While knights hunted in the greenwood or tilted in the lists, and jugglers tumbled in the noisy hall, the monk in the quiet scriptorium compiled chronicles of passing events, copied valuable manuscripts, and painted rich borders and brilliant initials on every page. These illuminations form a valuable set of materials for our pictures of life in the Middle Ages.
Monasteries served many useful purposes at the time of which I write. Besides their manifest value as centers of study and literary work, they gave alms to the poor, a supper and a bed to travelers; their tenants were better off and better treated than the tenants of the nobles; the monks could store grain, grow apples, and cultivate their flower beds with little risk of injury from war, because they had spiritual thunders at their call, which awed even the most reckless of the soldiery into a respect for sacred property.
Splendid structures those monasteries generally were, since that vivid taste for architecture which the Norman possessed in a high degree, and which could not find room for its display in the naked strength of the solid keep, lavished its entire energy and grace upon buildings lying in the safe shadow of the Cross. Nor was architectural taste the only reason for their magnificence. Since they were nearly all erected as offerings to Heaven, the religion of the age impelled the pious builders to spare no cost in decorating the exterior with fretwork and sculpture of Caen stone, the interior with gilded cornices and windows of painted glass.
As schools, too, the monasteries did no trifling service to society in the Middle Ages. In addition to their influence as great centers of learning, English law had enjoined every mass priest to keep a school in his parish church, where all the young committed to his care might be instructed. This custom continued long after the Norman Conquest. In the Trinity College Psalter we have a picture of a Norman school, where the pupils sit in a circular row around the master as he lectures to them from a long roll of manuscript. Two writers sit by the desk, busy with copies resembling that which the teacher holds.
The youth of the middle classes, destined for the cloister or the merchant's stall, chiefly thronged these schools. The aristocracy cared little for book-learning. Very few indeed of the barons could read or write. But all could ride, fence, tilt, play, and carve extremely well; for to these accomplishments many years of pagehood and squirehood were given.
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The foregoing description of manners and customs during the age of feudalism has been adapted from a popular "History of England," by W. F. Collier. A much fuller description may be found in Knight's "History of England," and in Green's "Short History of the English People." The period described was in many respects the most romantic in the history of the world, and many delightful and instructive books have been written concerning it. Read Scott's "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman." Reference may also be had to Pauli's "Pictures of Old England," and Jusserand's "English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages."