History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Vol. 3 (of 3)

by S. P. Scott

The treatises of Gordonius on Diseases of the Kidneys, of Gerard de Solo on Hygiene, of Raymond de Vinario on the Plague, indicate to the medical scholar the extraordinary accomplishments of the members of the Faculty of Montpellier. The great work of Guy de Chauliac on General Surgery was the main reliance of European operators for two hundred and fifty years.

The mad extravagance of the Provençal nobility, their lavish expenditures, the pomp of their retinues, their efforts to surpass in prodigality and luxury the splendid festivals of imperial Rome, aroused the wonder of Europe. Their chargers were shod with silver. Their dogs wore collars set with precious jewels. It was an ordinary occurrence for a wealthy lord to scatter great sums to be scrambled for by the populace. One sowed like seed thirty thousand gold crowns in the neighborhood of his castle. Another enriched his noble guests by the bestowal of gifts of incalculable value. A third sacrificed upon a funeral pyre, in the presence of an immense assemblage, thirty of his finest horses. There was apparently no limit to the intoxication produced by the pride, the opulence. and the voluptuousness of Provençal society. In that society differences in rank were not so sharply defined as in those of other countries. The serf, indeed, retained his degradation; but the ordinarily intermediate class of burghers were practically the equals of the feudal aristocracy. Many of them boasted a purer and a more distinguished lineage. They used coats of arms. They had their mansions, their embattled castles, their bodies of organized retainers. They excelled in martial exercises, and it was no unusual occurrence for knights who had crossed swords with the infidels of Palestine to be worsted by them in the tournament. The title to noble rank was thus to a considerable extent connected with municipal residence. In the cities all was splendor, gayety, courtesy. Outside of them, the inhabitants were for the most part condemned to villeinage. In the Courts of Love, whose absurdity has caused them to be regarded as mythical by many subsequent writers, judicial decisions were rendered on every point of amorous casuistry. The mock solemnity with which such matters were propounded and determined was only exceeded by the dissolute tendency of the customs that governed the proceedings of these extraordinary tribunals. No greater proof of the prevalent laxity of morals could be desired than that furnished by their canons. They encouraged the violation of the marriage vow. They defined with minute and curious particularity the rules of intrigue. The nature of the questions debated by high-born ladies in the presence of a numerous auditory was such as cannot be even designated, still less described, in a modern book. The brazen coarseness which characterized these ridiculous controversies afforded a remarkable contrast to the refinement of manners otherwise displayed by those who participated in them. The popularity of this unique system of jurisprudence was so great, that, at the time of the Albigensian crusade, it was on the point of being generally established in every part of France. No institution, even in those times of heresy and unbelief, was so fatal to religion. It undermined the vital principles by which society is held together. It defied the injunctions and ridiculed the dogmas of the Church. The Virgin, as the object of adoration, was supplanted by the mistress of the cavalier, often a woman of dissolute character and the recipient of the adulation of a score of favored lovers.

A charming picture of mediæval society is presented by the life of the educated classes of Languedoc and Provence. Everywhere was dispensed the most elegant and lavish hospitality. The table was spread before the open door of the castle. Marked attention was shown to the guest, whether merchant, knight, pilgrim, minstrel, or troubadour. He was welcomed with unaffected cordiality. He was tendered the use of the hot-air bath. A wreath of flowers was placed upon his brow. The ladies themselves ministered to his necessities. In accordance with a custom borrowed from the Arabs, the choicest morsels were placed in his mouth by dainty white and jewelled fingers perfumed with lavender and rose. The diversions of the day were feats of strength and displays of horsemanship, the game of chess, the chase with the falcon, the contest for the prize of knightly dexterity in the lists of the tournament. In winter, the company gathered about the huge fireplace of the banqueting hall; in summer, under the rustling foliage of the park. The evening was spent with song and dance, with the recital of the story-teller, with the improvisations of the poet. The feast was enlivened by wit, by jest, by sparkling repartee. The returned crusader related his adventures in the Holy Land,—the bloody encounters of the siege of Acre; the quarrels of the Christian chieftains; the events in which were displayed the dignity, the valor, the noble generosity of Saladin. The trader, just from the Moorish cities of Spain,—then, indeed, sadly fallen from their first estate, but still exhibiting in their fading splendor no unworthy image of their former grandeur and power,—described in glowing language the beauties of Cordova, Valencia, and Seville. Between cavalier and mistress communication was constantly maintained unobserved, through the silent and pantomimic medium of the language of flowers.

In this brilliant company the troubadour was pre-eminently conspicuous. Although often the butt of the equivocal speeches and practical jokes of his companions of both sexes,—attentions which he did not fail to repay with interest in the cutting satire of his verse,—his opinions, generally authoritative, were always heard with respect. He determined points of precedence and etiquette. He gave wholesome advice to young ladies on the care of their persons, on their behavior at table, on their treatment of lovers. His principal duties were, however, the glorification of the family of his patron and the celebration of the charms of his mistress. All courted his favor. Few were rash enough to provoke his enmity. In the society of Languedoc, whether the dependent of a noble house or a careless wanderer from court to court, he was always the central figure.

Among the inmates of the baronial palace, if an intrigue existed, it was concealed by the mask of decency. The poet, in the burning verses which enumerated the charms of his lady-love, never mentioned her name, or betrayed the slightest indication of her identity. His attachment he regarded in the same light as the tribute paid by a Pagan worshipper to his tutelary goddess. The laws of his code demanded impenetrable reserve. The object of his devotion was, to all appearances, an imaginary personage, an ideal of feminine perfection.

The highest development of splendor, taste, intelligence, and luxury was to be found in the feudal castle. In the cities, it is true, great pomp and extravagance, the results of the accumulation of incredible wealth, were constantly displayed. The mansions of many opulent merchants far surpassed in the magnificence of their interiors the palaces of the King of France. On occasions of festivity priceless hangings of brocade and velvet, of silken tapestry and cloth of gold, were suspended over the streets. The households of these powerful citizens were on a scale commensurate with the dignity of their masters. Hundreds of retainers obeyed their bidding. Their apartments were full of singers, dancers, buffoons, and eunuchs. There was no delicacy not to be found upon their tables; no means of sensual enjoyment which did not contribute to the stimulation of their blunted appetites; no vice with which they were not familiar.

Thus in the courts of the numerous principalities of Southern France, amidst the delights of a society gay, skeptical, licentious, the troubadour was the arbiter of taste, the oracle of the populace, the idol of women. Public opinion was far from discouraging the practice of gallantry in an age which scoffed alike at the maxims of social morality and the ceremonies of religion. The mistress of the vagrant bard was always the wife of a noble, not infrequently a princess of the highest dignity. To her was addressed his passionate homage, often in strains whose expressions are too bold and ardent for translation into a modern language. The adoration they convey, unsurpassed in fervency by any vows ever offered at the shrine of a celestial divinity, affords a key to both the influence of the poet and the relaxation of manners. The life of the latter was passed in an intoxicating atmosphere of music, flattery, and amorous intrigue. His power over society was not less important than that formerly exercised by the repudiated clergy, and was, morally speaking, fully as pernicious. The adulation he lavished upon the object of his affections, represented as the personification of every physical grace and every mental accomplishment, could not fail to fire the romantic imagination of the goddess in whose veins coursed the hot blood of the South, and whose vanity caused her to recognize in this extravagant flattery and devotion the highest tribute to her charms. Around the bard, in the brilliant circles of Arles or Carcassonne, was grouped a mirthful and appreciative auditory,—ladies in brocades and jewels, knights in burnished armor, pages in silk and gold. In that animated assemblage the restraints of rank, never rendered irksome by the exactions of pompous ceremonial, were for the moment entirely suspended. The conversation sparkled with epigram, equivocal allusions, and good-humored satire. Its character, formed by the dissolute customs of the age, often transgressed the rules of propriety which govern modern social intercourse. Inspired by such surroundings, the troubadour arose and began the recital of an impromptu amatory ode. Young, slender, and handsome, his physical appearance alone might well elicit female admiration. His long, dark locks fell in ringlets upon his shoulders. A golden chain hung about his neck. His fingers glittered with gems. From his belt an enamelled poniard was suspended. His picturesque costume of brilliant colors, his silken doublet, his velvet cloak, set off to the best advantage the graces of his person, and revealed the popularity which he enjoyed with his patrons. All eyes were turned upon him, for his talents were of the highest order, and the object of his admiration was present, perchance in the person of the chatelaine herself. As he chanted his verses in accents, now ardent, now pathetic, now humorous, the enraptured audience, swayed by conflicting emotions, broke forth alternately into tears and laughter. His ambiguous expressions, his licentious images,—whose boldness the severity of modern criticism would reject as offensive to decency,—were received with every manifestation of approval by his delighted hearers. The nature of the entertainment was often varied by the performances of the jongleur. That personage, who, as a retainer of the troubadour, occupied a position analogous to that of esquire to knight, united in his calling the office of minstrel, juggler, story-teller, and buffoon. Sometimes he accompanied the song of the poet upon the harp or the guitar; sometimes, with expressive gesticulation, he recounted the legends, the martial exploits, and the popular romances whose relation was a favorite diversion of mediæval society. His rank was ordinarily far beneath that of his companion; yet it was not unusual for the two professions to be combined; and there were instances when their positions were reversed through the vicissitudes of success or misfortune.

The extraordinary privileges enjoyed by these vagrant sonneteers were by no means entirely attributable to the amusement which their talents afforded. Their compositions were the sole medium by which public opinion could be aroused and the abuse of power and the excesses of social depravity restrained. The influence of the pulpit, long omnipotent in the regulation of morals, had declined; in some localities it had wholly disappeared. Centuries were destined to elapse before the press, the most formidable weapon of political censure, could become available. The satire of the poet, whose verses, carried from place to place, in a fortnight became familiar to a hundred communities, was recognized as the instrument of moral correction, the dread of the tyrant, the scourge of the shamelessly dissolute. Its potent effects were feared by wrong-doers of every class, and by none so much as by those of exalted position.

The fierceness and rancor displayed by the troubadours in their attacks upon obnoxious personages, in an age of irresponsible authority, can only be explained upon the hypothesis that they were encouraged and protected by the force of overwhelming public sentiment. Their poems were composed in the Langue d’Oc, the first perfected and the most important of the Romance languages,—an idiom of great compass and power, and beyond the Loire used by the educated and polished members of society alone. The finest of these productions frequently owed their origin to authors destitute of literary culture; many troubadours could not even read. They evinced no admiration of the beauties of nature. The stanzas were isolated, often absolutely without continuity. A common similarity of type and resemblance of ideas pervaded all. It is a singular circumstance, that in form and metrical arrangement the last poem of a troubadour was not, in any important particular, superior to the oldest, at present, known; there was no improvement in two hundred years. In delicacy of sentiment, in vigor of expression, in sweetness of melody, these compositions are not excelled by the lyrics of any nation. Their analogy to those of the Spanish Mohammedans is striking and self-evident. There is the same play of words, the same predominating class of subjects, the same far-fetched and extravagant similes, the same incessant obtrusion of the author’s personality. The Langue d’Oc contains a greater number of rhyming terminations than any other language except Arabic; a coincidence to be attributed to imitation or a common poetic taste, and certainly not the result of accident. In the productions of both idioms the prevailing rhyme is by distichs, and occurs throughout the entire poem, the second verse of every distich always ending with the same sound; and the meaning is often obscured or sacrificed to preserve continuous harmony of versification.

The taste for letters was introduced into France partly as a consequence of the Moslem occupation, but principally by the Jews, who remained after their allies had been driven back over the Pyrenees. The similarity of taste and expression existing between the poets of these two branches of the Semitic race is apparent to every one who has compared the Bible and the Koran. Many of the Hebrew colonists of Narbonne and Marseilles had been educated at Cordova, and all spoke the Arabic language with fluency. Not a few were scholars of marked ability, gifted with poetic talents, the possessors of large libraries. These superior advantages had great weight with a semi-barbarous people steeped in ignorance, with no mental resources except the interchange of gossip, and the exhortations of a priest, who often could not understand his breviary. The ferocious and intolerant spirit with which the Jew was generally regarded, counteracted, in a measure, the effect of his influence, but the power of intellect and culture finally prevailed. The Hebrews familiarized the population of Languedoc and Provence with the art, the science, and the literature of the Arabs. Through their agency an acquaintance with the Arabic language and literature became in Southern France and in Sicily indispensable to the education of a scholar. Another factor of great importance in the intellectual development of Southern Europe was the number of Moslem refugees who sought safety in foreign lands from the influx of African barbarism and from the perils incident to constant revolution. A large proportion of these were philosophers, whose high attainments had made them dangerously conspicuous, and whose heretical doctrines were obnoxious to the stern fanaticism of the Almoravides. Such an immigration could not fail to produce a profound impression upon the mental characteristics and literary habits of any people.