“Hard it is to relate,” says the chronicler, “what clamour, what lamentation, what groans, what tears, arose among the women, who by force or of their own will had boarded the ship, when buffeted by the winds and waves they rose to the skies and descended to the depths; for now they saw not the spectre of death, but death itself among them, and could not doubt that they must die. What mental anguish, what bodily fear, what remorse and anxiety assailed the conscience of the men, who to satisfy their lust had dragged these women into the peril of the seas, they were best able to describe who, although sharers in so great a crime, were nevertheless permitted by God’s mercy to reach a port of safety. Wherefore the men were doubtful what to do in the midst of the clamour, for on the one hand the wind and storm, on the other the tears and cries of the women, urged them to action. First, therefore, they tried to lighten the vessel, throwing overboard first the worthless baggage, then precious things, that perchance a hope of safety might arise. But when they perceived their desperate plight to be rather increased than diminished, they cast the blame of their misfortune upon the women, and in a spirit of madness they seized hold of them (with the same hands wherewith before they had sweetly caressed them, the same arms wherewith they had lustfully embraced them) and threw them into the sea, to be devoured by fishes and sea beasts, to the number (it is said) of sixty women. But not even thus was the tempest stayed, but rather it grew greater so that it deprived them of all hope of escaping the danger of death.”
The story is soon ended. The ships were driven onto the coast of Ireland, Sir John Arundel’s vessel ran upon a rock, and he was drowned, with all his suits of apparel, his goods and his horses; and twenty-five other vessels of the ill-fated expedition, laden with soldiers and horses and baggage, also went down in the storm. Public opinion did not fail to attribute these disasters to the crimes of which Sir John and his troops had been guilty; and so, with dramatic fitness, ends this tale of the golden days of chivalry[1366]. Side by side with it must be set another episode, drawn from an earlier age and from an epic instead of a chronicle. It was part of the chivalrous convention to show a special respect to nunneries, in their double character of religious and aristocratic institutions. Yet the most striking account of a nunnery in the twelfth century, when this convention was at its height, has for subject a brutal sacrilege committed by a great baron upon a church of nuns. This is the famous episode of the burning of Origny in the chanson de geste “Raoul de Cambrai.” The writer of the poem makes Raoul’s knights recoil in shame from a crime in which their allegiance has made them unwilling partners, and manifests the utmost horror and pity at this action so opposed to all the ideals of chivalry; but it is only one of the many proofs that the golden idol had feet of clay. Whether or not the account was founded upon an actual incident is unknown; but it deserves quotation because it illustrates all too clearly the fate of nuns when their quiet houses stood in the way of warring knights. It represents one side of chivalry as truly as “Queen Guenever in Almesbury, a nun in white clothes and black” represents another. In the same century that produced “Raoul de Cambrai” a chronicler, writing of the wars of Stephen and Matilda in England, records, “Burnt also was the abbey of nuns of Wherwell by a certain William of Ypres, an evil man, who respected neither God nor man, because certain supporters of the Empress had taken refuge therein”; and another:
The famous town [of Winchester] was given to the flames, wherein a convent of nuns with its offices, and more than twenty churches, with the greater part of the town and the monastery of St Grimbald’s and the dwellings attached to it, were reduced to ashes[1367].
What these bald statements mean the chanson de geste can tell us better.
Raoul de Cambrai, the greatest villain who ever led knights to war, had in his train a young knight Bernier. One day he set out to pillage Origny, in which town was a famous convent, where Bernier’s fair mother Marcens had retired to end her days in peace. But as he hurled himself, with four thousand men, upon the town, the gates of the convent opened
and the nuns came forth from the church, gentle ladies, each with her psalter, for there they did the service of God. Marcens was there, who was Bernier’s mother. “Mercy, Raoul, in the just God’s name! You do great sin if you allow harm to come to us, for easily can we be driven forth.” In her hand she held a book of the time of Solomon and she was saying an orison to God.
After a tender inquiry for her son, Marcens proceeded to plead with Raoul to raise the siege; clearly the burgesses regarded the abbess of the great convent as their leader and a fit person to negotiate with their enemy.
“Sir Raoul,” she said, “shall I beseech you in vain to withdraw you? We be nuns, by all the saints of Bavaria; we shall never hold lance nor banner, nor by our hand shall any man be brought to his grave.”
But Raoul answered her with a stream of coarse abuse, showing even less respect for her sex and calling than Sir John Arundel showed to the abbess who refused him lodging[1368]. Marcens put aside his charges with a word of dignified denial and proffered him terms of truce:
“Sir Raoul, we know not how to wield arms; easily can you destroy us and put us to flight. We have neither shield nor lance for our defence. All our livelihood we have from this altar and within this town; noble men hold this place dear and send us silver and pure gold. Therefore do you grant us a truce for hearth and church and go you and take your ease in our meadows; of our own substance we will feed you and your knights and your squires shall have corn and oats and plenty to eat for your steeds.” “By the body of St Richier,” answered Raoul, “For love of you and since you ask it, I will grant you the truce, whoever may dislike it.”