ τὰ βασίλεια ἐν τῇ Μαγναύρᾳ · καὶ οὕτω ἐξ ἐκέινου ἀνηβάσκειν αἱ ἐπιστημᾶι ἤρξαντο. κ. τ. λ. Hist. Byzant. Script. (Lutet.) t. x. p. 547. Bardas found out and promoted Photius, afterwards patriarch of Constantinople, and equally famous in the annals of the church and of learning. Gibbon passes perhaps too rapidly over the Byzantine literature, chap. 53. In this, as in many other places, the masterly boldness and precision of his outline, which astonish those who have trodden parts of the same field, are apt to escape an uninformed reader.
[a] Du Cange, Præfatio ad Glossar. Græcitatis Medii Evi. Anna Comnena quotes some popular lines, which seem to be the earliest specimen extant of the Romaic dialect, or something approaching it, as they observe no grammatical inflexion, and bear about the same resemblance to ancient Greek that the worst law-charters of the ninth and tenth centuries do to pure Latin. In fact, the Greek language seems to have declined much in the same manner as the Latin did, and almost at as early a period. In the sixth century, Damascius, a Platonic philosopher, mentions the old language as distinct from that which was vernacular, τὴν ἀρχάιαν γλῶτταν ὑπὲρ τὴν ἰδιώτην μελετοῦσι. Du Cange, ibid. p. 11. It is well known that the popular, or political verses of Tzetzes, a writer of the twelfth century, are accentual; that is, are to be read, as the modern Greeks do, by treating every acute or circumflex syllable as long, without regard to its original quantity. This innovation, which must have produced still greater confusion of metrical rules than it did in Latin, is much older than the age of Tzetzes; if, at least, the editor of some notes subjoined to Meursius's edition of the Themata of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (Lugduni, 1617) is right in ascribing certain political verses to that emperor, who died in 959. These verses are regular accentual trochaics. But I believe they have since been given to Constantine Manasses, a writer of the eleventh century.
According to the opinion of a modern traveller (Hobhouse's Travels in Albania, letter 33) the chief corruptions which distinguish the Romaic from its parent stock, especially the auxiliary verbs, are not older than the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II. But it seems difficult to obtain any satisfactory proof of this; and the auxiliary verb is so natural and convenient, that the ancient Greeks may probably, in some of their local idioms, have fallen into the use of it; as Mr. H. admits they did with respect to the future auxiliary θελω. See some instances of this in Lesbonax, περὶ σχημάτων, ad finem Ammonii, curâ Valckenaër.
[] Photius (I write on the authority of M. Heeren) quotes Theopompus, Arrian's History of Alexander's Successors, and of Parthia, Ctesias, Agatharcides, the whole of Diodorus Siculus, Polybius, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, twenty lost orations of Demosthenes, almost two hundred of Lycias, sixty-four of Isæus, about fifty of Hyperides. Heeren ascribes the loss of these works altogether to the Latin capture of Constantinople, no writer subsequent to that time having quoted them. Essai sur les Croisades, p. 413. It is difficult however not to suppose that some part, of the destruction was left for the Ottomans to perform. Æneas Sylvius bemoans, in his speech before the diet of Frankfort, the vast losses of literature by the recent subversion of the Greek empire. Quid de libris dicam, qui illic erant innumerabiles, nondum Latinis cogniti!... Nunc ergo, et Homero et Pindaro et Menandro et omnibus illustrioribus poetis, secunda mors erit. But nothing can be inferred from this declamation, except, perhaps, that he did not know whether Menander still existed or not. Æn. Sylv. Opera, p. 715; also p. 881. Harris's Philological Inquiries, part iii. c. 4. It is a remarkable proof, however, of the turn which Europe, and especially Italy, was taking, that a pope's legate should, on a solemn occasion, descant so seriously on the injury sustained by profane literature.
An useful summary of the lower Greek literature, taken chiefly from the Bibliotheca Græca of Fabricius, will be found in Berington's Literary History of the Middle Ages, Appendix I.; and one rather more copious in Schoëll, Abrégé de la Littérature Grècque. (Paris, 1812.)
[c] Wood's Antiquities of Oxford, vol. i p. 537.
[d] Roper's Vita Mori, ed. Hearne, p. 75.
[e] Crevier, t. iv. p. 243; see too p. 46.
[f] Incredibilis ingeniorum barbaries est; rarissimi literas nôrunt, nulli elegantiam. Papiensis Epistolæ, p. 377. Campano's notion of elegance was ridiculous enough. Nobody ever carried further the pedantic affectation of avoiding modern terms in his Latinity. Thus, in the life of Braccio da Montone, he renders his meaning almost unintelligible by excess of classical purity. Braccio boasts se numquam deorum immortalium templa violâsse. Troops committing outrages in a city are accused virgines vestales incestâsse. In the terms of treaties he employs the old Roman forms; exercitum trajicito—oppida pontificis sunto, &c. And with a most absurd pedantry, the ecclesiastical state is called Romanum imperium. Campani Vita Braccii, in Muratori Script. Rer. Ital. t. xix.
[g] A letter from Master William Paston at Eton (Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 299) proves that Latin versification was taught there as early as the beginning of Edward IV.'s reign. It is true that the specimen he rather proudly exhibits does not much differ from what we denominate nonsense verses. But a more material observation is, that the sons of country gentlemen living at a considerable distance were already sent to public schools for grammatical education.
[h] De Bure, t. i. p. 30. Several copies of this book have come to light since its discovery.
[] Id., p. 71.
[k] Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscriptions, t. xiv. p. 265. Another edition of the Bible is supposed to have been printed by Pfister at Bamberg in 1459.
[m] Tiraboschi, t. vi. p. 140.
[n] Sanuto mentions an order of the senate in 1469, that John of Spira should print the epistles of Tully and Pliny for five years, and that no one else should do so. Script. Rerum Italic. t. xxii. p. 1189.