When next the story of the insult offered to Augustine reappears, the Divine vengeance, which Goscelin hardly does more than suggest, is unhesitatingly asserted, and is recorded with a fullness of details such as medieval credulity would readily accept as evidence of a genuine miracle. The writer to whom we owe the legend in this complete form is Robert Wace, of Jersey, the Anglo-Norman poet and author of the Brut, a rhymed chronicle written but a few years, probably not more than a decade, after William of Malmesbury's Gesta Pontificum. Differing from his predecessors who referred to a small village as the scene of the incident, Wace lays it in Dorchester itself, although the conduct which he attributes to its inhabitants seems in keeping with rural coarseness rather than with the more refined civilization of a county town:
"Saint Austine came and to the heathen folk He preached God's law. Full earnestly he spoke; But they, as men by nature vile and naught, Were careless of the holy truths he taught; And even as he stood before them, there, —One sent by God, God's precepts to declare— They fastened to his garments tails of ray, And with those tails they drove the Saint away. Then Austine prayed that, for His servant's sake, The judgment of the Lord might overtake The impious scoffers and His wrath proclaim Against the men who did the deed of shame. And so it was and shall be through all time, In punishment of their detested crime: For, sooth to say, to every man among The rabble rout by whom the tails were hung There grew a tail; and thus, for evermore This token of disgrace the tailards bore; And all their progeny, from sire to son, Have suffered for the deed which then was done; And so 'tis now, for all the kith and kin Are tailards, too, in memory of the sin Incurred by those who, lewd and reprobate, Defiled the friend of God with tails of skate."[344]
Some fifty years after Robert Wace wrote his Brut, Layamon translated, or rather, paraphrased and expanded the poem. In this Old English version of it, St. Augustine's adventure is enriched by the addition of further details. Layamon's most interesting contribution to the history of the development of the legend consists of the information that an exaggerated notion as to the extent of the Saint's vengeance had, by this time, got abroad, and that foreigners now credited all Englishmen indiscriminately with the tails which the transgressors themselves and their posterity had alone been condemned to bear. That those tails were called "muggles", and that the men whom they disgraced were nicknamed "mugglings", are further circumstances for the knowledge of which we are indebted to Layamon. And the fact that, whilst one manuscript of his poem follows Wace with regard to the locality of the incident, another transfers it from Dorchester to Rochester, suggests a desire on the part of the scribe to exonerate the West Country, with which he may possibly have been connected.[345] In Sir F. Madden's prose rendering of the old English Brut, the whole episode is thus given:
"And so St. Austin drew southward, so that he came to Dorchester; there he found the worst men that dwelt in the land. He told them God's lore, and they had him in derision; he taught them Christendom, and they grinned at him. Where the Saint stood, and his clerks with him, and spake of Christ, as was ever their custom, there they approached to their injury, and took tails of rays and hanged them on his cope, on each side. And they ran beside, and threw at him with the bones, and afterwards attacked him with grievous stones. And so they did him shame and drove him out of the place. To St. Austin they were odious, and he became exceeding wroth; and he proceeded five miles from Dorchester, and came to a mount that was mickle and fair; there he lay on his knees in prayer and called ever toward God, that he should avenge him of the cursed folk, who had dishonoured him with their evil deeds. Our Lord heard him, in heaven, and sent his vengeance on the wretched folk that hanged the rays' tails on the clerks. The tails came on them—therefore they be tailed! Disgraced was all the race, for muggles they had; and in each company men call them mugglings, and every freeman speaketh foul of them, and English freemen in foreign lands have a red face for the same deed, and many a good man's son, in strange lands, who never came there nigh, is called base."[346]
The same occurrence is related in the English prose version of the Brut, with the addition of aggravating circumstances of violence and contumely. But what imparts special interest to the passage is the mention of the ingenious means adopted for the purpose of evading the hereditary curse:
"And in the menewhile that the peple turnede ham to God, seynt Austyn came to Rochestre and there prechede Goddis worde. The paynnemys therefor him scornede and caste uppon hym reyghe tayles, so that al his mantel was hongede ful of reyghe tailes; and for more despite thai keste uppon hym the guttis of reyghes and of other fysshe, wherefore the good man seynt Austyn was sore anoyede and grevede, and prayede to God that alle the childerne that shulde be borne afterward in that citee of Rochestre muste have tayles. And wherre the kyng herde and wiste of this vengaunce that was falle thurghe seynt Austynus praier, he lette make one howse in the honoure of God, wherein wymmen shulde have hire childerne, at the brugges ende: in whiche howse wymmen yette of the citee be delyveride of child."[347]
The Story of Inglande, written by Robert Manning of Brunne, in 1338, contains a section which has the marginal summary, "Qua de causa Anglici vocantur Caudati". In his explanation of the reason why Englishmen are called "tailards", Manning closely follows Wace, some of whose lines, indeed, he translates with literal accuracy. He closes his narrative of the incident, however, in the same manner as does Layamon, with a protest against the unfairness of attributing to all Englishmen indiscriminately the degrading stigma inflicted on a few only of his countrymen:
"But there he stod them to preche And ther savacion for to teche; Byhynd hym on his clothes they henge Righe taillis on a strenge. When they had don that vyleny They drof hym thenne wyth maistri; Fer weys they gan hym chace; Tailles they casten in hys face. Thys holy man God bisought, For they hym that vileny wrought, That on them and on al their kynde Tailled alle men schulde hem fynde; And God graunted al that he bad, For alle that kynde tailles had— Taillis hadde and tailles have; Fro that vengaunce non may them save; For they wyth tailles the goodeman schamed, For tailles al Englische kynde ys blamed; In manie sere londes seyd Of tho tailles we have umbreyde."[348]
The Bibliothéque Nationale possesses a manuscript,[349] which is ascribed by experts to the fourteenth century, and in which the legend of St. Augustine and the tails—no longer those of ray-fish, however—supplies materials for a quaint satire against the inhabitants of Rochester. It begins with a mock-serious discussion as to the species of animals to which they belong. That they are not men is quite clear, for they have tails, and Aristotle has conclusively established that men have no tails. And yet those strange animals have something human about them, too—they reason and have laws. For all that, however, there remains the stern fact that they bear tails, and this quite precludes the possibility of classing them as perfect human beings. In the course of the satire reference is naturally made to the outrage of which St. Augustine was the victim. After giving an account of the saint's mission to England, the anonymous author continues: "As he went about from city to city, preaching, it happened that he preached in the city which is called Rochester. But, whilst he was preaching, the inhabitants of the city flocked together about him, and, deeming his words to be lies, subjected him to many insults. After reviling him with opprobrious words, they fastened tails of swine and of cows to the skirt of his garments, spat into his face, and drove him out of the city."[350] The saint prayed that they who had insulted him might be punished, to the end that the divinity of his mission should be brought home to them. At the conclusion of his prayer, he wept bitterly, but was comforted by receiving the assurance that his petition would be granted. And so, God, wishing to avenge the insult done to Him and to his servant, ordained that all who, from that time, might be born in the city of Rochester, should have tails, after the fashion of swine. And nothing could be done to prevent their having tails. From that day to this, the natives of Rochester have been tailed, and they shall remain tailed for ever. It is consequently evident that they are not human beings. Amongst the inconveniences resulting from this peculiarity of theirs, is that of not being able to sit down when they are angry; for, at such a time, their tails stand erect, as is the case with other animals.[351]
During the fourteenth century, too, the myth, in its restricted and local form, makes its appearance in Continental literature, other than that of France. It is referred to by Fazio degli Uberti, an Italian poet who lived between 1326 and 1360, and whom D. G. Rossetti deals with and translates in his work Italian Poets chiefly before Dante. In a description of England which Fazio gives in the Ditta Mondo, he says: