No. 115. A Welshman with his Spear.
No. 116. A Gascon at his Vine.
The Gascon is represented with more peaceful attributes. Gascony was the country of vineyards, from whence we drew our great supply of wines, a very important article of consumption in the middle ages. When the official clerk who wrote this manuscript came to documents relating to Gascony, his thoughts wandered naturally enough to its rich vineyards and the wine they supplied so plentifully, and to which, according to old reports, clerks seldom showed any dislike, and accordingly, in the sketch, which we copy in our cut No. 116, we have a Gascon occupied diligently in pruning his vine-tree. He, at least, wears two shoes, though his clothing is of the lightest description. He is perhaps the vinitor of the mediæval documents on this subject, a serf attached to the vineyard. Our second sketch, cut No. 117, presents a more enlarged scene, and introduces us to the whole process of making wine. First we see a man better clothed, with shoes (or boots) of much superior make, and a hat on his head, carrying away the grapes from the vineyard to the place where another man, with no clothing at all, is treading out the juice in a large vat. This is still in some of the wine countries the common method of extracting the juice from the grape. Further to the left is the large cask in which the juice is put when turned into wine.
No. 117. The Wine Manufacturer.
Satires on the people of particular localities were not uncommon during the middle ages, because local rivalries and consequent local feuds prevailed everywhere. The records of such feuds were naturally of a temporary character, and perished when the feuds and rivalries themselves ceased to exist, but a few curious satires of this kind have been preserved. A monk of Peterborough, who lived late in the twelfth or early in the thirteenth century, and for some reason or other nourished an unfriendly feeling to the people of Norfolk, gave vent to his hostility in a short Latin poem in what we may call goliardic verse. He begins by abusing the county itself, which, he says, was as bad and unfruitful as its inhabitants were vile; and he suggests that the evil one, when he fled from the anger of the Almighty, had passed through it and left his pollution upon it. Among other anecdotes of the simplicity and folly of the people of this county, which closely resemble the stories of the wise men of Gotham of a later date, he informs us that one day the peasantry of one district were so grieved by the oppressions of their feudal lord, that they subscribed together and bought their freedom, which he secured to them by formal deed, ratified with a ponderous seal. They adjourned to the tavern, and celebrated their deliverance by feasting and drinking until night came on, and then, for want of a candle, they agreed to burn the wax of the seal. Next day their former lord, informed of what had taken place, brought them before a court, where the deed was judged to be void for want of the seal, and they lost all their money, were reduced to their old position of slavery, and treated worse than ever. Other stories, still more ridiculous, are told of these old Norfolkians, but few of them are worth repeating. Another monk, apparently, who calls himself John de St. Omer, took up the cudgels for the people of Norfolk, and replied to the Peterborough satirist in similar language.[59] I have printed in another collection,[60] a satirical poem against the people of a place called Stockton (perhaps Stockton-on-Tees in Durham), by the monk of a monastic house, of which they were serfs. It appeared that they had risen against the tyranny of their lord, but had been unsuccessful in defending their cause in a court of law, and the ecclesiastical satirist exults over their defeat in a very uncharitable tone. There will be found in the “Reliquæ Antiquæ,”[61] a very curious satire in Latin prose directed against the inhabitants of Rochester, although it is in truth aimed against Englishmen in general, and is entitled in the manuscript, which is of the fourteenth century, “Proprietates Anglicorum” (the Peculiarities of Englishmen). In the first place, we are told, that the people of Rochester had tails, and the question is discussed, very scholastically, what species of animals these Rocestrians were. We are then told that the cause of their deformity arose from the insolent manner in which they treated St. Augustine, when he came to preach the Gospel to the heathen English. After visiting many parts of England, the saint came to Rochester, where the people, instead of listening to him, hooted at him through the streets, and, in derision, attached tails of pigs and calves to his vestments, and so turned him out of the city. The vengeance of Heaven came upon them, and all who inhabited the city and the country round it, and their descendants after them, were condemned to bear tails exactly like those of pigs. This story of the tails was not an invention of the author of the satire, but was a popular legend connected with the history of St. Augustine’s preaching, though the scene of the legend was laid in Dorsetshire. The writer of this singular composition goes on to describe the people of Rochester as seducers of other people, as men without gratitude, and as traitors. He proceeds to show that Rochester being situated in England, its vices had tainted the whole nation, and he illustrates the baseness of the English character by a number of anecdotes of worse than doubtful authenticity. It is, in fact, a satire on the English composed in France, and leads us into the domains of political satire.
Political satire in the middle ages appeared chiefly in the form of poetry and song, and it was especially in England that it flourished, a sure sign that there was in our country a more advanced feeling of popular independence, and greater freedom of speech, than in France or Germany.[62] M. Leroux de Lincy, who undertook to make a collection of this poetry for France, found so little during the mediæval period that came under the character of political, that he was obliged to substitute the word “historical” in the title of his book.[63] Where feudalism was supreme, indeed, the songs which arose out of private or public strife, which then were almost inseparable from society, contained no political sentiment, but consisted chiefly of personal attacks on the opponents of those who employed them. Such are the four short songs written in the time of the revolt of the French during the minority of St. Louis, which commenced in 1226; they are all of a political character which M. Leroux de Lincy has been able to collect previous to the year 1270, and they consist merely of personal taunts against the courtiers by the dissatisfied barons who were out of power. We trace a similar feeling in some of the popular records of our baronial wars of the reign of Henry III., especially in a song, in the baronial language (Anglo-Norman), preserved in a small roll of vellum, which appears to have belonged to the minstrel who chanted it in the halls of the partisans of Simon de Montfort. The fragment which remains consists of stanzas in praise of the leaders of the popular party, and in reproach of their opponents. Thus of Roger de Clifford, one of earl Simon’s friends, we are told that “the good Roger de Clifford behaved like a noble baron, and exercised great justice; he suffered none, either small or great, or secretly or openly, to do any wrong.”
Et de Cliffort ly bon Roger