Of Six Mediæval Women; To Which Is Added A Note on Mediæval Gardens

by Alice Kemp-Welch

Being literary, Mahaut collected what MSS. and books she could, and the list of them serves to show what might be found in a library of the early fourteenth century. Her religious books included a Bible in French,[27] a Psalter, a Gradual, various Books of Hours for private devotion, Lives of the Saints and of the Fathers, and the Miracles of Our Lady. Philosophy was represented by a French translation of Boëthius (probably a copy of a translation made by order of King Philip le Bel, by Jean de Meun, the writer of the second portion of The Romance of the Rose), Law by a verse translation of the laws of Normandy, History by the Chronicles of the Kings of France, and Travel by The Romance of the Great Kan, known to us as The Travels of Marco Polo. But by far the largest category consisted of Romances, such as that of Oger le Danois from the national Epic, and another of Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance of Troy, Percival le Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and the Violet, the story which forms the chief episode in the play of Cymbeline. Of course there was no great choice, but that Mahaut read them and loved them we may be certain, since we know that she took some with her on her journeyings, and to preserve them from the wear and tear of travel, had leather wallets made to protect them. Mahaut was, in truth, the first wealthy individual of the age to spend her substance with the express purpose of surrounding herself with beauty of every kind. The foremost thought of a man in a like case would probably have been to add to his power. Her thought was of beauty, a quality much more far-reaching and less transient, and one which, even like Time itself, triumphs over the changes of fame and fortune.

Though Mahaut did not live the allotted three score years and ten, she lived long enough to see seven kings on the throne of France, two of whom—Philip the Fifth and Charles the Fourth—were her sons-in-law. She was a mere child when her great-uncle, King Louis, died in 1270. In 1285, the year in which Philip the Fourth, surnamed le Bel, ascended the throne, she wedded Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy, a widower of forty-five, a companion in arms of her father, and a brave and generous man, who died fighting for his country, but one absolutely incapable in administration, and, as a consequence, always in debt and in the clutches of the usurer. There are few documents to throw any light on her life until after Otho’s death in 1303. This may be due partly to the fact that she only came into her great possessions on her father’s death in 1302, and partly to the circumstance that the careless and luxurious expenditure of her husband in no small degree dissipated her resources, and naturally prevented, for the time, any material encouragement of art. Doubtless also much of her time was spent in superintending the education of her children—two daughters who were destined to marry kings of France, and a son who was born a peer of the realm, and inheritor of one of its richest territories. But adverse fate, by the disgrace of one of her daughters, and the death of her son, intervened to darken these brilliant prospects, and forms a grey background to her otherwise wonderful and glorious career.

The more the life of this remarkable woman is studied, the more apparent it becomes that what gives it its peculiar charm and worth is the sense she possessed of the value of all human endeavour, whether in great things or in simple. To her the humblest matters of home life, and the affairs connected with the administration of her domains, had each their particular significance. The ordering of a small grooved tablet on which her little boy could arrange the letters of the alphabet claimed her attention equally with the founding and arranging of a hospital. In her capacity as ruler we see the same wide and reasonable outlook on life, for whilst strict as an administrator, in personal relations she was charitable and sympathetic. Sometimes a rebellious baron was deprived of his fief and banished, or was condemned to expiate his misdeed by making a pilgrimage to sundry shrines. But Mahaut was practical withal, and recognised human frailty, and as the pilgrimage was for correction, no pardon was granted unless the offender brought from each of the sanctuaries a certificate that his vow had been fulfilled. On the other hand, if any were sick or in trouble, she was solicitous for their relief, and even aided them personally where possible. She thus put into practice the charge of her saintly kinsman, King Louis the Ninth, who always counselled those about him to have compassion on all mental or physical suffering, since the heart may be stricken as well as the body.

As Mahaut had no biographer, and contemporary history merely treats her as if she were one of many pawns on a chess-board, her stewards’ entries furnish the only materials from which we can weave some outline of her life, an outline, nevertheless, which enables us to reason somewhat concerning her inner life, the pattern, as it were, that is not wrought for the world.

When, in 1302, Mahaut took over the reins of government in Artois, Paris was the great centre of art and literature as well as of the science of the day, a condition largely due to the genius of Philip Augustus, and fostered by succeeding kings. Thither, from far and near, flocked scholars, poets, and artists alike. Some of these took up their abode permanently within its walls. Others passed to and fro, thus creating that constant interchange of thought which is essential to vitality, so that it was said that “the goddess of Wisdom, after having dwelt in Athens and Rome, had taken up her abode in Paris.” There, at least twice a year, came Mahaut to her sumptuous dwelling, the Hôtel d’Artois, situated near the Temple, and extending with its gardens and its outbuildings to the walls built by Philip Augustus. Here all who loved the arts and learning were made welcome, and it is interesting to think it possible, nay even probable, that during one of her many sojourns there she may have met and talked with Dante.

Amongst the special treasures to be found there, mention is made of four figure-pictures, one of which is said to have been of Roman workmanship, and round in form—certainly, as far as is known, a rarity at that time. We also find a record of finely wrought embroideries and tapestries on the walls, and of windows painted either with armorial bearings and figures, or with simple foliage like the delicate ivy and hawthorn to be seen enriching the pages of Books of Hours of the fourteenth century. Special mention is made of a window, evidently over the altar in the private Chapel, in which was represented the Crucifixion. In the large hall were tables on trestles, easily removed before the dance began or minstrels or jugglers displayed their skill, dressers to hold the gold and silver plate and from which to serve the banquet, and settles with footboards so necessary when the rushes were only renewed at lengthy intervals. But if the hall was somewhat sparsely furnished, its ceiling and walls (the latter on occasions hung with embroideries carried from castle to castle as the Countess journeyed) were made bright with colour, and beautiful with design. How bright, and how beautiful, we can infer almost with certainty from examples in the Castle of Chillon of thirteenth and fourteenth century decoration lately rescued from under a coat of whitewash,[28] and from the comparison made by Brunetto Latini (1230-1294), in his Tesoro, of the Italian with the French feudal castle, in which he says of the one that it is only built for war, with ditches, palisades, and high towers and walls, and of the other that it lies in the midst of meadows and gardens, with large painted chambers.

Mahaut’s cousin, the cold and impersonal Philip le Bel, was on the throne. For the most part war had ceased in the land, but still there was war in high places, for Philip, avaricious by nature, and finding himself a king under altering conditions—the Papacy fallen into disregard, the Nobility weakened, and the Nation growing, but without any adequate provision made to meet the needs of this growth—left no stone unturned to supply this want and gratify his greed. On the question of the subsidies of the clergy and the relation between things spiritual and temporal, he quarrelled with the Pope, Boniface the Eighth, and brought about the removal of the Holy See from Rome to Avignon. He robbed and ruined the Templars, and despoiled the Jews and Lombards, the financiers of the day. With him no trickery was too base, no cruelty too cold-blooded. Gold was his God. Dante, who was his contemporary, refers (Purg. vii. 109) to “his wicked and foul life” (la vita sua viziata e lorda), and (Par. xix. 118) to his “debasement of the coinage” (falseggiando la moneta), as well as to his self-seeking greed. Such, with the added glamour of art and learning, was the courtly atmosphere of the Time. The bourgeoisie, encouraged by the king who sought to aggrandise the monarchy at the expense of the nobles, was growing rich, and politically gaining in power, and Philip ere long discovered that he had helped merely to change the centre of power, and not to crush it.

But Paris does not seem to have attracted Mahaut as did her castle at Hesdin. Here she was in the midst of her own domains, surrounded by her liegemen and retainers, and able to be in constant touch with her artificers and workers, whatever their art or industry. By the thirteenth century the dwelling of the Noble was no longer a grim castle, suggestive only of a place of defence, with narrow slits in the walls for the admission of air and light and for the discharge of arrows, but was more like a fortified country-house. The encompassing walls enclosed a wide area, within which was sheltered a village and everything necessary to the growth and development of a community.

From Hesdin Mahaut journeyed constantly through her County of Artois, visiting her castles, the towns or villages around them, and the various religious houses and hospitals she had founded, and attending in general to the well-being of her subjects. For her it was not enough that she was born to reign. She realised that, without administration, reigning through the accident of birth is mere puppet’s work, and leads to naught. Her daily life was the visible expression of this belief, as she herself was an example of the woman who comprehends the just proportion between personal and public work. That her subjects responded to her sympathy, and held her in affectionate regard, is proved by their kindly and sympathetic concern if she were ill or on a journey, and by the offerings they made to her on special anniversaries and other festive occasions. We read of gifts not only of herrings, sturgeon, game, wine, dogs, peacocks, swans, pasties, and whipped cream, but also of the strangely assorted tribute of a dead bear and twelve cheeses, as well as of one which must have contrasted pleasantly with this sundry and singular good cheer—a parrakeet in a beautifully painted cage. Mahaut, as we have said, was a constant traveller, and though travelling was then no easy matter, the roads could not have been over-much beset with difficulties seeing that she journeyed in all weathers, either on horseback or in a horse-litter, or in a chariot without springs, and with no mean retinue. In truth, her following was like a glorified Canterbury pilgrimage. First came the Countess, accompanied by one or more knights, her ladies-in-waiting, her chaplain and confessor, her physician, her secretary, her treasurer and steward, and sundry petty officers of her household. Then followed the servants, the cook with his scullions, the shoemaker who could also do necessary repairs to the harness, the laundress riding astride as was the manner of serving-women, and a score of lackeys and dependants of all sorts in charge of the carts containing the necessaries of travel. These necessaries were generally packed in wooden coffers, some of which were simple chests, whilst others opened like a cupboard and were fitted with drawers. To preserve such coffers from damp and damage, they were put into osier cases covered with cow-hide. And with all this motley company and baggage, there are but few records of accidents. The accounts tell of a small occasional expenditure in consequence of the breakdown of a chariot, or the fall of a valet from his horse, or the upsetting into a river of a cart conveying the Countess’s wardrobe. But such misadventures were not taken very seriously by these folk, seasoned to discomfort. Valet or chariot was mended, or the floating garments were recovered, and on went the easy-going company, singing by the way, and with horns blowing as they neared some castle or village where a halt was to be made for the night. The absence of any mention of the removal of furniture from castle to castle during these periodical wanderings, save a small bed for Mahaut’s own use, leads us to infer that greater luxury then prevailed than in the days of her great-uncle, Louis the Ninth, when even Royalty itself thought it no hardship to have beds and other necessary pieces of furniture carried by beasts of burden from place to place according to the movements of the Court. This frugal and homely custom on one occasion very nearly ended in a tragedy. The devout Isabelle, Louis’s sister, was praying in the early morning, as was her wont, within her curtained bed, and either lost in prayer or overcome with fatigue by the length of her orisons, did not notice the arrival of the packers, who rolled up the bed without drawing the curtains, and the praying Princess within must have been smothered had not her lady-in-waiting, Agnes de Harcourt, heard her stifled cries, and hastened to her rescue. This quaint episode so amused Louis, that he ever after recounted it when telling of the piety of his sister.

Let us now go in imagination to the Castle of Hesdin, and see something of its treasures and of the daily life of the Countess Mahaut.