“Cultus gestare decoros
Vix nuribus rapuere mares.”
About the shoes much has been written, and the fashion, in one shape or another, seems to have lasted for several ages. Orderic is quite as wrathful at this seemingly harmless folly, as he is at the other evil fashions which seem more serious. But perhaps the force lies in the passage where he says (682 C), “Pedum articulis, ubi finis est corporis, colubrinarum similitudinem caudarum imponunt, quas velut scorpiones præ oculis suis prospiciunt.” The practice seems to have been looked on as a profane attempt to improve the image of God, an argument which surely told no less strongly against the practice of the ancient heroes when they shaved themselves. With Count Fulk (682 A) one cannot help feeling some sympathy. “Quia pedes habebat deformes, instituit sibi fieri longos et in summitate acutissimos subtolares, ita ut operiret pedes, et eorum celaret tubera quæ vulgo vocantur uniones.” Yet this is very gravely set down among his many evil deeds. Then seemingly another stage took place, when (682 B) “Robertus quidam nebulo in curia Rufi regis prolixas pigacias primus cepit implere stuppis, et hinc inde contorquere instar cornu arietis. Ob hoc ipse Cornardus cognominatus est.”
A number of hints in the above passages seem to show us that the vices of Rufus were literally the works of darkness, works which even his own more outspoken age shrank from dwelling on in detail. It is hardly a metaphor when Orderic says (680 A), “In diebus illis lucerna veræ sanctitatis obscurius micabat.” For, among the reforms of Henry the First (Will. Malms. v. 393), “effeminatos curia propellens, lucernarum usum noctibus in curia restituit, qui fuerat tempore fratris intermissus.” That Henry the First could be looked on as a moral reformer is the best sign of what he had to reform. Henry, with his crowd of mistresses and bastards, is described as loathing the profligacies (“obscœnitates,” a word which seems used in a special sense) of his brother (Will. Malms. iv. 314, and specially the wonderful passage, v. 412, as to the force of which there can be no doubt), and as making it his first business on his accession to clear the court of its foulest abuses. (Cf. Mrs. Hutchinson’s account of Charles the First’s reforms, i. 127.) We must remember that no mistresses or children of Rufus are mentioned or hinted at. Orderic’s phrase of “mœchus rex” is quite vague, perhaps euphemistic, and when the Welsh chronicler (Ann. Camb. 1100) says that “concubinis usus, sine liberis obiit,” he may be sheltering himself under an ambiguous word. In the Chronicle of Hugh of Flavigny (Pertz, viii. 496) is a strange legend of what the writer truly calls “inauditum seculis omnibus monstrum,” but one which could not have been devised except in the state of things which William of Malmesbury and Eadmer describe. After all (see Hen. Hunt. vii. 32; N. C. vol. v. p. 195), the reform wrought by Henry seems to have been only for a season. It is some slight comfort to hear from the mouth of Anselm, in his first protest to the King (Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 24), that the presence of Eastern vices in England was something new—“noviter in hac terram divulgatum.”
Of the blasphemies of William Rufus several instances have been given in the text. He had also, like everybody else of his time, his own special oath. As his father swore “par la resplendar Dé,” as other kings swore “per oculos Dei,” “per pedes Dei,” “per dentes Dei,” William Rufus swears (“sic enim jurabat,” says William of Malmesbury, iv. 309) “per vultum Dei,” or more commonly “per vultum de Luca.” Some of the older writers oddly mistook this for an oath by Saint Luke’s face. But the true meaning of the “vultus de Luca” was long ago explained by Ducange under the word “vultus,” where he refers to the then manuscript “Otia Imperialia” of Gervase of Tilbury, iii. 24, which will be found in Leibnitz’s collection of Brunswick writers, i. 967. The “vultus Lucanus” was held to have been made by Nicodemus from the impression of our Lord’s face taken on linen immediately after the crucifixion. This it was by which the Red King swore. In French the oath takes the form “Li vo de Luche” (Roman de Rou, line 14920). M. Charles de Rémusat (St. Anselme de Cantorbéry, 133) remarks, “Il se peut même que ce ne soit pas précisément celui de Lucques; car on appela Saint Voult-de-Lucques, vulgairement et par corruption Saint Godeln, tout crucifix habillé semblable à celui-là tel que ceux qu’on voyait jadis à Saint-Etienne-de-Sens, au Sépulcre à Paris.” But it is strange that Lappenberg (Geschichte von England, ii. 172), when telling the story of the Red King’s “magnanimitas” before Saint Michael’s Mount (see [p. 289] and [Appendix N]), brings in the oath “per vultum de Luca” in Wace’s story, where it is not found, in the form “bei dem heiligen Antlitz zu Lucca,” and afterwards in William of Malmesbury’s story in the form “bei St. Lucca’s Antlitz.”
The Ecclesiastical Benefactions of William Rufus.
I think that an examination of the cases in which William Rufus has the credit of an ecclesiastical benefactor will show that in most of them, if not in all, there is a direct or implied reference to the memory of his father. In the case of Battle and Saint Stephen’s this is plain on the surface. Of his moveable gifts to Battle some have been mentioned already (see [p. 18]); he also gave (Chron. de Bello, 40) considerable gifts in real property, specially the royal manor of Bromham in Wiltshire, valued at forty pounds yearly. One year’s income then was to be got back by converting the young Jew back to Judaism (see [p. 163]). At the dedication of Battle he gave (Chron. de Bello, 41; Mon. Angl. iii. 246) a number of churches, “pro anima patris mei regis Willielmi, et matris et omnium parentum nostrorum qui ibi in bello ceciderunt, et aliorum omnium.” The local writer, who records none of his evil deeds, gives him this character (42);
“Tantopere memoratus rex eandem amabat, excolebat, tuebaturque ecclesiam, ejusque dignitates et regales consuetudines conservabat, ut quemadmodum patris ejus tempore nullus ei adeo adversari præsumeret, ipse quoque quotiens casu vicinia peteret, ex dilectionis abundantia sæpius eam revisere, fovere, et consolari solitus fuerat.”