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diff --git a/31843-0.txt b/31843-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d68913 --- /dev/null +++ b/31843-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5693 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Of Six Mediæval Women, by Alice Kemp-Welch + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Of Six Mediæval Women + To Which Is Added A Note on Mediæval Gardens + +Author: Alice Kemp-Welch + +Release Date: March 31, 2010 [EBook #31843] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN *** + + + + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN + WITH + A NOTE ON MEDIÆVAL GARDENS + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA + MELBOURNE + + THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO + DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO + + THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. + TORONTO + + +[Illustration: _Bib. de l’Arsenal, Paris._ + +POET DECLAIMING TO ACCOMPANIMENT OF VIOL. + +_Frontispiece._] + + + OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN + TO WHICH IS ADDED + A NOTE ON + MEDIÆVAL GARDENS + + + BY + ALICE KEMP-WELCH + + + WITH INTRODUCTION AND ILLUSTRATIONS + + + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON + 1913 + + +COPYRIGHT + + + + +AUTHOR’S NOTE + + +The Author’s acknowledgments are due to the Editor of _The Nineteenth +Century and After_ for his kind permission to reprint such of the +following studies as have already appeared in that Review, and also to +“George Fleming” (Miss Constance Fletcher) for her rendering, on page +146, of four verses of Christine de Pisan’s poem on Joan of Arc. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +INTRODUCTION xi + +A TENTH-CENTURY DRAMATIST, ROSWITHA THE NUN 1 + +A TWELFTH-CENTURY ROMANCE-WRITER, MARIE DE FRANCE 29 + +A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY MYSTIC AND BEGUINE, MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG 57 + +A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ART-PATRON AND PHILANTHROPIST, MAHAUT, + COUNTESS OF ARTOIS 83 + +A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FEMINISTE, CHRISTINE DE PISAN 116 + +AGNES SOREL 147 + +A NOTE ON MEDIÆVAL GARDENS 173 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + FACE PAGE + +Poet declaiming to accompaniment of Viol _Frontispiece_ + +Roswitha presenting her Poem to the Emperor Otho I., + the Abbess of Gandersheim standing at her side. + A. Dürer, 1501 1 + +Cover of St. Emmeran Gospels. 10th century 7 + +Marriage of Otho II. and Theophano. Byzantine, 10th century 7 + +Lady playing Harp. Add. MS. 38117, Brit. Mus. 32 + +Add. MS. 10293, Brit. Mus. 34 + +Boat with Knights and Lady. Add. MS. 10294, Brit. Mus. 49 + +Glaukos and Polyeidos in Tomb. Greek Vase, Brit. Mus. 52 + +Statue of Mahaut in Abbey of La Thieuloye, near Arras, now + destroyed. From a Drawing, now in Brussels, made in 1602 99 + +Marriage of Charles le Bel and Marie of Luxemburg. Grandes + Chrons. de France. Bib. Nat. 100 + +Thirteenth-Century Treatise on Surgery, in French. + Sloane MS. 1977 103 + +Banquet, with Minstrels playing, and Room hung with + Embroidery. MS. Romance of Alexander, 14th century. + Bodleian, Oxford 104 + +Harl. MS. 4425, Brit. Mus. 105 + +Christine de Pisan 119 + +Lady in Horse-Litter, returning from Tournament. + Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus. 132 + +La Cité des Dames 138 + +Setting out for Poissy. Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus. 140 + +Tomb of Agnes Sorel 158 + +Book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier 162 + +Book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier 163 + +Book of Hours, French, 14th century. Brit. Mus. 176 + +Harl. MS. 4425, Brit. Mus. 177 + +Flemish Master, 15th century. Stephenson Clarke Collection 181 + +MS. Romance of Alexander, 14th century 183 + +Rhenish Master, C. 1420, Frankfort Hist. Mus. 185 + +Harl. MS. 4425, Brit. Mus. 186 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +The recent researches of scholars and students have brought the study +of mediæval times within the range of almost any one who cares to live +in imagination in the past. No part of this study has been more +advanced and made more informing to us than that which regards the +individual. This is specially true of womankind, of whom we have +learnt somewhat, in some instances from their own writings, and in +others from allusions to their work in those of contemporary and later +writers, and also, incidentally, from the vast storehouse of didactic +literature, which is so suggestive in itself, reflecting through +successive centuries, as it seems to do, the standard of conduct of +the large majority. But on this subject--a very large one, and only +partially explored--light can only be thrown gradually. For this there +are various reasons. One is that, until comparatively recent times, +the small details of everyday life which go so largely to make up a +woman’s life, have generally been taken for granted by writers. Then +the few mediæval historiographers and chroniclers were principally +engaged in recounting the deeds of kings and feats of arms. Then +again, although probably many MSS. of the time still lie undiscovered +in libraries, those that are known to us are scattered far and wide. +Furthermore, self-advertisement was not a mediæval fashion. It is +perhaps difficult for us nowadays to understand a spirit of +self-effacement. Self-esteem, which may develop for either good or +ill, has perhaps always existed in the human breast, but certainly +since the time of the Renaissance, when it seemed to have its own +special revival, it has grown apace, and is to-day like unto the +Mustard Tree of Holy Writ. But it is not proposed to contrast this our +modern attitude with the impersonal one, if so it may be called, of +the Middle Ages, because, whilst there were many humble, zealous +workers then, just as there are now, it is possible there were other +and perhaps more potent factors to account for this apparently humble +attitude. In mediæval days, the subject of a narrative or didactic +work was considered so important, that an author would scarcely +venture on any independent treatment of a theme for fear of incurring +censure for a contempt of authority, or, if he did so venture, he +would probably deem it wiser to do so anonymously, or by ascription +to some departed celebrity, who was obviously not in a position to +gainsay him. The writer was of much less interest than his ideas and +sentiments. Then again there was the intense localisation of life. +Localities were very independent of one another. Each was complete in +itself, and within it there was no need for self-advertisement. It was +the same in the wider life of associated religious communities, such +as Benedictines, Cluniacs, and Cistercians, who had so much to do with +the building of abbeys and cathedrals. Within a fraternity, the +specially gifted craftsman was known, and wherever work was going on +within the Order, was made use of as needs be, not as Brother This, or +Brother That, but simply as scribe, or as artificer in Madonnas or +gargoyles, or whatever else was wanted. The glorification of the +community as a whole, and not the advertisement of the individual, was +the desired goal. This self-effacement was not so much humility, +though of course that too existed, as the special form which communal +feeling took at that time. Now if this suppression of the individual +was true of men, how much more true must it have been of women, who +seldom ventured beyond town, or castle, or convent walls. In truth, +women hardly appear on the scene, and English women least of all. It +is only women who were prominent through their high official +positions, either political or religious, such as Blanche of Castile, +or St. Catherine of Siena, or the Abbess Hildegarde, or women like the +Blessed Angela of Foligno,[1] or Julian, anchoress of Norwich,[2] or +some other of the devout women of mediæval Italy, who interpreted the +mysteries of divine love to mediæval society, having in fact, as it +were, religious salons, from whom the veil has been withdrawn, and +even amongst such as these it has sometimes been only very slightly +lifted. With these saintly and political women must be mentioned the +women doctors of Salerno--Trothula, Abella, Mercurialis, and +others--who played so important a part both as professors and +practitioners when this school of medicine was at its zenith in the +eleventh and twelfth centuries, and who left behind them, as evidence +of their learning, treatises which are of interest to-day as showing +mediæval methods in medicine. + + [1] _The Book of the Divine Consolation of the Blessed Angela + of Foligno._ The New Mediæval Library. + + [2] _Revelations of Divine Love recorded by Julian, Anchoress + of Norwich, 1373._ + +Still, even so, the records are scanty. In order, therefore, to form +some idea and estimate of women generally in the Middle Ages, we must +perforce fall back on reasoning from the known to the unknown, and, +by studying the few who are recorded in written history, judge of that +great majority who, though nameless, have yet so largely helped to +make up the world’s unwritten history. Just as many a flower blooms +and dies unseen, so many a woman must have lived her life, serviceable +to her special environment, but wholly unrecorded. Just as, in the +course of ages, the seeds of some humble plant have been carried by +wind or water from some lonely region to one less remote, and made to +serve a purpose by adding to the sum-total of beauty and usefulness, +so the thoughts and deeds of many an unremembered woman have doubtless +passed into the great ocean of thought, encircling us to-day, and +influencing us as a living force. + +Thus we have the women who figure in history, and whom we must take as +types of the influential woman of the time, and the women whom history +has not so honoured. Of the former, even when only portrayed in +outline, we can learn something, but how are we to learn anything of +the latter, whether living in the seclusion of religious houses or in +the world? Of those living in religious houses, we know from records +that, besides attending to their own spiritual and mental education +and tending the sick, they conducted the cloister schools and taught +in them needlework, the art of confectionery, surgery, writing, and +drawing. They also wove, and embroidered, and added their mite to the +sum-total of beauty by transcribing and illuminating MSS. of the +Gospels and of the lives of the Saints. But sometimes such a limited +sphere of activity was enlarged, and it is to an anonymous Anglo-Saxon +nun of the eighth century, to whom the experiences were related, that +we owe one of the earliest and most interesting accounts extant in +Northern Europe of a journey to Palestine. + +To learn something of those living in the world, who were the +inspirers, the helpmates, and the companions of men in everyday life, +we must turn to the poems and romances. These form the key to the +domestic life of the time. Though ordinary life may be somewhat +idealised in them, still it is ordinary life on which they are based. +Moreover, many of the MSS. in which they are written down contain +miniatures--a legacy of exceeding worth to the student. But if we seek +some knowledge of mediæval life from miniatures, it is not necessary +to confine our researches to MSS. of romances. Transcripts of the +classics, of the moralised Bible, and of other religious works also +supply many pictures of everyday life, adapted quite regardless of +incongruity, for one of the characteristics of the Middle Ages was a +profound incapacity to picture to itself anything _but_ itself, or to +reconstitute in any way, as we do to-day, times and scenes not its +own. This was owing partly to its vitality and its youthfulness, which +grasped at anything and everything without discernment, and partly to +its lack of reliable material. The whole aspect of life, too, was +changed and enlarged, and for the moment over-charged, for the +flood-gates of the East, hitherto only partially opened, had been rent +asunder by the traveller and the crusader. + +Before we attempt to arrive at some idea of the manner of life of the +women of the Middle Ages, it will be well, if possible, to modify what +seems to be a general and perhaps a distorted impression of these +women of bygone days, as regards their want of loyalty in their +domestic relations, and all the deceit and cunning such a want led to. +Without attempting to justify what is fundamentally wrong, let us go +if we can into the region of fact, and in that region there is quite +enough romance without introducing it from outside. + +In the first place, so much more, as a rule, is heard of vice than of +virtue. “La voix de la beauté parle bas: elle ne s’insinue que dans +les âmes les plus éveillées.” Then the standard of life in those days +was very different from what it is to-day. Manners and customs which +were accepted facts of everyday life then, would strike us as +strangely rude and repellent now. Take, for instance, the attitude +towards his queen of a king we have all been taught to revere--Arthur, +the semi-saint, and the so-called pattern of courtesy. When Guinevere +deserts him, and some of his knights are slain, his remark--not +whispered into the ear of a confidant, but uttered aloud in the +presence of all around him--is, “I am sorrier for my good knights’ +loss than for the loss of my fair Queen, for queens I might have +enow.” Such a sentiment, expressed in public, does not seem quite up +to our modern standard of courteous, or even civilised, conduct, and +yet here we have the sentiments of the Prince of Chivalry, as +conceived by the poets of the thirteenth century. So it is obvious +that before passing judgment upon the standard of life of the mediæval +woman, we must endeavour to arrive at the truth by thinking and living +in imagination on the same plane, as near as may be, as she did. + +Then again, it is largely owing to certain stories in the Middle Ages +that the women of those times have been defamed. If we consider the +sources and the transcribers of these stories, we shall perhaps find a +reason for their distorted outlines, filled in with so much +imperfectly understood detail. Many of these tales originated in the +East, and particularly in India, where the conditions of domestic life +led to and favoured intrigue, and many of them also were mere +allegory, in which the Eastern sought to hide great truths. These the +less meditative Western interpreted literally, mistaking the outward +form for that which it concealed. So in passing to the West, Eastern +ideas and Eastern exaggeration, misconstrued, became caricature. +Moreover, the compilers of these stories were often monks or minstrels +who vied with each other for popular favour, the monk introducing into +his legends material which he hoped would rival the often shameless +outpourings of the minstrel, whilst the minstrel, for his part, tried +to adorn his story with some moral. Naturally neither class of such +purveyors was in the least capable of judging woman with respect, or +indeed of judging woman at all. + +On the other hand, however, it must be remembered that there are +stories that tell a very different tale, a tale of self-sacrifice and +devotion in face of grievous trial, as, for instance, that of Eric and +Enide, sung by Chrétien of Troyes, and made familiar to us by +Tennyson’s poem of “Geraint and Enid.” It is impossible that such a +conception should have been the mere outcome of the poet’s +imagination, since a poet, whilst he may transform, focuses and +reflects the ideas of his time. In truth, we find mediæval +literature, if we try to estimate it reasonably, gives a quite +pleasing impression of womankind, whether we turn to some of the royal +ladies who presided over brilliant Courts, where learning was +encouraged and poets made welcome, or to the lady of lesser degree, +who reigned supreme in her castle, at any rate when her lord was away, +as was often the case in time of war or during attendance at Court, or +to the abbesses who governed the religious houses they were set over, +to their material and mental well-being, proving thus their genius for +administration, and, in many instances, their rare intellectual +attainments. A record in a chartulary of the Benedictine nunnery of +Wherwell in Hampshire, now in the British Museum (Egerton MS., 2104), +and accessible to all in translation in the second volume of the +_Victoria History of the County of Hampshire_, may be mentioned in +passing, since it gives such a charming picture of mediæval convent +life. It recounts the life and work of the Abbess Euphemia, who +presided over the house from 1226 to 1257. Amongst her many good +deeds, it is told of her that “with maternal piety and careful +forethought, she built, for the use of both sick and sound, a new and +large infirmary away from the main buildings,” and that, besides +caring thus for the bodily wants of her community, “she built there a +place set apart for the refreshment of the soul, namely a chapel of +the Blessed Virgin.” The writer adds that “in numberless ways she +provided for the worship of God and the welfare of the sisters,” and +that “she so conducted herself with regard to exterior affairs, that +she seemed to have the spirit of a man rather than of a woman.” The +account is altogether delightful and informing, and should be read by +any who would go in spirit to a mediæval convent. It is therefore not +surprising that in the late Middle Ages a regard and reverence for +womanhood gradually arose--a regard and reverence for woman not merely +as the weaker vessel, but as the principle of all good and of moral +elevation. This attitude was also in large measure due to the +inevitable fusion of the cult of the Virgin and the cult of woman, +which in the thirteenth century developed into a faith. Then was it +that religion and chivalry, in combination, formed the solvent that +disintegrated the layer of selfishness--the outcome of the worship of +brute force--that had settled over man’s nobler instincts, and by +their appeal to his better nature decided the position that woman, not +only as an individual, but also as a class, was thenceforth to take in +the civilised world. + +Let us now turn, first to the woman of the Romances and then to the +woman of History. Each completes and is completed by the other. For +the woman of the Middle Ages there were practically only two +alternatives--to enter into the bonds either of Holy Matrimony or of +Holy Church. In both cases the vows were, as a rule, taken early, +especially in the case of marriage, so that the woman of the Middle +Ages knew little of the joys of girlhood, with all its romantic +castle-building and fondly fostered illusions. From playing with +dolls, the child of twelve or even younger often suddenly found +herself transformed into a wife. Although the Church had decreed that +no girl should be wedded before the age of fifteen, this mandate was +often ignored in noble families, where, through death, large fiefs had +been left without a male representative and protector. In such a case +the over-lord considered it necessary to assert his authority, and +compel the marriage of some young girl of perhaps only twelve, so as +to secure for her vassals and retainers a qualified leader, and for +himself the needful and pledged military service. Still these +marriages of convenience were often really happy arrangements, for the +girl-wife had been trained to altruism, and its principles were the +very essence of her daily life. Love, moreover, is a subtle sprite, +and just as surely as he can spread his wings and fly away, so he can +come, as if at unconscious bidding, and make for himself a +dwelling-place. + +To get any true insight into the life of the woman of the Middle Ages, +we must study the small everyday affairs, and to this end go, in +imagination, to some castle, and see how the day is passed there by +its lady. Perhaps it is a day in late spring. The watchman on the +tower, heralding the day, has sounded his horn, and soon all the +castle is astir. Leaving her curtained bed, she first offers a short +prayer at the small shrine hanging close by with its flickering light. +Then the bath, the water scented with aromatic roots and covered with +rose-petals, is taken. Mass and the morning broth follow, and the day +is considered fitly begun. The poor, or any sick and sorry folk, are +the first to be considered, or perhaps there is some wounded knight, +who has sought shelter within the protecting walls of the castle, for +whom soothing potions or healing salves have to be compounded. This +latter service was generally the work of the lady of the castle, who +as a rule possessed sufficient surgical knowledge to bind a broken +limb. To beguile the weary hours of convalescence, she sings to the +lute, tells stories, recounts legends, or reads aloud a romance lately +bought from some wayfaring packman. Little is it to be wondered at +that the convalescence is protracted, or that the knight delays his +departure from day to day, sometimes to his own and the lady’s +undoing. + +Beside such varied ministrations, the woman of the Middle Ages rode to +the chase, went out hawking, snared birds with nets, ferreted rabbits, +spun, wove, and embroidered. Embroidering was a really formidable +occupation, for the great hall, and each room, had its special +hangings, and on fête-days every inch of wall-space was covered. One +set would picture an Arthurian legend, and others again were made +bright with flowers, lilies, roses, and columbines. The lady and her +maidens--often girls of noble birth, whom it was customary to send to +some castle to complete their education--worked at the countless yards +such decoration involved, and chatted the while, it may be, of some +coming marriage or tourney, or perchance one among them would tell a +story, and so time passed merrily enough. Then for the educated woman, +of whom there were many, Latin verse offered a wide field of delight, +and the woman of the Middle Ages read and loved her Virgil just as we +of to-day read and love our Shakespeare. When the daylight had faded, +there was always chess-playing, dancing the carole, and singing, and +by the thirteenth century little pastoral ballets, in which a knight, +and a shepherdess and her lover, took part, began to be produced for +the diversion of castle-folk. For daily entertainment, every castle of +any pretension had its own minstrel or minstrels, whilst in the +smaller castles a wandering singer was warmly welcomed. Sometimes the +lady gave audience to a poet, who read his latest idyll, a minstrel, +to the accompaniment of his viol, singing the interspersed lyrics. +Such a scene may be found depicted in miniatures, and suggests how +such a story as “Aucassin and Nicolette,” and many another, partly in +prose, partly in verse, was rendered. One such miniature shows a lady +reclining on a couch, with a lordling seated beside her, the poet, +with his small parchment leaflets, declaiming his story, the minstrel +waiting to take up the theme in song. It is of interest to note that +in this particular miniature the gown of the lady is ornamented with +heraldic devices. By such means we are enabled not only to identify +the person represented--since portraiture, even if there was anything +worthy of the name, was in a very rudimentary condition--and thus +arrive at the approximate date of the picture, but also to verify a +custom, and a stage in social life. It was not until the end of the +twelfth century, when some sort of heraldic system became necessary +owing to the introduction of the closed helmet, that armorial +bearings, hitherto mere personal badges, became attached to noble +families. By the thirteenth century, when the bourgeoisie had become +rich, they were worn by the sumptuously attired wife of the lord to +distinguish her from the equally sumptuously attired wife of the +wealthy burgher. + +Such, in mere outline, was the daily life of the mediæval lady. +Descriptions of the lady herself seem to be mere replicas of an +admired and fixed type, for there is in them such a sameness of +delineation, that we can only imagine that poets sang of qualities +that pleased, and did not attempt to individualise. All are good and +gracious, beautiful, and slight of figure, with delicate hands and +tapering fingers, small feet, fine and glossy hair, and grey eyes, +laughing and bright. Only occasionally are these attractions varied +and enhanced by the telling of beauty unaided by paint and hair dye. + +It is hardly necessary to speak, save very generally, of woman’s +dress, for much has already been written on the subject. For everyday +use, garments of wool or linen, according to the season, and with much +fur in winter, were worn. At weddings or tournaments, or on any other +kind of fête-day, the ladies vied with each other in rich cloth of +gold and silver, in silks woven with threads of gold and patterned +with conventional design, and in all kinds of iridescent silken +stuffs from the East. From Mosul, on the banks of the Tigris, whence +the material we call muslin takes its name, was brought a fine silk +gossamer, something like our _crêpe de Chine_. This was used for the +finely plaited underdress seen at the neck and foot of mediæval +costume. Perhaps the best representation of this, although stone seems +hardly the most favourable medium for the delineation of so delicate a +fabric, can be seen in the long slim figures of the queenly ladies +standing in the niches on either side of the west door of Chartres +Cathedral. + +But when we have contemplated this gorgeous and dainty apparel, and +all the other personal luxury that accompanied it, such as enamelled +and jewelled gold circlets for the head, jewelled girdles with each +jewel chosen for its own special virtue, carved ivory combs, tablets +and hand-mirrors, and the like, we are forced to wonder how all this +refinement and beauty could go hand in hand with so much that is +unpleasing. If we turn to consider the manners of the men, we find the +same contrasts--on the one hand the maximum of gallantry and courtesy, +and on the other a corresponding churlishness and brutality. +Metaphorically and actually, the lance and the battle-axe were still +rivalling each other in the warfare of daily life. Although the +battle-axe must eventually yield to the lance, still strange extremes +have flourished side by side all down the ages. Turning to but +comparatively recent times, the coarseness we associate with much of +the reign of Charles II. stands out in glaring contrast with the +delicate, graceful poetry that found expression then. And coming still +nearer to our own days, we think of the unseemly manners in the reigns +of George III. and IV. and the dainty miniatures such as those painted +by Cosway, and wonder how these could exist together. Might we not +just as well wonder why the olive tree has a gnarled, distorted stem, +whilst its delicate, symmetrical leaves, of the tenderest green grey, +glisten in the sunshine like silvery shells fresh from ocean’s bed? + +Renan, amongst the many thinkers on life’s mysteries, tells us that +“Life is the result of a conflict between contrary forces.” But to +philosophise is useless, and it is still more useless to question +life’s seeming anomalies. We can only bow in silence before “what Time +in mists confounds.” + +As has been already said, it is only a general idea of the women of +the Middle Ages that can be gleaned from the Romances. For something +to bring us into more real touch with them, and to reveal more of +their personality, we must consider some who have made themselves +known to us through their work, since history, until we come to the +fourteenth century, is almost silent about them. Thus it is that as we +study these women, it almost seems at first as if we were looking at +some faded frescoes in a dimly lighted church. But just as the +half-obliterated figures take form and life as our eyes grow +accustomed to the dimness, and our minds get attuned to the days that +knew their living representatives, so these women of whom we are +speaking may live again for us if only we treat their works as human +documents, and not as archæological curiosities. The following pages +tell of six such women who lived between the tenth century and the +first half of the fifteenth--Roswitha, a nun of Germany; Marie de +France, a lady at the Court of Henry the Second of England; Mechthild +of Magdeburg, mystic and beguine; Mahaut, Countess of Artois, a +great-niece of St. Louis; Christine de Pisan, an Italian by birth, +living at the Court of Charles the Fifth of France; and Agnes Sorel, +the Mistress and inspirer of Charles the Seventh. + +In trying to evoke the women of these days of long ago, it is hardly +possible to do more than portray them in outline. Yet even so, if the +outline be true, we may remember, for our consolation, that it has +been said that we shall never, except in outline, see the mysterious +Goddess Truth. + + + + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +ROSWITHA PRESENTING HER POEM TO THE EMPEROR OTHO I., THE ABBESS OF +GANDERSHEIM STANDING AT HER SIDE. + +A. Dürer, 1501. + +_To face page 1._] + + + + +A TENTH-CENTURY DRAMATIST, ROSWITHA THE NUN + + +In this age of personal curiosity, politely called psychological +interest, when personalities are analysed with all the thoroughness of +the dissecting theatre, it seems almost courting failure to try to +call to remembrance one whose personality has long since faded away, +and of whom, apparently, no contemporary writer has made mention. Of +Roswitha, the woman, we know but little, and this little is gathered +from her own writings.[3] Presumably the date of her birth was about +A.D. 935, and that of her death about A.D. 973. There is a tradition +that she was connected with the royal house of Germany, at that time +represented by the enlightened Otho the Great. Be this as it may, her +life for us begins when, probably at an early age, she entered the +Convent of Gandersheim. Gandersheim was a Benedictine nunnery in the +Harz Mountains, founded in the ninth century by Liudolf, Duke of +Saxony, and important enough to entitle its Abbess to a Seat in the +Imperial Diet, a right perhaps never exercised except by proxy. The +story of its foundation, as told by Roswitha in the unique MS. of her +works, is of strange beauty. Listen to her own words as she tells the +tale:-- + + [3] The authenticity of these has been called in question by + some critics, but apparently upon insufficient data. + + At that time there was, nigh unto the Monastery,[4] a little + wood, encircled by shady hills, those same hills by the + which we ourselves are surrounded. And there was, moreover, + in the wood a small farm where the swineherds of Liudolf + were wont to dwell, and within the enclosure of which the + men, during the hours of night, composed to rest their weary + bodies until the time when they must needs drive forth to + pasture the pigs committed to their care. Here, on a time, + two days before the Feast of All Saints, these same + herdsmen, in the darkness of the night, saw full many bright + lights glowing in the wood. And they were astonished at the + sight, and marvelled what could be the purport of this + strange vision of blazing light cleaving the darkness of the + night with its wondrous brilliance. And all trembling with + fear, they related unto their Master that which they had + seen, showing unto him the place which had been illumined by + the light. And he, desiring by very sight thereof to put to + proof that which he had heard tell, joined them without the + building, and began the following night, without sleeping, + to keep watch, closing not his eyes though they were weighed + down by the desire of slumber. And after a while he saw the + kindling lights, more in number than afore, once again burn + with a red glow, in the same place forsooth, but at an hour + somewhat earlier. And this glad sign of happy omen he made + known so soon as Phœbus shed his first rays from the sky, + and the joyous news spread everywhere. And this could not be + kept back from the worthy Duke Liudolf, but swifter than + speech did it come to his ears. And he, carefully observing + on the hallowed eve of the approaching festival whether + perchance some further like heavenly vision would clearly + show it to be an omen, with much company kept watch on the + wood all the night long. And straightway when black night + had covered the land with darkness, everywhere throughout + the wooded valley in the which the very noble temple was + destined to be built, many lights were perceived, the which, + with the shining splendour of their exceeding brightness, + cleft asunder the shades of the wood and the darkness of the + night alike. And thereupon, standing up and rendering praise + to God, they all with one accord declared it meet that the + place should be sanctified to the worship of Him who had + filled it with the light. And, moreover, the Duke, mindful + of his duty to Heaven, and with the consent of his dear + consort Oda, forthwith ordered the trees to be felled and + the brushwood cut away, and the valley to be completely + cleared. And this sylvan spot, aforetime the home of fauns + and monsters, he thus cleared and made fitting for the glory + of God. And then, before obtaining the money needful for the + work, he at once set out the lines of a noble church as + traced by the splendour of the red light.[5] + + [4] The first foundation, afterwards removed to Gandersheim. + + [5] For other instances of churches laid out on lines said to + have been revealed in dreams or visions, see Didron, + _Christian Iconography_, vol. i. (1886) pp. 381, 382, 460, + and Sta. Maria Maggiore, Rome. + + In suchwise was the building of our second Monastery to the + glory of God begun. But stone suitable for the structure + could not be found in those parts, and thus the completion + of the sanctuary which had been begun, suffered delay. But + the Abbess Hathumoda, trusting to obtain all things from the + Lord by faith, oft-times, by serving God both night and day + with holy zeal, wore herself out with too abundant labour. + And with many of those placed under her care, she besought + the solace of speedy help from Heaven, lest the work so well + begun should be left unfinished. And of a sudden she became + aware that the divine grace which she sought was present, + ready to have compassion on her longings. For as she lay one + day prostrate nigh unto the altar, fasting and giving + herself up to prayer, she was bidden of a gentle voice to go + forth and follow a bird she would see sitting on the summit + of a certain great rock. And she, embracing the command with + ready mind, went forth, putting her trust in it with all her + heart. And taking with her very skilled masons, she sped + swiftly whither the kindly Spirit led her, until she was + come to the noble sanctuary which had been begun. And there + she saw, seated on the lofty summit of the self-same rock, a + white dove, the which, flying with outspread wings, + straightway went before her, tempering its flight in + unwonted way so that the virgin, walking with her + companions, might be able to follow in a straight course its + aerial track. And when the dove in its flight had come to + the place which we now know was not wanting in great stones, + it descended, and with its beak pierced through the + ground,[6] where, beneath the soil, many stones were + disclosed. And assured by this sight, the very worthy virgin + of Christ bade her companions clear away the heavy mass of + earth, and lay the spot bare. And this done, supernal and + devout piety presiding over the work, a great wealth of + mighty stones was brought to view, whence all the needful + material for the walls of the monastery already begun, and + of the church, could be obtained. Then, striving ever more + and more with all their heart, the builders of the temple + destined to be consecrated to the glory of God, laboured at + the work by night and by day. + + [6] The intervention of a bird to aid in discovery was a + favourite tradition derived from antiquity. We may recall, + amongst many variants of the theme, the story of the + celebrated expedition of the Athenians to the Island of + Scyros to find and recover the body of Theseus. Theseus, + being a hero, the agent employed in the quest must likewise + be distinguished, and so the eagle, Zeus’s bird, is alone + thought worthy to peck the earth and indicate the + resting-place of the demi-god. + +Thus does Roswitha tell how the work of the new Foundation was begun, +the Duke Liudolf and his wife having already journeyed to Rome to ask +of the Pope his blessing, as well as to beg of him, as a token of his +favour, some sacred relics to deposit there. The Pope, giving them his +blessing, thus makes answer to their request:-- + + There were here, aforetime, two mighty rulers--the most holy + Anastasius who presided over this See, and his co-apostle, + the holy Innocent. These, through their services to the + Church, were the most famous next after St. Peter and St. + Paul. With such care have the illustrious bodies of these + two been heretofore preserved by all the rulers of this + city, that never has any one been permitted to carry away + the least portion of them, and thus their sacred limbs + remain undiminished. But forasmuch as it is meet that I + yield to your pious request, I will grant you, without + recompense, tokens from both these sacred bodies, cut before + your very eyes from off the sacred bodies themselves, if so + be that you will make solemn oath to me to venerate these + relics in your community, of the which you have made + mention, preserving them for all time within your Church, + sacred hymns being there sung by night and by day, and a + light being alway kept burning. And of our apostolic right + we ordain, according to your request, that your community be + of our See, to the end that it may be secured from all + secular rule. + +And Liudolf, with glad heart, made promise of this, and returned home +with the coveted relics. + +The MS., now at Munich, which tells this fascinating story of love and +faith, was, it is considered, written about A.D. 1000, and was +fortunately preserved in the Benedictine convent of St. Emmeran, +Ratisbon, where the scholar and poet, Conrad Celtes, discovered it at +the end of the fifteenth century. It also includes metrical legends, a +fragment of a panegyric on the Emperor Otho, and six dramas. Of such +worth were these latter counted, that when Celtes published the MS. in +1501, Albert Dürer received a commission for an ornamental title-page, +and for a frontispiece to each of the plays. It is by these dramas +that Roswitha has distinguished herself in the world of letters; for +although the legends contain points of interest, and are treated with +skill, they are naturally not so unique as the dramas, nor do they +reflect her personality in the same way. She herself tells us that the +plays were written in imitation of the manner, but not of the matter, +of Terence, and that her only desire in writing them was “to make the +small talent given her by Heaven to create, under the hammer of +devotion, a faint sound to the praise of God.” + +But before considering her work, let us glance at her own life, and +the life of contemporary Saxon nunneries. + +[Illustration: _Royal Library, Munich._ + +COVER OF ST. EMMERAN GOSPELS. + +Tenth Century. + +_To face page 7._] + +Nearly one hundred and fifty years before the supposed date of +Roswitha’s birth, the hitherto untamed and warlike Saxons had been +finally defeated by the mercenaries of Charlemagne, and, as one of the +signs of submission, forced to embrace Christianity. But having +submitted, they forthwith, and with an aptitude suggestive of the +spirit of the modern Japanese, set themselves to appropriate, +assimilate, and remodel for their own use, the rudiments of the +civilisation with which they found themselves brought into contact. So +speedy and so thorough was the transformation, that scarce a century +passed ere the once powerful Frankish kingdom of Charlemagne bowed +down before the strenuous Saxons, to whom the supreme power was +transferred. Their Chief was elected king of the Germans, and some +fifty years later their king, Otho the Great, after being crowned at +Aix-la-Chapelle, the former centre of Frankish rule, received the +Imperial Crown from the Pope in Rome. This displacement of the +political centre was naturally followed by a complete displacement of +artistic centres. Both these sides of life were fostered by Otho with +a keen personal interest--the building up of his empire and the +encouragement of art going hand in hand. Moreover, owing to his close +ties with Italy and the East, and the element of classic tradition +inevitably induced by such ties, art received an added stimulus and +grace. Oriental monks were to be found in the monasteries. Learned men +and artists were summoned from Italy and Constantinople. The number +and influence of these were increased when Otho’s son, afterwards Otho +the Second, married Theophano, a Greek princess, who, bringing many +compatriots in her train, sought to reflect in her German home +something of the learning and splendour of the Byzantine Court. The +ivory, shown in illustration, commemorating this marriage, is an +example of the work of some Byzantine craftsman in her employ, whilst +the jewelled and gold-wrought cover of the Gospels of St. Emmeran (now +at Munich) shows to how high a level the goldsmith’s art of the time +had been raised by the influences alluded to. + +[Illustration: _Musée de Cluny, Paris._ + +MARRIAGE OF OTHO II. AND THEOPHANO. + +Byzantine, 10th century. + +_To face page 7._] + +Perhaps the one place which retains in the most varied and +concentrated form the traces of this wave of artistic development then +passing over Germany, is Hildesheim. This is of interest here because +the bishops of Hildesheim were specially appointed to perform the +office of consecration of nuns at Gandersheim. It seems hardly +possible that Roswitha could have seen its gifted bishop Bernward, +himself a painter, and a worker in mosaic and metals, though owing to +the uncertainty of the date of her death--one chronicler making it as +late as 1002--it is just possible that she may have done so. +Bernward’s learning and artistic nature attracted the attention of the +princess Theophano, who appointed him tutor to her son, the +boy-emperor Otho the Third. Brought thus into touch with the many +gifts presented on special occasions to the young Emperor by Greek and +Oriental princes, as well as by “Scots” (_i.e._ Irish missionaries and +emigrants settled in Germany), he, by taking with him to Court, from +the School of Art established in his palace at Hildesheim, apt and +talented youths, made use of these rare and beautiful offerings for +the encouragement of the study of divers arts. Students also +accompanied him when he went farther afield for study, for it is said +of him that there was no art which he did not attempt, even if he +failed to attain perfection.[7] Hildesheim thus became famous as a +working-centre of fine art, especially in metals, and remained so down +to the end of the Middle Ages. After a lapse of nearly a thousand +years, the result of the labours of this artistic prelate and his +pupils may still be seen in situ as it were. Besides jewelled +service-books, there are chalices, incense burners, a gold +candelabrum, and a jewelled crucifix, fashioned, if not in part by +him, at least under his supervision. The entrance to the Cathedral is +beautified with delicately wrought bronze doors, modelled, it may be, +from those of Sta. Sabina, Rome, themselves considered to be of +Oriental origin,[8] and in the transept rises a column adorned with +bronze reliefs from the life of Christ, probably designed by the +bishop either after his pilgrimage to Rome in 1001, when he had seen +Trajan’s column, or, as a recent writer suggests, from the “Juppiter +and giant columns” of Roman Rhineland.[9] + + [7] Thangmarus, “Vita Sti. Bernwardi,” Migne, _Patrol. Lat._ + 140, col. 397. 6. + + [8] Michel, _Histoire de l’Art_, 1905, Tome I. i. p. 258. + + [9] _Journal of Studies_, vol. i. part i., 1911, article by + E. Strong, p. 24. + +We are tempted to recall other princesses whose marriages, and even +more whose personalities, have influenced art and letters, but two +must suffice us--the one, the beautiful and cultivated Anne of +Bohemia, wife of Richard the Second, whose bridal retinue was in +reality a small Court of literary and artistic personages; the other, +the brilliant Valentine Visconti of Milan, sister-in-law of King +Charles the Sixth of France, whose influence in matters of art and +literature alone, at a time when England and France were so intimately +associated, makes her of special interest to us. + +But what bearing, it may be asked, had Court life on the life of the +nun Roswitha in the convent of Gandersheim? To answer this question we +must recall briefly the position of the early religious houses, and +especially those of Saxony. Many of the foundations were royal, and, +in return for certain privileges, were obliged to entertain the king +and his retinue whenever he journeyed. Such sojourns naturally brought +a store of political, intellectual, and other information to the +favoured house. Added to this, the abbess of such a house, generally a +high-born and influential woman, was, in her position as a ruler of +lands as well as of communities, brought into direct contact with the +Court and with politics. To her rights of over-lordship were attached +the same privileges and duties as in the case of any feudal baron. She +issued summonses for attendance at her Courts, at which she was +represented by a proctor, and, when war was declared, she had to +provide the prescribed number of knights. In some cases her influence +was supreme, even in imperial affairs, extending also to matters +social and literary. Roswitha tells us how much she herself owed to +the two successive abbesses under whose rule she lived, for +suggestion, information, and encouragement in her literary work. + +The convents of Saxony, as many elsewhere in the tenth and eleventh +centuries, were centres of culture in the nature of endowed colleges. +In some of them women resided permanently, and besides their religious +exercises, devoted themselves to learning and the arts, for the Church +of the Middle Ages took thought for the intellect as well as for the +soul. In others, no irrevocable vows were made, and if desire or +necessity arose, the student inmate was free to return to the world. +In others again, though residence was permanent, short leave of +absence from time to time was granted by the abbess, and the nun was +able to sojourn with her friends, or to visit some sister community. +But at Gandersheim the rule was strict, and a nun, her vows once +taken, had to remain within the convent walls. Yet even so, life there +was perhaps far less circumscribed than in many a castle, where the +men gave themselves up to war and the chase, and the women perforce +spun and embroidered and gossiped, since to venture without the walls +was fraught with difficulty and sometimes with danger. Even if there +were some who cared to read, and who would fain go in imagination to +other scenes and times, MSS. were difficult to come by, and costly +withal. Wholly different was it in the religious houses. In these, +women associated with their equals, with whom they could interchange +ideas, and the library was well furnished with MSS. of classical and +Christian writers. One of the first cares of St. Benedict, in the case +of every newly founded house, was the formation of the library. So +held in honour did this tradition become, and so assiduously was it +pursued, that the status of a monastery or a convent, as a centre of +learning, came to be estimated by its wealth in MSS. Besides the mass +of transcribing which such rivalry occasioned, there was illuminating +to be done, musical notation to be studied and prepared for the +services of the Church, chants and choir-singing to be practised, and +the needful time to be devoted to weaving and embroidery--a part of +every woman’s education. Weaving had of necessity to be done in every +convent in order to provide the requisite clothing for its inmates, +and the large and often elaborate hangings used for covering the +walls. Embroidery, on the other hand, was no mere occupation, or even +a craft, but in truth a fine art. The few specimens still preserved +give some idea of the quality of the work, whilst old inventories +attest the quantity. Illuminated MSS. of the Gospels and the +Apocalypse were lent from royal treasuries, and their miniatures were +copied, with needle and silk, to adorn vestments and altar hangings. +Then at Gandersheim, as we have already said, the occasional visits of +princely travellers brought interest and diversion from the outside +world. It was in an atmosphere such as this that Roswitha passed her +days. + +Of her work, the metrical legends seem her earliest effort. In these, +though they are mainly based on well-known themes, Roswitha shows much +originality in description. Whilst they need not detain us, passing +reference may be made to two of them--the Passion of St. Pelagius of +Cordova, and the Fall and Conversion of Theophilus--since their +subject matter is of value to us to-day. The one interests us because, +in relating that the story was told her by an eye-witness of the +martyrdom in A.D. 925 (_Acta SS._ Jun. V.), she shows that +communication existed between that great intellectual centre, Cordova, +and Germany, a fact that must have had considerable influence on art +and literature; the other as being the story out of which the Faust +legend was developed. + +After these legends, we turn to her panegyric on the Emperor Otho. +This she opens by acknowledging her debt to the Abbess Gerberg, niece +of Otho the Great, for aiding her in her literary work with her +superior knowledge, and for giving her the necessary information +concerning the royal doings. Then by humbly likening her mental +perplexity and fear on entering upon so vast a subject to the feelings +of one who has to cross a forest in winter when snow has obliterated +the track, she in a few words pictures for us the natural wooded +surroundings of the convent. Her poem--for such it really is--then +sets forth the personal history of this monarch and his predecessors, +rather than public events, and is thus of value more on account of its +poetical than its historical quality. But one episode, picturesque in +its quaint setting, and interesting historically because its stirring +details are not to be found elsewhere, is worthy of record. It +centres round Adelheid, the young and beautiful widow of Lothair, a +Lombard king. Taken prisoner by his successor, the tyrant Berengarius, +she is immured in a castle on the Lago di Garda, and threatened with a +forced marriage with the son of her oppressor. This threat seems to +endow her with superhuman power. Bidding defiance to all difficulty +and danger, she contrives gradually to dig a secret way through the +soft earth, and suddenly finds herself free. Dawn is just breaking. +But how can she make use of her freedom before her guards awake and +discover her escape? Quickly is her mind made up. But let Roswitha +herself tell the story:-- + + As soon as black night yielded to the twilight, and the + heavens began to pale before the rays of the sun, warily + hiding herself in secluded caves, now she wanders in the + woods, now lurks in the furrows amongst the ripe ears of + Ceres, until returning night, clothed in its wonted gloom, + again veils the earth in darkness. Then once more is she + diligent to pursue her way begun. And her guards, not + finding her, all-trembling make it known to the officer + charged with the safe keeping of the lady. And he, struck to + the heart with the terror of grievous fear, set forth with + much company to make diligent search for her, and when he + failed, and moreover could not discover whither the most + illustrious queen had turned her steps, fearful, he made + report of the matter to King Berengarius. And he, at once + filled with exceeding wrath, forthwith sent his dependants + everywhere around, commanding them not to overlook any small + place, but cautiously to examine every hiding-place, lest + perchance the queen might be lying hid in any one. And he + himself followed with a band of stout-hearted troops as if + to overcome some fierce enemy in battle. And rapidly did he + pass on his way through the self-same corn-field in the + which the lady whom he sought was lurking in the bent-back + furrows, hidden beneath the wings of Ceres. Hither and + thither forsooth he traversed the very spot where she lay, + burdened with no little fear, and although, with great + effort, he essayed with outstretched spear to part the corn + around, yet he discovered not her whom by the grace of + Christ it concealed. + +From the sheltering corn Adelheid effects her escape, and after weary +wandering, reaches the Castle of Canossa, the stronghold of the Counts +of Tuscany. Any one who has visited this now ruined castle, some +twenty miles from Parma, will remember the threadlike way between +rocks covered with brambles, by which its eyrie height is approached. +Up this steep track the queen, fearful of any pause, hastens, and +finds a welcome and ready help. The Count becomes her champion, and +appeals on her behalf to the Emperor Otho. The latter, glad of an +excuse to further his cause in Italy, descends with his troops into +the Lombard plain, weds the beautiful Adelheid, and receives the +formal cession of the so-called kingdom of Italy from Berengarius and +his son, whose power had ebbed away in their futile attempts to +control their feudatories. + +Roswitha’s thrilling narrative is amplified by the graphic account +recorded by St. Odilo, Abbot of Cluny, Queen Adelheid’s friend and +one-time confessor. In this he tells us that during Adelheid’s +imprisonment in a castle on the Lago di Garda, her chaplain Martin +succeeds in making a hole in the wall, through which the queen and her +maidservant, disguised as men, creep. He does not recount the episode +of the hiding in the corn, but relates another equally stirring +adventure. He tells us that, in fleeing from their persecutor to the +safety of Canossa, the fugitives become involved in a swamp. After two +days, they are rescued from their perilous position by a fisherman +who, passing near by, and hearing sounds of distress, goes to their +aid. Their deliverer, finding them faint with hunger and cold, lights +a fire with the flint he carries in his wallet, and cooks some small +fish, the only food he has to offer them. Once more they start on +their way, and eventually reach Canossa. But hardly do they gain +admittance, ere the castle is surrounded by the soldiery of the +outwitted and wrathful Berengarius. A knight, carrying a message from +the Emperor Otho of promised deliverance, essays to enter the castle, +but finding this impossible owing to the hostile troops encamped +around, he fastens the letter to an arrow, and shoots it over the +wall. A strong force sent by Otho is near at hand, and speedily puts +the enemy to flight. Adelheid is rescued, and is brought with +rejoicing to Pavia, her dower city, which had already opened its gates +to the Emperor, and she and the Emperor enter the city together in +triumph. Much has been written of the illustrious Adelheid, but +perhaps she would best like to be remembered by the eulogy of her +confessor--the saintly Odilo--that she never forgot a kindness, or +remembered an injury. + +It is in a spirit far different from that of her panegyric on the +emperor Otho that Roswitha writes her dramas. Fear and mental +perplexity no longer possess her. Though humbly begging the reader not +to “despise these strains drawn from a fragile reed,” she has no +misgiving, for she feels that herein lies her mission. She explains +her reason for using the dramatic form, and for taking Terence as her +model. There are many, she says,--and she does not entirely exonerate +herself,--who, beguiled by the elegant diction of the Classics, prefer +them to religious writings, whilst there are others who, though +generally condemning heathen works, eagerly peruse the poetic +creations of Terence because of the special beauty of his language. +She further expresses the hope that by trying to imitate his manner, +and by at the same time dramatising legends calculated to edify, she +may induce readers to turn from the “godless contents of his works” to +the contemplation of virtuous living. Emboldened by this pious hope, +Roswitha shrinks from no difficulties or details, details which might +well have made her hesitate, and which, betraying a knowledge of the +world, have raised the question as to whether she made her profession +as early as was customary. This solicitude of Roswitha for the welfare +of frail and all too human mankind recalls St. Bernard’s condemnation, +some hundred and fifty years later, of all carving in church or +cloister, when he says, “one reads with more pleasure what is carven +in stones than what is written in books, and would rather gaze all day +upon these singular creations than meditate upon the Divine Word.” + +It has been maintained that the classic theatre decayed and +disappeared as Christianity became all-powerful in Europe, and that +the modern theatre seemingly arose in the twelfth century out of the +services of the Church, and owed no debt to the past. But neither +Nature nor Art works in this way except to our own unperceiving minds. +After the fall of the Roman Empire, and the consequent disruption of +society, classic civilisation gradually withdrew into the security of +the religious communities, seeking, like distraught humanity, shelter +and protection. It was in such tranquil atmosphere as this that Latin +drama, though condemned in substance, was fostered and favoured as an +education in style. Roswitha’s plays may, as has been said, have been +the last ray of classical antiquity, but if so, it was a ray, like the +pillar of fire, bright enough to guide through the dark night of +feudalism to the coming day. + +Whether her dramatic efforts were an isolated phenomenon or not, must +remain undecided, but it is reasonable to assume that any work +surviving to the present day is but a sample of much else of the same +sort that has disappeared in the course of time. Still all we would +claim for them, apart from their intrinsic value and interest, is that +they helped to keep up continuity in the tradition of drama. The +gradual movement in the Church towards elaboration in its services +which began in the ninth century,--a movement which led to the +dramatising of the Mass, out of which the liturgical drama, and +eventually the miracle-play, were evolved,--was a popular movement. To +a people ignorant of Latin, yet fond of shows, it provided instruction +and diversion alike. Roswitha, on the other hand, avowedly wrote for +the literary world, and with a special end in view as regards that +world. To attain this end, she set before her, as her master in style, +Terence, who himself had aimed at a high ideal of artistic perfection, +and of whom it has been said that he perpetuated the art and genius of +Menander just as a master engraver perpetuates the designs of a great +painter whose works have since perished. Still, in spite of the +glamour of the style to which she aspires, and poetess though she is +by nature, her plays reflect the handiwork of the moralist rather than +that of the artist, for though beauty charms her by the way, her goal +is moral truth, and to this all else must yield. If we would see the +beauty of holiness as she saw it, we must enter in spirit within the +shrine of her thought and feeling, just as the traveller, standing +without the simple brick exterior of the tomb of Galla Placidia, at +Ravenna, must penetrate within if he would know of the beauty there +enshrined. “Il faut être saint, pour comprendre la sainteté.” + +The subject which dominates her horizon is that of Chastity. Treated +by her with didactic intent, this really resolves itself into a +conflict between Christianity and Paganism,--in other words, between +Chastity and Passion,--in which Christianity triumphs through the +virtue of Woman. But at the same time Roswitha neither contemns +marriage nor generally advocates celibacy. She merely counsels, as the +more blessed, the unmarried state. Yet even so, we feel that beneath +her nun’s garb there beats the heart of a sympathetic woman, whose +emotional self-expression is but tempered by the ideals of her time +and her surroundings. + +Another important element to be taken into account in her plays is the +part she assigns to the supernatural. It is impossible to develop +character with any continuity when the supernatural, like some sword +of Damocles, hovers continually overhead, ready to descend at any +moment and sever cause from effect. Such a sword was the Divine +Presence to Roswitha. When her plot requires it, she introduces a +miracle, converting a character, at a moment’s notice, and in a way +that no evolution could possibly effect, into one of a totally +different kind. Still to her audience such a _dénouement_ would be +quite satisfactory. With her, sudden changes and conversions but +reflect the ideas which possessed the minds of her contemporaries, who +realised God more in deviations from, than in manifestations of, law +and order. + +Were her plays ever performed? To this question no certain answer can +be given, since no record has yet been found of their performance, and +the best critics are at variance on the subject. But judging from +analogy, there seems to be no reason why they should not have been. We +know that as early as the fifth and sixth centuries the monks played +Terence, probably on some fête-day, or before their scholars as a +means of instruction, and doubtless Roswitha’s plays were also acted +on special occasions, such as when the Emperor sojourned at +Gandersheim, or the Bishop made a visitation. As they were written in +Latin, the literary language of the time, this in itself, even if +their themes had appealed to the people, would have prevented them +from being performed save before the educated few. So if we would +picture to ourselves a performance of one of them by her companion +nuns in the Chapter House, or it may be in the refectory, it must be +before the Bishop and his clergy, and perhaps also some members of the +Imperial family, and lords and ladies of the Court. How refreshing +must such an entertainment have been to this distinguished company as +it found itself carried away into an atmosphere of poetry and passion, +of movement and colour, in place of the sobriety induced by the stiff +liturgical dramas that probably formed the usual diversion! Such a +drama was that of _The Wise and Foolish Virgins_, a specially +favourite old-world dramatic exercise, dispensed as a sort of +religious tonic to womankind, calculated to arouse slumbering souls, +or to quicken to still further effort those that did not slumber. For +us, its chief interest lies in the antiphonic arrangement of the +dialogue, in which we may trace the first germs of characterisation, +and in the music, the refrains of which contain the first suggestions, +as far as we know, of the principle of the leitmotiv, a principle +carried to its most complete development by Wagner. Although the +earliest known MS. of it is of the eleventh century, so finished, yet +so simple, are its dialogues and refrains, that it seems not +unreasonable to infer that the form of the play was well known, either +through some earlier MS. or through oral tradition. It is only a +slight development of the elegy in dialogue which was performed in +A.D. 874, at the funeral of Hathumoda, the first abbess of +Gandersheim. This dialogue takes place between the sorrow-stricken +nuns, who speak in chorus of their loss, and the monk Wichbert, who +acts as consoler. Although its form is liturgical, its subject +entitles it to be considered the earliest known mediæval dramatic work +extant. + +Of Roswitha’s dramas, three seem to stand out as of special +interest--_Abraham_, _Callimachus_, and _Paphnutius_. All of these are +more or less patchwork adaptations from the legendary débris of +antiquity. The first appears to have been taken by Roswitha from a +Latin translation of a fourth-century Greek legend.[10] Whilst she +does not display any originality in elaborating the story, but keeps +carefully to the text--so much so that at times she merely +transcribes--she reveals her artistic as well as her psychological +instinct by concentrating the essentials, thereby transforming a +rather discursive composition into a poignant picture. The subtle +touches, the sentiment, and the dialogue so pathetic and so true to +nature, make this drama verily her masterpiece, and one worthy of a +place beside the delicate and dramatic miniatures of the time. In a +few words, here is the story. A holy man, by name Abraham, has +abandoned a life of solitude in order to take care of his young +orphaned niece. After a few years, she is tempted to a house of ill +fame. Some two years later, her uncle, having discovered her +whereabouts, determines to exchange his hermit garb for that of a man +of the world, and go to the house in the guise of a lover, so as to +get an opportunity of speaking with his niece alone. Of course she +does not recognise him in his change of costume, and when he asks for +a kiss, she puts her arms round his neck, and suddenly detects a +strange perfume. Instantly a change comes over her. The scent recalls +to her her former unsullied life, and tears fill her eyes. At the +fitting moment the uncle makes himself known, and showing her with +sweet words of sympathy and encouragement that sin is natural to +humanity, and that what is evil is to continue in it, takes her back +with him to begin afresh the simple good life. + + [10] Migne, _Patrol. Lat._ lxxiii. + +The second play recounts an incident taken from the apocryphal Acts of +the Apostles, supposed to take place in the first century. A young +heathen, Callimachus, falls in love with a young married woman, a +Christian. She dies, and is buried the same day. That night +Callimachus goes to the grave, and with the help of a slave disinters +the body. Holding it in his arms, and triumphing in the embrace denied +to him in life, he suddenly falls dead. In the morning the husband and +St. John, coming to the cemetery to pray for her soul, see the rifled +grave and the two dead bodies. St. John, at the command of Christ, who +appears for but a moment, restores them both to life, and brings to +repentance the young man, who, in further amendment of his ways, +becomes a Christian. This mere outline of the play is given to suggest +points of resemblance between it--the first sketch of this kind of +drama of passion, the frenzy of the soul and senses--and the +masterpiece of this type, _Romeo and Juliet_. + +Many passages in the plays of Roswitha remind us of Shakespeare, but +it is not possible to deal adequately with them here, nor does it seem +material to do so. There is no reason why Shakespeare should not have +seen a printed collection of her dramas. He, like Dante, seems to have +had the power of attracting material from every possible source, and +it should not be forgotten what a sensation was caused by Celtes +printing in 1501 Roswitha’s MS. But, on the other hand, the +similarities we notice may be a mere coincidence, or, as is much more +likely, the details in each case may have been common property handed +down from one generation to another. + +In her play of _Paphnutius_, Roswitha made use of a story taken from +the _Historia Monachorum_ of Rufinus, a contemporary of St. Jerome, +who had journeyed through Palestine and Egypt to visit the Hermits of +the Desert. The mention, too, at the beginning of Rufinus’s account, +of a musician who tells of his retirement to a hermitage in order to +change the harmony of music into that of the spirit, evidently +suggested to her a discussion on music and harmony, probably adapted +from Boëthius’s _De Musica_. In this discussion lies the chief +interest of the play as giving us some idea of the sort of +intellectual exercises probably practised by women in convents in the +tenth century. The play opens with a truly mediæval scene,--a +disputation between a hermit and his disciples on the question of +harmony between soul and body, suggested by the want of it in the life +of the courtesan Thais. Such harmony _should_ exist, says the holy +man, for though the soul is not mortal like the body, nor the body +spiritual like the soul, we shall, if we follow the method of the +dialecticians, find that such differences do not necessarily render +the two inharmonious. Harmony cannot be produced from like elements or +like sounds, but only by the right adjustment of those which are +dissimilar. This discussion on harmony naturally leads to one on +music, which is divided, according to the then received writers on the +subject, into three kinds--celestial, human, and instrumental. Music, +in the Middle Ages, was, for dialectical purposes, treated in +accordance with the Pythagorean theory as interpreted by Cicero in his +_Somnium Scipionis_, who represented the eight revolving spheres of +heaven--the Earth being fixed--as forming a complete musical octave. +Such celestial music forms the subject of the argument in Roswitha’s +play, the music of Earth being merely touched upon. Why, it is asked, +do we not hear this music of the spheres if it exists? To this comes +the answer that some think it is because of its continuity, others +because of the density of the atmosphere, and others again because the +volume of sound cannot penetrate the narrow passage of the human ear. +And so with subtle argument, the music of Heaven was often drowned in +the din of Earth. Dante, in the _Paradiso_, lifted the idea once more +from Earth to Heaven, and clothed it in a wealth of gorgeous imagery. +But it is Shakespeare who, with the magic of a few words, has given +the thought immortality. + + There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st + But in his motion like an angel sings, + + * * * * * + + Such harmony is in immortal souls; + But whilst this muddy vesture of decay + Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it. + +In judging of Roswitha’s dramatic work it must be remembered that, in +true mediæval spirit fearing to profane what she venerates, she allows +herself but little licence with the legends she dramatises. +Nevertheless, as has been said, she from time to time shows, in +psychological touches, a capacity for originality quite phenomenal for +her time and for the literature of the cloister. Still her plays +express but a very small part of the whole gamut of human emotions and +experiences, just as her life was lived in an intellectual world +narrow from the point of view of to-day or of the great intellectual +age of antiquity. Many causes contributed to this. Intellectually, the +Christian world shrank as Paganism was superseded by Christianity, a +supersession by no means complete in Roswitha’s day. Of course this +nascent Christianity was inconsistent with much of the intellectual +life of the ancient world, which was either inextricably interwoven +with Paganism, or essentially anti-religious. With its task of laying +afresh the foundations of education, politics, and morality, it had to +take root and become established in a relatively narrow intellectual +field, the boundaries of which had gradually to be broken down, +sometimes with violence. + +Time, like some lens which clears our vision, makes it an easy task to +criticise and condemn a phase of religious life which, having essayed +to tranquillise and sweeten existence, was, under altered conditions +of civilisation, bound to pass away. We of to-day pride ourselves on +a wider view of life, on a higher conception of duty, expressed in +lives dedicated to public work as a necessary complement to private +virtue. Still, if we would judge fairly this age of contemplation and +faith within the convent walls, and all that, even if done mistakenly +and imperfectly, it aspired to do, we must realise, as best we can, +the world without those walls. One of our poets has vividly reflected +it for us when he speaks of man’s life as made up of “whole centuries +of folly, noise, and sin.” So bitter was life then and even later, +that by the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when mysticism had +claimed many votaries, eternal rest, even at the cost of personal +annihilation, was the whispered desire of many devout souls. + +“A Simple Stillness.” “An Eternal Silence.” These are the words that +float across the centuries to us, like echoes from troubled, longing +hearts. These are the words that give us the key to the understanding +of the choice of vocation of the mediæval woman. The spiritual need +for harmony and peace may have been great; the practical need was +perhaps even greater; for in its accomplishment the spiritual found +its consummation. + + + + +A TWELFTH-CENTURY ROMANCE-WRITER, MARIE DE FRANCE + + +“Marie ai nom, si sui de France.” Thus, more than seven centuries ago, +wrote Marie de France. What an unpretentious autobiography! Yet these +few simple words, which seem to tell so little, but in reality suggest +so much, are the counterpart of her work, and form its fitting crown. + +But who was this modest writer, and why does her work interest us +to-day? Around Marie de France there must always remain an atmosphere +of doubt and mystery, since she is only mentioned by an anonymous +thirteenth-century poet, and by one of her contemporaries--an +Anglo-Norman poet, Denys Pyramus by name--who speaks of her in the +most flattering terms, and from whom we learn that her lays were much +appreciated by the noblesse, especially the ladies. That these should +take rare delight in them may well be, seeing how monotonous life must +have been to many a woman shut up with her maidens and her needlework +in a dismal castle, or perhaps in but one tower of it, whilst her +lord went forth to the chase or to war, his home-coming meaning merely +the wine-cup and war-songs, or tedious epic. Many a one must have read +or listened to Marie’s love idylls, and longed, and perhaps even +hoped, as in the story of “Yonec,” that a fair and gentle knight, in +the form of some beautiful bird, might fly in at her window and bring +her some diversion from the outside world. With nothing before us but +her own poems and the scant recognition of Denys Pyramus, she seems +like some old portrait in which the delicate pigments that once glowed +in the face and made it live have, owing to their very delicacy, long +since faded away, leaving behind only the stronger and less volatile +colours of the dark background from which we in vain try to wrest more +than one or two fragments of the secret it holds. + +Judging from internal evidence, it would seem that Marie was born in +Normandy, about the middle of the twelfth century, but settled in +England, where since the Conquest, and indeed since the time of Edward +the Confessor, many Norman families had made their home. Not only does +she make occasional use of English words, and translate from English +into French the fables known as Æsop’s, but in the prologue to her +_Lays_, which she dedicates to “the noble King,” generally considered +to be Henry the Second, she expresses fear lest her work should not +find favour in a foreign land. In this prologue she also gives her +reason for abandoning classical translation, which, as a Latin +scholar, she had contemplated making, not only for the use of the less +learned, but also, as she tells us, for personal discipline, since “he +who would keep himself from sin, should study and learn and undertake +difficult tasks. In suchwise he may the more withdraw him and save +himself from much sorrow.” The twelfth century was a time of +extraordinary intellectual activity, and Marie tells us that she +suffered from what we are apt to regard as a special evil of our own +day--the overcrowding of the literary market. So she wisely turned +aside from the Classics and the crowd, and set herself to give +literary expression to the old Celtic folk-lore, hitherto perhaps +unrecorded save in song. + +Of Marie’s work that has come down to us we have _The Fables_, already +mentioned, dedicated to Count William, surnamed Longsword, and son of +Henry the Second and Fair Rosamond;[11] _The Lays_, dedicated to the +king, Henry the Second, and doubtless read by Fair Rosamond in her +retreat at Woodstock; and _The Purgatory of St. Patrick_, translated +from the Latin at the request of an anonymous benefactor. Of these +only _The Lays_ need here concern us, as it is in them that our +interest lies, since they are perhaps among the first stories, given +literary form, which tell of love “for love’s sake only,”--love +unqualified and unquestioning. They form, perhaps, the only collection +of lays now extant, and it is to them, therefore, that we must turn to +get some idea of the style of narration that gradually replaced the +taste for the epic as Norman influence grew and spread in England. +Beside the sensualism of the _Chansons de Geste_, the sentiment +expressed in them may seem naïve; beside the gallantry of the +Provençal poetry, it may seem primitive; but nevertheless it is, in +its very simplicity, the profoundest note that can be struck in this +world of men and women. Marie makes no pretence to originality, but +even if she did not possess the supreme gift of creating beauty, she +at least possessed the lesser gift of perceiving it where it existed +and of making it her own, and her stories glow with colour, and +enchant by their simple yet dramatic appeal to the imagination. She +declares that _The Lays_ were made “for remembrance” by “Le ancien +Bretun curteis,” and that “Folks tell them to the harp and the rote, +and the music is sweet to hear.” Doubtless it was this sweet music +which both soothed and thrilled even before the words were understood, +for on sad and festive days alike, the sweet lays of Brittany were +always to be heard. + + La reine chante doucement, + La voiz acorde a l’estrument: + Les mains sont belles, li lais bons, + Douce la voiz et bas li tons. + + [11] Marie thus refers to Count William:-- + + “Pur amur le cumte Willaume, + Le plus vaillant de cest royaume, + M’entremis de cest livre feire, + E de l’Angleiz en Roman treire.” + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +LADY PLAYING HARP. + +Add. MS. 38117, Brit. Mus. + +_To face page 32._] + +Whether Marie was connected with the Court of Henry the Second and his +brilliant and artistic queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, where learned men +and poets congregated, we do not know, but it seems a very fair +conjecture that she was. Not only does she dedicate her principal work +to the king and his son, Count William, but her stories are coloured +with the courtly life and ideas of her time, notwithstanding the +simplicity of the fundamental theme. It is doubtful whether any one +unacquainted with the teaching of the Courts of Love, such as they +were in the twelfth century, would have made the compulsory quest of +love the keynote of a story, as, for instance, Marie does in the “Lay +of Guigemar.” These Courts of Love, though not so elaborate, yet +seemingly as imperious, as those of the fourteenth century, formed one +of the semi-serious pastimes of the Middle Ages, and although it may +be that they were often mere forms of entertainment, no +self-respecting person could afford to disregard their rules or +decisions. The cardinal doctrine was that love was necessary to a +man’s moral, social, and æsthetic training. Hence if it did not arise +of itself, it must be sought for, and, like its counterpart in the +spiritual world, come at, if needs be, through much tribulation. + +Owing to Henry’s possessions in France through inheritance, marriage, +and the many ties of relationship which united the royal families of +both countries, England and France were never more closely allied +than they were at that time. French was established by them as the +speech of the cultured and the high-born. The Norman Conquest had made +us more cosmopolitan in both manners and ideas. May we not look on the +victory at Hastings as a symbol as well as a reality? Did it not mean +for us a spiritual as well as a material conquest, since, mingled with +the clashing of battle-axes, was to be heard the chanting of the +_Chanson de Roland_? Moreover, through a desire to bring about +uniformity of sentiment and service, the Church, though perhaps +unconsciously, aided this good work of general enlargement of outlook +by appointing outsiders to control our abbeys and religious +foundations. Thus, in the latter half of the twelfth century, the +romantic movement which characterised late mediæval literature stirred +in England and France alike, and Marie was one of its truest and +daintiest exponents. Although what she relates may be fiction +intermingled with myth and magic, she all the same pictures on her +somewhat small canvases the ideas of her time, and so helps to make +history. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +ADD. MS. 10293, BRIT. MUS. + +_To face page 34._] + +Marie’s readers and hearers were naturally to be found amongst +castle-folk. That these were many we may conclude from the fact that +the number of castles had already come to be regarded as a menace to +the central government, and a royal command had gone forth for the +demolition of many of them. That her stories were read and prized +for at least a century and more is evident from the manuscripts--five +in number, and all of the thirteenth, or the beginning of the +fourteenth, century--which still exist. Her renown, too, had travelled +even beyond the seas, for in about A.D. 1245 a translation of her lays +into Norse was made by order of the king, Haakon the Fourth. The fact +that their popularity began to wane after a hundred years or so is in +no wise an adverse criticism of their intrinsic worth, for in the +fourteenth century English was, in high places, beginning to take the +place of French, and naturally the demand created a supply. But even +if this had not been so, Marie’s work had served its purpose, and of +necessity passed into the crucible of human thought and expression, to +be resolved into matter suited to other needs and conditions. As has +been well said, “les siècles se succèdent, et chacun porte son fruit, +qui n’est pas celui du siècle précédent: les livres sont les fruits +des mœurs.” + +Of the five manuscripts still extant, two are in the British Museum. +One of these is the most complete that has come down to us, seeing +that, in addition to its including the largest number of lays--twelve +in all,--it alone contains the prologue, in which for a moment the +illusive Marie lifts, as it were, her all-enshrouding veil. It is a +small manuscript, beautifully inscribed, and even after its seven +hundred years of existence, as fresh as is the love enshrined in its +parchment pages. How strange a feeling possesses us as we turn over +its leaves, leaves across which the shadows of readers of bygone days +still seem to flit! Could these pages speak, of what would they tell? +Of desires that die not, of longings that are immortal, of love +enthroned. + +When first read, these stories, so simply are they told, may seem +somewhat slight and superficial. But this is the general +characteristic of mediæval literature, which, for the most part, +recognised things in outline only, and sought, and perhaps possessed, +but little knowledge of the hidden springs of motive. The writers of +those times troubled as little about moral, as the early painters did +about physical, anatomy. Still, in spite of this indifference to what +has become almost a craze in our own day, Marie’s lays are so full of +charming detail, deftly handled, that they give much the same sense of +delight as do delicate ivories or dainty embroidery. Sometimes, it is +true, she scarcely, despite all this outward charm, seems to touch the +world of fact. Yet in this ideal atmosphere which she so essentially +made her own, she contrives to convey such a sense of reality, that +for the moment we are wholly possessed by it and carried away, without +questioning, into her fairyland. And a beautiful fairyland it is, +where love triumphs for the most part, not in heedless ecstasy along +flower-bestrewn ways, but through self-sacrifice and suffering +mutually accepted and mutually endured. Listen to the words spoken to +the knight Guigemar, wounded by a chance arrow as he rides through a +wood. “Never shalt thou be healed of thy wound, not even by herb, or +root, or leach, or potion, until thou art healed by her who, for love +of thee, shall suffer such great pain and sorrow as never woman has +suffered before: and thou shalt bear as much for her.” Equality in +love! Such is the vital note struck amid the artificial and +soul-enfeebling atmosphere of mediæval love-poetry! This is the note +which Marie set ringing down the centuries whilst her manuscripts lay +unused on library shelves. This is Marie’s gift to the world, and this +it is that gives her stories immortality. Not only do they possess +this immortality in themselves, but they have also been immortalised +by poets and writers both in days long past and in those more within +our ken. All who know her stories will recall Chaucer’s indebtedness +to incidents and descriptions in them, and coming to our own time, we +find Sir Walter Scott taking his ballad of “Lord Thomas and Fair +Annie” from the lay of “The Ash Tree,” although it is possible, as has +been suggested,[12] that his ballad may have been founded on some +Scotch folk-song having a common origin with Marie’s lay. When her +lays were first published in Germany in 1820, Goethe wrote thus: “The +mist of years that mysteriously envelops Marie de France makes her +poems more exquisite and precious to us.” Yes, it is this +all-pervading mystery which, though so tantalising, is yet so +attractive. It is in vain that, in studying them, we try to penetrate +somewhat beyond our normal atmosphere, for we only find ourselves lost +in vague possibilities and hazy distances. Brittany has kept her +secret concerning such of these lays as were hers just as jealously as +she has kept her secret of the long avenues of great lichened stones +which make Carnac look like the burial-place of some giant host. +Marie’s lays are stories of deep meaning, which each reader must +interpret for himself. + + [12] Warnke. _Die lais der Marie de France_, p. lxiii. + +It is impossible to do more here than just touch upon Marie’s ideal +conception of love, for to realise it fully it is necessary to read +the stories themselves.[13] Allusion has been made to the wounded +knight in the “Lay of Guigemar,” who can only be healed through mutual +love sanctified by mutual suffering. In the lay of “The Ash Tree” a +maiden of noble birth, abandoned in infancy and brought up in a +convent, is loved by a lord, and returns his love, and goes with him +to his castle. After a time the knights who owe him fealty complain +that as through his love for his mistress he has neither wife nor +child, he does them wrong, and protest that if he does not wed some +noble lady, they will no longer serve him or hold him for lord. The +knight has to yield to their demands and to consent to accept in +marriage the daughter of a neighbouring noble who had made it known +that he desired him for son-in-law. Neither lover utters any complaint +or reproach, and the needful sacrifice is about to be made. But +fortune, sometimes kind, intervenes ere it is too late, and reveals +the noble birth of the loved one. The knight weds her with great joy, +and to complete this happy picture we read that the other lady +returned with her parents to her own domain, and was there well +bestowed in marriage. + + [13] Marie de France, _Seven of her Lays_, trans. E. Rickert, + 1901; Warnke, _Die lais der Marie de France_, Halle, 1885; + Hertz, _Spielmannsbuch_, 1905. + +This idea of mutual sympathy and sacrifice gives meaning also to the +lay of “The Two Lovers,” and to that of “Yonec,” but perhaps it is +most simply, yet forcibly, summed up in the lay of “The Honeysuckle,” +an episode taken from the Tristan story. Tristan, hearing that Isolde +is to ride through a certain wood on her way to Tintagel to attend the +Pentecostal Court held by the King, hides in the wood. Here he cuts a +branch of hazel round which honeysuckle has twined, and carving his +name and certain letters on it, he lays it in the way by which the +Queen must pass, knowing that she will recognise it as a sign that her +lover is near, since they have met before in suchwise. The import of +the writing is that he has long been waiting to see her, since without +her he cannot live, and that they two are like the hazel branch with +the encircling honeysuckle, the which, as long as they are +intertwined, thrive, but as soon as they are separated, both perish. +Says Tristan, “Sweet Love, so is it with us--nor you without me, nor I +without you.” + +But besides this conception of love which Marie had simply found +awaiting expression, when we turn to examine the stories somewhat in +detail, we find legend and poetry, Eastern magic and Christian +symbolism, mingled with strange ingenuity. Whence came all these +divers threads which Marie has so dexterously interwoven? It is very +difficult to tell whether we are wholly in a world of romance, +accepted by her without question, or whether she had some +understanding of the divers matters she touches upon, and shaped them +into a new form to suit new hearers. The answer to this question seems +to depend on whether Marie recounted the lays from hearsay, or whether +they had been already written down, and were merely retold by her, she +colouring them with the atmosphere of her time, which was charged with +strange incongruities of religion and magic. To this we can give no +certain answer, since Marie herself gives no hint, and only tells us +that the ancient Bretons made the lays. But whatever may have been her +contribution, Christian or otherwise, to the original matter she +worked upon, we cannot help feeling that we have before us the remains +of some primitive mythology overlaid and interpenetrated with Eastern +lore, especially that of India, which, in the Middle Ages, was spread +broadcast in the West. This Indian thought, itself borrowed in a +measure from Egypt, had also been tempered by the Hellenism which, +after the conquests of Alexander the Great in Asia, had filtered +through India, and had on the way become tinged with its colour and +its mystery. It was from the matter of these Indian stories that so +much was learnt, for whilst, in the West, the national epic and the +chivalrous romance had been alone considered worthy of record, in the +Indian stories all social conditions were revealed, and poets thus +learnt little by little to observe and portray the manners and +sentiments of the people generally, changing social conditions also +acting in the same direction. All such influences must be taken into +consideration in studying mediæval literature generally, but +particularly the occult element in Oriental thought which presents +such difficulties to the less meditative Western mind, and has in +consequence given rise to much misconception. + +In the “Lay of Guigemar,” which we take first because it is the first +in the manuscript, we find Marie making use of a subject, in gorgeous +setting, of Christian symbolism, but using it apparently so +unconsciously that it is only from one or two details that we realise +what is really lurking in disguise. Guigemar, the wounded knight +already referred to, to whom naught but love, and sorrow endured for +love, can bring any alleviation, sets forth for his healing. He comes +across a ship into which he enters, and which by unseen means carries +him to the desired haven. As we read the description of the ship, our +thoughts at once revert to the picture of the barge in which Cleopatra +goes to meet Antony. Marie tells us that the fittings are of ebony, +and the unfurled sail of silk. Amid the vessel is a bed on to which +the wounded knight sinks in anguish. This is of cypress and white +ivory inlaid with gold, the quilt of silk and gold tissue, and the +coverlet of sable lined with Alexandrian purple.[14] All this we might +regard as merely a poet’s fancy were it not that we go on to read that +there were set two candlesticks of fine gold with lighted tapers. Here +we have the clue. Doubtless the ship, a favourite theme of Christian +symbolism, and one which delighted poets and painters and workers in +mosaic alike, represented the Church. It is not to be necessarily +inferred that Marie, when giving her hero so rare a means of transit, +had in her mind all the elaborate symbolism connected with it; but she +had probably read or heard tell of it, and made use of it simply for +the enhancement of her story. It is in such ways that we find +mysteries embedded, the real significance of them being lost or +misunderstood or unheeded, just as the Renaissance painters, without +any knowledge of Arabic characters, and solely on account of the +ornamental quality of the lettering, used texts from the Koran, and +distorted into mere design the sayings of Mahomet. + + [14] Compare with this the bed of “King Fisherman” described + in _Holy Grail_, vol. i. p. 137, trans. Sebastian Evans, + 1898. + +In the lay of “The Two Lovers” we again find Christian symbolism in +disguise. Here is the old theme of a difficult task to be accomplished +by the lover before he can win his lady.[15] The undertaking imposed +is the carrying of the loved one to the top of a hill, and our +interest in it is enhanced by the fact that the trial was to be made +near Pitres, a few miles from Rouen, where there is a green hill, +still known as “La Côte des Deux Amans.” In Rouen there lived a king +who had an only daughter, very fair and beautiful, whose hand was +sought in marriage of many. Loath to part with her, he bethought him +how he could thwart her suitors. To this end he caused it to be +proclaimed far and wide that he would have for son-in-law only him who +could carry his daughter to the top of the hill without pausing to +rest. Many came, but each in turn failed, greatly to the content of +the princess, since secretly she loved, and was loved by, a young +knight who frequented her father’s Court. At last, constrained by +love, the knight, though with much misgiving, determines to undertake +the adventure. Before allowing him to do this, the maiden, in order to +ensure his success, and herself fasting meanwhile, bids him go to +Salerno,[16] near Naples, a school of medicine famous in the Middle +Ages, and ask of her kinswoman there, who was well practised in +medicine, a draught to give him the needful strength for his task. +Returned with this potion, he makes the attempt, but so great is his +desire to reach the goal quickly, that he will not slacken his speed +to drink from the phial carried by his Love, but hastens forward, only +to fall dead as he reaches the summit of the hill. + + [15] Hertz, _op. cit._ p. 396. + + [16] This mention of Salerno is of interest on account of the + reference to women practising there as medical experts. The + origin of the School remains in obscurity, and it is not + until the ninth century, when the names of certain Salerno + physicians appear in the archives, that we get any definite + information with regard to it. It seems to have been a purely + secular institution, but it is quite possible that its + development was aided by the Benedictines, who became + established there in the seventh century, and who made + medical science one of their principal studies. Before the + middle of the eleventh century there were many women there + who either practised medicine or acted as professors of the + science, and some of the latter even combined surgery with + medicine in their teaching and treatises. These women doctors + were much sought after by the sick, and were much esteemed by + their brother-professionals, who cited them as authorities. + That the sexes were on an equal footing we infer from the + fact that the title of “master” (Magister) was applied to men + and women alike, the term “doctor” not having come into use, + apparently, before the thirteenth century. Besides the + general practitioners and the professors, there were others + who fitted themselves specially for military service, as well + as priests who added medical knowledge to their holy calling. + The teaching followed that of Hippocrates and Galen, and the + Salerno school was world-renowned in the art of drug + preparation. In the thirteenth century, however, Arab medical + writings began to be known in Europe through Latin + translations, and Arab practice in medicine, though based on + Greek teaching, initiated a new departure. As a result of + this, the glory of Salerno waned. Another cause of its + decline in fame and popularity was the founding by the + Emperor Frederick the Second of a school of medicine at + Naples, which he richly endowed, and the rise, unencumbered + by old traditions--for medicine, like scholasticism, could be + hampered by dialectical subtlety--of the school of + Montpelier. + +In this strength-giving potion we may perhaps see the expression of a +Christian, and the survival of a pre-Christian belief, where the +getting of strength and life is only possible through a direct act of +communion, either material or spiritual, with the god. Such world-old +beliefs, in which the supernatural intervenes to help the natural, are +also intimately connected, even if they are not identical, with the +magic of philtres and charms. + +We pass from Christian symbolism to magic in the lay of “Yonec.” The +delightful ease with which mediæval folk turned from magic to +religion, or _vice versa_, shows how simply they accepted what they +did not understand. At the same time it proves how intermingled the +two were, and that what some are inclined to separate now, were once +regarded as one and the same thing, the eccentricities and impositions +which have developed in both being of mere external growth, and to be +treated accordingly. In the lay of “Yonec” a young wife, passing fair, +is shut up by her jealous old husband in a great paved chamber in a +tower of his castle, to which no one save an ancient dame and a priest +has admittance. After seven years of this isolation and uncongenial +company, the lady remembers that she has heard tell that means have +been found to rescue the unhappy, and she wishes with all her heart +that deliverance may come to her. Suddenly a shadow comes across the +window, and into her chamber there flies a falcon, which forthwith +changes into a knight. As soon as the lady has recovered from her +surprise, the knight tells her that he has long loved her, but could +not come until she wished for him. Here we have an incident, borrowed +direct from Oriental magic, in which a modern believer in psychical +phenomena might find an element of telepathy. The will, as in all +magic, is the motive power which acts sympathetically on the object of +desire, that object being in a receptive condition. Quickly we turn +from magic, and the story goes on to tell that the lady, before +accepting the knight as her lover, makes it a condition that he +believes in God, and the knight offers to prove his belief by taking +the Sacrament. This demand is evidently in the nature of a protective +test. It was very usual to try some means of discovering whether a +person was in league with the powers of evil or not; for if any one +unworthy touched holy things, retribution came at once, either by +death or some dire visitation. But how is the priest to administer the +Sacrament without seeing the knight? The latter tells her that he will +make himself like her in appearance; in other words, that he will +hypnotise the priest, and make him see what he, the knight, wishes him +to. The ruse succeeds, and for a time all goes well; then comes +discovery, despair, and death. The whole story is a most extraordinary +medley of fairy-lore, religion, and magic, and most characteristic of +the mediæval mind. + +The lay of “Eliduc,” the last in the manuscript, is also the longest +and most elaborate. Marie unfolds her story with so certain yet so +subtle a hand, that the reading of it is like the unwinding of some +finely illuminated parchment-roll where miniature follows miniature, +each perfect in itself, yet all needful to the whole. To the charm of +its pictures of mediæval life, with the fine scene between the two +women, and their final reunion in the same convent, there is added an +incident which gives special interest and importance to the story, +since it brings us into touch with one of the oldest and most +widespread of traditions--the restoration to life, from apparent +death, by means of a flower. There are few pursuits more fascinating +than the tracing of traditions, except, it may be, that of symbols, +with which they have so much in common. We find the same traditions, +just as we find the same symbolic figures, common to the most widely +separated peoples, and the real interest in the case of each lies in +trying to discover how and why in the course of their migrations their +form and their significance have been varied or modified. But before +considering the tradition, let us first hear the story. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +BOAT WITH KNIGHTS AND LADY. + +Add. MS. 10294, Brit. Mus. + +_To face page 49._] + +Eliduc, a knight of Brittany, whose wife, Guildeluëc, was very dear to +him, had for over-lord one of the kings of Brittany, with whom, owing +to faithful service, he had gained high favour. Being defamed on this +account by envious tongues, he was banished from Court, and thereupon +determined to quit his country for a while and seek service in the +West of England. With many promises to his wife to be faithful to her, +he set out for Totnes, where he found many kings ruling in the land, +all at war with one another. One of them, a very old man, was ruler in +the province of Exeter, and at war with a neighbouring king on account +of his refusal to give to the latter his daughter, Guilliadun, in +marriage. So Eliduc determined to offer his services to the old king, +by whom they were accepted, and by his tact and prowess he soon proved +himself worthy of the trust reposed in him. Through a skilful ambush, +planned and conducted by him, he defeated the enemy. Guilliadun, +hearing of his deeds, sought an interview with him, and at once fell +in love with him, and after certain maidenly reserve and hesitation, +made her love known to him. This Eliduc secretly returned, but, +troubled at the remembrance of his wife and of his pledge to her, his +courage failed him to confess that he was already wedded. In order to +escape from his dilemma, he sought and obtained the permission of the +old king to avail himself of the entreaty of his liege-lord to return +to his own country to fight against the enemies who were desolating +the kingdom. This permission was granted under his promise to come +back if his services were again required. After pledging himself to +Guilliadun to do this on such a day as she should name, Eliduc, +having exchanged rings with her, and she having named the day for his +return, departed. Having speedily reduced the enemies of his +liege-lord to submission, he came once more to England, and +immediately sent to Guilliadun to apprise her of this, and to beg her +to be ready to start on the morrow. Guilliadun secretly left the +castle the next night and joined her lover, and together they hurried +to Totnes, whence they at once set sail. But as they were nearing +land, a violent storm arose. Finding that prayers were of no avail, +one of the company cried out, “We shall never make the land, for you +have a lawful wife, and you are taking with you another woman, setting +at naught God, the law, and uprightness. Let us cast her into the sea, +and anon we shall get to land.” On hearing these words Guilliadun fell +as one dead, whereupon Eliduc in anger struck the esquire on the head +and hurled him into the sea. When the ship was brought to port +Guilliadun showed no sign of life. So Eliduc, believing her to be +dead, lifted her in his arms, carried her ashore, and, mounting his +horse, sadly bore her to a small chapel in a forest adjoining his own +lands. Here he laid her in front of the altar, and covered her with +his cloak, and then returned to his home. Filled with sadness, he +arose early each morning and went to the chapel to pray for her soul, +marvelling nevertheless to find that the face of his Love suffered no +change except to become a little paler. His wife, made anxious by his +melancholy and silence, and wondering whither he went, had him +watched, and soon discovered the truth. Taking a varlet with her, she +went to the chapel, and there discovered the beautiful maiden, looking +like a new-blown rose, and at once guessed the cause of her husband’s +sadness and gloom. As she sat watching and weeping out of sheer pity, +a weasel ran from behind the altar and passed over the body of +Guilliadun, and the varlet struck it with a stick and killed it. Then +its mate came in and walked round it several times, and finding that +it could not rouse it, made sign of great sorrow and ran out into the +wood, and returning with a red flower between its teeth put it into +the mouth of its dead companion, which within an hour came to life +again. Guildeluëc, seeing this, seized the flower and laid it in the +mouth of the maiden, who after a short time sighed and opened her +eyes. Then she told Guildeluëc that she was a king’s daughter, and had +been deceived by a knight called Eliduc, whom she loved, and who +returned her love, but who had hidden from her that he was already +married. Guildeluëc thereupon made known to her who she was, and sent +at once for her husband. When he came, she begged him to build a +nunnery, and to allow her to retire from the world, as she would fain +give herself to the service of God. When the nunnery was ready, +Guildeluëc took the veil, with some thirty nuns, of whom she became +the Superior. Then Eliduc wedded his love, and after some years of +happiness they too resolved to retire from the world, Guilliadun +joining Guildeluëc, who received her as a sister, and Eliduc going to +a monastery which he had founded near by.[17] + + [17] M. Gaston Paris (_Poésie du Moyen Age_, vol. ii.), in + recalling various legends of “Le Mari aux deux femmes,” + suggests that the present story, borrowed by Marie from + Celtic tradition, is probably of Occidental, and not + Oriental, origin, since in the polygamous East the story of + two wives would not have furnished a sufficient motive for a + special narration. + +In this charming romance, given here in epitome only, the two most +interesting points, after noting the mutual suffering of the lovers +for love’s sake, are the episode of the sacrifice to the sea, and that +of the weasel and the life-giving flower. Both these incidents point +to the great antiquity of the fundamental theme of the story, which +Marie, possibly like many another before her, merely reclothed in +garments suited to the fancy of the time. In most stories where the +sea has to be appeased by the sacrifice of some one, it is the guilty +person who is thrown overboard, or if the offender is not known, lots +are cast to determine who shall be the one to make expiation to the +god. In the present instance Eliduc is clearly the wrong-doer, but he +is the hero, and must be treated as such, and accordingly the hostile +voice is the one to be silenced in the depths of the sea. + +The other incident--the restoration to life by means of a flower or a +herb--frequently occurs in classical stories and folk-lore.[18] +Perhaps the most familiar example, and, owing to the recent +excavations in Crete, the most interesting one, is that connected with +Glaucos, son of Minos, king of Crete. In the story (Apollod. iii. 3) +Glaucos when a boy fell into a cask of honey and was smothered. His +father, ignorant of his fate, consulted the oracle to ascertain what +had become of him, and the seer Polyeidos of Argos was named to +discover him. When he had found him, Minos shut Polyeidos up in the +tomb with the dead body of the boy until he should restore the latter +to life. Whilst Polyeidos was watching the body, a serpent suddenly +came towards it and touched it. Polyeidos killed the serpent, and +immediately a second one came, which, seeing the other one lying dead, +disappeared and soon returned with a certain herb in its mouth. This +it laid on the mouth of the dead serpent, which immediately came to +life again. Polyeidos seized the herb and placed it on the mouth of +the dead boy, who was thereupon restored to life. + + [18] Warnke, _op. cit._ civ.; Hertz, _op. cit._ p. 409. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +GLAUKOS AND POLYEIDOS IN TOMB. + +Greek Vase, Brit. Mus. + +_To face page 52._] + +This story is most graphically depicted on a fifth-century Greek vase +in the British Museum, and, whatever its real interpretation may be, +it has gained in significance since the life of the distant past of +the island has been laid bare, and large jars, which in all +probability were used for storing wine and honey and other +necessaries, and from their size and contents might well have +proved a snare to a venturesome and greedy boy, have been discovered +_in situ_. After a lapse of many centuries we find this idea of the +life-giving plant reappearing in mediæval garb, daintily fashioned by +Marie de France. + +Marie, in her story, tells us that the weasel brings a _red_ flower. +This was possibly the verbena, well known in folk-medicine as vervain, +and much used in the Middle Ages. According to one writer, the weasel +uses vervain as a preservative against snake-bites, and this idea of +its effect might easily have been extended to include death. Even so +great an authority as Aristotle mentions that the weasel understood +the potent effects of certain herbs. The intervention of a weasel +instead of the usual serpent opens up the further interesting question +as to whether this weasel incident was not imported from India, where +Greek stories had become alloyed with Indian lore. Even to-day, in +India, a mongoose, a species of weasel, is sometimes taken on +expeditions by any one fearful of snakes, and kept at night in the +tent as a protection against them. + +In addition to the choice of a weasel as medium, the unusual colour of +the flower is also of interest. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in the +twelfth century on the subject of weasels, after remarking that they +have more heart than body (_plus cordis habens quam corporis_), goes +on to say that they restore their dead by means of a _yellow_ flower, +and in the still earlier record of the Lydian hero Tylon, where a +serpent is the intermediary--and serpents are often credited with a +knowledge of life-giving plants,--reference is made to a _golden_ +flower.[19] This may possibly be connected with the idea of the +life-giving power of the god, since the golden flower is dedicated to +Zeus. Professor J. G. Frazer thinks that a red flower may perhaps have +been chosen to suggest a flow of blood--an infusion of fresh life into +the veins of the dead. It is also possible that red and yellow may +have been interchangeable terms, just as they are to-day amongst the +Italian peasantry. The choice of colour may, however, have been +derived from the red anemone, which is said to have sprung from the +blood of Adonis, with whom love and life are traditionally associated. +There are some, on the other hand, who ascribe to the story a deep +spiritual meaning. With them it is not the flower itself which brings +about resurrection from apparent death, but the spiritual truth of +which the flower is but the outward symbol. It may be that the red +blossom represents the joys of earth which Eliduc’s wife voluntarily +renounces, and which, surrendered to her rival, in time became like a +burning thing whose fiery touch awakens to life the sleeping +conscience. In a story such as this, which has evidently travelled far +and wide before we find it in England in the eleventh century, it is +possible that any or all of these surmises may be true. The whole of +this incident of the weasel and the flower, read in the original, is +of extraordinary interest and beauty. What a touching picture of +animal sensibility is the account of the despair of the weasel on +finding its dead mate, and its tender display of solicitude and +sympathy, raising the lifeless head and trying to reanimate the small +inert body! Only one who loved animals and knew their habits well +could have told thus tenderly and graphically a story so simple, yet +so suggestive, of the love of two sentient things, a love which runs +like a thread of gold through all creation and makes it one. + + [19] J. G. Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, p. 98. + +The twelfth century was an age of humanism as well as feudalism. As +often happens in times of comparative peace, a growth of interest in +the individual was springing up and finding expression in lyric poetry +and stories. The day of epics was waning. Those vast and involved +poems, like to huge and complex frescoes, found little favour at a +time when men and women, or at least women, had more leisure and +inclination to try to get below the surface of things. Heroes had been +glorified till they had almost become deified, and something more +personal, more individual, was wanted. By the side of modern romance, +where the most sacred and secret intricacies of human nature are, as +it were, displayed under the microscope, Marie’s narrations may seem +somewhat artless. But in putting into words the dawning desires of her +time she gave form and impetus to feeling and thought struggling for +expression, and gained for her work a definite place in the +development of human utterance. Evolution, whether of the spirit or of +matter, is the supreme law of things. Marie struck a spark from the +ideal which poets and writers down the ages have fanned into a flame. + + + + +A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY MYSTIC AND BEGUINE, MECHTHILD OF MAGDEBURG + + +The triumphant ecclesiasticism of the thirteenth century, manifested +in the forms of political power, material wealth, splendid +architecture, and worldly positions sufficiently commanding to satisfy +even the most ambitious, was, perhaps naturally, accompanied by a +gross materialism. Against this the truly pious-minded revolted, +thereby causing a reaction towards mysticism. Whilst before the eyes +of some there floated, as the ideal, the material ladder leading to +fame and power, before those of others there arose, as in a vision, +the “Ladder of Perfection,” each rung of which gained brought them +nearer to the object of their quest--Divine Reality. These latter, +whether of great, or lesser, or even of no renown, and amongst whom +women played a great and very notable part, were scattered far and +wide; but each one cultivated some little corner of the mystic garden. +One such garden was the Cistercian convent of Helfta, near Eisleben, +in Saxony, in the thirteenth century a centre of mystic tendencies. +It was here that, harassed and ill, Mechthild of Magdeburg took +refuge, and entered as a nun in 1270. But we are anticipating. + +Mechthild, at first a beguine, and afterwards a nun, but a visionary +from the days of her childhood, was born, most probably of noble +parents, in the diocese of Magdeburg, in 1212. That she is perhaps +better known to the general reader than are other contemplatives of +her day is probably due to the suggestion that she may be the Matilda +immortalised by Dante in the “Earthly Paradise” (_Purg._ xxviii. 22 +_seq._), rather than to her own writings. This may be partly because +the personality of that supreme visionary and poet tended, as does all +superlative genius, to cast a shadow over the lesser lights of both +earlier and later times, and partly because, although Mechthild’s +works were early translated into Latin, she wrote in Low German. +Though this original MS. has not yet been found, there exists one, +translated into High German in 1345 at Basle (a centre of the “Friends +of God”) by the Dominican, Heinrich von Nördlingen, by which +Mechthild’s work has been made known to us, but the language even of +this proves a very real stumbling-block to the most strenuous student. +Still, by recording her thoughts and visions in the language of her +country and her day, she gained a lay audience, a result which would +have been hardly possible if she herself had been a classic. But +though no classic--for she says Latin was difficult to her--she +evidently, as her work shows, grew up under the influence of courtly +life, and knew the language of minstrels. She tells us that her mind +was turned to the spiritual life when she was but twelve years of age, +and that from that time worldly glory and riches became distasteful to +her. Like the visionary and Saint, Theresa of Avila, of 300 years +later, she took into her confidence her younger brother, Baldwin, who +later, perhaps under her influence, became a Dominican. What we know +of her, we know from her writings, which exist in the above-mentioned +unique MS. (No. 277) now in the monastery Library of Einsiedeln, a +foundation south of the Lake of Zurich, and still one of the most +famous of pilgrim resorts. In seeking to know more of the history of +this MS. we get a most interesting and intimate glimpse of the methods +in religious centres in bygone days, when MSS. were few. In quite +early times--how early is not known--there dwelt in the valleys round +about Einsiedeln certain devout women-recluses, who later lived, as a +community, in four houses, and, ultimately, in a convent. They were +called “Forest Sisters,” a name which may well express the poetry and +peace of their life and surroundings. Whilst they were still living in +the detached houses, the MS. was, through Heinrich von Rumerschein of +Basle, sent by Margaret of the Golden Ring, a beguine of that town, to +the one called “The Front Meadow.” Heinrich addresses the gift “To +the Sisters in the Front Meadow.” “You shall know that the book that +is sent by her of the Golden Ring is called _The Light of the +Godhead_, and to this you shall give good heed. It shall also serve in +all the houses of the wood, and shall never leave the wood, and shall +remain a month in each house. Also it shall go from one to another as +required, and you shall take special care of it. Pray for me who was +your Confessor, though, alas, unworthy.” + +In 1235, at the age of twenty-three, Mechthild--not without many a +heart-pang, and prompted to this determination by a troubled +conscience, a determination doubtless brought about by the preaching +of the Dominican friars, who were stirring all classes by their +impassioned zeal--left her home and went to Magdeburg, where she +entered a settlement of beguines. These settlements, semi-monastic in +character, were provided to afford some protection, by living in +community, for women who, whilst devoting themselves to a religious +life, did not wish to separate themselves wholly from the world. It +was at the time of the Crusades, when the land teemed with desolate +women, that their numbers increased so greatly, and the first +beguinage was founded about the beginning of the thirteenth century. +The beguine took no vows, could return to the world and marry if she +so desired, and did not renounce her property. If she was without +means, she neither asked nor accepted alms, but supported herself by +manual labour or by teaching the children of burghers, whilst those +who were able to do so spent their time in taking care of the sick or +in other charitable offices. Each community, with a “Grand-Mistress” +at its head, was complete in itself, and regulated its own order of +living, though, later, many of them adopted the rule of the Third +Order of St. Francis. + +Mechthild tells us that she knew but one person in Magdeburg, and that +even from this one she kept away for fear lest she might waver in her +determination. In this very human way she indicated that her spiritual +adventure was no easy matter to her, as, indeed, it could not be so +long as her temperament and ideals were at variance. But gradually, +she says, she got so much joy from communion with God that she could +dispense with the world. As has been well said, “La loi des lois c’est +que tout morceau de l’univers venu de Dieu retourne à Dieu et veut +retourner à lui.” + +The book of her writings, which, under divine direction as she opens +by saying, she calls _The Flowing Light of the Godhead_,[20] is +composed of seven parts, of which six appear to have been written down +during the time she was a beguine at Magdeburg, and were collected and +arranged by a Dominican friar, Heinrich von Halle, whilst the +seventh, consisting of sundry visions and teachings during the last +years of her life, was put together just before her death at Helfta in +1282, and, as she pathetically adds, “by strange eyes and hands.” In +all of these, whilst reflecting in them her inmost feelings, she +expresses her entire dependence on spiritual help and inspiration. +“The writing of this book,” she says, “is seen and heard and felt in +every limb. I see it with the eyes of my soul, and hear it with the +ears of my eternal spirit, and feel in every part of my body the power +of the Holy Ghost.” + + [20] P. Gall. Morel, _Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechthild + von Magdeburg, oder das fliessende Licht der Gottheit_, + Regensburg, 1869. + +The general tenor of her writings is contemplative and prophetic. +Whilst, as a contemplative, she reminds us of Suso, as a reformer, +proclaiming her prophetic warnings, she recalls to us St. Hildegarde, +though the latter was a more astute and powerful reasoner. It would +seem as if, in general, there are two conflicting tendencies in minds +such as Mechthild’s, a tendency to tradition--in her case, of course, +church tradition--and a tendency to definite self-expression. With +Mechthild it was certainly that of self-expression which predominated, +for whilst, with her, both co-operated to make a beautiful whole, it +was in detail and ornament, so to speak, rather than in the design +itself, that she showed her special qualities and gifts. Further, as a +mystic, she may be classed with those “for whom mysticism is above all +things an intimate and personal relation, the satisfaction of a deep +desire,” and who therefore fall back “upon imagery drawn largely from +the language of earthly passion,” as opposed to the mystic whose +“longing is to go out from his normal world in search of a lost home, +a better country,” as well as to the one whose “craving is for inward +purity and perfection.”[21] + + [21] For the suggestive elaboration of this threefold + classification, see Evelyn Underhill, _Mysticism_, chap. vi. + p. 151 _seq._ + +In order to enter into the spirit of her writings, and particularly +the prophetic ones, it is necessary to consider how the character and +style of her work was induced and affected, on the one hand by her +environment and her time, and on the other by her saintly nature and +poetic temperament, as well as by her intimate and personal attitude +towards things touching the inner life. + +The world, in Mechthild’s day, was in a state of unrest and of +looked-for change. Mankind was ever haunted by forebodings of the +approaching happening of something momentous. Whole-hearted faith in +the Church was waning, and although outward conformity still +prevailed, there existed very diverse opinions, tolerated so long as +they did not become too obtrusive. Prophetic writings, giving +expression to the yearnings of the time--yearnings fomented and +fostered by the prevailing misery caused, in no small degree, by the +wars between Pope and Emperor--taught that the world was on the brink +of a new era. One of the most influential of these writings, entitled +_The Eternal Gospel_, and said to embody the revelations of Abbot +Joachim of Flora (1130-1202), proclaimed that the dispensations of God +the Father and God the Son--the first two eras of the Church--were +past or passing, and that these would be succeeded by a third +era--that of the Holy Ghost--when men’s eyes would be opened by the +Spirit, and when there would be a time of perfection and freedom, +without the necessity of disciplinary institutions. In this fair age +it was the hermits, monks, and nuns who, whilst not superseding the +rulers of the Church, were to lead it into new paths, for to Joachim +the visible Church could not, where all is moving, remain unchanged, +and his counsel was, to keep pace with the advancing world. Naturally +such sentiments aroused ecclesiastical alarm, and, later, were +condemned by the fourth Lateran Council (1215), though Dante, withal a +good son of the Church, made bold to see in Paradise the “Abbott +Joachim, endowed with prophetic Spirit” (_Par._ xii. 140).[22] When +Mechthild wrote her predictions on the last days, Joachim’s teachings, +owing to the stir which their unorthodoxy had created--not only in the +Church and amongst the preaching friars, but also in the University of +Paris, whence all manner of polemical discussions freely +circulated--were well known in Germany, and there can be but little +doubt that Mechthild knew of them, probably from the Dominicans, who +found special favour in her sight, and that they greatly influenced +her own prophetic warnings to the Church. + + [22] Cf. Edmund G. Gardner, _Joachim of Flora and the + Everlasting Gospel_. Franciscan Essays, Bri. Soc. of Fran. + Studies, extra series, vol. i. + +From these objective conditions which, whilst influencing Mechthild’s +own thoughts and works, might and did, however differently, influence +the work of others as well, we turn to the consideration of her work +as the expression of her own poetic soul, welling up from depths +filled with love for the highest and most divine things. Before all +else we recognise how richly endowed she was with visionary powers and +poetic feeling. She revels in beautiful fantasies, as, for instance, +when she says, “If I were to speak one little word of the choirs of +heaven, it would be no more than the honey that a bee can carry away +on its feet from a full-blown flower.” With rapture she touches upon +the deepest questions of the soul’s life, and the highest truths and +mysteries of belief, so that in her flights of contemplation her prose +becomes poetry, impelled, like some torrent, by the rush of her +emotion. + + O thou God, out-pouring in thy gift! + O thou God, o’erflowing in thy love! + O thou God, all burning in thy desire! + O thou God, melting in union with thy body! + O thou God, reposing on my breast! + Without Thee, never could I live. + +But even so, she does not lose the sense of form or of the +picturesque. Some of her writings are clothed in language recalling +the Song of Songs, and are, perhaps, echoes of St. Bernard’s sermons +on that wondrous allegory of the Spiritual Bridegroom and Bride, as +when, in a transport, and attempting to express how God comes to the +Soul, she exclaims-- + + I come to my Beloved + Like dew upon the flowers. + +Others suggest reflections of courtly life and poetry, and at the same +time seem to anticipate pictures of the Celestial Garden, bright and +blossoming, where Saints tread in measured unison, symbolic of their +spiritual felicity and harmony. So with her didactic writings, or with +her predictions concerning the decay and corruption in the Church, in +which, like some prophet of old, she declaims against such evils in no +sparing terms, all alike are fraught with a special grace. In them all +the most intimate and the most sublime meet in one expression--the +expression of a soul which sees God in all things, and all things in +God. + +During the thirty years which Mechthild spent as a beguine at +Magdeburg, she lived an austere life, and one beset with difficulties, +largely created by the fearless way in which she warned and denounced +those in high places in the Church. In such denunciations she was not +alone, or without good example, for--to name two only of those who +stand out pre-eminently on account of their positions and +personalities--St. Bernard and St. Hildegarde had both sternly +denounced the evils in the Church. “The insolence of the Clergy,” says +St. Bernard, “troubles the earth, and molests the Church. The Bishops +give what is holy to the dogs, and pearls to swine.” But the poor +beguine, Mechthild, was not in the same powerful position to stay, or +even to modify, the resentment which her attacks occasioned. “For more +than twenty years was I bound with thee on a hideous gridiron,” she +writes, likening her anguish to that of St. Lawrence. Nevertheless +solace came to her troubled spirit, for, having been warned that it +had been said of her writings that they deserved to be burnt, she +tells how she prayed to God, as had been her wont when in trouble, and +that He told her not to mistrust her powers, since they were from Him, +and that no one can burn the Truth. + +In many passages Mechthild dwells on the clergy, and her +reflections--some very practical, others, to those not versed in +symbolism, very quaint--seem to suggest how grievously lacking she +considered them to be. Writing in God’s name to a canon, she begins by +saying that we should, in common with all men, give thanks to our +Heavenly Father for the Divine gift which day by day, and without +ceasing, pours forth from the Holy Trinity into sinful hearts, and +then she quaintly adds, “For that it soars so high, the Eagle owes no +thanks to the Owl.” Furthermore, she calls upon the priest to pray +more, to pay his debts in full, and to live simply, and thus, with +humble heart, to set a good example, and, with many other admonitions, +she also counsels him to have two rods by his bedside, so that he may +chastise himself when he awakes. Mechthild adds that she asked of God +how such an one could keep himself without sin in this earthly state, +and that God made answer: “He shall keep himself always in fear, like +a mouse that sits in a trap and awaits its death. When he eats, he +shall be frugal and meek, and when he sleeps, he shall be chaste, and +alone with Me.” + +Touching upon some of the duties of a prior--and here she shows +herself eminently practical--she writes: “Thou shalt go every day to +the infirmary, and soothe the sick with the solace of God’s word, and +comfort them bounteously with earthly things, for God is rich beyond +all richness. Thou shalt keep the sick cleanly, and be merry with them +in a godly manner. Thou shalt also go into the kitchen, and see that +the needs of the brethren are well cared for, and that thy parsimony, +and the cook’s laziness, rob not our Lord of the sweet song of the +choir, for never did starving priest sing well. Moreover, a hungry man +can do no deep study, and thus must God, through such default, lose +the best prayers.” From advice to the priesthood, Mechthild turns to +warning, and pours forth her reproaches and forebodings with poetic +intensity. “Alas, O thou Crown of Holy Christendom, how greatly hast +thou lost lustre! Thy jewels are fallen out, since thou dost outrage +and bring dishonour on the holy Christian vows. Thy gold has become +tarnished in the morass of unchastity, for thou art become degenerate, +and art lacking in true love. Thy abstinence is consumed by the +ravenous fire of gluttony, thy humility is drowned in the slough of +the flesh, thy word no longer avails against the lies of the world, +the flowers of all the virtues have fallen from thee. Alas, O thou +Crown of the holy Priesthood, how diminished thou art, and verily thou +now possessest naught but priestly power, with the which thou fightest +against God and His elect. For this will God humble thee, ere thou +learnest wisdom. For thus saith the Lord: ‘My shepherds of Jerusalem +have become murderers and wolves, for that they slay before My very +eyes the white lambs, and the sheep are all sickly for that they may +not eat of the wholesome pasture that grows on the high mountains, the +which is godly love and holy doctrine.’ He who knows not the way that +leads to Hell, let him give heed to the unholy clergy, who, with wives +and children and many heinous sins, go straightway thither.” + +Whilst condemning the priesthood, Mechthild eulogises nunnery life in +an allegory entitled “The Ghostly Cloister,” in which she pictures the +virtues as dwelling. “Charity” is the abbess, who with zeal takes care +of the congregation in both body and soul; “Godly Humility” is the +chaplain; “The Holy Peace of God” is the prioress; and “Loving +Kindness” is the sub-prioress. “Hope” is the chantress, filled with +holy, humble devotion, that the heart’s feebleness may sound beautiful +in song before God, so that God may love the notes that sing in the +heart; “Wisdom” is the schoolmistress, who with all good-will teaches +the ignorant, so that the convent is held holy and honoured; “Bounty” +is the cellaress; “Mercy” the stewardess; and “Pity” the sick-nurse. +The provost, or priest, is “Godly Obedience,” to whom all these +virtues are subject. “Thus does the convent abide in God, and happy +are they who dwell therein.” + +From this spiritual abode of the virtues we turn to one of Mechthild’s +earliest recorded visions--that of Hell, with its flame and flare. +Whilst Death was perhaps man’s first mystery, the Hereafter has been +his endless pre-occupation. Whatever his country or his time, he has +ever sought to lift the veil which hides the future, portraying his +vain efforts in symbol. In Mechthild’s time her world was engrossed +with thoughts and speculations concerning the Hereafter, for Death, +which at the end of the next century was to take dramatic and +pictorial form in the weird and all-embracing “Dance of Death,” +although its earliest known poetic form is of 1160, ever hovered near +in pestilence, war, and tumult. Whilst some expressed themselves in +carved stone, or on painted wall, others, as did Mechthild, realised +their visions and ideas in a wealth of word-pictures. Such visions +and ideas had accumulated adown the ages, varying but slightly one +from another, and Mechthild, in making use of this stereotyped +material, only took from, or added to, the general sum. Yet even so, +she contrives to make her personality felt. She begins: “I have seen a +place whose name is Eternal Hatred.” Lucifer, farthest removed from +the source of Light, forms the foundation-stone, and around him are +arranged the deadly sins. Above him are the Christians, then the Jews, +and, farthest removed from Hell’s dire depths, the Heathen. Horror +upon horror follows, like those pictured a hundred years before by +Herrad von Landsperg, abbess at Hohenburg, in Alsace, and, fifty years +later, by Dante, and when she concludes by saying that, after seeing +the terrors of Hell, all her five senses were paralysed for three +days, as if struck by lightning, it is significant that Dante tells +that, overwhelmed with sorrow for the lovers, doomed for ever to be +borne upon the winds, he “fainted with pity ... and fell, as a dead +body falls.” + +It is with a sense of relief that we leave such sad scenes, to glance +at her vision of Paradise, although it does not follow in this +sequence in her recorded revelations, for, as seems fitting, it is one +of the very latest. Calling it “a glimpse of Paradise,” she says that +“of the length and breadth of Paradise there is no end.” Then she +continues--and this is especially interesting because it is in this +opening that some commentators have seen the connecting link with +Dante[23]--that between this world and it, she came to a spot--the +Earthly Paradise--where she saw trees and fresh grass and no weeds. +Some of the trees bore apples, but most of them sweetly scented +leaves. Swift streams flowed through it, and warm winds were wafted +from the north. The air was sweeter than words can tell. Here, she +adds, there were no animals or birds, for God has reserved it for +mankind alone, so that he may dwell there undisturbed. This seems to +strike a strange note coming from the poetess Mechthild. How different +is her sentiment from that of her brother-mystic, St. Francis, to whom +the birds were his “little sisters,” and who “loved above all other +birds a certain little bird which is called the lark.” But though, +with apparent satisfaction, Mechthild saw no birds, she did see Enoch +and Elias, and greeted the former by questioning him as to how he came +there. Holy Writ has supplied the only answer, “He walked with God, +and he was not, for God took him.” Having spoken thus of the Earthly +Paradise, Mechthild goes on to tell of the Heavenly, where she sees, +“floating in rapture, as the air floats in the sunshine,” the souls +which, though not deserving of Purgatory, are not yet come into God’s +kingdom, and to whom rewards and crowns come not until they enter that +kingdom. She then concludes by saying that “all the kingdoms of this +world shall perish, and the earthly and the heavenly Paradise shall +pass away, and all shall dwell together in God”--the Empyrean of +Dante, where he “saw ingathered, bound by love in one volume, the +scattered leaves of all the universe; substance and accidents and +their relations, as though together fused, after such fashion that +what I tell of is one simple flame.” + + [23] The tendency of present-day Italian scholarship seems in + favour of identifying Mechthild of Hackeborn, rather than + Mechthild of Magdeburg, with Dante’s Matelda. + +In her very varied writings many beautiful and suggestive thoughts are +to be found, as, for instance, when “Understanding” converses with +“Conscience,” and accuses Conscience of being at the same time both +proud and humble, and Conscience explains that she is proud because +she is in touch with God, and humble because she has done so few good +works. And again, when “Understanding” and “the Soul” hold converse. +Understanding, desirous of knowing everything, asks the Soul why such +brilliant light radiates from her, and the Soul replies by inquiring +why Understanding asks this, seeing that she is so much wiser than the +Soul. When Understanding would still penetrate the unspeakable secrecy +between God and the Soul, the Soul refuses to answer, since, as she +explains, to her alone is given union with God, to which Understanding +can never attain. Or, again, when Mechthild, telling how the Soul, no +longer led by the Senses, but leading them to the desired goal, says, +“It is a wondrous journey along which the true soul progresses, and +leads with it the senses, as a man with sight leads one who is blind. +On this journey the soul is free and without sorrow, since it desires +naught but to serve its Lord, who orders all things for the best.” + +Of Prayer, which to her was “naught else but yearning of soul,” she +says, “It makes a sour heart sweet, a sad heart merry, a poor heart +rich, a dull heart wise, a timid heart bold, a weak heart strong, a +blind heart seeing, a cold heart burning. It draws the great God down +into the small heart, it drives the hungry soul out to the full God, +it brings together the two lovers, God and the soul, into a blissful +place, where they speak much of love.” + +Again, in a spirit of self-examination, she writes: “What most of all +hinders the spiritually-minded from full perfection is, that they pay +so little heed to small sins. I tell you, of a truth, that when I +abstain from a laugh that would hurt no one, or hide some soreness of +heart, or feel a little impatience at my own pain, my soul becomes so +dark, and my mind so dull, and my heart so cold, that I am constrained +to pray heartily and long, and humbly to make confession of all my +faults. Then grace comes again to wretched me, and I creep back like a +beaten dog into the kitchen.” + +But all these and kindred thoughts pale before her discourses on love. +Love was the keynote of her life. She was born a poetess; she became a +saint. How sorely she strove towards this end, and spent herself in +conflict between self-control and ecstasy, no words can tell. It was +only when Purgation’s way was partly trod, and she had “found in Pain +the grave but kindly teacher of immortal secrets,” that she could say, +“Lord, I bring Thee my treasure, which is greater than the mountains, +wider than the world, deeper than the sea, higher than the clouds, +more beautiful than the sun, more manifold than the stars, and which +outweighs all the earth.” Then asks the voice of God: “How is this thy +treasure called, oh Image of my Divinity?” + +“Lord, it is called my heart’s desire. I have withdrawn it from the +world, kept it to myself, and denied it to all creatures. Now no +longer would I carry it. Lord, where shall I lay it?” + +“Nowhere shalt thou lay thy heart’s desire save in My own Divine +heart. There only wilt thou find comfort.” + +Love and knowledge, the two aspirations of the soul after ultimate +truth, are her frequent theme. Sometimes she contrasts Love with the +knowledge of the understanding: “Those who would know much, and love +little, will ever remain at but the beginning of a godly life. So we +must have a constant care how we may please God therein. Simple love, +with but little knowledge, can do great things”; sometimes with the +knowledge of the heart--“To the wise soul, love without knowledge +seems darkness, knowledge without fruition, the very pain of Hell. +Fruition can be reached only through Death.” In one of her visions +she, in an exquisite simile, describes how love flows from the Godhead +to mankind, penetrating both body and soul. “It goes without effort,” +she says, “as does a bird in the air when it does not move its wings.” +In the same vision she sees the Holy Mother, with uncovered breasts, +standing on God’s left hand, and Christ on the right, showing his +still-open wounds, both pleading for sinful humanity, and she adds +that as long as sin endures on earth, so long will Christ’s wounds +remain open and bleeding, though painless, but that after the Day of +Judgment they will heal, and it will be as though there was a +rose-leaf instead of the wounds.[24] + + [24] The first of these subjects--the Holy Mother and Christ + pleading for sinners--is to be found in a miniature in King + Henry VI.’s Psalter (Brit. Mus. Cotton MS. Domitian. A. xvii. + _circ._ 1430, fol. 205), and the two intercessions separately + form two of the subjects in the _Speculum Humanae + Salvationis_ (fourteenth century). Though the _S.H.S._ is of + later date than the time of Mechthild the literary source of + the subject appears to be a passage in the _De laudibus + B.M.V._ of Arnaud of Chartres, abbot of Bonneval 1138-1156 + (J. Lutz and P. Perdrizet, _Spec. Hum. Sal._ vol. i., + Mulhouse, 1907), which might quite well have been known to + her, especially if, as Messrs. Lutz and Perdrizet consider, + the _S.H.S._ was written by a Dominican, who would naturally + make use of Dominican teaching and tradition, and we know + that Mechthild, even if not, as has been suggested, a + tertiary of that Order, was in constant and close touch with + it. The second subject, the reference to rose-leaves and + Christ’s wounds, seems to be a purely original thought, and + one amongst the many fascinating ideas that have centred + round the rose ever since Aphrodite anointed the dead body of + Hector with rose-scented oil (_Iliad_, xxiii. 186). + +Of Love, as she conceived it in relation to herself individually, she +can never write enough. “I also may not suffer that any single comfort +move me, save my love alone. I love my earthly friends in a heavenly +fellowship, and I love my enemies with a holy longing for their +salvation. God has enough of all good things, save of union with the +soul.” + +But where Mechthild seems to strike an original note for her time is +in her insistence on God’s craving for the soul, as well as the soul’s +craving for God. We find the same insistence in Meister Eckhart, who +followed her closely in time, and perhaps, in this respect, in thought +also. “God needs man,” says Eckhart, quite simply. And again, “God can +do as little without us as we without Him.” With Mechthild it is from +ecstasy to ecstasy that “heart speaks to heart.” Says the soul of +Mechthild: “Lord, Thou art ever sick of love for me, and that hast +Thou Thyself well proved. Thou hast written me in the Book of the +Godhead. Thou hast fashioned me after Thine own image. Thou hast bound +me hand and foot to Thy side. O grant it to me, Beloved, to anoint +Thee.” + +“Where wilt thou get thine ointment, dear one?” + +“Lord, I will tear my happy heart in twain, and lay Thee therein.” + +“It is the most precious ointment thou couldest give Me, that I should +evermore hover in thy soul.” + +Further God says: “I longed for thee ere the world was. I long for +thee, and thou longest for me. When two burning desires come together, +then is love perfected.” + +Sometimes the loving soul traverses a dark way, and cries out in +desolation and despair: “Lord, since Thou hast taken from me all that +I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me that gift which every dog has +by nature--that in my distress I may be true to Thee, without any +ill-will. This do I truly desire more than all Thy heavenly kingdom.” + +And Divine Love makes answer: “Sweet Dove, now list to me. Thy secret +seeking must needs find me, thy heart’s distress must needs compel me, +thy loving pursuit has so wearied me, that I long to cool myself in +thy pure soul in the which I am imprisoned. The throbbing sighs of thy +sore heart have driven my justice from thee. All is right between me +and thee. I cannot be sundered from thee. However far we are parted, +never can we be separated. I cause thee extreme pain of body. If I +gave myself to thee as oft as thou wouldst, I should thus deprive +myself of the sweet shelter I have in thee in this world.” + +Again the soul cries out--but now discomfited by the Divine Love from +whose tireless quest there is no escape--“Thou hast pursued and +captured and bound me, and hast wounded me so deeply that never shall +I be healed. Thou hast given me many a hard blow. Tell me, shall I +ever get whole from Thee? Shall I not be slain by Thee? Thus would it +have been better for me if that I had never known Thee.” + +Then answers Love: “That I pursued thee gave me delight. That I made +thee captive was my desire. That I bound thee was my joy. When I +wounded thee, then did I become one with thee. Thus I give thee hard +blows so that I may be possessed of thee. I drove Almighty God from +His heavenly kingdom, and took from Him His mortal life, and have +restored Him with honour to His Father. How canst thou, poor worm, +save thyself from me?” + +Of all Mechthild’s visions, there is none that seems to reach a +greater height of supreme beauty than that in which the loving soul +learns the way to its Divine Lover. It is strangely reminiscent of +courtly life and courtly poetry, translated into the ecstatic state, +and etherealised into the very perfume of spirituality as the soul +becomes one with God. Having passed the distress of repentance, the +pain of confession, and the labour of penance, and having overcome the +love of the World, the tempting of the Devil, and its own self-will, +the soul, weary, and longing for her Divine Lover and God, cries out: +“Beautiful Youth, I long for thee. Where shall I find thee?” + +Then says the youth: “I hear a voice which speaks somewhat of love. +Many days have I wooed her, but never have I heard her voice. Now I am +moved. I must go to meet her. She it is who bears grief and love +together. In the morning in the dew is the most intimate rapture which +first penetrates the soul.” + +Then speak her Chamberlains, which are the live senses: “Lady, thou +must adorn thyself. We have heard a whisper that the Prince comes to +meet thee in the dew, and the sweet song of the birds. Tarry not, +Lady.” + +So she puts on a shift of gentle humility, so humble that nothing +could be more so, and over it a white robe of pure chastity, so pure +that she cannot endure thoughts, words, or desires which might stain +it. Then she wraps herself in a cloak of holy desire, which she has +wrought in gold with all the virtues. So she goes into the wood, which +is the company of holy people. The sweetest nightingales sing there, +day and night, of the right union with God. She tries to join in the +festal dance, that is, to imitate the example of the elect. Then comes +the youth and says to her: “Thou shalt dance merrily even as my +Elect.” And she answers: “I cannot dance, Lord, if Thou dost not lead +me. If Thou wilt that I leap joyfully, Thou must first Thyself sing. +Then will I leap for love, from love to knowledge, from knowledge to +fruition, from fruition to beyond all human senses. There will I +remain, and circle evermore.”[25] + + [25] It may be recalled that Dante (_Par._ xxiv.) sees the + Saints in Paradise as circling lights from whence issues + divine song, and again (_Par._ xxv.) “wheeling round in such + guise as their burning love befitted.” + +Then speaks the youth: “Thy dance of praise is well done. Thou shalt +have thy will, for thou art heartily wearied. Come at mid-day to the +shady fountain, to the bed of love. There shalt thou be refreshed.” + +Then, weary of the dance, the soul says to her Chamberlains, the +senses: “Withdraw from me, I must go where I may cool myself.” + +Then say the senses: “Lady, wilt thou be refreshed with the loving +tears of St. Mary Magdalene? They may well suffice thee.” + +“Be silent, sirs; you know not what I mean. Hinder me not. I would +drink for a space of the unmingled wine.” + +“Lady, in the Virgin’s chastity the great love is reached.” + +“That may be. For me it is not the highest.” + +“Lady, thou mightst cool thyself in the martyrs’ blood.” + +“I have been martyred many a day, so that I have no need to come to +that now.” + +“Lady, bright are the angels, and lovely in love’s hue. Wouldst thou +cool thyself, be lifted up with them.” + +“The bliss of the angels brings me love’s woe unless I see their Lord, +my Bridegroom.” + +“Lady, if thou comest there, thou wilt be blinded quite, so fiery hot +is the Godhead, as thou thyself well knowest, for the fire and the +glow which make heaven and all the holy ones burn and shine, all flow +from His divine breath, and from His human mouth, through the wisdom +of the Holy Ghost. How couldest thou endure it for an hour?” + +And the soul answers: “The fish cannot drown in the water, the bird +cannot sink in the air, gold cannot perish in the fire, where it gains +its clear and shining worth. God has granted to each creature to +cherish its own nature. How can I withstand my nature? I must go from +all things to God, who is my Father by Nature, my Brother through His +Humanity, my Bridegroom through Love, and I am His for ever.” + +Silenced by this wondrous flight of holy passion, we bid farewell to +Mechthild. She lived for her time, and she lives for us, as one of +“humanity’s pioneers on the only road to rest.” “Out of the depths,” +she cried to Heaven. We leave her in the music of the spheres. + + + + +A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ART-PATRON AND PHILANTHROPIST, MAHAUT, COUNTESS +OF ARTOIS + + +It has been well said that “out of things unlikely and remote may be +won romance and beauty.” Perhaps the truth of this reflection has +never been more signally exemplified than in the case of Mahaut, +Countess of Artois and Burgundy, the record of whose life, in the +absence of any contemporary biographer, has been ably deciphered from +such commonplace material as the household accounts of her +stewards.[26] This great lady, one of the greatest patrons of art of +her time, lived at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the +fourteenth century. She was a great-niece of St. Louis. No poet has +sung of her. It is merely through the prose of daily expenditure that +she is made known to us. She stands before us, not the ideal creation +of the mediæval romancer, but a real woman, with her virtues and +failings, her joys and sorrows, real by very reason of this union of +contrasts, a woman trying to grapple with difficulties forced upon her +by her position, and by an age when intrigue and cunning were as +freely resorted to, and as deftly handled, as the sword and the lance. + + [26] Richard (Jules Marie), _Une Petite Nièce de S. Louis: + Mahaut, Comtesse d’Artois_. + + Dehaisnes (M. le Chanoine), _L’Histoire de l’art dans la + Flandre, l’Artois, et le Hainaut avant le XVme siècle_. + +Mahaut was the daughter of Robert the Second, Count of Artois, a +valiant and chivalrous man, and of Amicie de Courtenay, of whom it was +said that she was esteemed whilst she lived, and mourned of all when +she died. Her brother, Philip, predeceased his father, leaving one +son, Robert. In accordance with local custom, Mahaut, on the death of +her father, inherited Artois, but her nephew, Robert, on attaining his +majority at the age of fourteen, set up a counter-claim. This family +feud was a constant source of trouble and vexation to her, since +Robert again and again returned to the attack, not only appealing to +the king to consider his cause, and fabricating spurious documents as +a means of gaining his end, but also employing unscrupulous agents to +spread false charges against her. He further took advantage of the +growing discontent amongst the nobles, who were gradually realising +that their power was waning, to attach them to his cause, and to +induce them to join him in harassing Mahaut by making raids upon her +lands and her castles. She, however, through her extraordinary +personality, was able to triumph over all this opposition, which, far +from marring, only seemed to add lustre to the work she had set +herself to do. + +Mahaut was religious, artistic, and literary. All these +characteristics, together with the circumstance of wealth, she +inherited, and right well did she make use of her inheritance. + +Being religious, and living in an age when the frenzy for crusading +had subsided and when architecture was the ruling passion, she +expended her zeal in building religious houses and hospitals. + +Being artistic, she made her favourite castle at Hesdin, and the town +around its walls, a centre of art life. Here, seemingly, she favoured +all the arts, including to a certain extent music, then still in its +infancy, for although she apparently had no regular minstrel or +minstrels in her employ as was customary in the houses of the +noblesse, she seems to have engaged them for Church festivals and +sundry fêtes, and we know that on one occasion she hired a minstrel to +soothe her sick child with the sweet soft music of the harp, thus +suggesting that she herself had felt the power of music to minister to +both body and soul. + +Being literary, Mahaut collected what MSS. and books she could, and +the list of them serves to show what might be found in a library of +the early fourteenth century. Her religious books included a Bible in +French,[27] a Psalter, a Gradual, various Books of Hours for private +devotion, Lives of the Saints and of the Fathers, and the Miracles of +Our Lady. Philosophy was represented by a French translation of +Boëthius (probably a copy of a translation made by order of King +Philip le Bel, by Jean de Meun, the writer of the second portion of +_The Romance of the Rose_), Law by a verse translation of the laws of +Normandy, History by the Chronicles of the Kings of France, and Travel +by _The Romance of the Great Kan_, known to us as _The Travels of +Marco Polo_. But by far the largest category consisted of Romances, +such as that of Oger le Danois from the national Epic, and another of +Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance of Troy, Percival le +Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and the Violet, the story which forms the +chief episode in the play of Cymbeline. Of course there was no great +choice, but that Mahaut read them and loved them we may be certain, +since we know that she took some with her on her journeyings, and to +preserve them from the wear and tear of travel, had leather wallets +made to protect them. Mahaut was, in truth, the first wealthy +individual of the age to spend her substance with the express purpose +of surrounding herself with beauty of every kind. The foremost thought +of a man in a like case would probably have been to add to his power. +_Her_ thought was of beauty, a quality much more far-reaching and less +transient, and one which, even like Time itself, triumphs over the +changes of fame and fortune. + + [27] The Bible was first translated into French, and reduced + in size so that it could be carried in the hand, between 1200 + and 1250. + +Though Mahaut did not live the allotted three score years and ten, she +lived long enough to see seven kings on the throne of France, two of +whom--Philip the Fifth and Charles the Fourth--were her sons-in-law. +She was a mere child when her great-uncle, King Louis, died in 1270. +In 1285, the year in which Philip the Fourth, surnamed le Bel, +ascended the throne, she wedded Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy, a +widower of forty-five, a companion in arms of her father, and a brave +and generous man, who died fighting for his country, but one +absolutely incapable in administration, and, as a consequence, always +in debt and in the clutches of the usurer. There are few documents to +throw any light on her life until after Otho’s death in 1303. This may +be due partly to the fact that she only came into her great +possessions on her father’s death in 1302, and partly to the +circumstance that the careless and luxurious expenditure of her +husband in no small degree dissipated her resources, and naturally +prevented, for the time, any material encouragement of art. Doubtless +also much of her time was spent in superintending the education of her +children--two daughters who were destined to marry kings of France, +and a son who was born a peer of the realm, and inheritor of one of +its richest territories. But adverse fate, by the disgrace of one of +her daughters, and the death of her son, intervened to darken these +brilliant prospects, and forms a grey background to her otherwise +wonderful and glorious career. + +The more the life of this remarkable woman is studied, the more +apparent it becomes that what gives it its peculiar charm and worth is +the sense she possessed of the value of all human endeavour, whether +in great things or in simple. To her the humblest matters of home +life, and the affairs connected with the administration of her +domains, had each their particular significance. The ordering of a +small grooved tablet on which her little boy could arrange the letters +of the alphabet claimed her attention equally with the founding and +arranging of a hospital. In her capacity as ruler we see the same wide +and reasonable outlook on life, for whilst strict as an administrator, +in personal relations she was charitable and sympathetic. Sometimes a +rebellious baron was deprived of his fief and banished, or was +condemned to expiate his misdeed by making a pilgrimage to sundry +shrines. But Mahaut was practical withal, and recognised human +frailty, and as the pilgrimage was for correction, no pardon was +granted unless the offender brought from each of the sanctuaries a +certificate that his vow had been fulfilled. On the other hand, if any +were sick or in trouble, she was solicitous for their relief, and even +aided them personally where possible. She thus put into practice the +charge of her saintly kinsman, King Louis the Ninth, who always +counselled those about him to have compassion on all mental or +physical suffering, since the heart may be stricken as well as the +body. + +As Mahaut had no biographer, and contemporary history merely treats +her as if she were one of many pawns on a chess-board, her stewards’ +entries furnish the only materials from which we can weave some +outline of her life, an outline, nevertheless, which enables us to +reason somewhat concerning her inner life, the pattern, as it were, +that is not wrought for the world. + +When, in 1302, Mahaut took over the reins of government in Artois, +Paris was the great centre of art and literature as well as of the +science of the day, a condition largely due to the genius of Philip +Augustus, and fostered by succeeding kings. Thither, from far and +near, flocked scholars, poets, and artists alike. Some of these took +up their abode permanently within its walls. Others passed to and fro, +thus creating that constant interchange of thought which is essential +to vitality, so that it was said that “the goddess of Wisdom, after +having dwelt in Athens and Rome, had taken up her abode in Paris.” +There, at least twice a year, came Mahaut to her sumptuous dwelling, +the Hôtel d’Artois, situated near the Temple, and extending with its +gardens and its outbuildings to the walls built by Philip Augustus. +Here all who loved the arts and learning were made welcome, and it is +interesting to think it possible, nay even probable, that during one +of her many sojourns there she may have met and talked with Dante. + +Amongst the special treasures to be found there, mention is made of +four figure-pictures, one of which is said to have been of Roman +workmanship, and round in form--certainly, as far as is known, a +rarity at that time. We also find a record of finely wrought +embroideries and tapestries on the walls, and of windows painted +either with armorial bearings and figures, or with simple foliage like +the delicate ivy and hawthorn to be seen enriching the pages of Books +of Hours of the fourteenth century. Special mention is made of a +window, evidently over the altar in the private Chapel, in which was +represented the Crucifixion. In the large hall were tables on +trestles, easily removed before the dance began or minstrels or +jugglers displayed their skill, dressers to hold the gold and silver +plate and from which to serve the banquet, and settles with footboards +so necessary when the rushes were only renewed at lengthy intervals. +But if the hall was somewhat sparsely furnished, its ceiling and walls +(the latter on occasions hung with embroideries carried from castle to +castle as the Countess journeyed) were made bright with colour, and +beautiful with design. How bright, and how beautiful, we can infer +almost with certainty from examples in the Castle of Chillon of +thirteenth and fourteenth century decoration lately rescued from under +a coat of whitewash,[28] and from the comparison made by Brunetto +Latini (1230-1294), in his _Tesoro_, of the Italian with the French +feudal castle, in which he says of the one that it is only built for +war, with ditches, palisades, and high towers and walls, and of the +other that it lies in the midst of meadows and gardens, _with large +painted chambers_. + + [28] _Chillon_, Albert Naef, Genève, 1908. + +Mahaut’s cousin, the cold and impersonal Philip le Bel, was on the +throne. For the most part war had ceased in the land, but still there +was war in high places, for Philip, avaricious by nature, and finding +himself a king under altering conditions--the Papacy fallen into +disregard, the Nobility weakened, and the Nation growing, but without +any adequate provision made to meet the needs of this growth--left no +stone unturned to supply this want and gratify his greed. On the +question of the subsidies of the clergy and the relation between +things spiritual and temporal, he quarrelled with the Pope, Boniface +the Eighth, and brought about the removal of the Holy See from Rome to +Avignon. He robbed and ruined the Templars, and despoiled the Jews and +Lombards, the financiers of the day. With him no trickery was too +base, no cruelty too cold-blooded. Gold was his God. Dante, who was +his contemporary, refers (_Purg._ vii. 109) to “his wicked and foul +life” (_la vita sua viziata e lorda_), and (_Par._ xix. 118) to his +“debasement of the coinage” (_falseggiando la moneta_), as well as to +his self-seeking greed. Such, with the added glamour of art and +learning, was the courtly atmosphere of the Time. The bourgeoisie, +encouraged by the king who sought to aggrandise the monarchy at the +expense of the nobles, was growing rich, and politically gaining in +power, and Philip ere long discovered that he had helped merely to +change the centre of power, and not to crush it. + +But Paris does not seem to have attracted Mahaut as did her castle at +Hesdin. Here she was in the midst of her own domains, surrounded by +her liegemen and retainers, and able to be in constant touch with her +artificers and workers, whatever their art or industry. By the +thirteenth century the dwelling of the Noble was no longer a grim +castle, suggestive only of a place of defence, with narrow slits in +the walls for the admission of air and light and for the discharge of +arrows, but was more like a fortified country-house. The encompassing +walls enclosed a wide area, within which was sheltered a village and +everything necessary to the growth and development of a community. + +From Hesdin Mahaut journeyed constantly through her County of Artois, +visiting her castles, the towns or villages around them, and the +various religious houses and hospitals she had founded, and attending +in general to the well-being of her subjects. For her it was not +enough that she was born to reign. She realised that, without +administration, reigning through the accident of birth is mere +puppet’s work, and leads to naught. Her daily life was the visible +expression of this belief, as she herself was an example of the woman +who comprehends the just proportion between personal and public work. +That her subjects responded to her sympathy, and held her in +affectionate regard, is proved by their kindly and sympathetic concern +if she were ill or on a journey, and by the offerings they made to her +on special anniversaries and other festive occasions. We read of gifts +not only of herrings, sturgeon, game, wine, dogs, peacocks, swans, +pasties, and whipped cream, but also of the strangely assorted tribute +of a dead bear and twelve cheeses, as well as of one which must have +contrasted pleasantly with this sundry and singular good cheer--a +parrakeet in a beautifully painted cage. Mahaut, as we have said, was +a constant traveller, and though travelling was then no easy matter, +the roads could not have been over-much beset with difficulties seeing +that she journeyed in all weathers, either on horseback or in a +horse-litter, or in a chariot without springs, and with no mean +retinue. In truth, her following was like a glorified Canterbury +pilgrimage. First came the Countess, accompanied by one or more +knights, her ladies-in-waiting, her chaplain and confessor, her +physician, her secretary, her treasurer and steward, and sundry petty +officers of her household. Then followed the servants, the cook with +his scullions, the shoemaker who could also do necessary repairs to +the harness, the laundress riding astride as was the manner of +serving-women, and a score of lackeys and dependants of all sorts in +charge of the carts containing the necessaries of travel. These +necessaries were generally packed in wooden coffers, some of which +were simple chests, whilst others opened like a cupboard and were +fitted with drawers. To preserve such coffers from damp and damage, +they were put into osier cases covered with cow-hide. And with all +this motley company and baggage, there are but few records of +accidents. The accounts tell of a small occasional expenditure in +consequence of the breakdown of a chariot, or the fall of a valet from +his horse, or the upsetting into a river of a cart conveying the +Countess’s wardrobe. But such misadventures were not taken very +seriously by these folk, seasoned to discomfort. Valet or chariot was +mended, or the floating garments were recovered, and on went the +easy-going company, singing by the way, and with horns blowing as they +neared some castle or village where a halt was to be made for the +night. The absence of any mention of the removal of furniture from +castle to castle during these periodical wanderings, save a small bed +for Mahaut’s own use, leads us to infer that greater luxury then +prevailed than in the days of her great-uncle, Louis the Ninth, when +even Royalty itself thought it no hardship to have beds and other +necessary pieces of furniture carried by beasts of burden from place +to place according to the movements of the Court. This frugal and +homely custom on one occasion very nearly ended in a tragedy. The +devout Isabelle, Louis’s sister, was praying in the early morning, as +was her wont, within her curtained bed, and either lost in prayer or +overcome with fatigue by the length of her orisons, did not notice the +arrival of the packers, who rolled up the bed without drawing the +curtains, and the praying Princess within must have been smothered had +not her lady-in-waiting, Agnes de Harcourt, heard her stifled cries, +and hastened to her rescue. This quaint episode so amused Louis, that +he ever after recounted it when telling of the piety of his sister. + +Let us now go in imagination to the Castle of Hesdin, and see +something of its treasures and of the daily life of the Countess +Mahaut. + +Soon after her accession to Artois, her two daughters married sons of +King Philip le Bel, and her little son, Robert, then became her +principal care. A little boy of noble family had been chosen as his +companion to share in his education and to join with him in play. It +would seem that the two were treated on an absolute equality, even to +having their doublets cut from the same piece of cloth, and their +tunics and cloaks trimmed with the same fur. Beyond their ordinary +lessons, they were early taught the games of tables and chess, both of +which were considered essential to a knight’s education. They also +rode to the chase and attended tournaments, and at the age of fourteen +themselves held the lance as part of their training in the art of +war. Robert seems to have been of a most inquiring and intelligent +nature, but when he had scarce passed his seventeenth year, Mahaut, +with scant warning, saw this her only son stricken in death just as he +was about to enter the ranks of knighthood. In the archives of Arras, +the Capital of Artois, may be found a discoloured parchment containing +the inventory of the equipment provided for the youthful Robert in +anticipation of his initiation. What sorrow is enshrined in these +faded pages! It is not sorrow for death, but the bitterer sorrow for +something that has never lived, or, rather, that has lived only in the +heart, like spring blossom blighted ere fruiting-time. In the Church +of St. Denis, where modern restoration has but emphasised the +transitoriness and vanity of human glory, there can still be seen the +tomb of this youth, carved soon after his death by Pepin de Huy, and +once painted, as was all such carved work. Even to the mere student it +is interesting as being the only existing monument that can with +certainty be attributed to this celebrated sculptor, and also as +being, in Gothic art, one of the first essays in portraiture in +recumbent figures of the dead, as contrasted with mere effigy. For the +deeper thinker it has even greater significance. Of all the good and +great works that Mahaut conceived and initiated--the churches, +castles, hospitals, which she built and enriched for the glory of God +and the safety and solace of mankind--all have passed away. This +simple tomb alone remains. But its very simplicity is eloquent, for +around it there seems to hover that never-dying spirit of love and +goodness and beauty to which, throughout her life, Mahaut contributed +in such large measure, and which was her real and lasting gift to the +world. + +Life as mirrored in the Castle records gives little else than a +pleasing picture of Mahaut’s relations with all her dependants, as +well as with those with whom she was connected, whether by ties of +friendship, of politics, or of the common courtesies of life. Her +immediate household was naturally her first care. Twice a year, at +Easter and All Saints, a distribution was made of cloth and furs. Some +of these, fine and costly, were for those in personal attendance on +the Countess, whilst others were in the nature of liveries. Others, +again, of still coarser make, such as Irish serge, with sheep or +rabbit skin for warmth in winter, were given to those of lowly service +or who had specially rough work to perform. Her ladies-in-waiting, of +whom there were always two or three, appear to have received for their +services no money payment, but, over and above the cloth and fur +already alluded to, gifts, on special occasions, of girdles and +satchels (very often jewelled), gold chaplets, and gold and silver +braid, jewelled, and used for twining in the hair. In addition to +this, presents of jewels and silver cups were made to them by the +noble ladies who came to stay with the Countess, just as she, on her +part, presented similar gifts to those who accompanied her guests. +How well we can picture to ourselves these maidens (for such is all +they were), decking themselves in their girdles and jewelled braid, +comparing their gifts, and perhaps even standing on some oaken bench +the better to get a view of their finery, for the mirrors were small, +and the girdles were long, and could not otherwise be seen in all +their glory. When they married, the Countess made gifts to them +without stint, not only of the beautiful and the needful for their +wardrobes, but also of household goods, and sometimes, when she knew +their parents or kinsmen to be too poor to provide the usual dowry, +even of a sum of money. To the retainers also we find the same kind +and helping hand held out. If any were sick they were taken care of, +and, if needs be, sent to some place where they could the better be +cured, as we read of one who, suffering from gout, was sent to take +healing waters. To another retainer was given the necessary money to +pay for his son on entering a monastery, another receiving the +wherewithal to go to his native village to attend his mother’s burial. +Old servants, past work, were cared for in the monasteries or +hospitals, or given some post suitable to their years. To a poor +knight was given money to enable him to buy a good horse and armour, +for poverty of purse was no disgrace in the thirteenth century. At the +beginning of winter a distribution, organised by the clergy and +stewards of the rural communities in Artois, but superintended by +the Countess herself, was made to the poor of blankets, garments, and +shoes, and so arranged that the same person did not receive the like +gift two years in succession. In truth, no details seemed too small, +none too onerous, for Mahaut’s untiring solicitude. She had heart and +brain for everything. It is these intimate touches which make the time +so living and present to us, and which seem, as it were, to place this +wonderful woman in a charmed and tranquil circle, in spite of the +trouble and turmoil incidental to her life and her position. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +STATUE OF MAHAUT IN ABBEY OF LA THIEULOYE, NEAR ARRAS, NOW DESTROYED. + +From a Drawing, now in Brussels, made in 1602. + +_To face page 99._] + +Amongst Mahaut’s many good works was the keeping in repair of existing +religious houses, hospitals, and lazar-houses, and the building and +maintenance of new ones. Of all the religious houses which she +founded, her special care was for the Dominican convent of La +Thieuloye, near Arras, the equipment of which, as set out in the +accounts, may well serve as an example of that of the others. The +items for the furnishing and instalment of the house and chapel +include everything needful for the community, from gold and silver +vessels, silver-gilt images of St. Louis, the Trinity, and St. John, +for the sanctuary, and samite and velvet for chasubles, down to the +bowls and platters for the nuns, the woollen material for their +garments, and all the simple necessaries of everyday life. In the +chapel of this nunnery was preserved a kneeling statue of Mahaut, +representing her as foundress, in the habit of the Order strewn with +the arms of Artois. Jean Aloul, of Tournai, has been suggested as the +sculptor, since it is known from the accounts that he was working for +the Countess at Arras in 1323. This statue (known to us through a +drawing, now at Brussels, made in 1602) is of interest to-day because, +judging from the character expressed in the face, it seems probable +that it was a portrait, and not simply imagery. This conjecture seems +all the more likely when we compare the statue with a miniature +painted more than a hundred years later by Jean Fouquet in _Les +Grandes Chroniques de France_ (Bib. Nat.), portraying the marriage of +King Charles the Fourth with his second wife, Marie de Luxembourg. In +this picture a lady, heavily coiffed, and with features suggestive of +those of the statue, but with anguish written upon them, turns away +from the ceremony as if it were all too painful. If this unwilling +guest represents Mahaut, her woeful look is intelligible when we +recall the sad story connected with Charles’s first wife, Mahaut’s +daughter Blanche, married when she was but fifteen, and whose beauty +was so dazzling that Froissart records that “she was one of the most +beautiful women in the world.” Accused of an intrigue with a gentleman +of the Court, she was imprisoned in the Château-Gaillard, where she +remained, with shorn head, until, shortly after Charles ascended the +throne, the Pope declared the marriage null. Then, whilst the king +wedded another, the sad Blanche exchanged her castle prison-house +for a convent one, where she died a year after she had taken the vows. +There is no reason for supposing that Mahaut was at the wedding of +Blanche’s successor save in the imagination of the artist; but for him +the inclusion of such a tragic figure would add a dramatic touch to +the representation of an otherwise conventional ceremony. + +[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF CHARLES LE BEL AND MARIE OF LUXEMBURG. + +Grandes Chrons. de France, Bib. Nat. + +_To face page 100._] + +It almost takes us aback to read that in Mahaut’s domain of Artois +there were at least eighty hospitals and thirty lazar-houses, without +counting those attached to the monasteries. But these numbers will not +surprise us so much when we remember that almost every small community +had its little hospital, used not only for the sick and as a lying-in +hospital, but also as a shelter for the poor and the pilgrim. In the +towns they were often built and supported by the Corporations or by +rich merchants. Evidently some were in the nature of hospitals for +incurables, for there were special clauses in the deeds of gift +providing that a certain specified number of beds were to be kept for +the sick until they were either cured or released by death. Besides +building two hospitals in the County of Burgundy in fulfilment of the +dying wishes of her husband, Mahaut built and maintained two in her +own County of Artois. The one at Hesdin was the more important, and we +can get some idea of it from the documents of the time. The deed +relating to it tells that over the large entrance gate there was +carved in stone a figure of St. John, the patron of hospitals and of +the needy generally, with a poor man and woman on either side of him. +The principal ward was 160 feet long and 34 feet wide, with walls 16 +feet high ending in a gabled roof, with two windows in each gable, and +this, coupled with the fact that the sick were sometimes laid on +cushions by the open windows, goes to show that what we pride +ourselves on as a special discovery in modern hygiene--the benefit of +fresh air--was known and applied even in what we are wont to consider +a very benighted age in such matters. + +Whilst touching upon such a subject as this, it may be a surprise to +some to learn that in large towns baths were provided for those who +could not afford to have them in their own homes, and that there were +also professional women hair-washers. + +[Illustration: THIRTEENTH-CENTURY TREATISE ON SURGERY, IN FRENCH. + +Sloane MS. 1977. + +_To face page 103._] + +But to return to the hospital. On one side of the ward were ten +windows, each four feet square, and on the opposite side was a large +door leading into the cloister with its garden, where the +convalescents and the old people, whilst sheltered, could enjoy the +sunshine and see the flowers and the birds. In addition to this there +was a smaller ward for women, a chapel, a kitchen, and a room for the +matron, as well as accommodation for the resident doctor, Maître +Robert, and the serving-women. It is some consolation to think that +these poor suffering folk of centuries ago were even thus well +tended, but when we look at contemporary representations of the +surgery of the day,[29] we tremble at the mere thought of the heroic +methods adopted. Besides the actual necessaries which she provided for +the hospital at Hesdin, Mahaut constantly sent gifts of fish, game, +and wine. Similar gifts she likewise made to the hospitals in Artois +generally, as well as to those in Paris, and, on fête-days, to the +poorer religious houses. + + [29] See Roger of Parma, _Treatise on Surgery_. French + thirteenth century. Brit. Mus., Sloane MS., 1977. + +From her beneficence to the sick and sorry, the aged and the poor, we +turn to her hospitality to her relations and friends, and to all those +in spiritual or temporal authority in the towns or villages of Artois. +The Castle of Hesdin, destroyed in the sixteenth century--only a few +stones remaining to mark the site,--was situated a few miles from the +present modern town of Hesdin. It must have been not only a scene of +constant festivity and social intercourse, and a treasure-house +withal, but also a veritable hive of industry, with workers and +workshops within the Castle enclosure as well as in the town nestling +beneath its walls. Here might be found artists and craftsmen of all +sorts and degrees--sculptors and workers in stone, ivory-workers, +wood-carvers, carpenters, artificers in silver and precious stones as +well as in copper, forgers of iron, painters of wall-decoration, +stonework, saddle-bows, and even masquerading-masks, illuminators of +MSS., workers and painters of glass, harness-makers, armourers, +tailors, and embroiderers--the whole forming a rare and remarkable +centre of activity for a woman to have developed and ruled and made +into a living force. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration: BANQUET, WITH MINSTRELS PLAYING, AND ROOM HUNG WITH +EMBROIDERY. + +MS. Romance of Alexander, 14th century, Bodleian, Oxford. + +_To face page 104._] + +It is a fête-day within the Castle. The horns have sounded. The feast +is ready. To the great hall repair the knights and the ladies, the +esquires and the damsels, two and two, according to their rank, +dipping their hands, as they pass in, into silver basins of +rose-water. They are gorgeously apparelled in silken garments and +cloth of gold and silver, upon which are embroidered their coats of +arms, for by the end of the thirteenth century armorial bearings, +which by then had become attached to families, were used as a sign of +nobility and rank. Mahaut, as hostess, takes her seat last. Adown the +table are specimens of silver-plate, some the work of her own +craftsmen, others the offerings of friendship or of courtesy. They are +fashioned variously, and used for sweetmeats of all kinds, spices, +almonds, and dainties made of orange and pomegranate. A favourite form +is that of a ship, such as may be seen in _Les Très Riches Heures_ of +Jean, Duc de Berri, at Chantilly, in a representation of a feast given +by the Duke. There are, besides, salt-cellars and sauce-boats, flagons +and drinking-cups, and a bowl between every two guests, from which +they eat, handing each other dainty morsels. Such, with a knife +and a spoon for each, is their equipment for the meal, for none, save +the carver, has both knife and fork. In a corner of the hall is a +basket for the broken-meats destined for the poor, a leathern sack +being also provided for foods with gravy or sauce. Neither at +festivals nor in daily life would a meal have been considered complete +if the poor were not remembered. Perhaps a messenger arrives during +the feast with the news of a birth or a marriage in Mahaut’s circle of +relations or friends, and he is rewarded with a gift of money, and +possibly receives a silver cup to carry back to the nurse, or a +jewelled chaplet to take to the bride. Meanwhile the music of +trumpets, drums, viols, and flutes resounds from the minstrels’ +gallery. Later, when the feast is ended, and before the company +disperses to walk in the garden if it is spring or summer, or to look +at the beautiful things in the castle, or to dance or sing or play +chess if it be winter, some one perchance chants a plaintive ditty to +the music of the regal, or some knight tunes his harp and sings of +valiant deeds, or, may be, of some peerless lady. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +HARL. MS. 4425, BRIT. MUS. + +_To face page 105._] + +But let us look at the rooms of the Castle and their beautiful +contents--the paintings and embroideries on the walls, the ivories, +and the illuminated Psalters and MSS. And let us go first into the +Countess’s own room, which doubtless was near the chapel. We can form +some idea of its decoration and contents from the accounts, and of +its probable arrangement from contemporary plans, illuminated MSS., +and pictures. Its walls were adorned with a frieze composed of heads +of the kings of France, moulded in plaster and surmounted by crowns of +gilded or lacquered tin, below which, on a coloured ground, were +fastened fleurs-de-lis, likewise of tin similarly treated. At the end +of the room was a bed, a large wooden structure surrounded by a +footboard and laced across with cords on which were laid mattresses, a +feather bed (sometimes, if we may judge from miniatures, used during +the day as a seat on the floor), many cushions, linen or silk sheets, +and a fur-lined coverlet. From rods on the ceiling hung curtains which +completely enclosed it at night, but which were drawn back and looped +up during the day, when the bed was used as a divan. At night a small +oil lamp with a floating wick was hung within the curtains, and near +the bed was a _bénitier_. At the side, separated by a narrow space, +there were fixed seats for the accommodation of those who interviewed +the Countess before she rose. There was a large open fireplace with a +bench in front of it which had a movable back, so that the occupant +could sit either facing the fire or with his back to it. Close by were +wickerwork fire-screens, capable of being raised or lowered at will. +Against the walls there were carved chests, enriched with colour, and +chairs with leather seats and wickerwork backs, as well as +three-legged and folding stools, were placed about the room. At one +side of the room was a large oak chair of state with a cushioned seat, +and possibly canopied, and close to it a lectern, with hinged +candle-brackets, from which Mahaut could the more easily read her +MSS., which were often rolled, and difficult to manipulate. In front +of this seat was a table, at which any messengers or retainers stood +when they sought an interview, or the Countess demanded one. Here also +she transacted with her stewards and other agents the business +connected with her various castles and her many philanthropic +undertakings. Other rooms were painted in plain colour, and hung on +special occasions with embroideries and tapestries. Others, again, +were decorated with set designs, square or zigzag, in imitation of +brickwork, such as may be seen in the Chapel of St. Faith, Westminster +Abbey, or with subjects or colour after which they were named. Thus we +find mention of the “Parrakeet” room, from the birds painted on the +walls, the “Blue” room, from its colour, the rooms of “Roses,” of +“Vines,” and of “Fleurs-de-lis,” the room of “Shields,” from its +frieze of armorial bearings, and that of “Song,” from verses traced on +the walls, taken from the favourite pastoral of “Robin and Marion,” +and probably associated with little scenes from the same idyll. The +ceilings, with beams and joists painted red, were coloured either +green or blue, and strewn with tin stars coated with yellow or white +varnish to simulate gold or silver. The lower portions of the walls +were often painted in imitation of short curtains, sometimes of but +one colour, sometimes gorgeously decorated, but in either case +reminiscent of the real draperies hung on festal days. Immediately +above there might have been, as in other examples, a border painted +with coats of arms, or with a foliated design interspersed with +mottoes. + +During Mahaut’s lifetime this decorative work seems to have been +undertaken principally by one special family or community of artists +from Boulogne, of which a certain “Jacques” was the leading spirit. In +those days artist and craftsman were one and the same. It was the +quality, and not the particular subject, of the work that mattered, +and thus we find that the painting of a parrot’s cage, or of the +shafts of a litter, was not considered derogatory for even the most +skilled to undertake. From the accounts it would seem that linseed oil +was used to mix with the colours, cherry gum or white of egg being +added to make them dry more quickly. Payment for work was made three +times a year--at Candlemas, Ascension-tide, and All-Saints--or by the +day or piece, the last being the form preferred by the business-like +Mahaut. Besides such payment, presents were occasionally given for +specially fine work, and, if a man was married, a gift to his wife of +a gown, or of a cloak with fur, was sometimes added. One of this +company of Boulogne artists later on became Court-painter to the Dukes +of Burgundy, and took with him not only his trained apprentices from +the towns and villages of Artois, and from those bordering on +Flanders, but also, doubtless, certain traditions. It is such early +migrations of artists, when schools were forming, that have helped to +create the difficult problems which confront the student of all early +schools of art. + +Of embroidery there was such profusion that it is indeed no +exaggeration to say that the needle vied with the sword. There were +not only wall and bed hangings, embroidered with flowers to brighten +winter days, cloaks, gowns, and tunics patterned with gold thread and +coloured silks, and beaver hats wrought with gold lace and pearls and +sometimes precious stones, but also girdles, satchels, purses, and +pennons resplendent with heraldic device, and caparison and harness +for the horses. From the East were brought velvets, silks, and stuffs +interwoven with gold and silver thread, and used not only for personal +adornment, but also for vestments, Church-hangings, and the coverings +of litters. As regards tapestry as we understand it--_i.e._ woven in a +_high_ warp loom--there is apparently no definite mention of its being +made at Arras before 1313, so that the numerous allusions to tapestry +must refer to stuffs woven in the _low_ warp loom. These stuffs would +seem to have been of two kinds, the one woven with some simple +pattern, the other with heraldic designs of animals or other +conventional forms copied from Oriental models. Hence the term +“Saracenic” applied to both the workers and their handiwork. + +In order to realise the Ivories which were probably to be seen in the +Castle of Hesdin, we must go to the Louvre or the British Museum, +where may be found a few rare examples of the work of the period, such +as caskets carved with scenes from the life of Christ or the Virgin if +they were to hold some sacred treasure, or with scenes from some +Romance or from daily life if to contain jewels or other mundane +objects. In addition to such caskets, often painted, Mahaut had, to +hang from her girdle, as was customary with all ladies in the Middle +Ages, a daintily wrought ivory writing-tablet, and a small mirror in +an ivory case. These mirror-cases were generally carved with a scene +from some love-story, such as two lovers playing chess, or going +a-hawking, or some detail from the favourite romance of Tristan and +Isolde. Possibly amongst these treasures was a saddle-bow, with a +wondrous wealth of carving, or chess-men finely modelled, and inlaid +with mother-of-pearl, or a triptych with scenes from the Passion, +represented under Gothic arches of most superb and delicate +workmanship. But it is perhaps in the Chapel that we must seek the +finest work, for here both Mahaut and her father, Count Robert, were +lavish with unsparing hand. One Jean le Scelleur, of Paris, a carver +of combs and toilet articles as well as of crucifixes and Virgins, is +named as her principal craftsman. Mention is made of a Cross carved by +him in cedar-wood with an ivory figure of the Christ, and of two ivory +figures of the Virgin, one under a canopy, and the other with the Holy +Child poised upon the hip, that sublime motive belonging more +especially to the thirteenth century. The chapel itself was beautified +with carved work in stone. Over the Altar, and in front of it, were +painted panels, enriched with gold, and translucent enamel over +colour. If we could picture to ourselves the manner of the sculptor’s +work we may recall the “Vine-Capital” in Rheims Cathedral, where the +very stone itself seems to have been metamorphosed into tender foliage +by the unknown artist. + +Of wood-carving, the accounts tell of Choir-stalls, presses for +vestments and various vessels and ornaments, and also of Angels, +gilded and painted and bearing the emblems of the Passion, for +standing round the High Altar. These are described as being raised on +slender columns, connected by a bar on which were laced fringed silk +curtains, thus forming a recess for the Altar. We can get some idea of +the simple beauty of this arrangement from a drawing, still preserved +in the sacristy of Arras Cathedral, of the High Altar in the old +Cathedral, and fortunately made before the latter, with all its +contents, was destroyed in the sixteenth century. It accords in every +detail with the inventory record of the Chapel of Hesdin. We may also +compare a picture (No. 783, “The Exhumation of St. Hubert”) in the +Flemish room in the National Gallery, where a somewhat similar scheme +is shown. + +Of the MSS. and Illuminations only brief mention can be made. +Surviving examples, and the records of the time, testify to the +splendour and the sum of them. At the beginning of the thirteenth +century, the French miniature was influenced in no small degree, both +in technique and in colour, by glass painting. Towards the end of the +century this influence yielded to the prevailing enthusiasm for +architecture and sculpture, and in Bibles and Psalters alike there +appear scenes with figures as in bas-relief, with architectural +backgrounds and decorative details. The same spirit that evolved +tender foliage out of the hard stone of cathedral and church evolved +also the delicate hawthorn-leaf enriching the initial letter of the +MS. It mattered little whether the material worked on was stone or +parchment. Each was but a means for giving expression to a newly +discovered scheme of beauty--the beauty of Nature. In the thirteenth +and fourteenth centuries a renewed impetus had been given to the arts +of writing and illumination. This was partly because a demand had +arisen for a secular literature to supersede the tiresome and +time-worn recitations of minstrels, and partly because, in the +fourteenth century, Books of Hours, instead of the Psalter alone as +had hitherto been customary, came into general use in private +devotion. This created a fresh want, and at the same time supplied a +number of new subjects in which the artist could reveal his skill. +Arras was one of the chief centres of this new movement, a movement +which Mahaut continued and stimulated. She employed artists to +illuminate both sacred and secular works for her own use as well as +for gifts--gifts counted beyond compare and beside which even precious +stones were deemed of less worth. To Mahaut this desire for beauty was +a very lode-star. To glance at a list of the gold- and silver-smiths’ +work--the jewelled and enamelled chaplets of gold, the jewelled +girdles, and buckles, and braids for the hair, and the cups, some of +silver with crystal covers or wrought with enamel and precious stones, +and others of jasper mounted with silver work--reads like a fantasy of +hidden treasure in some fairy tale. Even her chess-boards--and she was +a devotee of the game--were of silver or ivory, and one, we read, was +of jasper and chalcedony mounted with silver and gems, the chess-men +being of jasper and crystal. + +For the younger folk about her there was tennis, and also games of +hazard with forfeits of girdles and coifs to the ladies. In the Castle +garden were certain mechanical contrivances which, by their sudden and +unexpected action, were supposed to amuse the unwary guests. One +sprinkled them with water, another with black or white powder, as they +passed by, and yet another, in the form of a monkey, struck them with +a stick, whilst in a bower might be seen a mirror wherein all who +looked saw only the distorted semblance of themselves. These unwelcome +pleasantries were a part of the miscellaneous borrowings from the +East. But for the easily amused folk of the Middle Ages, time passed +merrily enough in the midst of such pastimes, and only the shadow on +the dial seemed to mark its flight. + +But Mahaut, amid the manifold claims on her time and talent, had seen +the shadow lengthening. From time to time she had been attacked by +illness, to which blood-letting and other remedies of the day had +brought relief. But on the 25th November 1329, when in Paris, she was +seized with a sudden sickness, so sudden that sinister rumours were +noised abroad. Human aid was of no avail. Two days later there was +general lamentation. The shadow had lengthened into the night. Mahaut +was dead. In accordance with her wishes, she was buried at the foot of +her father’s grave in the Abbey of Maubuisson, near Paris, her heart +being placed in the Church of the Franciscans in Paris, beside the +remains of her son, whose tomb there was afterwards removed to St. +Denis. Her possession of Artois, for which she had laboured devotedly, +became annexed to the Duchy of Burgundy through the marriage of her +granddaughter with its Duke. + +Here, though only a tithe has been told, we must take leave of this +cultivated woman of the fourteenth century, a type of the time and for +all time. Her aim was the aim of all culture--the attainment of as +complete a life as possible. To this she aspired, and to this in large +measure she attained. What more can be said of even those we count the +greatest? + + + + +A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FEMINISTE, CHRISTINE DE PISAN + + +Christine de Pisan, Italian by birth, French by adoption, may be +regarded not merely as a forerunner of true feminism, but also as one +of its greatest champions, seeing that in her judgment of the sexes +she endeavours to hold the scales evenly. Possessed of profound common +sense and of a generous-hearted nature, she is wholly free from that +want of fairness in urging woman’s claims which is so fatally +prejudicial to their just consideration. Although, strictly speaking, +Christine was not original, she was representative, and interests us +for that very reason. She was perhaps one of the most complete +exponents of the finer strain of thought of her time. She stands +before us, at the dawn of the fifteenth century, Janus-headed, looking +to the past and to the future, a woman typical of a time of +transition, on the one hand showing, in her writings, a clinging to +old beliefs, and on the other hand asserting, in her contact with real +life, independence of thought in the discussion of still unsolved +questions. + +Christine was born at Venice in 1363, where her father, Thomas de +Pisan, of Bologna, distinguished for his knowledge of medicine and +astrology, had settled on his marriage with a daughter of one of the +Councillors of the Republic. When five years of age, she was taken by +her mother to Paris to join her father, who had been summoned thither +some time before by the King, Charles the Fifth, to serve as his +astrologer. At the end of the fourteenth century astrology played a +very real and important part in men’s lives. Before wars or journeys +were undertaken, or additions to castle or chapel made, or even a new +garment put on, the stars were consulted for the propitious day and +hour. So deeply was Charles the Fifth imbued with a belief in the +efficacy of this occult art that when he wished to confer some special +honour, or to express his gratitude for some service rendered to him +or to the State, he sought to enhance his bounty by sending an +astrologer as part of his gift. By the time little Christine arrived +in Paris her father had gained the confidence and esteem of the King, +and was settled at Court with substantial maintenance. Here she was +brought up as a maiden of quality, surrounded by much magnificence, +for Charles loved beautiful things, and never stayed his hand to +procure them, even when the gratification of his desires involved +hardship to his people. He possessed many virtues, but economy was not +one of them. The dismal castle of the Louvre, which had been the home +of the French kings since the days of Philip Augustus, found no favour +in his sight as a place of residence, and he quickly set about +building the sumptuous Hôtel de St. Paul, in what is now known as the +“Quartier de l’Arsenal.” The Louvre he destined for official +functions, for an arsenal, and for his library. To form a library was +no new thing in Paris. Some thirty years earlier Richard de Bury, +Bishop of Durham (1333) and sometime Chancellor of England, speaks of +his frequent ambassadorial visits to “Paris, the Paradise of the +World, with its delightful libraries, where the days seemed ever few, +for the greatness of our love.” And he adds, “unfastening our +purse-strings, we scattered money with joyous heart, and purchased +inestimable books.” But whilst it is true that Charles’s predecessors +had collected books, none before had thought of forming a library for +public use, and Charles’s work, as M. Delisle remarks, was really the +first germ of the Bibliothèque Nationale.[30] To collect books was one +of his greatest delights, and he spared no trouble or money to make +his library as complete as possible. This taste for books he may have +inherited from his father, King John, who, learning to read from a +beautiful Book of Hours, early acquired a love of books from his +mother, Jeanne of Burgundy. Charles also loved to lend or make +presents of books, and among his many gifts, one--an offering to +Richard the Second--may be seen in the British Museum (Royal 20, B +VI.). The library was considerably depleted during the reign of +Charles the Sixth, when it was used as a sort of storehouse from which +presents were made to prince and prelate, or to any to whom it was +desired to make a gift, or a recognition of services rendered. On the +death of Charles the Sixth, in 1425, it was bought by the Duke of +Bedford, Regent of France, and doubtless some of its treasures were +transferred by him into England. Those that were left, and some that +gradually found their way back to France, may now be seen in the +Bibliothèque Nationale and in other libraries of France, and also in +various libraries in other countries, but out of the 1200 books +collected by Charles the Fifth, rather less than a hundred are now +known to us. + + [30] L. Delisle, _Recherches sur la libraire de Charles V_, + Paris, 1907. + +[Illustration: _Bib. Royale, Brussels._ + +CHRISTINE DE PISAN. + +_To face page 119._] + +To increase the usefulness of his library, Charles employed a number +of translators, not only of Greek and Latin authors, but also of the +most important Arabic writings, thus bringing both the classics and +the science of the day within the reach of the many students +privileged to make use of it. It was in this library that Christine +spent long days reading and meditating on the thoughts of the greatest +minds, thus fitting herself for the part she had to play when life had +ceased to be a gay dream. We can get from a miniature in a Book of +Hours, now at Chantilly, and painted by the brothers Limbourg for +Jean, Duc de Berri, a brother of the King, some idea of what this old +residence of the Louvre was like. In this miniature we see represented +a square grim castle, with a large tower at each corner and narrow +slits for windows, suggestive more of a place of refuge in time of war +and tumult than the home of a peace-loving, enlightened king. When +Charles determined to beautify this sombre structure, statues were set +up without and tapestries hung within. One of the towers was fitted up +for the library, panelled with rare woods and furnished with some +thirty small chandeliers and a large central silver lamp, kept lighted +both night and day so that work could go on at all hours. In the +courtyard an outside circular staircase (one of the earliest, if not +_the_ earliest, of the kind) was added to give, as was said, a note of +gaiety. But the idea of gaiety seems somewhat ironical when we learn +that as it was difficult to get a sufficient number of large slabs +quarried quickly, headstones from the cemetery of the Holy Innocents +were taken for the purpose! + +Christine, as a child, showed an extraordinary capacity for learning, +and this her father zealously fostered and developed. At the age of +fifteen she married, and married for love, the King’s notary and +secretary, Etienne de Castel, a gentleman of Picardy. Her happiness +and well-being seemed assured, but Fortune, whose wheel is ever +revolving, though sometimes so slowly as to lull us into +forgetfulness, had decreed otherwise. For Christine it revolved all +too quickly. Two years after her marriage the King died (1380), and +her husband and father lost their appointments. Gradually anxiety and +sorrow crept like some baneful atmosphere into the once happy home. +First she lost her father, and then, two or three years later, her +husband died, leaving her, at the age of twenty-five, with three +children to provide for. Like many another, she turned to letters as +both a material and a mental support. Endowed with an extraordinary +gift of versification, she began by writing short poems, chiefly on +the joys and sorrows of love, expressing sometimes her own sentiments, +sometimes those of others for whom she wrote. But she tells us that +often when she made merry she would fain have wept. How many a one +adown the centuries has re-echoed the same sad note! + +“Men must work and women must weep.” So says the poet. But life shows +us that men and women alike must needs do both. And so the sad +Christine set to work to fit herself, by the study of the best ancient +and modern writers, to produce more serious matter than love-ballads, +turning, in her saddest moments, to Boëthius and Dante for inspiration +and solace. “I betook myself,” she says, “like the child who at first +is set to learn its A B C, to ancient histories from the beginning of +the world--histories of the Hebrews and the Assyrians, of the Romans, +the French, the Bretons, and diverse others--and then to the +deductions of such sciences as I had time to give heed to, as well as +to a study of the poets.” Her master was Aristotle, and she made his +ethics her gospel. “Ancelle de science,” she calls herself, and +remains a humble worshipper at the shrine of knowledge, for knowledge, +she says, is “that which can change the mortal into the immortal.” We +can picture her to ourselves at work in the library of the Louvre, +amidst its 900 precious MSS., and in the library of the University of +Paris, to which she had access through her friend Gerson, the renowned +Chancellor. In a miniature at the beginning of one of her MSS. she is +seen seated, in a panelled recess, on a carved wooden bench, dressed +in a simple blue gown and a high white coif. She is working at a folio +on a large table covered with tapestry, with a greyhound lying at her +feet. It is quite possible that this may be either a conventional +setting, or one due to the imagination of the artist, but as the +miniaturists of those days were, as far as they could be, realists, it +is more than possible that we here see her represented at work in her +favourite nook in the Louvre library, together with the favourite dog +who shared her lonely hours. Gradually solace came to her through +work, and having found so precious a treasure for herself, she, like +our own modern sage, never tired of preaching to others the gospel of +its blessedness. + +Whilst Christine wrote and lived her student life--“son cuer hermit +dans l’ermitage de Pensée”--her fame went forth, and princes sought, +by tempting offers, to attach her to their courts, but without +success. Of these, Henry the Fourth of England, already acquainted +with her poems, and Gian Galleazo Visconti, Duke of Milan, were the +most importunate, and particularly the former, who was unaccustomed to +rebuff and failure. But Christine, with repeated gracious thanks and +guarded refusals, remained firm. No reason for her decision is +recorded, but it may well be believed that her patriotism would not +allow her, even with the certainty of ease and emolument, to quit +France at that critical time, or to serve the enemy of her adopted +country. + +Although Christine’s reading was very varied and extensive, there were +two subjects--the amelioration of her war-distraught country, then in +the throes of the Hundred Years’ War, and the championship of the +cause of womankind--which specially appealed to her as a patriot and a +woman, and for which she strove with unceasing ardour. In all her +writings she so interweaves these two causes that it is only by +approaching them in the same way that we can understand her view of +their psychological unity. To Christine these interests were +essentially identical, for she recognised how paramount is woman’s +influence in the making or marring of the world--how, in truth, in +woman’s hand lies a key which can unlock a Heaven or a Hell. + +There was sore need of a patriot, and in Christine one was found. It +has been well said of her, and by a Frenchman too, that “though born a +woman and an Italian, she alone at the Court of France seemed to have +manly qualities and French sentiments.” France was in a sorry plight. +There was war in the land, there was war in the palace. The sick King +suffered more and more from attacks of madness, and during these +periods the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy fought for the regency. +Christine began her patriotic work by fervent appeals to Isabella, the +Queen (to whom she offered a MS. now in the British Museum),[31] to +use her influence to put an end to these dissensions which so greatly +added to the troubles of the kingdom. She also lost no opportunity of +proclaiming in her various writings the duties and responsibilities of +kings and nobles to the people, and the necessity, if there was ever +to be peace and prosperity, of winning their regard. At the command of +Philip le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy, and uncle of the King, she wrote in +prose, from chronicles of the time and from information obtained from +many connected with the King’s household, _Le Livre des faits et +bonnes mœurs du roi Charles V_, recounting his virtuous life and deeds +and their advantage to the realm, and introducing a remarkable +dissertation on the benefit to a country of a strong middle-class. +She, of course, reasoned from Aristotle. The subject is a commonplace +one now, but in the case of any one living at the beginning of the +fifteenth century, and brought up, as Christine had been, at a +magnificent Court, it shows rare independence and breadth of thought +to have grasped and proclaimed with such firmness and clearness as is +displayed in her treatise the germ of the policy of all modern +civilised nations--that a middle-class is essential to bring into +touch those placed at the opposite extremes, the rich and the poor. + + [31] Harley, 4431. + +To Christine belongs an honour beyond that of having been a patriot +and a champion of her sex--the honour of having revealed Dante to +France.[32] Scattered up and down her writings are many allusions to +the _Divina Commedia_, showing how real a place it must have filled in +her soul’s life. She especially recommends it for profitable study in +the place of the “hateful” _Romance of the Rose_, concerning which she +gave the warning to her son:-- + + Se bien veulx et chastement vivre, + De la Rose ne lis le livre. + + [32] A. Farinelli, _Dante e la Francia_, vol. i. p. 192, 1908. + +Like Dante, sad and lonely--“souvent seulete et pensive, regretant le +temps passé”--like him she also realised the thirst for knowledge as +an ever-present want of the soul, and that its ultimate perfection is +only to be attained by following after virtue and knowledge. Although, +as regards profundity, her conception of the world and of life cannot +be compared with that of her great prototype, or even with that of +such an one as St. Hildegarde, still she had read with unflagging +diligence a vast number of profane and ecclesiastical writers, and +seems to have been well versed in the varied knowledge of her time, +especially history. But whilst it is possible to criticise her +learning, tempered as this was by her character and the needs of her +day, it is at the same time possible to acknowledge that in spite of +flaws and an often over-elaborated setting, moral truth sparkles +gemlike throughout her writings. One of her biographers speaks of her +thus: “Her morale is so pure and so universally human that not only +does it remain true to-day, but it will retain imperishable value as +long as ever human society is based on a pure and healthy moral +foundation.” + +In her poem _Le Chemin de long Estude_--a title taken from Dante’s +appeal to Virgil at the opening of the _Inferno_--Christine begins by +acknowledging her debt to the immortal poet, saying that much that she +has to tell has already been told by “Dante of Florence in his book.” +Virgil as guide is replaced by the Cumean Sibyl, who appears to +Christine in a dream, and offers to conduct her to another and a more +perfect world, one where there is no pain and misery. To this +Christine consents on condition that “sad Hades, whither Æneas once +was taken,” is not included in the journey. The Sibyl therefore +promises to reveal to her, instead, in what manner misfortune came +upon earth, whilst at the same time showing her on the way all that +is worth seeing in this world, from the Pillars of Hercules, “the end +of the world,” to distant Cathay. However exhausting this programme +may appear to us, Christine, knowing the real passion of the late +Middle Ages for travel--for even those who could not travel in reality +did so in imagination,--makes use of it as a setting for the +introduction of a discussion on the qualities most necessary to good +government. This she does, even at the risk of incurring displeasure +in high quarters, recalling how Dante’s patriotism led to banishment +and death in exile, but she adds, “Qui bien ayme, tout endure.” She +pours forth her classical examples in a chaotic stream, but when she +leaves earth, and ascends to the celestial regions, she not only shows +herself versed in the astronomy of the time, but also expresses some +beauty of thought. The order of the firmament, where all obey law +without ceasing, so that harmony ensues “like sweet melody,” reminds +her of Pythagoras and Plato, and suggests to her what life on earth +might be if good laws were made and observed. In furtherance of her +idea, she appeals to Reason, who presides over the Virtues or Divine +Powers, to interrogate the three earthly disputants, Nobility, Riches, +and Wisdom. In the end Reason awards the prize to Wisdom, condemning +Riches as the great enemy of mankind. Thereupon Wisdom appeals to the +verdicts of Juvenal, Boëthius, St. Jerome, and others to establish +that it is Virtue alone that is of worth, and ennobles a man, and then +sets forth the qualities of a good sovereign. But as this leads to +some difference of opinion, Christine, who was withal a courtly lady, +descends to earth in order to ask the King, Charles the Sixth, to +decide the matter. This dream-poem she dedicates to her royal master +for his diversion in his saner moments, and thus once again introduces +into high places the subject so near to her heart. She lets it be seen +that she herself, like Dante, did not believe in the blending of the +spiritual and the temporal powers. And as regards temporal power she +adds--perhaps borrowing the idea from Dante’s _De Monarchia_, and +anticipating Napoleon’s dream--that in order to ensure peace on earth, +it is necessary that one supreme ruler should reign over the whole +world. “La sua volontade e nostra pace,” sang a soul in Dante’s heaven +of the Moon--the lowest in the celestial system--when questioned +whether it was content with its lowly place. The poet therefore adds, +“ogni dove in cielo e paradiso.” Christine, echoing these thoughts, +would fain apply them to life on earth, giving them their deepest and +fullest meaning. + +Though she laboured so unceasingly for the good of her country, she +also did her utmost to defend her sex from the indiscriminate censure +which had been heaped upon it, for the evil spoken seemed to her far +to outweigh the good. A century before, Dante had also idealised +woman--even if, as some think, he personified some abstract +quality--and placed her in heaven beside the Deity. Chivalry had also +idealised woman, but in an exotic, exaggerated manner, which was bound +to reach its zenith, and bound also to have its darker side. So we +find that to speak good or ill of womankind became a conventionalism +in the Middle Ages. Black or white was the tone chosen by the artist +in words. There was no blending, no shading. Women were either +deified, or held to be evil incarnate. The material side of life men +understood, and could depict with some exactness, but to grasp in any +way its subtler aspects required an education which could be attained +only by slow degrees, since it meant the gradual modification of the +long-cherished illusion that brute force is the world’s only weapon. A +want of capacity to discern is often responsible for a depreciatory +opinion, and we can but ascribe this strangely narrow-minded and +superficial attitude towards woman to some such want. Christine set +herself the task of trying to remedy this evil, not by shouting in the +market-place, but by studying men and women as God made them and as +she found them. Before she began her work, a new day seemed to be +dawning. Just as, when classicism was in full decadence, Plutarch +wrote _De mulierum virtutibus_ (of the virtue of women), so, in the +fourteenth century, Boccaccio gave to the world _De claris mulieribus_ +(of right-renowned women). We do not expect to find woman treated on +a very high plane by Boccaccio, but we recognise that, in a way, this +work forms a fresh starting-point in the eternal controversy. Perhaps +we should not have had this curious collection of stories of women, +virtuous and vicious, mythological and historical--stories which are +certainly very inferior as art to those of the _Decameron_--had not a +crisis occurred in Boccaccio’s life. One day a Carthusian monk came to +him with a warning message from the dead, and, much troubled in mind, +he resolved to try to begin life afresh. But he was a better +story-teller than a moraliser. He would fain save his soul, but he +liked and courted popularity, and knew well the deeper meaning of the +proverb, “A terreno dolce, vanga di legno.” And so he mingles virtue +and vice, hoping, as he says, that “some utility and profit shall come +of the same.” To us of to-day, the chief interest of this work is that +Boccaccio’s fame perhaps gave a definite impetus to the discussion of +the sex, instead of wholesale assertion, and also that it probably +suggested to Chaucer the idea for his _Legend of Good Women_. How +refreshing to find ourselves in the atmosphere of the kindly Chaucer! +Let us pause for a moment, and recall what he says of women, he who +was not only a knightly Court-poet, but also a popular singer, well +versed in the practical wisdom of life. In the prologue we read, “Let +be the chaf, and wryt wel of the corn,” and in allusion to his +library of sixty books, old and new, of history and love-stories, he +says that for every bad woman, mention was duly made of a hundred good +ones. Time and experience in no way dull this appreciation, for when, +later, _The Canterbury Tales_ appear, his estimate has risen ten-fold, +since in the prologue to “The Miller’s Tale” we read, “and ever a +thousand gode ageyn one badde.” From this time onwards, literature on +the subject increases almost _ad infinitum_. Treatises and imaginary +debates seem to vie with each other for popularity. All these make +intensely interesting reading, for these fanciful discussions, which +are supposed to take place, sometimes between a man and a woman, +sometimes between a mixed company in a garden or villa or some bath +resort where many are gathered together, are really a record of the +intellectual amusements of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. +“Que devez-vous préférer, du plaisir qui va vous échapper bientôt, ou +d’une espérance toujours vive, quoique toujours trompée?” “Which sex +loves the more easily or can do the better without love?” “It is not +enough to know how to win love, but one must also know how to keep +such love when it has been won.” Such-like were the subtle problems +which on these occasions folk set themselves to solve. + +But whilst love problems could be treated as a pastime, they also had +their serious side. Of this there is an example in Christine’s story +of _The Duke of True Lovers_. Although much in its narration is +evidently the mere invention of the poetess, it is quite possible, +nay even probable, that it has some historical basis. Christine begins +her story by saying that it had been confided to her by a young prince +who did not wish his name to be divulged, and who desired only to be +known as “The Duke of True Lovers.” It has been suggested, with much +likelihood, that this is in truth the love-story of Jean, Duc de +Bourbon, and of Marie, Duchesse de Berri, daughter of the famous Jean, +Duc de Berri, and the inheritor of his MSS. When the story opens, the +heroine of it, whoever she may have been, is already wedded. Hence all +the difficulties of the hero, and indeed of both. Christine, with her +womanly sympathy and psychological insight, makes all so intensely +real that we are quite carried away in imagination to the courtly life +of the fifteenth century. We read of the first meeting; of the Duke’s +love at first sight; of Castle daily life; of a three days’ tournament +given in honour of the lady; of devices for secret meetings and the +interchange of letters; of the inevitable scandal-monger; of a letter +from a former _gouvernante_--whose aid as go-between had been +sought--containing a most comprehensive and remarkable treatise on +feminine morality, the dangers of illicit love, and the satisfaction +of simple wifely duty; of the separation which the position of the +lady, and the gallantry of her lover, alike demanded; of meetings at +intervals; of the mutual solace of short love-poems; and then the +story, perhaps to evade identification, ends vaguely. But as we finish +the story, we cannot help feeling that even if Christine’s setting is +fiction, she yet gives us a glance of real life. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +LADY IN HORSE-LITTER, RETURNING FROM TOURNAMENT. + +Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus. + +_To face page 132._] + +When Christine turned to her serious work in the cause of womankind, +she began by attacking two books, Ovid’s _Art of Love_, and _The +Romance of the Rose_, both of which, in the Middle Ages, it was deemed +wellnigh sacrilegious to decry. Her challenge, _L’Epistre au Dieu +d’Amours_, took the form of an address to the God of Love, professing +to come from women of all conditions, imploring Cupid’s aid against +disloyal and deceitful lovers, whose base behaviour she largely +attributes to the false teaching of these two books. This argument +appeared in 1399, and she soon discovered that she had stirred up a +hornet’s nest. But she had attacked advisedly and fearlessly, and was +quite prepared for any counter onslaught. Her position was +considerably strengthened by the alliance and co-operation of her +staunch friend Gerson, the Chancellor, who himself, in the name of the +clergy, took up arms against the flagrant scurrility to be found in +the portion of _The Romance of the Rose_ contributed by Jean de Meun. +Other powerful allies joined the cause, and, to help to crystallise +their efforts, species of “Courts of Love” were instituted, not alone +for discourse on love, as heretofore, but also in the defence of +women. All who united in this meritorious fellowship undertook to wear +a distinctive badge, and thus proclaim their confession of faith. +Among these Orders one was styled “L’Escu vert à la dame blanche,” +another, “L’Ordre de la Rose,” and so on, suggestive of their purport. +The first-named was founded by the brave soldier Jean le Meingre, +Maréchal de Boucicaut, whose portrait may be seen in his superb Book +of Hours, painted between 1399 and 1407, now in the Musée +Jacquemart-André, Paris.[33] Its membership was restricted to thirteen +knights, who swore to defend the honour of women against all +detractors. To distinguish them from others less gallantly disposed, +they wore on the sleeve an ornament in the shape of a small shield, +enamelled green on the outside, and with the representation, on the +underside, of a woman, enamelled in white. + + ... Vous portez la dame en verde targe + Pour démonstrer que de hardi visage + Vous vous voulez pour les dames tenir + Contre ceulz qui leur porteront dommage! + + [33] “Le Musée Jacquemart-André,” _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, + August 1912. + +Of the Order of the Rose and its foundation, Christine, in one of her +poems, gives most picturesque and interesting particulars, interesting +because they are evidently taken from an actual scene, though +Christine, in her rôle as poetess, feels it necessary to add touches +suggestive of fairyland rather than of real life. A numerous assembly, +with goodwill at heart, has met together in the magnificent dwelling +of Louis, Duke of Orleans, the King’s brother, Christine being one of +the number. Suddenly there comes into their midst one personifying the +Goddess Venus, surrounded by maidens garlanded with roses and carrying +golden bowls filled with them. The bowls placed on the table, the +Goddess proceeds to announce the rules of the Order, above all +enjoining those present to avoid envy, and in no way to perjure +themselves, since this would be a most heinous and hateful sin. The +badge chosen is a fresh rose, but if any member of the Order should +happen to be in a country where such is not attainable, or when the +season is unpropitious, then a rose fashioned in gold or silver, or +one embroidered in silk, will suffice. With pledges of loyalty, + + A bonne amour je fais veu et promesse + Et à la fleur qui est rose clamée, + A la vaillant de Loyauté deesse, + Par qui nous est ceste chose informée, + Qu’à tous jours mais la bonne renommée + Je garderay de dame en toute chose + Ne par moy ja femme n’yert diffamée: + Et pour ce prens je L’Ordre de la Rose,[34] + + [34] “Le Dit de la Rose,” 197-204, _Œuvres poétiques de + Christine de Pisan_, t. ii., pub. par Maurice Roy, 1891. + +all the company deck themselves with roses. The charter is given by +the Goddess into the safe-keeping of Christine, who describes it as +written on fine parchment in letters of azure, and fastened with a +silken cord of the same colour. From this cord hangs a rare gem, on +one side of which their patroness, the Goddess of Love, and on the +other Cupid, with his feet on a leopard, are depicted. This moral and +literary contest is perhaps the most brilliant of the many discussions +that took place in the Middle Ages in honour of women. The highest and +the wisest in the land joined in it, but all the honour must be given +to Christine for having, by her brave and reasonable attitude, caused +the problem, which henceforth was to evolve like truth itself, to be +treated on a rational basis. “Toute la foy remaint en une femme,” says +Christine. Were not her words, nearly 500 years later, echoed by Renan +when he says, “Après Jésus, c’est Marie de Magdale qui a le plus fait +pour la fondation du Christianisme”? + +_L’Epistre au Dieu d’Amours_ is an extraordinary product of worldly +wisdom and common sense, seasoned with satire. One of the complaints +against disloyal suitors, and one which strikes a singularly modern +note, is that they make protests of love, and false promises, which +must be either paid for dearly, or rejected with scorn. Then the hero, +if he has won the day, proclaims his victory in taverns and other +places of resort, and even in mixed company. Or if, as is more often +the case, he has lost it, he still tries, by suggestive hints, to +appear to his fellows a successful gallant. Surely the worldling of +to-day does not seem to differ very essentially from his brother of +the fifteenth century, or to have progressed any farther along the +path of loyalty! + +Christine’s line of argument is that the many must not be condemned +for the shortcomings of the few, and that even when God made the +angels, some were bad. To the charge that books are full of the +condemnation of women, she replies with the simple remark that books +were not written by women. Where is the shade of the worthy Christine +to-day? Does it walk the earth with a flag of triumph or a laurel +wreath whilst its sisters in the flesh are writing on every subject in +heaven and earth and sea? “De nos jours, le monde est aux femmes.” + +Is it marvellous, asks Christine, that a woman--“une chose simplète, +une ignorante petite femmellette,” as she expresses it--should be +betrayed by man, when even the great city of Troy was, and when all +the books and romances are full of the betrayal of kings and kingdoms? +And if a woman is not constant by nature, why should Jean de Meun, in +_The Romance of the Rose_, devise so many tricks to deceive her, +seeing that it is not necessary to make a great assault upon a feeble +place? Then she deftly turns the tables on the other sex, reminding +each that he is the son of his mother, and that + + Se mauvaise est il ne peut valor rien, + Car nul bon fruit de mal arbre ne vient. + +And so on to the end, all is argument and banter. The repute of her +letter must have travelled quickly, for whilst Christine was still +combating with dissentients, an epitomised rendering of it appeared +(1402) in English from the pen of Hoccleve, the pupil of Chaucer, +entitled _The Lettre of Cupide, God of Love_. + +[Illustration: _Bib. Royale, Munich._ + +LA CITÉ DES DAMES. + +_To face page 138._] + +Later, Christine, with Boccaccio’s _De claris mulieribus_ before her, +writes _La Cité des Dames_, an account of the building of an imaginary +city which is to shelter within its strong ramparts the women of all +times and all countries who have distinguished themselves by good and +heroic deeds. This has been aptly called “The Golden Book of +Heroines.” It may certainly be considered her masterpiece on her +favourite subject. She urges that philosophers and poets, with one +accord, have defamed women, and she appeals to God, asking why such a +thing should be, seeing that He Himself made them and gave them such +inclinations as seemed good to Him, and that in no way could He err. +She maintains that God created the soul, and made it as good in woman +as in man, and that it is not the sex, but the perfection of virtue, +that is material. Combating the suggestion that women are not fit to +plead in Court because they have not sufficient intelligence to apply +the law when they have learnt it, she refers to history to prove that +women who have had the management of affairs have shown that, far from +lacking intelligence and judgment, they have possessed both in large +measure. At the same time, whilst defending their capability when +necessity arises, she does not think it necessary for women to +interfere in matters which seem essentially man’s business. Her +remarks on the subject of marriage are certainly practical, and at the +same time disclose a strange unloveliness in contemporary manners. She +is not of St. Paul’s opinion that it is better not to marry, but all +the same she suggests that, unless without means, that woman is +happier who does not marry a second time, seeing that the life of a +married woman is often worse than if she were in the hands of the +Saracens--the terror of the Middle Ages,--and that frequently after +her husband has been out enjoying himself, her only supper, on his +return, is a beating. She counsels the education of women, and +condemns those who suggest that this will conduce to unseemly ways. In +truth, her wonderful sense of justice, and her enlightened opinions +generally, make it a marvellous résumé of statesmanship as far as it +goes. It is a real Utopia. Perhaps to Christine it was a glimpse of +the Promised Land! As we read her views on the education of boys and +girls together, in this happy city, we feel that she might be +discussing with us the problems of to-day. She says that if boys and +girls are taught the same subjects, girls can, as a rule, learn just +as well, and just as intelligently, as boys, and so on. In this +conclusion she forestalls the learned Cornelius Agrippa, a doctor and +philosopher of the sixteenth century, and one of the most original and +remarkable men of his time, who boldly asserts that sex is merely +physical, and does not extend to soul or rational power. She sums up +by strongly advocating study and learning, both for self-improvement +and as a consolation and possession for all time. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +SETTING OUT FOR POISSY. + +Harl. MS. 4431, Brit. Mus. + +_To face page 140._] + +Of her poetical writings on love and the sexes, perhaps the most +enchanting is _Le Livre du Dit de Poissy_. In it she takes us, on a +bright spring morning, with a joyous company, from Paris to the royal +convent of Poissy, where her child is at school. She describes all the +beauties of the country, the fields gay with flowers, the warbling of +the birds, the shepherdesses with their flocks, the willow-shaded +river bank along which they ride, the magic of the forest of St. +Germain, a little world apart of greenery and shade, filled with the +song of the nightingales. Laughing and singing by the way, they reach +the convent gate. Then follows a description of the beautiful carved +cloisters, the chapter-house, the nuns’ dress and their dormitory, the +garden scented with lavender and roses, with one part, where small +animals are allowed to run wild, left uncultivated, and the ponds well +stocked with fish. As the day wanes, they bid farewell to the nuns, +who offer them gifts of purses and girdles embroidered in silk and +gold, worked by their own hands. They return to the inn where they are +to spend the night, and after supper wander forth to listen to the +nightingales, then dance a carole, and so to bed. The ride back to +Paris in the morning, during which a discussion on love matters is +introduced, is painted with the same impressionist touch, and it is +with real regret that we take leave of these happy folk as they alight +in Paris city from their stout nags. + +Another similar discourse, _Le Débat de deux amants_, has for setting +a gala entertainment, taking place, like the founding of the “Order of +the Rose,” under the auspices of Louis, Duke of Orleans, who ever +extended a princely protection to Christine. Louis had married +Valentine Visconti, daughter of Gian Galleazo Visconti, founder of the +Certosa, near Pavia, a princess well versed in art and letters, and +withal in pomp and splendour. It is on a day in May, the garden gay +with gallants and fair ladies. We hear the minstrels play, and watch +some of the company, decked with garlands, dancing under the trees. In +the palace there is music and singing. Christine is seated in a +tapestried hall with one or two esquires who prefer to discourse of +love to joining in the jollity. After a time the talk turns on fickle +men, and Christine brings forth from her vast storehouse of knowledge +classical and mediæval examples. As she mentions Theseus, and recalls +his baseness to Ariadne, she points to the tapestry on the wall before +them, where the story is woven. This little touch makes the scene very +real to us, for the record of the purchase of this tapestry, with the +price of twelve hundred francs paid for it, may still be found amongst +the royal inventories. + +There is such a volume and variety of works from Christine’s pen that +it is no easy task to make a fair selection. One of the most +significant, since it deals with a subject which permeated mediæval +thought, and on which she was wont to dwell, is _La Mutation de +fortune_, “Fortune more inconstant than the moon,” says Christine. In +it she writes with her heart in her hand, as it were, telling first of +the sore havoc Fortune has wrought amongst those most dear to her. Yet +though her own heart has been torn on the Wheel of Fortune, she stands +before her fellow sufferers like some figure of Hope pointing upward, +where, she says, wrong is surely righted. And thus she turns to the +world in general, not in the spirit of the pessimist, but rather in +that of the philosopher. She well knows that Fortune is no blindfolded +goddess turning writhing humanity on a wheel, but a something rooted +in ourselves, and she has pity for “la povre fragilité humaine.” +Though so independent and advanced in thought, she is still found +clinging in her writings to mediæval forms. As a setting for her +thoughts on Fortune’s changes, she makes use of the favourite simile +of a castle--here the Castle of Fortune--as representing the world, +wherein the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, jostle one +another. She criticises all men, from the prince to the pauper, but +not women, since these have been sufficiently criticised and decried. +It is like the prelude to a _Dance of Death_. Then she tells of the +paintings on the walls of this imaginary castle, and uses this +mediæval fancy, itself borrowed from the classics (_Met._ ii. 5. 770), +to give what is really a history of the world as she knew it, written +to demonstrate the instability of all earthly conditions. + +Once again, with her versatile gifts, she turns from philosophy to a +treatise on military tactics and justice, _Le Livre des faits d’armes +et de chevalerie_. However devoid of interest, except as a landmark in +the history of military strategy and customs, this work may be to-day, +it was thought of sufficient importance in the reign of our Henry the +Seventh for the king to command Caxton to translate and print it +(1489) with the title of _The Book of Faytes of Arms_, a book still +sought after by our bibliophiles. It was further honoured by being +quoted as an authority in the reign of Henry the Eighth. Considering +the nature of its contents, this seems quite an extraordinary tribute +to the judgment and ability of the writer. + +But the misery of France is ever increasing. Ceaseless civil war and +foreign invasion impoverish the people, and make desolate the land. +The dissolute Court is extravagant and filled with discord. Christine, +fired with patriotic fervour, once more makes an effort, which proves +to be her final one, to arouse the pleasure-loving nobility to some +sense of its obligations to the nation. _Le Livre des trois vertues_, +and _Le Livre de la paix_, appear one after the other. In the former, +which she dedicates to the Dauphine, Margaret of Burgundy, she merely +adds another to the long list of discourses for the guidance of women +which, in Christian times, begins as early as the second century.[35] +This theme forms the subject of so considerable a didactic literature +that it can only be hinted at here. Whether treated from a religious +or from a social point of view, or the two combined, the sum-total of +the teaching is moral training with a view to self-restraint and +subordination. Christine addresses herself to all women, from the +highest to the lowest, but her principal theme is the influence a +princess may and should have on Court life. She further counsels not +princesses alone, but all well-born women, not to attach too much +importance to the things of this world, to be charitable, and to see +to the education of their children, and so to inform themselves that +they may be capable of filling their husbands’ place when they are +obliged to be absent at war or at the Court. She adds a plea for the +country, that war should be opposed, and one for the poor, that pity +should be shown to them. Then she addresses herself to the townswoman, +advising her to see to her household, not to fear to go into the +kitchen, and to avoid all luxury; then to servants, counselling them +on no account to take bribes, adding the practical touch that as God +is everywhere, and only asks of each a good heart, it is not +necessary for them to go to Mass every day; then to the wife of the +labourer, bidding her to guard well her master’s flocks and to +encourage her husband to work; and, finally, she has a word of +sympathy for the poor, holding out to them hope of recompense in +heaven for misery endured here, and exhorting them to have patience +meanwhile. From this patriotic and practical advice to women she turns +to men, and in _Le Livre de la Paix_ sets forth the duties of princes +and of those in power to the people, importuning them to exercise +clemency, liberality, and justice. + + [35] A. A. Hentsch, _De la littérature du moyen âge + s’adressant spécialement aux femmes_, Cahors, 1903. + +But it is too late. The sand in the hour-glass is running low. +Disaster follows disaster, until the final blow is struck at Agincourt +(1415), where the flower of the French nation is cut off, and princes +of the blood are carried away into exile. Christine, with bleeding +heart, and worn with trouble and disappointment, retires to the +convent of Poissy, “un très doux paradis,” perchance to find peace and +consolation within its tranquil walls, and to implore Heaven’s aid for +her sore-stricken country. For fourteen years no sound from her +reaches the outside world. Then, inspired by the glorious advent and +deeds of Joan of Arc, with all her old passion she pours forth a final +hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the woman who has at last aroused +France to patriotism, and so dies in peace at the solemn moment of +Charles the Seventh’s consecration at Rheims. + + O Thou! ordainèd Maid of very God! + Joanna! born in Fortune’s golden hour, + On thee the Holy Spirit pours His Flood + And His high grace is given thee for dower. + Now all great gifts are thine:--O blessed be He + That lent thee life!--how word my grateful prayer? + --No prayer of thine was spoken fruitlessly, + O Maid of God! O Joan! O Virgin rare! + + * * * * * + + Mark me this portent! strange beyond all telling! + How this despoilèd Kingdom stricken lay, + And no man raised his hand to guard his dwelling, + Until a Woman came to show the way. + Until a Woman (since no man dare try) + Rallied the land and bade the traitors fly. + Honour to Womankind! It needs must be + That God loves Woman, since He fashioned Thee! + + * * * * * + + O strange! This little maid sixteen years old + On whom no harness weigheth overmuch. + So strong the little hands! enduring hold + She seemeth fed by that same armour’s touch, + Nurtured on iron--as before her vanish + The enemies of her triumphal day; + And this by many men is witnessèd; + Yea, many eyes be witness of that fray! + + * * * * * + + Castles and towns, she wins them back for France, + And France is free again, and this her doing! + Never was power given as to her lance! + A thousand swords could do no more pursuing. + Of all staunch men and true she is the Chief, + Captain and Leader, for that she alone + Is braver than Achilles the brave Greek. + All praise be given to God who leadeth Joan! + + + + +AGNES SOREL + + +So much glamour has attached, and rightly so, to Joan of Arc, the +soldier-saviour of Charles the Seventh of France, that another woman, +Agnes Sorel--Charles’s good angel of a less militant order--has been +almost entirely overlooked, and where she has been remembered, has +been treated by the few with the honour due to her, and by the many +merely as Charles’s mistress. But to her it was given to be a great +inspirer of Charles, and much of the good that this weak king and +ungrateful man did for his country may assuredly be in large measure +attributed to her influence, just as the greatest merit that can be +recorded of him personally was his devotion to her whilst she lived, +though the memory of her availed naught after she had passed away. +Agnes Sorel came as it were between the ebb and flow of the late +Middle Ages and the Renaissance, when chivalry, not as a passing +emotion but as an education, still lingered in men’s relation with +women. Respect for womankind grew in the Middle Ages in France under +the double influence of religion and chivalry, of which the cult of +the Virgin and the cult of woman were the outcome. In honour of both, +men strove in tournament and fought in battle. With the cry, “For our +Lady,” or “For God and my Lady,” men hurled themselves into the thick +of the strife as if the goddess, whether divine or human, in whose +name they ventured, had made her champions invulnerable. And, in a +manner as it would seem of action and re-action, the goddess became +humanised and the woman deified. The former tendency may be traced in +miracles attributed to the Virgin, and, later, in the “Mysteries,” and +the latter in tales of chivalry, where love is treated as a gift from +Heaven, and the recipients of it are idealised. Stories which seem to +contradict this, and to refute all accepted ideas of chivalry and +honour, are frequently original only in details, the bases being +borrowed from Oriental tales. Buddha’s country, the land of the +Zenana, supplied much material of an exaggerated nature which in the +West became mere travesty. + +It is always difficult to determine exactly the origin of anything so +subtle as a sentiment, especially one which gradually pervades and +influences a people. It is, in its way, at first like a soft breeze, +of which we can only see the effect. But as we try to discover some +definite, if only partial, reason for this interchange of simple human +relations between the Virgin and her votaries, we remember that St. +Francis, the embodiment of exalted human sentiment, had lived, and +that scholasticism, in that phase of it which treated the dialectical +subtleties of words as paramount, was on the wane. Hence spirit, +which had so long been restrained, and which is ever in conflict with +form, again prevailed, and mankind discovered that a loving Mother had +taken the place of a stately Queen in the Heavens. This attitude +towards the Virgin is revealed in the miracles attributed to her +agency. It is also shown in one of the greatest works of piety of the +thirteenth century, the _Meditations on the Life of Jesus Christ_,[36] +which, through the medium of the “Mysteries,” introduced into sacred +pictorial art some of its most dramatic and appealing scenes. Where is +there to be found anything more tenderly human than the incident of +“Christ taking leave of His Mother” before His journey to Jerusalem to +consummate His mission? + + [36] These meditations, attributed in the past, and by some + even now, to St. Bonaventura, are considered by other + scholars to be of Cistercian inspiration. P. Perdrizet, _La + Vierge de Miséricorde_, 1908, p. 15. + +This note of the womanly element in its fairest form, gradually +insinuating itself more and more, and permeating life, art, and +literature, is the key to the right understanding of the position +which woman had attained in the civilised world. + +Before turning our special attention to Agnes Sorel, let us recall the +condition of France at the beginning of the fifteenth century. + +When the lunatic King Charles the Sixth died in 1422, and Charles, his +son, at the age of nineteen, succeeded under the title of “King of +Bourges,” Paris was held by the Burgundians, who were in league with +the English. The Dukes of Burgundy and of Brittany were alike +vacillating in their policy, being at one time attached to the king’s +party, and at another allied to the English. With the exception of a +few castles, the strongholds of lords loyal to the Crown, the English +possessed the whole of France north of the Loire, from the Meuse to +the Bay of Mont St. Michel. Hither the Duke of Bedford was sent as +regent for the English king, Henry the Sixth, then ten months old, +who, by the terms of the Treaty of Troyes (1420), was the lawful king, +the right of succession having been conferred on his father, Henry the +Fifth, when he married Catherine, the daughter of Charles the Sixth of +France. + +Charles the Seventh divided his time between Bourges and Poitiers, +where the government was carried on, and Loches, Chinon, and Tours, +the places he dearly loved, and in which he sought the solitude he +craved for. But even in these seemingly peaceful retreats his lethargy +and indolence were disturbed by perpetual intrigues, which it must be +admitted were largely fostered by his own caprices and fickle +affections. Meanwhile a cry of misery was arising from the +war-devastated land. Churches and convents, castles and cottages, were +all fallen into ruin, and brambles grew on the untilled land where +once golden corn had waved. Peasants hid their horses during the day +and brought them out to graze at night. As Alain Chartier wrote at +the time, “Les pays champestres sont tournez à l’estat de la mer, où +chascun a tant de seigneurie comme il a de force.” Men of all +conditions, from the proudest lord to the poorest peasant, joined in +spasmodic and detached efforts to drive out the English, but with the +result that they did little else than harass them. Want of cohesion +was the characteristic of the national resistance until, from a small +village in the east of France, there appeared a deliverer in the +person of Joan of Arc. Instantly, as if her sword were a magic wand, +all the fighting men, impelled and inspired by the strength of her +personality, rallied around her, and victory was assured. + +The story of the siege and surrender of Orleans, of the crowning of +Charles in Rheims Cathedral, of Joan subsequently falling into the +hands of the Burgundians, who sold her to their allies, the English, +of her shameful trial and cruel death, are facts so well known that +they may well be passed over here as briefly as possible. Suffice it +to say, that, except for a time, even the triumph of this +maiden-patriot did little to rouse the indolent king, who speedily +returned to his selfish life in Touraine. War, pillage, and anarchy +again devastated France. But gradually a change came over Charles. He +seemed to awake as from a stupor. Dissolute and self-seeking +favourites were dismissed, and the king was surrounded by able and +high-minded men. He bestirred himself to make a final peace with +Burgundy and Brittany, and to take part in the war which was still +smouldering, though there were signs of its approaching end. + +What was the secret of such a change? That it was due, in the first +instance, partly to the wise influence of his mother-in-law, Yolande +of Aragon, and partly also to that of his wife, Marie of Anjou, sister +of the good Duke René, seems almost certain, but that it was +intensified when Agnes Sorel came into his life, there can be no +doubt. When we consider the king’s earlier life, and what it was +whilst he was under the influence of Agnes, and his relapse into +indolence and debauchery after her death, we can only attribute much +of this change to her sympathetic and wise guidance. Joan of Arc had +represented the popular element, Agnes Sorel represented the +aristocratic. Joan of Arc aroused the people to united action by her +enthusiasm and success, Agnes Sorel, in her time, helped to complete +the consolidation of the kingdom, by inspiring and sustaining the +king. Perhaps no one man could have accomplished such a revolution. It +took two women to do this, and what they did was not of mere passing +worth. Phœnix-like, France arose from the ashes of the Hundred Years’ +War, and it was Agnes Sorel, as priestess, who stirred the embers +which hid the new life. + +Voltaire, generally more ready to scoff than to approve, wrote thus of +Agnes Sorel: + + Le bon roi Charles, au printemps de ses jours, + + * * * * * + + Avait trouvé, _pour le bien de la France_, + Une beauté, nommée Agnes Sorel. + +Was it for the good of France? Let us disregard prejudices, and +examine facts. Even then, if all that is known of her were written, it +could only bear to this rare personality the resemblance which a faint +reflection does to reality. + +Agnes Sorel was probably born about 1420 or 1422, in the Castle of +Fromenteau in Touraine.[37] Her father, Jean Soreau, or Sorel, was +Lord of Coudon, and belonged to the lesser nobility. It was in this +beautiful country of forest and meadow-land, of silvery rivers and +meandering streams, that Agnes spent her early years, her education +being principally religious, for religion naturally held the first +place in a society which still retained faith in the supernatural. It +was customary at that time for girls of noble birth to complete their +education either at Court or at the castle of some princely person, +for such places were considered excellent schools of courtesy and +other virtues for the daughters as well as for the sons of the +nobility. + + [37] Both the date and the place of her birth seem uncertain. + Some writers suggest 1415, and some 1420 or 1422, as the + date; whilst Froidmantel, in Picardy, is conjectured by some, + and Fromenteau, in Touraine, by others, as the place. (Du + Fresne de Beaucourt, _Hist. de Charles VII_, t. iv. p. 171, + note 4.) + +Though the date is uncertain, it was at the Court of Lorraine that +Agnes became maid-of-honour to the Duchess Isabelle, wife of René, +Duke of Anjou and Lorraine, and Count of Provence, a prince +distinguished for chivalry and learning. This intellectual and +chivalrous atmosphere must have been peculiarly congenial to the +sympathetic and versatile nature of Agnes Sorel. We can picture her +listening to the Duke René reading his latest poem to one or two of +his brother-poets in the castle pleasaunce, or discoursing on +philosophy or statecraft, or attending some brilliant pageant or +sumptuous fête. Chivalry, though dead as an institution, still +survived as a recreation, and as an appeal from the past to the +cultured imagination, and René, mediæval knight that he was in +sentiment, dearly loved the gorgeous spectacle of a tournament, with +the knight jousting in honour of his chosen lady. At this Court Agnes +also came under the influence of Yolande of Aragon, widow of Louis, +King of Naples and Sicily, great-granddaughter of King John of France, +mother of the Duke René, and mother-in-law of King Charles the +Seventh, a woman renowned for her extraordinary political capacity. +All these ties, and the remembrance of the French blood in her veins, +emphasised Yolande’s dominant passion--the love of France,--and it may +well be that in this patriotic atmosphere Agnes Sorel became imbued +with a like passion, which later she was to develop in all its +perfection, rivalled only by her devotion to the well-being and glory +of her royal lover. + +Patriotism was a virtue of recent growth in France, for, in order to +thrive, it requires unity of idea, and during the Middle Ages the only +idea common to all was Christianity, which, from the nature of its +teaching of humility and fraternity, does not make for patriotism. It +may cement the structure, but it does not form the basis. It was only +after years of suffering and unrest that men learned to sink their +individual and local interests in those of the nation as a whole. +Then, and only then, could patriotism arise, and only under such +conditions could it flourish. + +How long Agnes lived at the Court of Lorraine (one of the most refined +and cultured Courts of the time), and how her first meeting with the +king came about, is uncertain. It has been considered likely that +between 1431 and 1435 Isabelle of Lorraine went to Chinon to beseech +the king to use his influence to obtain the release of her husband, +imprisoned by his cousin, a rival claimant to the duchy of Lorraine. +It is possible that Agnes, even if only born in 1422, may have +accompanied her, but even if she did not, this visit of Isabelle’s +may, indirectly, have led to the meeting between the king and Agnes. +Whilst still a prisoner, René succeeded to the crown of Naples on the +death of his brother, Louis d’Anjou, and as the country was in a +disturbed condition it was deemed prudent for Isabelle, his wife, to +act as his substitute, and, as _lieutenante générale_, she set forth +to establish his claim. History is silent on the point as to whether +Agnes accompanied her or not. It may be, as some seem to think, that +she remained in Anjou with Isabelle’s eldest daughter, Marguerite, +afterwards Queen of England. We should like to think that it was +during this time that she attracted the notice of Charles, for this +would lend additional interest to the exquisite miniature in the Musée +du Louvre (at one time in the Book of Hours of Etienne Chevalier, now +for the most part at Chantilly), which it seems probable represents +Agnes Sorel as a youthful shepherdess, with the Castle of Loches in +the background and Charles the Seventh riding towards her. As we have +already suggested elsewhere,[38] this may have been a poetical +rendering of their first meeting. However this may be, it seems +probable that it was soon after the year 1435[39] that she first +attracted the notice of Charles, and that, later, she took up her +residence in Touraine, no doubt gaining her influence over the king at +first by her beauty, which all her contemporaries proclaim, and +afterwards by that mysterious combination of ability and grace, of +intelligence and physical vitality, which held him captive for many +years. During this time she, like a true woman, and no ordinary +place-hunter, made his devotion to her react upon himself, for the +good of his country and to his own honour. She not only counselled him +wisely herself, but persuaded him to surround himself with wise +counsellors. + + [38] _Athenæum_, June 25, 1904. + + [39] Du Fresne de Beaucourt, _Hist. de Charles VII_, t. iii. + p. 286. + +Of these counsellors, and the able and devoted men who served the king +in divers ways, some few stand out more prominently than the rest, +because of their position of intimacy in the royal circle, and their +special and enduring friendship with Agnes Sorel. Such were Etienne +Chevalier, Treasurer of France; Pierre de Brézé, of a noble Angevin +family, and Sénéchal of Normandy after the expulsion of the English; +and Jacques Cœur, the king’s superintendent of Finance, whose house at +Bourges, with its angel-ceiled chapel, still delights the traveller. + +Etienne Chevalier was for some time secretary to the king, and after +filling one or two smaller posts connected with finance, was made +Treasurer of France, and member of the Grand Council. In addition to +administrative capacity, he possessed a brilliant intellect and a +great love of art. It is to his initiative that we owe the only +suggestions in portraiture of Agnes Sorel. It was to him also that the +king confided the supervision of the erection of the monuments to her +memory at Jumièges and Loches--Jumièges where she died in 1449, and +where her heart was buried, and Loches her favourite place of sojourn, +and to whose church and chapter she had made large gifts. To Loches +her body was borne in royal splendour, and there laid to rest in the +choir of the church in a simple tomb. We can imagine the loving care +with which Etienne Chevalier watched the sculptor, and possibly even +gave him suggestions, as he fashioned in alabaster her recumbent +effigy representing her with hands clasped as if in prayer, her feet +resting against two lambs, and her head guarded by two angels with +outstretched wings. Perhaps this stone effigy was the one true +portrait of Agnes, but the head and face were partially destroyed +during the Revolution, and restored in their present form in 1806, so +that little of the original now remains. + +[Illustration: _Loches._ + +TOMB OF AGNES SOREL. + +_To face page 158._] + +This tomb, which to-day may be seen in a small vestibule of the +Château Royale (now the Sous-Préfecture), has a strange and chequered +history. Perhaps scarce another has suffered such singular +vicissitudes, so many removals, or more ruthless violations. Soon +after the death of Charles the Seventh (1461), the canons of Loches, +whom Agnes had largely endowed and of whom she asked naught save to be +remembered in their prayers, petitioned Louis the Eleventh for its +transfer to a side chapel, since they considered it unfitting for the +dust of such an one to repose in the choir. Louis, using his subtlety +to better purpose than was his wont, replied that if they removed the +tomb, they must return her gifts. Naturally these worthy ecclesiastics +silenced their consciences and kept the tomb where it was. However, in +the year 1777, in the reign of Louis the Sixteenth, the priestly +conscience again awoke to the enormity of its presence within the +choir, and, with the king’s consent, it was removed to the nave. +Before re-burial the coffin was opened in the presence of various +church dignitaries and State officials. Among the latter was a doctor +who left an authoritative account of the proceedings, from which we +can approximately surmise the height of La Dame de Beauté, and verify +the record of her abundant fair hair. The exterior coffin of oak was +only 5 feet 6 inches long. Within this, and protected by another of +lead, was a shell of cedar wood in which, after the lapse of more than +three centuries, lay all that was mortal of Agnes Sorel. Her fair hair +was plaited in a long tress, and two curls rested on her forehead. As +one of those present, more curious than his fellows, stretched out his +hand to touch, all fell to dust. Death and Time were her guardian +angels. But even this desecration did not suffice to drain the cup of +unmerited vengeance. In 1793 the tomb was rifled, the sculptured +features, so lovingly wrought, defaced, and her dust cast to the +winds. But what matter? Agnes had done her work--work which had to be +done, and which she alone could do. + +Another of the little band of chosen spirits of which Agnes was the +soul and centre, was Pierre de Brézé, Lord of Varenne and Brissac, who +early showed himself a man of affairs, and was admitted to the King’s +Council when he was but twenty-seven. In war, administration, and +finance, he proved himself equally trustworthy and skilful, and to +these qualities he added others of a brilliant intellectual nature. He +advanced from one post of trust to another, until the king himself +presented him with the keys of the city and castle of Rouen. Thus he +became Sénéchal of Normandy, an honour which remained in his family. +One of his grandsons, Louis de Brézé, a son of Charlotte, daughter of +Agnes Sorel and Charles the Seventh, was the husband of Diane de +Poitiers. + +Jacques Cœur, whose life was so intimately associated with the Court +during Agnes’s lifetime, and so sadly marred and ended after her +death, was the son of a simple merchant of Bourges. Following in the +wake of many adventurous and ambitious merchants of the time, he +journeyed to the East and amassed a large fortune, which he placed at +the disposal of the king. This enabled Charles to carry on the war in +spite of his impoverished exchequer, and to make a final and +successful effort against the English. But, like many another on whom +Fortune has smiled, evil tongues and envious hearts began, ere long, +their vampire work, and after the death of his friend and patroness, +Agnes Sorel, Charles made no effort on his behalf, but left him at the +mercy of his calumniators in the same base and heartless way in which +he had abandoned Joan of Arc. Jacques, his goods confiscated, and his +life in danger, was obliged to fly the country, and died fighting, in +the Pope’s service, against the Turk. + +Of the beauty of Agnes Sorel there can be no doubt, for all +contemporary chroniclers and poets tell of it. Even the Pope, Pius the +Second, allowed himself to add his tribute of praise to the general +homage. Considering that there are so many types of physical beauty, +appealing to as many different temperaments, there must have been +something rare and remarkable in Agnes to have attracted and held +bound all who came in contact with her. We can but conclude that this +unanimous judgment could only have been the result of that mysterious +union, so illusive, so indefinable, of spiritual with physical beauty. +The records of the time merely tell us that she had blue eyes, and +fair hair in abundance. The only picture, and this not done from life, +by which we can judge her--for the miniatures by Fouquet, at +Chantilly, from Etienne Chevalier’s Book of Hours, though exquisite in +delicacy, are too minute for much characterisation--is, even if we +accept it as the original from Fouquet’s hand, an overcleaned work in +the Museum at Antwerp.[40] This, or the original painting, formed a +wing of the so-called diptych painted to adorn the tomb of Etienne +Chevalier and his wife in the Cathedral of Melun, the other wing--now +in the Royal Museum, Berlin--representing Etienne Chevalier himself, +in the attitude of prayer, his patron saint, St. Stephen, beside him. +There seems reason, however, to suppose that this offering of +Etienne’s was in fact a triptych, and that the missing wing pictured +his young wife, then lately dead (1452). If this was so, Etienne and +his wife would have appeared in adoration on either side of the Queen +of Heaven, here personated by Agnes Sorel, thus bringing the panel +with Etienne’s portrait into harmony with the central panel, which +otherwise it fails to be. + + [40] Du Fresne de Beaucourt, _Hist. de Charles VII_, t. iv. + p. 171, note 2. + +[Illustration: _Musée de Chantilly._ + +BOOK OF HOURS OF ETIENNE CHEVALIER. + +_To face page 162._] + +Of the miniatures at Chantilly, the whole series of which forms a most +tender and rare tribute to wife and friend, only brief mention can +here be made of those concerning Agnes. The most simple and beautiful +in sentiment and design is that of the _Annunciation_, in which the +seated Virgin, in the likeness of Agnes Sorel, with bowed head +receives the angel’s message. The scene is laid in a Gothic chapel +(perhaps the Sainte Chapelle with slight adaptations to suit the +artist’s fancy),[41] with statues of the Prophets all around, and +Moses, holding the Books of the Law, as the central figure of the +group. This assemblage of Old Testament seers certainly typified the +Old dispensation, whilst the Annunciation prefigures the New, and to +us the whole may not unfitly form an allegory of the new order which +Agnes Sorel was to help to bring about. In another miniature--the +_Visit of the Magi_--Charles the Seventh, accompanied by his +Scottish guard, and with the Castle of Loches in the background, +himself kneels as one of the kings before the Virgin, here also +represented in the likeness of Agnes. And so on, throughout the +series, in many of the scenes of the Virgin’s life we find her bearing +the features of Agnes until an older and sadder type becomes necessary +in the _Crucifixion_, the _Entombment_, and the _Announcement of the +Death_ and the _Death_ of the Virgin. When, however, death has +transfigured age and sorrow, the likeness of Agnes reappears in the +_Assumption_, and _Coronation_, and, the crowning glory, the +_Enthronement_ of the Virgin. + + [41] Cf. _Grandes Chroniques de France_, fol. 292, Bib. Nat. + +[Illustration: _Musée de Chantilly._ + +BOOK OF HOURS OF ETIENNE CHEVALIER. + +_To face page 163._] + +In a Book of Hours, at Munich, painted about 1500 A.D. for Jacques +Cœur’s grandson (in part perhaps by Jean Bourdichon, the artist of the +superb Book of Hours of Anne de Bretagne now in the Bibliothèque +Nationale, or at least by some pupil or follower of his), there are +three miniatures that seem of special interest in connection with +Agnes Sorel. One is a representation of the Virgin of the +Annunciation, and another that of the Madonna with the Holy Child. In +both these the features of the Virgin Mother appear to faintly echo +those of Agnes as we know her, as the crowned and ermined queen in the +picture at Antwerp. Still more interesting is the third miniature, +giving a view--here used as a setting for the _Procession to +Calvary_--of the front of Jacques Cœur’s stately dwelling at Bourges. +Here doubtless many a time Agnes and the king were entertained. Hither +Jacques returned from sundry journeys to the East, laden with +treasures to beautify his surroundings. Hence he fled, the victim of +success. Over the principal entrance is a canopied recess, once +sheltering an equestrian statue destroyed during the Revolution. This +now empty space once held a statue of King Charles the Seventh, armed +cap-à-pie on a galloping caparisoned charger, as he may be seen +represented on medals of the period. It is not a little significant of +this thankless monarch that he here seems to be turning his back on +the house of his faithful servant and supporter, and to be riding +away. Other details worthy of mention in this Book of Hours are the +realistic background to the picture of the _Visit of the Magi_, with +its snow-covered village church, houses, and fields; the Italian +drug-pot in the Magdalen’s hands in the scene of the Crucifixion, +showing the intimate intercourse with Italy; and the Mater Dolorosa +seated _alone_ at the foot of the Cross,--a tragic note taken from the +_Mystery of the Passion_. + +There is only one unanimous opinion concerning Agnes Sorel, and that +is as to her beauty. For the rest, it would seem as if prejudice and +flattery held the scales. The mean is difficult to discover, and +perhaps it is only possible to get somewhere near it by studying +results--the remarkable change, as already noticed, in Charles’s life +and conduct whilst under her influence. + +In the face of conflicting records it is no easy matter to determine +when Agnes Sorel first became the king’s mistress. In 1435, when the +Treaty of Arras was concluded between Charles and the Duke of +Burgundy, Cardinal de Sainte-Croix (afterwards Pope Pius the Second) +was Papal legate at the French Court, and aided in the negotiations. +He tells in his memoirs that the relation between Charles and Agnes +was known publicly at the time, and that the king could do nothing +without her, even having her at his side at the royal councils. The +trustworthiness of this statement has, however, been so questioned, +that it seems safer to endeavour to arrive at the truth from other +sources, although, if the statement can be relied on, it seems to +follow, almost as a matter of course, that Agnes must have been born +earlier than 1422. It is an admitted fact that between 1433 and 1438 +the manner of Charles’s life entirely changed. In the year 1433 the +infamous and once all-powerful favourite, La Tremoille, who had been +the king’s evil genius for six years, and was largely responsible for +the king’s treatment of his wife, Marie of Anjou, was dismissed at the +instance of the politic Yolande. Yet even so, the king often relapsed +into indolence and apparent indifference to his kingly duties, and it +was not till after 1438, when he summoned a national Council at +Bourges, that Charles showed himself to be a new man. It is also not +long after this that we read of favours granted by the king to +Agnes’s relations. From that time, Charles ceased to spend his time in +dreamland, as it were, in the sweet Touraine country, and engaged +himself in affairs of State, listening to and accepting wise counsels, +favouring the restoration of schools and universities--which, in the +uncertain state of the country, had almost ceased to exist--and +encouraging the final efforts to expel the national enemy, even at +times personally joining in the fight. If we see in this, in a measure +at all events, the guiding spirit of Agnes, the secret of her +influence is not very difficult to discover. Apart from her beauty, +which, with Charles, would be a potent factor, Agnes had a woman’s +insight and skill in her relation with him, ever holding up to him the +glory and obligations of kingship, at the same time herself entering, +with all the vitality of her extraordinary nature, into his favourite +pastimes. We know that in one or other of her many residences near +Chinon or Loches, she and the king often spent the evening playing +piquet or chess (the latter being his favourite game), and then, on +the morrow, rode forth together to the chase. So the days were passed +in work and simple outdoor pleasures, Agnes taking no recognised +public part in the king’s life, but devoting herself heart and soul to +the task she had in hand. But besides these relaxations of peace, +there was also the reality of war; for the war still lingered on, +though feebly. The English had lost their ally, the Duke of Burgundy, +as well as Bedford, the able Regent, and there was no fit man to take +the latter’s place. Paris opened her gates to Charles in 1436, and in +the following year Charles, after having reigned for fourteen years, +made his first State entry into the capital of his kingdom, mounted on +a white charger, the sign of sovereignty. In 1444 a treaty was +concluded at Tours with the English, and, to make the compact doubly +sure, Margaret of Anjou, a niece of the king, was married to Henry the +Sixth of England. For about a month the Court and its princely +visitors gave themselves up to fêtes and pageants, and it was during +this time of rejoicing that the position of Agnes was officially +recognised. She was made lady-in-waiting to the queen, and took a +prominent part throughout the festival. Charles gave her the royal +castle of Beauté, on the Marne, near the Bois de Vincennes, “le plus +bel chastel et joly et le mieux assis qui fust en l’Isle de France,” +desiring, as was said, that she should be “Dame de Beauté de nom comme +de fait.” From the time of her public recognition she appeared with +the king at all the brilliant festivities celebrated in honour of +treaties and marriages. She also sat in the royal council, a position +which, as a king’s mistress, she was the first to occupy, though we +know that Henri II. took no step without first conferring with Diane +de Poitiers, and that Madame de Maintenon sat in Louis the +Fourteenth’s privy council. + +The change which came over France after the Treaty of Tours was +marvellous, alike in its extent and its rapidity. Commerce was again +resumed between the two nations; men and women once again ventured +without the city walls, to breathe, as it were, the fresh air of +liberty; and those who had been called upon to fight, returned to +their work in the fields or the towns. We cannot better voice the +feeling of the people than by borrowing the song of a poet of the day: + + Le temps a laissé son manteau + De vent, de froidure et de pluie, + Et s’est vêtu de broderie, + De soleil rayant, clair et beau; + Il n’y a beste ne oiseau + Qu’en son jargon ne chante ou crie: + Le temps a laissé son manteau. + +Now that Agnes had assumed a definite rôle at Court, she lived +principally at Loches, where the king assigned to her “son quartier de +maison” within the castle, and also gave her a residence without the +walls. Here she shone like a radiant star; for although the king did +not have much personal influence on the movement in art and letters, +his Court was the meeting-place of many distinguished and intellectual +men. Among them we find the name of Alain Chartier, the poet, and +sometime secretary to the king, and one of the ambassadors who went to +Edinburgh to ask the hand of the little Margaret of Scotland for the +Dauphin. We remember him now chiefly in connection with the charming +story told of this girl-wife of the Dauphin Louis. Betrothed to Louis +when she was a child of three, and sent to France to be brought up at +the Court, she was married at twelve to this boy of thirteen, who +could not possibly appreciate her simple, sweet nature which endeared +her to all others. One day as she was passing with her ladies through +a room in the castle, she saw Alain Chartier lying on a bench asleep. +She approached quietly, and kissed him, much to the surprise of her +attendants that she should “kiss so ugly a man.” And she made answer: +“I did not kiss the man, but the precious mouth whence so many +beautiful and fair words have issued.” Poor little poetess! +Fortunately her life was a short one. She died when she was just +twenty-one, with these words on her lips: “Fi de la vie de ce monde, +ne m’en parlez plus.” The scientific historian of to-day is inclined +to dismiss this story as a pleasing though rather foolish romance. But +even so, Alain Chartier may be remembered as a poet and philosopher, +as well as a brave and wise patriot during some of France’s darkest +hours--a worthy contemporary of Agnes Sorel and Joan of Arc. Fearing +neither the nobles nor the people, he blames the former for their love +of luxury and personal indulgence, and exhorts both to think of the +public good, and to aid in their country’s defence, instead of +allowing themselves to be engrossed with their private affairs. Then, +whilst acknowledging that as he has not the strength to bear arms, it +is only with his pen and his speech that he can serve his country, he +reminds them that it was the historian’s pen and the orator’s +harangue, just as much as the warrior’s lance, that made the glory of +the Romans. + +Louis the Dauphin, come to man’s estate, and self-seeking and +treacherous, was no friend to Agnes, who had incurred his hatred by +her fearless disclosure to the king from time to time of conspiracies +against his person, in which Louis was the prime mover. After repeated +reconciliations, the king in despair finally banished him to his +domain of Dauphiné. The traitor, quitting the royal presence for what +he deemed exile, swore to be avenged on those who had driven him +forth, and if some of the records of the time speak truly, four years +later his opportunity came, and he kept his oath. + +The last scene of Agnes’s life was pathetically interesting. Her end +came almost suddenly. The king, listening to advice, had resolved to +continue the war in Normandy,[42] and, at the instigation of Agnes, if +we may believe the words of a courtly writer of the time, had himself +gone to the front. Rouen was taken, and Charles entered in triumph. +The streets were decked with flowers and branches, and the houses hung +with rich draperies, and everywhere the leopards and quarterings of +England had been replaced by the fleur-de-lis. Charles, preceded by a +gorgeous procession of archers, each company arrayed in the livery of +its lord, and carrying his special banner, followed, under a canopy, +on a horse caparisoned to the ground with blue cloth sprinkled with +fleurs-de-lis of gold, surrounded by princes and the principal +captains and officers of the Crown. With his wonted observance of +religious duty, slowly he made his way to the cathedral through the +shouting multitude, and to the sound of many fiddles and the fanfare +of trumpets. There he descended, kissed the relics as he knelt beneath +the great portal, and then entered its hushed and solemn dimness to +return thanks. But scarce had the air ceased to ring with the plaudits +of the people, when the report of a plot against the king, devised by +the Dauphin, is said to have come to the ears of Agnes, and she +hastened to the king at Jumièges, whither he had retired for a short +rest during the unusual and inclement winter. Here, stricken by a +mysterious sickness, by some thought to be typhoid fever, by others +attributed to poison administered at the instigation of Louis, she +died in February 1450, in her manor of Mesnil, near the Abbey of +Jumièges. The king was with her to the end, and could only be induced +to withdraw when her lifeless form sank back in his arms. So died this +wonderful and fascinating woman who had lived and laboured for her +country through perhaps the most critical period of its history. + + [42] Lavisse, _Hist. de France_, vol. iv. part 2, p. 229, footnote. + +It is impossible to entirely ignore what has been written to Agnes’s +personal discredit, though much of it may well be looked upon as +exaggeration, and open to suspicion. That the king was not her only +lover may be true, but in the absence of satisfactory documentary +evidence of this, perhaps the various intrigues attributed to her may, +for the most part at least, be regarded as the creations of scandal. +Still, bearing in mind the condition of France at the time of her +accession to power, the extent of the influence she admittedly +exercised in the councils of the king, and the great change which came +over the royal fortunes and the fortunes of the country during the +years of her ascendancy, it is scarcely possible to refuse to her some +right to share in the recognition so lavishly bestowed upon the other +great woman of that time--Joan of Arc. The one may be said to have +been the complement of the other. Both were necessary to the needs of +the day, and the glory of successful accomplishment should be shared +between them. + + + + +A NOTE ON MEDIÆVAL GARDENS + + + + +MEDIÆVAL GARDENS[43] + + [43] The quotations from the _Roman de la Rose_ are taken + from Mr. F. S. Ellis’s translation, published by Messrs. J. + M. Dent & Co. in the “Temple Classics.” + + +No one can study French mediæval lore, or Gothic cathedral, or Book of +Hours, without realising how great a love of Nature prevailed in the +late Middle Ages. The poems tell of spring, “the season of delight,” +of gardens which suffice “for loss of Paradise,” and of birds “with +soft melodious chant.” In the dim stillness of the cathedral, Nature +is expressed in infinite variety. Foliage grows in the hollows of the +mouldings, and sometimes, as at Chartres, even the shafts, as they +tower into the gloom, end in half-opened leaves, suggestive of spring, +of hope, and of aspiration. Many a sunny façade shows us scenes of +rural life--sowing, reaping, vine-dressing, and so forth--fashioned as +a calendar in stone, and many a peasant must have rejoiced as he saw +himself and his occupation thus represented in effigy. Fortunately for +the poor toiler, the Church not only taught that “to labour is to +worship,” but further honoured work by thus representing it at the +very entrance to the sanctuary, so making it, as it were, the “open +sesame” to higher things. + +In Books of Hours and illuminated MSS., before the complete border of +flowers, birds, and small grotesques was developed, we find ornamental +flourishes, like the growth of ivy and hawthorn, splendidly free in +design, and painted with evident joy even in the minutest bud or +tendril. Everywhere may this love of Nature striving for expression be +seen. But we must turn to the poems and romances if we would fully +realise it in all its simplicity and truth, since it is in these alone +that we get at the actual mediæval feeling unalloyed with all that we +ourselves have, perhaps unwittingly, read into it. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +BOOK OF HOURS. + +French, 14th Century, Brit. Mus. + +_To face page 176._] + +“All hearts are uplifted and made glad in the time of April and May, +when once again the meadows and the pastures become green.” So says +one of the old romancers. And this joy in returning spring seems to +have pervaded mediæval thought and expression. Little is this to be +wondered at when we call to mind the long dreary winters spent in cold +and ill-lit castles, or in dark, draughty houses and hovels. Before +glass, long regarded as a luxury, came into general use in dwellings, +the only protection from rain and cold consisted in wooden shutters, +or movable frames with horn slabs (necessarily small), or varnished +parchment. In truth, the only warm, bright place was the chimney +corner, and here, as near as might be to the blazing logs, the +long days of winter were spent in chess-playing, broidery, +lute-playing, and love-making, the monotony of this only occasionally +broken by the arrival of some wandering minstrel who sang of war and +love, or of some packman laden with sundry wares prized of womankind. +But in winter such wayfarers were rare, and life was, perforce, one of +boredom and discomfort. Thus there was exceeding joy when “woods and +thickets donned their rich green mantling of resplendent sheen.” + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +HARL. MS. 4425, BRIT. MUS. + +_To face page 177._] + +It is generally of springtime in a garden--a garden of green glades +and alleys, fruit-trees and flowers, such as was very dear to the +mediæval soul--of which we read. The _Roman de la Rose_ opens with a +description of a garden, hemmed round with castle wall--a pleasaunce +within a fortress--and planted with trees “from out the land of +Saracens,” and many others, to wit, the pine, the beech (loved of +squirrels), the graceful birch, the shimmering aspen, the hazel, the +oak, and many flowers withal--roses and violets and periwinkle, golden +king-cups, and pink-rimmed daisies. The poet describes with careful +detail the design of the garden: + + The garden was nigh broad as wide, + And every angle duly squared; + +how the trees were planted: + + Such skilful art + Had planned the trees that each apart + Six fathoms stood, yet like a net + The interlacing branches met; + +and how “channelled brooks” flowed from clear fountains through “thymy +herbage and gay flowers.” + +The debt which the mediæval world owed to the East is shown both in +the fruits and the spices which are described as growing in the +garden, and in the pastimes said to have been enjoyed in its cool +shade. We read of pomegranates, nutmegs, almonds, dates, figs, +liquorice, aniseed, cinnamon, and zedoary, an Eastern plant used as a +stimulant. When the poet would tell of dance and song, he goes by + + A shaded pathway, where my feet, + Bruised mint and fennel savouring sweet, + +to a secluded lawn. Here he sees one whose name is “Gladness”: + + Gently swaying, rose and fell + Her supple form, the while her feet + Kept measured time with perfect beat: + + * * * * * + + While minstrels sang, the tambourine + Kept with the flute due time I ween. + + * * * * * + + Then saw I cunning jugglers play, + And girls cast tambourines away + Aloft in air, then gaily trip + Beneath them, and on finger-tip + Catch them again. + +In every garden there was a fountain or sheet of water with a small +channelled way carrying the water to the castle and through the +women’s apartment. Sometimes these waterways were made use of by the +lover as a means of communication with his beloved, as we read in the +romance of _Tristan and Isolde_, where Tristan, to apprise his +mistress that he is at their trysting-place in the garden, drops into +the water small pieces of bark and twigs, which are quickly carried to +the chamber where Isolde is waiting and watching. And one eventide a +perilous encounter befalls. Tristan has been banished the Court, for +evil tongues have whispered in King Mark’s ear of his love for Isolde, +and have further whispered of secret meetings in the garden, beside +the fountain. Now near the fountain is a pine-tree, into which King +Mark resolves to climb, and perchance to discover the meeting of the +lovers. As daylight fades, Tristan scales the wall, and hastens to +throw into the water the little signals for his lady. But as he stoops +over the pool he sees, reflected in its clear surface, the image of +the king, with bow ready bent. Can he stop the floating twigs as they +are hurried along on their mission? No. The water carries them away +out of sight, and Isolde must come. She comes, but Tristan does not go +to meet her as was his wont, but remains standing by the water. She +wonders at her lover’s seeming unconcern, but as she approaches him, +suddenly, in the bright moonlight, she, too, sees in the water the +reflection of the king, and the lovers are saved. + +A pine-tree is so often mentioned as a special feature in a mediæval +garden that one is led to think that its use may either have been a +survival from the days of Tree Worship, seeing that the tree was +sacred to Adonis, Attis, and Osiris[44] (all, perhaps, varying forms +of one and the same divinity), or have been suggested by some northern +Saga. It makes its appearance in the _Chanson de Roland_, which has +come down to us in a thirteenth-century form, incorporating the +earlier Epic of _Roland_, probably composed towards the end of the +eleventh century. In this we find mention of it when Charlemagne, +after he is said to have taken Cordova, retires to a garden with +Roland and Oliver and his barons, the elder ones amusing themselves +with chess and tric-trac, and the younger ones with fencing, the king +meanwhile looking on, seated under a pine-tree. Later in the day tents +are set up, in which they pass the night, and in the early morning +Charlemagne, after hearing mass, again sits under the pine-tree to +take counsel of his barons. + + [44] J. G. Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, 1906. + +In the _Roman de la Rose_, the fateful fountain of Narcissus is +described as being beneath a pine-tree, which is represented as being +taller and fairer than any that mortal eye had seen since the glorious +pine of Charlemagne’s time, showing that here at least the poet is +making use of tradition. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Brückmann._ + +FLEMISH MASTER. + +Fifteenth Century. Stephenson Clarke Collection. + +_To face page 181._] + +But to make our way into a mediæval garden, and see all that grows +therein, we must needs get within the precincts of the castle, for +inside its fortified enclosure the castle, like a small village, was +self-contained. And this was no easy matter, if we may judge from +the vivid description to be found in _Huon de Bordeaux_, a poem +concerning a Bordelais lord of the ninth century. After sundry +adventures, Huon sets out on a journey to Babylon, and seeks an +audience with the Emir. He tells of his arrival at what he describes +as the castle, and how, after long parley with the porter, the +drawbridge is let down and the great gate opened, and he finds himself +in an arched way, with a series of portcullises showing their teeth +overhead. After further parley, and further opening of gates, he +enters a large courtyard, and goes thence into the garden, which is +planted with every kind of tree, aromatic herb, and sweet-scented +flower. In the garden is a fountain with its little channelled way, +supplied with water from the Earthly Paradise. This description may +seem a little fantastic, but it is only the poet’s way of telling us +what we might ourselves experience if we would go in imagination to +some thirteenth- or fourteenth-century castle, and seek to gain +admittance. + +Sometimes the garden was within the castle fortifications. It was then +necessarily circumscribed, and would, more or less, be laid out with +formal pathways and stone-curbed borders, also with trees cut in +various devices (a reminder of Rome’s once far-reaching influence), +and a tunnel or pergola of vines or sweet-scented creepers running the +length of the wall to form a covered walk for shelter against sunshine +or shower. But where the garden was without the fortifications, but +yet within the castle enclosure, as was always the arrangement if +possible, opportunity was afforded for wooded dell and flowery slope, +as well as for the orchard with its special patch for herb-growing. + +The herb-plot was one of the most important items in a mediæval +garden; for here were grown not only herbs and roots for healing, but +also sweet-scented mint and thyme for mingling with the rushes strewn +on the floors. Sometimes the rushes themselves were fragrant, and +such, lemon-scented when crushed, may even to-day be found in the +neighbourhood of Oxford, probably growing in the very place which at +one time supplied many a college hall with its carpet of fresh green. + +[Illustration: _Bodician._ + +MS. ROMANCE OF ALEXANDER. + +Fourteenth Century. + +_To face page 183._] + +In the larger gardens might also be found labyrinths and aviaries, +with bright-plumaged birds from the East. Here, too, were often +enclosures for wild beasts, much prized by the lord of the castle, to +whom they may have been proffered as peace-offerings, or as friendly +gifts from some neighbouring lord. Strange beasts were royal gifts; +for kings, we read, made such offerings to each other. Even as early +as the ninth century, Haroun al Raschid sent an elephant to +Charlemagne. It was brought to Aix-la-Chapelle by Isaac the Jew, and +survived its long walk seven years, and it would be interesting to +know by what route it journeyed thither in those days. These private +zoological gardens may possibly account for the comparative +accuracy with which the early miniaturists painted such beasts as +lions, bears, and leopards, which otherwise they might have had no +chance of studying. + +One of the greatest delights of the garden was the bower in which the +warm months were passed. Here meals were taken, and merry pastimes +enjoyed, as long as daylight lasted. Hither came tumblers and +dancing-girls, and sometimes performing animals. A poor captive bear +would be made to stumble over the rough roads for miles in order to go +through its grotesque antics before some joyous company of dames and +gallants. But spring and youth was the time to be gay, and nothing +came amiss to these light-hearted folk. + +The bower was also the “privy playing place,” and all care was taken +to make its leafy screen grow close and thick. Perhaps one of the most +interesting references to a green arbour--interesting because of the +romance which was the cause of its mention--is in a poem by King James +I. of Scotland, telling of sad years in prison, which ended in love +and liberty. James, whilst still a young man, was imprisoned in +Windsor Castle, and writing to solace himself with something more +tangible than the mere contemplation of his beloved one, and to while +away time, describes the garden with “herbere green,” which he saw +through the barred window of his prison-house. Leaning his head +against the cold stone wall, by night he gazed at the stars, by day +at the garden. And weary and woe-begone as he was, he says, “to look, +it did me good.” + + Now there was made fast by the tower wall + A garden fair, and in the corners set + A herbere green, with wands so long and small + Railed all about: and so with trees close set + Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knit + That no one though he were near walking by + Might there within scarce any one espy. + + * * * * * + + So thick the branches and the leafage green. + Beshaded all the alleys that there were, + And ’midst of ev’ry herbere might be seen + The sharp and green sweet-scented juniper, + Growing so fair with branches here and there, + That, as it seemed to any one without, + The branches spread the herbere all about. + + * * * * * + + And on the slender green-leaved branches sat + The little joyous nightingales, and sang + So loud and clear, the carols consecrat + To faithful love.[45] + + [45] _King’s Quair_, verse 31 _seq._ + +This “garden fair” was the scene of the romance which solaced this +royal prisoner, and helped him to bear his irksome lot, and to be able +to exclaim, after nearly eighteen years’ captivity--a captivity since +boyhood: + + Thanks be to the massive castle wall, + From which I eagerly looked forth and leant. + +Looking from his window he espied, notwithstanding “hawthorne hedges” +and “beshaded alleys,” Lady Johanna Beaumont (whom he wedded on his +release) walking in the garden. Neither poet nor historian tells how +they found means to communicate with one another, but tradition, +which is sometimes twin-brother to truth, has handed down the story of +a go-between who conveyed missives and tokens. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Brückmann._ + +RHENISH MASTER. + +C. 1420, Frankfort Hist. Mus. + +_To face page 185._] + +In the accompanying picture we see a corner of a mediæval garden, +hemmed round with castle wall. In it the artist has adapted an +everyday scene to a religious purpose, by giving my lady a crown, and +the baby an aureole, to suggest the Holy Mother and Child, whilst one +of the gentlemen-in-waiting is provided with wings, so as to make him +more in harmony with such saintly company. But this is only what might +have been seen on any bright morning in late spring or summer, in some +castle pleasaunce. My lady reads a book, whilst her maidens amuse +themselves, one holding a psaltery on which the child tinkles, to its +evident delight and wonderment; another, with a perverted sporting +instinct, seems to be trying to catch fish with a ladle (note the +usual little channelled way, on which a bird is perched, refreshing +itself), whilst a third is picking fruit. The three squires are +doubtless talking of the chase, for, in my lady’s presence, love would +hardly be their theme. And all around are beautiful flowers--roses, +lilies, and irises. Over against the enclosing wall is the usual bank +of earth, faced with wood to keep it the necessary height, and planted +with many flowers. This raised portion enabled those in the garden to +get a view over the surrounding country, and to have a point of +outlook in case of attack. It also served as a seat; for at +intervals, between the flowers and sweet-scented herbs, portions were +covered with turf. + +[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._ + +HARL. MS. 4425, BRIT. MUS. + +_To face page 186._] + +Of all the flowers in the garden the rose “red and pale” was the +greatest favourite, and many different sorts were planted there. To so +many purposes were they put, and so great was the demand for them, +that large quantities of roses frequently served as the payment of +vassals to their lord. They were used for strewing the floor at the +wedding-feast, or at the entertaining of some great baron. The fresh +petals were sprinkled over the surface of the water in the bath, and +were distilled to make the rose-water with which the knights and +ladies washed their hands and faces when they left their +much-curtained beds. Further, they were specially prized for garlands, +the making of which was one of the favourite occupations of the ladies +of the Middle Ages. Dante, who sums up the spirit of the Middle Ages +from the simplest reality to the sublimest ideal, alludes to garlands +and garland-making as amongst the joys of the Earthly Paradise. In his +poet’s vision of the pageant of the Church Militant he sees the last +company wreathed with red roses, emblems to him of Charity or Love. +Boccaccio, in a more mundane atmosphere and a less august assemblage, +also introduces us to this mediæval love of garlands. In a preamble to +one of his tales he gives a dainty picture of the manners and pastimes +of the gay folk of his day. Of the merry company, which his fancy +makes to quit plague-stricken Florence for the country, where they +tell stories to prevent monotony, he relates that, after dining in the +cool shade, and before the story-telling begins, “the gentlemen walked +with the ladies into a goodly garden, making chaplets and nosegays of +divers flowers, and singing silently to themselves.” Both sexes wore +them on festive occasions, and in summer young girls wore no +head-covering save a garland. The knight at the tournament decked his +helm with a chaplet of some chosen flower, deftly woven by the fair +one in whose name he made venture; and many a merry company, wreathed +with flowers or foliage, rode forth on May-day, with trumpets and +flutes, to celebrate the festival. + +Another favourite flower for garlands was the cornflower, as we learn +from the poets, who tell of ladies dancing the carole (a popular dance +in which all moved slowly round in a circle, singing at the same +time), their heads crowned with garlands of cornflower. Violets and +periwinkles, and meadow flowers, white, red, and blue, were also +gathered to indulge this pretty fancy. + +The gillyflower is another flower frequently mentioned. This name has +been applied to various flowers, but originally it belonged to the +carnation, and was used for such in Shakespeare’s time. In the _Roman +de la Rose_ it is called the gillyflower-clove, thus definitely +defining it. One of its virtues, according to an old writer, was “to +comfort the spirites by the sence of smelling,” and also “to be of +much use in ornament.” But indeed most flowers were not only used for +chaplets, and for strewing on the floor, but were also painted on the +chamber walls, and embroidered on the hangings, to serve in winter +days as sweet memories and as sweeter hopes. + +Apparently the earliest records of gardens, after Roman times, date +from the ninth century, and are mostly to be found amongst monastic +archives. A garden was an important, and even essential, annex of a +monastery, not only because of the “herbularis” or physic garden, from +the herbs of which the monks compounded salves and potions for the +wounded knight or the plundered wayfarer who might take shelter within +its protecting walls, but also because of the solace which the shady +trees and the gay flowers brought to the sick, for a monastery was +generally a hospital as well. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, speaking of an +abbey garden, gives a charming picture of one of these cloistered +pleasaunces for the sick and the aged. He says: + + Within the enclosure of this wall many and various trees, + prolific in various fruits, constitute an orchard resembling + a wood, which, being near the cell of the sick, lightens the + infirmities of the brethren with no moderate solace, while + it affords a spacious walking place to those who walk and a + sweet place for reclining to those who are overheated. Where + the orchard terminates the garden begins. Here also a + beautiful spectacle is exhibited to the infirm brethren: + while they sit upon the green margin of the huge basin, they + see the little fishes playing under the water and + representing a military encounter by swimming to meet each + other. + +This warlike note seems strange and almost discordant in the midst of +the peace of the cloister; but many, before seeking shelter there, had +been doughty knights, and St. Bernard, man of the world as he was, +would realise that even this mimic warfare might bring diversion to +their tranquil seclusion. + +What a contrast to all this joy in the Middle Ages in gardens and +flowers are the sober reflections of Marcus Aurelius! Philosopher as +he was, he would have us learn from plants the lesson of cause and +effect, the continuity of life. He says: + + The destruction of one thing is the making of another; and + that which subsists at present is, as it were, the seed of + succession, which springs from it. But if you take seed in + the common notion, and confine it to the field or the + garden, you have a dull fancy. + +It is with a sense of relief that we turn from the thoughts which a +garden suggests to this stoic, to those not less profound, though +perhaps more simple, of a Chinese writer of the fourth century: + + Ah, how short a time it is that we are here! Why then not + set our hearts at rest, ceasing to trouble whether we remain + or go? What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious + thoughts? Let me stroll through the bright hours as they + pass in my garden among my flowers. + + +_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Of Six Mediæval Women, by Alice Kemp-Welch + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN *** + +***** This file should be named 31843-0.txt or 31843-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/4/31843/ + +Produced by Meredith Bach, Irma Spehar and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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