View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 30

During the last century a very laudable industry has been shown by antiquaries in the publication of account-books belonging to private persons, registers of expenses in convents, returns of markets, valuations of goods, tavern-bills, and in short every doc.u.ment, however trifling in itself, by which this important subject can be ill.u.s.trated.

A sufficient number of such authorities, proving the ordinary tenor of prices rather than any remarkable deviations from it, are the true basis of a table, by which all changes in the value of money should be measured. I have little doubt but that such a table might be constructed from the data we possess with tolerable exactness, sufficient at least to supersede one often quoted by political economists, but which appears to be founded upon very superficial and erroneous inquiries.[716]

It is by no means required that I should here offer such a table of values, which, as to every country except England, I have no means of constructing, and which, even as to England, would be subject to many difficulties.[717] But a reader unaccustomed to these investigations ought to have some a.s.sistance in comparing the prices of ancient times with those of his own. I will therefore, without attempting to ascend very high, for we have really no sufficient data as to the period immediately subsequent to the Conquest, much less that which preceded, endeavour at a sort of approximation for the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., previously to the first debas.e.m.e.nt of the coin by the latter in 1301, the ordinary price of a quarter of wheat appears to have been about four s.h.i.+llings, and that of barley and oats in proportion. A sheep was rather sold high at a s.h.i.+lling, and an ox might be reckoned at ten or twelve.[718] The value of cattle is, of course, dependent upon their breed and condition, and we have unluckily no early account of butcher's meat; but we can hardly take a less multiple than about thirty for animal food and eighteen or twenty for corn, in order to bring the prices of the thirteenth century to a level with those of the present day.[719] Combining the two, and setting the comparative dearness of cloth against the cheapness of fuel and many other articles, we may perhaps consider any given sum under Henry III. and Edward I. as equivalent in general command over commodities to about twenty-four or twenty-five times their nominal value at present. Under Henry VI. the coin had lost one-third of its weight in silver, which caused a proportional increase of money prices;[720] but, so far as I can perceive, there had been no diminution in the value of that metal. We have not much information as to the fertility of the mines which supplied Europe during the middle ages; but it is probable that the drain of silver towards the East, joined to the ostentatious splendour of courts, might fully absorb the usual produce.

By the statute 15 H. VI., c. 2, the price up to which wheat might be exported is fixed at 6_s._ 8_d._, a point no doubt above the average; and the private doc.u.ments of that period, which are sufficiently numerous, lead to a similar result.[721] Sixteen will be a proper multiple when we would bring the general value of money in this reign to our present standard.[722] [1816.]

But after ascertaining the proportional values of money at different periods by a comparison of the prices in several of the chief articles of expenditure, which is the only fair process, we shall sometimes be surprised at incidental facts of this cla.s.s which seem irreducible to any rule. These difficulties arise not so much from the relative scarcity of particular commodities, which it is for the most part easy to explain, as from the change in manners and in the usual mode of living. We have reached in this age so high a pitch of luxury that we can hardly believe or comprehend the frugality of ancient times; and have in general formed mistaken notions as to the habits of expenditure which then prevailed. Accustomed to judge of feudal and chivalrous ages by works of fiction, or by historians who embellished their writings with accounts of occasional festivals and tournaments, and sometimes inattentive enough to transfer the manners of the seventeenth to the fourteenth century, we are not at all aware of the usual simplicity with which the gentry lived under Edward I. or even Henry VI. They drank little wine; they had no foreign luxuries; they rarely or never kept male servants except for husbandry; their horses, as we may guess by the price, were indifferent; they seldom travelled beyond their county. And even their hospitality must have been greatly limited, if the value of manors were really no greater than we find it in many surveys.

Twenty-four seems a sufficient multiple when we would raise a sum mentioned by a writer under Edward I. to the same real value expressed in our present money, but an income of 10_l._ or 20_l._ was reckoned a competent estate for a gentleman; at least the lord of a single manor would seldom have enjoyed more. A knight who possessed 150_l._ per annum pa.s.sed for extremely rich.[723] Yet this was not equal in command over commodities to 4000_l._ at present. But this income was comparatively free from taxation, and its expenditure lightened by the services of his villeins. Such a person, however, must have been among the most opulent of country gentlemen. Sir John Fortescue speaks of five pounds a year as "a fair living for a yeoman," a cla.s.s of whom he is not at all inclined to diminish the importance.[724] So, when Sir William Drury, one of the richest men in Suffolk, bequeaths in 1493 fifty marks to each of his daughters, we must not imagine that this was of greater value than four or five hundred pounds at this day, but remark the family pride and want of ready money which induced country gentlemen to leave their younger children in poverty.[725] Or, if we read that the expense of a scholar at the university in 1514 was but five pounds annually, we should err in supposing that he had the liberal accommodation which the present age deems indispensable, but consider how much could be afforded for about sixty pounds, which will be not far from the proportion. And what would a modern lawyer say to the following entry in the churchwarden's accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, for 1476: "Also paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel giving, 3_s._ 8_d._, _with four-pence for his dinner_"?[726] Though fifteen times the fee might not seem altogether inadequate at present, five s.h.i.+llings would hardly furnish the table of a barrister, even if the fastidiousness of our manners would admit of his accepting such a dole. But this fastidiousness, which considers certain kinds of remuneration degrading to a man of liberal condition, did not prevail in those simple ages. It would seem rather strange that a young lady should learn needlework and good breeding in a family of superior rank, paying for her board; yet such was the laudable custom of the fifteenth and even sixteenth centuries, as we perceive by the Paston Letters, and even later authorities.[727]

[Sidenote: Labourers better paid than at present.]

There is one very unpleasing remark which every one who attends to the subject of prices will be induced to make, that the labouring cla.s.ses, especially those engaged in agriculture, were better provided with the means of subsistence in the reign of Edward III. or of Henry VI. than they are at present. In the fourteenth century Sir John Cullum observes a harvest man had fourpence a day, which enabled him in a week to buy a comb of wheat; but to buy a comb of wheat a man must now (1784) work ten or twelve days.[728] So, under Henry VI., if meat was at a farthing and a half the pound, which I suppose was about the truth, a labourer earning threepence a day, or eighteen pence in the week, could buy a bushel of wheat at six s.h.i.+llings the quarter, and twenty-four pounds of meat for his family. A labourer at present, earning twelve s.h.i.+llings a week, can only buy half a bushel of wheat at eighty s.h.i.+llings the quarter, and twelve pounds of meat at seven-pence.[729] Several acts of parliament regulate the wages that might be paid to labourers of different kinds. Thus the statute of labourers in 1350 fixed the wages of reapers during harvest at threepence a-day without diet, equal to five s.h.i.+llings at present; that of 23 H. VI., c. 12, in 1444, fixed the reapers' wages at five-pence and those of common workmen in building at 3-1/2_d._, equal to 6_s._ 8_d._ and 4_s._ 8_d._; that of 11 H. VII., c.

22, in 1496, leaves the wages of labourers in harvest as before, but rather increases those of ordinary workmen. The yearly wages of a chief hind or shepherd by the act of 1444 were 1_l._ 4_s._, equivalent to about 20_l._, those of a common servant in husbandry 18_s._ 4_d._, with meat and drink; they were somewhat augmented by the statute of 1496.[730] Yet, although these wages are regulated as a maximum by acts of parliament, which may naturally be supposed to have had a view rather towards diminis.h.i.+ng than enhancing the current rate, I am not fully convinced that they were not rather beyond it; private accounts at least do not always correspond with these statutable prices.[731] And it is necessary to remember that the uncertainty of employment, natural to so imperfect a state of husbandry, must have diminished the labourers'

means of subsistence. Extreme dearth, not more owing to adverse seasons than to improvident consumption, was frequently endured.[732] But after every allowance of this kind I should find it difficult to resist the conclusion that, however the labourer has derived benefit from the cheapness of manufactured commodities and from many inventions of common utility, he is much inferior in ability to support a family to his ancestors three or four centuries ago. I know not why some have supposed that meat was a luxury seldom obtained by the labourer. Doubtless he could not have procured as much as he pleased. But, from the greater cheapness of cattle, as compared with corn, it seems to follow that a more considerable portion of his ordinary diet consisted of animal food than at present. It was remarked by Sir John Fortescue that the English lived far more upon animal diet than their rivals the French; and it was natural to ascribe their superior strength and courage to this cause.[733] I should feel much satisfaction in being convinced that no deterioration in the state of the labouring cla.s.ses has really taken place; yet it cannot, I think, appear extraordinary to those who reflect, that the whole population of England in the year 1377 did not much exceed 2,300,000 souls, about one-fifth of the results upon the last enumeration, an increase with which that of the fruits of the earth cannot be supposed to have kept an even pace.[734]

[Sidenote: Improvement in the moral character of Europe.]

The second head to which I referred, the improvements of European society in the latter period of the middle ages, comprehends several changes, not always connected, with each other, which contributed to inspire a more elevated tone of moral sentiment, or at least to restrain the commission of crimes. But the general effect of these upon the human character is neither so distinctly to be traced, nor can it be arranged with so much attention to chronology, as the progress of commercial wealth or of the arts that depend upon it. We cannot from any past experience indulge the pleasing vision of a constant and parallel relation between the moral and intellectual energies, the virtues and the civilization of mankind. Nor is any problem connected with philosophical history more difficult than to compare the relative characters of different generations, especially if we include a large geographical surface in our estimate. Refinement has its evils as well as barbarism; the virtues that elevate a nation in one century pa.s.s in the next to a different region; vice changes its form without losing its essence; the marked features of individual character stand out in relief from the surface of history, and mislead our judgment as to the general course of manners; while political revolutions and a bad const.i.tution of government may always undermine or subvert the improvements to which more favourable circ.u.mstances have contributed. In comparing, therefore, the fifteenth with the twelfth century, no one would deny the vast increase of navigation and manufactures, the superior refinement of manners, the greater diffusion of literature. But should I a.s.sert that man had raised himself in the latter period above the moral degradation of a more barbarous age, I might be met by the question whether history bears witness to any greater excesses of rapine and inhumanity than in the wars of France and England under Charles VII., or whether the rough patriotism and fervid pa.s.sions of the Lombards in the twelfth century were not better than the systematic treachery of their servile descendants three hundred years afterwards. The proposition must therefore be greatly limited; yet we can scarcely hesitate to admit, upon a comprehensive view, that there were several changes during the last four of the middle ages, which must naturally have tended to produce, and some of which did unequivocally produce, a meliorating effect, within the sphere of their operation, upon the moral character of society.

[Sidenote: Elevation of the lower ranks.]

The first and perhaps the most important of these, was the gradual elevation of those whom unjust systems of polity had long depressed; of the people itself, as opposed to the small number of rich and n.o.ble, by the abolition or desuetude of domestic and predial servitude, and by the privileges extended to corporate towns. The condition of slavery is indeed perfectly consistent with the observance of moral obligations; yet reason and experience will justify the sentence of Homer, that he who loses his liberty loses half his virtue. Those who have acquired, or may hope to acquire, property of their own, are most likely to respect that of others; those whom law protects as a parent are most willing to yield her a filial obedience; those who have much to gain by the good-will of their fellow citizens are most interested in the preservation of an honourable character. I have been led, in different parts of the present work, to consider these great revolutions in the order of society under other relations than that of their moral efficacy; and it will therefore be unnecessary to dwell upon them; especially as this efficacy is indeterminate, though I think unquestionable, and rather to be inferred from general reflections than capable of much ill.u.s.tration by specific facts.

[Sidenote: Police.]

We may reckon in the next place among the causes of moral improvement, a more regular administration of justice according to fixed laws, and a more effectual police. Whether the courts of judicature were guided by the feudal customs or the Roman law, it was necessary for them to resolve litigated questions with precision and uniformity. Hence a more distinct theory of justice and good faith was gradually apprehended; and the moral sentiments of mankind were corrected, as on such subjects they often require to be, by clearer and better grounded inferences of reasoning. Again, though it cannot be said that lawless rapine was perfectly restrained even at the end of the fifteenth century, a sensible amendment had been every where experienced. Private warfare, the licensed robbery of feudal manners, had been subjected to so many mortifications by the kings of France, and especially by St. Louis, that it can hardly be traced beyond the fourteenth century. In Germany and Spain it lasted longer; but the various a.s.sociations for maintaining tranquillity in the former country had considerably diminished its violence before the great national measure of public peace adopted under Maximilian.[735] Acts of outrage committed by powerful men became less frequent as the executive government acquired more strength to chastise them. We read that St. Louis, the best of French kings, imposed a fine upon the lord of Vernon for permitting a merchant to be robbed in his territory between sunrise and sunset. For by the customary law, though in general ill observed, the lord was bound to keep the roads free from depredators in the day-time, in consideration of the toll he received from pa.s.sengers.[736] The same prince was with difficulty prevented from pa.s.sing a capital sentence on Enguerrand de Coucy, a baron of France, for a murder.[737] Charles the Fair actually put to death a n.o.bleman of Languedoc for a series of robberies, notwithstanding the intercession of the provincial n.o.bility.[738] The towns established a police of their own for internal security, and rendered themselves formidable to neighbouring plunderers. Finally, though not before the reign of Louis XI., an armed force was established for the preservation of police.[739] Various means were adopted in England to prevent robberies, which indeed were not so frequently perpetrated as they were on the continent, by men of high condition. None of these perhaps had so much efficacy as the frequent sessions of judges under commissions of gaol delivery. But the spirit of this country has never brooked that coercive police which cannot exist without breaking in upon personal liberty by irksome regulations, and discretionary exercise of power; the sure instrument of tyranny, which renders civil privileges at once nugatory and insecure, and by which we should dearly purchase some real benefits connected with its slavish discipline.

[Sidenote: Religious sects.]

I have some difficulty in adverting to another source of moral improvement during this period, the growth of religious opinions adverse to those of the established church, both on account of its great obscurity, and because many of these heresies were mixed up with an excessive fanaticism. But they fixed themselves so deeply in the hearts of the inferior and more numerous cla.s.ses, they bore, generally speaking, so immediate a relation to the state of manners, and they ill.u.s.trate so much that more visible and eminent revolution which ultimately rose out of them in the sixteenth century, that I must reckon these among the most interesting phenomena in the progress of European society.

Many ages elapsed, during which no remarkable instance occurs of a popular deviation from the prescribed line of belief; and pious Catholics console themselves by reflecting that their forefathers, in those times of ignorance, slept at least the sleep of orthodoxy, and that their darkness was interrupted by no false lights of human reasoning.[740] But from the twelfth century this can no longer be their boast. An inundation of heresy broke in that age upon the church, which no persecution was able thoroughly to repress, till it finally overspread half the surface of Europe. Of this religious innovation we must seek the commencement in a different part of the globe. The Manicheans afford an eminent example of that durable attachment to a traditional creed, which so many ancient sects, especially in the East, have cherished through the vicissitudes of ages, in spite of persecution and contempt. Their plausible and widely extended system had been in early times connected with the name of Christianity, however incompatible with its doctrines and its history. After a pretty long obscurity, the Manichean theory revived with some modification in the western parts of Armenia, and was propagated in the eighth and ninth centuries by a sect denominated Paulicians. Their tenets are not to be collected with absolute certainty from the mouths of their adversaries, and no apology of their own survives. There seems however to be sufficient evidence that the Paulicians, though professing to acknowledge and even to study the apostolical writings, ascribed the creation of the world to an evil deity, whom they supposed also to be the author of the Jewish law, and consequently rejected all the Old Testament. Believing, with the ancient Gnostics, that our Saviour was clothed on earth with an impa.s.sive celestial body, they denied the reality of his death and resurrection.[741] These errors exposed them to a long and cruel persecution, during which a colony of exiles was planted by one of the Greek emperors in Bulgaria.[742] From this settlement they silently promulgated their Manichean creed over the western regions of Christendom. A large part of the commerce of those countries with Constantinople was carried on for several centuries by the channel of the Danube. This opened an immediate intercourse with the Paulicians, who may be traced up that river through Hungary and Bavaria, or sometimes taking the route of Lombardy into Switzerland and France.[743] In the last country, and especially in its southern and eastern provinces, they became conspicuous under a variety of names; such as Catharists, Picards, Paterins, but above all, Albigenses. It is beyond a doubt that many of these sectaries owed their origin to the Paulicians; the appellation of Bulgarians was distinctively bestowed upon them; and, according to some writers, they acknowledged a primate or patriarch resident in that country.[744] The tenets ascribed to them by all contemporary authorities coincide so remarkably with those held by the Paulicians, and in earlier times by the Manicheans, that I do not see how we can reasonably deny what is confirmed by separate and uncontradicted testimonies, and contains no intrinsic want of probability.[745]

[Sidenote: Waldenses.]

But though, the derivation of these heretics called Albigenses from Bulgaria is sufficiently proved, it is by no means to be concluded that all who incurred the same imputation either derived their faith from the same country, or had adopted the Manichean theory of the Paulicians.

From the very invectives of their enemies, and the acts of the Inquisition, it is manifest that almost every shade of heterodoxy was found among these dissidents, till it vanished in a simple protestation against the wealth and tyranny of the clergy. Those who were absolutely free from any taint of Manicheism are properly called Waldenses; a name perpetually confounded in later times with that of Albigenses, but distinguis.h.i.+ng a sect probably of separate origin, and at least of different tenets. These, according to the majority of writers, took their appellation from Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, the parent, about the year 1160, of a congregation of seceders from the church, who spread very rapidly over France and Germany.[746] According to others, the original Waldenses were a race of uncorrupted shepherds, who in the valleys of the Alps had shaken off, or perhaps never learned, the system of superst.i.tion on which the Catholic church depended for its ascendency.

I am not certain whether their existence can be distinctly traced beyond the preaching of Waldo, but it is well known that the proper seat of the Waldenses or Vaudois has long continued to be in certain valleys of Piedmont. These pious and innocent sectaries, of whom the very monkish historians speak well, appear to have nearly resembled the modern Moravians. They had ministers of their own appointment, and denied the lawfulness of oaths and of capital punishment. In other respects their opinions probably were not far removed from those usually called Protestant. A simplicity of dress, and especially the use of wooden sandals, was affected by this people.[747]

I have already had occasion to relate the severe persecution which nearly exterminated the Albigenses of Languedoc at the close of the twelfth century, and involved the counts of Toulouse in their ruin. The Catharists, a fraternity of the same Paulician origin, more dispersed than the Albigenses, had previously sustained a similar trial. Their belief was certainly a compound of strange errors with truth; but it was attended by qualities of a far superior l.u.s.tre to orthodoxy, by a sincerity, a piety, and a self-devotion that almost purified the age in which they lived.[748] It is always important to perceive that these high moral excellences have no necessary connexion with speculative truths; and upon this account I have been more disposed to state explicitly the real Manicheism of the Albigenses; especially as Protestant writers, considering all the enemies of Rome as their friends, have been apt to place the opinions of these sectaries in a very false light. In the course of time, undoubtedly, the system of their Paulician teachers would have yielded, if the inquisitors had admitted the experiment, to a more accurate study of the Scriptures, and to the knowledge which they would have imbibed from the church itself.

And, in fact, we find that the peculiar tenets of Manicheism died away after the middle of the thirteenth century, although a spirit of dissent from the established creed broke out in abundant instances during the two subsequent ages.

We are in general deprived of explicit testimonies in tracing the revolutions of popular opinion. Much must therefore be left to conjecture; but I am inclined to attribute a very extensive effect to the preaching of these heretics. They appear in various countries nearly during the same period, in Spain, Lombardy, Germany, Flanders, and England, as well as France. Thirty unhappy persons, convicted of denying the sacraments, are said to have perished at Oxford by cold and famine in the reign of Henry II. In every country the new sects appear to have spread chiefly among the lower people, which, while it accounts for the imperfect notice of historians, indicates a more substantial influence upon the moral condition of society than the conversion of a few n.o.bles or ecclesiastics.[749]

But even where men did not absolutely enlist under the banners of any new sect, they were stimulated by the temper of their age to a more zealous and independent discussion of their religious system. A curious ill.u.s.tration of this is furnished by one of the letters of Innocent III.

He had been informed by the bishop of Metz, as he states to the clergy of the diocese, that no small mult.i.tude of laymen and women, having procured a translation of the gospels, epistles of St. Paul, the psalter, Job, and other books of Scripture, to be made for them into French, meet in secret conventicles to hear them read, and preach to each other, avoiding the company of those who do not join in their devotion, and having been reprimanded for this by some of their parish priests, have withstood them, alleging reasons from the Scriptures, why they should not be so forbidden. Some of them too deride the ignorance of their ministers, and maintain that their own books teach them more than they can learn from the pulpit, and that they can express it better. Although the desire of reading the Scriptures, Innocent proceeds, is rather praiseworthy than reprehensible, yet they are to be blamed for frequenting secret a.s.semblies, for usurping the office of preaching, deriding their own ministers, and scorning the company of such as do not concur in their novelties. He presses the bishop and chapter to discover the author of this translation, which could not have been made without a knowledge of letters, and what were his intentions, and what degree of orthodoxy and respect for the Holy See those who used it possessed. This letter of Innocent III., however, considering the nature of the man, is sufficiently temperate and conciliatory. It seems not to have answered its end; for in another letter he complains that some members of this little a.s.sociation continued refractory and refused to obey either the bishop or the pope.[750]

In the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Vulgate had ceased to be generally intelligible, there is no reason to suspect any intention in the church to deprive the laity of the Scriptures. Translations were freely made into the vernacular languages, and perhaps read in churches, although the acts of saints were generally deemed more instructive.

Louis the Debonair is said to have caused a German version of the New Testament to be made. Otfrid, in the same century, rendered the gospels, or rather abridged them, into German verse. This work is still extant, and is in several respects an object of curiosity.[751] In the eleventh or twelfth century we find translations of the Psalms, Job, Kings, and the Maccabees into French.[752] But after the diffusion of heretical opinions, or, what was much the same thing, of free inquiry, it became expedient to secure the orthodox faith from lawless interpretation.

Accordingly, the council of Toulouse in 1229 prohibited the laity from possessing the Scriptures; and this precaution was frequently repeated upon subsequent occasions.[753]

The ecclesiastical history of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries teems with new sectaries and schismatics, various in their aberrations of opinion, but all concurring in detestation of the established church.[754] They endured severe persecutions with a sincerity and firmness which in any cause ought to command respect. But in general we find an extravagant fanaticism among them; and I do not know how to look for any amelioration of society from the Franciscan seceders, who quibbled about the property of things consumed by use, or from the mystical visionaries of different appellations, whose moral practice was sometimes more than equivocal. Those who feel any curiosity about such subjects, which are by no means unimportant, as they ill.u.s.trate the history of the human mind, will find them treated very fully by Mosheim.

But the original sources of information are not always accessible in this country, and the research would perhaps be more fatiguing than profitable.

[Sidenote: Lollards of England.]

I shall, for an opposite reason, pa.s.s lightly over the great revolution in religious opinion wrought in England by Wicliffe, which will generally be familiar to the reader from our common historians. Nor am I concerned to treat of theological inquiries, or to write a history of the church. Considered in its effects upon manners, the sole point which these pages have in view, the preaching of this new sect certainly produced an extensive reformation. But their virtues were by no means free from some unsocial qualities, in which, as well as in their superior attributes, the Lollards bear a very close resemblance to the Puritans of Elizabeth's reign; a moroseness that proscribed all cheerful amus.e.m.e.nts, an uncharitable malignity that made no distinction in condemning the established clergy, and a narrow prejudice that applied the rules of the Jewish law to modern inst.i.tutions.[755] Some of their principles were far more dangerous to the good order of society, and cannot justly be ascribed to the Puritans, though they grew afterwards out of the same soil. Such was the notion, which is imputed also to the Albigenses, that civil magistrates lose their right to govern by committing sin, or, as it was quaintly expressed in the seventeenth century, that dominion is founded in grace. These extravagances, however, do not belong to the learned and politic Wicliffe, however they might be adopted by some of his enthusiastic disciples.[756] Fostered by the general ill-will towards the church, his principles made vast progress in England, and, unlike those of earlier sectaries, were embraced by men of rank and civil influence. Notwithstanding the check they sustained by the sanguinary law of Henry IV., it is highly probable that mult.i.tudes secretly cherished them down to the era of the Reformation.

[Sidenote: Hussites of Bohemia.]

From England the spirit of religious innovation was propagated into Bohemia; for though John Huss was very far from embracing all the doctrinal system of Wicliffe, it is manifest that his zeal had been quickened by the writings of that reformer.[757] Inferior to the Englishman in ability, but exciting greater attention by his constancy and sufferings, as well as by the memorable war which his ashes kindled, the Bohemian martyr was even more eminently the precursor of the Reformation. But still regarding these dissensions merely in a temporal light, I cannot a.s.sign any beneficial effect to the schism of the Hussites, at least in its immediate results, and in the country where it appeared. Though some degree of sympathy with their cause is inspired by resentment at the ill faith of their adversaries, and by the a.s.sociations of civil and religious liberty, we cannot estimate the Taborites and other sectaries of that description but as ferocious and desperate fanatics.[758] Perhaps beyond the confines of Bohemia more substantial good may have been produced by the influence of its reformation, and a better tone of morals inspired into Germany. But I must again repeat that upon this obscure and ambiguous subject I a.s.sert nothing definitely, and little with confidence. The tendencies of religious dissent in the four ages before the Reformation appear to have generally conduced towards the moral improvement of mankind; and facts of this nature occupy a far greater s.p.a.ce in a philosophical view of society during that period, than we might at first imagine; but every one who is disposed to prosecute this inquiry will a.s.sign their character according to the result of his own investigations.

[Sidenote: Inst.i.tution of chivalry.]

But the best school of moral discipline which the middle ages afforded was the inst.i.tution of chivalry. There is something perhaps to allow for the partiality of modern writers upon this interesting subject; yet our most sceptical criticism must a.s.sign a decisive influence to this great source of human improvement. The more deeply it is considered, the more we shall become sensible of its importance.

There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits which have from time to time moved over the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honour. It was the princ.i.p.al business of chivalry to animate and cherish the last of these three. And whatever high magnanimous energy the love of liberty or religious zeal has ever imparted was equalled by the exquisite sense of honour which this inst.i.tution preserved.

[Sidenote: Its origin.]

It appears probable that the custom of receiving arms at the age of manhood with some solemnity was of immemorial antiquity among the nations that overthrew the Roman empire. For it is mentioned by Tacitus to have prevailed among their German ancestors; and his expressions might have been used with no great variation to describe the actual ceremonies of knighthood.[759] There was even in that remote age a sort of public trial as to the fitness of the candidate, which, though perhaps confined to his bodily strength and activity, might be the germ of that refined investigation which was thought necessary in the perfect stage of chivalry. Proofs, though rare and incidental, might be adduced to show that in the time of Charlemagne, and even earlier, the sons of monarchs at least did not a.s.sume manly arms without a regular invest.i.ture. And in the eleventh century it is evident that this was a general practice.[760]

This ceremony, however, would perhaps of itself have done little towards forming that intrinsic principle which characterized the genuine chivalry. But in the reign of Charlemagne we find a military distinction that appears, in fact as well as in name, to have given birth to that inst.i.tution. Certain feudal tenants, and I suppose also alodial proprietors, were bound to serve on horseback, equipped with the coat of mail. These were called Caballarii, from which the word chevaliers is an obvious corruption.[761] But he who fought on horseback, and had been invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner, wanted nothing more to render him a knight. Chivalry therefore may, in a general sense, be referred to the age of Charlemagne. We may, however, go further, and observe that these distinctive advantages above ordinary combatants were probably the sources of that remarkable valour and that keen thirst for glory, which became the essential attributes of a knightly character.

For confidence in our skill and strength is the usual foundation of courage; it is by feeling ourselves able to surmount common dangers, that we become adventurous enough to encounter those of a more extraordinary nature, and to which more glory is attached. The reputation of superior personal prowess, so difficult to be attained in the course of modern warfare, and so liable to erroneous representations, was always within the reach of the stoutest knight, and was founded on claims which could be measured with much accuracy. Such is the subordination and mutual dependence in a modern army, that every man must be content to divide his glory with his comrades, his general, or his soldiers. But the soul of chivalry was individual honour, coveted in so entire and absolute a perfection that it must not be shared with an army or a nation. Most of the virtues it inspired were what we may call independent, as opposed to those which are founded upon social relations. The knights-errant of romance perform their best exploits from the love of renown, or from a sort of abstract sense of justice, rather than from any solicitude to promote the happiness of mankind. If these springs of action are less generally beneficial, they are, however, more connected with elevation of character than the systematical prudence of men accustomed to social life. This solitary and independent spirit of chivalry, dwelling, as it were, upon a rock, and disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal dignity, without any calculation of their consequences, is not unlike what we sometimes read of Arabian chiefs or the North American Indians.[762] These nations, so widely remote from each other, seem to partake of that moral energy, which, among European nations far remote from both of them, was excited by the spirit of chivalry. But the most beautiful picture that was ever portrayed of this character is the Achilles of Homer, the representative of chivalry in its most general form, with all its sincerity and unyielding rect.i.tude, all its courtesies and munificence. Calmly indifferent to the cause in which he is engaged, and contemplating with a serious and unshaken look the premature death that awaits him, his heart only beats for glory and friends.h.i.+p. To this sublime character, bating that imaginary completion by which the creations of the poet, like those of the sculptor, transcend all single works of nature, there were probably many parallels in the ages of chivalry; especially before a set education and the refinements of society had altered a little the natural unadulterated warrior of a ruder period. One ill.u.s.trious example from this earlier age is the Cid Ruy Diaz, whose history has fortunately been preserved much at length in several chronicles of ancient date and in one valuable poem; and though I will not say that the Spanish hero is altogether a counterpart of Achilles in gracefulness and urbanity, yet was he inferior to none that ever lived in frankness, honour, and magnanimity.[763]

[Sidenote: Its connexion with feudal service.]

[Sidenote: This connexion broken.]

In the first state of chivalry, it was closely connected with the military service of fiefs. The Caballarii in the Capitularies, the Milites of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were landholders who followed their lord or sovereign into the field. A certain value of land was termed in England a knight's fee, or in Normandy feudum loricae, fief de haubert, from the coat of mail which it ent.i.tled and required the tenant to wear; a military tenure was said to be by service in chivalry.

To serve as knights, mounted and equipped, was the common duty of va.s.sals; it implied no personal merit, it gave of itself a claim to no civil privileges. But this knight-service founded upon a feudal obligation is to be carefully distinguished from that superior chivalry, in which all was independent and voluntary. The latter, in fact, could hardly flourish in its full perfection till the military service of feudal tenure began to decline; namely, in the thirteenth century. The origin of this personal chivalry I should incline to refer to the ancient usage of voluntary commendation, which I have mentioned in a former chapter. Men commended themselves, that is, did homage and professed attachment to a prince or lord; generally indeed for protection or the hope of reward, but sometimes probably for the sake of distinguis.h.i.+ng themselves in his quarrels. When they received pay, which must have been the usual case, they were literally his soldiers, or stipendiary troops. Those who could afford to exert their valour without recompense were like the knights of whom we read in romance, who served a foreign master through love, or thirst of glory, or grat.i.tude. The extreme poverty of the lower n.o.bility, arising from the subdivision of fiefs, and the politic generosity of rich lords, made this connexion as strong as that of territorial dependence. A younger brother, leaving the paternal estate, in which he took a slender share, might look to wealth and dignity in the service of a powerful count. Knighthood, which he could not claim as his legal right, became the object of his chief ambition. It raised him in the scale of society, equalling him in dress, in arms, and in t.i.tle, to the rich landholders. As it was due to his merit, it did much more than equal him to those who had no pretensions but from wealth; and the territorial knights became by degrees ashamed of a.s.suming the t.i.tle till they could challenge it by real desert.

[Sidenote: Effect of the crusades on chivalry.]

This cla.s.s of n.o.ble and gallant cavaliers serving commonly for pay, but on the most honourable footing, became far more numerous through the crusades; a great epoch in the history of European society. In these wars, as all feudal service was out of the question, it was necessary for the richer barons to take into their pay as many knights as they could afford to maintain; speculating, so far as such motives operated, on an influence with the leaders of the expedition, and on a share of plunder, proportioned to the number of their followers. During the period of the crusades, we find the inst.i.tution of chivalry acquire its full vigour as an order of personal n.o.bility; and its original connexion with feudal tenure, if not altogether effaced, became in a great measure forgotten in the splendour and dignity of the new form which it wore.

[Sidenote: Chivalry connected with religion.]

The crusaders, however, changed in more than one respect the character of chivalry. Before that epoch it appears to have had no particular reference to religion. Ingulfus indeed tells us that the Anglo-Saxons preceded the ceremony of invest.i.ture by a confession of their sins, and other pious rites, and they received the order at the hands of a priest, instead of a knight. But this was derided by the Normans as effeminacy, and seems to have proceeded from the extreme devotion of the English before the Conquest.[764] We can hardly perceive indeed why the a.s.sumption of arms to be used in butchering mankind should be treated as a religious ceremony. The clergy, to do them justice, constantly opposed the private wars in which the courage of those ages wasted itself; and all bloodshed was subject in strictness to a canonical penance. But the purposes for which men bore arms in a crusade so sanctified their use, that chivalry acquired the character as much of a religious as a military inst.i.tution. For many centuries, the recovery of the Holy Land was constantly at the heart of a brave and superst.i.tious n.o.bility; and every knight was supposed at his creation to pledge himself, as occasion should arise, to that cause. Meanwhile, the defence of G.o.d's law against infidels was his primary and standing duty. A knight, whenever present at ma.s.s, held the point of his sword before him while the gospel was read, to signify his readiness to support it. Writers of the middle ages compare the knightly to the priestly character in an elaborate parallel, and the invest.i.ture of the one was supposed a.n.a.logous to the ordination of the other. The ceremonies upon this occasion were almost wholly religious. The candidate pa.s.sed nights in prayer among priests in a church; he received the sacraments; he entered into a bath, and was clad with a white robe, in allusion to the presumed purification of his life; his sword was solemnly blessed; every thing, in short, was contrived to identify his new condition with the defence of religion, or at least of the church.[765]

[Sidenote: And with gallantry.]

To this strong tincture of religion which entered into the composition of chivalry from the twelfth century, was added another ingredient equally distinguis.h.i.+ng. A great respect for the female s.e.x had always been a remarkable characteristic of the Northern nations. The German women were high-spirited and virtuous; qualities which might be causes or consequences of the veneration with which they were regarded. I am not sure that we could trace very minutely the condition of women for the period between the subversion of the Roman empire and the first crusade; but apparently man did not grossly abuse his superiority; and in point of civil rights, and even as to the inheritance of property, the two s.e.xes were placed perhaps as nearly on a level as the nature of such warlike societies would admit. There seems, however, to have been more roughness in the social intercourse between the s.e.xes than we find in later periods. The spirit of gallantry which became so animating a principle of chivalry, must be ascribed to the progressive refinement of society during the twelfth and two succeeding centuries. In a rude state of manners, as among the lower people in all ages, woman has not full scope to display those fascinating graces, by which nature has designed to counterbalance the strength and energy of mankind. Even where those jealous customs that degrade alike the two s.e.xes have not prevailed, her lot is domestic seclusion; nor is she fit to share in the boisterous pastimes of drunken merriment to which the intercourse of an unpolished people is confined. But as a taste for the more elegant enjoyments of wealth arises, a taste which it is always her policy and her delight to nourish, she obtains an ascendency at first in the lighter hour, and from thence in the serious occupations of life. She chases, or brings into subjection, the G.o.d of wine, a victory which might seem more ign.o.ble were it less difficult, and calls in the aid of divinities more propitious to her ambition. The love of becoming ornament is not perhaps to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman has received from nature to give effect to those charms that are her defence; and when commerce began to minister more effectually to the wants of luxury, the rich furs of the North, the gay silks of Asia, the wrought gold of domestic manufacture, illumined the halls of chivalry, and cast, as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow. Courtesy had always been the proper attribute of knighthood; protection of the weak its legitimate duty; but these were heightened to a pitch of enthusiasm when woman became their object. There was little jealousy shown in the treatment of that s.e.x, at least in France, the fountain of chivalry; they were present at festivals, at tournaments, and sat promiscuously in the halls of their castle. The romance of Perceforest (and romances have always been deemed good witnesses as to manners) tells of a feast where eight hundred knights had each of them a lady eating off his plate.[766] For to eat off the same plate was an usual mark of gallantry or friends.h.i.+p.

Next therefore, or even equal to devotion, stood gallantry among the principles of knighthood. But all comparison between the two was saved by blending them together. The love of G.o.d and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty. He who was faithful and true to his mistress was held sure of salvation in the theology of castles though not of cloisters.[767] Froissart announces that he had undertaken a collection of amorous poetry with the help of G.o.d and of love; and Boccace returns thanks to each for their a.s.sistance in the Decameron. The laws sometimes united in this general homage to the fair. "We will," says James II. of Aragon, "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company with a lady, pa.s.s safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of murder."[768] Louis II., duke of Bourbon, inst.i.tuting the order of the Golden s.h.i.+eld, enjoins his knights to honour above all the ladies, and not to permit any one to slander them, "because from them after G.o.d comes all the honour that men can acquire."[769]

The gallantry of those ages, which was very often adulterous, had certainly no right to profane the name of religion; but its union with valour was at least more natural, and became so intimate, that the same word has served to express both qualities. In the French and English wars especially, the knights of each country brought to that serious conflict the spirit of romantic attachment which had been cherished in the hours of peace. They fought at Poitiers or Verneuil as they had fought at tournaments, bearing over their armour scarves and devices as the livery of their mistresses, and a.s.serting the paramount beauty of her they served in vaunting challenges towards the enemy. Thus in the middle of a keen skirmish at Cherbourg, the squadrons remained motionless, while one knight challenged to a single combat the most amorous of the adversaries. Such a defiance was soon accepted, and the battle only recommenced when one of the champions had lost his life for his love.[770] In the first campaign of Edward's war some young English knights wore a covering over one eye, vowing, for the sake of their ladies, never to see with both till they should have signalized their prowess in the field.[771] These extravagances of chivalry are so common that they form part of its general character, and prove how far a course of action which depends upon the impulses of sentiment may come to deviate from common sense.

It cannot be presumed that this enthusiastic veneration, this devotedness in life and death, were wasted upon ungrateful natures. The G.o.ddesses of that idolatry knew too well the value of their wors.h.i.+ppers.

There has seldom been such adamant about the female heart, as can resist the highest renown for valour and courtesy, united with the steadiest fidelity. "He loved," says Froissart of Eustace d'Auberthicourt, "and afterwards married lady Isabel, daughter of the count of Juliers. This lady too loved lord Eustace for the great exploits in arms which she heard told of him, and she sent him horses and loving letters, which made the said lord Eustace more bold than before, and he wrought such feats of chivalry, that all in his company were gainers."[772] It were to be wished that the sympathy of love and valour had always been as honourable. But the morals of chivalry, we cannot deny, were not pure.