[33] When Allan Barbetorte, after the recovery of Nantes, went to give thanks to God in the cathedral, he was compelled to cut his way, sword in hand, through thorns and briers.
[34] It must be admitted, however, that the poet’s uncouth diction is anything but Virgilian.
[35] Abbo’s favourite epithet. They were without a head, for they knew not Christ, the Head of Mankind.
[36] In the Middle Ages and down to 1761 Montfaucon had a sinister reputation. There stood the gallows of Paris, a great stone gibbet with its three rows of chains, near the old Barrière du Combat, where the present Rue de la Grange aux Belles abuts on the Boulevard de la Villette.
[37] William the Conqueror was also known as William the Builder.
[38] The surname Capet is said to have originated in the capet or hood of the abbot’s mantle which Hugh wore as lay abbot of St. Martin’s, having laid aside the crown after his coronation.
[39] Carducci. In una Chiesa gotica.
[40] A dramatic representation of the delivery of the papal bull, painted by Jean Paul Laurens, hangs in the museum of the Luxembourg.
[41] It must be remembered that heresy was the solvent anti-social force of the age, and was regarded with the same feelings of abhorrence as anarchist doctrines are regarded by modern statesmen.
[42] The Rue des Francs Bourgeois in Paris reminds us that there dwelt those who were free to move without the consent of their feudal superiors.