View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 24

Whatever mention, therefore, we find of learning and the learned during these dark ages, must be understood to relate only to such as were within the pale of clergy, which indeed was pretty extensive, and comprehended many who did not exercise the offices of religious ministry. But even the clergy were, for a long period, not very materially superior, as a body, to the uninstructed laity. A cloud of ignorance overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights, who owe much of their distinction to the surrounding darkness. In the sixth century the best writers in Latin were scarcely read;[508] and perhaps from the middle of this age to the eleventh there was, in a general view of literature, little difference to be discerned. If we look more accurately, there will appear certain gradual shades of twilight on each side of the greatest obscurity.

France reached her lowest point about the beginning of the eighth century; but England was at that time more respectable, and did not fall into complete degradation till the middle of the ninth. There could be nothing more deplorable than the state of letters in Italy and in England during the succeeding century; but France cannot be denied to have been uniformly, though very slowly, progressive from the time of Charlemagne.[509]

Of this prevailing ignorance it is easy to produce abundant testimony.

Contracts were made verbally, for want of notaries capable of drawing up charters; and these, when written, were frequently barbarous and ungrammatical to an incredible degree. For some considerable intervals scarcely any monument of literature has been preserved, except a few jejune chronicles, the vilest legends of saints, or verses equally dest.i.tute of spirit and metre. In almost every council the ignorance of the clergy forms a subject for reproach. It is a.s.serted by one held in 992 that scarcely a single person was to be found in Rome itself who knew the first elements of letters.[510] Not one priest of a thousand in Spain, about the age of Charlemagne, could address a common letter of salutation to another.[511] In England, Alfred declares that he could not recollect a single priest south of the Thames (the most civilized part of England), at the time of his accession, who understood the ordinary prayers, or could translate Latin into his mother tongue.[512]

Nor was this better in the time of Dunstan, when, it is said, none of the clergy knew how to write or translate a Latin letter.[513] The homilies which they preached were compiled for their use by some bishops, from former works of the same kind, or the writings of the fathers.

[Sidenote: Scarcity of books.]

This universal ignorance was rendered unavoidable, among other causes, by the scarcity of books, which could only be procured at an immense price. From the conquest of Alexandria by the Saracens at the beginning of the seventh century, when the Egyptian papyrus almost ceased to be imported into Europe, to the close of the eleventh, about which time the art of making paper from cotton rags seems to have been introduced, there were no materials for writing except parchment, a substance too expensive to be readily spared for mere purposes of literature.[514]

Hence an unfortunate practice gained ground, of erasing a ma.n.u.script in order to subst.i.tute another on the same skin. This occasioned the loss of many ancient authors, who have made way for the legends of saints, or other ecclesiastical rubbish.

[Sidenote: Want of eminent men in literature.]

If we would listen to some literary historians, we should believe that the darkest ages contained many individuals, not only distinguished among their contemporaries, but positively eminent for abilities and knowledge. A p.r.o.neness to extol every monk of whose production a few letters or a devotional treatise survives, every bishop of whom it is related that he composed homilies, runs through the laborious work of the Benedictines of St. Maur, the Literary History of France, and, in a less degree, is observable even in Tiraboschi, and in most books of this cla.s.s. Bede, Alcuin, Hincmar, Raban, and a number of inferior names, become real giants of learning in their uncritical panegyrics. But one might justly say that ignorance is the smallest defect of the writers of these dark ages. Several of them were tolerably acquainted with books; but that wherein they are uniformly deficient is original argument or expression. Almost every one is a compiler of sc.r.a.ps from the fathers, or from such semi-cla.s.sical authors as Boethius, Ca.s.siodorus, or Martia.n.u.s Capella.[515] Indeed I am not aware that there appeared more than two really considerable men in the republic of letters from the sixth to the middle of the eleventh century--John, surnamed Scotus or Erigena, a native of Ireland; and Gerbert, who became pope by the name of Silvester II.: the first endowed with a bold and acute metaphysical genius; the second excellent, for the time when he lived, in mathematical science and mechanical inventions.[516]

[Sidenote: Causes of the preservation of learning--religion.]

If it be demanded by what cause it happened that a few sparks of ancient learning survived throughout this long winter, we can only ascribe their preservation to the establishment of Christianity. Religion alone made a bridge, as it were, across the chaos, and has linked the two periods of ancient and modern civilization. Without this connecting principle, Europe might indeed have awakened to intellectual pursuits, and the genius of recent times needed not to be invigorated by the imitation of antiquity. But the memory of Greece and Rome would have been feebly preserved by tradition, and the monuments of those nations might have excited, on the return of civilization, that vague sentiment of speculation and wonder with which men now contemplate Persepolis or the Pyramids. It is not, however, from religion simply that we have derived this advantage, but from religion as it was modified in the dark ages.

Such is the complex reciprocation of good and evil in the dispensations of Providence, that we may a.s.sert, with only an apparent paradox, that, had religion been more pure, it would have been less permanent, and that Christianity has been preserved by means of its corruptions. The sole hope for literature depended on the Latin language; and I do not see why that should not have been lost, if three circ.u.mstances in the prevailing religious system, all of which we are justly accustomed to disapprove, had not conspired to maintain it--the papal supremacy, the monastic inst.i.tutions, and the use of a Latin liturgy. 1. A continual intercourse was kept up, in consequence of the first, between Rome and the several nations of Europe; her laws were received by the bishops, her legates presided in councils; so that a common language was as necessary in the church as it is at present in the diplomatic relations of kingdoms. 2.

Throughout the whole course of the middle ages there was no learning, and very little regularity of manners, among the parochial clergy.

Almost every distinguished man was either the member of a chapter or of a convent. The monasteries were subjected to strict rules of discipline, and held out, at the worst, more opportunities for study than the secular clergy possessed, and fewer for worldly dissipations. But their most important service was as secure repositories for books. All our ma.n.u.scripts have been preserved in this manner, and could hardly have descended to us by any other channel; at least there were intervals when I do not conceive that any royal or private libraries existed.[517] 3.

Monasteries, however, would probably have contributed very little towards the preservation of learning, if the Scriptures and the liturgy had been translated out of Latin when that language ceased to be intelligible. Every rational principle of religious wors.h.i.+p called for such a change; but it would have been made at the expense of posterity.

One might presume, if such refined conjectures were consistent with historical caution, that the more learned and sagacious ecclesiastics of those times, deploring the gradual corruption of the Latin tongue, and the danger of its absolute extinction, were induced to maintain it as a sacred language, and the depository, as it were, of that truth and that science which would be lost in the barbarous dialects of the vulgar.

But a simpler explanation is found in the radical dislike of innovation which is natural to an established clergy. Nor did they want as good pretexts, on the ground of convenience, as are commonly alleged by the opponents of reform. They were habituated to the Latin words of the church-service, which had become, by this a.s.sociation, the readiest instruments of devotion, and with the majesty of which the Romance jargon could bear no comparison. Their musical chants were adapted to these sounds, and their hymns depended, for metrical effect, on the marked accents and powerful rhymes which the Latin language affords. The vulgate Latin of the Bible was still more venerable. It was like a copy of a lost original; and a copy attested by one of the most eminent fathers, and by the general consent of the church. These are certainly no adequate excuses for keeping the people in ignorance; and the gross corruption of the middle ages is in a great degree a.s.signable to this policy. But learning, and consequently religion, have eventually derived from it the utmost advantage.

[Sidenote: Superst.i.tions.]

In the shadows of this universal ignorance a thousand superst.i.tions, like foul animals of night, were propagated and nourished. It would be very unsatisfactory to exhibit a few specimens of this odious brood, when the real character of those times is only to be judged by their acc.u.mulated mult.i.tude. In every age it would be easy to select proofs of irrational superst.i.tion, which, separately considered, seem to degrade mankind from its level in the creation; and perhaps the contemporaries of Swedenborg and Southcote have no right to look very contemptuously upon the fanaticism of their ancestors. There are many books from which a sufficient number of instances may be collected to show the absurdity and ignorance of the middle ages in this respect. I shall only mention two, as affording more general evidence than any local or obscure superst.i.tion. In the tenth century an opinion prevailed everywhere that the end of the world was approaching. Many charters begin with these words, "As the world is now drawing to its close." An army marching under the emperor Otho I. was so terrified by an eclipse of the sun, which it conceived to announce this consummation, as to disperse hastily on all sides. As this notion seems to have been founded on some confused theory of the millennium, it naturally died away when the seasons proceeded in the eleventh century with their usual regularity.[518] A far more remarkable and permanent superst.i.tion was the appeal to Heaven in judicial controversies, whether through the means of combat or of ordeal. The principle of these was the same; but in the former it was mingled with feelings independent of religion--the natural dictates of resentment in a brave man unjustly accused, and the sympathy of a warlike people with the display of skill and intrepidity.

These, in course of time, almost obliterated the primary character of judicial combat, and ultimately changed it into the modern duel, in which a.s.suredly there is no mixture of superst.i.tion.[519] But, in the various tests of innocence which were called ordeals, this stood undisguised and unqualified. It is not necessary to describe what is so well known--the ceremonies of trial by handling hot iron, by plunging the arm into boiling fluids, by floating or sinking in cold water, or by swallowing a piece of consecrated bread. It is observable that, as the interference of Heaven was relied upon as a matter of course, it seems to have been reckoned nearly indifferent whether such a test was adopted as must, humanly considered, absolve all the guilty, or one that must convict all the innocent. The ordeals of hot iron or water were, however, more commonly used; and it has been a perplexing question by what dexterity these tremendous proofs were eluded. They seem at least to have placed the decision of all judicial controversies in the hands of the clergy, who must have known the secret, whatever that might be, of satisfying the spectators that an accused person had held a ma.s.s of burning iron with impunity. For several centuries this mode of investigation was in great repute, though not without opposition from some eminent bishops. It does discredit to the memory of Charlemagne that he was one of its warmest advocates.[520] But the judicial combat, which indeed might be reckoned one species of ordeal, gradually put an end to the rest; and as the church acquired better notions of law, and a code of her own, she strenuously exerted herself against all these barbarous superst.i.tions.[521]

[Sidenote: Enthusiastic risings.]

But the religious ignorance of the middle ages sometimes burst out in ebullitions of epidemical enthusiasm, more remarkable than these superst.i.tious usages, though proceeding in fact from similar causes. For enthusiasm is little else than superst.i.tion put in motion, and is equally founded on a strong conviction of supernatural agency without any just conceptions of its nature. Nor has any denomination of Christians produced, or even sanctioned, more fanaticism than the church of Rome. These epidemical frenzies, however, to which I am alluding, were merely tumultuous, though certainly fostered by the creed of perpetual miracles which the clergy inculcated, and drawing a legitimate precedent for religious insurrection from the crusades. For these, among other evil consequences, seem to have princ.i.p.ally excited a wild fanaticism that did not sleep for several centuries.[522]

The first conspicuous appearance of it was in the reign of Philip Augustus, when the mercenary troops, dismissed from the pay of that prince and of Henry II., committed the greatest outrages in the south of France. One Durand, a carpenter, deluded it is said by a contrived appearance of the Virgin, put himself at the head of an army of the populace, in order to destroy these marauders. His followers were styled Brethren of the White Caps, from the linen coverings of their heads.

They bound themselves not to play at dice nor frequent taverns, to wear no affected clothing, to avoid perjury and vain swearing. After some successes over the plunderers, they went so far as to forbid the lords to take any dues from their va.s.sals, on pain of incurring the indignation of the brotherhood. It may easily be imagined that they were soon entirely discomfited, so that no one dared to own that he had belonged to them.[523]

During the captivity of St. Louis in Egypt, a more extensive and terrible ferment broke out in Flanders, and spread from thence over great part of France. An impostor declared himself commissioned by the Virgin to preach a crusade, not to the rich and n.o.ble, who for their pride had been rejected of G.o.d, but the poor. His disciples were called Pastoureaux, the simplicity of shepherds having exposed them more readily to this delusion. In a short time they were swelled by the confluence of abundant streams to a moving ma.s.s of a hundred thousand men, divided into companies, with banners bearing a cross and a lamb, and commanded by the impostor's lieutenants. He a.s.sumed a priestly character, preaching, absolving, annulling marriages. At Amiens, Bourges, Orleans, and Paris itself, he was received as a divine prophet.

Even the regent Blanche, for a time, was led away by the popular tide.

His main topic was reproach of the clergy for their idleness and corruption--a theme well adapted to the ears of the people, who had long been uttering similar strains of complaint. In some towns his followers ma.s.sacred the priests and plundered the monasteries. The government at length began to exert itself; and the public sentiment turning against the authors of so much confusion, this rabble was put to the sword or dissipated.[524] Seventy years afterwards an insurrection, almost exactly parallel to this, burst out under the same pretence of a crusade. These insurgents, too, bore the name of Pastoureaux, and their short career was distinguished by a general ma.s.sacre of the Jews.[525]

But though the contagion of fanaticism spreads much more rapidly among the populace, and in modern times is almost entirely confined to it, there were examples, in the middle ages, of an epidemical religious lunacy, from which no cla.s.s was exempt. One of these occurred about the year 1260, when a mult.i.tude of every rank, age, and s.e.x, marching two by two in procession along the streets and public roads, mingled groans and dolorous hymns with the sound of leathern scourges which they exercised upon their naked backs. From this mark of penitence, which, as it bears at least all the appearance of sincerity, is not uncommon in the church of Rome, they acquired the name of Flagellants. Their career began, it is said, at Perugia, whence they spread over the rest of Italy, and into Germany and Poland. As this spontaneous fanaticism met with no encouragement from the church, and was prudently discountenanced by the civil magistrate, it died away in a very short time.[526] But it is more surprising that, after almost a century and a half of continual improvement and illumination, another irruption of popular extravagance burst out under circ.u.mstances exceedingly similar.[527] "In the month of August 1399," says a contemporary historian, "there appeared all over Italy a description of persons, called Bianchi, from the white linen vestment that they wore. They pa.s.sed from province to province, and from city to city, crying out Misericordia! with their faces covered and bent towards the ground, and bearing before them a great crucifix. Their constant song was Stabat Mater dolorosa. This lasted three months; and whoever did not attend their procession was reputed a heretic."[528]

Almost every Italian writer of the time takes notice of these Bianchi; and Muratori ascribes a remarkable reformation of manners (though certainly a very transient one) to their influence.[529] Nor were they confined to Italy, though no such meritorious exertions are imputed to them in other countries. In France their practice of covering the face gave such opportunity to crimes as to be prohibited by the government;[530] and we have an act on the rolls of the first parliament of Henry IV., forbidding any one, "under pain of forfeiting all his worth, to receive the new sect in white clothes, pretending to great sanct.i.ty," which had recently appeared in foreign parts.[531]

[Sidenote: Pretended miracles.]

The devotion of the mult.i.tude was wrought to this feverish height by the prevailing system of the clergy. In that singular polytheism, which had been grafted on Christianity, nothing was so conspicuous as the belief of perpetual miracles--if indeed those could properly be termed miracles which, by their constant recurrence, even upon trifling occasions, might seem within the ordinary dispensations of Providence. These superst.i.tions arose in what are called primitive times, and are certainly no part of popery, if in that word we include any especial reference to the Roman see. But successive ages of ignorance swelled the delusion to such an enormous pitch, that it was as difficult to trace, we may say without exaggeration, the real religion of the Gospel in the popular belief of the laity, as the real history of Charlemagne in the romance of Turpin. It must not be supposed that these absurdities were produced, as well as nourished, by ignorance. In most cases they were the work of deliberate imposture. Every cathedral or monastery had its tutelar saint, and every saint his legend, fabricated in order to enrich the churches under his protection, by exaggerating his virtues, his miracles, and consequently his power of serving those who paid liberally for his patronage.[532] Many of those saints were imaginary persons; sometimes a blundered inscription added a name to the calendar, and sometimes, it is said, a heathen G.o.d was surprised at the company to which he was introduced, and the rites with which he was honoured.[533]

[Sidenote: Mischiefs arising from this superst.i.tion.]

It would not be consonant to the nature of the present work to dwell upon the erroneousness of this religion; but its effect upon the moral and intellectual character of mankind was so prominent, that no one can take a philosophical view of the middle ages without attending more than is at present fas.h.i.+onable to their ecclesiastical history. That the exclusive wors.h.i.+p of saints, under the guidance of an artful though illiterate priesthood, degraded the understanding and begot a stupid credulity and fanaticism, is sufficiently evident. But it was also so managed as to loosen the bonds of religion and pervert the standard of morality. If these inhabitants of heaven had been represented as stern avengers, accepting no slight atonement for heavy offences, and prompt to interpose their control over natural events for the detection and punishment of guilt, the creed, however impossible to be reconciled with experience, might have proved a salutary check upon a rude people, and would at least have had the only palliation that can be offered for a religious imposture, its political expediency. In the legends of those times, on the contrary, they appeared only as perpetual intercessors, so good-natured and so powerful, that a sinner was more emphatically foolish than he is usually represented if he failed to secure himself against any bad consequences. For a little attention to the saints, and especially to the Virgin, with due liberality to their servants, had saved, he would be told, so many of the most atrocious delinquents, that he might equitably presume upon similar luck in his own case.

This monstrous superst.i.tion grew to its height in the twelfth century.

For the advance that learning then made was by no means sufficient to counteract the vast increase of monasteries, and the opportunities which the greater cultivation of modern languages afforded for the diffusion of legendary tales. It was now, too, that the veneration paid to the Virgin, in early times very great, rose to an almost exclusive idolatry.

It is difficult to conceive the stupid absurdity and the disgusting profaneness of those stories which were invented by the monks to do her honour. A few examples have been thrown into a note.[534]

[Sidenote: Not altogether unmixed with good.]

Whether the superst.i.tion of these dark ages had actually pa.s.sed that point when it becomes more injurious to public morals and the welfare of society than the entire absence of all religious notions is a very complex question, upon which I would by no means p.r.o.nounce an affirmative decision.[535] A salutary influence, breathed from the spirit of a more genuine religion, often displayed itself among the corruptions of a degenerate superst.i.tion. In the original principles of monastic orders, and the rules by which they ought at least to have been governed, there was a character of meekness, self-denial, and charity that could not wholly be effaced. These virtues, rather than justice and veracity, were inculcated by the religious ethics of the middle ages; and in the relief of indigence it may, upon the whole, be a.s.serted that the monks did not fall short of their profession.[536] This eleemosynary spirit indeed remarkably distinguishes both Christianity and Mohammedism from the moral systems of Greece and Rome, which were very deficient in general humanity and sympathy with suffering. Nor do we find in any single instance during ancient times, if I mistake not, those public inst.i.tutions for the alleviation of human miseries which have long been scattered over every part of Europe. The virtues of the monks a.s.sumed a still higher character when they stood forward as protectors of the oppressed. By an established law, founded on very ancient superst.i.tion, the precincts of a church afforded sanctuary to accused persons. Under a due administration of justice this privilege would have been simply and constantly mischievous, as we properly consider it to be in those countries where it still subsists. But in the rapine and tumult of the middle ages the right of sanctuary might as often be a s.h.i.+eld to innocence as an immunity to crime. We can hardly regret, in reflecting on the desolating violence which prevailed, that there should have been some green spots in the wilderness where the feeble and the persecuted could find refuge. How must this right have enhanced the veneration for religious inst.i.tutions! How gladly must the victims of internal warfare have turned their eyes from the baronial castle, the dread and scourge of the neighbourhood, to those venerable walls within which not even the clamour of arms could be heard to disturb the chant of holy men and the sacred service of the altar! The protection of the sanctuary was never withheld. A son of Chilperic king of France having fled to that of Tours, his father threatened to ravage all the lands of the church unless they gave him up. Gregory the historian, bishop of the city, replied in the name of his clergy that Christians could not be guilty of an act unheard of among pagans. The king was as good as his word, and did not spare the estate of the church, but dared not infringe its privileges. He had indeed previously addressed a letter to St. Martin, which was laid on his tomb in the church, requesting permission to take away his son by force; but the honest saint returned no answer.[537]

[Sidenote: Vices of the monks and clergy.]

The virtues indeed, or supposed virtues, which had induced a credulous generation to enrich so many of the monastic orders, were not long preserved. We must reject, in the excess of our candour, all testimonies that the middle ages present, from the solemn declaration of councils and reports of judicial inquiry to the casual evidence of common fame in the ballad or romance, if we would extenuate the general corruption of those inst.i.tutions. In vain new rules of discipline were devised, or the old corrected by reforms. Many of their worst vices grew so naturally out of their mode of life, that a stricter discipline could have no tendency to extirpate them. Such were the frauds I have already noticed, and the whole scheme of hypocritical austerities. Their extreme licentiousness was sometimes hardly concealed by the cowl of sanct.i.ty. I know not by what right we should disbelieve the reports of the visitation under Henry VIII., entering as they do into a mult.i.tude of specific charges both probable in their nature and consonant to the unanimous opinion of the world.[538] Doubtless there were many communities, as well as individuals, to whom none of these reproaches would apply. In the very best view, however, that can be taken of monasteries, their existence is deeply injurious to the general morals of a nation. They withdraw men of pure conduct and conscientious principles from the exercise of social duties, and leave the common ma.s.s of human vice more unmixed. Such men are always inclined to form schemes of ascetic perfection, which can only be fulfilled in retirement; but in the strict rules of monastic life, and under the influence of a grovelling superst.i.tion, their virtue lost all its usefulness. They fell implicitly into the snares of crafty priests, who made submission to the church not only the condition but the measure of all praise. "He is a good Christian," says Eligius, a saint of the seventh century, "who comes frequently to church; who presents an oblation that it may be offered to G.o.d on the altar; who does not taste the fruits of his land till he has consecrated a part of them to G.o.d; who can repeat the Creed or the Lord's Prayer. Redeem your souls from punishment while it is in your power; offer presents and t.i.thes to churches, light candles in holy places, as much as you can afford, come more frequently to church, implore the protection of the saints; for, if you observe these things, you may come with security at the day of judgment to say, Give unto us, Lord, for we have given unto thee."[539]

With such a definition of the Christian character, it is not surprising that any fraud and injustice became honourable when it contributed to the riches of the clergy and glory of their order. Their frauds, however, were less atrocious than the savage bigotry with which they maintained their own system and infected the laity. In Saxony, Poland, Lithuania, and the countries on the Baltic Sea, a sanguinary persecution extirpated the original idolatry. The Jews were everywhere the objects of popular insult and oppression, frequently of a general ma.s.sacre, though protected, it must be confessed, by the laws of the church, as well as in general by temporal princes.[540] Of the crusades it is only necessary to repeat that they began in a tremendous eruption of fanaticism, and ceased only because that spirit could not be constantly kept alive. A similar influence produced the devastation of Languedoc, the stakes and scaffolds of the Inquisition, and rooted in the religious theory of Europe those maxims of intolerance which it has so slowly, and still perhaps so imperfectly, renounced.

From no other cause are the dictates of sound reason and the moral sense of mankind more confused than by this narrow theological bigotry. For as it must often happen that men to whom the arrogance of a prevailing faction imputes religious error are exemplary for their performance of moral duties, these virtues gradually cease to make their proper impression, and are depreciated by the rigidly orthodox as of little value in comparison with just opinions in speculative points. On the other hand, vices are forgiven to those who are zealous in the faith. I speak too gently, and with a view to later times; in treating of the dark ages it would be more correct to say that crimes were commended.

Thus Gregory of Tours, a saint of the church, after relating a most atrocious story of Clovis--the murder of a prince whom he had previously instigated to parricide--continues the sentence: "For G.o.d daily subdued his enemies to his hand, and increased his kingdom; because he walked before him in uprightness, and did what was pleasing in his eyes."[541]

[Sidenote: Commutation of penances.]

It is a frequent complaint of ecclesiastical writers that the rigorous penances imposed by the primitive canons upon delinquents were commuted in a laxer state of discipline for less severe atonements, and ultimately indeed for money.[542] We must not, however, regret that the clergy should have lost the power of compelling men to abstain fifteen years from eating meat, or to stand exposed to public derision at the gates of a church. Such implicit submissiveness could only have produced superst.i.tion and hypocrisy among the laity, and prepared the road for a tyranny not less oppressive than that of India or ancient Egypt. Indeed the two earliest instances of ecclesiastical interference with the rights of sovereigns--namely, the deposition of Wamba in Spain and that of Louis the Debonair--were founded upon this austere system of penitence. But it is true that a repentance redeemed by money or performed by a subst.i.tute could have no salutary effect on the sinner; and some of the modes of atonement which the church most approved were particularly hostile to public morals. None was so usual as pilgrimage, whether to Jerusalem or Rome, which were the great objects of devotion; or to the shrine of some national saint--a James of Compostella, a David, or a Thomas a Becket. This licensed vagrancy was naturally productive of dissoluteness, especially among the women. Our English ladies, in their zeal to obtain the spiritual treasures of Rome, are said to have relaxed the necessary caution about one that was in their own custody.[543] There is a capitulary of Charlemagne directed against itinerant penitents, who probably considered the iron chain around their necks an expiation of future as well as past offences.[544]

The crusades may be considered as martial pilgrimages on an enormous scale, and their influence upon general morality seems to have been altogether pernicious. Those who served under the cross would not indeed have lived very virtuously at home; but the confidence in their own merits, which the principle of such expeditions inspired, must have aggravated the ferocity and dissoluteness of their ancient habits.

Several historians attest the depravation of morals which existed both among the crusaders and in the states formed out of their conquests.[545]

[Sidenote: Want of law.]

While religion had thus lost almost every quality that renders it conducive to the good order of society, the control of human law was still less efficacious. But this part of my subject has been antic.i.p.ated in other pa.s.sages of the present work; and I shall only glance at the want of regular subordination, which rendered legislative and judicial edicts a dead letter, and at the incessant private warfare, rendered legitimate by the usages of most continental nations. Such hostilities, conducted as they must usually have been with injustice and cruelty, could not fail to produce a degree of rapacious ferocity in the general disposition of a people. And this certainly was among the characteristics of every nation for many centuries.

[Sidenote: Degradation of morals.]

It is easy to infer the degradation of society during the dark ages from the state of religion and police. Certainly there are a few great landmarks of moral distinctions so deeply fixed in human nature, that no degree of rudeness can destroy, nor even any superst.i.tion remove them.

Wherever an extreme corruption has in any particular society defaced these sacred archetypes that are given to guide and correct the sentiments of mankind, it is in the course of Providence that the society itself should perish by internal discord or the sword of a conqueror. In the worst ages of Europe there must have existed the seeds of social virtues, of fidelity, grat.i.tude, and disinterestedness, sufficient at least to preserve the public approbation of more elevated principles than the public conduct displayed. Without these imperishable elements there could have been no restoration of the moral energies; nothing upon which reformed faith, revived knowledge, renewed law, could exercise their nouris.h.i.+ng influences. But history, which reflects only the more prominent features of society, cannot exhibit the virtues that were scarcely able to struggle through the general depravation. I am aware that a tone of exaggerated declamation is at all times usual with those who lament the vices of their own time; and writers of the middle ages are in abundant need of allowance on this score. Nor is it reasonable to found any inferences as to the general condition of society on single instances of crimes, however atrocious, especially when committed under the influence of violent pa.s.sion. Such enormities are the fruit of every age, and none is to be measured by them. They make, however, a strong impression at the moment, and thus find a place in contemporary annals, from which modern writers are commonly glad to extract whatever may seem to throw light upon manners. I shall, therefore, abstain from producing any particular cases of dissoluteness or cruelty from the records of the middle ages, lest I should weaken a general proposition by offering an imperfect induction to support it, and shall content myself with observing that times to which men sometimes appeal, as to a golden period, were far inferior in every moral comparison to those in which we are thrown.[546] One crime, as more universal and characteristic than others, may be particularly noticed. All writers agree in the prevalence of judicial perjury. It seems to have almost invariably escaped human punishment; and the barriers of superst.i.tion were in this, as in every other instance, too feeble to prevent the commission of crimes. Many of the proofs by ordeal were applied to witnesses as well as those whom they accused; and undoubtedly trial by combat was preserved in a considerable degree on account of the difficulty experienced in securing a just cause against the perjury of witnesses. Robert king of France, perceiving how frequently men forswore themselves upon the relics of saints, and less shocked apparently at the crime than at the sacrilege, caused an empty reliquary of crystal to be used, that those who touched it might incur less guilt in fact, though not in intention. Such an anecdote characterizes both the man and the times.[547]

[Sidenote: Love of field sports.]

The favourite diversions of the middle ages, in the intervals of war, were those of hunting and hawking. The former must in all countries be a source of pleasure; but it seems to have been enjoyed in moderation by the Greeks and the Romans. With the northern invaders, however, it was rather a predominant appet.i.te than an amus.e.m.e.nt; it was their pride and their ornament, the theme of their songs, the object of their laws, and the business of their lives. Falconry, unknown as a diversion to the ancients, became from the fourth century an equally delightful occupation.[548] From the Salic and other barbarous codes of the fifth century to the close of the period under our review, every age would furnish testimony to the ruling pa.s.sion for these two species of chace, or, as they were sometimes called, the mysteries of woods and rivers. A knight seldom stirred from his house without a falcon on his wrist or a greyhound that followed him. Thus are Harold and his attendants represented, in the famous tapestry of Bayeux. And in the monuments of those who died anywhere but on the field of battle, it is usual to find the greyhound lying at their feet, or the bird upon their wrists. Nor are the tombs of ladies without their falcon; for this diversion, being of less danger and fatigue than the chace, was shared by the delicate s.e.x.[549]

It was impossible to repress the eagerness with which the clergy, especially after the barbarians were tempted by rich bishoprics to take upon them the sacred functions, rushed into these secular amus.e.m.e.nts.

Prohibitions of councils, however frequently repeated, produced little effect. In some instances a particular monastery obtained a dispensation. Thus that of St. Denis, in 774, represented to Charlemagne that the flesh of hunted animals was salutary for sick monks, and that their skins would serve to bind the books in the library.[550] Reasons equally cogent, we may presume, could not be wanting in every other case. As the bishops and abbots were perfectly feudal lords, and often did not scruple to lead their va.s.sals into the field, it was not to be expected that they should debar themselves of an innocent pastime. It was hardly such indeed, when practised at the expense of others.

Alexander III., by a letter to the clergy of Berks.h.i.+re, dispenses with their keeping the archdeacon in dogs and hawks during his visitation.[551] This season gave jovial ecclesiastics an opportunity of trying different countries. An archbishop of York, in 1321, seems to have carried a train of two hundred persons, who were maintained at the expense of the abbeys on his road, and to have hunted with a pack of hounds from parish to parish.[552] The third council of Lateran, in 1180, had prohibited this amus.e.m.e.nt on such journeys, and restricted bishops to a train of forty or fifty horses.[553]

Though hunting had ceased to be a necessary means of procuring food, it was a very convenient resource, on which the wholesomeness and comfort, as well as the luxury, of the table depended. Before the natural pastures were improved, and new kinds of fodder for cattle discovered, it was impossible to maintain the summer stock during the cold season.

Hence a portion of it was regularly slaughtered and salted for winter provision. We may suppose that, when no alternative was offered but these salted meats, even the leanest venison was devoured with relish.

There was somewhat more excuse therefore for the severity with which the lords of forests and manors preserved the beasts of chace than if they had been considered as merely objects of sport. The laws relating to preservation of game were in every country uncommonly rigorous. They formed in England that odious system of forest laws which distinguished the tyranny of our Norman kings. Capital punishment for killing a stag or wild boar was frequent, and perhaps warranted by law, until the charter of John.[554] The French code was less severe, but even Henry IV. enacted the pain of death against the repeated offence of chasing deer in the royal forests. The privilege of hunting was reserved to the n.o.bility till the reign of Louis IX., who extended it in some degree to persons of lower birth.[555]

This excessive pa.s.sion for the sports of the field produced those evils which are apt to result from it--a strenuous idleness which disdained all useful occupations, and an oppressive spirit towards the peasantry.

The devastation committed under the pretence of destroying wild animals, which had been already protected in their depredations, is noticed in serious authors, and has also been the topic of popular ballads.[556]