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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #61001 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61001)
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-Project Gutenberg's Flowers from Mediæval History, by Minerva Delight Kellogg
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Flowers from Mediæval History
-
-Author: Minerva Delight Kellogg
-
-Release Date: December 22, 2019 [EBook #61001]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLOWERS FROM MEDIÆVAL HISTORY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Paul Marshall, Turgut Dincer and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes:
-
- Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
- in the original text.
- Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
- Illustrations and footnotes have been moved so they do not break up
- paragraphs.
- Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations
- in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered.
-
-
-
-
-_Note_
-
-
-_The friendly eyes that read these pages, knowing the pathetic fails
-relating to their publication, will not be content without a word to
-tell to other readers the story that will cause one and all to look on
-the little book in the same sympathetic mood._
-
-_The trips among the scenes of the storied past, here recorded, were
-taken not so much in search of health as in search of diversion from
-the sad employment of watching the inexorable approach of mortal
-disease. The writing was undertaken to occupy a vigorous mind,
-conscious that its tenement would not long endure._
-
-_Alas! the task was not done before its purpose had been fully
-completed, and to others was left the duty of reading the final proofs.
-Such imperfections as may be found should be charged to this account,
-and all the excellences are to be credited to the brave soul that
-fought her fight so silently that only a very few closest friends knew
-of the unequal battle._
-
- _C. S. G._
-
-[Illustration: _The Abbatical Church of Saint Ouen is Perhaps the Most
-Perfect Example of the Gothic in its Full Maturity_]
-
-
-
-
- FLOWERS FROM MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
-
- BY
- MINNIE D. KELLOGG
-
- _I never can feel
- sure of any truth but from
- a clear perception
- of its beauty.
- Keats_
-
- ILLUSTRATED
-
- PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
- PUBLISHERS·SAN FRANCISCO
-
- COPYRIGHT, 1910
- BY PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY
-
-
-
-
-_Contents_
-
-
- _Page_
- _Advertisement_ vii
- _By Way of Introduction_ xi
- _Flowers of History from the Romantic Thirteenth Century_ 3
- _Mystics as Builders_ 15
- _The Golden Madonna of Rheims_ 26
- _The Little Old Abbé of Saint Denis and the Imagiers_ 38
- _The Mystic Cathedral of Chartres_ 50
- _Caen: An Eleventh Century Tableau_ 73
- _The Grandniece of the Grand Inquisitor_ 87
- _Stray Leaves from Old, Old Books_ 98
- _The Romantic Twentieth Century: A Deduction_ 118
- _A Word Regarding Bibliography_ 139
- _Index_ 143
-
-
-
-
-_Illustrations_
-
-
- _Facing Page_
- _The Abbatical Church of Saint Ouen_ Title
- _As Art, Early Painting is Often Taken too Seriously;
- but as Literature, it is Charming_ xiv
- _The Crucifix in the Town Hall of Rouen_ 4
- _The Virgin Greets the Angel of Death_ 8
- _Sainte Chapelle_ 10
- _Interior of Sainte Chapelle_ 12
- _Saint Martin Dividing His Coat, from an Old Antiphone_ 20
- _From the Certosa of Pavia_ 22
- _Tomb of Dante, Ravenna_ 24
- _A Recent Tribute to Clovis and Saint Remi, on the Interior
- Frieze of the Pantheon, Paris_ 26
- _The Flying Buttress_ 32
- _The Sculptured Saint Upon a Gothic Cathedral_ 34
- _In the Sixteenth Century the French Academy Changed the
- Name of the Imagiers’ Guild to the Sculptors’_ 42
- _A Thirteenth Century Window_ 44
- _The Old-Time House of Prayer, which Still Dominates the
- City of Chartres_ 52
- _A Pillar at Chartres_ 54
- _A View Through the Portail of Chartres_ 56
- _A Detail of the Portail Septentrionale_ 60
- _South Portal of Chartres_ 64
- _A Page from the Sculptured “Bible of the Laity,” Chartres_ 68
- _Altar-piece at Chartres_ 70
- _William the Conqueror’s Old Fortress_ 74
- _Dinan_ 84
- _Old Moats Do Make Such Charming Gardens_ 86
- _A Peep Into the Cranium of a Bible Reader in
- Lope de Vega’s Time_ 88
- _The Literal, Limited God of a Fanatic and Father Adam
- Stock-taking in Eden_ 92
- _A Tribute to the Scribes of the Dark Ages_ 100
- _The Baptistry Doors_ 102
- _A Page from the Bible of Jean Sans Peur_ 110
- _Head of Justice, from Fiore’s Group_ 130
- _An Ideal of the Gracious Republic of Venice,
- Paul Veronese_ 134
- _A Mediæval Expression of Justice Attended by Archangels,
- by Fiore_ 136
-
-
-
-
-_Advertisement_
-
-
-_These accounts all relate to places and objects that the uncommercial
-traveler may casually run upon at some turn of his way. Subjects
-mentioned in Baedeker have been considered here reflectively rather
-than descriptively. Although I do not propose to analyze the soil in
-which these flowers of history have sprung up, nor to speak of the rank
-weeds growing by their sides, I have tried not to blight these blossoms
-with falsehood. Certainly one-half of the truth is as true as the other
-and it may be infinitely pleasanter. As far as they go, these little
-historiettes are based upon evidence and authority._
-
- _I want to teach you so much history that your
- sympathy may grow continually wider and you may be
- able to realize past generations of men just as you
- do the present, sorrowing for them when they failed,
- triumphing with them when they prevailed; for I find
- this one conviction never changing with me but always
- increasingy that one cannot live a life manfully
- without a wide world of sympathy and love to exercise
- it in._
- —_Burne-Jones to His Son._
-
-_Suggested itineraries for cathedral trips in Normandy, giving
-monuments of the first order only, places readily reached by rail_:
-
-_First. Land at Bologne sur Mer, Amiens, Laon, Rheims, Paris, Saint
-Denis, Chartres, Caen, Bayeux, Mt. San Michele, embark from Cherbourg._
-
-_Second. Land from England at Dieppe, or from America at Havre, proceed
-to Rouen, which possesses the most perfect example of later Gothic
-in the great abbatical Church of Saint Ouen; an excellent example of
-flamboyant Gothic in Saint Maclou; and a large, irregular but imposing
-Gothic cathedral on the order of Rheims; thence to Mt. San Michele,
-most unique of mediæval monuments; thence to Caen and Bayeux near by
-it, Chartres and Paris. Amiens and Rheims being very similar, and on
-the order of Chartres and Notre Dame of Paris, are not included in this
-itinerary. The traveler to whom time is money will be greatly tried
-by the connections made and lost by the trains in Normandy that stop
-at small places. Both these itineraries respect the idiosyncrasies of
-French railroads._
-
-_The motorist, rejoicing in the excellent Norman roads, can combine
-these itineraries very easily—taking in the cathedrals of Le Mans,
-Bourg, Beauvais and Coutances. I would especially call his attention
-to the small but interesting Early Norman church at Dols, and to the
-walled town of San Malo on the sea, with picturesque little Dinan,
-fashionable Dinard, and a dirty little fishing village near by._
-
-
-
-
-_By Way of Introduction_
-
-
-_Modern invention has actually reflected upon ancient history: the
-railroad, the steam derrick and the photograph have changed our
-conceptions of the past. Written history is now accepted as its
-author’s opinion, while tangible records stand forth as facts._
-
-_This attitude brings the Middle Ages particularly near to us, for
-though its people wrote comparatively little, they were wonderful
-builders: their art was more literally expressive than the classic;
-then, too, of course, it is better preserved._
-
-_While the Greeks and Romans were our schoolmasters, the Europeans of
-the Middle Ages are our ancestors. Their experience foreshadows our
-own; for however far removed from us in thought and action they may
-have been, they were akin to us in feeling._
-
-_Though the rude pioneers of Christianity were often intensely cruel,
-as you follow their history, you may meet with some gentle deed
-springing from the good seed, even when sown in stony places, with
-some action in its sweetness and humility entirely beyond the pagan
-world. In their childish story one may trace the early workings of the
-Christian ideal. It did not control behavior, nor did it always direct
-it wisely; morality, being judicial and scientific, implies a certain
-maturity of mind. Religion is simple; it is unlogical, sentimental and
-impulsive. Whatever this indefinable instinct may be, it has manifested
-itself as a spiritualizing force in morality and an initiative force in
-art._
-
-_Religion has in it a craving for a loveliness beyond all literal
-perception of the senses; a philosophic mind projects this ideal in
-contemplation; an artistic mind, in symbol; for, as Michael Angelo
-explains, “Rash is the thought and vain that maketh beauty from the
-senses grow.”_
-
-_The Greeks did develop an art from the motif of physical beauty,
-however, but their statues, executed before art became mature enough to
-produce that beauty, have no message, while one often catches something
-high and holy from a very early Christian image. It may radiate from
-a pretty smile on the face of a crude Madonna, or a graceful upturned
-head, in a figure entirely destitute of anatomy, which looks as though
-the simple craftsman had called upon a higher power than knowledge._
-
-_Spiritual beauty being the ideal in Christian art, the image, however
-rude, which suggests it, makes its appeal in the charmed language of
-that loving religion._
-
-_Mediæval archives have been ransacked by Protestants for the errors
-of Catholicism; by political economists, who even penetrate to the
-Dark Ages in search of the chilly lessons of the dismal science, for
-wisdom; and between them what a conception we have! But it is not the
-whole story, for Chaucer assures us the Moyen Age was a fairly livable
-period, peopled by beings like ourselves; moreover, it was an artistic
-age which has left us not only a wonderful architecture but two supreme
-poets._
-
-_Perhaps the fairest chroniclers of such a period are its own artists,
-great and small, for history has grown too democratic to confine
-herself to kings, however worthy. She does not find the crude carver
-voiceless who, in default of skill, surrounds his Madonna with gold
-and loads her with rude jewels; indeed, she often finds her sweetest
-flowers growing between the lines of an unskilful brush or chisel._
-
-_Although as painting, mediæval efforts are often taken too seriously,
-as literature they are charming, for they speak of the good and the
-beautiful as their Age conceived it. While the written stories of
-the time were shallow and coarse beyond our endurance, its painters
-were giving us their accounts of this life and the next (particularly
-the next). First come bright, pretty colors prettily placed, pretty
-thoughts of happy angels. Then gold backgrounds give way to skies, and
-shadows creep onto the canvas. Then they begin to tell stories; so
-eager they are that they cram four or five pictures into one, dotting
-the little scenes, by way of parenthesis, into the backgrounds._
-
-_These pictures give the other half of the truth, the tenderer side
-of the old life and theology. What sympathetic Bible scholars some of
-the artists became! And, in general, the greatest were the tenderest.
-Albrecht Dürer’s Evangelists are interesting character studies for all
-time. He conceives of Saint Mark as a plain, simple enthusiast; of
-Saint Paul, as a broad-minded, thoughtful man whom he even imagines to
-be bald. He does not try to make either of them exactly handsome but
-the way Mark looks up to Paul is most winning. A little later Andrea
-del Sarto paints a splendid account of the warring doctors of the
-Church, which shows clearly he saw beyond them: but this takes us into
-the Renaissance which has been defined as a marriage of the Grecian and
-the Gothic._
-
-[Illustration: _As Art, Early Painting is Often Taken too Seriously;
-but as Literature, it is Charming._]
-
-_A strict analysis has come into art and it is creeping into life,—our
-race childhood is drawing to a close but not without leaving us many
-things that are sweet to remember._
-
-_We tell our children some of the very same stories that the wandering
-story-tellers used to relate to good knights and their fair ladies in
-the old baronial halls,—Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, or Puss in
-Boots,—only the knights and their ladies believed them. There is a
-pathos in mediæval story; it is a tragedy of misdirected effort (as
-perhaps all history is), only the mediæval tragedy strikes home. Its
-actors were people of our own blood and of our own Church—our own
-people only under delusions from which we have emancipated ourselves.
-To understand their story we must take them as children and listen with
-them for the imaginary voices that lead them on._
-
-_A veritable allegory of the Age of Faith was presented on the great
-stage of history in 1212, when two enormous armies of little boys and
-girls started from France and Germany singing, to march to the Holy
-Land; if any of these children turned back, none of them seem to have
-found their old homes._
-
-_As far as is known to history, one child alone returned as an aged
-pilgrim, to tell the tale,—how the bones of the children strewed the
-mountainside; how they had been embarked on unseaworthy vessels to be
-sold into slavery; how few, how very few, ever reached their goal; how
-few, how very few, ever remained pure and holy._
-
-_Connected with this tragedy was a horrible pope and a horrible doge,
-but now they seem but foils to the purity of the children, it was all
-so long ago. And that the mystic beauty of that little legion may live
-lyrically in our life, the Twentieth Century has set their pathetic
-march to music in stately oratorio; for pure aspiration is the melody
-of melodies, the veritable flower of history._
-
-_A certain childish disinterestedness was the tender grace of the Age
-of Faith,—“the tender grace of a day that is dead.” It must pass from a
-broader age; taking all factors duly into account even drives it from
-serious history its proportion is so inconsiderable._
-
-_The life of Saint Francis, who espoused My Lady Poverty, is one of
-the sweetest examples of mediæval disinterestedness. Viewed literally,
-the accounts picture a crazy man preaching to birds and fishes, making
-a bargain with a wolf and injudiciously mortifying his flesh till
-he became blind and useless. Viewed by the light of their influence
-his teachings were revolutionary,—they brought new-found energy and
-sympathy into the Church; yet, at best, they were only the teachings of
-Christ, without the Savior’s beautiful sanity. Viewed by the results he
-brought about, Saint Francis must have been one of the profoundest of
-men, and yet his wisdom, if he had any, was only that of the heart._
-
-_Sabatier has written a life of Francis, at once scholarly, judicious
-and vivid, but as the Franciscan Father remarked, he wrote the life of
-Mr. Francis. If you would learn of Saint Francis of blessed memory, you
-must study by yourself with loving diligence a childish old book which
-tells of the miracles wrought through the tail of Saint Francis—“The
-Little Flowers of Saint Francis.” The fruits of history others may put
-before us, but the passing fragrance of the flowers we must perceive
-for ourselves._
-
-_I here submit for your interpretation certain incidents that seem to
-me the outgrowth of the fine feeling of the impulsive Moyen Age._
-
-
-
-
- FLOWERS FROM MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
-
-
-
-
- _Flowers of History From the Romantic Thirteenth Century_
-
-
-I have borrowed my title from a Thirteenth Century chronicle, of
-disputed authorship, purporting to be a history of the world, but from
-447 A. D. on it is engrossed with the story of England. From this
-insular partiality of its author I should be inclined to award the work
-to the English claimant, for what is a flower of history but a phase of
-the human story which especially charms the writer.
-
-To me the Gothic cathedrals are the flowers of Thirteenth Century
-history, which era saw every one of the greatest of them building.
-Their cornerstones may have been laid earlier, and the finishing
-touches came much later, but they owe their character to that one
-wonderful century which stands apart through the ages, thus telling its
-beads.
-
-The written history of the Thirteenth Century is cruel reading, but
-an age, like a man, has two soul sides, and the better side is always
-the harder to fathom. The Thirteenth Century opened for France, the
-native land of the Gothic, with an abominable pope, a selfish king and,
-nearer at hand, the evil of various tyrannical seigneurs. The great
-social movement which endowed the French towns with their magnificent
-cathedrals was apart from those powers and hardly affected by their war
-or peace.
-
-These great edifices were built by the secular clergy and the
-townspeople for municipal, as well as religious, purposes. Therein
-they held councils for deliverance from their feudal lords, lay and
-ecclesiastic, for in the Thirteenth Century the Third Estate became a
-political power.
-
-The cathedrals express the patriotism, generosity and civic pride of
-the freemen of the old towns; they realize the dream of the socialist
-for the good and the beautiful held in common; the love of the poet
-for beauty for its own sweet self; and the inspiration of the artist,
-working at the white heat of a rising art, as surely as the reverence
-of the age of faith.
-
-[Illustration: _The Crucifix, the Eternal Warning, Built into the Very
-Walls of the Old Courtroom in the Town Hall of Rouen._]
-
-In the Low Countries they built city halls at an early date, but the
-French towns did not need them, for there the cathedrals lent pomp and
-circumstance to all municipal assemblages. The first States General was
-held in Notre Dame of Paris.
-
-The early Church had endeared itself to the people in many ways.
-It entertained the traveler, and it was well that it did, for the
-public houses were of a very low order; it instructed the children;
-it ministered to the sick, and, if it was a crazy physician, it was a
-gentle nurse. The modern hospital, the fairest monument of humanity,
-is directly descended from the old Hotels-Dieu, where monks and nuns
-tended the sick. In the cathedral sat the Bishops’ Courts which, the
-people felt, were more just than the seigneurs. From these old Bishops’
-Courts the beautiful French custom has descended of hanging a crucifix
-back of the judge’s seat in the courts of common law where the symbol,
-recalling a politic judge washing his hands of the blood of a just man,
-seems more than a human warning.
-
-Within the consecrated walls of the church was that ever-blessed
-privilege of the temple—Christian, Pagan, or Jewish—sanctuary, the
-right of the hunted. Of course it was abused, mercy expects to be;
-therein it is more divine than human; but in a lawless day sanctuary
-was an unconscious protest against lynching. We do read of accidents
-arising from it; a Christian Church at Seez was burned down in
-an attempt to dislodge a band of thieves, but this embarrassing
-circumstance reflects on the management of those who burned it rather
-than upon the church.
-
-A complaint comes down to us from the Thirteenth Century of the
-would-be popular clergy who allowed their parishioners to dance in
-their churches and even assisted at these dances and at shows _peu
-convenable_ given by jugglers and clowns, they themselves playing at
-chess, all of which goes to show that we must regard these immense
-churches as meeting houses in the literal sense of the term and allow
-for the coarseness of the age in considering its amusements. Among
-other buffooneries, at Laon particularly, which seems to have been very
-“low church,” we read of the annual _fête des innocents_, in which
-the choir boys dressed up as priests and went through various antics
-in the church, which was given up to them for the night, the chapter
-giving them a supper after. At Laon again there is public complaint of
-a change having been made in the hour of mass and vespers on account
-of a miracle play that was given in the church. Lovers of the drama may
-look leniently upon this arrangement, whereas I suppose the stricter
-churchmen, when the ecclesiastical supremacy came to be questioned,
-even in the bishop’s own church, both at Rheims and Laon, said, “I told
-you so.” By such concessions the clergy induced the citizens to go in
-with them in building[1] such churches that succeeding generations have
-called them mad.
-
-Though the evolution of the Gothic is one of the most interesting
-chapters in the history of architecture, the history of the builders
-themselves, if we could only have it, might be still more fascinating.
-Indeed,
-
- “Who builds a church to God and not to fame,
- Will never mark the marble with his name.”
-
-Hence we do not know who designed some of the noblest monuments of
-Gothic architecture, but we do catch charming psychological glimpses
-as we watch the mystical and the practical unconsciously working
-together for the beautiful in these old cathedrals, which make us
-wonder how such spiritual designs arose and how the artists who
-conceived them were able to carry them out. How could an age when kings
-could hardly read and write, when artists drew like children, evolve
-such works of art? How could an age so ignorant of physics and the
-abstract principles of mechanics erect such buildings?
-
-Some hazy legends, fairy tales even, with their grain of truth (that
-truth which one troweth but cannot prove), and a few scant records,
-scattered among the archives of such old churches as have escaped the
-accidents of war and of peace, are really all that is left us with
-which to picture a beautiful phase of thought and feeling which lured a
-childish people onward toward art, organization and nationality.
-
-From the old archives of Chartres, which was built so slowly, from
-the old records of Saint Denis, which was built so quickly, between
-the lines of the naïve old letters of tactful old bishops who coaxed
-nobles and workmen alike, as much as they coerced them, thereby raising
-fabulous sums paid in labor or in gold with which to build such temples
-that succeeding generations have thought them inspired, we may pick
-up a few fragments of the untold story of these exquisitely poetic
-Builders who taught architecture to speak a universal language.
-
-[Illustration: _The Middle Ages Dealt Much in Allegory. The Virgin
-Greets the Angel of Death.—A Sermon in Marble._]
-
-Saint Denis, which immediately antedated the great Gothic churches
-of Northern France, is a stately mansion with a steeple at its side,
-but the Gothic cathedrals are Christian temples every inch; their
-design itself is consecrate. Their lines and harmonies however varied,
-however bizarre, always resolve at last into some ideal of reverence,
-while their solemn beauty speaks a various language. From crypt to
-steeple the Gothic church is a Christian metaphor. Its ground plan is
-the Cross, while the huge cathedral with all its worshipers is but a
-standard bearer for loftier crosses borne upon its towers and spires.
-
-From the bulwarks of their massive foundations, laid in the Dark Ages,
-these old churches deliberately grew more ornate, carrying with them
-countless generations of architects growing steadily in pride and skill
-until it only required a burst of popular enthusiasm to bring forth
-the artistic revolution of the Thirteenth Century. Again (but not in
-wrath) the old churches were demolished simply because they were no
-longer the noblest possible treasure houses for their precious relics.
-Then it was that the gentle, mystical, French monarch, who maintained
-his court so simply, purchased “The Crown of Thorns” from the mercenary
-Venetians, into whose hands it had fallen through a chattel mortgage
-given by those who had acquired it as a spoil of war.
-
-Never were the rites of the church so descriptive, so picturesque, so
-splendid, as in the Thirteenth Century. Barefooted and in penitential
-garb, but followed by a band of light, a great procession of worshipers,
-each carrying a candle, the king and his brother met the supreme relic
-and bore it tenderly onward to the Royal Chapel in Paris and all the
-cities, towns and hamlets through which they passed were reverently
-illuminated.
-
-Then Saint Louis entreated the great architects of his realm, whose
-genius was already proven, to strive to design a reliquary even worthy
-of the Crown of Thorns, and in five years the beautiful Sainte Chapelle
-arose: like other poetry this lovely chapel was born of a passionate
-yearning.
-
-[Illustration: _Sainte Chapelle, which Sprang from the Crown of
-Thorns._]
-
-If the cathedrals are epics of architecture, the Sainte Chapelle is a
-sonnet, a masterpiece of single-minded expression, the purity of whose
-design established a standard. No cathedral could be finished on its
-original plan; it was necessarily too long in building; but the model
-which was to harmonize the labors of successive builders may be sought
-in the little Sainte Chapelle of Paris which sprang from the Crown of
-Thorns.
-
-As every great work of art mirrors a human heart, reflecting that of
-which its author took no note as clearly as that which stirred his
-conscious being, so the Sainte Chapelle reflects Saint Louis and Saint
-Louis reflects the Age of Faith. He was its poet who wrote in deeds.
-
-It is not strange that Louis IX was canonized for he was in perfect
-accord with the ideals of his age, asceticism, chivalry, humility and
-regality; and too, he was a great builder.
-
-Saint Louis built the Sainte Chapelle to hold that which did not
-physically exist; but as with the pen of a recording angel, on this
-tablet of stone he wrote a message from the better self of his age to
-all humanity.
-
-Though history repeats, the history of the Gothic is as unique as that
-architecture itself; when otherwise men were trammeled body and soul
-its builders were free to create, to vary or to destroy.
-
-In the nineteenth century, when travel became general (“he who runs
-may read”), certain gentle readers like Corroyer, Hugo, Rodin, Ruskin,
-and most accurate of all, Viollet-le-Duc, interpreted this marvelous
-architecture of the Moyen Age to the multitude.
-
-“They builded better than they knew; they wrought in sad sincerity,”
-vaguely exclaimed the philosopher.
-
-“They built as well as they knew; they built in glad sincerity,”
-observed the architect.
-
-Rodin reminds us that it is a mistake to imagine that the religious
-conceptions of that day were able to bring forth architectural
-masterpieces any more than that the religious conceptions of today are
-responsible for the defects in modern structures.
-
-The Gothic cathedrals are epics of labor. They grew up under the hands
-of many designers and builders, who were learning as they worked.
-Democracy echoes through these noble buildings into which were wrought
-the hope, the promise and the enthusiasm of a rising people.
-
-[Illustration: _Interior of Saint Chapelle._
-
-“_Much more than the ogive, the grotto, the cavern, the window, is the
-essential of Gothic architecture._”—_August Rodin._]
-
-To the inartistic eighteenth century, whose mission was to fight
-tyranny, political and religious, these ornate structures seemed the
-meaningless labor of a downtrodden people. I doubt if logicians like
-Voltaire and Gibbon realized the elevating joy of passionate giving
-that came to some of the poorest donors. Think of a guild of pastry
-cooks presenting a magnificent window to the Church, their Mother! No
-less a building than the Cathedral of Chartres!
-
-Never were the lovely things of the Age of Faith more beloved than in
-the present Age of Doubt. We are trying to restore the noblest of the
-old cathedrals, stone for stone, and to lure back the sweetest prayers
-and truest penance confided to their walls to spiritualize their
-resurrection.
-
-Never were the maiden efforts of Christian art more tenderly approached
-than in the technical twentieth century, when they are studied alike by
-Catholic, Protestant and Jew. The old theology has been very severely
-picked over, but underneath its mouldy leaves, like trailing arbutus
-in the spring, the “Little Flowers of St. Francis” peep up. The
-nineteenth century concerned itself with the errors of the Mediæval
-Church, but the twentieth especially reads the gentler side related by
-the artists, and sometimes we catch hallowed messages from the pure in
-heart who have almost seen God.
-
-
-
-
-_Mystics as Builders_
-
-
-We order the temples still standing destroyed that in their exact place
-may be raised the sign of the Christian religion. Decree of Valentinian
-III.
-
-In the tribunal of history the Christian iconoclasts have been dealt
-with somewhat in the manner of defendants in damage suits. If a cow
-is killed by a railroad, is it not naturally assumed to have been a
-Durham? If a statue was destroyed by a fanatic why not put in a claim
-for a Phidias? As a matter of fact, by the time the early Christians
-came into power the art of the day of Pericles had been copied for over
-seven hundred years. Of art, what worse could be said!
-
-Grecian art neither rose nor fell in a generation nor was it childless;
-original, though minor schools, Hellenic to the core, sprang up in
-the Grecian colonies and to the end the art and artists of Rome were
-Greeks. But during the later Roman Empire the degenerate Grecian
-artist commissioned by the degenerate Roman patron was simply cumbering
-the earth. Oh, yes, in those luxurious days they patronized art as
-rich men should, as rich men do. The houses of Herculaneum and Pompeii
-teemed with articles of virtu. It was not statues the world of art
-needed, it was ideals.
-
-In art, it is the individual point of view that counts even if it be
-only that of the destroyer. Since art reflects life and life means
-change, the iconoclast has his place. A race, or more often the meeting
-of two races, may develop a school of art; it reaches its perfection
-in the work of a few genii of its golden age; to them it is given to
-embody the highest and best that was in the myriad of artists who have
-taught them and their teachers. Spellbound by its own perfection,
-this art can move no farther. The multitude seek to preserve it, for
-its value has been interpreted to them in quotations of the exchange.
-Artists are satisfied to copy it, and thereby artists they gradually
-cease to be. The destroyer comes,—fire, fanatic, whirlwind, victor or
-worm—the bulk and body of that art perishes, but the ideal, being a
-fruit of the spirit, lives. The final ruling of Grecian architecture
-is still proclaimed from the Parthenon, while headless and armless
-the lone “Winged Victory” might immortalize the action of Grecian
-sculpture, the poetry of Grecian thought.
-
-Since architecture is the most national of the arts, its movements
-are the easiest to trace. Sometimes we actually detect the designer
-following in the footsteps of the iconoclast. Indeed, the most
-successful patron architecture has known, the Catholic Church,
-commenced as a destroyer.
-
-In the south of France ecclesiastical architecture remained essentially
-classic until the Renaissance. This was largely due to one great sixth
-century bishop, Patiens de Lyons, who repaired the old temples and
-rebuilt anew on their lines so successfully that the people proudly
-said they could not tell the new from the old; but in the north of
-Gaul, where Martin of Tours and his followers had made a clean sweep of
-the pagan temples and their old influence, architectural and spiritual,
-an absolutely new style of church building developed. It is there that
-to this day we turn for the purest Gothic.
-
-Of this Martin we have some little history, hazy though it be. He was
-a rude barbarian of the Roman legion, under the Emperor Julian, who
-embraced Christianity and brought the glad tidings to Tours. With a
-soldier’s idea of conquest he demolished the temples of false gods,
-like other superstitious converts; but he contended that to make the
-victory complete, at least an altar to the true God should mark the
-very spot; and he is credited with six religious foundations, one
-having been a church for the laity in the town of Tours. The present
-age might canonize Martin for a deed overlooked by his most ardent,
-early eulogists. He and Saint Ambrose protested against the “new
-heresy” of two Spanish bishops who put a gnostic to death for his
-heretical opinions.
-
-Hagiology, however, abounds in records of Saint Martin, for he became
-the best beloved saint of old Gaul.
-
-It is natural that those who read the Roman Catholic breviary literally
-should doubt it somewhat. They fail to realize that the history of a
-saint lies entirely between the lines of the account. The sacred lesson
-taught by this life reëchoes in his antiphones, responses, versicles
-and lessons, until he stands before his followers as a type of certain
-virtues. Thus Saint Sebastian stands for Christian courage; though
-his body is pierced with arrows and his hands are tied, he is always
-represented looking bravely up to Heaven: torture is immaterial to him:
-he is sustained by faith. Saint Gregory, gentlest of pastors, greatest
-of popes, is represented with the emblem of the Holy Ghost, the dove,
-perched upon his shoulder; Saint Jerome, who translated the Scriptures,
-with the Book in his hand; he generally has an angel near-by him.
-
-Two little pictures stand out in Saint Martin’s iconography. In one,
-Saint Martin cuts his cloak in half with his sword to divide it with a
-beggar and beholds the Savior abundantly clad in half of it; and in the
-other, Saint Martin evokes the spectre of a pretended martyr worshiped
-in Tours, who comes to life and admits that he was hanged for crime,
-wherefore Saint Martin demolishes his shrine.
-
-To the early Church the relic was everything. Of course it should be
-pure and holy. In it there was inspiration. Above the grave of some
-dear saint or, perhaps, only to his memory, a shrine would arise, and
-from these shrines, like flowers from seed, churches grew. A crypt
-might be made to hold some hallowed dust, where services might be
-held. This was reminiscent of the Roman catacombs where the first
-Christians, believing literally in the resurrection of the body, had
-laid their dead, and where, unseen by the unsympathetic world, they
-had met for holy communion. The crypts of the early Church were the
-mortal resting-places of friendly immortals at the great court above
-who, in their robes of light, might plead acceptably for those who
-would so reverently approach the heavenly throne through spirits purer
-than their own. Of course, these pleaders must be very pure to turn
-their shrines to altars. What spiritual value had a pretty, paltry tomb
-honoring an unholy spirit?
-
-Roman civilization was materialistic, but not so this new religion
-of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, if things holy could pervade and hallow a
-building, why should not things unholy defile it?
-
-We may trace this idea carried out so literally, so picturesquely, so
-almost logically in the legends of Martin of Tours, that we actually
-sympathize with the destructive old bishop. Blindly defending the
-dream that was in him, he actually stands first in that long line of
-ecclesiastical builders who, in the fulness of time, jointly brought
-forth Gothic architecture.
-
-[Illustration: _Saint Martin Dividing His Coat, from an Old
-Antiphone._]
-
-When Saint Martin put his rude followers to work building houses for
-their new faith he must have established a certain amount of unity and
-order among them. Could there have been a better way to attach his
-crude converts to their Church than to induce them to work upon it?
-
-While Saint Martin was building at Tours, the Dark Ages were setting
-in, when men of action became marauders, preying upon others; men of
-thought became monks, praying for themselves; humanity went backwards,
-and history ceased from very shame. But through it all there were a few
-perplexed old bishops who, whatever their failings may have been, tried
-to do something for their fellows. However, in that lawless day, they
-had to defend rather than expand Christianity, and even protect its
-churches, for pagans, too, might be honest iconoclasts!
-
-The best thing the Dark Ages did for civilization was to learn the
-builders’ trade and teach it to a great many people. It was a general
-service, for to make a people industrious is, sooner or later, to make
-them skilful and law-abiding.
-
-It is curious that Saint Martin who, even while he was a bishop, lodged
-in a hut covered with boughs, should head the great line of builders
-who jointly and severally developed French Gothic. In standing for the
-integrity of the relic, which was literally the seed of early Christian
-art, Saint Martin gave a new and a higher impetus to life, and with
-it, very indirectly, to art. Seventy years after Martin’s death, to
-his blessed memory Saint Perpetuas built “the most beautiful church in
-existence,” at least so Gregory of Tours affirms. We will not inquire
-on what lines, for this was at the beginning of the Dark Ages, when
-nothing beautiful was made.
-
-A supreme recognition of the bold old iconoclast comes to us from
-devotees of the classic; from certain artists and connoisseurs of the
-Renaissance. This unexpected tribute to iconoclasm is published upon
-a monument far removed from old Gaul in time and place, in ideal and
-execution.
-
-[Illustration: _From the Certosa of Pavia. One of the Most Elaborate
-Monuments of Catholicism._]
-
-In a monastery dowered with the gold of two reigning dynasties of
-tyrants, dowered by the genius of two reigning dynasties of painters
-and sculptors, amid surroundings perhaps the richest in the world,
-where fifty monks might dream away their lives in silence, in that
-lordly and exclusive playhouse for the soul of the Renaissance, wherein
-the exuberance of the Gothic takes on the maturity of the Renaissance
-in an elaboration which for once does not cloy,—in the Certosa di Pavia
-we find a tribute to crude, old Saint Martin, the iconoclast.
-
-On a mural of one of the side chapels of this Certosa behold him
-represented in the garb of a fifteenth century monk, with his sanctity
-emphasized by a large, glittering nimbus, to which the aerial
-perspective of the otherwise maturely realistic painting is deliberately
-sacrificed, calmly superintending a gilded youth of the Renaissance
-while he smashes a fine Grecian statue! How did this rude act find
-endorsement in a temple of art? How did the coarsest of the saints
-win a place in the heart of the Renaissance? Was it because in him
-they saw a reflection of the subtlest honesty of Art, that god of the
-Renaissance? Was it because, above all else, Saint Martin especially
-stood for the integrity of the ideal?
-
-Though this little scene on the chapel wall may have been simply
-historic in its import, nothing is plainer than that the picture is
-intended to honor an uncompromising bishop of the early Church.
-
-Through the confusion that disintegrated empire, Saint Martin
-was a rude standard-bearer of two ideals broad enough to rebuild
-nations—Sincerity and Brotherhood. “First he wrought and after that
-he taught”—and first the spirit of his teaching was put into rude
-pictures, because in Gaul so few people could read and still fewer
-could condense an idea into forceful words.
-
-It was long, long after an angel had appeared and carried Saint
-Martin’s soul in the form of a child straight to God, as a gentle old
-writer attests, that a modern geologist voiced the fundamental idea of
-the best beloved saint of old Gaul, “An honest god is the noblest work
-of man.”
-
-[Illustration: _The Last Resting Place of the Great Poet of
-Mediævalism—Tomb of Dante, Ravenna._]
-
-But the past, as well as the present, has its peculiar eloquence
-wherewith to honor the dead. Over one of the oldest Christian altars
-spared to us by time, in solemn, enduring mosaic, big and simple,
-stands Saint Martin leading a line of saints to Christ. And this great
-hieratic on the wall of an old church of old Ravenna describes, as
-no language of the present may, an early builder of the great mystic
-Church which “rests upon the brawny trunks of heroes ... whose spans
-and arches are the joined hands of comrades ... and whose heights and
-spaces are inscribed by the numberless musings of all the dreamers of
-the world.”
-
-
-
-
-_The Golden Madonna of Rheims_
-
-
-Late in the fifth century, while the confusion of the Dark Ages
-reigned supreme, the Christian bishop of the Remi was at work on the
-discouraging task of rebuilding his church after pagan depredations at
-Rheims, when the great joy was vouchsafed to him of baptizing Clovis,
-the ruler of the largest Teutonic State of the age.
-
-[Illustration: _A Recent Tribute to Clovis and Saint Remi on the
-Interior Frieze of the Pantheon, Paris._]
-
-Saint Remi recommended Clovis to adore that which he had burned and to
-burn that which he had adored, that the work of judicious destruction
-might continue. Clovis sent offerings to all the sanctuaries,
-particularly to that of the old soldier Saint Martin. Three thousand
-Franks were baptized; Clovis exchanged the three toads on his shield
-for the fleur-de-lis, and France became Christian _toute de suite_.
-Then Saint Remi dreamt of great things yet to come: of a king and a
-people governed by the Church of Christ, temporally and spiritually.
-And he interpreted this dream to the people by a charming symbol: he
-explained how the Holy Ghost, the Heavenly Dove, had brought from
-above some spiritual oil with which to anoint Clovis at his baptism.
-But to make the idea clear to these many men of childish minds and
-many _patois_, he showed them a little ampulla filled with oil, which,
-he explained, “the Dove” had brought to him from Heaven to grace the
-baptism of their chief. And they decided to keep the oil that was left
-in the ampulla for great occasions, like coronations. This wonderful
-ointment united the Crown and the Church as long as it lasted. During
-the Revolution a sansculotte shattered the old vessel. Orthodoxy
-claimed to have caught one drop and encased it in a beautiful new
-vase; it was used again, but its efficacy was no more. And not long
-thereafter the French people decided to do without coronations, or
-monasteries, but they still love Clovis and Saint Remi.
-
-Civilization is much indebted to the early bishops and a goodly number
-of them have been canonized. The monastic clergy were the snobs of the
-Church, securely selfish in the magnificent fastnesses they erected for
-themselves in the skies; condescending comfortably to pray for those
-that fed them (though who knows but they even shirked that obligation),
-while the secular clergy were working out, amid inspiration and error,
-the foundations of a Christian civilization. The idea of the early
-bishops that the Church ought to rule the world was a natural and an
-honest mistake. The later bishops were quite a different class. The
-stout little church of Saint Remi near Rheims pleads still for its
-brave old bishop, though as a building it is eclipsed by the great
-cathedral of the city.
-
-The dynasty of Clovis passed away and the next reigning house came
-in with Pepin. He had good reason to approve of the Church as an
-institution, for it had early played into his hand. Had not the Abbé
-of Saint Denis journeyed to Rome to secure the papal confirmation of
-his crown? And had not Pope Stephen, while enjoying the protection of
-that same abbey, anointed Charlemagne, his little son? On this was
-based the succession. With his own good sword Charlemagne defended
-it and brought a semblance of order to the land of the Gaul and
-the Frank; and, genius that he was, he anticipated, in his interest
-in architecture, the genius of his great people. But it was rather
-Charlemagne’s attitude toward church building and letters that told, in
-the long run, than any literal achievement in them during this time.
-However, from the reign of his youngest son, Louis the Pious, we may
-trace the steady, consistent growth of an original order of building
-which culminated in the unparalleled Gothic of Northern France.
-
-By that time the nobility had built so many sanctuaries in their
-domains that they had to be interdicted from establishing useless
-private foundations and, in a more democratic spirit, sixteen or
-seventeen churches, all edifices of dignity, were begun. Then Bishop
-Ebbon saw a golden opportunity to build a magnificent cathedral on the
-long-hallowed soil of Rheims. There the Druid had raised his altar,
-there the Roman his temple, which may have absorbed the old Druid’s
-stones into its walls as it had his old gods into its adaptive bosom,
-to fall, in its turn, a mightier pile, from which the Christian built
-again and again as he grew in skill. Indeed, beyond their generation
-the people of Rheims were experienced builders. In addition to all
-the stone quarried by varied worshipers of the long past at Rheims,
-Louis the Pious put at Ebbon’s service the materials of the city wall
-and sent him his favorite architect—Rumald. And it was found that the
-new cathedral protected the city better than the old walls. _La paix
-religieuse_ turned away many an invader. One golden cup from the altar
-bought off the Norsemen (not that it turned their hearts); they swooped
-down upon Chartres instead.
-
-The old chroniclers assure us that this early Cathedral of Rheims was
-the finest in the realm. It must have beggared description, for what
-manner of building it was none of them seem to say. But they tell of
-its wonderful altar of Our Lady, covered with gold and studded with
-gems, upon which stood a glorious virgin made of solid gold. That
-impressed them. Was this altar built with the loot of war? Was it
-built in remorse, or, worse, in mercenary superstition? Or was it
-lavished like the woman’s precious ointment upon our Savior? This much
-it certainly was,—a united tribute of the material to the immaterial,
-coming from many men of many minds.
-
-It was about this time that the Virgin became so peculiarly near and
-dear to the Catholic world. They loaded her with jewels and appealed to
-her as one of themselves, human, though divinely so. They painted her
-on the inside of their jewel boxes that she might turn the heart of the
-thief; they appealed to her in embarrassing human situations and loved
-her as a helpful, pitying woman who brought religion home to them.
-
-In due time this golden Virgin of Rheims, so imposing, so splendid to
-her rude worshipers, gently made way for a line of tenderer virgins who
-were gradually infusing sweetness and skill into those who sought to
-spiritualize wood and stone into a suggestion of the mother of Christ.
-When the old ninth century church at Rheims was burned it is supposed
-that the barbarians’ gold was minted to rebuild the cathedral. Or shall
-we say that, purified by fire, the golden Virgin arose again and again
-from her ashes to rebuild her shrine in maturer beauty?
-
-After many fires, in 1212 the present Cathedral of Rheims was commenced
-upon the old, old crypt; before the middle of the century the main
-body of the church was complete, and once again the Cathedral of
-Rheims was the finest in the realm! In 1903 a vote was taken for the
-noblest Gothic monument, and the returns, as always before, were, “the
-Cathedral of Rheims.”
-
-Through the Dark Ages the people of Rheims had not built in vain.
-Effort after effort was destroyed, it is true, but like the golden
-virgin it was minted to rebuild anew.
-
-[Illustration: _Did the Idea of that Beautiful Structural Device, the
-Flying Buttress, Come, Like an Angel Vision, to Some Baffled Architect
-in Answer to Work and Prayer?_]
-
-Lacking the mathematical knowledge, which is the mainstay of the
-modern architect, these early builders must have learned empirically,
-that is, in the school of defeat—but, too, there are triumphs there.
-Did the idea of the beautiful flying buttress (which is simply a
-constructive device to strengthen walls pierced by enormous windows)
-come suddenly to some baffled old architect, as from the lips of an
-angel, in answer to work and prayer? These old builders of Rheims
-leave us no written word, but there is a great Florentine architect
-who is a little more communicative; he leaves a discreet hint or two
-of his method of reasoning and also of securing contracts. Regarding
-the construction of the projected dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria
-del Fiore, which the public regarded as impracticable, Brunelleschi
-writes: “Yet, remembering that this is a temple consecrated to God
-and the Virgin, I confidently trust that for a work executed in their
-honor, they will not fail to infuse knowledge where it is wanting and
-will bestow strength, wisdom and genius on him who shall be the author
-of such a project. But how can I help you, seeing that the work is
-not mine? I tell you plainly that, if it belonged to me, my courage
-and power would, beyond all doubt, suffice to discover means whereby
-the work might be effected without so many difficulties, but as yet I
-have not reflected on the matter to any extent.” And when he got the
-contract and reflected, he turned to the “parent past”—he went to Rome,
-where the vaulting of the Parthenon taught him to vault that lovelier
-Florentine dome which “clasps the ancient to the modern world.”
-
-The builders of the Gothic were in some ways more original than the
-builders of the Renaissance; they evolved their own bracing; thus
-gradually at Rheims, the “Athens of the Middle Ages,” a great cathedral
-grew up that ranks with the Parthenon.
-
-The Greek had the subtlest of languages in which to speak of the
-good and the beautiful, while where the greatest Gothic churches
-were designed there was only a corrupt dead language and a partially
-developed living one; but the subtle poets of Chartres, Rheims, Amiens,
-Rouen, Bourges and Laon built strongly into their cathedrals the
-sweetest things they had to say. When the Parthenon was constructed
-Athens was so wealthy that it was one of the glories of Pericles that
-he was able to spend so much so well upon the greatest capital in the
-world. Rheims was simply, as the Middle Ages went, a rich see, and
-the Middle Ages were wretchedly poor, yet her cathedral is the more
-elaborate building of the two. To the end of time it is a monument
-of civic and religious enthusiasm; and, as we seek the human story,
-so elusively suggested through the marvelous pile, we realize at
-least how great a thing it is for each worker to give, in perfect
-self-effacement, of his best. The decorations of the mighty temple are
-so exquisitely subservient to the great whole that the handiwork of
-the gifted _imagier_, with that of his weaker brother, the one serving
-as a foil to the other, holds together like their prayers in the noble
-harmony of the great church. Gothic sculpture is for all sorts and
-conditions of men, but least of all for artists. It speaks its simple
-lesson distinctly. It is not sculpture for sculpture’s sake, but rather
-for decoration and lyric expression. Its emaciated saint betokens
-sacrifice; literally and figuratively he fills his place in the long,
-narrow niche, annihilating himself for the great church as a Catholic
-priest should.
-
-[Illustration: _The Sculptured Saint Upon a Gothic Cathedral Fills His
-Place in the Long, Narrow Niche, Annihilating Himself for the Great
-Church, as a Devotee Should._]
-
-
-Would you know how the Gothic affects a sculptor?
-
-Says August Rodin: “Life is made up of strength and grace; the Gothic
-gives us this; its influence has entered into my blood and grown into
-my being.”
-
-Nowadays, when all “the world travels,” schools of art do not grow
-up in little communities; intellectual boundaries are in no way
-geographic, and the moral effect of one man on another is hidden from
-view. But on the walls of the old mediæval churches a simpler people,
-as their work improved, show their direct obligations to one another.
-
-The Gothic cathedrals which served as Bibles for the laity (who, as
-a rule, could not read print) are now the most veracious chronicles
-of the period that we possess. Their statements cannot be gainsaid,
-however variously they may be understood. If some of the last judgments
-sculptured on their walls, with half of the figures marching toward
-heaven and the other half (very similar in appearance) moving serenely
-toward hell, are rather too didactic for this age of doubt, between
-the lines of these great stone volumes a gentle reader finds countless
-beautiful stories, much more convincingly told, of artists and artisans
-working away with smiles on their faces, carving Bible stories under
-the direction of the clergy; devising figures to personify the virtues
-and vices; inserting little angels here and there to fill out the
-design, while the best artist is rewarded with the sweet honor of
-carving the Madonna.
-
-The barbarian’s gold pays interest yet; the spirit of the bequest is
-not changed;—a united tribute of the material to the spiritual coming
-from many men of many minds. The old golden Madonna is patroness still
-of the five thousand statues of the Cathedral of Rheims, whose mute
-lips speak so various a language. They tell of a day that is dead and
-of a day that is eternal; they speak of substance and of spirit; of
-error and of intuition; of things human and of things divine. Indeed,
-
- “Of every work of art the silent part is best,
- Of all expression, that which cannot be expressed.”
-
-
-
-
-_The Little Old Abbé of Saint Denis and the Imagiers_
-
-
-Early in the twelfth century, within the hospitable walls of the old
-Abbey of Saint Denis, a prince and a charity child grew up together;
-there a love, almost romantic, developed between them. When the prince
-became king and embarked upon a crusade he left the reins of government
-in the hands of his old comrade, who in the meantime had become the
-Abbé of Saint Denis and was, incidentally, one of the cleverest of
-politicians. Suger paid the royal debts (democratic good pay seems
-to have been an ideal with him), and called the realm to order so
-successfully that statesmen came from afar to study his very novel
-methods, for the crusades had set the people traveling. On his return
-the king graciously greeted his regent as “father of his country.”
-Suger, not to be outdone, instituted a somewhat legendary liturgy to
-be celebrated annually at Saint Denis commemorating the merits of
-Louis the Lusty (or Louis the Fat, as we call him).
-
-Was this liturgy so different from the campaign songs we sing now? It
-was really more called for, since enthusiasm over the royal person
-is one of the legitimate tools of monarchy, and Louis VI is an early
-monarch who deserves credit for abetting the gradual advance of France
-from a feudality to a veritable kingdom.
-
-Suger, individually, did not stand too greatly in awe of royalty, for
-he peremptorily ordered Louis VII to come back from the “Holy Wars” to
-attend to his mundane duties, and be it credited to that monarch that
-he graciously obeyed the old friend of his father.
-
-Suger is the most interesting personality that comes down to us from
-France of the twelfth century. Though a few characteristic anecdotes
-are told of him, we know him most intimately as the builder of Saint
-Denis and the far-seeing friend of the arts and crafts. It was said
-that he was a good goldsmith, and his sympathy with skilled labor lends
-color to the statement; but however hazy our other impressions of
-Suger may be, we know how he loved the old Abbey of Saint Denis—“_sa
-mère et sa nourrice_.” As a churchman he loved the blessed spot to
-which the angels had escorted brave old Saint Denis, when, after his
-martyrdom, he picked up his head and walked along with them unto the
-place “where he now resteth by his election and the puveance of God.
-And there was heard so grete and swete a melody of angels that many
-that heard it byleuyd in oure lorde.” He loved the old building that
-Dagobert, the Robin Hood of French monarchs, had built so royally,
-almost five hundred years before his day, for the poor and lowly, and
-for which the pleasant Saint Eloi, patron of goldsmiths, singing as
-he worked, had made the wondrously beautiful old reliquary; and as a
-man of literary feeling, he loved the old Abbey as his Alma Mater.
-But the diocese had grown, and on festal days so pressing were the
-crowds who would touch the holy relics of Saint Denis that good people
-were continually being trodden underfoot by eager and other worldly
-worshipers. So Suger decided to enlarge the church. He did not touch
-the dear old choir of Saint Denis: that was consecrated to God and,
-too, it was tenderly hallowed to man by many human associations; but he
-decided to add to it a great nave.
-
-Of course at first the crowds vigorously abetted him, humbly harnessing
-themselves together like beasts of burden to draw the stone from the
-quarry. The trumpet sounded; banners were unfurled, and the procession
-marched; except for the murmur of those who confessed their sins to
-God, silence reigned. When the concourse arrived at the holy site, the
-multitude burst forth into a song of praise. Their sins once disposed
-of, the ardor of the multitude may have flagged, for we read of the
-busy little Abbé leaving the cares of state to go himself to the
-forests in search of the big timber others had not the enthusiasm to
-find.
-
-That the very earth might pay its tribute to the blessed martyr, Suger
-studded the new golden screen in front of the tomb of Saint Denis with
-gems from “every land of the world,” and then the little old Abbé
-conceived of a still higher tribute: he gathered skill from “every
-country in the world” (his world was small, it is true); he gave to
-these skilled craftsmen the honor of working on “the Church, his
-Mother”; besides, they taught in the layman’s school of architecture,
-which he established in the yard of the old abbey.
-
-To the amazement of the world, in that day of serfdom, Suger
-voluntarily paid his workmen and paid them by the week; and with the
-force and intensity that was in him, he advanced architecture as much
-in the ten years he was rebuilding Saint Denis as others had done in a
-hundred. The influence of his school of architecture still lives. It
-was one of our earliest instances of systematic training for the laity,
-and those who would trace the Italian Renaissance to French and classic
-sources, attach especial importance to the _imagiers_ of Saint Denis.
-
-An immense number of statues, varying greatly in excellence, were made
-during the Middle Ages to decorate the churches. In our meagre records
-of the period, we even come across instances of peasants traveling far
-and spending their all to secure an especially beautiful Madonna, and
-we are assured of miraculous rewards, spiritual and temporal, coming to
-them from it. Actually, through the enthusiasm and liberality of these
-rude people, miracles of art have wrought their magical effect upon the
-imagination of generations and generations of men. These _imagiers_
-became so numerous that they formed a powerful guild in which a race of
-sculptors was born and bred. While Sculpture was merely the hand-maiden
-and scribe of Architecture, her craftsmen were called _imagiers_. But
-the _imagiers_ became so expert that in the seventeenth century the
-French Academy changed the name of their order to the “Sculptor’s
-Guild.”
-
-[Illustration: _In the Sixteenth Century the French Academy Changed the
-Name of the Imagiers’ Guild to the Sculptors’._]
-
-That the _imagier_ loved the cathedral which he was dowering with
-what talent he possessed is most likely; for, added to the simple
-conscientiousness, alike in all ages, of the worker who loves his craft
-and respects himself, was the intensity of the Age of Faith.
-
-Gothic art may have been lived more generally even than Grecian, for
-it was the only intellectual outlet of its age. Much of its symbolism
-is now a dead language. We guess at the meaning of the gargoyles and
-grotesques, and draw liberal interpretations from the lips of the
-smiling angels who spoke more familiarly to a childish people; but when
-we count the decorative kings and bishops ranged in rows upon the grand
-façades, their supremacy over the souls, bodies and estates of men, of
-which we know so well, seems the myth of myths. However, we can read
-some of the old carvings, which had nothing in particular to say at the
-time they were made, like a book. Hybrid designs on pillars, capitals
-and cornices speak of the chivalrous meeting of the east and the west
-on the broad field of art. They bring up pictures of the rude crusaders
-overpowered by their first view of oriental elaboration, and we smile
-to see how it set them imitating, or, better still, adapting, and how
-the arts of war may bring about the arts of peace; for, in the fulness
-of time, those who strive, achieve, if not for themselves and their
-cause, for others and perhaps for a better cause.
-
-Another art made great strides during the rebuilding of Saint
-Denis,—the glass-maker’s. We read about Vitrearii as far back as
-Charlemagne’s time. The windows they made were glass mosaics, held
-together with lead instead of stucco, forming little gem-like pictures
-above the holy altars, which told sacred stories beautifully, for in
-this way many scenes could be connected on one window; besides, color,
-like music, takes the emotions captive. One must examine a statue to
-realize it, but, in the phrase of the studio, color “sings.” A childish
-old chronicler relates that the retainers of Godfrey of Bouillon were
-obliged almost to tear him away from the churches, so absorbed was
-he in gazing on the windows. Was it through beautiful windows that
-the mystic aspiration of the mute minor poets of the cloister was
-finally reflected upon the man of action who took the first step, all
-unconsciously, toward the deliverance of his age from its dark, narrow
-bondage?
-
-[Illustration: _A Continuous Story, Related on a Thirteenth Century
-Window._]
-
-As a soldier, Godfrey de Bouillon had answered the call of the pilgrims
-who demanded protection; as a soldier, he had kept the peace (when
-there was any to keep). He was the one early crusader of whom we have
-record, who seems to have had the slightest idea of the fitness of
-things; indeed, in feeling, he was as truly a poet as a soldier. “So,
-day after day, in silence and in peace, with equal measure and just
-sale, did the Duke and the people pass through the realms of Hungary,”
-writes an astonished old chronicler, for Godfrey de Bouillon had paid
-the way of his army to the Holy City—an unheard of idea in warfare! How
-quixotic he must have seemed!
-
-Language has changed since those windows spoke to Godfrey of Bouillon.
-But when a general stops on his line of march for higher council and
-then steers so true through the darkest day toward a faint, far-distant
-light, must he not have seen through the glass darkly?
-
-It was but a few years after this “parfit gentil” knight passed away
-before he was as dear a hero of romance as King Arthur had become after
-many centuries, so little was there in his life for men to forget, so
-much that was sweet to dream upon. I suppose his story must have been
-related many times in beautiful glass, though as the panes grew larger
-and finer they told their stories less personally; but gallant knights
-on windows far and near are still reflecting an ideal that came to the
-First Baron of Jerusalem through the old church’s windows. Might it not
-be said of these old church builders, who builds from the heart feeds
-three: himself, his hungry neighbor, and Me?
-
-To make windows like those of Saint Denis, an orderly, organized
-factory was necessary, and organization was the crying need of that
-age. Another astonished old chronicler repeats, that in those days of
-serfdom Suger paid his glass-workers. But the men learned their rights
-more readily than the chroniclers. Thereafter we constantly run upon
-the records of powerful workmen’s unions or guilds. In fact, we read of
-them later on the glass itself. These splendid church windows were, of
-course, very costly, and then, as now, they were usually presented to
-the churches. We find the guilds are the proud donors of many of them;
-two fine old church windows come down to us proudly representing some
-_imagiers_ and glass-makers at their work, those guilds having thus
-elected to “with the angels stand.”
-
-Complaints of the luxury of the church also come down. Saint Bernard
-declares “their stones were gilded with the money of the needy and
-wretched to charm the eyes of the rich” (but had the poor no eyes?).
-Being against the government by temperament, Saint Bernard especially
-abominated the royal Abbey of Saint Denis. He complained of the
-“unclean apes and befowled tigers” upon which Suger’s _imagiers_
-developed their skill, and it is written (how the writer arrived at the
-scene he does not explain) that as Suger’s confessor, Bernard commanded
-him to divest his mind of mundane cares and to dream only of the
-heavenly Jerusalem.
-
-But the world weighed on Suger as long as he remained in it: his
-dream was of two splendid powers, England and France, separated,
-but living in peace! Suger was not in favor of crusades. He was the
-one ecclesiastic who would subject the clergy as well as the laity
-to royal authority, rendering unto Cæsar that which was Cæsar’s.
-Though a priest, in his political methods Suger was a broad, true and
-practical patriot, and if, unlike Saint Bernard, he was not adapted for
-canonization, he was a hero to his private secretary and to his king;
-and he still is a hero to the modern student of architecture, or of
-economics.
-
-Into the very walls of his big and simple old church the “little old
-Abbé” built his big and simple sermon. It read: “Let us have good,
-honest, beautiful work, doing honor alike to God and man. Let us train
-our craftsmen, pay them and respect them.”
-
-Though Saint Denis may lack the mystical beauty of the best Gothic, so
-noble and satisfactory is its design that the nineteenth century could
-do no better than to restore it.
-
-Though Suger’s economics were very simple, the twentieth century has
-found no better platform: “Pay your workmen voluntarily, and summon
-all, from the king down, into their respective fields of labor; only
-when they all respond, we shall have a lovelier church than the old
-Abbey of Saint Denis.”
-
-
-
-
-_The Mystic Cathedral of Chartres_
-
-
-The Episcopal Church recognizes three distinct divisions: the High
-Church, or mystical element that, words failing, would speak by
-symbols; the Low Church, that would say what it means and mean what it
-says; and the Broad Church, that would set aside details and seek in
-religion a general harmony.
-
-Though they are not so formally defined, these same divisions, being
-based on human temperaments, exist in other sects so literally that the
-same symbols have met with the identical adoption and objection. About
-205, Tertullian ridiculed the use of candles on the altars of the early
-church, and Lactance took up the subject some hundred years later.
-Thereafter Saint Jerome laid these still troublesome candles at the
-door of the laity, especially of the women. However, the symbol and the
-women conquered.
-
-In this desultory search of ours for hints of the social history of
-the old French cathedral builders, we meet with the high and low
-church elements which seem, though this idea may be fanciful, to have
-influenced the appearance even of their respective churches. There is
-the grandly simple and direct architecture, the Cathedral of Laon,
-which inclined to Low Church, allowing its votaries considerable
-latitude, and the symbolically ornate cathedral at Chartres, which
-from remote ages has been a noted shrine of mysticism. Its site was
-holy ground to the early Christian and perhaps to the Druids before
-him. Tradition has it that even to them on this hallowed spot came a
-prophecy of the Messiah. (If it did, it probably came from some Jewish
-source in the days of the Romans.)
-
-There is a charming story, more than legend, if less than history,
-of “Notre Dame Sous Terre” of Chartres. While most of the early
-Christians, in a spirit of hatred, were destroying false gods and their
-shrines, some pioneers of Christianity found in a grotto at Chartres
-a figure which had been worshiped by the Druids, resembling their own
-Madonna, whereby, to these gentle priests, she seemed doubly hallowed.
-Accepting her grotto as already consecrate, they located their high
-altar there, upon it reinstated the old Madonna of the Druids, and in
-a humble spirit, along with their simple converts, they bowed down
-before her, for upon them had descended that sovereign reverence which
-appreciates another man’s god.
-
-From the time this old druidic figure was raised upon a Christian altar
-to this day, first honors have been accorded to her shrine. Before her
-or her representative have bowed, weary and footsore, every one of the
-French kings, from Clovis to Louis XV, as well as innumerable other
-pilgrims, rich or poor, gathered from every land of Christendom by the
-democracy of the church.
-
-Even the revolutionists recognized this “First Lady of Chartres,” for
-while they lumped other relics together in general destruction they
-paid Notre Dame Sous Terre the back-handed compliment of a special
-bonfire at the cathedral door.
-
-[Illustration: _The Old-Time House of Prayer, which Still Dominates the
-City of Chartres._]
-
-The sansculottes have passed away without individual record, but a
-charmingly carved representative of the old Notre Dame Sous Terre still
-occupies the most venerated shrine of Chartres; while its old-time
-spirit of church hospitality yet pervades the noble cathedral that has
-developed above her grotto, her clergy still smile kindly upon the
-pilgrim and the stranger, even though his interest in their church be
-solely artistic. They seem to say: “Take from our old cathedral what
-you may, surely her beauty is pure and holy.”
-
-True religious art can but lead to some phase of piety, as August
-Rodin declares that all true art must. It may be but a chance title;
-however, the latest book on French Gothic speaks of “Chartres, the
-House of Prayer”; but certainly the feeling which has been lavished on
-this spot, the passionate generosity of devotees through long ages, has
-brought forth one of the most sacredly beautiful churches in the world.
-
-Now let us investigate literally the claims of Notre Dame Sous Terre.
-Recent excavations prove that the present Cathedral of Chartres is
-built over a grotto, where the Druids probably held their services. In
-excavating under and around the choir of the cathedral, vestiges of
-ancient altars and idols were unearthed which prove conclusively that
-the symbols of the heathen were not cleared away violently. The policy
-of Rome tended toward religious tolerance; the gods of the Romans
-often mixed peaceably in the temples with the gods of the people Rome
-conquered, hence the cult of the Virgin might have existed along with
-that of the pagan gods.
-
-In the early days of Christianity the Virgin was not given the
-prominence she acquired after the eighth century; this figure known
-as the druidic Madonna may even have represented some sweet, motherly
-goddess of another name. Symbols are elastic, therein lies their
-supreme value; they may be all things to all men. Words always have
-brought division to the church; symbols, unity. The wisest and kindest
-of the early bishops had the most grace in translating the old symbols
-of their converts into the picturesque language of their new church.
-For instance, Gregory the Great changed the pagan memorial custom
-of putting food on graves on a certain fête-day to bringing flowers
-for the graves and praying for the dead on All Souls Day. The early
-Christian missionaries at Chartres may have believed this figure to be
-a Madonna or they may have translated it into one. Indeed, it is not
-the genuineness of the figure itself that is the point of this story;
-it is the attitude of the Chartrians toward it.
-
-[Illustration: _Saint Martin, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory, as They
-Stand Forth on a Pillar at Chartres._]
-
-From the character of the Gallo-Romaine substructure of the Chapel of
-Saint Lubin in the crypt of Chartres, the list of the early bishops of
-that diocese and the general history of the evangelization of Gaul,
-it is inferred that ever since the beginning of the fourth century
-a bishop’s church has stood on the site of the present cathedral.
-Mingled with all the superstition of its age there was a certain
-tolerant broad-church element maintained at Chartres from the first.
-Perhaps that made the church so peculiarly dear to the people of
-France, for though the French kings were crowned at Rheims and buried
-at Saint Denis, Chartres seems the most intimately associated with
-their lives. It is written that after his conversion Clovis stopped
-there for further instruction, and Gibbon observes his measures were
-sometimes moderated by the milder genius of Rome and Christianity. The
-Carlovingian kings were very partial to Chartres. Charles the Bald, who
-comes down to us familiarly as a church builder through an old picture
-in which he holds a cast of a cathedral in his hand, conferred the most
-precious of relics upon Chartres—the _Sancta Camisia_ of the Virgin!
-Robert the Pious contributed a sapphire. Within her mystic walls
-sensible Louis the Fat pardoned his enemies; there Philippe le Bel,
-Charles le Bel and Philippe de Valois gave thanks for their victories,
-childishly presenting their armor and their beloved war-horses to this
-Church, their Mother. Saint Louis marched barefooted about twenty-one
-miles to endow Chartres with her beautiful _Portail Septentrionale_.
-And when Henry IV changed his religion, let us believe with the really
-good intention of bringing about a little peace on earth to Frenchmen,
-he elected to be consecrated at Chartres, “by reason of the peculiar
-devotion of his ancestors, the Dukes of Vendome, to the old cathedral,
-the most ancient in Christendom.” There were reasons why he could not
-conveniently have been crowned at Rheims like other French kings,
-that city being hostile to him. But Henry IV always had a clever and
-sufficient answer.
-
-To return to the material story of the old bishops’ church near the
-well of Saint Lubin, our first dated record takes us back into a feudal
-war. In 743, Hanald duc d’Aquitaine, fighting the Comte de Chartres,
-burned the town cathedral; but when he realized what he had done he
-retired to a monastery to do penance all the rest of his days. Was it
-in superstition? Was it in true repentance? Did he burn the church by
-accident? That might have been. The simple piety of the Dark Ages that
-would build “The House of God” for all time rendered the churches the
-strongest of buildings, and defensive armies often resorted to them;
-then, too, there were spiritual objections to attacking a church. This
-factor was sometimes over-estimated.
-
-[Illustration: _A View Through the Portail of Chartres, which Louis IX
-Walked Barefooted Twenty-one Miles to Present, in a Lowly Spirit, to
-the Church._]
-
-The Cathedral of Chartres was rebuilt, only to be burned down one
-hundred and fifteen years after by the Normans. During this siege the
-non-combatants of the town confidently took refuge in the cathedral
-with their bishop instead of buying off the pirates with gold from
-the Holy Altar as the people of Rheims had done (they are all gone
-now and God knows which did best). Unexpectedly, neither church nor
-bishop impressed the Normans, who overturned the city walls, burned
-the buildings, massacred the bishop, and every one else who came in
-their way; but after the Normans left, the Chartrians had the cold
-comfort of gathering their dead and laying them away beside the Well of
-Saint Lubin and “through the merits of those there reposing a crowd of
-miracles were wrought.” About this period the disease we now know as
-erysipelas came to be highly respected. In France it was called _le mal
-des ardents_; in England, the “sacred fire”; for, one thousand years
-ago processions like those that now visit Lourdes were pressing on to
-Chartres to drink of the holy spring. The world moves, but somewhat in
-a groove. At this Lourdes of the Dark Ages the afflicted were tended by
-nuns, but we find a certain telltale regulation:—after nine days (ample
-time for blood poisoning to develop unmistakably) the sick must go
-home, “cured or not.”
-
-Was medical practice then so much worse than ours during the Rebellion,
-when old rags of the nation were collected and all sorts and conditions
-of women scraped them into lint full of germs for the wounded soldiers?
-But if the church was a crazy physician, she was a gentle nurse. She
-established a chivalry toward the sick that no Cervantes would laugh
-away. It lives in medical ethics, and the quixotic obligation of
-the doctor to leave no stone unturned for his patient has been the
-foundation of medical science. Some of the old Hotels-Dieu of blessed
-name and memory have developed into up-to-date hospitals and medical
-schools, like Charing Cross Hospital, London, which still enjoys its
-mediæval benefice, while modern hospitals, in general, are moral
-descendants of the old ideal.
-
-Again the old Church of Chartres was rebuilt, again to stand for a
-little over a century. This building had the satisfaction (may we not
-use the figure, for the mediæval church was very human) of seeing the
-Normans, under Rollo, defeated by an army marching under its blessed
-standard, the _Sancta Camisia_ of the Virgin borne aloft as a banner.
-But later, Rollo married the daughter of Charles the Simple, settled
-down in Normandy, presented his castle to the see of the Bishop of
-Chartres and adopted the Christian religion. A double victory for
-the church! Many of the first Norman converts were baptized a dozen
-times, for the sake of excitement or for the white garment given them
-at the ceremony. Thereafter the funeral of Rollo was rendered doubly
-memorable by the slaughter of one hundred captives and rich gifts to
-the monasteries.
-
-In spite of the _Sancta Camisia_, in spite of all the remains of all
-of the martyrs that had been aggregating in the _martyrium_ under the
-church for seven hundred years, in 962 Richard of Normandy burned the
-cathedral with the town. But the relics had not been powerless, for
-this was the last pagan outbreak. The church had the holy triumph
-of Christianizing her adversaries, and the _martyrium_, between the
-excellence of its building material, the water of the spring of Saint
-Lubin near by, and “the merits of those there reposing,” remained
-intact and was found in the excavations of 1901; but the spring is
-gone; it was probably diverted by the foundations of the present
-cathedral.
-
-Though a paralyzing conviction had come upon the people, Bishop Vulpard
-immediately started to rebuild. It had somehow been very generally
-decided that the world would come to an end in the year 1000, so near
-at hand.
-
-How did this private information regarding the future affect the
-multitude? They probably took it riotously,—at least, such has been
-the experience in times of plague and horror, when it seemed that the
-race was about to be wiped out. Indeed, it is only for others that the
-saner, better life is led—best of all, unconsciously led.
-
-[Illustration: _A Detail of the Portail Septentrionale._]
-
-We do know that at that time church building flagged. Ah, be it
-credited to these old builders, they worked for others rather than
-themselves! Nevertheless, the latter part of the tenth century is the
-day of vast and massive crypts of which Chartres is one of the noblest
-examples. Let us hope that brave old Vulpard lived to see it under way.
-
-History has very little to say of the delusion regarding the year 1000,
-except that it shows that the church gained ground therefrom. Many
-persons thought it well to present their goods to the churches since
-they could not use them much longer themselves. Scarce as records are,
-we have one instance of the church helping the world out of one of the
-dilemmas arising from this misunderstanding. We do know positively that
-the valuables of the Church of Saint Benignus of Dijon were all sold to
-relieve the famine of the year 1001. Probably the ground had not been
-sown the previous autumn.
-
-However often it has fallen from grace, in the main the Christian
-Church has won its way by service. However often its services have been
-mistaken, it has maintained the ideal that the Christian should serve
-the world.
-
-Instead of the world’s coming to an end according to their schedule, to
-the astonishment of the Chartrians, lightning singled out their holy
-church and burned it to the ground. Some of the more or less logically
-inclined suggested that some of the pilgrims might have been guilty of
-indiscretions within its consecrated walls and thus have brought down
-this celestial disaster.
-
-The church had a particularly charming bishop at that time who arose to
-the astonishing occasion and called for help from the whole religious
-world regardless of nationality. He might be known as the successful
-correspondent of history. We still have some of his letters. The
-one to Cnut, King of England and Denmark, is certainly a flower of
-history, showing, as it does, the sympathy of a great king with a great
-scholar (as the times went) and a great movement. Fulbert writes, in
-acknowledgment of Cnut’s donation to his building fund: “When we saw
-the offering which you deigned to send us, we admired at once your
-astonishing wisdom and religious spirit; your wisdom, in that you, a
-prince, divided from us by language and by sea, are zealously concerned
-not only with the things around you but also with things that touch us;
-in your religious spirit, in that you, of whom we have heard speak as
-a pagan king, show yourself a very Christian and generous benefactor
-of churches and servants of God. We render lively thanks to the King
-of kings through whose mercy your gifts have descended upon us, and
-we beseech Him to make your reign happy and prosperous, to deliver
-your soul from all sin.” The result of Fulbert’s appeals proves that
-Christianity had established a brotherhood on earth. Though much of
-Fulbert’s structure was burned within ten years the church inherits
-both spiritually and materially from him; his crypt is left and it
-gives lines to the splendid church we know. Saint Thierry rebuilt the
-upper church, and it grew in beauty under Saint Ivo, who succeeded in
-getting the ear of Mathilda of England. Not that Saint Ivo was a snob,
-for in his time we may see among the records timely rebukes to royalty
-and dignified acknowledgment of the services of individual workmen
-upon the mighty edifice. After all, there is nothing sweeter than the
-“widow’s mite.” A great deal is said by social historians about the tax
-upon the communities for these splendid churches, but they overlook the
-joy of public giving, which also moulds and unites a people.
-
-And now this wonderful old church, which echoes from tower to crypt
-with the human story, commences to speak picturesquely of the wild Holy
-Wars. The heavy Dark Ages developed its crypt. The body of the church
-passed through many metamorphoses in the time intervening until a
-period of the greatest religious enthusiasm crowned the cathedral with
-its marvelous towers.
-
-[Illustration: _A Thirteenth Century Statement of the Liability of
-Pride to Have a Fall Solemnly Proclaimed on the South Portal of
-Chartres._]
-
-In all history is there a movement more extraordinary, more
-far-reaching, more curious than the crusades? They are about
-as surprising to a reader today as they were to the Emperor of
-Constantinople when the first disorderly army appeared at his gates.
-The monk, Guibert, who, at least, seemed to have more grasp of the
-subject than any other contemporary writer, ingeniously suggested that
-“God invented the crusades as a new way for his laity to atone for
-their sins and merit salvation.” Certainly they thus atoned for the
-great sin of inertia. No army, I suppose, was ever more confident, more
-surprised or more disappointed than that of the crusaders. However,
-this much is to be said in favor of Guibert’s hypothesis. From that
-time forth the laity took their place in the march of civilization.
-They arose and left the Dark Ages behind. New views were forced upon
-them at the point of the sword,—most needed of all, new civic ideals.
-
-Separation and longing and the sweet sorrow of parting awoke the spirit
-of poetry, the craving for beauty; and all this new thought and feeling
-was soon to blossom forth in the one art, whose _metier_ the people had
-already learned,—architecture.
-
-Through a long admixture of races, by the twelfth century (hardly
-before it) there had arisen in Gaul genuine Frenchmen, who from the
-beginning were most artistic artisans and most enthusiastic partisans.
-They spent more on their crusades and on their churches than their
-neighbors, and they were to reap the rewards of extravagance, always
-more imposing than those of economy. Money poured into the church
-alike from those who went to the Holy Land, and from those who thus
-excused themselves from going. Incidentally the Holy Wars diverted a
-disorderly element of nobles and serfs from France to Palestine. During
-the period of the crusades the Cathedral of Chartres suffered from
-two fires just sixty years apart; thus in rebuilding, the overflowing
-religious excitement of the era came to be lavished upon the very
-stones of the cathedral.
-
-In 1134 a great fire in the town of Chartres damaged the cathedral
-so far as to make it necessary to restore the façade. In spite of
-their own losses the Chartrians decided that their church should be
-finer than ever. She should have two connected towers, instead of one
-separated from the building as before. And the design they here evolved
-has become standard.
-
-To effect these grand restorations the workmen formed themselves into
-permanent guilds. One especially which devoted itself to working on
-the cathedral was honorably known as the “_Logeurs du Bon Dieu_.” And
-the nobles who had watched the workmen growing in grace and in skill,
-raising themselves as they raised the temple, were finally seized
-with a strange and humble enthusiasm which can only be convincingly
-described by eye-witnesses.
-
-“In this same year” (1144), writes Robert Du Mont, “at Chartre men
-began to harness themselves to carts laden with stones, wood and other
-things, and drag them to the site of the church, the towers of which
-were then a-building.”
-
-Says Abbé Haimon: “Who has ever seen or heard in all the ages of the
-past that kings, princes and lords, mighty in their generation, swollen
-with riches and honor, that men and women, I say, of noble birth, have
-bowed their haughty necks to the yoke and harnessed themselves to carts
-like beasts of burden, and drawn them laden with wine, corn, oil, stone
-or wood and other things needful for the maintenance of life or the
-construction of the church, even to the doors of the asylum of Christ.”
-
-“Mighty are the works of the Lord,” exclaims Hugh of Rouen (ready to
-use the example). “At Chartres men have begun, in all humility, to drag
-carts and vehicles of all sorts to aid the building of the cathedral,
-and their humility has been rewarded by miracles. The fame of these
-events has been heard everywhere and at last roused this Normandy of
-ours. Our countrymen, therefore, after receiving our blessing, have
-set out for that place and then fulfilled their vows. They return with
-the resolution to imitate these Chartrians, and a great number of the
-faithful of our diocese and the dioceses of our province have begun to
-work at the Cathedral, their Mother.”
-
-But since it is the spirit that makes the action fine, the services
-of these builders were accepted only under the triple condition of
-confession, penitence and reconciliation with their enemies; they
-delivered their offerings in tears, while disciplining themselves with
-blows.
-
-George Eliot speaks of a common feeling of good-will among a mass of
-men affecting her like music; to such music the incomparable tower of
-Chartres was built, and a later age sees tears transformed to pearls
-when another great fire destroyed the old part of the cathedral, and
-they had, in rebuilding, to live up to their splendid new façade.
-
-[Illustration: _A Page from the Sculptured “Bible of the Laity,”
-Chartres._]
-
-The cardinal assembled the people of Chartres around the smoking
-ruins of their dear old church and persuaded them to forget their
-personal losses and to think only of rebuilding the House of God;
-and the people, united by the strongest of bonds, a common disaster,
-arose again to work for the common good, and again Christians from
-far and near sent in their donations. The old chroniclers say that
-the very Holy Virgin multiplied her miracles. One of them we still
-have before us. It was then and there that an architect, whose name is
-forgotten but whose genius is immortal, perfected the cathedral type of
-thirteenth century Gothic. All designers of Gothic churches still do
-him homage; all lovers of Gothic architecture still sing his praise.
-
-And the old church at Chartres grew on, gently developing her people
-on many lines. She watched her _imagiers_ grow into sculptors, her
-glass-workers into painters, the more or less serfs of the soil develop
-into workmen, then guildsmen and free burghers of the town; of this
-they themselves have written upon her very walls. About half of the
-windows of the cathedral we find were presented by the guilds; the
-other half by kings, princes and seigneurs, lay and ecclesiastic. The
-glass of Chartres, by the way, is considered the finest in the world.
-
-The eighteenth century was a bad day for churches in France; the
-general contempt in the air for the past led them to destroy the
-“barbarians’ art,” which was good, to make way for their own, which
-happened to be bad. The Cathedral of Chartres, as ever so truly in
-touch with the times, suffered from the artists in the early part of
-the century, while in 1793 the revolutionists invaded it. They buried
-the relics and appraised the barbarians’ statues at 100 francs. Then
-the next idea was to knock down the cathedral, which they found was not
-so easy; so they concluded to transform it into a Temple of Reason,
-wherein they behaved most unreasonably. Somebody started to destroy the
-immense group of the Assumption on the grand altar. It represents the
-Virgin on an embankment of clouds with her arms extended and her figure
-coming toward the congregation. Her “pied-à-terre” of clouds (excuse
-the hibernicism) is upheld by angels and every face and attitude in the
-group is full of aspiration and action. Although as sculpture, this
-group is not of the first order, as allegory, it is perfect. A bright
-idea occurred to an architect present; he put the Phrygian cap upon the
-head of the Virgin and a lance in her hand, and the old symbol became
-the new; with her arms open to the world and her eyes turned a little
-above it, the Virgin of Chartres became a beautiful emblem of liberty.
-I wonder if she impressed any of the wild congregation before her; not
-long thereafter Napoleon observed that “Chartres was no place for an
-atheist.”
-
-[Illustration: _Altar-piece at Chartres. The Virgin who once Wore a
-Liberty Cap_]
-
-In about six months the church managed to reinstate itself in its old
-stronghold, though the Revolutionary Commission of public works (or
-rather the commission for the destruction of public works) had had the
-impertinence to strip the lead from the cathedral roof to make its
-ammunition.
-
-But the old church was built to weather all storms, and so was the
-French nation. The revolutionists besieged the Louvre and turned it
-into a public art gallery. The republic has quietly advanced much
-farther in its right of eminent domain and taken under its enlightened
-protection all the great monuments of architecture in all fair France.
-Nothing is more charming than the enthusiasm throughout the land,
-extending even to the simplest people, over these “national monuments.”
-As the building of them long ago formed a bond of union with the
-communes, so the love of them now forms a bond of union with the
-nation. Fostered in their shadows, French genius was able to bring
-forth at need architects capable of restoring them almost to their
-pristine beauty, a beauty which, growing out of mystic relics, seems
-fraught with a relic’s power through love and awe to lead men on. May
-its magic transform these Roman Catholic cathedrals of the Age of Faith
-into Holy Catholic churches of the Age of Doubt!
-
-In the nineteenth century James Russell Lowell wrote a poem containing
-some lovely lines on the Cathedral of Chartres, but if a twentieth
-century poet approach the theme he will treat it in a more Catholic
-spirit, for the messages of these venerable fanes must grow broader and
-gentler as time goes on. A greater poet than Lowell said: “I never can
-feel sure of any truth but from a clear perception of its beauty.” From
-this idea he framed his invocation to beauty, which applies alike to a
-Grecian urn and to the Cathedral of Chartres:
-
- “Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
- Than ours, a friend[2] to man, to whom thou say’st,
- ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all
- Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
-
-
-
-
-_Caen: An Eleventh Century Tableau_
-
-
-Two hours from Cherbourg, as the motor flies, lies the old town of
-Caen, founded by William the Conqueror.
-
-A curious peace reigns in this old fortress, with the drawbridge down,
-and the moat a bower of trees and flowers: the peace of consummated
-action; the returns are all in, and you may receive them according to
-your humor, for the burning questions of other days have faded into
-dreamy generalities.
-
-Were all those wild centuries of struggle and warfare vain? Or is the
-old Greek battle-cry, “Now let us go forward, whether we shall give
-glory to other men, or other men to us,” the normal note of primitive
-manhood? Were Rollo the Norseman and William the Norman, following the
-war-gods fiercer than they, commissioned by fate to lead great armies
-across the great waters, and, sailing under sealed orders, to found two
-great nations and one great language? Or are all things vanity?
-
-Perhaps, after receiving the children’s children of his loyal subjects,
-who may have crossed a certain wide ocean unknown to him to attend
-the great Court of History that William the Norman holds at Caen, the
-Shades of the Conqueror growing more familiar might conduct the musing
-cortége into the beautiful abbey near-by, which he built in expiation
-of the love-match he made in defiance of the church.
-
-I wonder here if the old king might not laughingly recall the story of
-his first meeting with Lanfranc.
-
-[Illustration: _William the Conqueror’s Old Fortress; the Chains are
-said to be the Originals._]
-
-Like other forceful men, William married upon his own responsibility.
-Accordingly, the Pope not only excommunicated him, but laid various
-bans upon his realm. Such bans were once marvelously inconvenient,
-to say the least. William fought the church valiantly for six years.
-It may have been then that he got his measure of the uses and abuses
-of that institution, which, in the long run, proved most valuable to
-England. Among others, Lanfranc, Prior of Bec, became a target for
-William’s displeasure and was ordered to leave his monastery. Lanfranc
-started forth forlornly enough on a lame horse. Thus caparisoned,
-he met the furious Duke William. Lanfranc had but one weapon at his
-command—tact. He approached the great duke, saying, “I am obeying your
-command as quickly as I can. I will obey faster if you will give me a
-better horse.” William was blessed with humor. He impressed Lanfranc
-into his service then and there, and made him his friend forever: the
-Conqueror could make good friends. Then he sent Lanfranc to make his
-peace with the Holy See. Understanding William’s passion for building,
-Lanfranc, the peacemaker, arranged that William and Mathilda should
-each build an abbey in expiation of their marriage. And William and
-Mathilda performed their contract so royally that France has lately
-restored their abbeys, line for line, as national monuments.[3] Thus
-a tableau of Caen, as the Conqueror saw it, actually lies before
-twentieth century eyes.
-
-Ah, put yourself in his place! I never knew a traveler to leave this
-old town without becoming attached to its founder. The strong, orderly,
-noble and logical Norman buildings express the old Conqueror at his
-best; at Caen one prefers his older, gentler, more unique title of
-William, the builder, for, indeed, many have conquered in England, but
-William I built up his conquest.
-
-In this interesting old Norman church, with its suspicion of the
-pointed arch (probably the earliest instance) pointing toward the
-unparalleled Gothic that developed in Normandy, one feels like
-congratulating the old Conqueror, both as lover and architect, and
-reinstating his old claim to romance, even though modern research has
-discovered that he was not a very gentle knight.
-
-William I was no saint; but why should he have been one? Professional
-saints were only too common in his day: he was but a strong, direct man
-in a most superstitious, childish and indirect age. Is not the position
-of one who can stand alone through his age heroic enough?
-
-What a curious world the old Conqueror lived in! A world of
-professional marauders and their soldiers, of professional saints
-and their serfs; with a confusion of fighting barons, lay and
-ecclesiastic, some or the most interesting bishops being no mean
-warriors; and worst of all, a lot of begging friars producing little
-but corruption. To the day of his death, the Conqueror makes no apology
-for his wars in Normandy. There he was simply holding his own. The
-behavior of the wild and worldly barons was not all he had to contend
-with; there were also the visions and the notions of the unworldly
-clergy, who, with intent, more or less good, more or less self-seeking,
-interfered absolutely with good government, and William’s tact and
-breadth with them, considered at a time when it is easy to be wise,
-nearly one thousand years after the event, is astonishing. It fell to
-his lot to deal with that peculiarly well-intentioned pope, Gregory
-VII, who, by his ability to conceive and carry out his well-intentioned
-policy, worked such incalculable evil. Spain is struggling with his
-Shades today.
-
-What a problem the mystics of the eleventh century, with their
-tremendous following and their curious allegorical interpretations of
-everything great or small in heaven or on earth, must have been to
-a statesman! Listen to this eleventh century letter of thanks from
-Saint Ivo to Gerard of Ham, for “an instrument of the whiteness of
-snow for combing the hair.” This comb is agreeable to him in and of
-itself, like other objects of beauty; but above all, it pleases him
-because of the elevation of ideas, which it so beautifully symbolizes:
-he is quite sure that thy prudence (_ta prudence_) has wished hereby
-to give a suggestion to his vigilance to seek constantly by all sorts
-of exhortations to reform the disorderly manners of his people, whom
-he compares to a disarranged head of hair. And yet Saint Ivo was in
-his day a strictly practical person, not to be fooled as Savonarola
-was four hundred years later by the ordeal of fire. Saint Ivo forbids
-a husband to condemn his wife even when the man he has accused could
-be burned by hot irons; and when the martial old bishop of Le Mans,
-who is accused of having treacherously surrendered that town, offers
-to walk on hot irons to prove his innocence, Saint Ivo writes him that
-ordeals are uncanonical and that he must not submit to them. But then
-no reader of his correspondence can fail to see that Saint Ivo was very
-timid. How he did dread the Channel! He entreats the holiest men of his
-acquaintance to pray unceasingly for him while he is on the water.
-
-But let us turn to the Conqueror’s own review of his life, as he
-discussed it on his death-bed. Two of his clergy took it down. Thus,
-as he would speak to his sons, he speaks to history. Here we have his
-perplexities at first hand. That we may put ourselves in his place
-as literally as possible, let us repair with the document to the
-beautiful Abbey aux Dames, so tenderly connected with the Conqueror’s
-queen. There, it is said, she made her thank-offering for her lord’s
-safe deliverance, alike from the perils of war and the perils of
-the Channel. This abbey was consecrated the year of the Conquest,
-eleven years before the Abbey aux Hommes (ladies first). Many of the
-Conqueror’s followers supplied their own ships, but Mathilda herself
-fitted out the Conqueror’s,—the regal _Mora_—so splendidly stocked with
-wine. Her good ship bore him safely to England and victory, and brought
-him back, as ever, true to his queen. To this abbey they dedicated
-their daughter Cicely, when she was a child, and she became a great and
-powerful abbess. Here we may picture her praying, as a woman in the
-intense Age of Faith could pray, for the souls of her parents.
-
-Eight hundred and twenty-five years after its original construction we
-found another high-bred cloistered Lady of the Trinity in passionate
-prayer at the tomb of Mathilda. Was this pretty young nun a legitimate
-part of the restoration? Though the cloisters of France were supposed
-to have been abolished, this one had been passed by, for the Conqueror
-holds Caen, and some iron hand of the past seems to have retained this
-spiritual young girl in prayer at the tomb of his queen. A strange
-sight it was, one of the curious tragedies of conservatism; but like
-many every-day tragedies imperceptible to its actors.
-
-To the eye all seemed beauty. From a fine old garden we stepped into
-a majestic aisle of a great abbey. As we walked down in its dim
-half-light, a curtain was drawn displaying a brass grill impassable in
-the eyes of the church. Impassable it had been, in fact, for nearly
-eight hundred and fifty years, but now to climb over it would be a
-minor athletic feat. It separated the chapel of the foundress and the
-nuns of the order of the Trinity from the whole outside world. The
-entire central space of this chapel was occupied by Queen Mathilda’s
-enormous cream-colored sarcophagus (restored). One might read the
-inscription in eleventh-century characters, fresh from a modern chisel.
-The chapel walls were lined with dark, carved wooden stalls, freshly
-oiled, and new-born sunbeams peered decorously through rich-colored
-glass on two kneeling nuns clad in the old-time flowing ivory-colored
-robes of the Ladies of the Trinity.
-
-One was a fleshy, middle-aged woman, mechanically counting her beads,
-the other was young and beautiful. She was looking up, and, though
-she was as motionless as the tomb beside her, her attitude expressed
-action as sculpture may. What was she thinking of? Is the life of
-today any less inscrutable than that of one thousand years ago? Here,
-in the charity of the church, let us consider the Conqueror’s apology
-(_apologia_); we are translating the word too literally, but the spirit
-of the document is humble and explanatory and, withal, very winning.
-
-In this _apologia_ William considers that he has done his duty to the
-church, and history endorses him; in general, when he was at variance
-with it he was in the right. But of his expedition to England—every
-move of which is justified upon the Bayeux Tapistry—he repents,
-although, fortunately, not fanatically enough to try and undo the deed.
-He only makes what reparation he can to certain victims. Though on his
-death-bed he liberated Harold’s son and nephew, he seems to overlook
-a curious persecution, cruel in intent but easily repaired, that, in
-the confidence and fury of his power, he had directed against the
-soul of the defeated king. The Conqueror carried Harold’s body from
-the battlefield (he wrapt it in the purple, it is true), but he had
-insisted upon burying it in unhallowed ground, although for it Harold’s
-mother had offered the weight in gold,—both parties firmly believing
-that to lie in unconsecrated ground would militate against the repose
-of the spirit. Though he tried to undo many a deed, the Conqueror
-ignores entirely his arrogant revenge upon a soul. Facing death matures
-our sense of value.
-
-Though but one century removed from a forebear whose God was Odin,
-whose Valhalla was a place where heroes cut each other to pieces daily
-in fair fight, but where the blest are perpetually restored to life
-at meal-time that they may eat of the wild boar and fight again and
-forever,[4] at least the Conqueror came to shudder at his massacres at
-Hastings and York, to truly repent and to die humbly commending his
-soul to Mary.
-
-The spirit of the nineteenth century was iconoclastic; it demolished
-alike old heroes, old superstitions and old faiths. But the twentieth
-century would call them back, not as realities, but as heroes,
-superstitions and faiths, treating them philosophically, as great
-moving forces, or poetically, as starting points for new ideals. The
-hard, rational doubt which emancipated thought in the nineteenth
-century develops into the sympathetic doubt of the twentieth. The
-nineteenth century laughed at barbaric old heroes, while the twentieth
-century smiles at them. Who wants to live in a world without heroes?
-All men are not equal; but by reverent appreciation the small man may
-become brother to the genius.
-
-Every place, every document connected with the Conqueror bears his
-strong individuality. Read of him where you may, between the lines
-of the Domesday Book (that conscientious effort to tax all that the
-traffic will bear), or in the broken lays of the troubadours, or by
-the light or the density of contemporary chroniclers, Norman or Saxon,
-you find before you a man great in himself and a forerunner of greater
-things: a great builder, building better than he knew; a great ruler,
-ruling farther than he knew—a true hero of the strenuous life.
-
-Following the chance records from which the Conqueror’s biography is
-put together, one is amazed by the integrity of his political instinct.
-William the Norman is an instance for the poet who said, “The world is
-what a few great men have made it.” The Conqueror seems such a typical
-Englishman, alike in his love of the forests and the “high deer,” of
-which the old Saxon chronicler complains, and in his appreciation of
-justice and stability, for which the same chronicler gives thanks
-on the spot. The Conqueror’s appeal is a very wide one. Even the
-economists, who hold that the world is what demand and supply have made
-it, write with an enthusiasm peculiarly their own of the Domesday Book
-and its wisely self-seeking, avaricious author.
-
-[Illustration: _Dinan—the Fortifications have been Turned into
-Playgrounds._]
-
-It cannot be argued that the Conqueror was a popular king, but
-sinners, like saints, may be proven by their influence after death—the
-Conqueror’s was strong and manly. His spirit entered widely into
-mediæval legend. He is the Arthur, the ideal ruler, whom Malory
-commends for manly purity, justice and probity; also for “open
-manslaughter.” We may take Malory’s word for it, it was better than
-the savage treachery known even four hundred years later, when
-that old _raconteur_ was mixing probabilities, improbabilities and
-impossibilities so picturesquely, and we have our old hero back.
-Although we must alter Malory’s ideal, we can add to it as well as
-subtract from it. We have the splendid barbarian who brought order
-out of chaos both in England and Normandy, who loved and trusted his
-wife, who loved nature and had an instinct for art, whose intelligent
-attitude toward religion and learning left the Dark Ages behind, and
-whose loyal leadership opened the romantic days of chivalry.
-
-Near Caen is a lovelier town, “Dinan, where the Conqueror slept.” Here
-history’s scroll seems to loosen, displaying an enchanting pastoral of
-the ages; there lies the simple, old hamlet by the river, just as it
-might have looked when William the Norman and Harold, son of Goodwin,
-camped there together, a little less than one thousand years ago. Then,
-back of the river on the bluff, later a securely walled town appeared,
-but now the old fortifications have turned into charming parks and
-playgrounds, girding the loveliest of French villages; and on a summer
-day in fair France one can feel sure that though much of life is at
-cross-purposes, all is not vanity: old moats may make the loveliest of
-gardens; old warriors, the gentlest of heroes.
-
-[Illustration: _Old Moats do make such Charming Gardens._]
-
-
-
-
-_The Grandniece of the Grand Inquisitor_
-
-
- I have a fair daughter formed like a
- golden flower.—_Sappho._
-
-The Spanish Inquisitor is one character of the past who has been
-spared the mockish attentions of writers of historical romance. But
-he, too, has suffered from the _on dit_ of history, history as she is
-taught. However, he had his day. Once as the impersonation of “correct
-sentiment,” he dealt his decrees from a palace and had the double
-honor of representing Church as well as State. As times grew gentler,
-the Inquisition was directed against books rather than men. Now,
-certainly, something may be accorded to those who dispose of polemic
-literature, even though they be as innocent as earthworms of their
-ultimate use to humanity; therefore, let us try to look upon the Grand
-Inquisitor, Miguel de Carpio, as a Spanish gentleman of an exceedingly
-old school—as a man perhaps much less bloodthirsty than some of the
-good and perfect knights, though abominably technical regarding certain
-points. As theatre-goers we are in the gentleman’s debt, for it was he
-who educated his nephew, Lope de Vega de Carpio, who in his turn was a
-positive factor in the development of the modern drama.
-
-Lope Felix de Vega de Carpio was of a mental mixture that has more than
-passed away; it has been relegated to the incomprehensible,—at once a
-graceful poet and a soldier, a past master of euphuism and a coarse
-dramatist; an officer of the Church; “a servant of the Inquisition” or
-a “familiar of the holy office,” as he fluently termed it (an honorary
-escort of the victim to the stake); finally, chaplain of the monastic
-order into which he retired; and, unquestionably, the most voluminous
-of writers.
-
-[Illustration: _A Peep Into the Cranium of a Bible Reader in Lope de
-Vega’s Time._]
-
-But his most poetic gift to the world was his love-child, Sister
-Marcela de Felix of the Convent of the Ladies of the Trinity at Alcala.
-Of all his children, legitimate or illegitimate, this daughter, by the
-lady who inspired the best of his sonnets, was to him dearest. He takes
-little Marcela to live with him as soon as ever his wife dies, and
-dedicates a drama to the little girl; so does another poet. She seems
-to be her father’s comrade, for when she is only eleven years old he
-uses her to get back some letters that he has written to one of his
-various mistresses; but when a relative of the husband of this mistress
-makes improper overtures to Little Marcela, Lope de Vega rises like a
-man “in spite of his age and holy orders,” and chastises the villain.
-
-At sixteen, to the little maid comes a craving for an exalted purity, a
-reaction of her beautiful soul from its coarse, immoral surroundings.
-Being a woman, her ideal also calls for a lover, but he must be pure
-and more beautiful than any one she has ever known, and he must love
-her as she will him, “better than life.” It is the Age of Faith. Her
-bridegroom awaits; she leaves her father to join him.
-
-Of course, there are braver, fuller, happier lives than a nun’s, and
-there always have been. But during the Age of Faith, in a religious
-house, there was always a haven of rest for the idealist, while now it
-sometimes seems he has not where to lay his head.
-
-It was not in the Middle Ages that the king said, “If poets will be
-poets, why, let them starve.” Then, on the contrary, the public fed a
-vagabond population of vagabond singers who sang a certain grace into
-the Romance languages; for the devotees of various abstractions there
-was the refuge of holy orders. After taking up the religious life, if
-they had force enough to arrange the conditions around them to fit
-their desires, they might safely follow their various bents, for good
-or ill, undisturbed by care for the future, their bodies being insured
-against want, their souls against punishment. In Spain, particularly,
-really great men and successful ones continued to take holy orders even
-up to the eighteenth century.
-
-In his prime, Calderon exchanged the position of superintendent of the
-royal theatre for royal chaplain, but after a few qualms on the point
-he continued to write plays on much the same order as before, only
-they were performed by priests. Since Calderon was really orthodox the
-arrangement seems natural enough; as a playwright he had baffled with
-the public till he was fifty-one years old; in the church at least he
-was relieved from the dictates of public tastes. There it was that he
-probably wrote his beautiful “Magic Magician.”
-
-I am not a Ruskinite. I would not, if I conveniently could, domesticate
-the thirteenth century in the nineteenth; but I do believe in a
-sympathetic attitude toward history, as toward present life, and for
-the same reasons I would not turn the light of the twentieth century
-in upon the gloom of the sixteenth, with the idea of getting a clear
-picture. I for one do not feel that a convent was the saddest place
-for Sister Marcela. That power which decrees the fall of nations had
-its hand upon Spain. Wars, the Americas, the religious houses and the
-Inquisition, had fed on the flower of the nation too long. The times
-were out of joint. It seemed beautiful to little Marcela to lose such
-a world and gain a soul. Being a poet, the heroic side of the church
-appealed to her; in her intensity she joined the barefooted order of
-the Trinity. How did her father part from her? He was a poet, too—did
-he give her up with holy joy and homely sorrow?
-
-In his way, Lope de Vega was a really religious man, for he lived
-in close touch with his God—the literal, limited, jealous god of a
-fanatic, it is true. Would you see its exact image, as shown on the
-Market Place? Then read “The Marriage of the Soul to Divine Love,” a
-broadly realistic drama, in which Lope de Vega supposes the bridegroom
-to be the Savior. It was acted on the great Square of Valencia on the
-occasion of the marriage of Philip III, the dramatist himself being the
-clown in the cast.
-
-But, too, this vulgar “familiar of the holy office” can be tender.
-Listen to these lines, dedicated to his little dead son:—
-
- “Holy angels and blest,
- Through these palms as ye sweep,
- Hold their branches at rest,
- For my babe is asleep.
-
- “And ye Bethlehem palm trees,
- As stormy winds rush
- In tempest and fury,
- Your angry noise hush;—
- Move gently, move gently,
- Restrain your wild sweep;
- Hold your branches at rest,—
- My babe is asleep.
-
- “My babe all divine,
- With earth’s sorrows oppressed,
- Seeks in slumber an instant
- His grieving to rest;
- He slumbers,—he slumbers,—
- Oh hush, then, and keep
- Your branches all still,—
- My babe is asleep!
-
- “Cold blasts wheel about him,—
- A rigorous storm,—
- And ye see how, in vain,
- I would shelter his form;—
- Holy angels and blest,
- As above me ye sweep,
- Hold these branches at rest,—
- My babe is asleep!”
-
-[Illustration: _The Literal, Limited God of a Fanatic and Father Adam
-Stock-taking in Eden._]
-
-What did he whisper to this living child as she parted from him? “Heard
-melodies are sweet; but those unheard are sweeter.”
-
-When, in the confident phrase of her father, Marcela de Carpio
-“espoused the eldest son of God,” her mystic nuptials called forth the
-truest “song-feast” ever held. The herald of old might bid the poets
-appear and compete for a monarch’s pleasure. Order a tournament of
-song, indeed! Mahomet was profound enough to go to the mountain. When
-the beautiful love-child of Lope de Vega and Micaela de Luzan took the
-veil, the ceremony was graced by all the dignity and circumstance which
-the Church could lavish in outward expression of the passion and fervor
-of the forceful old days of her power.
-
-All the poets of the day, great and small, seemed to have been summoned
-to this marriage feast, and all the poets of the day, great and small,
-vainly tried to transcribe the living poem their eyes beheld when that
-fair bride of Christ passed before them in a transport of ecstasy.
-
-At that time many great ladies were taking the veil with equal pomp
-and state, but no such tribute was paid them. What an absolutely
-inexplicable power is personality! Marcela de Carpio never published a
-line, and at this time had probably never written one. How did these
-minor poets recognize this fair daughter of Sappho? Was she “formed
-like a golden flower”? What a wonderful people are poets! But listen,
-for Sister Marcela’s bridal song is with us yet, she pipes so clear and
-sweet:
-
- I.
- “Let them say to my lover
- That here I lie!
- The thing of his pleasure,
- His slave am I.
-
- II.
- “Say that I seek him
- Only for love,
- And welcome are tortures
- My passion to prove.
-
- III.
- “Love giving gifts
- Is suspicious and cold;
- I have all, my Beloved,
- When Thee I hold.
-
- IV.
- “Hope and devotion
- The good may gain,
- I am but worthy
- Of passion and pain.
-
- V.
- “So noble a Lord
- None serves in vain—
- For the pay of my love
- Is my love’s sweet pain.
-
- VI.
- “I love thee, to love thee,
- No more I desire;
- By faith is nourished
- My love’s strong fire.
-
- VII.
- “I kiss Thy hands
- When I feel their blows;
- In place of caresses
- Thou givest me woes.
-
- VIII.
- “But in Thy chastening
- Is joy and peace;
- O Master and Love,
- Let not Thy blows cease!
-
- IX.
- “Thy beauty, Beloved,
- With scorn is rife!
- But I know that Thou lovest me
- Better than life.
-
- X.
- “And because Thou lovest me,
- Lover of mine,
- Death can but make me
- Utterly Thine.
-
- XI.
- “I die with longing
- Thy face to see;
- Ah, sweet is the anguish
- Of Death to me!”
-
-Marcela de Carpio retired from the world in 1621. It was not till 1870
-that the ladies of the Convent of the Trinity at Alcala called the
-attention of the director of the Spanish Academy to a manuscript so
-dear to that sisterhood,—the love-songs of a nun, the poems of Sister
-Marcela de Felix. Such a delay in publication would be disastrous to a
-worldling of the pen, but oblivion cannot bury a soul. Besides, Sister
-Marcela was dreaming of heaven, not of print; her thought incidentally
-overflows and she inherited her father’s facility with the pen.
-
-Thus, from the depths of the old cloister swells a love-song so clear
-and sweet, so humanly divine that it almost reconciles the ages. The
-times were out of joint in Spain, but I am glad that this mystical
-daughter of Sappho was not ordained, like poor little Charlotte Corday,
-another idealist, with the blood of a great poet in her veins, to try
-to set them right. I am glad that the doors of the convent were open to
-this spiritual young dreamer of beautiful dreams, who sings the “Swan
-Song of the Age of Faith.” You say the convent doors are open yet;
-yes, but in another way—perhaps a better way. Women enter to dedicate
-a broken life to all that is good. The peace is there, but the rapture
-is no more. We “cannot sing the old songs now nor dream those dreams
-again.”
-
-No woman is fairer to muse upon than Marcela de Carpio. We get out
-of life what we put into it. From the repose of the cloister Sister
-Marcela contributes a dream. She is the poetess of the passionate
-reverence of the Age of Faith. In her verse “the tender grace of a
-day that is dead” is immortal. We must never for a moment overlook a
-Spanish lady’s pedigree. Senorita Marcela de Carpio was the grandniece
-of a Grand Inquisitor of Spain.
-
-
-
-
-_Stray Leaves From Old, Old Books_
-
-
-A bibliophile is expected to enter with an apology,—he is generally
-called a bibliomaniac, but let your foreboded homage check your tongue;
-remember, if you prefer your mother’s Bible to the one left by the
-tract society, or the one left by the tract society to your mother’s
-(bibliophiles are liable to any preference), you are open to the
-infection and the mania is incurable.
-
-But do not books become ours by what we, individually, get from them?
-What does it matter whether it lies in the cover or the text or between
-the lines? “Piece out our imperfection with your thought,” implores
-the greatest poet. Though it is dwelt upon with some truth that
-bibliophiles do not read their books (must we therefore infer that
-other people have the contents of their libraries at their tongue’s
-ends), they have their own attitude toward them—an attitude which has
-proved of the profoundest service to letters.
-
-The professional critic enters the library in state, receiving and
-dismissing new books with sovereign assurance: so uniformly has he
-erred that the dictum has gone forth that no age can pass on its
-writers.
-
-The gentle reader enters the library modestly; although he may read the
-new books that perish, he does not neglect the new books that live, as
-any one who makes a study of editions will discover; he buys the good
-works of his own day. The publisher of the first edition of Shakespeare
-remarked that purchase “best commends a book,” on the strength of which
-idea he collected the stray plays of the Bard of the Avon. The preface
-which he wrote for his edition stands forth as the modest advertisement
-of history; but absurdly condescending as it is, it shows that he
-foresaw a good, immediate sale; also that he foresaw no farther.
-
-The bibliophile enters the library abstractedly, there to muse
-upon volumes true and tried; and through the ages his reverent,
-disinterested spirit has builded better than it knew. Indeed, it
-alone tided books across the Dark Ages; for even when they could not
-read, some there were who had wit enough to appreciate letters in the
-abstract. Contrast their attitude with that of the executive Caliph
-Omar, who burned a great library at Alexandria in 635, declaring that
-if the books were orthodox (Mohammedan orthodoxy, of course) they were
-unnecessary; if heterodox, pernicious. That is what it means to have
-mere practical people around among books.
-
-I can conceive of no human relic more touching than a Bible copied
-with conscientious care during this unsympathetic era. Hence the Book
-of Kells,[5] which is destitute of one touch of the native artist,
-however immature, is often spoken of as the most beautiful book in the
-world. It is supposed to have been executed about the eighth century,
-since its illuminators had advanced from the mere red capitals adorned
-with twisted dragons to pictures relating to the text. The symbols
-of the apostles, especially the bird-like lion of Saint Mark, appear
-repeatedly on the margins; also, there is a representation of Saint
-Matthew with hands growing from his shoulders, holding up to the world
-two copies of “The Book.” Among its illustrations are the Arrest of
-Jesus, the Agony of the Garden, and, most interesting of all, four
-angels and a Virgin and Child appear on the old pages, for, crude as
-these figures are, they may be reckoned among the direct ancestors of
-those beautiful Holy Families born on Italian and Flemish canvases
-eight or nine hundred years later, whose sweet faces still sway the
-world.
-
-[Illustration: _A Tribute to the Scribes of the Dark Ages, from One of
-Their Intellectual Descendants, a Painter of the Moyen Age_]
-
-Christian art began as illustration on the pages of holy books, and
-as illustration it expanded onto wood and canvas, bronze and marble.
-The peculiar grace of pictorial art crept into it incidentally, by
-accident of genius. That famous Giotto of the Louvre showing “Saint
-Francis receiving the Stigmata” is simply a direct explanation of
-the subject, far more beautiful in idea than in execution. There are
-the figures of Jesus and of Saint Francis; Christ is flying toward
-“the most Christ-like of men,” and gilt lines from every wound in our
-Savior piercing Saint Francis in the same parts of the body bind that
-sympathetic saint to his Redeemer, while unknown to the holy brother a
-halo appears back of his head.
-
-This idea of illustration made beautiful that it might be worthy of the
-subject which it treated, that arose in the old scriptoriums, reached
-its perfection on Ghiberti’s doors to the Baptistry at Florence.
-Michael Angelo called them the Gates of Paradise. Illuminated books
-of a later date display equally noble, artistic connections. I have
-seen little Madonnas in Books of Hours in the British Museum that seem
-like imperfect copies of Raphael, whereas they precede him by nearly a
-century.
-
-Mediæval story is full of the visits of angels to despairing
-illuminators and scribes who found themselves unable to execute books
-worthy in their material beauty to convey the word of God. Our Lady
-herself sometimes came down to console them. Did forecasts of the
-beautiful pictures yet to come sometimes appear to the humble dreamers
-of the cloister as they worked away on the margins of holy books?
-Not literally, of course, for taste was too crude to conceive of a
-developed art. But may not some old artist have conceived in his cell
-of a pictured Madonna, so beautiful that pilgrims came from afar to do
-her honor, so sweet that she could uplift them from sin? And perhaps
-the soul of that humble old scribe finds its paradise in the better
-part of some inscrutable genius whose Madonnas perpetually uplift the
-world, for the soul of a saint is active forever.
-
-[Illustration: _It is Said There is No Better Test of a Bible Student
-Than to Ask Him to Read the Stories which Ghiberti Tells so Distinctly
-on the Baptistry Doors._]
-
-But from the vantage-ground of the Old Book of Kells it is as pretty to
-look backward as to look forward, so sweetly does it recall a certain
-monastery on the Island of Iona which casts its ray in history like a
-good deed in a naughty world. This old book speaks eloquently of the
-lonely Irish cloisters where, in perhaps the darkest hour of written
-history, the seeds of occidental civilization were laid away until a
-more favorable season dawned in which to sow them broadcast.
-
-About a hundred years after the blessed Saint Patrick converted
-Ireland, in which time many had fallen from grace, Saint Columba
-appeared on the scene, made a second conversion of that region and
-founded the old Scotch Kirk (very indirectly). When Saint Columba
-appealed to the canny Scots and the thrifty northern Irishmen for a
-situation for his monastery, they hospitably turned over to his use
-the rocky Island of Iona. Though agriculturally it was not much,
-through long ages it had borne the fruits of the spirit until even
-its stones did duty as amulets. In its bosom slept the Scottish
-kings, King Macbeth being the last of the royal line to lie there.
-Iona was hallowed ground to the Druid, and is, to this day, a haven
-of superstition. There Saint Columba, the scribe, located his
-lonely monastery wherein books were made, wondrous in their day
-and generation, and there or at some Columbian monastery in the
-neighborhood, perhaps at Kells, the Book of Kells was executed.
-
-One of its big pages, which is covered by a great cross wherein
-eight circles are incorporated in a network of infinitely involved
-interlacements, especially illustrates one phase of early art—its
-reverent patience. Study that cross as you may you will find no false
-line, no irregular interlacement, for all this was done in the olden
-time when the ways of holy men were made so clear unto them. That none
-might disturb the holy calm of the silent scribes as they multiplied
-the precious “Word” Saint Jerome had taken down from the direct
-dictation of the angels, a code of signs was in use in the scriptoriums
-of the monasteries. The sign of the cross indicated a missal, the sign
-of the crown, King David’s psalms, while a contemptuous scratching of
-the ear, in the manner of a dog, was an order for a mere pagan volume;
-for then “the world was very wicked,” as the good monks droned; or at
-least very rude, cruel, lazy and barbarous, as history affirms, and
-gentle spirits were only too prone to recoil from it.
-
-The early Christians in general were filled with contempt for this
-life and proud certainty of reward in the next: those whose practice
-was no higher than their theory withdrew from the world to secure to
-themselves particularly high seats in heaven. The composite story of
-their lives emphasizes the barrenness of the scoffer, the futility of
-the contemptuous. But the story of the scribe, though he may have seen
-through the glass just as darkly as the anchorite did, is the living
-story of Christian brotherhood.
-
-One of the first of these scribes, old Cassiodorus of Ravenna, writes:
-“All who sing form but a single voice, and we may mingle our notes
-with those of the angels, though we may not hear them.” I am sure that
-was the sentiment which finally turned this old statesman from the
-world, even though he did not retire till after the death of Theodoric,
-his patron. Perhaps the career of a statesman prepared him to be a
-statesman of the world of letters; at any rate, when he repaired to
-the cloister he gathered together, according to his lights, the best
-books of his world, and especially enjoined upon the monks the noble
-duty of multiplying them.
-
-All this was some hundred years before Saint Columba’s time, but angel
-voices carry, and I do believe in their highest moments the ignorant,
-undeveloped scribes of the old Irish monasteries vaguely echoed ideals
-like those of Cassiodorus.
-
-These scribes came to feel a certain ownership in the great Bibles on
-which they worked. At the end of each section of the old Book of Durrow
-its scribe smuggled in his petition that all who take the book in hand
-might pray for him. I have known a merry old scribe to insert a jingle
-in very bad Latin at the end of a chapter, indicating that after so
-much good work he should be rewarded with a drink. The jolly old monk
-has always appealed to me most unreasonably.
-
-Within the century of the making of the old Book of Kells in Ireland,
-stirring old Charlemagne brought a semblance of order to the land of
-the Gaul and the Frank and, “that requests should not be made to God
-in bad language,” he regulated copists and reproductions by law; he
-ordered holy books elaborately adorned, and collected, to the best
-of his ability, artists for that purpose, thereby leaving his mark
-on the books of his time and of some generations following, which
-are technically known as Carlovingians. Indeed, as a bibliophile
-Charlemagne shows the most charming side of his character. In his
-enthusiasm he went to work and learned to read, but he never could
-succeed in learning to write.
-
-As might be expected, Carlovingians are mechanically decorated. They
-show Byzantine importation rather than the loving development of an
-early and original art. We still have a couple of pages of the Amiens
-copy of a work written by the Abbot of Fulda during Charlemagne’s
-reign. One page is covered by a lone figure, without ground or
-background, of Louis the Pious with text printed all over it. (Not
-that in the Dark Ages anybody read between the lines; that they failed
-to do so was their greatest difficulty.) Then other Carlovingians are
-examples of the dyers’ art, being written in gold on purple vellum,
-like the “Golden Gospels” which one thousand one hundred years later
-proved such an excellent speculation on Wall street. But that is
-unquestionably “another story.”
-
-There is a certain book in the Bodleian not quite so old which I
-should value more highly. With considerably more evidence than usual
-in such cases, it is identified as the book of mass of Queen Margaret
-of Scotland. I wonder if the lovely Saxon princess had it with her
-when she fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest to implore the
-protection of Malcomb Canmore who made her his Queen? But, better
-still, his people afterwards made her their patron saint, realizing
-that she had done more to refine them than any other early ruler.
-Tradition tells how the King, though he could not read, loved to handle
-the Queen’s precious books—perhaps he gave this little volume adorned
-with gold and jewels to the lady of his reverent love.
-
-The thirteenth century has great attractions for a bibliophile. Never
-were the embellishments on books more liberal and amusing. Nowadays
-illuminators consider the fitness of things, but in the thirteenth
-century they just designed. I know of a most charming psalter of the
-late thirteenth century with the capitals filled with the spirited
-knights and the margins with all-colored dragons whose attenuated tails
-form circles, sometimes not more than an eighth of an inch in diameter,
-that separate tiny butting goats or strutting cocks, or Darwinian
-monkeys or other irrelevant matter from the text.
-
-Did these dragons creep in from the Norse mythologies, I wonder, or
-were they just creatures of adaptive anatomy for decorative purposes?
-The early illuminators did not turn to nature; simple people never do.
-This illustrator’s mind certainly wandered; whether it started with
-the psalms I cannot determine, but he displays two tiny gilded stops
-one-eighth of an inch by two inches that the seriously inclined might
-take as sermons. One represents a jester, with cap and bells and wand,
-and little other raiment, successfully charging a fully armed knight;
-and the other, Venus, attended by a blue dragon, pursuing a cross
-between a man and a devil.
-
-The fourteenth and fifteenth century illuminators and illustrators
-begin to think; indeed, they are among the best historians we find of
-that period: modern illustration is fast returning to their methods.
-
-At the commencement of the fourteenth century, miniatures of the noble
-owners of elaborate volumes began to be inserted in their books. Thus
-a consecutive history of two hundred years of French portraiture is
-safely folded away in the Bibliotheque Nationale, where we may watch
-the stiff early miniatures gradually develop into charming little
-_genre_ pictures. Though the consideration of atmosphere was passed
-over at that time, many of them are models of composition.
-
-Some of these little illustrations show the conceptions as well as
-the manners of the age. In one of these old Bibles is a picture of
-six seigneurs (two famous bibliophiles among them), in full regalia
-(no grave clothes for them), cordially received by Saint Peter at the
-Gothic Gates of Paradise in the courteous days of the old regime. There
-is that magnificent jeweled Bible of Jean Sans Peur, Duc de Bourgoyne,
-decorated with his armorial bearings, which was given to him by some
-monks of his domain when he deigned to honor them with a visit; it
-contains a charming little picture of the presentation scene.
-
-[Illustration: _A Page from the Bible of Jean Sans Peur._]
-
-Those were royal days for bibliophiles; but a change was to come
-over the spirit of their dreams. Printing was invented and the
-democracy of letters set in,—jeweled bindings made way for calf, and
-collectors are diverted from painting to presses. Bibliophiles develop
-individual tastes and such a plebeian variety of them; it is akin to
-free speech—one doting on prayer-books, another on cook-books; one on
-pamphlets, another on palimpsests; one on school-books, another on
-Virgils; one on curiosities of literature, execrably illustrated books
-of travel in impossible lands and comedies of error generally; another
-on distant glimpses of dawning light, until within the order arises the
-confusion of Babel, one no longer understanding the language of another.
-
-But there is an early Episcopal prayer-book in the British Museum
-before which all the brotherhood right gallantly might bow. It was Lady
-Jane Grey’s companion in distress; she is said to have taken it with
-her to the scaffold, where she certainly carried its lessons. In it she
-wrote her last message to her father: “The Lord comfort Your Grace in
-this world wherein all creatures are only to be comforted.” Her story
-is almost too harrowing to recall. This studious young girl, just
-seventeen, is offered the English crown. Her common sense tells her to
-decline it. “His Grace,” always harsh, even for his day and generation,
-forces her to accept. In consequence, after a ten days’ reign, she is
-imprisoned in the Tower. While she is held there “His Grace” makes
-another false move; as a result of his idiocy Lady Jane and her young
-husband are condemned to death.
-
-Could we believe this gentle message on hearsay? We should probably
-argue, the age was so narrow, the girl was so young, the expression
-is too condensed, too mature. The rational doubt would blur one of
-the loveliest pictures in Time’s gallery of fair women. A martyr
-without the spur, or the blemish of fanaticism! A Queen of ten days
-but a Defender of the Faith forever. The crown jewels pale before this
-illuminated prayer-book of Her Most Christian Majesty. This dear little
-Protestant called forth the one tender letter extant from the highly
-practical Diana of Poitiers. “I have just been hearing the account of
-the poor young Queen Jane, and I could not keep myself from weeping at
-the sweet, resigned words she spoke to them on the scaffold; surely
-never was such a sweet and accomplished princess.”
-
-Indeed, the best thing in the world of books, as well as in the
-world of men, “is something out of it,” and it is the appreciation
-of this “something,” manifest to sympathetic souls, which makes us
-bibliophiles. If unknown to history a tender touch of hands long dead
-lurks in an old edition, is it not beyond price?
-
-Although there are priceless books like this little prayer-book of
-Queen Jane, every good bibliophile is a bit of a speculator; to bet on
-an author is as loyal an excitement as to bet on a racer; and to feel
-a beloved volume appreciating upon one’s shelves is like watching the
-development of a promising child.
-
-Robert Browning, who was brought up in the fold, his father being a
-collector, writes:
-
- Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
- I’ the air, and catch again, and twirl about
- By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
- Secreted from man’s life when hearts beat hard,
- And brains, high blooded, ticked two centuries since?
- Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
- Gave a _lira_ for it, eightpence English just.
- _Opening lines of_
- “_The Ring and the Book_.”
-
-That eightpence has the regular bibliomaniacal ring. Next to giving
-fifty prices for a book, the genuine collector delights in paying an
-improperly low one—a _tour de force_ either of wit or of purse.
-
-Just think of getting material for the longest poem of the century for
-eightpence! and material so unique! with the inspiration of the old
-tome thrown in!
-
-But now, when books are so cheap they are almost free, when exact
-reproductions of wonderful editions might flood the market at any day,
-when venders of old books have become too expert for book hunters, we
-are assured that bibliophiles, grasping the tangible in the hope of
-realizing the intangible, are the absurdities of a rational age.
-
-Remember our record in the past and trust us a little in the present.
-In blind reverence we saved books and inaugurated Christian art.
-Historians suddenly began to demand documents and they grow more and
-more insistent on that point. Well, we can come to their aid and
-they can come to ours; many a pretty bargain has been struck in the
-exchange. Along with its old books and letters we have especially
-preserved the gentler, though none too gentle, side of the past.
-
-We can introduce you to men of other days in their libraries: a very
-good place to study them sympathetically.
-
-Among other charming facts, we can assure you that even during the
-confusion of a period of infinite intrigue complicated by religious
-wars and the Fronde, Richelieu and Mazarin found time to play at
-bibliomania, and perhaps we can persuade you that of all their games
-it was the most profitable. The executive Mazarin got hold of an
-invaluable expert, Naudé, who brought him bargains by the yard.
-What fun they must have had out of it,—Naudé literally taking a
-measuring-stick with him when he went “book-hunting,” and “the stalls
-where he had passed were like the towns through which Attila or the
-Tartars had swept!” But the result was different. Deserving books
-were sumptuously decked out in red and olive morocco with gold-tooled
-cardinal hats thereon, and took their rightful place in Mazarin’s
-palace, that Earthly Paradise of the bibliophile graced by beautiful
-books and gentle readers, for Mazarin’s library was cordially free, the
-first really free library in France.
-
-It is true that Saint Louis, always open to a beautiful idea, hearing
-of a sultan who had had copies made of the manuscripts of his realm
-for the benefit of the savants, endeavored to follow the example of
-the Moslem. Accordingly he made a beautiful collection of copies which
-were kept in the royal chapel—hardly a convenient place for the reading
-public; but then there was no reading public.
-
-However humble a Christian, however gentle a knight Saint Louis may
-have been, he was destitute of one instinct of the democrat. After his
-death his collection was broken up, but his idea descended to Charles
-the Wise, who practically started the Royal Library which, joined to
-the Mazarin, developed into the present Bibliotheque Nationale.
-
-As the oldest branch of the Public Library, the Bibliotheque
-Nationale occupies the ancestral home, the Palais Mazarin at Paris,
-where Mazarin’s motto, “Time and I,” rings forth in the majesty of
-accomplishment.
-
-As “Ever since the days of Captain Kidd, the Yankees think there’s
-money hid,” so ever since the disappearance of Molière’s library the
-bibliophiles think there’s treasure hid. Only one book which belonged
-to that prince of bibliophiles has turned up so far, a little Elzevir
-of 1651, in which he obligingly wrote his name and the price, 1
-_livre_, 10 _sous_. But think of his two hundred and forty odd comedies
-which he handled so deftly both in the letter and in the spirit,
-“taking his property wherever he found it!” What pearls of price if one
-could only trace them!
-
-We know this collection was broken up; it cannot be that every single
-book has perished. One is almost justified in counting such chickens
-before they are hatched. Molière was not only one of the greatest but
-one of the most lovable of authors—that quality we collectors value so
-highly! Why a book of his would be like a relic of a saint (there is a
-bit of mediævalism in every good bibliophile); a saint, a bibliophile
-of other days, an actor, a gentle reader and a genius! What might not
-any one of them bring? Ah, there is still a golden fleece for the quest
-of the Romantic Modern.
-
-Romance will always deal in talismans. We bibliophiles make ours a
-thing of the mind, which we lay away between the lines of some gentle
-old volume, hoping that some day, somewhere in the vague realm of
-Books, it may work its pleasant magic upon some unknown comrade.
-
-
-
-
-_The Romantic Twentieth Century: A Deduction_
-
-
-The simple story-tellers of old, singing away before History was born,
-long, long before she became contradictory and disrespectful, chose the
-past as a setting for certain beatitudes—love, beauty, valor, fidelity
-and justice. Theirs was not the harsh justice of the common law, for
-there was no common law, but true, or, as the world terms it, poetic
-justice. They strengthened the warp of their story with the noblest
-deeds done, or almost done, around them, for human beings so often
-fall just short of great things; this it is the gentle and honorable
-duty of story to remedy, for “What we would be, that we are for one
-transcendent moment.”
-
-When they only recorded the prowess of the victor, History and Romance
-were one and at peace, and the glorious days of which together they
-sung were known as the Golden Age.
-
-Then History began to feel the heroism of the vanquished. To give them
-their meed she conceived the idea of recording impartially the good and
-evil around her, whereat childish Romance turned from her in disgust.
-
-But each claimed the Golden Age: Romance declaring that golden tales
-that live and grow were hers for all time; History declaring that the
-fact that a great poet imagined an event to have happened counted for
-more in the human record than any other given occurrence. And History
-and Romance quarreled on until it seemed as though the Golden Age would
-be lost to both of them.
-
-Then Romance, always enterprising to the point of flightiness,
-suggested that, as the Golden Age had no chronology, it might safely be
-recast in the future, in which period she, at least, was quite as much
-at home as in the past.
-
-Politic Old Dame History smiled at the idea of her dealing in futures,
-but she did make herself responsible for the statement that the real
-present is infinitely more romantic than the real past. Then waxing
-bold she declared that, with some trifling digression, she had all
-along been leading men toward a purer justice more mixed with love. Of
-this sweeping assertion she calmly cast the burden of proof upon “my
-most persuasive witness, my dear old friend, Romance.” And Romance,
-who always begs the question, replies with a smile, “Let me tell some
-stories. No, I will not commence with the Greeks, they are hardly my
-people. Great poets may find other themes, but as for me, my humble
-fancy must rest upon a woman and she should be pure, sweet and gentle
-and brave men should bow before her.
-
-“The Grecian woman was in no way a free agent. To assert herself at
-all, she was obliged to be either deceitful or defiant; both attitudes
-are so unbeautiful! I commence with the days of chivalry, for though
-women were not free then, it was supposed that they ought to be, which
-is enough for me.”
-
-“To me,” says History, “the love stories of the days of chivalry,
-told as fact or as old romance, are one of the saddest issues of its
-universal tyranny—a tyranny of parent over child, of man over woman,
-of lord over serf, of king over lord, of emperor over king, of pope
-over emperor—a tyranny of crazy conventions and mistaken ideals over
-all, with mortifications of spirit a thousand times harsher than those
-of the flesh, which made life hideous even to its ideals.
-
-“Analyze the great love story of that era and you find rather a tragedy
-of tyranny. It runs thus: About the close of the Dark Ages the parents
-of Pierre Abelard decided, for the future repose of their souls,
-to repress all their natural desires and shift all mundane duties.
-Accordingly they retired to separate convents, leaving their son free
-to follow his natural bent. Argument being his ruling passion, he
-wandered through France challenging the local theologians in debate,
-always drawing a following, always making powerful enemies, and,
-doubtless, very much enjoying the life. At Laon he tackled the great
-Anselm, and finding him a man ‘of mean genius and great fluency of
-words without sense,’ Abelard conceived the idea of reading the Bible
-for himself. Then he made his way to Paris to break a lance with
-the great Canon Fulbert, where he met the Canon’s niece, Heloise.
-A love story ensued, like other love stories in many ways, except
-that Heloise, against all self-interest, physical, social, spiritual,
-refused to marry her lover, entreat as he might; she would do anything
-else for him, except state her true reason—but yet a woman. We have it
-finally in her correspondence, ‘What an injury shall I do the Church if
-I rob it of such a man!’
-
-“Is it a sacrifice on the altar of the Church on her part, or is it a
-woman’s sacrifice for the interests of the man she loves better than
-herself? Had her mother made a like renunciation? No mother appears in
-the story of this adopted niece of an ecclesiastic. Here is Heloise’s
-position. In her time the only opening for a clever man was the Church
-with its conditions; a loving woman should not hamper an ambitious
-man; she should remember she cannot be to him what he is to her, which
-is a law of life known to woman, that we find holds true here. Having
-first given her all to the Church, she enters a convent at Abelard’s
-suggestion. But in the twelfth century, or any other, the hope of youth
-dies hard. Heloise does not take the black veil. She cannot burn her
-ships.
-
-“Thereafter this truly fair woman of Romance figures as a stern
-disciplinarian reporting the weaker sisters. But she is severe upon
-herself as well, and confesses having unlawfully opened a letter in
-which she was sure there was news of her Abelard; though, when in after
-years Abelard wished to correspond with her, she begged him not. This
-is the tragedy of Heloise.
-
-“Abelard also entered a convent, but there, as elsewhere, he had a
-wonderful faculty for carrying his point, and probably led, on the
-whole, a very congenial life. However, he once overstepped himself, and
-was summoned to appear before the Council of Soissons and commanded to
-burn his own book with his own hands. He ungallantly admitted that this
-was the saddest moment of his life. Here is Abelard’s tragedy. He felt
-that all was lost. But it was Abelard that the world needed, not his
-book.
-
-“Brave as Socrates, Abelard returned to the Abbey of Saint Denis, there
-to raise the first historic doubt. He did not think Saint Denis was the
-Areopagite of the Scriptures, nor did he believe the saint was ever in
-Paris. The horrified Abbot accordingly gave Abelard over to the civil
-authorities ‘for reflections upon the kingdom and the crown.’
-
-“Driven from Paris, he retired to a cloistered order at Troyes, where
-he built a church and had the pleasure of dedicating it to the Holy
-Ghost (there being a law against dedicating a temple to the Paraclete).
-Arguing to the last, Abelard passed away, and while his body was
-mouldering in the ground, his soul went arguing on in his intellectual
-descendants, the mediæval schoolmen who, in their poor way, managed
-to awaken the mind of Europe, if only to lead it by labyrinths into a
-cul-de-sac.
-
-“I wonder if Heloise was able to follow her true love’s valiant career
-without earthly pride? Or by some strange austere resolve did she deny
-herself that gentle pleasure? For Heloise belongs to the species,
-omnipotent woman, who carries out her decisions by hook or by crook
-for the benefit of self and others, never hampered by a doubt of the
-ultimate excellence of her arrangements.
-
-“Did she do well not to rob the Church of Abelard? Perhaps she builded
-better than she knew, or she may have made a sad mistake, but God
-knows, she did her best. That was eight hundred years ago, but her
-story is tragic today. As to Abelard’s, it is really very interesting.
-
-“And,” continues History, “the favorite romance of this sadly
-submissive age was ‘The Patient Griselda.’ It was an old, old tale
-when Boccaccio told it, but, thank fortune, it is dead at last, for we
-cannot now conceive of the excellence of the heroine.
-
-“A marquis, whose only love is the chase, is forced by his subjects
-to marry. He compromises on a little country girl, and requires her
-to promise ‘to study to please him and not to be uneasy at anything
-whatever he may do or say.’ (A man’s requirements, only this marquis
-wasn’t a gentleman.) To test her patience, he amuses himself by taking
-her children from her, one by one, and leading her to suppose that they
-have been killed, because his people objected to the descendants of
-a peasant. Griselda blesses her children as she delivers them to his
-servitor, saying:
-
-“‘Take them; do what my lord and thine has commanded; but, prithee,
-leave them not to be devoured by fowls or wild beasts unless that be
-his will.’
-
-“Then the marquis tells her he must annul their marriage.
-
-“She replies, ‘For what I have been I hold myself indebted to
-Providence and you. I consider it a favor lent me,’ and she
-acquiescingly returns to the house of her father, who has prudently
-saved her old garments, never supposing the marquis would ‘keep her
-long as wife.’ In good time the marquis summons her to prepare his home
-for a new wife. She affectionately complies. The new wife proves to be
-herself, the marquis being quite persuaded that her patience ‘proceeds
-from no want of understanding in her.’ Her children are restored. She
-weeps for joy, and they all live happily ever after.”
-
-Romance replies, “The chivalry in your instances is confined to
-the women, which is always pathetic. As to the actual Griselda of
-Aquitaine, whose name and story grew into the heart of an age, she
-lived just before the days of chivalry. Indeed, Shades of women like
-Griselda and Heloise may have inspired the chivalrous attitude toward
-women.
-
-“One should read Griselda’s story in Chaucer, not in shallow-hearted
-Boccaccio, even though it was the purest and most popular of his tales.
-Chaucer would make you feel her kinship with women now, who make
-sacrifices for love less open and rude but not so different from hers.
-
-“Listen, History,” continues Romance, “to Chaucer’s tale: You have
-commended bloodier deeds than Griselda’s. The marquis says to Griselda,
-when he demands the child, ‘In great lordship there is great servitude.
-I may not do as every ploughman may,’ and Griselda, like a mother,
-whose son is demanded as a sacrifice on the altar of her country, first
-consecrates him to God. She is as tender to her child as she is loyal
-to her husband, but I will say no more; no one but Chaucer should touch
-that scene.
-
-“I have always suspected that the real marquis in question intended to
-kill the child for exactly the reasons he stated, and the gentleness of
-the mother, who could not possibly protect the child, saved it. Life
-was held very loosely then. You see, History, I tell more truth than
-I am supposed to and you tell less, my idea being to appear fanciful,
-yours, to appear truthful. We are all poor sinners. However,” continues
-Romance, “a sweeter day was dawning. Out of the effort of the soldier
-to protect the pilgrim grew the Holy Wars, wherein the ideal that the
-strong should serve the weak was born, and I nursed it into chivalry.”
-
-“And a hideous and lawless state of things you brought forth,” remarked
-History; for Romance and History, like other old friends that have
-separated and come together again, cannot collate long in accord.
-
-“In some cases I taught men not to need the law’s control,” retorted
-Romance. “To make men gentle one must teach them gently, so I sent
-my troubadours through the land as trusty messengers of chivalry and
-bid them sing the new ideal into the very heart of the realm. And in
-song they contended as lustily for the point of honor as ever knight
-contended with his lance.
-
-“To these simple troubadours that love which is not physical, which
-begs to serve, not to be served, and poetry, itself, were one, and
-known by one term alone,—Love. But disputes arose regarding this term
-for an ideal new under the sun,—disinterested love in its highest and
-its fullest. Therefore, where the shades of classic refinement lingered
-latest, in fair Provence, I instituted tribunals before which my
-troubadours might plead their subtle causes in song, and styled them
-Courts of Love. My judges were the gentlest of ladies and poets bowed
-before them, saying:
-
- ‘For all my words here and every part
- I speak them all under correction
- Of you that feeling have in love’s art,
- And put it all in your discretion.’”
-
-History interrupts: “Among my humoresques, I happen to have a literal
-account of one of those old Courts of Love. It was convened by the
-Countess of Champagne; she had fifteen more women on the bench with
-her, all decked out in green and gold. Monkey-fashion, those scented
-ladies (_precieuses ridicules_) of old had the proceedings of their toy
-court solemnly recorded. André, their scribe, adds that the perfumes
-on the fair judges kept him sneezing continually while he was taking
-testimony. At that time chivalry had most absurdly exalted ‘my ladye,’
-also the ‘beautiful unseen,’ styled the ‘beautiful unknown,’ and see
-the things men were expected to do!”
-
-“Yes, and what is more, they did them,” retorted Romance, “and at the
-bidding of woman without other coercion, and the spirit of her law
-still rules.”
-
-“I am confining myself to documentary evidence,” says History tartly.
-“This Chief Justice of Love, Maria of Champagne, was the daughter of
-that Queen Eleanor of France, who would go on the Second Crusade.
-Had she only behaved herself in the East, she might have figured as
-the first New Woman. However, that was not to be. Formal action was
-brought before the Court of the Chief Justice of Love in the Province
-of Beauty by plaintiff, a servitor of love, against defendant, a Fair
-Lady—likewise a married one. Plaintiff had agreed to walk twice a week
-past defendant’s door, for which service defendant agreed to throw
-him a bunch of violets. As the weather was cold and the road muddy,
-plaintiff tired of the job and claimed in legal phraseology, as he did
-not always get his violets, that breach of contract should release him
-from further obligation.
-
-“Defendant pleads ecstasy of love and anguish of mind. She said that
-because of Danger (Court term for husband) she could not always perform
-her contract, since she frequently had to profess that she was asleep,
-although she was awake; that it was highly ungallant in defendant to
-complain of snow and mire. Love should render him invulnerable. She
-also added that the man had the best of it, for he might repeat his
-hours and orisons while he was walking up and down before her door;
-also, he had the privilege of kissing her latch as he passed, whereas
-(feminine economy) she was obliged to purchase thread to tie up his
-violets.
-
-[Illustration: _Head of Justice, from Fiore’s Group. This Old Venetian
-Figure of Justice Still Presides Over the Gallery of Early Painters at
-Venice. Technically she is in advance of the Madonnas of Her Period._]
-
-“Judgment in favor of the lady.
-
-“Among the celebrated cases recorded in this court are two every-day
-disagreements between man and woman. A gentleman complains of the
-refusal of a lady to dance with him, which rendered him ridiculous. The
-court commanded the lady to dance with him.
-
-“Action was brought by a wife against her husband for restraining her
-from wearing a hat of the newest fashion.
-
-“Judgment for the lady.
-
-“I will close,” continues History, “by citing a few of the thirty-one
-rulings of this Court of Maria of Champagne:
-
- “1. Love and economy do not agree.
- “2. Without good reason no one can be forbidden to love.
- “3. Love is not stationary. If it does not diminish,
- it will increase.
- “4. It is not loving to kiss and tell.
- “5. No man can love two women at the same time.
- “6. A woman should persist in her choice till all hope be abandoned;
- like persistence cannot be demanded from man.”
-
-“Maria de Champagne was a profound jurist, but I doubt if she was a
-truly romantic woman,” replies Romance. “Were I not too chivalrous to
-expose to your commonplace laughter the gentlest yearning of a rude
-age, their uncertain groping for a vague ideal too noble for their
-actual conception, I could a sweeter tale unfold of Courts of Love of
-old.
-
-“But if you will laugh at ideals of romantic love, laugh kindly with me
-over its merriest comedy, written by the saddest and most chivalrous
-lover of them all.
-
-“Take down your files, Dame History, and find, if you can, another
-servitor of love as chivalrous to his lady as Molière was to his wife,
-a woman belonging to other men; Molière’s patience, like Griselda’s,
-‘proceeded from no lack of understanding.’”
-
-“You have wandered far from the romance of the days of chivalry for
-your chivalrous instance,” sneers History.
-
-“I was following up the seed that chivalry sowed, the idea of the
-self-effacement of the strong in favor of the weak. But let us turn
-from the dramatist to the comedy, and by a short consideration of ‘_Les
-Precieuses Ridicules_,’ I may be able to make your point for you, ‘that
-the actual present is as romantic as the romance of the past.’
-
-“At the beginning of this play, Georgebus, a provincial gentleman, has
-made arrangements with two satisfactory persons to marry respectively
-his daughter and niece. The girls are brought to Paris, where the
-candidates for their hands and hearts appear and come to the point at
-once. It seems the girls have been reading the romances of Mlle. de
-Scudéry, who has given them the idea that a lover should fall in love
-at sight, seek out his lady, woo her, and after gallantly surmounting
-many obstacles, win her. Georgebus perceives that the men depart in
-displeasure and investigates. He has observed that the girls are aping
-the manners of the ladies of the Court, which in Molière’s time were
-very affected. Georgebus’ daughter states her platform. It is rather
-romantic, but there are lovers nowadays that might fill the bill. She
-closes by saying, ‘But to plunge headlong into a proposal of marriage,
-to make love and marriage settlements go hand in hand, is to begin
-the romance at the wrong end. Once more, father, there is nothing
-more shopkeeper-like than such proceedings.’ Georgebus is unable ‘to
-make out the meaning of her jargon,’ while his niece adds that those
-gentlemen ‘have never seen the map of the Country of Tenderness.’ She
-is also dissatisfied with their dress.
-
-“Certainly, Molière did know what young girls crave, which Georgebus
-was unable to understand.
-
-“In the meantime the disconcerted lovers have dressed their valets up
-and bidden them address the ladies in the most exaggerated fashion.
-The young girls are completely taken in, as girls often are by pseudo
-noblemen. The comedy runs high. Finally the masters appear, strip their
-valets of their finery, whip them and send them home.
-
-“The bottom falls out of everything. Georgebus cries, ‘Hide yourselves,
-you idiots, hide yourselves forever,’ and after the girls’ exit, adds,
-‘The cause of all the trouble lies in romances, verses, songs, sonnets
-and lays.’
-
-“But in the long run, romances, verses and songs have won. Twentieth
-century sentiment goes with the girls though they were fooled once in
-the days of their youth. Nowadays, my courts sit in secret session. The
-novel is their organ, but, History, your crude Courts of Love died out
-six hundred years ago.”
-
-[Illustration: _An Ideal of the Gracious Republic of Venice, Attended
-by Justice and Peace, Expressed by Paul Veronese, Sixteenth Century._]
-
-“Never have I called you into my councils that I have not been
-belittled,” observes History. “My romance is democracy not courtship
-and it commenced with the inspiration of the Greeks. My first votary
-taught that ‘it is clear not in one thing alone, but wherever you
-test it, what a good thing is equality among men.’ He adds, ‘A tyrant
-disturbs ancient laws, violates women, kills men without trial. But a
-people ruling: first, the very name of it is so beautiful—_Isonomiê_;
-and secondly, a people does none of these things.’
-
-“And this beautiful ‘equality among men’ I have followed in its ideal,
-in its fruition and alas, sometimes, in its debasement throughout the
-ages. I watched its short and glorious days in Greece, its orderly
-development in Rome, its splendid resurrection in Venice, which led the
-line of free cities of the Middle Ages that handed it down. I watched
-the American and the French Republics rise in the eighteenth century,
-the French to totter, but to rise again, the American to live to fight
-another chivalrous war for human rights; and, the justice of republics
-proven, the twentieth century built one in a day. Then the distant
-continent, that drained the bravest blood of Portugal in the sixteenth
-century, wiped out its debt with the ‘fruits of the spirit,’ the
-romantic spirit of the twentieth century.
-
-“Herodotus placed his faith in the people long ago, probably on
-more evidence than he reported in support of what to him seemed
-self-evident. Were he to come back to his native town now he would find
-his beautiful city of Halicarnassus replaced by a mean Turkish village,
-but through it are ringing the words ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’
-and the Father of History might be less surprised than men of today by
-the revolution that has suddenly established a constitution in Turkey.
-Indeed, nowhere has the very name of equality proved more beautiful.
-Since July 25, 1908, the lion and the lamb have actually lain down
-together on the once bloody fields of the Turk. Over a little Turkish
-shop two inscriptions appeared, side by side, above the three beautiful
-words: ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ and ‘The
-beginning is from God; so victory is sure.’
-
-[Illustration: _A Mediæval Expression of Justice, Attended by
-Archangels, by Fiore. Michael, the Angel of Good Counsel and Patron
-of All Souls, in Her Honor, has Added a Pair of Scales to His Usual
-Emblems. Gabriel, With His Lily and Scroll, the Angel Who Announces
-Things High and Holy, is Pointing Directly to Her._]
-
-“And if the great traveler of old were to push on westward across
-Europe, westward across the Atlantic, he might bequeath his visions
-to earth, and bidding us hope on, go back well pleased to the Courts
-of the Dead, his simple thesis proved—‘A people does none of these
-things.’”
-
-Romance aside, “In her self-satisfaction she has forgotten all about
-the Golden Age. It never was hers. It is mine, and I will recast it
-safely in the future. There will I hold Courts of Love to define
-all new ideals, my pleaders shall be poets and their words shall be
-spoken under correction of those that have feeling in the art of this
-broader love, and my good knights shall swear ‘To defy power that seems
-omnipotent, to love and bear, to hope till Hope creates from its own
-wreck the thing it contemplates.’”
-
-Thus does the romantic twentieth century realize the fruition of the
-ideals of democrats of the past.
-
-
-
-
-_A Word Regarding Bibliography_
-
-
-The original documents[6] consulted for this book have been the works
-of art of which it treats. In the case of old books, I have also
-availed myself of facsimiles, which have this advantage over originals,
-they may be freely handled. Most interesting among them are THE BOOK OF
-KELLS, notes from copy of plates, with remarks by Westwood and Digby
-Watts; and ILLUMINATED BOOKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES, by Humphrey Jones. The
-authorities on Gothic architecture, which I have accepted as final,
-are Viollet-le-Duc and Corroyer. I have drawn much of my material from
-modern technical periodicals, most useful of which have been LES ARTS,
-REVUE ARCHEOLOGIQUE, REVUE DES QUESTIONS HISTORIQUES and the AMERICAN
-HISTORICAL REVIEW. Though I have had recourse to general historians who
-treat of the Middle Ages,—Duruy, Gibbon, Guizot, Kitchin, Saint Martin,
-etc.; to guide books of accepted accuracy,—Baedeker, Guerber, Guides
-Joanne, and Dent’s Mediæval Town Series; to encyclopedias, English and
-French,—to the appended list of authorities I acknowledge especial
-indebtedness. Even when I have not borrowed statements from them I have
-been influenced by them in my interpretations of the Middle Ages:
-
- Blades, Wm., Books in Chains.
- Boulting, Wm., Torquato Tasso and His Times.
- Bruun, J. A., An Inquiry into the Arts of the Middle Ages.
- Bryce, James, Holy Roman Empire.
- Chéreul, Dictionnaire des Institutions Françaises.
- Clerval, A., Guide Chartrain (Docteur es-Lettres, Lauréat
- de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
- et Membre de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires).
- Cutts, Edward Lewes, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages.
- Dill, Samuel, Roman Society in the Last Century of the
- Western Empire.
- Fletcher (Prof. Bannister and Bannister F. Fletcher),
- History of Architecture on the Comparative Method.
- Gray, Geo. Zabriskie, The Children’s Crusade.
- Gould, Sabine Baring-, Myths of the Middle Ages.
- Hawkins, John Sidney, History of the Origin and Establishment of
- Gothic Architecture.
- Hay, John, Castilian Days.
- Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris.
- Ivo, Letters of Ivo (reprint of original documents).
- Jusserand, J. J., La Vie Nomade.
- Lacroix, Paul, Military and Religious Life in the Middle Ages.
- Lang, Andrew, Books and Bookmen.
- Lecoy-de-la Manche, Richard Albert: France under St. Louis and
- Philip le Hardi; Les Manuscripts et la Miniature;
- Le Troisième Siècle Artistique; Suger.
- Mabillon (edited by), Life of Bishop Arnold of Le Mans.
- Maitland, Samuel Roffey, The Dark Ages.
- Mandan, Books in Manuscript.
- Matthews, Story of Architecture.
- Merlet, Eugene, Bulletin Monumental, Number 67, of 1903.
- Norton, Chas. Eliot, Church Building in the Middle Ages.
- Reber, Dr. Franz von, History of Mediæval Art.
- Reinach, Salomon, Apollo.
- Rennert, Hugo Albert, Life of Lope de Vega.
- Rowbotham, J. F., Troubadours and Courts of Love.
- Stetson, F. M., William the Conqueror.
- Ticknor, Geo., History of Spanish Literature.
- Trumble, Alfred, Sword and Scimitar.
- Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Painters (Blashfield’s edition).
- Wiseman, Preface to Cardinal Wiseman’s novel, Fabiola.
-
-
-
-
-_Index_
-
-
- Abbey aux Dames, 79.
- Abbey aux Hommes, 79.
- Abelard, 121.
- Ambrose, 18.
- Amiens, viii.
- Amiens Copy, 107.
- Angelo, xii, 102.
-
- Bayeux, viii.
- Beauvais, viii.
- Bernard, Saint, 47.
- Bibliotheque Nationale, 116.
- Bologne sur Mer, viii.
- Bouillon, Godfrey de, 45.
- Bourg, viii.
- Browning, 113.
- Brunelleschi, 33.
-
- Caen, viii, 73.
- Calderon, 90.
- Carpio (see de Vega), 88.
- Cassiodorus, 105.
- Charlemagne, 106.
- Charles le Bel, 56.
- Charles the Bald, 55.
- Charles the Wise, 116.
- Chartres, viii, 51.
- Chaucer, xiii, 126.
- Cherbourg, viii.
- Cicely, 79.
- Clovis, 26, 27, 28, 52, 55.
- Cnut, 62.
- Coutances, viii.
- Corday, 97.
- Court of Love, 129.
- Crusade of Children, xv.
-
- Denis, Abbey de Saint, 38.
- Denis, Saint, 40.
- Dieppe, viii.
- Dinan, ix, 85.
- Dinard, ix.
- Dols, ix.
- Dürer, xiv.
- Durrow, 106.
-
- Ebbon, 29, 30.
- Eleanor, Queen, 129.
- Eloi, Saint, 40.
-
- Francis, xvi.
- Fulbert, 62, 121.
- Fulda, Abbot of, 107.
-
- Georgebus, 133.
- Ghiberti, 102.
- Gibbon, 55.
- Glass, 44, 69.
- Gothic, 9, 12, 43.
- Gothic, viii, 76.
- Gothic, 69.
- Gregory, 19, 22.
- Grey, Lady Jane, 111.
- Griselda, 125.
- Guibert, 64.
-
- Haimon, Abbé, 67.
- Halicarnassus, 136.
- Harold, 82.
- Heloise, 121.
- Henry of Navarre, 56.
- Herodotus, 136.
- Hildebrand, 77.
- Hugh of Rouen, 67.
-
- _Imagier_, 34, 43, 47, 69.
- Iona, 103.
- Ivo, Saint, 63, 77.
-
- Jerome, Saint, 50, 104.
-
- Keats, 72.
- Kells, Book of, 100.
-
- Lactance, 50.
- Laon, viii, 6, 121.
- Lanfranc, 74.
- Le Mans, viii, 78.
- Louis VI, 39.
- Louis VII, 39.
- Louis the Pious, 29, 30, 107.
- Louis, Saint, 10, 56, 115.
- Love, Court of, 129.
- Lowell, 72.
- Lubin, Well of Saint, 58.
-
- Maclou, Saint, viii.
- Madonna, 31, 51, 54, 70.
- Maria of Champagne, 129.
- Margaret, Saint, 108.
- Marlo, San, ix.
- Martin, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26.
- Mathilda, 63, 79.
- Mazarin, 115, 116.
- Michele, Mt. San, viii.
- Molière, 116, 132.
-
- Napoleon, 71.
- Naudé, 115.
- Norsemen, 30, 57, 59.
-
- Ouen, Saint, viii, frontispiece.
-
- Paris, viii, 5, 116.
- Parthenon, 17.
- Patiens de Lyons, 17.
- Pavia, Certosa di, 23.
- Philippe le Bel, 56.
- Portugal, 136.
- Provence, 128.
-
- Ravenna, 24.
- Remi, Saint, 26.
- Revolution, 52.
- Rheims, viii, 7, 30.
- Richard of Normandy, 60.
- Richelieu, 115.
- Rodin, 12, 53.
- Rollo, 59, 73.
- Rouen, viii.
- Rumald, 30.
- Ruskin, 12.
-
- Saint Denis, viii.
- Sebastian, Saint, 19.
- Suger, 39, 46, 47, 48.
-
- Tertullian, 50.
- Thierry, Saint, 63.
-
- Valencia, 92.
- Vega, Lope de, 88.
- Vega, Micaela de, 93.
- Viollet-le-Duc, 12.
-
- William I, 74, 81, 82.
-
-
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-
-[1] The Spaniards of Seville formally determined to build a cathedral
-upon so magnificent a scale that coming ages might proclaim them mad to
-have undertaken it.
-
-[2] As our train passed Chartres an exceedingly coarse conversation
-between drummers broke into a pæan to the beauty of the cathedral.
-
-[3] I do not make myself responsible for the statement that these
-restorations are photographically exact, but at least on the old lines
-it has been possible to erect perfect examples of Norman architecture.
-
-[4] The gentler element in Norse mythology enters into it long after
-the eleventh century and is probably a reflection from Christianity.
-
-[5] Property of Trinity College, Dublin.
-
-[6] A ‘document’ is an instrument on which is recorded, by means of
-letters, figures, or marks, matter which may be evidentially used.—F.
-WHARTON, _Law of Evidence_.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Flowers from Mediæval History, by
-Minerva Delight Kellogg
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-<pre>
-
-Project Gutenberg's Flowers from Mediæval History, by Minerva Delight Kellogg
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Flowers from Mediæval History
-
-Author: Minerva Delight Kellogg
-
-Release Date: December 22, 2019 [EBook #61001]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLOWERS FROM MEDIÆVAL HISTORY ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Paul Marshall, Turgut Dincer and the Online
-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
-file was produced from images generously made available
-by The Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter covernote">
- <img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Book Cover." width="500" height="889" />
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p class="f150"><b><i>Note</i></b></p>
-
-<div class="blockquot2">
-<p><i>The friendly eyes that read these pages, knowing the pathetic fails
-relating to their publication, will not be content without a word to
-tell to other readers the story that will cause one and all to look on
-the little book in the same sympathetic mood.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>The trips among the scenes of the storied past, here recorded, were
-taken not so much in search of health as in search of diversion from
-the sad employment of watching the inexorable approach of mortal
-disease. The writing was undertaken to occupy a vigorous mind,
-conscious that its tenement would not long endure.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Alas! the task was not done before its purpose had been fully
-completed, and to others was left the duty of reading the final proofs.
-Such imperfections as may be found should be charged to this account,
-and all the excellences are to be credited to the brave soul that
-fought her fight so silently that only a very few closest friends knew
-of the unequal battle.</i></p>
-
-<p class="author"><i>C. S. G.</i></p>
-</div>
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="nu_page">
- <div class="figcenter">
- <a name="FRONTIS" id="FRONTIS"></a>
- <img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="445" />
- <p class="center"><i>The Abbatical Church of Saint Ouen is Perhaps the Most<br />
- Perfect Example of the Gothic in its Full Maturity</i></p>
-</div></div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p>
-<h1>FLOWERS<br />FROM MEDIÆVAL<br />HISTORY</h1>
-
-<p class="f90">BY</p>
-<p class="f150">MINNIE D. KELLOGG</p>
-
-<p class="center space-above2 space-below2"><i>I never can feel<br />
-sure of any truth but from<br /> a clear perception<br />of its beauty.<br />
-Keats</i></p>
-
-<p class="center space-below3">ILLUSTRATED</p>
-<p class="center space-above3">PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY<br />
-PUBLISHERS·SAN FRANCISCO</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p>
-
-<p class="center space-below3"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1910<br />
-by Paul Elder and Company</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page"><p class="f200"><b><i>Contents</i></b></p></div>
-
-<table border="0" cellspacing="0" summary="TOC" cellpadding="0" >
- <tbody><tr>
- <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td> <td class="tdr"><small><i>Page</i></small></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Advertisement</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>By Way of Introduction</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_xi">xi</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Flowers of History from the Romantic Thirteenth Century</i>&emsp;&nbsp;</td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_3">&nbsp;3</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Mystics as Builders</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Golden Madonna of Rheims</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Little Old Abbé of Saint Denis and the Imagiers</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Mystic Cathedral of Chartres</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Caen: An Eleventh Century Tableau</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_73">73</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Grandniece of the Grand Inquisitor</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Stray Leaves from Old, Old Books</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Romantic Twentieth Century: A Deduction</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_118">118</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Word Regarding Bibliography</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Index</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td>
- </tr>
- </tbody>
-</table>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="nu_page">
-<p class="f200"><b><i>Illustrations</i></b></p>
-</div>
-
-<table border="0" cellspacing="0" summary="LOI" cellpadding="0" >
- <tbody><tr>
- <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td> <td class="tdr"><small><i>Facing Page</i></small></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Abbatical Church of Saint Ouen</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#FRONTIS">Title</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>As Art, Early Painting is Often Taken too Seriously; but as Literature, it is Charming</i></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_XIV">xiv</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Crucifix in the Town Hall of Rouen</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_004">&nbsp;4</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Virgin Greets the Angel of Death</i> </td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_008">&nbsp;8</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Sainte Chapelle</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_010">10</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Interior of Sainte Chapelle</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_012">12</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Saint Martin Dividing His Coat, from an Old Antiphone</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_020">20</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>From the Certosa of Pavia</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_022">22</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Tomb of Dante, Ravenna</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_024">24</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Recent Tribute to Clovis and Saint Remi, on the Interior Frieze of the Pantheon, Paris</i></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_026">26</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Flying Buttress</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_032">32</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Sculptured Saint Upon a Gothic Cathedral</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_034">34</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>In the Sixteenth Century the French Academy Changed the Name of the Imagiers’ Guild</i></td>
- <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><span class="ws3"><i>to the Sculptors’</i></span></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_042">42</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Thirteenth Century Window</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_044">44</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Old-Time House of Prayer, which Still Dominates the City of Chartres</i></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_052">52</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Pillar at Chartres</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_054">54</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A View Through the Portail of Chartres</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_056">56</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Detail of the Portail Septentrionale</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_060">60</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>South Portal of Chartres</i></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_064">64</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Page from the Sculptured “Bible of the Laity,” Chartres</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_068">68</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Altar-piece at Chartres</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_070">70</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>William the Conqueror’s Old Fortress</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_074">74</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Dinan</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_084">84</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Old Moats Do Make Such Charming Gardens</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_086">86</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Peep Into the Cranium of a Bible Reader in Lope de Vega’s Time</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_088">88</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Literal, Limited God of a Fanatic and Father Adam Stock-taking in Eden</i></td>
- <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_092">92</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Tribute to the Scribes of the Dark Ages</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_100">100</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>The Baptistry Doors</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_102">102</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Page from the Bible of Jean Sans Peur</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_110">110</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>Head of Justice, from Fiore’s Group</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_130">130</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>An Ideal of the Gracious Republic of Venice, Paul Veronese</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_134">134</a></td>
- </tr><tr>
- <td class="tdl"><i>A Mediæval Expression of Justice Attended by Archangels, by Fiore</i></td> <td class="tdr"><a href="#I_136">136</a></td>
- </tr>
- </tbody>
-</table>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page"><h2><i>Advertisement</i></h2></div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/italic_t.jpg" width="50" height="30" alt="T" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent space-below1"><i>These accounts all relate to places and objects
-that the uncommercial traveler may casually run upon at some turn of his way.
-Subjects mentioned in Baedeker have been considered here reflectively
-rather than descriptively. Although I do not propose to analyze the
-soil in which these flowers of history have sprung up, nor to speak of
-the rank weeds growing by their sides, I have tried not to blight these
-blossoms with falsehood. Certainly one-half of the truth is as true as
-the other and it may be infinitely pleasanter. As far as they go, these
-little historiettes are based upon evidence and authority.</i></p>
-
-<p class="blockquot1"><i>I want to teach you so much history that your
-sympathy may grow continually wider and you may be able to realize past
-generations of men just as you do the present, sorrowing for them when
-they failed, triumphing with them when they prevailed; for I find this
-one conviction never changing with me but always increasingy that one
-cannot live a life manfully without a wide world of sympathy and love
-to exercise it in.</i></p>
-
-<p class="author">—<i>Burne-Jones to His Son.</i><span class="ws4">&nbsp;</span></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>
-<i>Suggested itineraries for cathedral trips in Normandy, giving
-monuments of the first order only, places readily reached by rail</i>:</p>
-
-<p><i>First. Land at Bologne sur Mer, Amiens, Laon, Rheims, Paris, Saint
-Denis, Chartres, Caen, Bayeux, Mt. San Michele, embark from Cherbourg.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Second. Land from England at Dieppe, or from America at Havre, proceed
-to Rouen, which possesses the most perfect example of later Gothic
-in the great abbatical Church of Saint Ouen; an excellent example of
-flamboyant Gothic in Saint Maclou; and a large, irregular but imposing
-Gothic cathedral on the order of Rheims; thence to Mt. San Michele,
-most unique of mediæval monuments; thence to Caen and Bayeux near by
-it, Chartres and Paris. Amiens and Rheims being very similar, and on
-the order of Chartres and Notre Dame of Paris, are not included in this
-itinerary. The traveler to whom time is money will be greatly tried
-by the connections made and lost by the trains in Normandy that stop
-at small places. Both these itineraries respect the idiosyncrasies of
-French railroads.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>The motorist, rejoicing in the excellent Norman roads, can combine
-these itineraries very easily—taking in the cathedrals of Le Mans,</i>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span>
-<i>Bourg, Beauvais and Coutances. I would especially call his attention
-to the small but interesting Early Norman church at Dols, and to the
-walled town of San Malo on the sea, with picturesque little Dinan,
-fashionable Dinard, and a dirty little fishing village near by.</i></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p>
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page"><h2><i>By Way of Introduction</i></h2></div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/italic_m.jpg" width="50" height="27" alt="M" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent"><i>Modern invention has actually reflected
-upon ancient history: the railroad, the steam derrick and the
-photograph have changed our conceptions of the past. Written history
-is now accepted as its author’s opinion, while tangible records stand
-forth as facts.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>This attitude brings the Middle Ages particularly near to us, for
-though its people wrote comparatively little, they were wonderful
-builders: their art was more literally expressive than the classic;
-then, too, of course, it is better preserved.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>While the Greeks and Romans were our schoolmasters, the Europeans of
-the Middle Ages are our ancestors. Their experience foreshadows our
-own; for however far removed from us in thought and action they may
-have been, they were akin to us in feeling.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Though the rude pioneers of Christianity were often intensely cruel,
-as you follow their history, you may meet with some gentle deed
-springing from the good seed, even when sown in stony places, with some</i>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>
-<i>action in its sweetness and humility entirely beyond the pagan world.
-In their childish story one may trace the early workings of the
-Christian ideal. It did not control behavior, nor did it always direct
-it wisely; morality, being judicial and scientific, implies a certain
-maturity of mind. Religion is simple; it is unlogical, sentimental and
-impulsive. Whatever this indefinable instinct may be, it has manifested
-itself as a spiritualizing force in morality and an initiative force in
-art.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Religion has in it a craving for a loveliness beyond all literal
-perception of the senses; a philosophic mind projects this ideal in
-contemplation; an artistic mind, in symbol; for, as Michael Angelo
-explains, “Rash is the thought and vain that maketh beauty from the
-senses grow.”</i></p>
-
-<p><i>The Greeks did develop an art from the motif of physical beauty,
-however, but their statues, executed before art became mature enough to
-produce that beauty, have no message, while one often catches something
-high and holy from a very early Christian image. It may radiate from
-a pretty smile on the face of a crude Madonna, or a graceful upturned
-head, in a figure entirely destitute of anatomy, which looks as though
-the simple craftsman had called upon a higher power than knowledge.</i>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p>
-
-<p><i>Spiritual beauty being the ideal in Christian art, the image, however
-rude, which suggests it, makes its appeal in the charmed language of
-that loving religion.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Mediæval archives have been ransacked by Protestants for the errors
-of Catholicism; by political economists, who even penetrate to the
-Dark Ages in search of the chilly lessons of the dismal science, for
-wisdom; and between them what a conception we have! But it is not the
-whole story, for Chaucer assures us the Moyen Age was a fairly livable
-period, peopled by beings like ourselves; moreover, it was an artistic
-age which has left us not only a wonderful architecture but two supreme
-poets.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Perhaps the fairest chroniclers of such a period are its own artists,
-great and small, for history has grown too democratic to confine
-herself to kings, however worthy. She does not find the crude carver
-voiceless who, in default of skill, surrounds his Madonna with gold
-and loads her with rude jewels; indeed, she often finds her sweetest
-flowers growing between the lines of an unskilful brush or chisel.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Although as painting, mediæval efforts are often <a href="#I_XIV">taken too seriously</a>,
-as literature they are charming, for they speak of the good and the</i>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>
-<i>beautiful as their Age conceived it. While the written stories of
-the time were shallow and coarse beyond our endurance, its painters
-were giving us their accounts of this life and the next (particularly
-the next). First come bright, pretty colors prettily placed, pretty
-thoughts of happy angels. Then gold backgrounds give way to skies, and
-shadows creep onto the canvas. Then they begin to tell stories; so
-eager they are that they cram four or five pictures into one, dotting
-the little scenes, by way of parenthesis, into the backgrounds.</i></p>
-
-<p class="space-below2"><i>These pictures give the other half of
-the truth, the tenderer side of the old life and theology. What
-sympathetic Bible scholars some of the artists became! And, in general,
-the greatest were the tenderest. Albrecht Dürer’s Evangelists are
-interesting character studies for all time. He conceives of Saint
-Mark as a plain, simple enthusiast; of Saint Paul, as a broad-minded,
-thoughtful man whom he even imagines to be bald. He does not try to
-make either of them exactly handsome but the way Mark looks up to Paul
-is most winning. A little later Andrea del Sarto paints a splendid
-account of the warring doctors of the Church, which shows clearly he
-saw beyond them: but this takes us into the Renaissance which has been
-defined as a marriage of the Grecian and the Gothic.</i></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_XIV" id="I_XIV"></a>
- <img src="images/i_xiv.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="517" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>As Art, Early Painting is<br />Often Taken
- too Seriously; but as Literature,<br />it is Charming.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span>
-<i>A strict analysis has come into art and it is creeping into life,—our
-race childhood is drawing to a close but not without leaving us many
-things that are sweet to remember.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>We tell our children some of the very same stories that the wandering
-story-tellers used to relate to good knights and their fair ladies in
-the old baronial halls,—Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, or Puss in
-Boots,—only the knights and their ladies believed them. There is a
-pathos in mediæval story; it is a tragedy of misdirected effort (as
-perhaps all history is), only the mediæval tragedy strikes home. Its
-actors were people of our own blood and of our own Church—our own
-people only under delusions from which we have emancipated ourselves.
-To understand their story we must take them as children and listen with
-them for the imaginary voices that lead them on.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>A veritable allegory of the Age of Faith was presented on the great
-stage of history in 1212, when two enormous armies of little boys and
-girls started from France and Germany singing, to march to the Holy
-Land; if any of these children turned back, none of them seem to have
-found their old homes.</i>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span></p>
-
-<p><i>As far as is known to history, one child alone returned as an aged
-pilgrim, to tell the tale,—how the bones of the children strewed the
-mountainside; how they had been embarked on unseaworthy vessels to be
-sold into slavery; how few, how very few, ever reached their goal; how
-few, how very few, ever remained pure and holy.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Connected with this tragedy was a horrible pope and a horrible doge,
-but now they seem but foils to the purity of the children, it was all
-so long ago. And that the mystic beauty of that little legion may live
-lyrically in our life, the Twentieth Century has set their pathetic
-march to music in stately oratorio; for pure aspiration is the melody
-of melodies, the veritable flower of history.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>A certain childish disinterestedness was the tender grace of the Age
-of Faith,—“the tender grace of a day that is dead.” It must pass from
-a broader age; taking all factors duly into account even drives it from
-serious history its proportion is so inconsiderable.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>The life of Saint Francis, who espoused My Lady Poverty, is one of
-the sweetest examples of mediæval disinterestedness. Viewed literally,
-the accounts picture a crazy man preaching to birds and fishes, making
-a bargain with a wolf and injudiciously mortifying his flesh till he</i>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span>
-<i>became blind and useless. Viewed by the light of their influence his
-teachings were revolutionary,—they brought new-found energy and
-sympathy into the Church; yet, at best, they were only the teachings of
-Christ, without the Savior’s beautiful sanity. Viewed by the results he
-brought about, Saint Francis must have been one of the profoundest of
-men, and yet his wisdom, if he had any, was only that of the heart.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>Sabatier has written a life of Francis, at once scholarly, judicious
-and vivid, but as the Franciscan Father remarked, he wrote the life of
-Mr. Francis. If you would learn of Saint Francis of blessed memory, you
-must study by yourself with loving diligence a childish old book which
-tells of the miracles wrought through the tail of Saint Francis—“The
-Little Flowers of Saint Francis.” The fruits of history others may put
-before us, but the passing fragrance of the flowers we must perceive
-for ourselves.</i></p>
-
-<p><i>I here submit for your interpretation certain incidents that seem to
-me the outgrowth of the fine feeling of the impulsive Moyen Age.</i>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p class="f200"><b>FLOWERS<br />FROM MEDIÆVAL<br /> HISTORY</b></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>Flowers of History<br />From the Romantic Thirteenth<br />Century</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_i.jpg" width="30" height="43" alt="I" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent">
-I &nbsp;have borrowed my title from a Thirteenth Century chronicle, of
-disputed authorship, purporting to be a history of the world, but from
-447 <span class="smcap">a. d.</span> on it is engrossed with the story of England.
-From this insular partiality of its author I should be inclined to award the
-work to the English claimant, for what is a flower of history but a
-phase of the human story which especially charms the writer.</p>
-
-<p>To me the Gothic cathedrals are the flowers of Thirteenth Century
-history, which era saw every one of the greatest of them building.
-Their cornerstones may have been laid earlier, and the finishing
-touches came much later, but they owe their character to that one
-wonderful century which stands apart through the ages, thus telling its
-beads.</p>
-
-<p>The written history of the Thirteenth Century is cruel reading, but an
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
-age, like a man, has two soul sides, and the better side is always
-the harder to fathom. The Thirteenth Century opened for France, the
-native land of the Gothic, with an abominable pope, a selfish king and,
-nearer at hand, the evil of various tyrannical seigneurs. The great
-social movement which endowed the French towns with their magnificent
-cathedrals was apart from those powers and hardly affected by their war
-or peace.</p>
-
-<p>These great edifices were built by the secular clergy and the
-townspeople for municipal, as well as religious, purposes. Therein
-they held councils for deliverance from their feudal lords, lay and
-ecclesiastic, for in the Thirteenth Century the Third Estate became a
-political power.</p>
-
-<p>The cathedrals express the patriotism, generosity and civic pride of
-the freemen of the old towns; they realize the dream of the socialist
-for the good and the beautiful held in common; the love of the poet
-for beauty for its own sweet self; and the inspiration of the artist,
-working at the white heat of a rising art, as surely as the reverence
-of the age of faith.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_004" id="I_004"></a>
- <img src="images/i_004.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="631" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>The Crucifix, the Eternal Warning,<br />Built
- into the Very Walls of the Old Courtroom<br />in the Town Hall of Rouen.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
-In the Low Countries they built city halls at an early date, but the
-French towns did not need them, for there the cathedrals lent pomp and
-circumstance to all municipal assemblages. The first States General was
-held in Notre Dame of Paris.</p>
-
-<p>The early Church had endeared itself to the people in many ways.
-It entertained the traveler, and it was well that it did, for the
-public houses were of a very low order; it instructed the children;
-it ministered to the sick, and, if it was a crazy physician, it was a
-gentle nurse. The modern hospital, the fairest monument of humanity,
-is directly descended from the old Hotels-Dieu, where monks and nuns
-tended the sick. In the cathedral sat the Bishops’ Courts which, the
-people felt, were more just than the seigneurs. From these old Bishops’
-Courts the beautiful French custom has descended of hanging a <a href="#I_004">crucifix</a>
-back of the judge’s seat in the courts of common law where the symbol,
-recalling a politic judge washing his hands of the blood of a just man,
-seems more than a human warning.</p>
-
-<p>Within the consecrated walls of the church was that ever-blessed
-privilege of the temple—Christian, Pagan, or Jewish—sanctuary, the
-right of the hunted. Of course it was abused, mercy expects to be;
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
-therein it is more divine than human; but in a lawless day sanctuary
-was an unconscious protest against lynching. We do read of accidents
-arising from it; a Christian Church at Seez was burned down in
-an attempt to dislodge a band of thieves, but this embarrassing
-circumstance reflects on the management of those who burned it rather
-than upon the church.</p>
-
-<p>A complaint comes down to us from the Thirteenth Century of the
-would-be popular clergy who allowed their parishioners to dance in
-their churches and even assisted at these dances and at shows <i>peu
-convenable</i> given by jugglers and clowns, they themselves playing at
-chess, all of which goes to show that we must regard these immense
-churches as meeting houses in the literal sense of the term and allow
-for the coarseness of the age in considering its amusements. Among
-other buffooneries, at Laon particularly, which seems to have been very
-“low church,” we read of the annual <i>fête des innocents</i>, in which the
-choir boys dressed up as priests and went through various antics in the
-church, which was given up to them for the night, the chapter giving
-them a supper after. At Laon again there is public complaint of a change
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
-having been made in the hour of mass and vespers on account of a
-miracle play that was given in the church. Lovers of the drama may
-look leniently upon this arrangement, whereas I suppose the stricter
-churchmen, when the ecclesiastical supremacy came to be questioned,
-even in the bishop’s own church, both at Rheims and Laon, said, “I told
-you so.” By such concessions the clergy induced the citizens to go in
-with them in building<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
-such churches that succeeding generations have called them mad.</p>
-
-<p>Though the evolution of the Gothic is one of the most interesting
-chapters in the history of architecture, the history of the builders
-themselves, if we could only have it, might be still more fascinating.
-Indeed,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">“Who builds a church to God and not to fame,</span>
-<span class="i1">Will never mark the marble with his name.”</span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p class="no-indent">Hence we do not know who designed some of the
-noblest monuments of Gothic architecture, but we do catch charming
-psychological glimpses as <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8"
-id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> we watch the mystical and the practical
-unconsciously working together for the beautiful in these old
-cathedrals, which make us wonder how such spiritual designs arose and
-how the artists who conceived them were able to carry them out. How
-could an age when kings could hardly read and write, when artists
-drew like children, evolve such works of art? How could an age so
-ignorant of physics and the abstract principles of mechanics erect such
-buildings?</p>
-
-<p>Some hazy legends, fairy tales even, with their grain of truth (that
-truth which one troweth but cannot prove), and a few scant records,
-scattered among the archives of such old churches as have escaped the
-accidents of war and of peace, are really all that is left us with
-which to picture a beautiful phase of thought and feeling which lured a
-childish people onward toward art, organization and nationality.</p>
-
-<p>From the old archives of Chartres, which was built so slowly, from
-the old records of Saint Denis, which was built so quickly, between
-the lines of the naïve old letters of tactful old bishops who coaxed
-nobles and workmen alike, as much as they coerced them, thereby raising
-fabulous sums paid in labor or in gold with which to build such temples
-that succeeding generations have thought them inspired, we may pick
-up a few fragments of the untold story of these exquisitely poetic
-Builders who taught architecture to speak a universal language.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_008" id="I_008"></a>
- <img src="images/i_008.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="598" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>The Middle Ages Dealt Much<br />in Allegory.
- The Virgin Greets the Angel<br />of Death.—A Sermon in Marble.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
-Saint Denis, which immediately antedated the great Gothic churches
-of Northern France, is a stately mansion with a steeple at its side,
-but the Gothic cathedrals are Christian temples every inch; their
-design itself is consecrate. Their lines and harmonies however varied,
-however bizarre, always resolve at last into some ideal of reverence,
-while their solemn beauty speaks a various language. From crypt to
-steeple the Gothic church is a Christian metaphor. Its ground plan is
-the Cross, while the huge cathedral with all its worshipers is but a
-standard bearer for loftier crosses borne upon its towers and spires.</p>
-
-<p>From the bulwarks of their massive foundations, laid in the Dark Ages,
-these old churches deliberately grew more ornate, carrying with them
-countless generations of architects growing steadily in pride and skill
-until it only required a burst of popular enthusiasm to bring forth the
-artistic revolution of the Thirteenth Century. Again (but not in wrath)
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
-the old churches were demolished simply because they were no longer the
-noblest possible treasure houses for their precious relics. Then it was
-that the gentle, mystical, French monarch, who maintained his court so
-simply, purchased “The Crown of Thorns” from the mercenary Venetians,
-into whose hands it had fallen through a chattel mortgage given by
-those who had acquired it as a spoil of war.</p>
-
-<p>Never were the rites of the church so descriptive, so picturesque, so
-splendid, as in the Thirteenth Century. Barefooted and in penitential
-garb, but followed by a band of light, a great procession of
-worshipers, each carrying a candle, the king and his brother met the
-supreme relic and bore it tenderly onward to the Royal Chapel in Paris
-and all the cities, towns and hamlets through which they passed were
-reverently illuminated.</p>
-
-<p>Then Saint Louis entreated the great architects of his realm, whose
-genius was already proven, to strive to design a reliquary even worthy
-of the Crown of Thorns, and in five years the beautiful Sainte Chapelle
-arose: like other poetry this lovely chapel was born of a passionate
-yearning.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_010" id="I_010"></a>
- <img src="images/i_010.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="666" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Sainte Chapelle,<br />which Sprang from
- the Crown of<br />Thorns.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
-If the cathedrals are epics of architecture, the Sainte Chapelle is a
-sonnet, a masterpiece of single-minded expression, the purity of whose
-design established a standard. No cathedral could be finished on its
-original plan; it was necessarily too long in building; but the model
-which was to harmonize the labors of successive builders may be sought
-in the little Sainte Chapelle of Paris which sprang from the Crown of
-Thorns.</p>
-
-<p>As every great work of art mirrors a human heart, reflecting that of
-which its author took no note as clearly as that which stirred his
-conscious being, so the Sainte Chapelle reflects Saint Louis and Saint
-Louis reflects the Age of Faith. He was its poet who wrote in deeds.</p>
-
-<p>It is not strange that Louis IX was canonized for he was in perfect
-accord with the ideals of his age, asceticism, chivalry, humility and
-regality; and too, he was a great builder.</p>
-
-<p>Saint Louis built the <a href="#I_010">Sainte Chapelle</a> to hold that which
-did not physically exist; but as with the pen of a recording angel, on this
-tablet of stone he wrote a message from the better self of his age to
-all humanity.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>
-Though history repeats, the history of the Gothic is as unique as that
-architecture itself; when otherwise men were trammeled body and soul
-its builders were free to create, to vary or to destroy.</p>
-
-<p>In the nineteenth century, when travel became general (“he who runs
-may read”), certain gentle readers like Corroyer, Hugo, Rodin, Ruskin,
-and most accurate of all, Viollet-le-Duc, interpreted this marvelous
-architecture of the Moyen Age to the multitude.</p>
-
-<p>“They builded better than they knew; they wrought in sad sincerity,”
-vaguely exclaimed the philosopher.</p>
-
-<p>“They built as well as they knew; they built in glad sincerity,”
-observed the architect.</p>
-
-<p>Rodin reminds us that it is a mistake to imagine that the religious
-conceptions of that day were able to bring forth architectural
-masterpieces any more than that the religious conceptions of today are
-responsible for the defects in modern structures.</p>
-
-<p>The Gothic cathedrals are epics of labor. They grew up under the hands
-of many designers and builders, who were learning as they worked.
-Democracy echoes through these noble buildings into which were wrought
-the hope, the promise and the enthusiasm of a rising people.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_012" id="I_012"></a>
- <img src="images/i_012.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="598" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Interior of Saint Chapelle.<br />“Much more than the ogive,
- the grotto, the cavern,<br />the window, is the essential of Gothic<br />
- architecture.”—August Rodin.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
-To the inartistic eighteenth century, whose mission was to fight
-tyranny, political and religious, these ornate structures seemed the
-meaningless labor of a downtrodden people. I doubt if logicians like
-Voltaire and Gibbon realized the elevating joy of passionate giving
-that came to some of the poorest donors. Think of a guild of pastry
-cooks presenting a magnificent window to the Church, their Mother! No
-less a building than the Cathedral of Chartres!</p>
-
-<p>Never were the lovely things of the Age of Faith more beloved than in
-the present Age of Doubt. We are trying to restore the noblest of the
-old cathedrals, stone for stone, and to lure back the sweetest prayers
-and truest penance confided to their walls to spiritualize their
-resurrection.</p>
-
-<p>Never were the maiden efforts of Christian art more tenderly approached
-than in the technical twentieth century, when they are studied alike by
-Catholic, Protestant and Jew. The old theology has been very severely
-picked over, but underneath its mouldy leaves, like trailing arbutus in
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
-the spring, the “Little Flowers of St. Francis” peep up. The nineteenth
-century concerned itself with the errors of the Mediæval Church, but
-the twentieth especially reads the gentler side related by the artists,
-and sometimes we catch hallowed messages from the pure in heart who
-have almost seen God.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>Mystics as Builders</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_w.jpg" width="35" height="35" alt="W" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent">
-We order the temples still standing destroyed that in their exact place
-may be raised the sign of the Christian religion. Decree of Valentinian III.</p>
-
-<p>In the tribunal of history the Christian iconoclasts have been dealt
-with somewhat in the manner of defendants in damage suits. If a cow
-is killed by a railroad, is it not naturally assumed to have been a
-Durham? If a statue was destroyed by a fanatic why not put in a claim
-for a Phidias? As a matter of fact, by the time the early Christians
-came into power the art of the day of Pericles had been copied for over
-seven hundred years. Of art, what worse could be said!</p>
-
-<p>Grecian art neither rose nor fell in a generation nor was it childless;
-original, though minor schools, Hellenic to the core, sprang up in
-the Grecian colonies and to the end the art and artists of Rome were
-Greeks. But during the later Roman Empire the degenerate Grecian artist
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
-commissioned by the degenerate Roman patron was simply cumbering the
-earth. Oh, yes, in those luxurious days they patronized art as rich men
-should, as rich men do. The houses of Herculaneum and Pompeii teemed
-with articles of virtu. It was not statues the world of art needed, it
-was ideals.</p>
-
-<p>In art, it is the individual point of view that counts even if it be
-only that of the destroyer. Since art reflects life and life means
-change, the iconoclast has his place. A race, or more often the meeting
-of two races, may develop a school of art; it reaches its perfection
-in the work of a few genii of its golden age; to them it is given to
-embody the highest and best that was in the myriad of artists who have
-taught them and their teachers. Spellbound by its own perfection,
-this art can move no farther. The multitude seek to preserve it, for
-its value has been interpreted to them in quotations of the exchange.
-Artists are satisfied to copy it, and thereby artists they gradually
-cease to be. The destroyer comes,—fire, fanatic, whirlwind, victor or
-worm—the bulk and body of that art perishes, but the ideal, being a
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
-fruit of the spirit, lives. The final ruling of Grecian architecture
-is still proclaimed from the Parthenon, while headless and armless
-the lone “Winged Victory” might immortalize the action of Grecian
-sculpture, the poetry of Grecian thought.</p>
-
-<p>Since architecture is the most national of the arts, its movements
-are the easiest to trace. Sometimes we actually detect the designer
-following in the footsteps of the iconoclast. Indeed, the most
-successful patron architecture has known, the Catholic Church,
-commenced as a destroyer.</p>
-
-<p>In the south of France ecclesiastical architecture remained essentially
-classic until the Renaissance. This was largely due to one great sixth
-century bishop, Patiens de Lyons, who repaired the old temples and
-rebuilt anew on their lines so successfully that the people proudly
-said they could not tell the new from the old; but in the north of
-Gaul, where Martin of Tours and his followers had made a clean sweep of
-the pagan temples and their old influence, architectural and spiritual,
-an absolutely new style of church building developed. It is there that
-to this day we turn for the purest Gothic.</p>
-
-<p>Of this Martin we have some little history, hazy though it be. He was a
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
-rude barbarian of the Roman legion, under the Emperor Julian, who
-embraced Christianity and brought the glad tidings to Tours. With a
-soldier’s idea of conquest he demolished the temples of false gods,
-like other superstitious converts; but he contended that to make the
-victory complete, at least an altar to the true God should mark the
-very spot; and he is credited with six religious foundations, one
-having been a church for the laity in the town of Tours. The present
-age might canonize Martin for a deed overlooked by his most ardent,
-early eulogists. He and Saint Ambrose protested against the “new
-heresy” of two Spanish bishops who put a gnostic to death for his
-heretical opinions.</p>
-
-<p>Hagiology, however, abounds in records of Saint Martin, for he became
-the best beloved saint of old Gaul.</p>
-
-<p>It is natural that those who read the Roman Catholic breviary literally
-should doubt it somewhat. They fail to realize that the history of a
-saint lies entirely between the lines of the account. The sacred lesson
-taught by this life reëchoes in his antiphones, responses, versicles
-and lessons, until he stands before his followers as a type of certain
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>
-virtues. Thus Saint Sebastian stands for Christian courage; though
-his body is pierced with arrows and his hands are tied, he is always
-represented looking bravely up to Heaven: torture is immaterial to him:
-he is sustained by faith. Saint Gregory, gentlest of pastors, greatest
-of popes, is represented with the emblem of the Holy Ghost, the dove,
-perched upon his shoulder; Saint Jerome, who translated the Scriptures,
-with the Book in his hand; he generally has an angel near-by him.</p>
-
-<p>Two little pictures stand out in Saint Martin’s iconography. In one,
-<a href="#I_020">Saint Martin cuts his cloak in half</a> with his sword
-to divide it with a beggar and beholds the Savior abundantly clad
-in half of it; and in the other, Saint Martin evokes the spectre of
-a pretended martyr worshiped in Tours, who comes to life and admits
-that he was hanged for crime, wherefore Saint Martin demolishes his shrine.</p>
-
-<p>To the early Church the relic was everything. Of course it should be
-pure and holy. In it there was inspiration. Above the grave of some
-dear saint or, perhaps, only to his memory, a shrine would arise, and
-from these shrines, like flowers from seed, churches grew. A crypt
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
-might be made to hold some hallowed dust, where services might be
-held. This was reminiscent of the Roman catacombs where the first
-Christians, believing literally in the resurrection of the body, had
-laid their dead, and where, unseen by the unsympathetic world, they
-had met for holy communion. The crypts of the early Church were the
-mortal resting-places of friendly immortals at the great court above
-who, in their robes of light, might plead acceptably for those who
-would so reverently approach the heavenly throne through spirits purer
-than their own. Of course, these pleaders must be very pure to turn
-their shrines to altars. What spiritual value had a pretty, paltry tomb
-honoring an unholy spirit?</p>
-
-<p>Roman civilization was materialistic, but not so this new religion
-of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, if things holy could pervade and hallow a
-building, why should not things unholy defile it?</p>
-
-<p>We may trace this idea carried out so literally, so picturesquely, so
-almost logically in the legends of Martin of Tours, that we actually
-sympathize with the destructive old bishop. Blindly defending the
-dream that was in him, he actually stands first in that long line of
-ecclesiastical builders who, in the fulness of time, jointly brought
-forth Gothic architecture.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_020" id="I_020"></a>
- <img src="images/i_020.jpg" alt=" " width="500" height="637" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Saint Martin Dividing His Coat,<br />
- from an Old Antiphone.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
-When Saint Martin put his rude followers to work building houses for
-their new faith he must have established a certain amount of unity and
-order among them. Could there have been a better way to attach his
-crude converts to their Church than to induce them to work upon it?</p>
-
-<p>While Saint Martin was building at Tours, the Dark Ages were setting
-in, when men of action became marauders, preying upon others; men of
-thought became monks, praying for themselves; humanity went backwards,
-and history ceased from very shame. But through it all there were a few
-perplexed old bishops who, whatever their failings may have been, tried
-to do something for their fellows. However, in that lawless day, they
-had to defend rather than expand Christianity, and even protect its
-churches, for pagans, too, might be honest iconoclasts!</p>
-
-<p>The best thing the Dark Ages did for civilization was to learn the
-builders’ trade and teach it to a great many people. It was a general
-service, for to make a people industrious is, sooner or later, to make
-them skilful and law-abiding.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
-It is curious that Saint Martin who, even while he was a bishop, lodged
-in a hut covered with boughs, should head the great line of builders
-who jointly and severally developed French Gothic. In standing for the
-integrity of the relic, which was literally the seed of early Christian
-art, Saint Martin gave a new and a higher impetus to life, and with
-it, very indirectly, to art. Seventy years after Martin’s death, to
-his blessed memory Saint Perpetuas built “the most beautiful church in
-existence,” at least so Gregory of Tours affirms. We will not inquire
-on what lines, for this was at the beginning of the Dark Ages, when
-nothing beautiful was made.</p>
-
-<p>A supreme recognition of the bold old iconoclast comes to us from
-devotees of the classic; from certain artists and connoisseurs of the
-Renaissance. This unexpected tribute to iconoclasm is published upon
-a monument far removed from old Gaul in time and place, in ideal and
-execution.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_022" id="I_022"></a>
- <img src="images/i_022.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="655" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>From the Certosa of Pavia.<br />
- One of the Most Elaborate Monuments<br />of Catholicism.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
-In a monastery dowered with the gold of two reigning dynasties of
-tyrants, dowered by the genius of two reigning dynasties of painters
-and sculptors, amid surroundings perhaps the richest in the world,
-where fifty monks might dream away their lives in silence, in that
-lordly and exclusive playhouse for the soul of the Renaissance, wherein
-the exuberance of the Gothic takes on the maturity of the Renaissance
-in an elaboration which for once does not cloy,—in the <a href="#I_022">Certosa
-di Pavia</a> we find a tribute to crude, old Saint Martin, the iconoclast.</p>
-
-<p>On a mural of one of the side chapels of this Certosa behold him
-represented in the garb of a fifteenth century monk, with his
-sanctity emphasized by a large, glittering nimbus, to which the
-aerial perspective of the otherwise maturely realistic painting is
-deliberately sacrificed, calmly superintending a gilded youth of the
-Renaissance while he smashes a fine Grecian statue! How did this rude
-act find endorsement in a temple of art? How did the coarsest of the
-saints win a place in the heart of the Renaissance? Was it because
-in him they saw a reflection of the subtlest honesty of Art, that
-god of the Renaissance? Was it because, above all else, Saint Martin
-especially stood for the integrity of the ideal?</p>
-
-<p>Though this little scene on the chapel wall may have been simply
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
-historic in its import, nothing is plainer than that the picture is
-intended to honor an uncompromising bishop of the early Church.</p>
-
-<p>Through the confusion that disintegrated empire, Saint Martin
-was a rude standard-bearer of two ideals broad enough to rebuild
-nations—Sincerity and Brotherhood. “First he wrought and after that
-he taught”—and first the spirit of his teaching was put into rude
-pictures, because in Gaul so few people could read and still fewer
-could condense an idea into forceful words.</p>
-
-<p>It was long, long after an angel had appeared and carried Saint
-Martin’s soul in the form of a child straight to God, as a gentle old
-writer attests, that a modern geologist voiced the fundamental idea of
-the best beloved saint of old Gaul, “An honest god is the noblest work
-of man.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_024" id="I_024"></a>
- <img src="images/i_024.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="581" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>The Last Resting Place of<br />the Great Poet
- of Mediævalism—Tomb<br />of Dante, Ravenna.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
-But the past, as well as the present, has its peculiar eloquence
-wherewith to honor the dead. Over one of the oldest Christian altars
-spared to us by time, in solemn, enduring mosaic, big and simple,
-stands Saint Martin leading a line of saints to Christ. And this great
-hieratic on the wall of an old church of old Ravenna describes, as
-no language of the present may, an early builder of the great mystic
-Church which “rests upon the brawny trunks of heroes ... whose spans
-and arches are the joined hands of comrades ... and whose heights and
-spaces are inscribed by the numberless musings of all the dreamers of
-the world.”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>The Golden Madonna<br />of Rheims</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_l.jpg" width="25" height="39" alt="L" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap neg-indent">
-Late in the fifth century, while the confusion of the Dark Ages
-reigned supreme, the Christian bishop of the Remi was at work on the
-discouraging task of rebuilding his church after pagan depredations at
-Rheims, when the great joy was vouchsafed to him of baptizing Clovis,
-the ruler of the largest Teutonic State of the age.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_026" id="I_026"></a>
- <img src="images/i_026.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="468" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Recent Tribute to Clovis and Saint Remi on the<br />
- Interior Frieze of the Pantheon, Paris.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
-Saint Remi recommended Clovis to adore that which he had burned and to
-burn that which he had adored, that the work of judicious destruction
-might continue. Clovis sent offerings to all the sanctuaries,
-particularly to that of the old soldier Saint Martin. Three thousand
-Franks were baptized; Clovis exchanged the three toads on his shield
-for the fleur-de-lis, and France became Christian <i>toute de suite</i>.
-Then Saint Remi dreamt of great things yet to come: of a king and a
-people governed by the Church of Christ, temporally and spiritually.
-And he interpreted this dream to the people by a charming symbol: he
-explained how the Holy Ghost, the Heavenly Dove, had brought from
-above some spiritual oil with which to anoint <a href="#I_026">Clovis at his
-baptism</a>. But to make the idea clear to these many men of childish minds and
-many <i>patois</i>, he showed them a little ampulla filled with oil, which,
-he explained, “the Dove” had brought to him from Heaven to grace the
-baptism of their chief. And they decided to keep the oil that was left
-in the ampulla for great occasions, like coronations. This wonderful
-ointment united the Crown and the Church as long as it lasted. During
-the Revolution a sansculotte shattered the old vessel. Orthodoxy
-claimed to have caught one drop and encased it in a beautiful new
-vase; it was used again, but its efficacy was no more. And not long
-thereafter the French people decided to do without coronations, or
-monasteries, but they still love Clovis and Saint Remi.</p>
-
-<p>Civilization is much indebted to the early bishops and a goodly number
-of them have been canonized. The monastic clergy were the snobs of the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>
-Church, securely selfish in the magnificent fastnesses they erected for
-themselves in the skies; condescending comfortably to pray for those
-that fed them (though who knows but they even shirked that obligation),
-while the secular clergy were working out, amid inspiration and error,
-the foundations of a Christian civilization. The idea of the early
-bishops that the Church ought to rule the world was a natural and an
-honest mistake. The later bishops were quite a different class. The
-stout little church of Saint Remi near Rheims pleads still for its
-brave old bishop, though as a building it is eclipsed by the great
-cathedral of the city.</p>
-
-<p>The dynasty of Clovis passed away and the next reigning house came
-in with Pepin. He had good reason to approve of the Church as an
-institution, for it had early played into his hand. Had not the Abbé of
-Saint Denis journeyed to Rome to secure the papal confirmation of his
-crown? And had not Pope Stephen, while enjoying the protection of that
-same abbey, anointed Charlemagne, his little son? On this was based the
-succession. With his own good sword Charlemagne defended it and brought
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
-a semblance of order to the land of the Gaul and the Frank; and, genius
-that he was, he anticipated, in his interest in architecture, the
-genius of his great people. But it was rather Charlemagne’s attitude
-toward church building and letters that told, in the long run, than
-any literal achievement in them during this time. However, from the
-reign of his youngest son, Louis the Pious, we may trace the steady,
-consistent growth of an original order of building which culminated in
-the unparalleled Gothic of Northern France.</p>
-
-<p>By that time the nobility had built so many sanctuaries in their
-domains that they had to be interdicted from establishing useless
-private foundations and, in a more democratic spirit, sixteen or
-seventeen churches, all edifices of dignity, were begun. Then Bishop
-Ebbon saw a golden opportunity to build a magnificent cathedral on the
-long-hallowed soil of Rheims. There the Druid had raised his altar,
-there the Roman his temple, which may have absorbed the old Druid’s
-stones into its walls as it had his old gods into its adaptive bosom,
-to fall, in its turn, a mightier pile, from which the Christian built
-again and again as he grew in skill. Indeed, beyond their generation
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
-the people of Rheims were experienced builders. In addition to all the
-stone quarried by varied worshipers of the long past at Rheims, Louis
-the Pious put at Ebbon’s service the materials of the city wall and
-sent him his favorite architect—Rumald. And it was found that the
-new cathedral protected the city better than the old walls. <i>La paix
-religieuse</i> turned away many an invader. One golden cup from the altar
-bought off the Norsemen (not that it turned their hearts); they swooped
-down upon Chartres instead.</p>
-
-<p>The old chroniclers assure us that this early Cathedral of Rheims was
-the finest in the realm. It must have beggared description, for what
-manner of building it was none of them seem to say. But they tell of
-its wonderful altar of Our Lady, covered with gold and studded with
-gems, upon which stood a glorious virgin made of solid gold. That
-impressed them. Was this altar built with the loot of war? Was it built
-in remorse, or, worse, in mercenary superstition? Or was it lavished
-like the woman’s precious ointment upon our Savior? This much it
-certainly was,—a united tribute of the material to the immaterial,
-coming from many men of many minds.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
-It was about this time that the Virgin became so peculiarly near and
-dear to the Catholic world. They loaded her with jewels and appealed to
-her as one of themselves, human, though divinely so. They painted her
-on the inside of their jewel boxes that she might turn the heart of the
-thief; they appealed to her in embarrassing human situations and loved
-her as a helpful, pitying woman who brought religion home to them.</p>
-
-<p>In due time this golden Virgin of Rheims, so imposing, so splendid to
-her rude worshipers, gently made way for a line of tenderer virgins who
-were gradually infusing sweetness and skill into those who sought to
-spiritualize wood and stone into a suggestion of the mother of Christ.
-When the old ninth century church at Rheims was burned it is supposed
-that the barbarians’ gold was minted to rebuild the cathedral. Or shall
-we say that, purified by fire, the golden Virgin arose again and again
-from her ashes to rebuild her shrine in maturer beauty?</p>
-
-<p>After many fires, in 1212 the present Cathedral of Rheims was commenced
-upon the old, old crypt; before the middle of the century the main body
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
-of the church was complete, and once again the Cathedral of Rheims
-was the finest in the realm! In 1903 a vote was taken for the noblest
-Gothic monument, and the returns, as always before, were, “the
-Cathedral of Rheims.”</p>
-
-<p>Through the Dark Ages the people of Rheims had not built in vain.
-Effort after effort was destroyed, it is true, but like the golden
-virgin it was minted to rebuild anew.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_032" id="I_032"></a>
- <img src="images/i_032.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="571" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Did the Idea of that Beautiful<br />Structural Device, the
- Flying Buttress, Come, Like an<br />Angel Vision, to Some Baffled Architect in<br />
- Answer to Work and Prayer?</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
-Lacking the mathematical knowledge, which is the mainstay of the modern
-architect, these early builders must have learned empirically, that is,
-in the school of defeat—but, too, there are triumphs there. Did the
-idea of the <a href="#I_032">beautiful flying buttress</a> (which is
-simply a constructive device to strengthen walls pierced by enormous
-windows) come suddenly to some baffled old architect, as from the lips
-of an angel, in answer to work and prayer? These old builders of Rheims
-leave us no written word, but there is a great Florentine architect
-who is a little more communicative; he leaves a discreet hint or two
-of his method of reasoning and also of securing contracts. Regarding
-the construction of the projected dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria
-del Fiore, which the public regarded as impracticable, Brunelleschi
-writes: “Yet, remembering that this is a temple consecrated to God
-and the Virgin, I confidently trust that for a work executed in their
-honor, they will not fail to infuse knowledge where it is wanting and
-will bestow strength, wisdom and genius on him who shall be the author
-of such a project. But how can I help you, seeing that the work is
-not mine? I tell you plainly that, if it belonged to me, my courage
-and power would, beyond all doubt, suffice to discover means whereby
-the work might be effected without so many difficulties, but as yet I
-have not reflected on the matter to any extent.” And when he got the
-contract and reflected, he turned to the “parent past”—he went to Rome,
-where the vaulting of the Parthenon taught him to vault that lovelier
-Florentine dome which “clasps the ancient to the modern world.”</p>
-
-<p>The builders of the Gothic were in some ways more original than the
-builders of the Renaissance; they evolved their own bracing; thus
-gradually at Rheims, the “Athens of the Middle Ages,” a great cathedral
-grew up that ranks with the Parthenon.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
-The Greek had the subtlest of languages in which to speak of the
-good and the beautiful, while where the greatest Gothic churches
-were designed there was only a corrupt dead language and a partially
-developed living one; but the subtle poets of Chartres, Rheims, Amiens,
-Rouen, Bourges and Laon built strongly into their cathedrals the
-sweetest things they had to say. When the Parthenon was constructed
-Athens was so wealthy that it was one of the glories of Pericles that
-he was able to spend so much so well upon the greatest capital in the
-world. Rheims was simply, as the Middle Ages went, a rich see, and
-the Middle Ages were wretchedly poor, yet her cathedral is the more
-elaborate building of the two. To the end of time it is a monument
-of civic and religious enthusiasm; and, as we seek the human story,
-so elusively suggested through the marvelous pile, we realize at
-least how great a thing it is for each worker to give, in perfect
-self-effacement, of his best. The decorations of the mighty temple are
-so exquisitely subservient to the great whole that the handiwork of
-the gifted <i>imagier</i>, with that of his weaker brother, the one serving
-as a foil to the other, holds together like their prayers in the noble
-harmony of the great church. Gothic sculpture is for all sorts and
-conditions of men, but least of all for artists. It speaks its simple
-lesson distinctly. It is not sculpture for sculpture’s sake, but rather
-for decoration and lyric expression. Its emaciated saint betokens
-sacrifice; literally and figuratively he fills his place in the long,
-narrow niche, annihilating himself for the great church as a Catholic
-priest should.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_034" id="I_034"></a>
- <img src="images/i_034.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="632" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>The Sculptured Saint Upon a<br />Gothic Cathedral Fills His
- Place in the Long,<br />Narrow Niche, Annihilating Himself for the Great<br />
- Church, as a Devotee Should.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
-Would you know how the Gothic affects a sculptor?</p>
-
-<p>Says August Rodin: “Life is made up of strength and grace; the Gothic
-gives us this; its influence has entered into my blood and grown into
-my being.”</p>
-
-<p>Nowadays, when all “the world travels,” schools of art do not grow
-up in little communities; intellectual boundaries are in no way
-geographic, and the moral effect of one man on another is hidden from
-view. But on the walls of the old mediæval churches a simpler people,
-as their work improved, show their direct obligations to one another.</p>
-
-<p>The Gothic cathedrals which served as <a href="#I_068">Bibles for the laity</a>
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
-(who, as a rule, could not read print) are now the most veracious chronicles
-of the period that we possess. Their statements cannot be gainsaid,
-however variously they may be understood. If some of the last judgments
-sculptured on their walls, with half of the figures marching toward
-heaven and the other half (very similar in appearance) moving serenely
-toward hell, are rather too didactic for this age of doubt, between
-the lines of these great stone volumes a gentle reader finds countless
-beautiful stories, much more convincingly told, of artists and artisans
-working away with smiles on their faces, carving Bible stories under
-the direction of the clergy; devising figures to personify the virtues
-and vices; inserting little angels here and there to fill out the
-design, while the best artist is rewarded with the sweet honor of
-carving the Madonna.</p>
-
-<p>The barbarian’s gold pays interest yet; the spirit of the bequest is
-not changed;—a united tribute of the material to the spiritual coming
-from many men of many minds. The old golden Madonna is patroness still
-of the five thousand statues of the Cathedral of Rheims, whose mute
-lips speak so various a language. They tell of a day that is dead and
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
-of a day that is eternal; they speak of substance and of spirit; of
-error and of intuition; of things human and of things divine. Indeed,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">“Of every work of art the silent part is best,</span>
-<span class="i1">Of all expression, that which cannot be expressed.”</span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>The Little Old<br />Abbé of Saint Denis and the<br />Imagiers</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_e.jpg" width="25" height="40" alt="E" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent">
-Early in the twelfth century, within the hospitable walls of the old
-Abbey of Saint Denis, a prince and a charity child grew up together;
-there a love, almost romantic, developed between them. When the prince
-became king and embarked upon a crusade he left the reins of government
-in the hands of his old comrade, who in the meantime had become the
-Abbé of Saint Denis and was, incidentally, one of the cleverest of
-politicians. Suger paid the royal debts (democratic good pay seems
-to have been an ideal with him), and called the realm to order so
-successfully that statesmen came from afar to study his very novel
-methods, for the crusades had set the people traveling. On his return
-the king graciously greeted his regent as “father of his country.”
-Suger, not to be outdone, instituted a somewhat legendary liturgy to be
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
-celebrated annually at Saint Denis commemorating the merits of Louis
-the Lusty (or Louis the Fat, as we call him).</p>
-
-<p>Was this liturgy so different from the campaign songs we sing now? It
-was really more called for, since enthusiasm over the royal person
-is one of the legitimate tools of monarchy, and Louis VI is an early
-monarch who deserves credit for abetting the gradual advance of France
-from a feudality to a veritable kingdom.</p>
-
-<p>Suger, individually, did not stand too greatly in awe of royalty, for
-he peremptorily ordered Louis VII to come back from the “Holy Wars” to
-attend to his mundane duties, and be it credited to that monarch that
-he graciously obeyed the old friend of his father.</p>
-
-<p>Suger is the most interesting personality that comes down to us from
-France of the twelfth century. Though a few characteristic anecdotes
-are told of him, we know him most intimately as the builder of Saint
-Denis and the far-seeing friend of the arts and crafts. It was said
-that he was a good goldsmith, and his sympathy with skilled labor lends
-color to the statement; but however hazy our other impressions of Suger
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
-may be, we know how he loved the old Abbey of Saint Denis—“<i>sa mère et
-sa nourrice</i>.” As a churchman he loved the blessed spot to which the
-angels had escorted brave old Saint Denis, when, after his martyrdom,
-he picked up his head and walked along with them unto the place “where
-he now resteth by his election and the puveance of God. And there
-was heard so grete and swete a melody of angels that many that heard
-it byleuyd in oure lorde.” He loved the old building that Dagobert,
-the Robin Hood of French monarchs, had built so royally, almost five
-hundred years before his day, for the poor and lowly, and for which the
-pleasant Saint Eloi, patron of goldsmiths, singing as he worked, had
-made the wondrously beautiful old reliquary; and as a man of literary
-feeling, he loved the old Abbey as his Alma Mater. But the diocese had
-grown, and on festal days so pressing were the crowds who would touch
-the holy relics of Saint Denis that good people were continually being
-trodden underfoot by eager and other worldly worshipers. So Suger
-decided to enlarge the church. He did not touch the dear old choir of
-Saint Denis: that was consecrated to God and, too, it was tenderly
-hallowed to man by many human associations; but he decided to add to it
-a great nave.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
-Of course at first the crowds vigorously abetted him, humbly harnessing
-themselves together like beasts of burden to draw the stone from the
-quarry. The trumpet sounded; banners were unfurled, and the procession
-marched; except for the murmur of those who confessed their sins to
-God, silence reigned. When the concourse arrived at the holy site, the
-multitude burst forth into a song of praise. Their sins once disposed
-of, the ardor of the multitude may have flagged, for we read of the
-busy little Abbé leaving the cares of state to go himself to the forests
-in search of the big timber others had not the enthusiasm to find.</p>
-
-<p>That the very earth might pay its tribute to the blessed martyr,
-Suger studded the new golden screen in front of the tomb of Saint
-Denis with gems from “every land of the world,” and then the little
-old Abbé conceived of a still higher tribute: he gathered skill from
-“every country in the world” (his world was small, it is true); he gave
-to these skilled craftsmen the honor of working on “the Church, his
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
-Mother”; besides, they taught in the layman’s school of architecture,
-which he established in the yard of the old abbey.</p>
-
-<p>To the amazement of the world, in that day of serfdom, Suger
-voluntarily paid his workmen and paid them by the week; and with the
-force and intensity that was in him, he advanced architecture as much
-in the ten years he was rebuilding Saint Denis as others had done in a
-hundred. The influence of his school of architecture still lives. It
-was one of our earliest instances of systematic training for the laity,
-and those who would trace the Italian Renaissance to French and classic
-sources, attach especial importance to the <i>imagiers</i> of Saint Denis.</p>
-
-<p>An immense number of statues, varying greatly in excellence, were made
-during the Middle Ages to decorate the churches. In our meagre records
-of the period, we even come across instances of peasants traveling far
-and spending their all to secure an especially beautiful Madonna, and
-we are assured of miraculous rewards, spiritual and temporal, coming to
-them from it. Actually, through the enthusiasm and liberality of these
-rude people, miracles of art have wrought their magical effect upon the
-imagination of generations and generations of men. These <i>imagiers</i>
-became so numerous that they formed a powerful guild in which a race of
-sculptors was born and bred. While Sculpture was merely the hand-maiden
-and scribe of Architecture, her craftsmen were called <i>imagiers</i>. But
-the <i>imagiers</i> became so expert that in the seventeenth century the
-French Academy changed the name of their order to the “Sculptor’s Guild.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_042" id="I_042"></a>
- <img src="images/i_042.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="595" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>In the Sixteenth Century the<br />French Academy Changed
- the Name of the<br /> Imagiers’ Guild to the Sculptors’.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
-That the <i>imagier</i> loved the cathedral which he was dowering with
-what talent he possessed is most likely; for, added to the simple
-conscientiousness, alike in all ages, of the worker who loves his craft
-and respects himself, was the intensity of the Age of Faith.</p>
-
-<p>Gothic art may have been lived more generally even than Grecian, for
-it was the only intellectual outlet of its age. Much of its symbolism
-is now a dead language. We guess at the meaning of the gargoyles and
-grotesques, and draw liberal interpretations from the lips of the
-smiling angels who spoke more familiarly to a childish people; but when
-we count the decorative kings and bishops ranged in rows upon the grand
-façades, their supremacy over the souls, bodies and estates of men, of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
-which we know so well, seems the myth of myths. However, we can read
-some of the old carvings, which had nothing in particular to say at the
-time they were made, like a book. Hybrid designs on pillars, capitals
-and cornices speak of the chivalrous meeting of the east and the west
-on the broad field of art. They bring up pictures of the rude crusaders
-overpowered by their first view of oriental elaboration, and we smile
-to see how it set them imitating, or, better still, adapting, and how
-the arts of war may bring about the arts of peace; for, in the fulness
-of time, those who strive, achieve, if not for themselves and their
-cause, for others and perhaps for a better cause.</p>
-
-<p>Another art made great strides during the rebuilding of Saint
-Denis,—the glass-maker’s. We read about Vitrearii as far back as
-Charlemagne’s time. The <a href="#I_044">windows</a> they made were glass
-mosaics, held together with lead instead of stucco, forming little
-gem-like pictures above the holy altars, which told sacred stories
-beautifully, for in this way many scenes could be connected on one
-window; besides, color, like music, takes the emotions captive. One
-must examine a statue to realize it, but, in the phrase of the studio,
-color “sings.” A childish old chronicler relates that the retainers
-of Godfrey of Bouillon were obliged almost to tear him away from the
-churches, so absorbed was he in gazing on the windows. Was it through
-beautiful windows that the mystic aspiration of the mute minor poets of
-the cloister was finally reflected upon the man of action who took the
-first step, all unconsciously, toward the deliverance of his age from
-its dark, narrow bondage?</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_044" id="I_044"></a>
- <img src="images/i_044.jpg" alt=" " width="500" height="424" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Continuous Story, Related on a<br />
- Thirteenth Century Window.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
-As a soldier, Godfrey de Bouillon had answered the call of the pilgrims
-who demanded protection; as a soldier, he had kept the peace (when
-there was any to keep). He was the one early crusader of whom we have
-record, who seems to have had the slightest idea of the fitness of
-things; indeed, in feeling, he was as truly a poet as a soldier. “So,
-day after day, in silence and in peace, with equal measure and just
-sale, did the Duke and the people pass through the realms of Hungary,”
-writes an astonished old chronicler, for Godfrey de Bouillon had paid
-the way of his army to the Holy City—an unheard of idea in warfare!
-How quixotic he must have seemed!</p>
-
-<p>Language has changed since those windows spoke to Godfrey of Bouillon.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
-But when a general stops on his line of march for higher council and
-then steers so true through the darkest day toward a faint, far-distant
-light, must he not have seen through the glass darkly?</p>
-
-<p>It was but a few years after this “parfit gentil” knight passed away
-before he was as dear a hero of romance as King Arthur had become after
-many centuries, so little was there in his life for men to forget, so
-much that was sweet to dream upon. I suppose his story must have been
-related many times in beautiful glass, though as the panes grew larger
-and finer they told their stories less personally; but gallant knights
-on windows far and near are still reflecting an ideal that came to the
-First Baron of Jerusalem through the old church’s windows. Might it not
-be said of these old church builders, who builds from the heart feeds
-three: himself, his hungry neighbor, and Me?</p>
-
-<p>To make <a href="#I_044">windows</a> like those of Saint Denis, an
-orderly, organized factory was necessary, and organization was the
-crying need of that age. Another astonished old chronicler repeats,
-that in those days of serfdom Suger paid his glass-workers. But the men
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
-learned their rights more readily than the chroniclers. Thereafter we
-constantly run upon the records of powerful workmen’s unions or guilds.
-In fact, we read of them later on the glass itself. These splendid
-church windows were, of course, very costly, and then, as now, they
-were usually presented to the churches. We find the guilds are the
-proud donors of many of them; two fine old church windows come down to
-us proudly representing some <i>imagiers</i> and glass-makers at their work,
-those guilds having thus elected to “with the angels stand.”</p>
-
-<p>Complaints of the luxury of the church also come down. Saint Bernard
-declares “their stones were gilded with the money of the needy and
-wretched to charm the eyes of the rich” (but had the poor no eyes?).
-Being against the government by temperament, Saint Bernard especially
-abominated the royal Abbey of Saint Denis. He complained of the
-“unclean apes and befowled tigers” upon which Suger’s <i>imagiers</i>
-developed their skill, and it is written (how the writer arrived at the
-scene he does not explain) that as Suger’s confessor, Bernard commanded
-him to divest his mind of mundane cares and to dream only of the
-heavenly Jerusalem.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
-But the world weighed on Suger as long as he remained in it: his
-dream was of two splendid powers, England and France, separated,
-but living in peace! Suger was not in favor of crusades. He was the
-one ecclesiastic who would subject the clergy as well as the laity
-to royal authority, rendering unto Cæsar that which was Cæsar’s.
-Though a priest, in his political methods Suger was a broad, true and
-practical patriot, and if, unlike Saint Bernard, he was not adapted for
-canonization, he was a hero to his private secretary and to his king;
-and he still is a hero to the modern student of architecture, or of
-economics.</p>
-
-<p>Into the very walls of his big and simple old church the “little old
-Abbé” built his big and simple sermon. It read: “Let us have good,
-honest, beautiful work, doing honor alike to God and man. Let us train
-our craftsmen, pay them and respect them.”</p>
-
-<p>Though Saint Denis may lack the mystical beauty of the best Gothic, so
-noble and satisfactory is its design that the nineteenth century could
-do no better than to restore it.</p>
-
-<p>Though Suger’s economics were very simple, the twentieth century has
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
-found no better platform: “Pay your workmen voluntarily, and summon
-all, from the king down, into their respective fields of labor; only
-when they all respond, we shall have a lovelier church than the old
-Abbey of Saint Denis.”</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>The Mystic Cathedral of<br /><a href="#I_052">Chartres</a></i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="30" height="38" alt="T" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent">
-The Episcopal Church recognizes three distinct divisions: the High
-Church, or mystical element that, words failing, would speak by
-symbols; the Low Church, that would say what it means and mean what it
-says; and the Broad Church, that would set aside details and seek in
-religion a general harmony.</p>
-
-<p>Though they are not so formally defined, these same divisions, being
-based on human temperaments, exist in other sects so literally that the
-same symbols have met with the identical adoption and objection. About
-205, Tertullian ridiculed the use of candles on the altars of the early
-church, and Lactance took up the subject some hundred years later.
-Thereafter Saint Jerome laid these still troublesome candles at the
-door of the laity, especially of the women. However, the symbol and the
-women conquered.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
-In this desultory search of ours for hints of the social history of
-the old French cathedral builders, we meet with the high and low
-church elements which seem, though this idea may be fanciful, to have
-influenced the appearance even of their respective churches. There is
-the grandly simple and direct architecture, the Cathedral of Laon,
-which inclined to Low Church, allowing its votaries considerable
-latitude, and the symbolically ornate <a href="#I_052">cathedral at Chartres</a>,
-which from remote ages has been a noted shrine of mysticism. Its site was
-holy ground to the early Christian and perhaps to the Druids before
-him. Tradition has it that even to them on this hallowed spot came a
-prophecy of the Messiah. (If it did, it probably came from some Jewish
-source in the days of the Romans.)</p>
-
-<p>There is a charming story, more than legend, if less than history,
-of “Notre Dame Sous Terre” of Chartres. While most of the early
-Christians, in a spirit of hatred, were destroying false gods and their
-shrines, some pioneers of Christianity found in a grotto at Chartres
-a figure which had been worshiped by the Druids, resembling their own
-Madonna, whereby, to these gentle priests, she seemed doubly hallowed.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
-Accepting her grotto as already consecrate, they located their high
-altar there, upon it reinstated the old Madonna of the Druids, and in
-a humble spirit, along with their simple converts, they bowed down
-before her, for upon them had descended that sovereign reverence which
-appreciates another man’s god.</p>
-
-<p>From the time this old druidic figure was raised upon a Christian altar
-to this day, first honors have been accorded to her shrine. Before her
-or her representative have bowed, weary and footsore, every one of the
-French kings, from Clovis to Louis XV, as well as innumerable other
-pilgrims, rich or poor, gathered from every land of Christendom by the
-democracy of the church.</p>
-
-<p>Even the revolutionists recognized this “First Lady of Chartres,” for
-while they lumped other relics together in general destruction they
-paid Notre Dame Sous Terre the back-handed compliment of a special
-bonfire at the cathedral door.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_052" id="I_052"></a>
- <img src="images/i_052.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="487" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>The Old-Time House of Prayer, which Still<br />
- Dominates the City of Chartres.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
-The sansculottes have passed away without individual record, but a
-charmingly carved representative of the old Notre Dame Sous Terre still
-occupies the most venerated shrine of Chartres; while its old-time
-spirit of church hospitality yet pervades the noble cathedral that has
-developed above her grotto, her clergy still smile kindly upon the
-pilgrim and the stranger, even though his interest in their church be
-solely artistic. They seem to say: “Take from our old cathedral what
-you may, surely her beauty is pure and holy.”</p>
-
-<p>True religious art can but lead to some phase of piety, as August
-Rodin declares that all true art must. It may be but a chance title;
-however, the latest book on French Gothic speaks of “Chartres, the
-House of Prayer”; but certainly the feeling which has been lavished on
-this spot, the passionate generosity of devotees through long ages, has
-brought forth one of the most sacredly beautiful churches in the world.</p>
-
-<p>Now let us investigate literally the claims of Notre Dame Sous Terre.
-Recent excavations prove that the present Cathedral of Chartres is
-built over a grotto, where the Druids probably held their services. In
-excavating under and around the choir of the cathedral, vestiges of
-ancient altars and idols were unearthed which prove conclusively that
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
-the symbols of the heathen were not cleared away violently. The policy
-of Rome tended toward religious tolerance; the gods of the Romans
-often mixed peaceably in the temples with the gods of the people Rome
-conquered, hence the cult of the Virgin might have existed along with
-that of the pagan gods.</p>
-
-<p>In the early days of Christianity the Virgin was not given the
-prominence she acquired after the eighth century; this figure known
-as the druidic Madonna may even have represented some sweet, motherly
-goddess of another name. Symbols are elastic, therein lies their
-supreme value; they may be all things to all men. Words always have
-brought division to the church; symbols, unity. The wisest and kindest
-of the early bishops had the most grace in translating the old symbols
-of their converts into the picturesque language of their new church.
-For instance, Gregory the Great changed the pagan memorial custom
-of putting food on graves on a certain fête-day to bringing flowers
-for the graves and praying for the dead on All Souls Day. The early
-Christian missionaries at Chartres may have believed this figure to be
-a Madonna or they may have translated it into one. Indeed, it is not
-the genuineness of the figure itself that is the point of this story;
-it is the attitude of the Chartrians toward it.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_054" id="I_054"></a>
- <img src="images/i_054.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="579" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Saint Martin, Saint Jerome<br />and Saint Gregory,
- as They Stand Forth on<br />a Pillar at Chartres.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
-From the character of the Gallo-Romaine substructure of the Chapel of
-Saint Lubin in the crypt of Chartres, the list of the early bishops of
-that diocese and the general history of the evangelization of Gaul,
-it is inferred that ever since the beginning of the fourth century
-a bishop’s church has stood on the site of the present cathedral.
-Mingled with all the superstition of its age there was a certain
-tolerant broad-church element maintained at Chartres from the first.
-Perhaps that made the church so peculiarly dear to the people of
-France, for though the French kings were crowned at Rheims and buried
-at Saint Denis, Chartres seems the most intimately associated with
-their lives. It is written that after his conversion Clovis stopped
-there for further instruction, and Gibbon observes his measures were
-sometimes moderated by the milder genius of Rome and Christianity. The
-Carlovingian kings were very partial to Chartres. Charles the Bald, who
-comes down to us familiarly as a church builder through an old picture
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
-in which he holds a cast of a cathedral in his hand, conferred the most
-precious of relics upon Chartres—the <i>Sancta Camisia</i> of the Virgin!
-Robert the Pious contributed a sapphire. Within her mystic walls
-sensible Louis the Fat pardoned his enemies; there Philippe le Bel,
-Charles le Bel and Philippe de Valois gave thanks for their victories,
-childishly presenting their armor and their beloved war-horses to this
-Church, their Mother. Saint Louis marched barefooted about twenty-one
-miles to endow Chartres with her beautiful <a href="#I_060"><i>Portail Septentrionale</i></a>.
-And when Henry IV changed his religion, let us believe with the really
-good intention of bringing about a little peace on earth to Frenchmen,
-he elected to be consecrated at Chartres, “by reason of the peculiar
-devotion of his ancestors, the Dukes of Vendome, to the old cathedral,
-the most ancient in Christendom.” There were reasons why he could not
-conveniently have been crowned at Rheims like other French kings,
-that city being hostile to him. But Henry IV always had a clever and
-sufficient answer.</p>
-
-<p>To return to the material story of the old bishops’ church near the
-well of Saint Lubin, our first dated record takes us back into a feudal
-war. In 743, Hanald duc d’Aquitaine, fighting the Comte de Chartres,
-burned the town cathedral; but when he realized what he had done he
-retired to a monastery to do penance all the rest of his days. Was it
-in superstition? Was it in true repentance? Did he burn the church by
-accident? That might have been. The simple piety of the Dark Ages that
-would build “The House of God” for all time rendered the churches the
-strongest of buildings, and defensive armies often resorted to them;
-then, too, there were spiritual objections to attacking a church. This
-factor was sometimes over-estimated.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_056" id="I_056"></a>
- <img src="images/i_056.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="577" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A View Through the Portail of<br />Chartres,
- which Louis IX Walked Barefooted<br />Twenty-one Miles to Present, in
- a Lowly<br />Spirit, to the Church.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
-The <a href="#I_052">Cathedral of Chartres</a> was rebuilt, only to be burned
-down one hundred and fifteen years after by the Normans. During this siege the
-non-combatants of the town confidently took refuge in the cathedral
-with their bishop instead of buying off the pirates with gold from
-the Holy Altar as the people of Rheims had done (they are all gone
-now and God knows which did best). Unexpectedly, neither church nor
-bishop impressed the Normans, who overturned the city walls, burned the
-buildings, massacred the bishop, and every one else who came in their
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
-way; but after the Normans left, the Chartrians had the cold comfort
-of gathering their dead and laying them away beside the Well of Saint
-Lubin and “through the merits of those there reposing a crowd of
-miracles were wrought.” About this period the disease we now know as
-erysipelas came to be highly respected. In France it was called <i>le mal
-des ardents</i>; in England, the “sacred fire”; for, one thousand years
-ago processions like those that now visit Lourdes were pressing on to
-Chartres to drink of the holy spring. The world moves, but somewhat in
-a groove. At this Lourdes of the Dark Ages the afflicted were tended
-by nuns, but we find a certain telltale regulation:—after nine days
-(ample time for blood poisoning to develop unmistakably) the sick must
-go home, “cured or not.”</p>
-
-<p>Was medical practice then so much worse than ours during the Rebellion,
-when old rags of the nation were collected and all sorts and conditions
-of women scraped them into lint full of germs for the wounded soldiers?
-But if the church was a crazy physician, she was a gentle nurse. She
-established a chivalry toward the sick that no Cervantes would laugh
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
-away. It lives in medical ethics, and the quixotic obligation of
-the doctor to leave no stone unturned for his patient has been the
-foundation of medical science. Some of the old Hotels-Dieu of blessed
-name and memory have developed into up-to-date hospitals and medical
-schools, like Charing Cross Hospital, London, which still enjoys its
-mediæval benefice, while modern hospitals, in general, are moral
-descendants of the old ideal.</p>
-
-<p>Again the old Church of Chartres was rebuilt, again to stand for a
-little over a century. This building had the satisfaction (may we not
-use the figure, for the mediæval church was very human) of seeing the
-Normans, under Rollo, defeated by an army marching under its blessed
-standard, the <i>Sancta Camisia</i> of the Virgin borne aloft as a banner.
-But later, Rollo married the daughter of Charles the Simple, settled
-down in Normandy, presented his castle to the see of the Bishop of
-Chartres and adopted the Christian religion. A double victory for the
-church! Many of the first Norman converts were baptized a dozen times,
-for the sake of excitement or for the white garment given them at the
-ceremony. Thereafter the funeral of Rollo was rendered doubly memorable
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
-by the slaughter of one hundred captives and rich gifts to the monasteries.</p>
-
-<p>In spite of the <i>Sancta Camisia</i>, in spite of all the remains of all
-of the martyrs that had been aggregating in the <i>martyrium</i> under the
-church for seven hundred years, in 962 Richard of Normandy burned the
-cathedral with the town. But the relics had not been powerless, for
-this was the last pagan outbreak. The church had the holy triumph
-of Christianizing her adversaries, and the <i>martyrium</i>, between the
-excellence of its building material, the water of the spring of Saint
-Lubin near by, and “the merits of those there reposing,” remained
-intact and was found in the excavations of 1901; but the spring is
-gone; it was probably diverted by the foundations of the present cathedral.</p>
-
-<p>Though a paralyzing conviction had come upon the people, Bishop Vulpard
-immediately started to rebuild. It had somehow been very generally decided
-that the world would come to an end in the year 1000, so near at hand.</p>
-
-<p>How did this private information regarding the future affect the
-multitude? They probably took it riotously,—at least, such has been
-the experience in times of plague and horror, when it seemed that the
-race was about to be wiped out. Indeed, it is only for others that the
-saner, better life is led—best of all, unconsciously led.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_060" id="I_060"></a>
- <img src="images/i_060.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="562" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Detail of the Portail Septentrionale.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
-We do know that at that time church building flagged. Ah, be it
-credited to these old builders, they worked for others rather than
-themselves! Nevertheless, the latter part of the tenth century is the
-day of vast and massive crypts of which Chartres is one of the noblest
-examples. Let us hope that brave old Vulpard lived to see it under way.</p>
-
-<p>History has very little to say of the delusion regarding the year 1000,
-except that it shows that the church gained ground therefrom. Many
-persons thought it well to present their goods to the churches since
-they could not use them much longer themselves. Scarce as records are,
-we have one instance of the church helping the world out of one of the
-dilemmas arising from this misunderstanding. We do know positively that
-the valuables of the Church of Saint Benignus of Dijon were all sold to
-relieve the famine of the year 1001. Probably the ground had not been
-sown the previous autumn.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
-However often it has fallen from grace, in the main the Christian
-Church has won its way by service. However often its services have been
-mistaken, it has maintained the ideal that the Christian should serve
-the world.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of the world’s coming to an end according to their schedule, to
-the astonishment of the Chartrians, lightning singled out their holy
-church and burned it to the ground. Some of the more or less logically
-inclined suggested that some of the pilgrims might have been guilty of
-indiscretions within its consecrated walls and thus have brought down
-this celestial disaster.</p>
-
-<p>The church had a particularly charming bishop at that time who arose to
-the astonishing occasion and called for help from the whole religious
-world regardless of nationality. He might be known as the successful
-correspondent of history. We still have some of his letters. The
-one to Cnut, King of England and Denmark, is certainly a flower of
-history, showing, as it does, the sympathy of a great king with a great
-scholar (as the times went) and a great movement. Fulbert writes, in
-acknowledgment of Cnut’s donation to his building fund: “When we saw
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>
-the offering which you deigned to send us, we admired at once your
-astonishing wisdom and religious spirit; your wisdom, in that you, a
-prince, divided from us by language and by sea, are zealously concerned
-not only with the things around you but also with things that touch us;
-in your religious spirit, in that you, of whom we have heard speak as
-a pagan king, show yourself a very Christian and generous benefactor
-of churches and servants of God. We render lively thanks to the King
-of kings through whose mercy your gifts have descended upon us, and
-we beseech Him to make your reign happy and prosperous, to deliver
-your soul from all sin.” The result of Fulbert’s appeals proves that
-Christianity had established a brotherhood on earth. Though much of
-Fulbert’s structure was burned within ten years the church inherits
-both spiritually and materially from him; his crypt is left and it
-gives lines to the splendid church we know. Saint Thierry rebuilt the
-upper church, and it grew in beauty under Saint Ivo, who succeeded in
-getting the ear of Mathilda of England. Not that Saint Ivo was a snob,
-for in his time we may see among the records timely rebukes to royalty
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
-and dignified acknowledgment of the services of individual workmen
-upon the mighty edifice. After all, there is nothing sweeter than the
-“widow’s mite.” A great deal is said by social historians about the tax
-upon the communities for these splendid churches, but they overlook the
-joy of public giving, which also moulds and unites a people.</p>
-
-<p>And now this wonderful old church, which echoes from tower to crypt
-with the human story, commences to speak picturesquely of the wild Holy
-Wars. The heavy Dark Ages developed its crypt. The body of the church
-passed through many metamorphoses in the time intervening until a
-period of the greatest religious enthusiasm crowned the cathedral with
-its marvelous towers.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_064" id="I_064"></a>
- <img src="images/i_064.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="588" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Thirteenth Century Statement<br /> of the
- Liability of Pride to Have a Fall<br />Solemnly Proclaimed on the South<br />
- Portal of Chartres.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
-In all history is there a movement more extraordinary, more
-far-reaching, more curious than the crusades? They are about
-as surprising to a reader today as they were to the Emperor of
-Constantinople when the first disorderly army appeared at his gates.
-The monk, Guibert, who, at least, seemed to have more grasp of the
-subject than any other contemporary writer, ingeniously suggested that
-“God invented the crusades as a new way for his laity to atone for
-their sins and merit salvation.” Certainly they thus atoned for the
-great sin of inertia. No army, I suppose, was ever more confident, more
-surprised or more disappointed than that of the crusaders. However,
-this much is to be said in favor of Guibert’s hypothesis. From that
-time forth the laity took their place in the march of civilization.
-They arose and left the Dark Ages behind. New views were forced upon
-them at the point of the sword,—most needed of all, new civic ideals.</p>
-
-<p>Separation and longing and the sweet sorrow of parting awoke the spirit
-of poetry, the craving for beauty; and all this new thought and feeling
-was soon to blossom forth in the one art, whose <i>metier</i> the people had
-already learned,—architecture.</p>
-
-<p>Through a long admixture of races, by the twelfth century (hardly
-before it) there had arisen in Gaul genuine Frenchmen, who from the
-beginning were most artistic artisans and most enthusiastic partisans.
-They spent more on their crusades and on their churches than their
-neighbors, and they were to reap the rewards of extravagance, always
-more imposing than those of economy. Money poured into the church alike
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
-from those who went to the Holy Land, and from those who thus excused
-themselves from going. Incidentally the Holy Wars diverted a disorderly
-element of nobles and serfs from France to Palestine. During the period
-of the crusades the Cathedral of Chartres suffered from two fires
-just sixty years apart; thus in rebuilding, the overflowing religious
-excitement of the era came to be lavished upon the very stones of the
-cathedral.</p>
-
-<p>In 1134 a great fire in the town of Chartres damaged the cathedral
-so far as to make it necessary to restore the façade. In spite of
-their own losses the Chartrians decided that their church should be
-finer than ever. She should have two connected towers, instead of one
-separated from the building as before. And the design they here evolved
-has become standard.</p>
-
-<p>To effect these grand restorations the workmen formed themselves into
-permanent guilds. One especially which devoted itself to working on the
-cathedral was honorably known as the “<i>Logeurs du Bon Dieu</i>.” And the
-nobles who had watched the workmen growing in grace and in skill,
-raising themselves as they raised the temple, were finally seized with
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
-a strange and humble enthusiasm which can only be convincingly
-described by eye-witnesses.</p>
-
-<p>“In this same year” (1144), writes Robert Du Mont, “at Chartre men
-began to harness themselves to carts laden with stones, wood and other
-things, and drag them to the site of the church, the towers of which
-were then a-building.”</p>
-
-<p>Says Abbé Haimon: “Who has ever seen or heard in all the ages of the
-past that kings, princes and lords, mighty in their generation, swollen
-with riches and honor, that men and women, I say, of noble birth, have
-bowed their haughty necks to the yoke and harnessed themselves to carts
-like beasts of burden, and drawn them laden with wine, corn, oil, stone
-or wood and other things needful for the maintenance of life or the
-construction of the church, even to the doors of the asylum of Christ.”</p>
-
-<p>“Mighty are the works of the Lord,” exclaims Hugh of Rouen (ready to
-use the example). “At Chartres men have begun, in all humility, to drag
-carts and vehicles of all sorts to aid the building of the cathedral,
-and their humility has been rewarded by miracles. The fame of these
-events has been heard everywhere and at last roused this Normandy of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
-ours. Our countrymen, therefore, after receiving our blessing, have
-set out for that place and then fulfilled their vows. They return with
-the resolution to imitate these Chartrians, and a great number of the
-faithful of our diocese and the dioceses of our province have begun to
-work at the Cathedral, their Mother.”</p>
-
-<p>But since it is the spirit that makes the action fine, the services
-of these builders were accepted only under the triple condition of
-confession, penitence and reconciliation with their enemies; they
-delivered their offerings in tears, while disciplining themselves with
-blows.</p>
-
-<p>George Eliot speaks of a common feeling of good-will among a mass of
-men affecting her like music; to such music the incomparable tower of
-Chartres was built, and a later age sees tears transformed to pearls
-when another great fire destroyed the old part of the cathedral, and
-they had, in rebuilding, to live up to their splendid new façade.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_068" id="I_068"></a>
- <img src="images/i_068.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="589" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Page from the<br />Sculptured
- “Bible of the Laity,”<br />Chartres.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
-The cardinal assembled the people of Chartres around the smoking
-ruins of their dear old church and persuaded them to forget their
-personal losses and to think only of rebuilding the House of God;
-and the people, united by the strongest of bonds, a common disaster,
-arose again to work for the common good, and again Christians from
-far and near sent in their donations. The old chroniclers say that
-the very Holy Virgin multiplied her miracles. One of them we still
-have before us. It was then and there that an architect, whose name is
-forgotten but whose genius is immortal, perfected the cathedral type of
-thirteenth century Gothic. All designers of Gothic churches still do
-him homage; all lovers of Gothic architecture still sing his praise.</p>
-
-<p>And the old church at Chartres grew on, gently developing her people
-on many lines. She watched her <i>imagiers</i> grow into sculptors, her
-glass-workers into painters, the more or less serfs of the soil develop
-into workmen, then guildsmen and free burghers of the town; of this
-they themselves have written upon her very walls. About half of the
-windows of the cathedral we find were presented by the guilds; the
-other half by kings, princes and seigneurs, lay and ecclesiastic. The
-glass of Chartres, by the way, is considered the finest in the world.</p>
-
-<p>The eighteenth century was a bad day for churches in France; the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
-general contempt in the air for the past led them to destroy the
-“barbarians’ art,” which was good, to make way for their own, which
-happened to be bad. The Cathedral of Chartres, as ever so truly in
-touch with the times, suffered from the artists in the early part of
-the century, while in 1793 the revolutionists invaded it. They buried
-the relics and appraised the barbarians’ statues at 100 francs. Then
-the next idea was to knock down the cathedral, which they found was not
-so easy; so they concluded to transform it into a Temple of Reason,
-wherein they behaved most unreasonably. Somebody started to destroy the
-immense <a href="#I_070">group of the Assumption</a> on the grand altar.
-It represents the Virgin on an embankment of clouds with her arms extended and
-her figure coming toward the congregation. Her “pied-à-terre” of clouds (excuse
-the hibernicism) is upheld by angels and every face and attitude in the
-group is full of aspiration and action. Although as sculpture, this
-group is not of the first order, as allegory, it is perfect. A bright
-idea occurred to an architect present; he put the Phrygian cap upon the
-head of the Virgin and a lance in her hand, and the old symbol became
-the new; with her arms open to the world and her eyes turned a little
-above it, the Virgin of Chartres became a beautiful emblem of liberty.
-I wonder if she impressed any of the wild congregation before her; not
-long thereafter Napoleon observed that “Chartres was no place for an atheist.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_070" id="I_070"></a>
- <img src="images/i_070.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="667" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Altar-piece at Chartres.<br />
- The Virgin who once Wore a Liberty Cap</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
-In about six months the church managed to reinstate itself in its old
-stronghold, though the Revolutionary Commission of public works (or
-rather the commission for the destruction of public works) had had the
-impertinence to strip the lead from the cathedral roof to make its
-ammunition.</p>
-
-<p>But the old church was built to weather all storms, and so was the
-French nation. The revolutionists besieged the Louvre and turned it
-into a public art gallery. The republic has quietly advanced much
-farther in its right of eminent domain and taken under its enlightened
-protection all the great monuments of architecture in all fair France.
-Nothing is more charming than the enthusiasm throughout the land,
-extending even to the simplest people, over these “national monuments.”
-As the building of them long ago formed a bond of union with the
-communes, so the love of them now forms a bond of union with the nation.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
-Fostered in their shadows, French genius was able to bring forth at
-need architects capable of restoring them almost to their pristine
-beauty, a beauty which, growing out of mystic relics, seems fraught
-with a relic’s power through love and awe to lead men on. May its magic
-transform these Roman Catholic cathedrals of the Age of Faith into Holy
-Catholic churches of the Age of Doubt!</p>
-
-<p>In the nineteenth century James Russell Lowell wrote a poem containing
-some lovely lines on the Cathedral of Chartres, but if a twentieth
-century poet approach the theme he will treat it in a more Catholic
-spirit, for the messages of these venerable fanes must grow broader and
-gentler as time goes on. A greater poet than Lowell said: “I never can
-feel sure of any truth but from a clear perception of its beauty.” From
-this idea he framed his invocation to beauty, which applies alike to a
-Grecian urn and to the Cathedral of Chartres:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">“Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe</span>
-<span class="i1">Than ours, a friend<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>
- to man, to whom thou say’st,</span>
-<span class="i0">‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all</span>
-<span class="i1">Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”</span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>Caen:<br />An Eleventh Century<br />Tableau</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="30" height="38" alt="T" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent">
-Two hours from Cherbourg, as the motor flies, lies the old town of
-Caen, founded by William the Conqueror.</p>
-
-<p>A curious peace reigns in this <a href="#I_074">old fortress</a>,
-with the drawbridge down, and the moat a <a href="#I_086">bower of trees and flowers</a>:
-the peace of consummated action; the returns are all in, and you may
-receive them according to your humor, for the burning questions of
-other days have faded into dreamy generalities.</p>
-
-<p>Were all those wild centuries of struggle and warfare vain? Or is the
-old Greek battle-cry, “Now let us go forward, whether we shall give
-glory to other men, or other men to us,” the normal note of primitive
-manhood? Were Rollo the Norseman and William the Norman, following the
-war-gods fiercer than they, commissioned by fate to lead great armies
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
-across the great waters, and, sailing under sealed orders, to found two
-great nations and one great language? Or are all things vanity?</p>
-
-<p>Perhaps, after receiving the children’s children of his loyal subjects,
-who may have crossed a certain wide ocean unknown to him to attend
-the great Court of History that William the Norman holds at Caen, the
-Shades of the Conqueror growing more familiar might conduct the musing
-cortége into the beautiful abbey near-by, which he built in expiation
-of the love-match he made in defiance of the church.</p>
-
-<p>I wonder here if the old king might not laughingly recall the story of
-his first meeting with Lanfranc.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_074" id="I_074"></a>
- <img src="images/i_074.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="605" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>William the Conqueror’s<br />Old Fortress;
- the Chains are said to be<br />the Originals.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
-Like other forceful men, William married upon his own responsibility.
-Accordingly, the Pope not only excommunicated him, but laid various
-bans upon his realm. Such bans were once marvelously inconvenient,
-to say the least. William fought the church valiantly for six years.
-It may have been then that he got his measure of the uses and abuses
-of that institution, which, in the long run, proved most valuable to
-England. Among others, Lanfranc, Prior of Bec, became a target for
-William’s displeasure and was ordered to leave his monastery. Lanfranc
-started forth forlornly enough on a lame horse. Thus caparisoned,
-he met the furious Duke William. Lanfranc had but one weapon at his
-command—tact. He approached the great duke, saying, “I am obeying your
-command as quickly as I can. I will obey faster if you will give me a
-better horse.” William was blessed with humor. He impressed Lanfranc
-into his service then and there, and made him his friend forever: the
-Conqueror could make good friends. Then he sent Lanfranc to make his
-peace with the Holy See. Understanding William’s passion for building,
-Lanfranc, the peacemaker, arranged that William and Mathilda should
-each build an abbey in expiation of their marriage. And William and
-Mathilda performed their contract so royally that France has lately
-restored their abbeys, line for line, as national monuments.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
-Thus a tableau of Caen, as the Conqueror saw it, actually lies before
-twentieth century eyes.</p>
-
-<p>Ah, put yourself in his place! I never knew a traveler to leave this
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>
-old town without becoming attached to its founder. The strong, orderly,
-noble and logical Norman buildings express the old Conqueror at his
-best; at Caen one prefers his older, gentler, more unique title of
-William, the builder, for, indeed, many have conquered in England, but
-William I built up his conquest.</p>
-
-<p>In this interesting old Norman church, with its suspicion of the
-pointed arch (probably the earliest instance) pointing toward the
-unparalleled Gothic that developed in Normandy, one feels like
-congratulating the old Conqueror, both as lover and architect, and
-reinstating his old claim to romance, even though modern research has
-discovered that he was not a very gentle knight.</p>
-
-<p>William I was no saint; but why should he have been one? Professional
-saints were only too common in his day: he was but a strong, direct man
-in a most superstitious, childish and indirect age. Is not the position
-of one who can stand alone through his age heroic enough?</p>
-
-<p>What a curious world the old Conqueror lived in! A world of
-professional marauders and their soldiers, of professional saints and
-their serfs; with a confusion of fighting barons, lay and ecclesiastic,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
-some or the most interesting bishops being no mean warriors; and worst
-of all, a lot of begging friars producing little but corruption. To
-the day of his death, the Conqueror makes no apology for his wars in
-Normandy. There he was simply holding his own. The behavior of the wild
-and worldly barons was not all he had to contend with; there were also
-the visions and the notions of the unworldly clergy, who, with intent,
-more or less good, more or less self-seeking, interfered absolutely
-with good government, and William’s tact and breadth with them,
-considered at a time when it is easy to be wise, nearly one thousand
-years after the event, is astonishing. It fell to his lot to deal with
-that peculiarly well-intentioned pope, Gregory VII, who, by his ability
-to conceive and carry out his well-intentioned policy, worked such
-incalculable evil. Spain is struggling with his Shades today.</p>
-
-<p>What a problem the mystics of the eleventh century, with their
-tremendous following and their curious allegorical interpretations of
-everything great or small in heaven or on earth, must have been to a
-statesman! Listen to this eleventh century letter of thanks from Saint
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
-Ivo to Gerard of Ham, for “an instrument of the whiteness of snow for
-combing the hair.” This comb is agreeable to him in and of itself,
-like other objects of beauty; but above all, it pleases him because
-of the elevation of ideas, which it so beautifully symbolizes: he is
-quite sure that thy prudence (<i>ta prudence</i>) has wished hereby to
-give a suggestion to his vigilance to seek constantly by all sorts of
-exhortations to reform the disorderly manners of his people, whom he
-compares to a disarranged head of hair. And yet Saint Ivo was in his
-day a strictly practical person, not to be fooled as Savonarola was
-four hundred years later by the ordeal of fire. Saint Ivo forbids a
-husband to condemn his wife even when the man he has accused could be
-burned by hot irons; and when the martial old bishop of Le Mans, who
-is accused of having treacherously surrendered that town, offers to
-walk on hot irons to prove his innocence, Saint Ivo writes him that
-ordeals are uncanonical and that he must not submit to them. But then
-no reader of his correspondence can fail to see that Saint Ivo was very
-timid. How he did dread the Channel! He entreats the holiest men of his
-acquaintance to pray unceasingly for him while he is on the water.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>But let us turn to the Conqueror’s own review of his life, as he
-discussed it on his death-bed. Two of his clergy took it down. Thus,
-as he would speak to his sons, he speaks to history. Here we have his
-perplexities at first hand. That we may put ourselves in his place
-as literally as possible, let us repair with the document to the
-beautiful Abbey aux Dames, so tenderly connected with the Conqueror’s
-queen. There, it is said, she made her thank-offering for her lord’s
-safe deliverance, alike from the perils of war and the perils of
-the Channel. This abbey was consecrated the year of the Conquest,
-eleven years before the Abbey aux Hommes (ladies first). Many of the
-Conqueror’s followers supplied their own ships, but Mathilda herself
-fitted out the Conqueror’s,—the regal <i>Mora</i>—so splendidly stocked
-with wine. Her good ship bore him safely to England and victory, and
-brought him back, as ever, true to his queen. To this abbey they
-dedicated their daughter Cicely, when she was a child, and she became a
-great and powerful abbess. Here we may picture her praying, as a woman
-in the intense Age of Faith could pray, for the souls of her parents.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>Eight hundred and twenty-five years after its original construction we
-found another high-bred cloistered Lady of the Trinity in passionate
-prayer at the tomb of Mathilda. Was this pretty young nun a legitimate
-part of the restoration? Though the cloisters of France were supposed
-to have been abolished, this one had been passed by, for the Conqueror
-holds Caen, and some iron hand of the past seems to have retained this
-spiritual young girl in prayer at the tomb of his queen. A strange
-sight it was, one of the curious tragedies of conservatism; but like
-many every-day tragedies imperceptible to its actors.</p>
-
-<p>To the eye all seemed beauty. From a fine old garden we stepped into
-a majestic aisle of a great abbey. As we walked down in its dim
-half-light, a curtain was drawn displaying a brass grill impassable in
-the eyes of the church. Impassable it had been, in fact, for nearly
-eight hundred and fifty years, but now to climb over it would be a
-minor athletic feat. It separated the chapel of the foundress and the
-nuns of the order of the Trinity from the whole outside world. The
-entire central space of this chapel was occupied by Queen Mathilda’s
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
-enormous cream-colored sarcophagus (restored). One might read the
-inscription in eleventh-century characters, fresh from a modern chisel.
-The chapel walls were lined with dark, carved wooden stalls, freshly
-oiled, and new-born sunbeams peered decorously through rich-colored
-glass on two kneeling nuns clad in the old-time flowing ivory-colored
-robes of the Ladies of the Trinity.</p>
-
-<p>One was a fleshy, middle-aged woman, mechanically counting her beads,
-the other was young and beautiful. She was looking up, and, though
-she was as motionless as the tomb beside her, her attitude expressed
-action as sculpture may. What was she thinking of? Is the life of
-today any less inscrutable than that of one thousand years ago? Here,
-in the charity of the church, let us consider the Conqueror’s apology
-(<i>apologia</i>); we are translating the word too literally, but the spirit
-of the document is humble and explanatory and, withal, very winning.</p>
-
-<p>In this <i>apologia</i> William considers that he has done his duty to
-the church, and history endorses him; in general, when he was at variance
-with it he was in the right. But of his expedition to England—every
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
-move of which is justified upon the Bayeux Tapistry—he repents,
-although, fortunately, not fanatically enough to try and undo the deed.
-He only makes what reparation he can to certain victims. Though on his
-death-bed he liberated Harold’s son and nephew, he seems to overlook
-a curious persecution, cruel in intent but easily repaired, that, in
-the confidence and fury of his power, he had directed against the
-soul of the defeated king. The Conqueror carried Harold’s body from
-the battlefield (he wrapt it in the purple, it is true), but he had
-insisted upon burying it in unhallowed ground, although for it Harold’s
-mother had offered the weight in gold,—both parties firmly believing
-that to lie in unconsecrated ground would militate against the repose
-of the spirit. Though he tried to undo many a deed, the Conqueror
-ignores entirely his arrogant revenge upon a soul. Facing death matures
-our sense of value.</p>
-
-<p>Though but one century removed from a forebear whose God was Odin,
-whose Valhalla was a place where heroes cut each other to pieces daily
-in fair fight, but where the blest are perpetually restored to life at
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
-meal-time that they may eat of the wild boar and fight again and
-forever,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
-at least the Conqueror came to shudder at his massacres at Hastings and
-York, to truly repent and to die humbly commending his soul to Mary.</p>
-
-<p>The spirit of the nineteenth century was iconoclastic; it demolished
-alike old heroes, old superstitions and old faiths. But the twentieth
-century would call them back, not as realities, but as heroes,
-superstitions and faiths, treating them philosophically, as great
-moving forces, or poetically, as starting points for new ideals. The
-hard, rational doubt which emancipated thought in the nineteenth
-century develops into the sympathetic doubt of the twentieth. The
-nineteenth century laughed at barbaric old heroes, while the twentieth
-century smiles at them. Who wants to live in a world without heroes?
-All men are not equal; but by reverent appreciation the small man may
-become brother to the genius.</p>
-
-<p>Every place, every document connected with the Conqueror bears his
-strong individuality. Read of him where you may, between the lines of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
-the Domesday Book (that conscientious effort to tax all that the
-traffic will bear), or in the broken lays of the troubadours, or by
-the light or the density of contemporary chroniclers, Norman or Saxon,
-you find before you a man great in himself and a forerunner of greater
-things: a great builder, building better than he knew; a great ruler,
-ruling farther than he knew—a true hero of the strenuous life.</p>
-
-<p>Following the chance records from which the Conqueror’s biography is
-put together, one is amazed by the integrity of his political instinct.
-William the Norman is an instance for the poet who said, “The world is
-what a few great men have made it.” The Conqueror seems such a typical
-Englishman, alike in his love of the forests and the “high deer,” of
-which the old Saxon chronicler complains, and in his appreciation of
-justice and stability, for which the same chronicler gives thanks
-on the spot. The Conqueror’s appeal is a very wide one. Even the
-economists, who hold that the world is what demand and supply have made
-it, write with an enthusiasm peculiarly their own of the Domesday Book
-and its wisely self-seeking, avaricious author.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_084" id="I_084"></a>
- <img src="images/i_084.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="385" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Dinan—the Fortifications have been Turned into Playgrounds.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>
-It cannot be argued that the Conqueror was a popular king, but
-sinners, like saints, may be proven by their influence after
-death—the Conqueror’s was strong and manly. His spirit entered
-widely into mediæval legend. He is the Arthur, the ideal ruler, whom
-Malory commends for manly purity, justice and probity; also for
-“open manslaughter.” We may take Malory’s word for it, it was better
-than the savage treachery known even four hundred years later, when
-that old <i>raconteur</i> was mixing probabilities, improbabilities and
-impossibilities so picturesquely, and we have our old hero back.
-Although we must alter Malory’s ideal, we can add to it as well as
-subtract from it. We have the splendid barbarian who brought order
-out of chaos both in England and Normandy, who loved and trusted his
-wife, who loved nature and had an instinct for art, whose intelligent
-attitude toward religion and learning left the Dark Ages behind, and
-whose loyal leadership opened the romantic days of chivalry.</p>
-
-<p>Near Caen is a lovelier town, “<a href="#I_084">Dinan, where the Conqueror slept</a>.”
-Here history’s scroll seems to loosen, displaying an enchanting pastoral of
-the ages; there lies the simple, old hamlet by the river, just as it
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
-might have looked when William the Norman and Harold, son of Goodwin,
-camped there together, a little less than one thousand years ago. Then,
-back of the river on the bluff, later a securely walled town appeared,
-but now the old fortifications have turned into charming parks and
-playgrounds, girding the loveliest of French villages; and on a summer
-day in fair France one can feel sure that though much of life is at
-cross-purposes, all is not vanity: old moats may make the loveliest of
-gardens; old warriors, the gentlest of heroes.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_086" id="I_086"></a>
- <img src="images/i_086.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="475" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Old Moats do make such Charming Gardens.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>The<br />Grandniece of the Grand<br />Inquisitor</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">I have a fair daughter formed like a</span>
-<span class="i5">golden flower.—<i>Sappho.</i></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="30" height="38" alt="T" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent">
-The Spanish Inquisitor is one character of the past who has been
-spared the mockish attentions of writers of historical romance. But
-he, too, has suffered from the <i>on dit</i> of history, history as she is
-taught. However, he had his day. Once as the impersonation of “correct
-sentiment,” he dealt his decrees from a palace and had the double honor
-of representing Church as well as State. As times grew gentler, the
-Inquisition was directed against books rather than men. Now, certainly,
-something may be accorded to those who dispose of polemic literature,
-even though they be as innocent as earthworms of their ultimate use
-to humanity; therefore, let us try to look upon the Grand Inquisitor,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
-Miguel de Carpio, as a Spanish gentleman of an exceedingly old
-school—as a man perhaps much less bloodthirsty than some of the good
-and perfect knights, though abominably technical regarding certain
-points. As theatre-goers we are in the gentleman’s debt, for it was he
-who educated his nephew, Lope de Vega de Carpio, who in his turn was a
-positive factor in the development of the modern drama.</p>
-
-<p>Lope Felix de Vega de Carpio was of a mental mixture that has more than
-passed away; it has been relegated to the incomprehensible,—at once
-a graceful poet and a soldier, a past master of euphuism and a coarse
-dramatist; an officer of the Church; “a servant of the Inquisition” or
-a “familiar of the holy office,” as he fluently termed it (an honorary
-escort of the victim to the stake); finally, chaplain of the monastic
-order into which he retired; and, unquestionably, the most voluminous
-of writers.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_088" id="I_088"></a>
- <img src="images/i_088.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="389" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Peep Into the Cranium of a Bible Reader<br />
- in Lope de Vega’s Time.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
-But his most poetic gift to the world was his love-child, Sister
-Marcela de Felix of the Convent of the Ladies of the Trinity at Alcala.
-Of all his children, legitimate or illegitimate, this daughter, by the
-lady who inspired the best of his sonnets, was to him dearest. He takes
-little Marcela to live with him as soon as ever his wife dies, and
-dedicates a drama to the little girl; so does another poet. She seems
-to be her father’s comrade, for when she is only eleven years old he
-uses her to get back some letters that he has written to one of his
-various mistresses; but when a relative of the husband of this mistress
-makes improper overtures to Little Marcela, Lope de Vega rises like a
-man “in spite of his age and holy orders,” and chastises the villain.</p>
-
-<p>At sixteen, to the little maid comes a craving for an exalted purity, a
-reaction of her beautiful soul from its coarse, immoral surroundings.
-Being a woman, her ideal also calls for a lover, but he must be pure
-and more beautiful than any one she has ever known, and he must love
-her as she will him, “better than life.” It is the Age of Faith. Her
-bridegroom awaits; she leaves her father to join him.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, there are braver, fuller, happier lives than a nun’s, and
-there always have been. But during the Age of Faith, in a religious
-house, there was always a haven of rest for the idealist, while now it
-sometimes seems he has not where to lay his head.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
-It was not in the Middle Ages that the king said, “If poets will be
-poets, why, let them starve.” Then, on the contrary, the public fed a
-vagabond population of vagabond singers who sang a certain grace into
-the Romance languages; for the devotees of various abstractions there
-was the refuge of holy orders. After taking up the religious life, if
-they had force enough to arrange the conditions around them to fit
-their desires, they might safely follow their various bents, for good
-or ill, undisturbed by care for the future, their bodies being insured
-against want, their souls against punishment. In Spain, particularly,
-really great men and successful ones continued to take holy orders even
-up to the eighteenth century.</p>
-
-<p>In his prime, Calderon exchanged the position of superintendent of the
-royal theatre for royal chaplain, but after a few qualms on the point
-he continued to write plays on much the same order as before, only
-they were performed by priests. Since Calderon was really orthodox the
-arrangement seems natural enough; as a playwright he had baffled with
-the public till he was fifty-one years old; in the church at least he
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
-was relieved from the dictates of public tastes. There it was that he
-probably wrote his beautiful “Magic Magician.”</p>
-
-<p>I am not a Ruskinite. I would not, if I conveniently could, domesticate
-the thirteenth century in the nineteenth; but I do believe in a
-sympathetic attitude toward history, as toward present life, and for
-the same reasons I would not turn the light of the twentieth century
-in upon the gloom of the sixteenth, with the idea of getting a clear
-picture. I for one do not feel that a convent was the saddest place
-for Sister Marcela. That power which decrees the fall of nations had
-its hand upon Spain. Wars, the Americas, the religious houses and the
-Inquisition, had fed on the flower of the nation too long. The times
-were out of joint. It seemed beautiful to little Marcela to lose such
-a world and gain a soul. Being a poet, the heroic side of the church
-appealed to her; in her intensity she joined the barefooted order of
-the Trinity. How did her father part from her? He was a poet, too—did
-he give her up with holy joy and homely sorrow?</p>
-
-<p>In his way, Lope de Vega was a really religious man, for he lived
-in close touch with his God—the literal, limited, jealous god of a
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
-fanatic, it is true. Would you see its exact image, as shown on the
-Market Place? Then read “The Marriage of the Soul to Divine Love,” a
-broadly realistic drama, in which Lope de Vega supposes the bridegroom
-to be the Savior. It was acted on the great Square of Valencia on the
-occasion of the marriage of Philip III, the dramatist himself being the
-clown in the cast.</p>
-
-<p>But, too, this vulgar “familiar of the holy office” can be tender.
-Listen to these lines, dedicated to his little dead son:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">“Holy angels and blest,</span>
-<span class="i2">Through these palms as ye sweep,</span>
-<span class="i0">Hold their branches at rest,</span>
-<span class="i2">For my babe is asleep.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">“And ye Bethlehem palm trees,</span>
-<span class="i2">As stormy winds rush</span>
-<span class="i0">In tempest and fury,</span>
-<span class="i2">Your angry noise hush;—</span>
-<span class="i0">Move gently, move gently,</span>
-<span class="i2">Restrain your wild sweep;</span>
-<span class="i0">Hold your branches at rest,—</span>
-<span class="i2">My babe is asleep.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">“My babe all divine,</span>
-<span class="i2">With earth’s sorrows oppressed,</span>
-<span class="i0">Seeks in slumber an instant</span>
-<span class="i2">His grieving to rest;</span>
-<span class="i0">He slumbers,—he slumbers,—</span>
-<span class="i2">Oh hush, then, and keep</span>
-<span class="i0">Your branches all still,—</span>
-<span class="i2">My babe is asleep!</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">“Cold blasts wheel about him,—</span>
-<span class="i2">A rigorous storm,—</span>
-<span class="i0">And ye see how, in vain,</span>
-<span class="i2">I would shelter his form;—</span>
-<span class="i0">Holy angels and blest,</span>
-<span class="i2">As above me ye sweep,</span>
-<span class="i0">Hold these branches at rest,—</span>
-<span class="i2">My babe is asleep!”</span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<hr class="r5" />
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_092" id="I_092"></a>
- <img src="images/i_092.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="363" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>The Literal, Limited God of a Fanatic and<br />
- Father Adam Stock-taking in Eden.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
-What did he whisper to this living child as she parted from him? “Heard
-melodies are sweet; but those unheard are sweeter.”</p>
-
-<p>When, in the confident phrase of her father, Marcela de Carpio
-“espoused the eldest son of God,” her mystic nuptials called forth the
-truest “song-feast” ever held. The herald of old might bid the poets
-appear and compete for a monarch’s pleasure. Order a tournament of
-song, indeed! Mahomet was profound enough to go to the mountain. When
-the beautiful love-child of Lope de Vega and Micaela de Luzan took the
-veil, the ceremony was graced by all the dignity and circumstance which
-the Church could lavish in outward expression of the passion and fervor
-of the forceful old days of her power.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
-All the poets of the day, great and small, seemed to have been summoned
-to this marriage feast, and all the poets of the day, great and small,
-vainly tried to transcribe the living poem their eyes beheld when that
-fair bride of Christ passed before them in a transport of ecstasy.</p>
-
-<p>At that time many great ladies were taking the veil with equal pomp
-and state, but no such tribute was paid them. What an absolutely
-inexplicable power is personality! Marcela de Carpio never published a
-line, and at this time had probably never written one. How did these
-minor poets recognize this fair daughter of Sappho? Was she “formed
-like a golden flower”? What a wonderful people are poets! But listen,
-for Sister Marcela’s bridal song is with us yet, she pipes so clear and
-sweet:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i10">I.</span>
-<span class="i0">“Let them say to my lover</span>
-<span class="i2">That here I lie!</span>
-<span class="i0">The thing of his pleasure,</span>
-<span class="i2">His slave am I.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i10">II.</span>
-<span class="i0">“Say that I seek him</span>
-<span class="i2">Only for love,</span>
-<span class="i0">And welcome are tortures</span>
-<span class="i2">My passion to prove.</span>
- <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i9">III.</span>
-<span class="i0">“Love giving gifts</span>
-<span class="i2">Is suspicious and cold;</span>
-<span class="i0">I have all, my Beloved,</span>
-<span class="i2">When Thee I hold.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i10">IV.</span>
-<span class="i0">“Hope and devotion</span>
-<span class="i2">The good may gain,</span>
-<span class="i0">I am but worthy</span>
-<span class="i2">Of passion and pain.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i10">V.</span>
-<span class="i0">“So noble a Lord</span>
-<span class="i2">None serves in vain—</span>
-<span class="i0">For the pay of my love</span>
-<span class="i2">Is my love’s sweet pain.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i9">VI.</span>
-<span class="i0">“I love thee, to love thee,</span>
-<span class="i2">No more I desire;</span>
-<span class="i0">By faith is nourished</span>
-<span class="i2">My love’s strong fire.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i9">VII.</span>
-<span class="i0">“I kiss Thy hands</span>
-<span class="i2">When I feel their blows;</span>
-<span class="i0">In place of caresses</span>
-<span class="i2">Thou givest me woes.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i8">VIII.</span>
-<span class="i0">“But in Thy chastening</span>
-<span class="i2">Is joy and peace;</span>
-<span class="i0">O Master and Love,</span>
-<span class="i2">Let not Thy blows cease!</span>
- <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i9">IX.</span>
-<span class="i0">“Thy beauty, Beloved,</span>
-<span class="i2">With scorn is rife!</span>
-<span class="i0">But I know that Thou lovest me</span>
-<span class="i2">Better than life.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i9">X.</span>
-<span class="i0">“And because Thou lovest me,</span>
-<span class="i2">Lover of mine,</span>
-<span class="i0">Death can but make me</span>
-<span class="i2">Utterly Thine.</span>
-</div><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i9">XI.</span>
-<span class="i0">“I die with longing</span>
-<span class="i2">Thy face to see;</span>
-<span class="i0">Ah, sweet is the anguish</span>
-<span class="i2">Of Death to me!”</span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>Marcela de Carpio retired from the world in 1621. It was not till 1870
-that the ladies of the Convent of the Trinity at Alcala called the
-attention of the director of the Spanish Academy to a manuscript so
-dear to that sisterhood,—the love-songs of a nun, the poems of Sister
-Marcela de Felix. Such a delay in publication would be disastrous to a
-worldling of the pen, but oblivion cannot bury a soul. Besides, Sister
-Marcela was dreaming of heaven, not of print; her thought incidentally
-overflows and she inherited her father’s facility with the pen.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
-Thus, from the depths of the old cloister swells a love-song so clear
-and sweet, so humanly divine that it almost reconciles the ages. The
-times were out of joint in Spain, but I am glad that this mystical
-daughter of Sappho was not ordained, like poor little Charlotte Corday,
-another idealist, with the blood of a great poet in her veins, to try
-to set them right. I am glad that the doors of the convent were open to
-this spiritual young dreamer of beautiful dreams, who sings the “Swan
-Song of the Age of Faith.” You say the convent doors are open yet; yes,
-but in another way—perhaps a better way. Women enter to dedicate a
-broken life to all that is good. The peace is there, but the rapture
-is no more. We “cannot sing the old songs now nor dream those dreams
-again.”</p>
-
-<p>No woman is fairer to muse upon than Marcela de Carpio. We get out
-of life what we put into it. From the repose of the cloister Sister
-Marcela contributes a dream. She is the poetess of the passionate
-reverence of the Age of Faith. In her verse “the tender grace of a
-day that is dead” is immortal. We must never for a moment overlook a
-Spanish lady’s pedigree. Senorita Marcela de Carpio was the grandniece
-of a Grand Inquisitor of Spain.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>Stray Leaves From Old,<br />Old Books</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_a.jpg" width="35" height="41" alt="A" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap neg-indent">
-A &nbsp;bibliophile is expected to enter with an apology,—he is generally
-called a bibliomaniac, but let your foreboded homage check your tongue;
-remember, if you prefer your mother’s Bible to the one left by the
-tract society, or the one left by the tract society to your mother’s
-(bibliophiles are liable to any preference), you are open to the
-infection and the mania is incurable.</p>
-
-<p>But do not books become ours by what we, individually, get from them?
-What does it matter whether it lies in the cover or the text or between
-the lines? “Piece out our imperfection with your thought,” implores
-the greatest poet. Though it is dwelt upon with some truth that
-bibliophiles do not read their books (must we therefore infer that
-other people have the contents of their libraries at their tongue’s
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
-ends), they have their own attitude toward them—an attitude which has
-proved of the profoundest service to letters.</p>
-
-<p>The professional critic enters the library in state, receiving and
-dismissing new books with sovereign assurance: so uniformly has he
-erred that the dictum has gone forth that no age can pass on its writers.</p>
-
-<p>The gentle reader enters the library modestly; although he may read the
-new books that perish, he does not neglect the new books that live, as
-any one who makes a study of editions will discover; he buys the good
-works of his own day. The publisher of the first edition of Shakespeare
-remarked that purchase “best commends a book,” on the strength of which
-idea he collected the stray plays of the Bard of the Avon. The preface
-which he wrote for his edition stands forth as the modest advertisement
-of history; but absurdly condescending as it is, it shows that he
-foresaw a good, immediate sale; also that he foresaw no farther.</p>
-
-<p>The bibliophile enters the library abstractedly, there to muse
-upon volumes true and tried; and through the ages his reverent,
-disinterested spirit has builded better than it knew. Indeed, it alone
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
-tided books across the Dark Ages; for even when they could not read,
-some there were who had wit enough to appreciate letters in the
-abstract. Contrast their attitude with that of the executive Caliph
-Omar, who burned a great library at Alexandria in 635, declaring that
-if the books were orthodox (Mohammedan orthodoxy, of course) they were
-unnecessary; if heterodox, pernicious. That is what it means to have
-mere practical people around among books.</p>
-
-<p>I can conceive of no human relic more touching than a Bible copied
-with conscientious care during this unsympathetic era. Hence the Book
-of Kells,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>
-which is destitute of one touch of the native artist, however immature,
-is often spoken of as the most beautiful book in the world. It is
-supposed to have been executed about the eighth century, since its
-illuminators had advanced from the mere red capitals adorned with
-twisted dragons to pictures relating to the text. The symbols of
-the apostles, especially the bird-like lion of Saint Mark, appear
-repeatedly on the margins; also, there is a representation of Saint
-Matthew with hands growing from his shoulders, holding up to the world
-two copies of “The Book.” Among its illustrations are the Arrest of
-Jesus, the Agony of the Garden, and, most interesting of all, four
-angels and a Virgin and Child appear on the old pages, for, crude as
-these figures are, they may be reckoned among the direct ancestors of
-those beautiful Holy Families born on Italian and Flemish canvases eight
-or nine hundred years later, whose sweet faces still sway the world.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_100" id="I_100"></a>
- <img src="images/i_100.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="423" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Tribute to the Scribes of the Dark Ages,<br />from One of
- Their Intellectual Descendants,<br />a Painter of the Moyen Age</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
-Christian art began as illustration on the pages of holy books, and
-as illustration it expanded onto wood and canvas, bronze and marble.
-The peculiar grace of pictorial art crept into it incidentally, by
-accident of genius. That famous Giotto of the Louvre showing “Saint
-Francis receiving the Stigmata” is simply a direct explanation of
-the subject, far more beautiful in idea than in execution. There are
-the figures of Jesus and of Saint Francis; Christ is flying toward
-“the most Christ-like of men,” and gilt lines from every wound in our
-Savior piercing Saint Francis in the same parts of the body bind that
-sympathetic saint to his Redeemer, while unknown to the holy brother a
-halo appears back of his head.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>
-This idea of illustration made beautiful that it might be worthy of the
-subject which it treated, that arose in the old scriptoriums, reached
-its perfection on <a href="#I_102">Ghiberti’s doors to the Baptistry</a>
-at Florence. Michael Angelo called them the Gates of Paradise.
-Illuminated books of a later date display equally noble, artistic
-connections. I have seen little Madonnas in Books of Hours in the
-British Museum that seem like imperfect copies of Raphael, whereas they
-precede him by nearly a century.</p>
-
-<p>Mediæval story is full of the visits of angels to despairing
-illuminators and scribes who found themselves unable to execute books
-worthy in their material beauty to convey the word of God. Our Lady
-herself sometimes came down to console them. Did forecasts of the
-beautiful pictures yet to come sometimes appear to the humble dreamers
-of the cloister as they worked away on the margins of holy books?
-Not literally, of course, for taste was too crude to conceive of a
-developed art. But may not some old artist have conceived in his cell
-of a pictured Madonna, so beautiful that pilgrims came from afar to do
-her honor, so sweet that she could uplift them from sin? And perhaps
-the soul of that humble old scribe finds its paradise in the better
-part of some inscrutable genius whose Madonnas perpetually uplift the
-world, for the soul of a saint is active forever.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_102" id="I_102"></a>
- <img src="images/i_102.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="440" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>It is Said There is No Better Test of a Bible Student Than to<br />
- Ask Him to Read the Stories which Ghiberti Tells so<br />
- Distinctly on the Baptistry Doors.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
-But from the vantage-ground of the Old Book of Kells it is as pretty to
-look backward as to look forward, so sweetly does it recall a certain
-monastery on the Island of Iona which casts its ray in history like a
-good deed in a naughty world. This old book speaks eloquently of the
-lonely Irish cloisters where, in perhaps the darkest hour of written
-history, the seeds of occidental civilization were laid away until a
-more favorable season dawned in which to sow them broadcast.</p>
-
-<p>About a hundred years after the blessed Saint Patrick converted
-Ireland, in which time many had fallen from grace, Saint Columba
-appeared on the scene, made a second conversion of that region and
-founded the old Scotch Kirk (very indirectly). When Saint Columba
-appealed to the canny Scots and the thrifty northern Irishmen for a
-situation for his monastery, they hospitably turned over to his use the
-rocky Island of Iona. Though agriculturally it was not much, through
-long ages it had borne the fruits of the spirit until even its stones
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>
-did duty as amulets. In its bosom slept the Scottish kings, King
-Macbeth being the last of the royal line to lie there. Iona
-was hallowed ground to the Druid, and is, to this day, a haven
-of superstition. There Saint Columba, the scribe, located his
-lonely monastery wherein books were made, wondrous in their day
-and generation, and there or at some Columbian monastery in the
-neighborhood, perhaps at Kells, the Book of Kells was executed.</p>
-
-<p>One of its big pages, which is covered by a great cross wherein
-eight circles are incorporated in a network of infinitely involved
-interlacements, especially illustrates one phase of early art—its
-reverent patience. Study that cross as you may you will find no false
-line, no irregular interlacement, for all this was done in the olden
-time when the ways of holy men were made so clear unto them. That none
-might disturb the holy calm of the silent scribes as they multiplied
-the precious “Word” Saint Jerome had taken down from the direct
-dictation of the angels, a code of signs was in use in the scriptoriums
-of the monasteries. The sign of the cross indicated a missal, the sign
-of the crown, King David’s psalms, while a contemptuous scratching of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
-the ear, in the manner of a dog, was an order for a mere pagan volume;
-for then “the world was very wicked,” as the good monks droned; or at
-least very rude, cruel, lazy and barbarous, as history affirms, and
-gentle spirits were only too prone to recoil from it.</p>
-
-<p>The early Christians in general were filled with contempt for this
-life and proud certainty of reward in the next: those whose practice
-was no higher than their theory withdrew from the world to secure to
-themselves particularly high seats in heaven. The composite story of
-their lives emphasizes the barrenness of the scoffer, the futility of
-the contemptuous. But the story of the scribe, though he may have seen
-through the glass just as darkly as the anchorite did, is the living
-story of Christian brotherhood.</p>
-
-<p>One of the first of these scribes, old Cassiodorus of Ravenna, writes:
-“All who sing form but a single voice, and we may mingle our notes with
-those of the angels, though we may not hear them.” I am sure that was
-the sentiment which finally turned this old statesman from the world,
-even though he did not retire till after the death of Theodoric, his
-patron. Perhaps the career of a statesman prepared him to be a statesman
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
-of the world of letters; at any rate, when he repaired to the cloister
-he gathered together, according to his lights, the best books of
-his world, and especially enjoined upon the monks the noble duty of
-multiplying them.</p>
-
-<p>All this was some hundred years before Saint Columba’s time, but angel
-voices carry, and I do believe in their highest moments the ignorant,
-undeveloped scribes of the old Irish monasteries vaguely echoed ideals
-like those of Cassiodorus.</p>
-
-<p>These scribes came to feel a certain ownership in the great Bibles on
-which they worked. At the end of each section of the old Book of Durrow
-its scribe smuggled in his petition that all who take the book in hand
-might pray for him. I have known a merry old scribe to insert a jingle
-in very bad Latin at the end of a chapter, indicating that after so
-much good work he should be rewarded with a drink. The jolly old monk
-has always appealed to me most unreasonably.</p>
-
-<p>Within the century of the making of the old Book of Kells in Ireland,
-stirring old Charlemagne brought a semblance of order to the land of
-the Gaul and the Frank and, “that requests should not be made to God in
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
-bad language,” he regulated copists and reproductions by law; he
-ordered holy books elaborately adorned, and collected, to the best
-of his ability, artists for that purpose, thereby leaving his mark
-on the books of his time and of some generations following, which
-are technically known as Carlovingians. Indeed, as a bibliophile
-Charlemagne shows the most charming side of his character. In his
-enthusiasm he went to work and learned to read, but he never could
-succeed in learning to write.</p>
-
-<p>As might be expected, Carlovingians are mechanically decorated. They
-show Byzantine importation rather than the loving development of an
-early and original art. We still have a couple of pages of the Amiens
-copy of a work written by the Abbot of Fulda during Charlemagne’s
-reign. One page is covered by a lone figure, without ground or
-background, of Louis the Pious with text printed all over it. (Not
-that in the Dark Ages anybody read between the lines; that they failed
-to do so was their greatest difficulty.) Then other Carlovingians are
-examples of the dyers’ art, being written in gold on purple vellum,
-like the “Golden Gospels” which one thousand one hundred years later
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
-proved such an excellent speculation on Wall street. But that is
-unquestionably “another story.”</p>
-
-<p>There is a certain book in the Bodleian not quite so old which I
-should value more highly. With considerably more evidence than usual
-in such cases, it is identified as the book of mass of Queen Margaret
-of Scotland. I wonder if the lovely Saxon princess had it with her
-when she fled to Scotland after the Norman Conquest to implore the
-protection of Malcomb Canmore who made her his Queen? But, better
-still, his people afterwards made her their patron saint, realizing
-that she had done more to refine them than any other early ruler.
-Tradition tells how the King, though he could not read, loved to handle
-the Queen’s precious books—perhaps he gave this little volume adorned
-with gold and jewels to the lady of his reverent love.</p>
-
-<p>The thirteenth century has great attractions for a bibliophile. Never
-were the embellishments on books more liberal and amusing. Nowadays
-illuminators consider the fitness of things, but in the thirteenth
-century they just designed. I know of a most charming psalter of the
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
-late thirteenth century with the capitals filled with the spirited
-knights and the margins with all-colored dragons whose attenuated tails
-form circles, sometimes not more than an eighth of an inch in diameter,
-that separate tiny butting goats or strutting cocks, or Darwinian
-monkeys or other irrelevant matter from the text.</p>
-
-<p>Did these dragons creep in from the Norse mythologies, I wonder, or
-were they just creatures of adaptive anatomy for decorative purposes?
-The early illuminators did not turn to nature; simple people never do.
-This illustrator’s mind certainly wandered; whether it started with
-the psalms I cannot determine, but he displays two tiny gilded stops
-one-eighth of an inch by two inches that the seriously inclined might
-take as sermons. One represents a jester, with cap and bells and wand,
-and little other raiment, successfully charging a fully armed knight;
-and the other, Venus, attended by a blue dragon, pursuing a cross
-between a man and a devil.</p>
-
-<p>The fourteenth and fifteenth century illuminators and illustrators
-begin to think; indeed, they are among the best historians we find of
-that period: modern illustration is fast returning to their methods.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>At the commencement of the fourteenth century, miniatures of the noble
-owners of elaborate volumes began to be inserted in their books. Thus
-a consecutive history of two hundred years of French portraiture is
-safely folded away in the Bibliotheque Nationale, where we may watch
-the stiff early miniatures gradually develop into charming little
-<i>genre</i> pictures. Though the consideration of atmosphere was passed
-over at that time, many of them are models of composition.</p>
-
-<p>Some of these little illustrations show the conceptions as well
-as the manners of the age. In one of these old Bibles is a
-<a href="#I_110">picture of six seigneurs</a> (two famous bibliophiles
-among them), in full regalia (no grave clothes for them), cordially
-received by Saint Peter at the Gothic Gates of Paradise in the
-courteous days of the old regime. There is that magnificent jeweled
-Bible of Jean Sans Peur, Duc de Bourgoyne, decorated with his armorial
-bearings, which was given to him by some monks of his domain when he
-deigned to honor them with a visit; it contains a charming little
-picture of the presentation scene.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_110" id="I_110"></a>
- <img src="images/i_110.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="556" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Page from the Bible of Jean Sans Peur.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
-Those were royal days for bibliophiles; but a change was to come over
-the spirit of their dreams. Printing was invented and the democracy of
-letters set in,—jeweled bindings made way for calf, and collectors
-are diverted from painting to presses. Bibliophiles develop individual
-tastes and such a plebeian variety of them; it is akin to free
-speech—one doting on prayer-books, another on cook-books; one on
-pamphlets, another on palimpsests; one on school-books, another on
-Virgils; one on curiosities of literature, execrably illustrated books
-of travel in impossible lands and comedies of error generally; another
-on distant glimpses of dawning light, until within the order arises the
-confusion of Babel, one no longer understanding the language of another.</p>
-
-<p>But there is an early Episcopal prayer-book in the British Museum
-before which all the brotherhood right gallantly might bow. It was Lady
-Jane Grey’s companion in distress; she is said to have taken it with
-her to the scaffold, where she certainly carried its lessons. In it she
-wrote her last message to her father: “The Lord comfort Your Grace in
-this world wherein all creatures are only to be comforted.” Her story
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
-is almost too harrowing to recall. This studious young girl, just
-seventeen, is offered the English crown. Her common sense tells her to
-decline it. “His Grace,” always harsh, even for his day and generation,
-forces her to accept. In consequence, after a ten days’ reign, she is
-imprisoned in the Tower. While she is held there “His Grace” makes
-another false move; as a result of his idiocy Lady Jane and her young
-husband are condemned to death.</p>
-
-<p>Could we believe this gentle message on hearsay? We should probably
-argue, the age was so narrow, the girl was so young, the expression
-is too condensed, too mature. The rational doubt would blur one of
-the loveliest pictures in Time’s gallery of fair women. A martyr
-without the spur, or the blemish of fanaticism! A Queen of ten days
-but a Defender of the Faith forever. The crown jewels pale before this
-illuminated prayer-book of Her Most Christian Majesty. This dear little
-Protestant called forth the one tender letter extant from the highly
-practical Diana of Poitiers. “I have just been hearing the account of
-the poor young Queen Jane, and I could not keep myself from weeping at
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
-the sweet, resigned words she spoke to them on the scaffold; surely
-never was such a sweet and accomplished princess.”</p>
-
-<p>Indeed, the best thing in the world of books, as well as in the
-world of men, “is something out of it,” and it is the appreciation
-of this “something,” manifest to sympathetic souls, which makes us
-bibliophiles. If unknown to history a tender touch of hands long dead
-lurks in an old edition, is it not beyond price?</p>
-
-<p>Although there are priceless books like this little prayer-book of
-Queen Jane, every good bibliophile is a bit of a speculator; to bet on
-an author is as loyal an excitement as to bet on a racer; and to feel
-a beloved volume appreciating upon one’s shelves is like watching the
-development of a promising child.</p>
-
-<p>Robert Browning, who was brought up in the fold, his father being a
-collector, writes:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">I’ the air, and catch again, and twirl about<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Secreted from man’s life when hearts beat hard,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">And brains, high blooded, ticked two centuries since?<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Examine it yourselves! I found this book,<br /></span>
-<span class="i0">Gave a <i>lira</i> for it, eightpence English just.<br /></span>
-<span class="i22"><i>Opening lines of</i><br /></span>
-<span class="i24">“<i>The Ring and the Book</i>.”<br /></span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
-That eightpence has the regular bibliomaniacal ring. Next to giving
-fifty prices for a book, the genuine collector delights in paying an
-improperly low one—a <i>tour de force</i> either of wit or of purse.</p>
-
-<p>Just think of getting material for the longest poem of the century for
-eightpence! and material so unique! with the inspiration of the old
-tome thrown in!</p>
-
-<p>But now, when books are so cheap they are almost free, when exact
-reproductions of wonderful editions might flood the market at any day,
-when venders of old books have become too expert for book hunters, we
-are assured that bibliophiles, grasping the tangible in the hope of
-realizing the intangible, are the absurdities of a rational age.</p>
-
-<p>Remember our record in the past and trust us a little in the present.
-In blind reverence we saved books and inaugurated Christian art.
-Historians suddenly began to demand documents and they grow more and
-more insistent on that point. Well, we can come to their aid and
-they can come to ours; many a pretty bargain has been struck in the
-exchange. Along with its old books and letters we have especially
-preserved the gentler, though none too gentle, side of the past.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>We can introduce you to men of other days in their libraries: a very
-good place to study them sympathetically.</p>
-
-<p>Among other charming facts, we can assure you that even during the
-confusion of a period of infinite intrigue complicated by religious
-wars and the Fronde, Richelieu and Mazarin found time to play at
-bibliomania, and perhaps we can persuade you that of all their games
-it was the most profitable. The executive Mazarin got hold of an
-invaluable expert, Naudé, who brought him bargains by the yard.
-What fun they must have had out of it,—Naudé literally taking a
-measuring-stick with him when he went “book-hunting,” and “the stalls
-where he had passed were like the towns through which Attila or the
-Tartars had swept!” But the result was different. Deserving books
-were sumptuously decked out in red and olive morocco with gold-tooled
-cardinal hats thereon, and took their rightful place in Mazarin’s
-palace, that Earthly Paradise of the bibliophile graced by beautiful
-books and gentle readers, for Mazarin’s library was cordially free, the
-first really free library in France.</p>
-
-<p>It is true that Saint Louis, always open to a beautiful idea, hearing
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
-of a sultan who had had copies made of the manuscripts of his realm for
-the benefit of the savants, endeavored to follow the example of the
-Moslem. Accordingly he made a beautiful collection of copies which were
-kept in the royal chapel—hardly a convenient place for the reading
-public; but then there was no reading public.</p>
-
-<p>However humble a Christian, however gentle a knight Saint Louis may
-have been, he was destitute of one instinct of the democrat. After his
-death his collection was broken up, but his idea descended to Charles
-the Wise, who practically started the Royal Library which, joined to
-the Mazarin, developed into the present Bibliotheque Nationale.</p>
-
-<p>As the oldest branch of the Public Library, the Bibliotheque
-Nationale occupies the ancestral home, the Palais Mazarin at Paris,
-where Mazarin’s motto, “Time and I,” rings forth in the majesty of
-accomplishment.</p>
-
-<p>As “Ever since the days of Captain Kidd, the Yankees think there’s
-money hid,” so ever since the disappearance of Molière’s library the
-bibliophiles think there’s treasure hid. Only one book which belonged
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
-to that prince of bibliophiles has turned up so far, a little Elzevir
-of 1651, in which he obligingly wrote his name and the price, 1
-<i>livre</i>, 10 <i>sous</i>. But think of his two hundred and forty odd comedies
-which he handled so deftly both in the letter and in the spirit,
-“taking his property wherever he found it!” What pearls of price if one
-could only trace them!</p>
-
-<p>We know this collection was broken up; it cannot be that every single
-book has perished. One is almost justified in counting such chickens
-before they are hatched. Molière was not only one of the greatest but
-one of the most lovable of authors—that quality we collectors value so
-highly! Why a book of his would be like a relic of a saint (there is a
-bit of mediævalism in every good bibliophile); a saint, a bibliophile
-of other days, an actor, a gentle reader and a genius! What might not
-any one of them bring? Ah, there is still a golden fleece for the quest
-of the Romantic Modern.</p>
-
-<p>Romance will always deal in talismans. We bibliophiles make ours a
-thing of the mind, which we lay away between the lines of some gentle
-old volume, hoping that some day, somewhere in the vague realm of
-Books, it may work its pleasant magic upon some unknown comrade.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>The<br />Romantic Twentieth Century:<br />A Deduction</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <img class="drop-cap" src="images/letter_t.jpg" width="30" height="38" alt="T" />
-</div>
-<p class="drop-cap no-indent">
-The simple story-tellers of old, singing away before History was born,
-long, long before she became contradictory and disrespectful, chose the
-past as a setting for certain beatitudes—love, beauty, valor, fidelity
-and justice. Theirs was not the harsh justice of the common law, for
-there was no common law, but true, or, as the world terms it, poetic
-justice. They strengthened the warp of their story with the noblest
-deeds done, or almost done, around them, for human beings so often
-fall just short of great things; this it is the gentle and honorable
-duty of story to remedy, for “What we would be, that we are for one
-transcendent moment.”</p>
-
-<p>When they only recorded the prowess of the victor, History and Romance
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
-were one and at peace, and the glorious days of which together they
-sung were known as the Golden Age.</p>
-
-<p>Then History began to feel the heroism of the vanquished. To give them
-their meed she conceived the idea of recording impartially the good and
-evil around her, whereat childish Romance turned from her in disgust.</p>
-
-<p>But each claimed the Golden Age: Romance declaring that golden tales
-that live and grow were hers for all time; History declaring that the
-fact that a great poet imagined an event to have happened counted for
-more in the human record than any other given occurrence. And History
-and Romance quarreled on until it seemed as though the Golden Age would
-be lost to both of them.</p>
-
-<p>Then Romance, always enterprising to the point of flightiness,
-suggested that, as the Golden Age had no chronology, it might safely be
-recast in the future, in which period she, at least, was quite as much
-at home as in the past.</p>
-
-<p>Politic Old Dame History smiled at the idea of her dealing in futures,
-but she did make herself responsible for the statement that the real
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
-present is infinitely more romantic than the real past. Then waxing
-bold she declared that, with some trifling digression, she had all
-along been leading men toward a purer justice more mixed with love. Of
-this sweeping assertion she calmly cast the burden of proof upon “my
-most persuasive witness, my dear old friend, Romance.” And Romance,
-who always begs the question, replies with a smile, “Let me tell some
-stories. No, I will not commence with the Greeks, they are hardly my
-people. Great poets may find other themes, but as for me, my humble
-fancy must rest upon a woman and she should be pure, sweet and gentle
-and brave men should bow before her.</p>
-
-<p>“The Grecian woman was in no way a free agent. To assert herself at
-all, she was obliged to be either deceitful or defiant; both attitudes
-are so unbeautiful! I commence with the days of chivalry, for though
-women were not free then, it was supposed that they ought to be, which
-is enough for me.”</p>
-
-<p>“To me,” says History, “the love stories of the days of chivalry,
-told as fact or as old romance, are one of the saddest issues of its
-universal tyranny—a tyranny of parent over child, of man over woman,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
-of lord over serf, of king over lord, of emperor over king, of pope
-over emperor—a tyranny of crazy conventions and mistaken ideals over
-all, with mortifications of spirit a thousand times harsher than those
-of the flesh, which made life hideous even to its ideals.</p>
-
-<p>“Analyze the great love story of that era and you find rather a tragedy
-of tyranny. It runs thus: About the close of the Dark Ages the parents
-of Pierre Abelard decided, for the future repose of their souls,
-to repress all their natural desires and shift all mundane duties.
-Accordingly they retired to separate convents, leaving their son free
-to follow his natural bent. Argument being his ruling passion, he
-wandered through France challenging the local theologians in debate,
-always drawing a following, always making powerful enemies, and,
-doubtless, very much enjoying the life. At Laon he tackled the great
-Anselm, and finding him a man ‘of mean genius and great fluency of
-words without sense,’ Abelard conceived the idea of reading the Bible
-for himself. Then he made his way to Paris to break a lance with the
-great Canon Fulbert, where he met the Canon’s niece, Heloise. A love
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
-story ensued, like other love stories in many ways, except that
-Heloise, against all self-interest, physical, social, spiritual,
-refused to marry her lover, entreat as he might; she would do anything
-else for him, except state her true reason—but yet a woman. We have it
-finally in her correspondence, ‘What an injury shall I do the Church if
-I rob it of such a man!’</p>
-
-<p>“Is it a sacrifice on the altar of the Church on her part, or is it a
-woman’s sacrifice for the interests of the man she loves better than
-herself? Had her mother made a like renunciation? No mother appears in
-the story of this adopted niece of an ecclesiastic. Here is Heloise’s
-position. In her time the only opening for a clever man was the Church
-with its conditions; a loving woman should not hamper an ambitious
-man; she should remember she cannot be to him what he is to her, which
-is a law of life known to woman, that we find holds true here. Having
-first given her all to the Church, she enters a convent at Abelard’s
-suggestion. But in the twelfth century, or any other, the hope of youth
-dies hard. Heloise does not take the black veil. She cannot burn her
-ships.</p>
-
-<p>“Thereafter this truly fair woman of Romance figures as a stern
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
-disciplinarian reporting the weaker sisters. But she is severe upon
-herself as well, and confesses having unlawfully opened a letter in
-which she was sure there was news of her Abelard; though, when in after
-years Abelard wished to correspond with her, she begged him not. This
-is the tragedy of Heloise.</p>
-
-<p>“Abelard also entered a convent, but there, as elsewhere, he had a
-wonderful faculty for carrying his point, and probably led, on the
-whole, a very congenial life. However, he once overstepped himself, and
-was summoned to appear before the Council of Soissons and commanded to
-burn his own book with his own hands. He ungallantly admitted that this
-was the saddest moment of his life. Here is Abelard’s tragedy. He felt
-that all was lost. But it was Abelard that the world needed, not his book.</p>
-
-<p>“Brave as Socrates, Abelard returned to the Abbey of Saint Denis, there
-to raise the first historic doubt. He did not think Saint Denis was the
-Areopagite of the Scriptures, nor did he believe the saint was ever in
-Paris. The horrified Abbot accordingly gave Abelard over to the civil
-authorities ‘for reflections upon the kingdom and the crown.’
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“Driven from Paris, he retired to a cloistered order at Troyes, where
-he built a church and had the pleasure of dedicating it to the Holy
-Ghost (there being a law against dedicating a temple to the Paraclete).
-Arguing to the last, Abelard passed away, and while his body was
-mouldering in the ground, his soul went arguing on in his intellectual
-descendants, the mediæval schoolmen who, in their poor way, managed
-to awaken the mind of Europe, if only to lead it by labyrinths into a
-cul-de-sac.</p>
-
-<p>“I wonder if Heloise was able to follow her true love’s valiant career
-without earthly pride? Or by some strange austere resolve did she deny
-herself that gentle pleasure? For Heloise belongs to the species,
-omnipotent woman, who carries out her decisions by hook or by crook
-for the benefit of self and others, never hampered by a doubt of the
-ultimate excellence of her arrangements.</p>
-
-<p>“Did she do well not to rob the Church of Abelard? Perhaps she builded
-better than she knew, or she may have made a sad mistake, but God
-knows, she did her best. That was eight hundred years ago, but her
-story is tragic today. As to Abelard’s, it is really very interesting.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“And,” continues History, “the favorite romance of this sadly
-submissive age was ‘The Patient Griselda.’ It was an old, old tale
-when Boccaccio told it, but, thank fortune, it is dead at last, for we
-cannot now conceive of the excellence of the heroine.</p>
-
-<p>“A marquis, whose only love is the chase, is forced by his subjects
-to marry. He compromises on a little country girl, and requires her
-to promise ‘to study to please him and not to be uneasy at anything
-whatever he may do or say.’ (A man’s requirements, only this marquis
-wasn’t a gentleman.) To test her patience, he amuses himself by taking
-her children from her, one by one, and leading her to suppose that they
-have been killed, because his people objected to the descendants of
-a peasant. Griselda blesses her children as she delivers them to his
-servitor, saying:</p>
-
-<p>“‘Take them; do what my lord and thine has commanded; but, prithee,
-leave them not to be devoured by fowls or wild beasts unless that be
-his will.’</p>
-
-<p>“Then the marquis tells her he must annul their marriage.</p>
-
-<p>“She replies, ‘For what I have been I hold myself indebted to
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
-Providence and you. I consider it a favor lent me,’ and she
-acquiescingly returns to the house of her father, who has prudently
-saved her old garments, never supposing the marquis would ‘keep her
-long as wife.’ In good time the marquis summons her to prepare his home
-for a new wife. She affectionately complies. The new wife proves to be
-herself, the marquis being quite persuaded that her patience ‘proceeds
-from no want of understanding in her.’ Her children are restored. She
-weeps for joy, and they all live happily ever after.”</p>
-
-<p>Romance replies, “The chivalry in your instances is confined to
-the women, which is always pathetic. As to the actual Griselda of
-Aquitaine, whose name and story grew into the heart of an age, she
-lived just before the days of chivalry. Indeed, Shades of women like
-Griselda and Heloise may have inspired the chivalrous attitude toward
-women.</p>
-
-<p>“One should read Griselda’s story in Chaucer, not in shallow-hearted
-Boccaccio, even though it was the purest and most popular of his tales.
-Chaucer would make you feel her kinship with women now, who make
-sacrifices for love less open and rude but not so different from hers.
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“Listen, History,” continues Romance, “to Chaucer’s tale: You have
-commended bloodier deeds than Griselda’s. The marquis says to Griselda,
-when he demands the child, ‘In great lordship there is great servitude.
-I may not do as every ploughman may,’ and Griselda, like a mother,
-whose son is demanded as a sacrifice on the altar of her country, first
-consecrates him to God. She is as tender to her child as she is loyal
-to her husband, but I will say no more; no one but Chaucer should touch
-that scene.</p>
-
-<p>“I have always suspected that the real marquis in question intended to
-kill the child for exactly the reasons he stated, and the gentleness of
-the mother, who could not possibly protect the child, saved it. Life
-was held very loosely then. You see, History, I tell more truth than
-I am supposed to and you tell less, my idea being to appear fanciful,
-yours, to appear truthful. We are all poor sinners. However,” continues
-Romance, “a sweeter day was dawning. Out of the effort of the soldier
-to protect the pilgrim grew the Holy Wars, wherein the ideal that the
-strong should serve the weak was born, and I nursed it into chivalry.”
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
-
-<p>“And a hideous and lawless state of things you brought forth,” remarked
-History; for Romance and History, like other old friends that have
-separated and come together again, cannot collate long in accord.</p>
-
-<p>“In some cases I taught men not to need the law’s control,” retorted
-Romance. “To make men gentle one must teach them gently, so I sent
-my troubadours through the land as trusty messengers of chivalry and
-bid them sing the new ideal into the very heart of the realm. And in
-song they contended as lustily for the point of honor as ever knight
-contended with his lance.</p>
-
-<p>“To these simple troubadours that love which is not physical, which
-begs to serve, not to be served, and poetry, itself, were one, and
-known by one term alone,—Love. But disputes arose regarding this term
-for an ideal new under the sun,—disinterested love in its highest
-and its fullest. Therefore, where the shades of classic refinement
-lingered latest, in fair Provence, I instituted tribunals before which
-my troubadours might plead their subtle causes in song, and styled them
-Courts of Love. My judges were the gentlest of ladies and poets bowed
-before them, saying:
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
-<span class="i0">‘For all my words here and every part</span>
-<span class="i2">I speak them all under correction</span>
-<span class="i1">Of you that feeling have in love’s art,</span>
-<span class="i2">And put it all in your discretion.’”</span>
-</div></div></div>
-
-<p>History interrupts: “Among my humoresques, I happen to have a literal
-account of one of those old Courts of Love. It was convened by the
-Countess of Champagne; she had fifteen more women on the bench with
-her, all decked out in green and gold. Monkey-fashion, those scented
-ladies (<i>precieuses ridicules</i>) of old had the proceedings of their toy
-court solemnly recorded. André, their scribe, adds that the perfumes
-on the fair judges kept him sneezing continually while he was taking
-testimony. At that time chivalry had most absurdly exalted ‘my ladye,’
-also the ‘beautiful unseen,’ styled the ‘beautiful unknown,’ and see
-the things men were expected to do!”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, and what is more, they did them,” retorted Romance, “and at the
-bidding of woman without other coercion, and the spirit of her law
-still rules.”</p>
-
-<p>“I am confining myself to documentary evidence,” says History tartly.
-“This Chief Justice of Love, Maria of Champagne, was the daughter of
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
-that Queen Eleanor of France, who would go on the Second Crusade.
-Had she only behaved herself in the East, she might have figured as
-the first New Woman. However, that was not to be. Formal action was
-brought before the Court of the Chief Justice of Love in the Province
-of Beauty by plaintiff, a servitor of love, against defendant, a Fair
-Lady—likewise a married one. Plaintiff had agreed to walk twice a week
-past defendant’s door, for which service defendant agreed to throw
-him a bunch of violets. As the weather was cold and the road muddy,
-plaintiff tired of the job and claimed in legal phraseology, as he did
-not always get his violets, that breach of contract should release him
-from further obligation.</p>
-
-<p>“Defendant pleads ecstasy of love and anguish of mind. She said that
-because of Danger (Court term for husband) she could not always perform
-her contract, since she frequently had to profess that she was asleep,
-although she was awake; that it was highly ungallant in defendant to
-complain of snow and mire. Love should render him invulnerable. She
-also added that the man had the best of it, for he might repeat his
-hours and orisons while he was walking up and down before her door;
-also, he had the privilege of kissing her latch as he passed, whereas
-(feminine economy) she was obliged to purchase thread to tie up his violets.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_130" id="I_130"></a>
- <img src="images/i_130.jpg" alt=" " width="450" height="556" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>Head of Justice, from Fiore’s Group.<br />
- This Old Venetian Figure of Justice Still Presides<br /> Over the Gallery
- of Early Painters at Venice.<br />Technically she is in advance<br />
- of the Madonnas of Her Period.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
-“Judgment in favor of the lady.</p>
-
-<p>“Among the celebrated cases recorded in this court are two every-day
-disagreements between man and woman. A gentleman complains of the
-refusal of a lady to dance with him, which rendered him ridiculous. The
-court commanded the lady to dance with him.</p>
-
-<p>“Action was brought by a wife against her husband for restraining her
-from wearing a hat of the newest fashion.</p>
-
-<p>“Judgment for the lady.</p>
-
-<p>“I will close,” continues History, “by citing a few of the thirty-one
-rulings of this Court of Maria of Champagne:</p>
-
-<ul class="index">
-<li class="isub3">“1. Love and economy do not agree.</li>
-<li class="isub3">“2. Without good reason no one can be forbidden to love.</li>
-<li class="isub3">“3. Love is not stationary. If it does not diminish, it will increase.</li>
-<li class="isub3">“4. It is not loving to kiss and tell.</li>
-<li class="isub3">“5. No man can love two women at the same time.</li>
-<li class="isub3">“6. A woman should persist in her choice till all hope be abandoned;</li>
-<li class="isub5">like persistence cannot be demanded from man.”</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
-“Maria de Champagne was a profound jurist, but I doubt if she was a
-truly romantic woman,” replies Romance. “Were I not too chivalrous to
-expose to your commonplace laughter the gentlest yearning of a rude
-age, their uncertain groping for a vague ideal too noble for their actual
-conception, I could a sweeter tale unfold of Courts of Love of old.</p>
-
-<p>“But if you will laugh at ideals of romantic love, laugh kindly with me
-over its merriest comedy, written by the saddest and most chivalrous
-lover of them all.</p>
-
-<p>“Take down your files, Dame History, and find, if you can, another
-servitor of love as chivalrous to his lady as Molière was to his wife,
-a woman belonging to other men; Molière’s patience, like Griselda’s,
-‘proceeded from no lack of understanding.’”</p>
-
-<p>“You have wandered far from the romance of the days of chivalry for
-your chivalrous instance,” sneers History.</p>
-
-<p>“I was following up the seed that chivalry sowed, the idea of the
-self-effacement of the strong in favor of the weak. But let us turn
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
-from the dramatist to the comedy, and by a short consideration of ‘<i>Les
-Precieuses Ridicules</i>,’ I may be able to make your point for you, ‘that
-the actual present is as romantic as the romance of the past.’</p>
-
-<p>“At the beginning of this play, Georgebus, a provincial gentleman, has
-made arrangements with two satisfactory persons to marry respectively
-his daughter and niece. The girls are brought to Paris, where the
-candidates for their hands and hearts appear and come to the point at
-once. It seems the girls have been reading the romances of Mlle. de
-Scudéry, who has given them the idea that a lover should fall in love
-at sight, seek out his lady, woo her, and after gallantly surmounting
-many obstacles, win her. Georgebus perceives that the men depart in
-displeasure and investigates. He has observed that the girls are aping
-the manners of the ladies of the Court, which in Molière’s time were
-very affected. Georgebus’ daughter states her platform. It is rather
-romantic, but there are lovers nowadays that might fill the bill. She
-closes by saying, ‘But to plunge headlong into a proposal of marriage,
-to make love and marriage settlements go hand in hand, is to begin the
-romance at the wrong end. Once more, father, there is nothing more
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
-shopkeeper-like than such proceedings.’ Georgebus is unable ‘to make
-out the meaning of her jargon,’ while his niece adds that those
-gentlemen ‘have never seen the map of the Country of Tenderness.’ She
-is also dissatisfied with their dress.</p>
-
-<p>“Certainly, Molière did know what young girls crave, which Georgebus
-was unable to understand.</p>
-
-<p>“In the meantime the disconcerted lovers have dressed their valets up
-and bidden them address the ladies in the most exaggerated fashion.
-The young girls are completely taken in, as girls often are by pseudo
-noblemen. The comedy runs high. Finally the masters appear, strip their
-valets of their finery, whip them and send them home.</p>
-
-<p>“The bottom falls out of everything. Georgebus cries, ‘Hide yourselves,
-you idiots, hide yourselves forever,’ and after the girls’ exit, adds,
-‘The cause of all the trouble lies in romances, verses, songs, sonnets
-and lays.’</p>
-
-<p>“But in the long run, romances, verses and songs have won. Twentieth
-century sentiment goes with the girls though they were fooled once in
-the days of their youth. Nowadays, my courts sit in secret session. The
-novel is their organ, but, History, your crude Courts of Love died out
-six hundred years ago.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_134" id="I_134"></a>
- <img src="images/i_134.jpg" alt=" " width="400" height="529" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>An Ideal of the Gracious<br />Republic of Venice,
- Attended by Justice and Peace,<br />Expressed by Paul Veronese,<br />
- Sixteenth Century.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
-“Never have I called you into my councils that I have not been
-belittled,” observes History. “My romance is democracy not courtship
-and it commenced with the inspiration of the Greeks. My first votary
-taught that ‘it is clear not in one thing alone, but wherever you
-test it, what a good thing is equality among men.’ He adds, ‘A tyrant
-disturbs ancient laws, violates women, kills men without trial. But a
-people ruling: first, the very name of it is so beautiful—<i>Isonomiê</i>;
-and secondly, a people does none of these things.’</p>
-
-<p>“And this beautiful ‘equality among men’ I have followed in its ideal,
-in its fruition and alas, sometimes, in its debasement throughout the
-ages. I watched its short and glorious days in Greece, its orderly
-development in Rome, its splendid resurrection in Venice, which led the
-line of free cities of the Middle Ages that handed it down. I watched
-the American and the French Republics rise in the eighteenth century,
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
-the French to totter, but to rise again, the American to live to fight
-another chivalrous war for human rights; and, the justice of republics
-proven, the twentieth century built one in a day. Then the distant
-continent, that drained the bravest blood of Portugal in the sixteenth
-century, wiped out its debt with the ‘fruits of the spirit,’ the
-romantic spirit of the twentieth century.</p>
-
-<p>“Herodotus placed his faith in the people long ago, probably on
-more evidence than he reported in support of what to him seemed
-self-evident. Were he to come back to his native town now he would find
-his beautiful city of Halicarnassus replaced by a mean Turkish village,
-but through it are ringing the words ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’
-and the Father of History might be less surprised than men of today by
-the revolution that has suddenly established a constitution in Turkey.
-Indeed, nowhere has the very name of equality proved more beautiful.
-Since July 25, 1908, the lion and the lamb have actually lain down
-together on the once bloody fields of the Turk. Over a little Turkish
-shop two inscriptions appeared, side by side, above the three beautiful
-words: ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ and ‘The
-beginning is from God; so victory is sure.’</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
- <a name="I_136" id="I_136"></a>
- <img src="images/i_136.jpg" alt=" " width="600" height="244" />
- <p class="f120 space-below1"><i>A Mediæval Expression of Justice, Attended by
- Archangels, by Fiore.<br />Michael, the Angel of Good Counsel and Patron
- of All Souls, in Her Honor,<br />has Added a Pair of Scales to His Usual
- Emblems. Gabriel,<br />With His Lily and Scroll, the Angel Who Announces
- Things<br />High and Holy, is Pointing Directly to Her.</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
-“And if the great traveler of old were to push on westward across
-Europe, westward across the Atlantic, he might bequeath his visions
-to earth, and bidding us hope on, go back well pleased to the Courts
-of the Dead, his simple thesis proved—‘A people does none of these things.’”</p>
-
-<p>Romance aside, “In her self-satisfaction she has forgotten all about
-the Golden Age. It never was hers. It is mine, and I will recast it
-safely in the future. There will I hold Courts of Love to define
-all new ideals, my pleaders shall be poets and their words shall be
-spoken under correction of those that have feeling in the art of this
-broader love, and my good knights shall swear ‘To defy power that seems
-omnipotent, to love and bear, to hope till Hope creates from its own
-wreck the thing it contemplates.’”</p>
-
-<p>Thus does the romantic twentieth century realize the fruition of the
-ideals of democrats of the past.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>A Word Regarding<br />Bibliography</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The original documents<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>
-consulted for this book have been the works of art of which it treats.
-In the case of old books, I have also availed myself of facsimiles,
-which have this advantage over originals, they may be freely handled.
-Most interesting among them are <span class="smcap">The Book of
-Kells</span>, notes from copy of plates, with remarks by Westwood
-and Digby Watts; and <span class="smcap">Illuminated Books of the
-Middle Ages</span>, by Humphrey Jones. The authorities on Gothic
-architecture, which I have accepted as final, are Viollet-le-Duc and
-Corroyer. I have drawn much of my material from modern technical
-periodicals, most useful of which have been <span class="smcap">Les
-Arts</span>, <span class="smcap">Revue Archeologique</span>,
-<span class="smcap">Revue des Questions Historiques</span> and the
-<span class="smcap">American Historical Review</span>. Though I have had
-recourse to general historians who treat of the Middle Ages,—Duruy,
-Gibbon, Guizot, Kitchin, Saint Martin, etc.; to guide books of accepted
-accuracy,—Baedeker, Guerber, Guides Joanne, and Dent’s Mediæval Town
-Series; to encyclopedias, English and French,—to the appended list of
-authorities I acknowledge especial indebtedness. Even when I have not
-borrowed statements from them I have been influenced by them in my
-interpretations of the Middle Ages:
-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
-
-<ul class="index">
-<li class="isub1">Blades, Wm., Books in Chains.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Boulting, Wm., Torquato Tasso and His Times.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Bruun, J. A., An Inquiry into the Arts of the Middle Ages.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Bryce, James, Holy Roman Empire.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Chéreul, Dictionnaire des Institutions Françaises.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Clerval, A., Guide Chartrain (Docteur es-Lettres, Lauréat</li>
-<li class="isub3">de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres</li>
-<li class="isub3">et Membre de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires).</li>
-<li class="isub1">Cutts, Edward Lewes, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Dill, Samuel, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Fletcher (Prof. Bannister and Bannister F. Fletcher),</li>
-<li class="isub3">History of Architecture on the Comparative Method.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Gray, Geo. Zabriskie, The Children’s Crusade.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Gould, Sabine Baring-, Myths of the Middle Ages.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Hawkins, John Sidney, History of the Origin and Establishment</li>
-<li class="isub3">of Gothic Architecture.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Hay, John, Castilian Days.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Ivo, Letters of Ivo (reprint of original documents).</li>
-<li class="isub1">Jusserand, J. J., La Vie Nomade.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Lacroix, Paul, Military and Religious Life in the Middle Ages.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Lang, Andrew, Books and Bookmen.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Lecoy-de-la Manche, Richard Albert: France under St. Louis and</li>
-<li class="isub3">Philip le Hardi; Les Manuscripts et la Miniature;</li>
-<li class="isub3">Le Troisième Siècle Artistique; Suger.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Mabillon (edited by), Life of Bishop Arnold of Le Mans.
- <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></li>
-<li class="isub1">Maitland, Samuel Roffey, The Dark Ages.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Mandan, Books in Manuscript.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Matthews, Story of Architecture.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Merlet, Eugene, Bulletin Monumental, Number 67, of 1903.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Norton, Chas. Eliot, Church Building in the Middle Ages.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Reber, Dr. Franz von, History of Mediæval Art.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Reinach, Salomon, Apollo.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Rennert, Hugo Albert, Life of Lope de Vega.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Rowbotham, J. F., Troubadours and Courts of Love.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Stetson, F. M., William the Conqueror.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Ticknor, Geo., History of Spanish Literature.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Trumble, Alfred, Sword and Scimitar.</li>
-<li class="isub1">Vasari, Giorgio, Lives of the Painters (Blashfield’s edition).</li>
-<li class="isub1">Wiseman, Preface to Cardinal Wiseman’s novel, Fabiola.</li>
-</ul>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
-<hr class="chap" />
-<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
-<div class="nu_page">
- <h2><i>Index</i></h2>
-</div>
-
-<ul class="index">
-<li class="isub2">Abbey aux Dames, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Abbey aux Hommes, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Abelard, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Ambrose, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Amiens, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Amiens Copy, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Angelo, xii, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Bayeux, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Beauvais, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Bernard, Saint, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Bibliotheque Nationale, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Bologne sur Mer, viii.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Bouillon, Godfrey de, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Bourg, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Browning, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Brunelleschi, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Caen, viii, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Calderon, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Carpio (see de Vega), <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Cassiodorus, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Charlemagne, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Charles le Bel, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Charles the Bald, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Charles the Wise, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Chartres, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Chaucer, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Cherbourg, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Cicely, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Clovis, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>,
- <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Cnut, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Coutances, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Corday, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Court of Love, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Crusade of Children, <a href="#Page_xv">xv</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Denis, Abbey de Saint, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Denis, Saint, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Dieppe, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Dinan, <a href="#Page_ix">ix</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Dinard, <a href="#Page_ix">ix</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Dols, <a href="#Page_ix">ix</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Dürer, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Durrow, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Ebbon, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Eleanor, Queen, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Eloi, Saint, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Francis, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Fulbert, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Fulda, Abbot of, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.
- <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Georgebus, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Ghiberti, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Gibbon, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Glass, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Gothic, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Gothic, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Gothic, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Gregory, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Grey, Lady Jane, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Griselda, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Guibert, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Haimon, Abbé, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Halicarnassus, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Harold, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Heloise, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Henry of Navarre, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Herodotus, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Hildebrand, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Hugh of Rouen, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst"><i>Imagier</i>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Iona, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Ivo, Saint, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Jerome, Saint, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Keats, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Kells, Book of, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Lactance, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Laon, viii, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Lanfranc, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Le Mans, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Louis VI, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Louis VII, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Louis the Pious, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Louis, Saint, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Love, Court of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Lowell, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Lubin, Well of Saint, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Maclou, Saint, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Madonna, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>,
- <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Maria of Champagne, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Margaret, Saint, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Marlo, San, <a href="#Page_ix">ix</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Martin, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>,
- <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>,
- <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Mathilda, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Mazarin, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Michele, Mt. San, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Molière, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Napoleon, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Naudé, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Norsemen, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Ouen, Saint, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>, <a href="#FRONTIS">frontispiece</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Paris, viii, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Parthenon, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Patiens de Lyons, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Pavia, Certosa di, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Philippe le Bel, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Portugal, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.
- <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></li>
-<li class="isub2">Provence, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Ravenna, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Remi, Saint, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Revolution, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Rheims, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Richard of Normandy, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Richelieu, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Rodin, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Rollo, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Rouen, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Rumald, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Ruskin, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Saint Denis, <a href="#Page_viii">viii</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Sebastian, Saint, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Suger, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>,
- <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Tertullian, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Thierry, Saint, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">Valencia, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Vega, Lope de, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Vega, Micaela de, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li>
-<li class="isub2">Viollet-le-Duc, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li>
-
-<li class="ifrst">William I, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li>
-</ul>
-
-<hr class="chap" />
-<div class="footnotes">
-<p class="f150 u space-above2 space-below2"><b>FOOTNOTES:</b></p>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
-<a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
-The Spaniards of Seville formally determined to build a cathedral upon
-so magnificent a scale that coming ages might proclaim them mad to have
-undertaken it.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
-<a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
-As our train passed Chartres an exceedingly coarse conversation between
-drummers broke into a pæan to the beauty of the cathedral.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
-<a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>
-I do not make myself responsible for the statement that these
-restorations are photographically exact, but at least on the old
-lines it has been possible to erect perfect examples of Norman
-architecture.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
-<a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a>
-The gentler element in Norse mythology enters into it long
-after the eleventh century and is probably a reflection from
-Christianity.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
-<a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a>
-Property of Trinity College, Dublin.</p></div>
-
-<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
-<a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a>
-A ‘document’ is an instrument on which is recorded, by means of
-letters, figures, or marks, matter which may be evidentially
-used.—<span class="smcap">F. Wharton</span>, <i>Law of Evidence</i>.<br />&nbsp;</p></div>
-</div>
-<hr class="chap" />
-
-<div class="transnote bbox">
-<p class="f120 space-above1">Transcriber’s Notes:</p>
-<hr class="r5" />
-<p class="indent">The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is in the public domain.</p>
-<p class="indent">The illustrations and footnotes have been moved so that they do not break up
- paragraphs.</p>
-<p class="indent">Errors in punctuation and inconsistent hyphenation were not corrected
- unless otherwise noted.</p>
-<p class="indent">Typographical errors have been silently corrected but other variations
- in spelling and punctuation remain unaltered.</p>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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