View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 27

There was a man whose occupation was highway robbery; but whenever he set out on any such expedition, he was careful to address a prayer to the Virgin. Taken at last, he was sentenced to be hanged. While the cord was round his neck he made his usual prayer, nor was it ineffectual. The Virgin supported his feet "with her white hands," and thus kept him alive two days, to the no small surprise of the executioner, who attempted to complete his work with strokes of a sword. But the same invisible hand turned aside the weapon, and the executioner was compelled to release his victim, acknowledging the miracle. The thief retired into a monastery, which is always the termination of these deliverances.

At the monastery of St. Peter, near Cologne, lived a monk perfectly dissolute and irreligious, but very devout towards the Apostle.

Unluckily he died suddenly without confession. The fiends came as usual to seize his soul. St. Peter, vexed at losing so faithful a votary, besought G.o.d to admit the monk into Paradise. His prayer was refused; and though the whole body of saints, apostles, angels, and martyrs joined at his request to make interest, it was of no avail. In this extremity he had recourse to the Mother of G.o.d. "Fair lady," he said, "my monk is lost if you do not interfere for him; but what is impossible for us will be but sport to you, if you please to a.s.sist us. Your Son, if you but speak a word, must yield, since it is in your power to command him." The Queen Mother a.s.sented, and, followed by all the virgins, moved towards her Son. He who had himself given the precept, Honour thy father and thy mother, no sooner saw his own parent approach than he rose to receive her; and taking her by the hand inquired her wishes. The rest may be easily conjectured. Compare the gross stupidity, or rather the atrocious impiety of this tale, with the pure theism of the Arabian Nights, and judge whether the Deity was better wors.h.i.+pped at Cologne or at Bagdad.

It is unnecessary to multiply instances of this kind. In one tale the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped from the convent, and performs her duties ten years, till, tired of a libertine life, she returns unsuspected. This was in consideration of her having never omitted to say an Ave as she pa.s.sed the Virgin's image. In another, a gentleman, in love with a handsome widow, consents, at the instigation of a sorcerer, to renounce G.o.d and the saints, but cannot be persuaded to give up the Virgin, well knowing that if he kept her his friend he should obtain pardon through her means. Accordingly she inspired his mistress with so much pa.s.sion that he married her within a few days.

These tales, it may be said, were the production of ignorant men, and circulated among the populace. Certainly they would have excited contempt and indignation in the more enlightened clergy. But I am concerned with the general character of religious notions among the people: and for this it is better to take such popular compositions, adapted to what the laity already believed, than the writings of comparatively learned and reflecting men. However, stories of the same cast are frequent in the monkish historians. Matthew Paris, one of the most respectable of that cla.s.s, and no friend to the covetousness or relaxed lives of the priesthood, tells us of a knight who was on the point of being d.a.m.ned for frequenting tournaments, but saved by a donation he had formerly made to the Virgin. p. 290.

[535] This hesitation about so important a question is what I would by no means repeat. Beyond every doubt, the evils of superst.i.tion in the middle ages, though separately considered very serious, are not to be weighed against the benefits of the religion with which they were so mingled. The fas.h.i.+on of the eighteenth century, among protestants especially, was to exaggerate the crimes and follies of mediaeval ages--perhaps I have fallen into it a little too much; in the present we seem more in danger of extenuating them. We still want an inflexible impartiality in all that borders on ecclesiastical history, which, I believe, has never been displayed on an extensive scale. A more captivating book can hardly be named than the Mores Catholici of Mr.

Digby; and it contains certainly a great deal of truth; but the general effect is that of a _mirage_, which confuses and deludes the sight. If those "ages of faith" were as n.o.ble, as pure, as full of human kindness, as he has delineated them, we have had a bad exchange in the centuries since the Reformation. And those who gaze at Mr. Digby's enchantments will do well to consider how they can better escape this consequence than he has done. Dr. Maitland's Letters on the Dark Ages, and a great deal more that comes from the pseudo-Anglican or Anglo-catholic press, converge to the same end; a strong sympathy with the mediaeval church, a great indulgence to its errors, and indeed a reluctance to admit them, with a corresponding estrangement from all that has pa.s.sed in the last three centuries. [1848.]

[536] I am inclined to acquiesce in this general opinion; yet an account of expenses at Bolton Abbey, about the reign of Edward II., published in Whitaker's History of Craven, p. 51, makes a very scanty show of almsgiving in this opulent monastery. Much, however, was no doubt given in victuals. But it is a strange error to conceive that English monasteries before the dissolution fed the indigent part of the nation, and gave that general relief which the poor-laws are intended to afford.

Piers Plowman is indeed a satirist; but he plainly charges the monks with want of charity.

Little had lordes to do to give landes from their heires To religious that have no ruthe though it raine on their aultres; In many places there the parsons be themself at ease, Of the poor they have no pitie and that is their poor charitie.

[537] Schmidt, Hist. des Allemands, t. i. p. 374.

[538] See Fosbrooke's British Monachism (vol. i. p. 127, and vol. ii. p.

8) for a farrago of evidence against the monks. Clemangis, a French theologian of considerable eminence at the beginning of the fifteenth century, speaks of nunneries in the following terms:--Quid aliud sunt hoc tempore puellarum monasteria, nisi quaedam non dico Dei sanctuaria, sed Veneris execranda prostibula, sed lascivorum et impudicorum juvenum ad libidines explendas receptacula? ut idem sit hodie puellam velare, quod et publice ad scortandum exponere. William Prynne, from whose records (vol. ii. p. 229) I have taken this pa.s.sage, quotes it on occasion of a charter of king John, banis.h.i.+ng thirty nuns of Ambresbury into different convents, propter vitae suae turpitudinem.

[539] Mosheim, cent. vii. c. 3. Robertson has quoted this pa.s.sage, to whom perhaps I am immediately indebted for it. Hist. Charles V., vol. i.

note 11.

I leave this pa.s.sage as it stood in former editions. But it is due to justice that this extract from Eligius should never be quoted in future, as the translator of Mosheim has induced Robertson and many others, as well as myself, to do. Dr. Lingard has pointed out that it is a very imperfect representation of what Eligius has written; for though he has dwelled on these devotional practices as parts of the definition of a good Christian, he certainly adds a great deal more to which no one could object. Yet no one is, in fact, to blame for this misrepresentation, which, being contained in popular books, has gone forth so widely.

Mosheim, as will appear on referring to him, did not quote the pa.s.sage as containing a complete definition of the Christian character. His translator, Maclaine, mistook this, and wrote, in consequence, the severe note which Robertson has copied. I have seen the whole pa.s.sage in d'Achery's Spicilegium (vol. v. p. 213, 4to. edit.), and can testify that Dr. Lingard is perfectly correct. Upon the whole, this is a striking proof how dangerous it is to take any authorities at second-hand.--_Note to Fourth Edition._ Much clamour has been made about the mistake of Maclaine, which was innocent and not unnatural. It has been commented upon, particularly by Dr. Arnold, as a proof of the risk we run of misrepresenting authors by quoting them at second-hand. And this is perfectly true, and ought to be constantly remembered. But, so long as we acknowledge the immediate source of our quotation, no censure is due, since in works of considerable extent this use of secondary authorities is absolutely indispensable, not to mention the frequent difficulty of procuring access to original authors [1848.]

[540] Mr. Turner has collected many curious facts relative to the condition of the Jews, especially in England. Hist. of England, vol. ii.

p. 95. Others may be found dispersed in Velly's History of France; and many in the Spanish writers, Mariana and Zurita. The following are from Vaissette's History of Languedoc. It was the custom at Toulouse to give a blow on the face to a Jew every Easter; this was commuted in the twelfth century for a tribute. t. ii. p. 151. At Beziers another usage prevailed, that of attacking the Jews' houses with stones from Palm Sunday to Easter. No other weapon was to be used; but it generally produced bloodshed. The populace were regularly instigated to the a.s.sault by a sermon from the bishop. At length a prelate wiser than the rest abolished this ancient practice, but not without receiving a good sum from the Jews. p. 485.

[541] Greg. Tur. 1. ii. c. 40. Of Theodebert, grandson of Clovis, the same historian says, Magnum se et in omni bonitate praecipuum reddidit.

In the next paragraph we find a story of his having two wives, and looking so tenderly on the daughter of one of them, that her mother tossed her over a bridge into the river. 1. iii. c. 25. This indeed is a trifle to the pa.s.sage in the text. There are continual proofs of immorality in the monkish historians. In the history of Ramsey Abbey, one of our best doc.u.ments for Anglo-Saxon times, we have an anecdote of a bishop who made a Danish n.o.bleman drunk, that he might cheat him of an estate, which is told with much approbation. Gale, Script. Anglic. t. i.

p. 441. Walter de Hemingford recounts with excessive delight the well-known story of the Jews who were persuaded by the captain of their vessel to walk on the sands at low water, till the rising tide drowned them; and adds that the captain was both pardoned and rewarded for it by the king, gratiam promeruit et praemium. This is a mistake, inasmuch as he was hanged; but it exhibits the character of the historian, Hemingford, p. 21.

[542] Fleury, Troisieme Discours sur l'Histoire Ecclesiastique.

[543] Henry, Hist. of England, vol. ii. c. 7.

[544] Du Cange, v. Peregrinatio. Non sinantur vagari isti nudi c.u.m ferro, qui dic.u.n.t se data poenitentia ire vagantes. Melius videtur, ut si aliquod inconsuetum et capitale crimen commiserint, in uno loco permaneant laborantes et servientes et poenitentiam agentes, secundum quod canonice iis impositum sit.

[545] I. de Vitriaco, in Gesta Dei per Francos, t. i.; Villani, 1. vii.

c. 144.

[546] Henry has taken pains in drawing a picture, not very favourable, of Anglo-Saxon manners. Book II. chap. 7. This perhaps is the best chapter, as the volume is the best volume, of his unequal work. His account of the Anglo-Saxons is derived in a great degree from William of Malmsbury, who does not spare them. Their civil history, indeed, and their laws, speak sufficiently against the character of that people. But the Normans had little more to boast of in respect of moral correctness.

Their luxurious and dissolute habits are as much noticed as their insolence. Vid. Ordericus Vitalis, p. 602; Johann. Sarisburiensis Policraticus, p. 194; Velly, Hist. de France, t. iii. p. 59. The state of manners in France under the first two races of kings, and in Italy both under the Lombards and the subsequent dynasties, may be collected from their histories, their laws, and those miscellaneous facts which books of every description contain. Neither Velly, nor Muratori, Dissert. 23, are so satisfactory as we might desire.

[547] Velly, Hist. de France, t. ii. p. 335. It has been observed, that Quid mores sine legibus? is as just a question as that of Horace; and that bad laws must produce bad morals. The strange practice of requiring numerous compurgators to prove the innocence of an accused person had a most obvious tendency to increase perjury.

[548] Muratori, Dissert. 23, t. i. p. 306 (Italian); Beckman's Hist. of Inventions, vol. i. p. 319; Vie privee des Francais, t. ii. p. 1.

[549] Vie privee des Francais, t. i. p. 320; t. ii. p. 11.

[550] Ibid. t. i. p. 324.

[551] Rymer, t. i. p. 61.

[552] Whitaker's Hist. of Craven, p. 340, and of Whalley, p. 171.

[553] Velly, Hist. de France, t. iii. p. 236.

[554] John of Salisbury inveighs against the game-laws of his age, with an odd transition from the Gospel to the Pandects. Nec veriti sunt hominem pro una bestiola perdere, quem unigentius Dei Filius sanguine redemit suo. Quae ferae naturae sunt, et de jure occupantium fiunt, sibi audet humana temeritas vindicare, &c. Polycraticon, p. 18.

[555] Le Grand, Vie privee des Francais, t. i. p. 325.

[556] For the injuries which this people sustained from the seigniorial rights of the chace, in the eleventh century, see the Recueil des Historiens, in the valuable preface to the eleventh volume, p. 181. This continued to be felt in France down to the revolution, to which it did not perhaps a little contribute. (See Young's Travels in France.) The monstrous privilege of free-warren (monstrous, I mean, when not originally founded upon the property of the soil) is recognised by our own laws; though, in this age, it is not often that a court and jury will sustain its exercise. Sir Walter Scott's ballad of the Wild Huntsman, from a German original, is well known; and, I believe, there are several others in that country not dissimilar in subject.

[557] Muratori, Dissert. 21. This dissertation contains ample evidence of the wretched state of culture in Italy, at least in the northern parts, both before the irruption of the barbarians, and, in a much greater degree, under the Lombard kings.

[558] Schmidt, Hist. des Allem. t. i. p. 408. The following pa.s.sage seems to ill.u.s.trate Schmidt's account of German villages in the ninth century, though relating to a different age and country. "A toft," says Dr. Whitaker, "is a homestead in a village, so called from the small tufts of maple, elm, ash, and other wood, with which dwelling-houses were anciently overhung. Even now it is impossible to enter Craven without being struck with the insulated homesteads, surrounded by their little garths, and overhung with tufts of trees. These are the genuine tofts and crofts of our ancestors, with the subst.i.tution only of stone for the wooden crocks and thatched roofs of antiquity." Hist. of Craven, p. 380.

[559] It is laid down in the Speculum Saxonic.u.m, a collection of feudal customs which prevailed over most of Germany, that no one might have a separate pasture for his cattle unless he possessed three mansi. Du Cange, v. Mansus. There seems to have been a price paid, I suppose to the lord, for agistment in the common pasture.

[560] The only mention of a manufacture, as early as the ninth or tenth centuries, that I remember to have met with, is in Schmidt, t. ii. p.

146, who says that cloths were exported from Friesland to England and other parts. He quotes no authority, but I am satisfied that he has not advanced the fact gratuitously.

[561] Schmidt, t. i. p. 411; t. ii. p. 146.

[562] Du Cange, Pedagium, Pontatic.u.m, Teloneum, Mercatum, Stallagium, Lastagium, &c.

[563] Baluz. Capit. p. 621 et alibi.

[564] Ut nullus cogatur ad pontem ire ad fluvium transeundum propter telonei causas quando ille in alio loco compendiosius illud flumen transire potest. p. 764 et alibi.

[565] Eadmer apud Recueil des Historiens des Gaules, t. xi. preface, p.

192. Pro ritu illius loci, a domino terrae captivitati addicitur.

[566] Heeren has frequently referred to a work published in 1789, by Marini, int.i.tled, Storia civile e politica del Commerzio de' Veneziani, which casts a new light upon the early relations of Venice with the East. Of this book I know nothing; but a memoir by de Guignes, in the thirty-seventh volume of the Academy of Inscriptions, on the commerce of France with the East before the crusades, is singularly unproductive; the fault of the subject, not of the author.

[567] There is an odd pa.s.sage in Luitprand's relation of his emba.s.sy from the Emperor Otho to Nicephorus Phocas. The Greeks making a display of their dress, he told them that in Lombardy the common people wore as good clothes as they. How, they said, can you procure them? Through the Venetian and Amalfitan dealers, he replied, who gain their subsistence by selling them to us. The foolish Greeks were very angry, and declared that any dealer presuming to export their fine clothes should be flogged, Luitprandi Opera, p. 155, edit. Antwerp. 1640.

[568] Baluz. Capitul. p. 775. One of the main advantages which the Christian nations possessed over the Saracens was the coat of mail, and other defensive armour; so that this prohibition was founded upon very good political reasons.

[569] Schmidt, Hist. des Allem, t. ii. p. 146; Heeren, sur l'Influence des Croisades, p. 316. In Baluze we find a law of Carloman, brother to Charlemagne: Ut mancipia Christiana paganis non vendantur. Capitularia, t. i. p. 150, vide quoque, p. 361.

[570] William of Malmsbury accuses the Anglo-Saxon n.o.bility of selling their female servants, even when pregnant by them, as slaves to foreigners, p. 102. I hope there were not many of these Yaricoes; and should not perhaps have given credit to an historian rather prejudiced against the English, if I had not found too much authority for the general practice. In the canons of a council at London in 1102 we read, Let no one from henceforth presume to carry on that wicked traffic by which men of England have hitherto been sold like brute animals.

Wilkins's Concilia, t. i. p. 383. And Giraldus Cambrensis says that the English before the Conquest were generally in the habit of selling their children and other relations to be slaves in Ireland, without having even the pretext of distress or famine, till the Irish, in a national synod, agreed to emanc.i.p.ate all the English slaves in the kingdom. Id.

p. 471. This seems to have been designed to take away all pretext for the threatened invasion of Henry II. Lyttelton, vol. iii. p. 70.