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diff --git a/old/cmfrs10.txt b/old/cmfrs10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bae4b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cmfrs10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7900 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coming of the Friars, by Augustus Jessopp + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Coming of the Friars + +Author: Augustus Jessopp + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6625] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 5, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII, with a few ISO-8859-1 characters + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING OF THE FRIARS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +THE COMING OF THE FRIARS AND OTHER HISTORIC ESSAYS + +BY THE REV. AUGUSTUS JESSOPP, D.D. + +Hon. Canon in Norwich Cathedral, Hon. Fellow of Worcester College, +Oxford, and Hon. Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge + +FOURTEENTH IMPRESSION + + + + +TO MY FRIEND AND SOMETIME TUTOR, + +FRANCIS WHALLEY HARPER, + +CANON OF YORK, + +I OFFER THIS VOLUME AS A TOKEN OF MY GRATITUDE + + + + +[These Essays have appeared at various times in "The Nineteenth +Century," and are now printed with some alterations, corrections, and +additions.] + + + + +CONTENTS. + + I. THE COMING OF THE FRIARS + + II. VILLAGE LIFE IN NORFOLK SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO + + III. DAILY LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL MONASTERY + + IV. THE BLACK DEATH IN EAST ANGLIA + + V. THE BLACK DEATH IN EAST ANGLIA (_continued_) + + VI. THE BUILDING UP OF A UNIVERSITY + + VII. THE PROPHET OF WALNUT-TREE YARD + + + + +I. + +THE COMING OF THE FRIARS. + +Sweet St. Francis of Assisi, would that he were here again!--_Lord +Tennyson._ + + +When King Richard of England, whom men call the Lion-hearted, was +wasting his time at Messina, after his boisterous fashion, in the +winter of 1190, he heard of the fame of Abbot Joachim, and sent for +that renowned personage, that he might hear from his own lips the +words of prophecy and their interpretation. + +Around the personality of Joachim there has gathered no small amount +of _mythus._ He was, it appears, the inventor of that mystical +method of Hermeneutics which has in our time received the name of +"the year-day theory," and which, though now abandoned for the most +part by sane men, has still some devout and superstitious advocates +in the school of Dr. Cumming and kindred visionaries. + +Abbot Joachim proclaimed that a stupendous catastrophe was at hand. +Opening the Book of the Revelation of St. John he read, pondered, and +interpreted. A divine illumination opened out to him the dark things +that were written in the sacred pages. The unenlightened could make +nothing of "a time, times, and half a time" [Footnote: Dan. xii. 7.] +; to them the terrors of the 1,260 days [Footnote: Rev. xi .3.] were +an insoluble enigma long since given up as hopeless, whose answer +would come only at the Day of Judgment. Abbot Joachim declared that +the key to the mystery had been to him revealed. What could "a time, +times, and half a time" mean, but three years and a half? What could +a year mean in the divine economy but the _lunar_ year of 360 +days? for was not the moon the symbol of the Church of God? What were +those 1,260 days but the sum of the days of three years and a half? +Moreover, as it had been with the prophet Ezekiel, to whom it was +said, "I have appointed thee a day for a year," so it must needs be +with other seers who saw the visions of God. To them the "day" was +not as our brief prosaic day--to them too had been "appointed a day +for a year." The "time, times, and half a time" were the 1,260 days, +and these were 1,260 years, and the stupendous catastrophe, the +battle of Armageddon, the reign of Antichrist, the new heavens and +the new earth, the slaughter and the resurrection of the two heavenly +witnesses, were at hand. Eleven hundred and ninety years had passed +away of those 1,260. "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth," said +Joachim; "Antichrist is already born, yea born in the city of Rome!" + +Though King Richard, in the strange interview of which contemporary +historians have left us a curious narrative, exhibited much more of +the spirit of the scoffer than of the convert, and evidently had no +faith in Abbott Joachim's theories and his mission, it was otherwise +with the world at large. At the close of the twelfth century a very +general belief, the result of a true instinct, pervaded all classes +that European society was passing through a tremendous crisis, that +the dawn of a new era, or, as they phrased it, "the end of all +things" was at hand. + +The Abbot Joachim was only the spokesman of his age who was lucky +enough to get a hearing. He spoke a language that was a jargon of +rhapsody, but he spoke vaguely of terrors, and perils, and +earthquakes, and thunderings, the day of wrath; and because he spoke +so darkly men listened all the more eagerly, for there was a vague +anticipation of the breaking up of the great waters, and that things +that had been heretofore could not continue as they were. + +Verily when the thirteenth century opened, the times were evil, and +no hope seemed anywhere on the horizon. The grasp of the infidel was +tightened upon the Holy City, and what little force there ever had +been among the rabble of Crusaders was gone now; the truculent +ruffianism that pretended to be animated by the crusading spirit +showed its real character in the hideous atrocities for which Simon +de Montfort is answerable, and in the unparalleled enormities of the +sack of Constantinople in 1204. For ten years (1198--1208) through +the length and breadth of Germany there was ceaseless and sanguinary +conflict. In the great Italian towns party warfare, never hesitating +to resort to every kind of crime, had long been chronic. The history +of Sicily is one long record of cruelty, tyranny, and wrong-- +committed, suffered, or revenged. Over the whole continent of Europe +people seem to have had no _homes;_ the merchant, the student, +the soldier, the ecclesiastic were always on the move. Young men made +no difficulty in crossing the Alps to attend lectures at Bologna, or +crossing the Channel to or from Oxford and Paris. The soldier or the +scholar was equally a free-lance, ready to take service whereever it +offered, and to settle wherever there was dread to win or money to +save. No one trusted in the stability of anything. [Footnote: M. +Jusserand's beautiful book, "La Vie Nomade," was not published till +1884, _i.e.,_ a year after this essay appeared.] + +To a thoughtful man watching the signs of the times, it may well have +seemed that the hope for the future of civilization--the hope for any +future, whether of art, science, or religion-lay in the steady growth +of the towns. It might be that the barrier of the Alps would always +limit the influence of Italian cities to Italy and the islands of the +Mediterranean; but for the great towns of what is now Belgium and +Germany what part might not be left for them to play in the history +of the world? In England the towns were as yet insignificant +communities compared with such mighty aggregates of population as +were to be found in Bruges, Antwerp, or Cologne; but even the English +towns _were_ communities, and they were beginning to assert +themselves somewhat loudly while clinging to their chartered rights +with jealous tenacity. Those rights, however, were eminently +exclusive and selfish in their character. The chartered towns were +ruled in all cases by an oligarchy. [Footnote: Stubbs, +"Constitutional History," vol. i. Section 131.] The increase in the +population brought wealth to a class, the class of privileged +traders, associated into guilds, who kept their several +_mysteries_ to themselves by vigilant measures of protection. +Outside the well-guarded defences which these trades-unions +constructed, there were the masses--hewers of wood and drawers of +water--standing to the skilled artizan of the thirteenth century +almost precisely in the same relation as the bricklayer's labourer +does to the mason in our own time. The _sediment_ of the town +population in the Middle Ages was a dense slough of stagnant misery, +squalor, famine, loathsome disease, and dull despair, such as the +worst slums of London, Paris, or Liverpool know nothing of. When we +hear of the mortality among the townsmen during the periodical +outbreaks of pestilence or famine, horror suggests that we should +dismiss as incredible such stories as the imagination shrinks from +dwelling on. What greatly added to the dreary wretchedness of the +lower order in the towns was the fact that the ever-increasing +throngs of beggars, outlaws, and ruffian runaways were simply left to +shift for themselves. The civil authorities took no account of them +as long as they quietly rotted and died; and, what was still more +dreadful, the whole machinery of the Church polity had been formed +and was adapted to deal with entirely different conditions of society +from those which had now arisen. + +The idea of the parish priest taking the oversight of his flock, and +ministering to each member as the shepherd of the people, is a grand +one, but it is an idea which can be realized, and then only +approximately, in the village community. In the towns of the Middle +Ages the parochial system, except as a _civil_ institution, had +broken down. + +The other idea, of men and women weary of the hard struggle with sin, +and fleeing from the wrath to come, joining together to give +themselves up to the higher life, out of the reach of temptation and +safe from the witcheries of Mammon,--that too was a grand idea, and +not unfrequently it had been carried out grandly. But the monk was +nothing and did nothing for the townsman; he fled away to his +solitude; the rapture of silent adoration was his joy and exceeding +great reward; his nights and days might be spent in praise and +prayer, sometimes in study and research, sometimes in battling with +the powers of darkness and ignorance, sometimes in throwing himself +heart and soul into art which it was easy to persuade himself he was +doing only for the glory of God; but all this must go on far away +from the busy haunts of men, certainly not within earshot of the +multitude. Moreover the monk was, by birth, education, and sympathy, +one with the upper classes. What were the rabble to him? [Footnote: +The 20th Article of the Assize of Clarendon is very significant: +"Prohibet dominus rex ne monachi... recipiant _aliquem de minuto +populo in monachum,_ vel canonicum vel fratrem," &c.--Stubbs, +"Benedict Abbas," pref. p. cliv.] In return the townsmen hated him +cordially, as a supercilious aristocrat and Pharisee, with the guile +and greed of the Scribe and lawyer superadded. + +Upon the townsmen--whatever it may have been among the countrymen-- +the ministers of religion exercised the smallest possible +_restraint._ Nay! it was only too evident that the bonds of +ecclesiastical discipline which had so often exercised a salutary +check upon the unruly had become seriously relaxed of late, both in +town and country; they had been put to too great a strain and had +snapped. By the suicidal methods of Excommunication and Interdict all +ranks were schooled into doing without the rites of religion, the +baptism of their children, or the blessing upon the marriage union. +In the meantime it was notorious that even in high places there were +instances not a few of Christians who had denied the faith and had +given themselves up to strange beliefs, of which the creed of the +Moslem was not the worst. Men must have received with a smile the +doctrine that Marriage was a Sacrament when everybody knew that, +among the upper classes at least, the bonds of matrimony were soluble +almost at pleasure. [Footnote: Eleanor of Aquitaine, consort of Henry +II., had been divorced by Louis VII. of France. Constance of +Brittany, mother of Arthur--Shakespeare's idealized Constance--left +her husband, Ranulph, Earl of Chester, to unite herself with Guy of +Flanders. Conrad of Montferat divorced the daughter of Isaac Angelus, +Emperor of Constantinople, to marry Isabella, daughter of Amalric, +King of Jerusalem, the bride repudiating her husband Henfrid of +Thouars. Philip II. of France married the sister of the King of +Denmark one day and divorced her the next; then married a German +lady, left her, and returned to the repudiated Dane. King John in +1189 divorced Hawisia, Countess of Gloucester, and took Isabella of +Angouleme to wife, but how little he cared to be faithful to the one +or the other the chronicles disdain to ask.] It seems hardly worth +while to notice that the observance of Sunday was almost universally +neglected, or that sermons had become so rare that when Eustace, +Abbot of Flai, preached in various places in England in 1200, +miracles were said to have ensued as the ordinary effects of his +eloquence. Earnestness in such an age seemed in itself miraculous. +Here and there men and women, hungering and thirsting after +righteousness, raised their sobbing prayer to heaven that the Lord +would shortly accomplish the number of his elect and hasten his +coming, and Abbot Joachim's dreams were talked of and his vague +mutterings made the sanguine hope for better days. Among those +mutterings had there not been a speech of the two heavenly witnesses +who were to do--ah! what were they not to do? And these heavenly +witnesses, who were they? When and where would they appear? + +Eight years before King Richard was in Sicily a child had been born +in the thriving town of Assisi, thirteen miles from Perugia, who was +destined to be one of the great movers of the world. Giovanni +Bernardone was the son of a wealthy merchant at Assisi, and from all +that appears an only child. He was from infancy intended for a +mercantile career, nor does he seem to have felt any dislike to it. +One story--and it is as probable as the other--accounts for his name +Francesco by assuring us that he earned it by his unusual familiarity +with the French language, acquired during his residence in France +while managing his father's business. The new name clung to him; the +old baptismal name was dropped; posterity has almost forgotten that +it was ever imposed. From the mass of tradition and personal +recollections that have come down to us from so many different +sources it is not always easy to decide when we are dealing with pure +invention of pious fraud, and when with mere exaggeration of actual +fact, but it scarcely admits of doubt that the young merchant of +Assisi was engaged in trade and commerce till his twenty-fourth year, +living in the main as others live, but perhaps early conspicuous for +aiming at a loftier ideal than that of his everyday associates, and +characterized by the devout and ardent temperament essential to the +religious reformer. It was in the year 1206 that he became a changed +man. He fell ill--he lay at Death's door. From the languor and +delirium he recovered but slowly--when he did recover old things had +passed away; behold! all things had become new. From this time +Giovanni Bernardone passes out of sight, and from the ashes of a dead +past, from the seed which has withered that the new life might +germinate and fructify, Francis--why grudge to call him Saint +Francis?--of Assisi rises. + +Very early the young man had shown a taste for Church restoration. +The material fabric of the houses of God in the land could not but +exhibit the decay of living faith; the churches were falling into +ruins. The little chapel of St. Mary and the Angels at Assisi was in +a scandalous condition of decay. It troubled the heart of the young +pietist profoundly to see the Christian church squalid and tottering +to its fall while within sight of it was the Roman temple in which +men had worshipped the idols. There it stood, as it had stood for a +thousand years--as it stands to this day. Oh, shame! that Christian +men should build so slightly while the heathen built so strongly! + +To the little squalid ruin St. Francis came time and again, and +poured out his heart, perplexed and sad; and there, we are told, God +met him and a voice said, "Go, and build my church again." It was a +"thought beyond his thought," and with the straightforward simplicity +of his nature he accepted the message in its literal sense and at +once set about obeying it as he understood it. + +He began by giving all he could lay his hands on to provide funds for +the work. His own resources exhausted, he applied for contributions +to all who came in his way. His father became alarmed at his son's +excessive liberality and the consequences that might ensue from his +strange recklessness; it is even said that he turned him out of +doors; it seems that the commercial partnership was cancelled: it is +certain that the son was compelled to make some great renunciation of +wealth, and that his private means were seriously restricted. That a +man of business should be blind to the preciousness of money was a +sufficient proof then, as now, that he must be mad. + +O ye wary men of the world, bristling with the shrewdest of maxims, +bursting with the lessons of experience, ye of the cool heads and the +cold grey eyes, ye whom the statesman loves, and the tradesman +trusts, cautious, sagacious, prudent; when the rumbling of the +earthquake tells us that the foundations of the earth are out of +course, we must look for deliverance to other than you! A grain of +enthusiasm is of mightier force than a million tons of wisdom such as +yours; then when the hour of the great upheaval has arrived, and +things can no longer be kept going! + +"Build up my church!" said the voice again to this gushing emaciated +fanatic in the second-rate Italian town, this dismal bankrupt of +twenty-four years of age, "of lamentably low extraction," whom no +University claimed as her own, and whom the learned pundits pitied. +At last he understood the profounder meaning of the words. It was no +temple made with hands, but the _living_ Church that needed +raising. The dust of corruption must be swept away, the dry bones be +stirred; the breath of the divine Spirit blow and reanimate them. Did +not the voice mean that? What remained but to obey? + +In his journeyings through France it is hardly possible that St. +Francis should not have heard of _the poor men of Lyons_ whose +peculiar tenets at this time were arousing very general attention. It +is not improbable that he may have fallen in with one of those +translations of the New Testament into the vernacular executed by +Stephen de Emsa at the expense of Peter Waldo, and through his means +widely circulated among all classes. [Footnote: See "Facts and +Documents Illustrative of the History, Doctrine, and Rites, of the +Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses," by the Rev. S. R, Maitland, +London, 8vo., 1832, p. 127 _et seq._] Be it as it may, the words +addressed by our Lord to the seventy, when he sent them forth to +preach the kingdom of heaven, seemed to St. Francis to be written in +letters of flame. They haunted him waking and sleeping. "The lust of +gain in the spirit of Cain!" what had it done for the world or the +Church but saturate the one and the other with sordid greed? Mere +wealth had not added to the sum of human happiness. Nay, misery was +growing; kings fought, and the people bled at every pore. Merchants +reared their palaces, and the masses were perishing. Where riches +increased, there pride and ungodliness were rampant. What had +corrupted the monks, whose lives should be so pure and exemplary? +What but their vast possessions, bringing with them luxury and the +paralysis of devotion and of all lofty endeavour? It was openly +maintained that the original Benedictine Rule could not be kept now +as of yore. One attempt after another to bring back the old monastic +discipline had failed deplorably. The Cluniac revival had been +followed by the Cluniac laxity, splendour, and ostentation. The +Cistercians, who for a generation had been the sour puritans of the +cloister, had become the most potent religious corporation in Europe; +but theirs was the power of the purse now. Where had the old +strictness and the old fervour gone? Each man was lusting for all +that was not his own; but free alms, where were they? and pity for +the sad, and reverence for the stricken, and tenderness and sympathy? +"O gentle Jesus, where art Thou? and is there no love of Thee +anywhere, nor any love for Thy lost sheep, Thou crucified Saviour of +men?" + + * * * * * * * + +Knocking at his heart--not merely buzzing in his brain--the words +kept smiting him, "Provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in your +purses, neither scrip for your journey, neither two coats, nor yet +staves, for the workman is worthy of his meat!" Once men had changed +the face of the world with no other equipment. Faith then had removed +mountains. Why not again? He threw away his staff and shoes; he went +forth with literally a single garment; he was girt with a common rope +round his loins. He no more doubted of his mission, he no more feared +for the morrow than he feared for the young ravens that he loved and +spake to in an ecstasy of joy. + +Henceforth there was "not a bird upon the tree but half forgave his +being human;" the flowers of the field looked out at him with special +greetings, the wolf of the mountains met him with no fierce glare in +his eye. Great men smiled at the craze of the monomaniac. Old men +shook their grey heads and remembered that they themselves had been +young and foolish. Practical men would not waste their words upon the +folly of the thing. Rich men, serenely confident of their position, +affirmed that they knew of only one who could overcome the world--to +wit, the veritable hero, he who holds the purse-strings. St. Francis +did not speak to these. "Oh, ye miserable, helpless, and despairing; +ye who find yourselves so unutterably forlorn--so very, very far +astray; ye lost souls whom Satan has bound through the long weary +years; ye of the broken hearts, bowed down and crushed; ye with your +wasted bodies loathsome to every sense, to whom life is torture and +whom death will not deliver; ye whose very nearness by the wayside +makes the traveller as he passes shudder with uncontrollable horror +lest your breath should light upon his garments, look! I am poor as +you--I am one of yourselves. Christ, the very Christ of God, has sent +me with a message to you. Listen!" + +It is observable that we never hear of St. Francis that he was a +sermon-maker. He had received no clerical or even academical +training. Up to 1207 he had not even a license to preach. It was only +after this that he was--and apparently without desiring it--ordained +a deacon. In its first beginnings the Franciscan movement was +essentially moral, not theological, still less intellectual. The +absence of anything like dogma in the sermons of the early Minorites +was their characteristic. One is tempted to say it was a mere +accident that these men were not sectaries, so little in common had +they with the ecclesiastics of the time, so entirely did they live +and labour among the laity of whom they were and with whom they so +profoundly sympathized. + +The secret of the overwhelming, the irresistible attraction which St. +Francis exercised is to be found in his matchless simplicity, in his +sublime self-surrender. He removed mountains because he believed +intensely in the infinite power of _mere goodness_. While from +the writhing millions all over Europe--the millions ignorant, +neglected, plague-stricken, despairing--an inarticulate wail was +going up to God, St. Francis made it articulate. Then he boldly +proclaimed: "God has heard your cry! It meant this and that. I am +sent to you with the good God's answer." There was less than a step +between accepting him as the interpreter of their vague yearnings and +embracing him as the ambassador of Heaven to themselves. + +St, Francis was hardly twenty-eight years old when he set out for +Rome, to lay himself at the feet of the great Pope Innocent the +Third, and to ask from him some formal recognition. The pontiff, so +the story goes, was walking in the garden of the Lateran when the +momentous meeting took place. Startled by the sudden apparition of an +emaciated young man, bareheaded, shoeless, half-clad, but--for all +his gentleness--a beggar who would take no denial, Innocent +hesitated. It was but for a brief hour, the next he was won. + +Francis returned to Assisi with the Papal sanction for what was, +probably, a draught of his afterwards famous "Rule." He was met by +the whole city, who received him with a frenzy of excitement. By this +time his enthusiasm had kindled that of eleven other young men, all +now aglow with the same divine fire. A twelfth soon was added--he, +moreover, a layman of gentle blood and of knightly rank. All these +had surrendered their claim to everything in the shape of property, +and had resolved to follow their great leader's example by stripping +themselves of all worldly possessions, and suffering the loss of all +things. They were beggars--literally barefooted beggars. The love of +money was the root of all evil. They would not touch the accursed +thing lest they should be defiled--no, not with the tips of their +fingers. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." + +Beggars they were, but they were brethren--_Fratres (Frères)_. +We in England have got to call them _Friars_. Francis was never +known in his lifetime as anything higher than _Brother Francis_, +and his community he insisted should be called the community of the +lesser brethren--_Fratres Minores_--for none could be or should +be less than they. Abbots and Priors, he would have none of them. "He +that will be chief among you," he said, in Christ's own words, "let +him be your servant." The highest official among the _Minorites_ +was the _Minister_, the elect of all, the servant of all, and if +not humble enough to serve, not fit to rule. + +People talk of "Monks and Friars" as if these were convertible terms. +The truth is that the difference between the Monks and the Friars was +almost one of kind. The Monk was supposed never to leave his +cloister. The Friar in St. Francis' first intention had no cloister +to leave. Even when he had where to lay his head, his life-work was +not to save his own soul, but first and foremost to save the bodies +and souls of others. The Monk had nothing to do with ministering to +others. At best his business was to be the salt of the earth, and it +behoved him to be much more upon his guard that the salt should not +lose his savour, than that the earth should be sweetened. The Friar +was an itinerant evangelist, always on the move. He was a preacher of +righteousness. He lifted up his voice against sin and wrong. "Save +yourselves from this untoward generation!" he cried; "save yourselves +from the wrath to come." The Monk, as has been said, was an +aristocrat. The Friar belonged to the great unwashed! + +Without the loss of a day the new apostles of poverty, of pity, of an +all-embracing love, went forth by two and two to build up the ruined +Church of God. Theology they were, from anything that appears, +sublimely ignorant of. Except that they were masters of every phrase +and word in the Gospels, their stock in trade was scarcely more than +that of an average candidate for Anglican orders; but to each and all +of them Christ was simply _everything_. If ever men have +preached Christ, these men did; Christ, nothing but Christ, the Alpha +and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. +They had no system, they had no views, they combated no opinions, +they took no side. Let the dialecticians dispute about this nice +distinction or that. There _could_ be no doubt that Christ had +died and risen, and was alive for evermore. There was no place for +controversy or opinions when here was a mere simple, indisputable, +but most awful fact. Did you want to wrangle about the aspect of the +fact, the evidence, the what not? St. Francis had no mission to argue +with you. "The pearl of great price--will you have it or not? Whether +or not, there are millions sighing for it, crying for it, dying for +it. To the poor at any rate the Gospel shall be preached now as of +old." + +To the poor by the poor. Those masses, those dreadful masses, +crawling, sweltering in the foul hovels, in many a southern town with +never a roof to cover them, huddling in groups under a dry arch, +alive with vermin; gibbering _cretins_ with the ghastly wens; +lepers by the hundred, too shocking for mothers to gaze at, and +therefore driven forth to curse and howl in the lazar-house outside +the walls, there stretching out their bony hands to clutch the +frightened almsgiver's dole, or, failing that, to pick up shreds of +offal from the heaps of garbage--to these St. Francis came. + +More wonderful still!--to these outcasts came those other twelve, so +utterly had their leader's sublime self-surrender communicated itself +to his converts. "We are come," they said, "to live among you and be +your servants, and wash your sores, and make your lot less hard than +it is. We only want to do as Christ bids us do. We are beggars too, +and we too have not where to lay our heads. Christ sent us to you. +Yes. Christ the crucified, whose we are, and whose you are. Be not +wroth with us, we will help you if we can." + +As they spoke, so they lived. They _were_ less than the least, +as St. Francis told them they must strive to be. Incredulous cynicism +was put to silence. It was wonderful, it was inexplicable, it was +disgusting, it was anything you please; but where there were +outcasts, lepers, pariahs, there, there were these penniless +Minorites tending the miserable sufferers with a cheerful look, and +not seldom with a merry laugh. As one reads the stories of those +earlier Franciscans, one is reminded every now and then of the +extravagances of the Salvation Army. + +The heroic example set by these men at first startled, and then +fascinated the upper classes. While labouring to save the lowest, +they took captive the highest. The Brotherhood grew in numbers day by +day; as it grew, new problems presented themselves. How to dispose of +all the wealth renounced, how to employ the energies of all the +crowds of brethren. Hardest of all, what to do with the earnest, +highly-trained, and sometimes erudite convert who could not divest +himself of the treasures of learning which he had amassed. "Must I +part with my books?" said the scholar, with a sinking heart. "Carry +nothing with you for your journey!" was the inexorable answer. "Not a +Breviary? not even the Psalms of David?" "Get them into your heart of +hearts, and provide yourself with a treasure in the heavens. Who ever +heard of Christ reading books save when He opened the book in the +synagogue, and then _closed_ it and went forth to teach the +world for ever?" + +In 1215 the new Order held its first Chapter at the Church of the +Portiuncula. The numbers of the Brotherhood and the area over which +their labours extended had increased so vastly that it was already +found necessary to nominate Provincial Ministers in France, Germany, +and Spain. + + * * * * * * * + +While these things were going on in Italy, another notable reformer +was vexing his righteous soul in Spain. St. Dominic was a very +different man from the gentle and romantic young Italian. Of high +birth, which among the haughty Castillians has always counted for a +great deal, he had passed his boyhood among ecclesiastics and +academics. He was twelve years older than St. Francis. He studied +theology for ten years at the University of Palencia, and before the +twelfth century closed he was an Augustinian Canon. In 1203, while +St. Francis was still poring over his father's ledgers, Dominic was +associated with the Bishop of Osma in negotiating a marriage for +Alphonso the Eighth, king of Castille. For the next ten years he was +more or less concerned with the hideous atrocities of the Albigensian +war. During that dark period of his career he was brought every day +face to face with heresy and schism. From infancy he must have heard +those around him talk with a savage intolerance of the Moors of the +South and the stubborn Jews of Toledo nearer home. Now his eyes were +open to the perils that beset the Church from sectaries who from +within were for casting off her divine authority. Wretches who +questioned the very creeds and rejected the Sacraments, yet +perversely insisted that they were Christian men and women, with a +clearer insight into Gospel mysteries than Bishops and Cardinals or +the Holy Father himself. Here was heresy rampant, and immortal souls, +all astray, beguiled by evil men and deceivers, "whose word doth eat +as doth a canker." Dominic "saw that there was no man, and marvelled +that there was no intercessor." + +It was not ungodliness that Dominic, in the first instance, +determined to war with, but ignorance and error. _These_ were to +him the monster evils, whose natural fruit was moral corruption. Get +rid of them and the depraved heart might be dealt with by-and-by. +Dominic stood forth as the determined champion of orthodoxy. "Preach +the word in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort"--that was +his panacea. His success at the first was but small. Preachers with +the divine fervour, with the gift of utterance, with the power to +drive truth home--are rare. They are not to be had for the asking; +they are not to be trained in a day. Years passed, but little was +achieved. + +Dominic was patient He had, indeed, founded a small religious +community of sixteen brethren at St. Ronain, near Toulouse--one of +these, we are told, was an Englishman--whose aim and object were to +produce an effect through the agency of the pulpit, to confute the +heretics and instruct the unlearned. The Order, if it deserved the +name, was established on the old lines. A monastery was founded, a +local habitation secured. The maintenance of the brotherhood was +provided for by a sufficient endowment; the petty cares and anxieties +of life were in the main guarded against; but when Innocent the Third +gave his formal sanction to the new community, it was given to +Dominic and his associates, on the 8th of October, 1215, as to a +house of _Augustinian Canons_, who received permission to enjoy +in their corporate capacity the endowments which had been bestowed +upon them. [Footnote: So "La Cordaire, vie de S. Dominique" (1872), +p. 120. It was, however, a very curious community, as appears from +"Ripolli Bullarium Praedicat:" I.i.] + +In the following July Innocent died, and was at once succeeded by +Honorius the Third. Dominic set out for Rome, and on the 22nd of +December he received from the new Pope a bare confirmation of what +his predecessor had granted, with little more than a passing allusion +to the fact that the new canons were to be emphatically +_Preachers_ of the faith. In the autumn of 1217 Dominic turned +his back upon Languedoc for ever. He took up his residence at Rome, +and at once rose high in the favour of the Pope. His eloquence, his +earnestness, his absorbing enthusiasm, his matchless dialectic skill, +his perfect scholastic training--all combined to attract precisely +those cultured churchmen whose fastidious sense of the fitness of +things revolted from the austerities of St. Francis and the enormous +demands which the Minorites made upon their converts. While Francis +was acting upon the masses from Assisi, Dominic was stirring the dry +bones to a new vitality among scholars and ecclesiastics at Rome. + +Thus far we have heard little or nothing of poverty among the more +highly educated _Friars Preachers_, as they got to be called. +That seems to have been quite an afterthought. So far as Dominic may +be said to have accepted the Voluntary Principle and, renouncing all +endowments, to have thrown himself and his followers for support upon +the alms of the faithful, so far he was a disciple of St. Francis. +The Champion of Orthodoxy was a convert to the Apostle of Poverty. + +How soon the Dominicans gave in their adhesion to the distinctive +tenet of the Minorites will never now be known, nor how far St. +Francis himself adopted it from others; but a conviction that +holiness of life had deteriorated in the Church and the cloister by +reason of the excessive wealth of monks and ecclesiastics was +prevalent everywhere, and a belief was growing that sanctity was +attainable only by those who were ready to part with all their +worldly possessions and give to such as needed. Even before St. +Francis had applied to Innocent the Third, the poor men of Lyons had +come to Rome begging for papal sanction to their missionary plans; +they met with little favour, and vanished from the scene. But they +too declaimed against endowments--they too were to live on alms. The +Gospel of Poverty was "_in the air_." + +In 1219 the Franciscans held their second general Chapter. It was +evident that they were taking the world by storm; evident, too, that +their astonishing success was due less to their preaching than to +their self-denying lives. It was abundantly plain that this vast army +of fervent missionaries could live from day to day and work wonders +in evangelizing the masses without owning a rood of land, or having +anything to depend upon but the perennial stream of bounty which +flowed from the gratitude of the converts. If the Preaching Friars +were to succeed at such a time as this, they could only hope to do so +by exhibiting as sublime a faith as the Minorites displayed to the +world. Accordingly, in the very year after the second Chapter of the +Franciscans was held at Assisi, a general Chapter of the Dominicans +was held at Bologna, and there the profession of poverty was formally +adopted, and the renunciation of all means of support, except such as +might be offered from day to day, was insisted on. Henceforth the two +orders were to labour side by side in magnificent rivalry--mendicants +who went forth like Gideon's host with empty pitchers to fight the +battles of the Lord, and whose desires, as far as the good things of +this world went, were summed up in the simple petition, "Give us this +day our daily bread!" + + * * * * * * * + +Thus far the friars had scarcely been heard of in England. The +Dominicans--trained men of education, addressing themselves mainly to +the educated classes, and sure of being understood wherever Latin, +the universal medium of communication among scholars, was in daily +and hourly use--the Dominicans could have little or no difficulty in +getting an audience such as they were qualified to address. It was +otherwise with the Franciscans. If the world was to be divided +between these two great bands, obviously the Minorites' sphere of +labour must be mainly among the lowest, that of the Preaching Friars +among the cultured classes. + +When the Minorites preached among Italians or Frenchmen they were +received with tumultuous welcome. They spoke the language of the +people; and in the vulgar speech of the people--rugged, plastic, and +reckless of grammar--the message came as glad tidings of great joy. +When they tried the same method in Germany, we are told, they +signally failed. The gift of tongues, alas! had ceased. That, at any +rate, was denied, even to such faith as theirs. They were met with +ridicule. The rabble of Cologne or Bremen, hoarsely grumbling out +their grating gutturals, were not to be moved by the most impassioned +pleading of angels in human form, soft though their voices might be, +and musical their tones. "Ach Himmel! was sagt er?" growled one. And +peradventure some well-meaning interpreter replied: "Zu suchen und +selig zu machen." When the Italian tried to repeat the words his +utterance, not his faith, collapsed! The German-speaking people must +wait till a door should be opened. Must England wait too? Yes! For +the Franciscan missionaries England too must wait a little while. + +But England was exactly the land for the Dominican to turn to. +Unhappy England! Dominic was born in the same year that Thomas a +Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral; Francis in the year +before the judgment of the Most High began to fall upon the guilty +king and his accursed progeny. Since then everything seemed to have +gone wrong. The last six years of Henry the Second's reign were years +of piteous misery, shame, and bitterness. His two elder sons died in +arms against their father, the one childless, the other, Geoffrey, +with a baby boy never destined to arrive at manhood. The two younger +ones were Richard and John. History has no story more sad than that +of the wretched king, hard at death's door, compelled to submit to +the ferocious vindictiveness of the one son, and turning his face to +the wall with a broken heart when he discovered the hateful treachery +of the other. Ten years after this Richard died childless, and King +John was crowned--the falsest, meanest, worst, and wickedest king +that ever sat upon the throne of England. And now John himself was +dead; and "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child!" for Henry +the Third was crowned, a boy just nine years old. + +For eight years England had lain under the terrible interdict; for +most of the time only a single bishop had remained in England. John +had small need to tax the people: he lived upon the plunder of +bishops and abbots. The churches were desolate; the worship of God in +large districts almost came to an end. Only in the Cistercian +monasteries, and in them only for a time, and to a very limited +extent, were the rites of religion continued. It is hardly +conceivable that the places of those clergy who died during the eight +years of the interdict were supplied by fresh ordinations; and some +excuse may have been found for the outrageous demands of the Pope to +present to English benefices in the fact that many cures must have +been vacant, and the supply of qualified Englishmen to succeed them +had fallen short. + + Strange to say, in the midst of all this religious famine, and while +the Church was being ruthlessly pillaged and her ministers put to +rebuke, there was more intellectual activity in the country than had +existed for centuries. The schools at Oxford were attracting students +from far and near; and when, in consequence of the disgraceful murder +of three _clerics_ in 1209, apparently at the instance of King +John, the whole body of masters and scholars dispersed--some to +Cambridge, others to Reading--it is said their number amounted to +3,000. These were for the most part youths hardly as old as the +undergraduates in a Scotch university in our own time; but there was +evidently an ample supply of competent teachers, or the reputation of +Oxford could not have been maintained. + +It was during the year after the Chapter of the Dominicans held at +Bologna in 1220, that the first brethren of the order arrived in +England. They were under the direction of one Gilbert de Fraxineto, +who was accompanied by twelve associates. They landed early in +August, probably at Dover. They were at once received with cordiality +by Archbishop Langton, who put their powers to the test by commanding +one of their number to preach before him. The Primate took them into +his favour, and sent them on their way. On the 10th of August they +were preaching in London, and on the 15th they appeared in Oxford, +and were welcomed as the bringers-in of new things. Their success was +unequivocal. We hardly hear of their arrival before we learn that +they were well established in their school and surrounded by eager +disciples. + +Be it remembered that any systematic training of young men to serve +as evangelists--any attempt to educate them directly as preachers +well furnished with arguments to confute the erring, and carefully +taught to practise the graces of oratory--had never been made in +England. These Dominicans were already the Sophists of their age, +masters of dialectic methods then in vogue, whereby disputation had +been raised to the dignity of a science. Then a scholar was looked +upon as a mere pretender who could not maintain a _thesis_ +against all comers before a crowded audience of sharp-witted critics +and eager partisans, not too nice in their expressions of dissent or +approval. The exercises still kept up for the Doctor's degree in +Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge are but the shadow of what was a +reality in the past. Whether we have not lost much in the +discontinuance of the old _Acts_ and _Apponencies_, which at +least assured that a young man should be required to stand up +before a public audience to defend the reasonableness of his +opinions, may fairly be doubted. The aim of the Dominican teachers +was to turn out trained preachers furnished with all tricks of +dialectic fence, and practised to extempore speaking on the most +momentous subjects. Unfortunately the historian, when he has told us +of the arrival of his brethren, leaves us in the dark as to all their +early struggles and difficulties, and passes on to other matters with +which we are less concerned. What would we not give to know the +history, say during only twenty years, of the labours of the +Preaching Friars in England? Alas! it seems never to have been +written. We are only told enough to awaken curiousity and disappoint +it. + +Happily, of the early labours of the Franciscan friars in England +much fuller details have reached us, though the very existence of the +records in which they were handed down was known to very few, and the +wonderful story had been forgotten for centuries when the appearance +of the "Monumenta Franciscana" in the series of chronicles published +under direction of the Master of the Rolls in 1858 may be said to +have marked an event in literature. If the late Mr. Brewer had done +no more than bring to light the remarkable series of documents which +that volume contains, he would have won for himself the lasting +gratitude of all seekers after truth. + +The Dominicans had been settled in Oxford just two years when the +first band of Franciscan brethren landed in England on the 11th of +September, 1224. They landed penniless; their passage over had been +paid by the monks of Fécamp; they numbered in all nine persons, five +were laymen, four were clerics. Of the latter three were Englishmen, +the fourth was an Italian, Agnellus of Pisa by name. Agnellus had +been some time previously destined by St. Francis as the first +_Minister_ for the province of England, not improbably because +he had some familiarity with our language. He was about thirty years +of age, and as yet only in deacon's orders. Indeed, of the whole +company _only one was a priest_, a man of middle age who had +made his mark and was famous as a preacher of rare gifts and deep +earnestness. He was a Norfolk man born, Richard of Ingworth by name +and presumably a priest of the diocese of Norwich. Of the five laymen +one was a Lombard, who may have had some kinsfolk and friends in +London, where he was allowed to remain as warden for some years, and +one, Lawrence of Beauvais, was a personal and intimate friend of St. +Francis, who on his death-bed gave him the habit which he himself had +worn. + +The whole party were hospitably entertained for two days at the +Priory of the Holy Trinity at Canterbury. Then brother Richard +Ingworth, with another Richard--a Devonshire youth conspicuous for +his ascetic fervour and devotion, but only old enough to be admitted +to minor orders--set out for London, accompanied by the Lombard and +another foreigner, leaving behind him Agnellus and the rest, among +them William of Esseby, the third Englishman, enthusiastic and ardent +as the others, but a mere youth and as yet a novice. He, too, I +conjecture to have been a Norfolk or Suffolk man, whose birth-place, +_Ashby_, in the East Anglian dialect, would be pronounced nearly +as it is written in Eccleston's manuscript. It was arranged that +Richard Ingworth should lose no time in trying to secure some place +where they might all lay their heads, and from whence as a centre +they might begin the great work they had in hand. The Canterbury +party were received into the Priest's House and allowed to remain for +a while. Soon they received permission to sleep in a building used as +a school during the day-time, and while the boys were being taught +the poor friars huddled together in a small room adjoining, where +they were confined as if they had been prisoners. When the scholars +went home the friars crept out, lit a fire and sat round it, boiled +their porridge, and mixed their small beer, sour and thick as we are +told it was, with water to make it go further, and each contributed +some word of edification to the general stock, brought forward some +homely illustration which might serve to brighten the next sermon +when it should be preached, or told a pleasant tale, thought out +during the day--a story with a moral. Of the five left behind at +Canterbury it is to be observed that no one of them was qualified as +yet to preach in the vernacular. William of Esseby was too young for +the pulpit, though he became a very effective preacher in a few +years. He was, however, doing good service as interpreter, and +doubtless as teacher of English to the rest. + +Before long the cheerfulness, self-denial, and devout bearing of the +little company at Canterbury gained for them the warm support and +friendship of all classes. They had a very hard time of it. Sometimes +a kind soul would bring them actually a dish of meat, sometimes even +a bottle of wine, but as a rule their fare was bread--made up into +_twists_, we hear, when it was specially excellent--wheat-bread, +wholesome and palatable; but, alas, sometimes barley-bread, washed +down with beer too sour to drink undiluted with water. Alexander, the +master of the Priest's House at Canterbury, soon after gave them a +piece of ground and built them a temporary chapel, but when he was +for presenting them with the building, he was told that they might +not possess houses and lands, and the property was thereupon made +over to the corporation of Canterbury to hold in honourable trust for +their use, the friars _borrowing_ it of the town. Simon Langton +too, Archdeacon of Canterbury, the primate's brother, stood their +friend, and one or two people of influence among the laity, as Sir +Henry de Sandwich, a wealthy Kentish gentleman, and a lady whom +Eccleston calls a "noble countess," one Inclusa de Baginton, warmly +supported them and liberally supplied their necessities. It is worthy +of notice that at Canterbury their first friends were among the +wealthy, _i.e._, those among whom a command of English was not +necessary. + +While Agnellus and his brethren were waiting patiently at Canterbury, +Ingworth and young Richard of Devon with the two Italians had made +their way to London and had been received with enthusiasm. Their +first entertainers were the Dominican friars who, though they had +been only two years before them, yet had already got for themselves a +house, in which they were able to entertain the new-comers for a +fortnight. At the end of that time they hired a plot of ground in +Cornhill of John Travers, the Sheriff of London, and there they built +for themselves a house, such as it was. Their cells were constructed +like sheep-cotes, mere wattels with mouldy hay or straw between them. +Their fare was of the meanest, but they gained in estimation every +day. In their humble quarters at Cornhill they remained preaching, +visiting, nursing, begging their bread, but always gay and busy, till +the summer of 1225, when a certain John Iwyn--again a name +suspiciously like the phonetic representative of the common Norfolk +name of _Ewing_--a mercer and citizen, offered them a more +spacious and comfortable dwelling in the parish of St. Nicholas. As +their brethren at Canterbury had done, so did they; they refused all +houses and lands, and the house was made over to the corporation of +London for their use. Not long after the worthy citizen assumed the +Franciscan habit and renounced the world, to embrace poverty. + +In the autumn of 1225 Ingworth and the younger Richard left London, +Agnellus taking their place. He had not been idle at Canterbury, and +his success in making converts had been remarkable. At Canterbury and +London the Minorites had secured for themselves a firm footing. The +Universities were next invaded. The two Richards reached Oxford about +October, 1225, and as before were received with great cordiality by +the Dominicans, and hospitably entertained for eight days. Before a +week was out they had got the loan of a house or hall in the parish +of St. Ebbs, and had started lectures and secured a large following. +Here young Esseby joined them, sent on it seems by Agnellus from +London to assist in the work; a year or so older than when he first +landed, and having shown in that time unmistakable signs of great +capacity and entire devotion to the work. Esseby was quite able to +stand alone. + +Once more the two Richards moved on to Northampton, where an "opening +from the Lord" seemed to have presented itself. By this time the +whole country was on the tip-toe of expectation and crowds of all +classes had given in their adhesion to the new missionaries. No! it +was _not_ grandeur or riches or honour or learning that were +wanted above all things--not these, but Goodness, Meekness, +Simplicity, and Truth. The love of money was the root of all evil. +The Minorites were right. When men with a divine fervour proclaim a +truth, or even half a truth, which the world has forgotten, there is +never any lack of enthusiasm in its acceptance. In five years from +their first arrival the Friars had established themselves in almost +every considerable town in England, and where one order settled the +other came soon after, the two orders in their first beginning co- +operating cordially. It was only when their faith and zeal began to +wax cold that jealousy broke forth into bitter antagonism. + +In no part of England were the Franciscans received with more +enthusiasm than in Norfolk. They appear to have established +themselves at Lynn, Yarmouth, and Norwich in 1226. Clergy and laity, +rich and poor, united in offering to them a ready homage. To this day +a certain grudging provincialism is observable in the East Anglian +character. A Norfolk man distrusts the settler from "the Shires," who +comes in with new-fangled reforms. To this day the home of wisdom is +supposed to be in the East. When it was understood that the virtual +leader of this astonishing religious revival was a Norfolk man, the +joy and pride of Norfolk knew no bounds. Nothing was too much to do +for their own hero. But when it became known that Ingworth had been +welcomed with open arms by Robert Grosseteste, the foremost scholar +in Oxford--he a Suffolk man--and that Grosseteste's friend, Roger de +Weseham, was their warm supporter, son of a Norfolk yeoman, whose +brethren were to be seen any day in Lynn market--the ovation that the +Franciscans met with was unparalleled. There was a general rush by +some of the best men of the county into the order. + +Already St. Francis had found it necessary to include in the +fraternity a class of recognized associates who may be described as +the _unattached_. These were the _Tertiaries_--laymen who were +not prepared to embrace the vows of poverty and to surrender +their all--but well-wishers pledged to support the Minorites, and to +co-operate with them when called upon, showing their good-will +sometimes in visiting the sick and needy, sometimes in engaging in +the work of teaching, or accompanying the preachers when advisable, +and bound by their engagement to set an example of sobriety and +seriousness in their dress and manners. + +Up to this time the word _religious_ had been applied only to +such as were inmates of a cloister. Now the truth dawned upon men +that it was possible to live the higher life even while pursuing +one's ordinary vocation in the busy world. The tone of social +morality must have gained enormously by the dissemination of this new +doctrine, and its acceptance among high and low. It became the +fashion in the upper classes to enrol oneself among the Tertiaries, +and every new enrolment was an important accession to the stability, +and, indeed, to the material resources of the Minorites; and when, +apparently within a few days of one another--no less than five +gentlemen of knightly rank, of whom at least one, Sir Giles de Merc, +had only recently been employed as an envoy by the king to his +brother Richard in Gascony, and another, Sir Henry de Walpole, was +amongst the most considerable and wealthy men in the eastern +counties, Henry the Third spoke out his mind and showed that he was +not too well-pleased. Really these friars were going on too fast-- +turning men's heads! At Lynn the Franciscans were specially fortunate +in their warden, whose austerity of life, gentle manners, and +profoundly sympathetic temperament obtained for him unbounded +influence. Among others Alexander de Bassingbourne [Footnote: The +name is again changed into _Bissing_burne by Eccleston, who +writes it as he heard it from Norfolk people.]--seneschal of Lynn for +Pandulph, Bishop of Norwich, and, as such, a personage of importance, +became his convert and joined the new order; but the number of +Norfolk clergy and scholars who actually became friars must have been +very large indeed; they were quite the picked men among the +Franciscans in England. Of the first eighteen masters of Franciscan +schools at Cambridge, at least ten were Norfolk men, while of the +first five Divinity readers at Oxford whose names have been recorded, +after those of Grosseteste and Roger de Weseham, four were +unmistakably East Anglians. No one familiar with Norfolk topography +could fail to be struck by this fact, and the queer spellings of some +places, which puzzled even Mr. Brewer, are themselves suggestive. +[Footnote: _E.g._, Turnham represents the Norfolk pronunciation +of _Thornham_. Heddele is _Hadleigh_, in Suffolk spelt phonetically +; Ravingham is _Raveningham_, Assewelle is _Ashwell_ [cf. p. 93, +Esseby for Ashby], Sloler is _Sloley_, Leveringfot is _Letheringset_.] + +St. Francis died at Assisi on October 4, 1226. With his death +troubles began. Brother Elias, who was chosen to succeed him as +Minister General of the Order, had little of the great founder's +spirit, and none of his genius. There was unseemly strife and +rivalry, and on the Continent it would appear that the Minorites made +but little way. Not so was it in England; there the supply of +brethren animated by genuine enthusiasm and burning zeal for the +cause they had espoused was unexampled. Perhaps there more than +anywhere else such labourers were needed, perhaps too they had a +fairer field. Certainly there they were truer to their first +principles than elsewhere. + +Outside the city walls at Lynn and York and Bristol; in a filthy +swamp at Norwich, through which the drainage of the city sluggishly +trickled into the river, never a foot lower than its banks; in a mere +barn-like structure, with walls of mud, at Shrewsbury, in the +"Stinking Alley" in London, the Minorites took up their abode, and +there they lived on charity, doing for the lowest the most menial +offices, speaking to the poorest the words of hope, preaching to +learned and simple such sermons--short, homely, fervent, and +emotional--as the world had not heard for many a day. How could such +evangelists fail to win their way? Before Henry III.'s reign was half +over the predominance of the Franciscans over Oxford was almost +supreme. At Cambridge their influence was less dominant only because +at Cambridge there was no commanding genius like Robert Grosseteste +to favour and support them. + +St. Francis's hatred of book-learning was the one sentiment that he +never was able to inspire among his followers. Almost from the first +scholars, students, and men of learning were attracted by the +irresistible charm of his wonderful moral persuasiveness; they gave +in their adherence to him in a vague hope that by contact with his +surpassing holiness virtue would go out of him, and that somehow the +divine goodness which he magnified as the one thing needful would be +communicated to them and supply that which was lacking in themselves; +but they could not bring themselves to believe that culture and +holiness were incompatible or that nearness to God was possible only +to those who were ignorant and uninstructed. We should have expected +learning among the Dominicans, but very soon the English Franciscans +became the most learned body in Europe, and that character they never +lost till the suppression of the monasteries swept them out of the +land. Before Edward I. came to the throne, in less than fifty years +after Richard Ingworth and his little band landed at Dover, Robert +Kilwarby, a Franciscan friar, had been chosen Archbishop of +Canterbury, and Bonaventura, the General of the Order, had refused +the Archbishopric of York. In 1281 Jerome of Ascoli, Bonaventura's +successor as General, was elected Pope, assuming the name of Nicholas +IV. + +Meanwhile such giants as Alexander Hales and Roger Bacon and Duns +Scotus among the Minorites--all Englishmen be it remembered--and +Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus among the Dominicans, had given to +intellectual life that amazing lift into a higher region of thought, +speculation, and inquiry which prepared the way for greater things +by-and-by. It was at Assisi that Cimabue and Giotto received their +most sublime inspiration and did their very best, breathing the air +that St. Francis himself had breathed and listening day by day to +traditions and memories of the saint, told peradventure by one or +another who had seen him alive or even touched his garments in their +childhood. It may even be that there Dante watched Giotto at his work +while the painter got the poet's face by heart. + + * * * * * * * + +To write the history of the Mendicant Orders in England would be a +task beyond my capacity, but no man can hope to understand the +successes or the failures of any great party in Church or State until +he has arrived at some comprehension, not only of the objects which +it set itself to achieve, but of its _modus operandi_ at the +outset of its career. + +The Friars were a great party in the Church, organized with a +definite object, and pledged to carry out that object in simple +reliance upon what we now call the _Voluntary Principle_. St. +Francis saw, and saw much more clearly than even we of the nineteenth +century see it, that the Parochial system is admirable, is a perfect +system for the village, that it is unsuited for the town, that in the +towns the attempt to work it had ended in a miserable and scandalous +failure. The Friars came as helpers of the poor town clergy, just +when those clergy had begun to give up their task as hopeless. They +came as missionaries to those whom the town clergy had got to regard +as mere _pariahs_. They came to strengthen the weak hands, and +to labour in a new field. _St. Francis was the John Wesley of the +thirteenth century, whom the Church did not cast out_. + +Rome has never been afraid of fanaticism. She has always known how to +utilise her enthusiasts fired by a new idea. The Church of England +has never known how to deal with a man of genius. From Wicklif to +Frederick Robertson, from Bishop Peacock to Dr. Rowland Williams, the +clergyman who has been in danger of impressing his personality upon +Anglicanism, where he has not been the object of relentless +persecution, has at least been regarded with timid suspicion, has +been shunned by the prudent men of low degree, and by those of high +degree has been--forgotten. In the Church of England there has never +been a time when the enthusiast has not been treated as a very +_unsafe_ man. Rome has found a place for the dreamiest mystic or +the noisiest ranter--found a place and found a sphere of useful +labour. We, with our insular prejudices, have been sticklers for the +narrowest uniformity, and yet we have accepted, as a useful addition +to the Creed of Christendom, one article which we have only not +formulated because, perhaps, it came to us from a Roman Bishop, the +great sage Talleyrand--_Surtout pas trop de zèle!_ + +The Minorites were the Low Churchmen of the thirteenth century, the +Dominicans the severely orthodox, among whom spiritual things were +believed to be attainable only through the medium of significant +form. Rome knew how to yoke the two together, Xanthos and Balios +champing at the bit yet always held well in hand. At the outset the +two orders were so deeply impressed by the magnitude of the evils +they were to combat that they hardly knew there was anything in which +they were at variance. Gradually--yes, and somewhat rapidly--each +borrowed something from the other. The Minorites found they could not +do without culture; the Dominicans renounced endowments; by-and-by +they drew apart into separate camps, and discord proved that the old +singleness of purpose and loyalty to a great cause had passed away. +Imitators arose. Reformers they all professed to be, improvers of the +original idea, Augustinian Friars, Carmelites, Bethlehemites, +Bonhommes, and the rest. Friars they all called themselves--all +pledged to the Voluntary Principle, all renouncing endowments, all +professing to live on alms. + +I have called St. Francis the John Wesley of the thirteenth century. +The parallels might be drawn out into curious detail, if we compared +the later history of the great movements originated by one or the +other reformer. The new orders of Friars were to the old ones what +the Separatists among the Wesleyan body are to the Old Connexion. +They had their grievances, real or imagined, they loudly protested +against corruption and abuses, they professed themselves anxious only +to go back to first principles. Rome absorbed them all; they became +the Church's great army of volunteers, perfectly disciplined, +admirably handled; their very jealousies and rivalries turned to good +account. When John Wesley offered to the Church of England precisely +their successors, we would have no commerce with them; we did our +best to turn them into a hostile and invading force. + +The Friars were the Evangelizers of the towns in England for 300 +years. When the spoliation of the religious houses was decided upon, +the Friars were the first upon whom the blow fell--the first and the +last. [Footnote: The king began with the Franciscan convent of Christ +Church, London, in 1532; he bestowed the Dominican convent at Norwich +upon the corporation of that city on the 25th of June, 1540.] But +when their property came to be looked into, there was nothing to rob +but the churches in which they worshipped, the libraries in which +they studied, and the houses in which they passed their lives. Rob +the county hospitals to-morrow through the length and breadth of the +land, or make a general scramble for the possessions of the Wesleyan +body, and how many broad acres would go to the hammer? + +Voluntaryism leaves little for the spoiler. + +As with the later history of the Friars in England, so with the +corruptions of the Mendicant orders--though they were as great as +malice or ignorance may have represented them--I am not concerned. +That the Minorites of the fourteenth century were very unlike the +Minorites of the thirteenth I know; that the other Mendicant orders +declined, I cannot doubt-- + + What keeps a spirit wholly true + To that ideal which he bears? + What record? Not the sinless years + That breathed beneath the Syrian blue. + +The Rule of St. Francis was a glorious ideal; when it came to be +carried into practice by creatures of flesh and blood, it proved to +be something to dream of, not to live. And yet, even as it was, its +effects upon the Church, nay, upon the whole civilized world, were +enormous. If, one after another, the Mendicant orders declined, if +their zeal grew cold, their simplicity of life faded, and their +discipline relaxed; if they became corrupted by that very world which +they promised to purify and deliver from the dominion of Mammon--this +is only what has happened again and again, what must happen as long +as men are men. In every age the prophet has always asked for the +unattainable, always pointed to a higher level than human nature +could breathe in, always insisted on a measure of self-renunciation +which saints in their prayers send forth the soul's lame hands to +clutch-in their ecstasy of aspiration hope that they may some day +arrive at. But, alas! they reach it--never. And yet the saint and the +prophet do not live in vain. They send a thrill of noble emotion +through the heart of their generation, and the divine tremor does not +soon subside; they gather round them the pure and generous--the lofty +souls which are not all of the earth earthy. In such, at any rate, a +fire is kindled by the spark that has fallen from the altar. By-and- +by it is the fuel that fails; then the old fire, after smouldering +for a while, goes out, and by no stirring of the dead embers can you +make them flame again. You may cry as loudly as you will, "Pull down +the chimney that will not draw, and set up another in its place!" +That you may do if you please; another fire you may have, but the new +will not be as the old. + + + + +II. + +_VILLAGE LIFE SIX HUNDRED YEARS AGO_. + + + "The rude forefathers of the hamlet..." + + +[In the autumn of 1878, while on a visit at Rougham Hall, Norfolk, the +seat of Mr. Charles North, my kind host drew my attention to some +large boxes of manuscripts, which he told me nobody knew anything +about, but which I was at liberty to ransack to my heart's content. I +at once dived into one of the boxes, and then spent half the night in +examining some of its treasures. The chest is one of many, +constituting in their entirety a complete apparatus for the history +of the parish of Rougham from the time of Henry the Third to the +present day--so complete that it would be difficult to find in +England a collection of documents to compare with it. + +The whole parish contains no more than 2,627 acres, of which about +thirty acres were not included in the estate slowly piled up by the +Yelvertons, and purchased by Roger North in 1690. + +Yet the charters and evidences of various kinds which were handed +over with this small property, and which date _before_ the +sixteenth century, count by thousands. The smaller strips of +parchment or vellum--for the most part conveyances of land, and +having seals attached--have been roughly bound together in volumes, +each containing about one hundred documents, and arranged with some +regard to chronology, the undated ones being collected into a volume +by themselves. I think it almost certain that the arranging of the +early charters in their rude covers was carried out before 1500 A.D., +and I have a suspicion that they were grouped together by Sir William +Yelverton, "the cursed Norfolk Justice" of the Paston Letters, who +inherited the estate from his mother in the first half of the +fifteenth century. + +When Roger North purchased the property the ancient evidences were +handed over to him as a matter of course; and there are many notes in +his handwriting showing that he found the collection in its present +condition, and that he had bestowed much attention upon it. +Blomefield seems to have been aware of the existence of the Rougham +muniments, but I think he never saw them; and for one hundred and +fifty years, at least, they had lain forgotten until they came under +my notice. Of this large mass of documents I had copied or abstracted +scarcely more than five hundred, and I had not yet got beyond the +year 1355. The court rolls, bailiffs' accounts, and early leases, I +had hardly looked at when this lecture was delivered. + +The following address gives some of the results of my examination of +the first series of the Rougham charters. It was delivered in the +Public Reading-room of the village of Tittleshall, a parish adjoining +Rougham, and was listened to with apparent interest and great +attention by an audience of farmers, village tradesmen, mechanics, +and labourers. I was careful to avoid naming any place which my +audience were not likely to know well; and there is hardly a parish +mentioned which is five miles from the lecture-room. + +When speaking of "six hundred years," I gave myself roughly a limit +of thirty years before and after 1282, and I have rarely gone beyond +that limit on one side or the other. + +They who are acquainted with Mr. Rogers' "History of Prices" will +observe that I have ventured to put forward views, on more points +than one, very different from those which he advocates. + +Of the value of Mr. Rogers' compilation, and of the statistics which +he has tabulated, there can be but one opinion. It is when we come to +draw our inferences from such returns as these, and bring to bear +upon them the sidelights which further evidence affords, that +differences of opinion arise among inquirers. I really know nothing +about the Midlands in the Middle Ages; I am disgracefully ignorant of +the social condition of the South and West; but the early history of +East Anglia, and especially of Norfolk, has for long possessed a +fascination for me; and though I am slow to arrive at conclusions, +and have a deep distrust of those historians who, for every pair of +facts, construct a Trinity of Theories, I feel sure of my ground on +some matters, because I have done my best to use all such evidence as +has come my way.] + + * * * * * * * + +Few things have struck me more forcibly since I have cast in my lot +among country people, than the strange ignorance which they exhibit +of the _history of themselves_. I do not allude to those +unpleasant secrets which we should be very sorry indeed for our next- +door neighbours to be acquainted with, nor to any such matters as our +experience or memories of actual facts could bring to our minds; I +mean something very much more than that. Men and women are not only +the beings they appear to be at any one moment of their lives, they +are not single separate atoms like grains of sand. Rather they are +like branches or leaves of some great tree, from which they have +sprung and on which they have grown, whose life in the past has come +at last to them in the present, and without whose deep anchorage in +the soil, and its ages of vigour and vitality, not a bud or a spray +that is so fresh and healthful now would have had any existence. + +Consider for a moment--Who are we, and what do we mean by +_Ourselves_? When I meet a ragged, shuffling tramp on the road +(and I meet a good many of them in my lonely walks) I often find +myself asking the question, "How did that shambling vagabond come to +his present condition? Did his father turn him out of doors? Did his +mother drink? Did he learn nothing but lying and swearing and +thieving when he was a child? Was his grandfather hanged for some +crime, or was his great-grandfather a ruffian killed in a fight?" And +I say to myself, "Though I do not know the truth, yet I am sure that +man was helped towards his vagabondism, helped to become an outcast +as he is, by the neglect or the wickedness, the crimes or the bad +example of his fathers and forefathers on one side or the other; for +if he had come of decent people on both sides, people who had been +honestly and soberly brought up themselves, as they tried to bring up +their children, yonder dirty tramp would not and could not have sunk +to his present self, for we and ourselves are what we come to, partly +by our own sins and vices, but partly (and much more than some like +to believe) by the sins, negligences, and ignorances of those whose +blood is in our veins. + +My friends, it surely must be worth our while to know much more than +most of us do know about _Ourselves_. + +Being convinced of this, and believing, moreover, that to most of us +nothing on earth is so interesting as that which most concerns +ourselves at any period of our existence, I resolved, when I was +asked to address you here this evening, that I would try to give you +some notion of the kind of life which your fathers led in this parish +a long, long time ago, and so help you to understand through what +strange changes we have all passed, and what strange stories the +walls of our houses, if they could speak, would have to tell, and on +what wonderful struggles, and hardships, and dangers, and sorrows +yonder church tower of yours has looked down, since, centuries ago, +it first rose up, the joy and pride of those whose hands laid stone +on stone. + +When I came to think over the matter, however, I found that I could +not tell you very much that I was sure of about your own parish of +Tittleshall, but that it so happened I could tell you something that +is new to you about a parish that joins your own; and because what +was going on among your close neighbours at any one time would be in +the main pretty much what would be going on among your forefathers, +in bringing before you the kind of life which people led in the +adjoining parish of Rougham six hundred years ago, I should be +describing precisely the life which people were leading here in this +parish where we are now--people, remember, whose blood is throbbing +in the veins of some of you present; for from that dust that lies in +your churchyard yonder I make no doubt that some of you have sprung-- +you whom I am speaking to now. + +Six hundred years ago! Yes, it is a long time. Not a man of you can +throw his thoughts back to so great a lapse of time. I do not expect +it of you; but nevertheless I am going to try to give you a picture +of a Norfolk village, and that a village which you all know better +than I do, such as it was six hundred years ago. + +In those days an ancestor of our gracious Queen, who now wears the +crown of England, was king; and the Prince of Wales, whom many of you +must have seen in Norfolk, was named _Edward_ after this same +king. In those days there were the churches standing generally where +they stand now. In those days, too, the main roads ran pretty much +where they now run; and there was the same sun overhead, and there +were clouds, and winds, and floods, and storms, and sunshine; but if +you, any of you, could be taken up and dropped down in Tittleshall or +Rougham such as they were at the time I speak of, you would feel +almost as strange as if you had been suddenly transported to the +other end of the world. + +The only object that you would at all recognize would be the parish +church. That stands where it did, and where it has stood, perhaps, +for a thousand years or more; but, at the time we are now concerned +with, it looked somewhat different from what it looks now. It had a +tower, but that tower was plainer and lower than the present one. The +windows, too, were very different; they were smaller and narrower; I +think it probable that in some of them there was stained glass, and +it is almost certain that the walls were covered with paintings +representing scenes from the Bible, and possibly some stories from +the lives of the saints, which everybody in those days was familiar +with. There was no pulpit and no reading desk. When the parson +preached, he preached from the steps of the altar. The altar itself +was much more ornamented than now it is. Upon the altar there were +always some large wax tapers which were lit on great occasions, and +over the altar there hung a small lamp which was kept alight night +and day. It was the parson's first duty to look to it in the morning, +and his last to trim it at night. + +The parish church was too small for the population of Rougham, and +the consequence was that it had been found necessary to erect what we +should now call a chapel of ease--served, I suppose, by an assistant +priest, who would be called a chaplain. I cannot tell you where this +chapel stood, but it had a burial-ground of its own. [Footnote: +Compare the remarkable regulations of Bishop Woodloke of Winchester +(A.D. 1308), illustrative of this. Wilkins' "Conc.," vol. ii. p. 296. +By these constitutions every chapel, two miles from the mother +church, was bound to have its own burying-ground] + +There was, I think, only one road deserving the name, which passed +through Rougham. It ran almost directly north and south from Coxford +Abbey to Castle Acre Priory. But do not suppose that a road in those +days meant what it does now. To begin with, people in the country +never drove about in carriages. In such a place as Rougham, men and +women might live all their lives without ever seeing a travelling +carriage, whether on four wheels or two. [Footnote: It is, however, +not improbable that when the Queen came into Norfolk, the eyes of the +awe-struck rustics may have been dazzled by even such an astonishing +equipage as is figured in Mr. Parker's "Hist. Domestic Architecture," +vol. ii. p. 141.] The road was quite unfit for driving on. There were +no highway rates. Now and then a roadway got so absolutely +impassable, or a bridge over a stream became so dangerous, that +people grumbled; and then an order came down from the king to the +high sheriff of the county, bidding him see to his road, and the +sheriff thereupon taxed the dwellers in the hundred and forced them +to put things straight. The village of Rougham in those days was in +its general plan not very unlike the present village--that is to say, +the church standing where it does, next to the churchyard was the +parsonage with a croft attached; and next to that a row of houses +inhabited by the principal people of the place, whose names I could +give you, and the order of their dwellings, if it were worth while. +Each of these houses had some outbuildings--cowsheds, barns, &c., and +a small croft fenced round. Opposite these houses was another row +facing west, as the others faced east; but these latter houses were +apparently occupied by the poorer inhabitants--the smith, the +carpenter, and the general shopkeeper, who called himself, and was +called by others, the _merchant_. There was one house which +appears to have stood apart from the rest and near Wesenham Heath. It +probably was encircled by a moat, and approached by a drawbridge, the +bridge being drawn up at sunset. It was called the Lyng House, and +had been probably built two or three generations back, and now was +occupied by a person of some consideration--viz., Thomas Middleton, +Archdeacon of Suffolk, and brother of William Middleton, then Bishop +of Norwich. This house was on the east side of the road, and the road +leading up to it had a name, and was called the Hutgong. In front of +the house was something like a small park of 5½ acres inclosed; and +next that again, to the south, 4 acres of ploughed land; and behind +that again--that is, between it and the village--there was the open +heath. Altogether, this property consisted of a house and 26 acres. +Archdeacon Middleton bought it on October 6, 1283, and he bought it +in conjunction with his brother Elias, who was soon after made +seneschal or steward of Lynn for his other brother, the bishop. The +two brothers probably used this as their country house, for both of +them had their chief occupation elsewhere; but when the bishop died, +in 1288, and they became not quite the important people they had been +before, they sold the Lyng House to another important person, of whom +we shall hear more by-and-by. + +The Lyng House, however, was not the great house of Rougham. I am +inclined to think _that_ stood not far from the spot where +Rougham Hall now stands. It was in those days called the Manor House, +or the Manor. + +And this brings me to a point where I must needs enter into some +explanations. Six hundred years ago all the land in England was +supposed to belong to the king in the first instance. The king had in +former times parcelled it out into tracts of country, some large and +some small, and made over these tracts to his great lords, or barons, +as they were called. The barons were supposed to hold these tracts, +called fiefs, as _tenants_ of the king, and in return they were +expected to make an acknowledgment to the king in the shape of some +_service_, which, though it was not originally a money payment, +yet became so eventually, and was always a substantial charge upon +the land. These fiefs were often made up of estates in many different +shires; and, because it was impossible for the barons to cultivate +all their estates themselves, they let them out to _subtenants_, +who in their turn were bound to render services to the lord of the +fief. These sub-tenants were the great men in the several parishes, +and became the actual lords of the manors, residing upon the manors, +and having each, on their several manors, very large powers for good +or evil over the, tillers of the soil. + +A manor six hundred years ago meant something very different from a +manor now. The lord was a petty king, having his subjects very much +under his thumb. But his subjects differed greatly in rank and +status. In the first place, there were those who were called the free +tenants. The free tenants were they who lived in houses of their own +and cultivated land of their own, and who made only an annual money +payment to the lord of the manor as an acknowledgment of his +lordship. The payment was trifling, amounting to some few pence an +acre at the most, and a shilling or so, as the case might be, for the +house. This was called the _rent_, but it is a very great +mistake indeed to represent this as the same thing which we mean by +rent now-a-days. It really was almost identical with what we now call +in the case of house property, "ground rent," and bore no proportion +to the value of the produce that might be raised from the soil which +the tenant held. The free tenant was neither a yearly tenant, nor a +leaseholder. His holding was, to all intents and purposes, his own-- +subject, of course, to the payment of the ground rent. But if he +wanted to sell out of his holding, the lord of the manor exacted a +payment for the privilege. If he died, his heir had to pay for being +admitted to his inheritance, and if he died without heirs, the +property went back to the lord of the manor, who then, but only then, +could raise the ground rent if he pleased, though he rarely did so. +So much for the free tenants. + +Besides these were the _villeins_ or _villani_, or +_natives_, as they were called. The villeins were tillers of the +soil, who held land under the lord, and who, besides paying a small +money ground rent, were obliged to perform certain arduous services +to the lord, such as to plough the lord's land for so many days in +the year, to carry his corn in the harvest, to provide a cart on +occasion, &c. Of course these burdens pressed very heavily at times, +and the services of the villeins were vexatious and irritating under +a hard and unscrupulous lord. But there were other serious +inconveniences about the condition of the villein or native. Once a +villein, always a villein. A man or woman born in villeinage could +never shake it off. Nay, they might not even go away from the manor +to which they were born, and they might not marry without the lord's +license, and for that license they always had to pay. Let a villein +be ever so shrewd or enterprising or thrifty, there was no hope for +him to change his state, except by the special grace of the lord of +the manor. [Footnote: I do not take account of those who ran away to +the corporate towns. I suspect that there were many more cases of +this than some writers allow. It was sometimes a serious +inconvenience to the lords of manors near such towns as Norwich or +Lynn. A notable example may be found in the "Abbrev, Placit.," p. 316 +(6°. E. ii. Easter term). It seems that no less than eighteen +villeins of the Manor of Cossey were named in a mandate to the +Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, who were to be taken and reduced to +villeinage, and their goods seized. Six of them pleaded that they +were citizens of Norwich--the city being about four miles from +Cossey.] Yes, there was one means whereby he could be set free, and +that was if he could get a bishop to ordain him. The fact of a man +being ordained at once made him a free man, and a knowledge of this +fact must have served as a very strong inducement to young people to +avail themselves of all the helps in their power to obtain something +like an education, and so to qualify themselves for admission to the +clerical order and to the rank of free-man. + +At Rougham there was a certain Ralph Red, who was one of these +villeins under the lord of the manor, a certain William le Butler. +Ralph Red had a son Ralph, who I suppose was an intelligent youth, +and made the most of his brains. He managed to get ordained about six +hundred years ago, and he became a chaplain, perhaps to that very +chapel of ease I mentioned before. His father, however, was still a +villein, liable to all the villein services, and _belonging_ to +the manor and the lord, he and all his offspring. Young Ralph did not +like it, and at last, getting the money together somehow, he bought +his father's freedom, and, observe, with his freedom the freedom of +all his father's children too, and the price he paid was twenty +marks. [Footnote: N.B.--A man could not buy his own freedom, +Merewether's "Boroughs," i. 350. Compare too Littleton on "Tenures," +p 65, 66.] That sounds a ridiculously small sum, but I feel pretty +sure that six hundred years ago twenty marks would be almost as +difficult for a penniless young chaplain to get together as L500 for +a penniless young curate to amass now. Of the younger Ralph, who +bought his father's freedom, I know little more; but, less than one +hundred and fifty years after the elder man received his liberty, a +lineal descendant of his became lord of the manor of Rougham, and, +though he had no son to carry on his name, he had a daughter who +married a learned judge, Sir William Yelverton, Knight of the Bath, +whose monument you may still see at Rougham Church, and from whom +were descended the Yelvertons, Earls of Sussex, and the present Lord +Avonmore, who is a scion of the same stock. + +When Ralph Red bought his father's freedom of William le Butler, +William gave him an acknowledgment for the money, and a written +certificate of the transaction, but he did not sign his name. In +those days nobody signed their names, not because they could not +write, for I suspect that just as large a proportion of people in +England could write well six hundred years ago, as could have done so +forty years ago, but because it was not the fashion to sign one's +name. Instead of doing that, everybody who was a free man, and a man +of substance, in executing any legal instrument, affixed to it his +_seal_, and that stood for his signature. People always carried +their seals about with them in a purse or small bag, and it was no +uncommon thing for a pickpocket to cut off this bag and run away with +the seal, and thus put the owner to very serious inconvenience. This +was what actually did happen once to William le Butler's father-in- +law. He was a certain Sir Richard Bellhouse, and he lived at North +Tuddenham, near Dereham. Sir Richard was High Sheriff for the +counties of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1291, and his duties brought him +into court on January 25th of that year, before one of the Judges at +Westminster. I suppose the court was crowded, and in the crowd some +rogue cut off Sir Richard's purse, and made off with his seal. I +never heard that he got it back again. [Footnote: Abbreviatio Placit. +284, b.] + +And now I must return to the point from which I wandered when I began +to speak of the free tenants and the "villeins." William le Butler, +who sold old Ralph Red to his own son, the young Ralph, was himself +sprung from a family who had held the Manor of Rougham for about a +century. His father was Sir Richard le Butler, who died about 1280, +leaving behind him one son, our friend William, and three daughters. +Unfortunately, William le Butler survived his father only a very +short time, and he left no child to succeed him. The result was that +the inheritance of the old knight was divided among his daughters, +and what had been hitherto a single lordship became three lordships, +each of the parceners looking very jealously after his own interest, +and striving to make the most of his powers _and rights_. + +Though each of the husbands of Sir Richard le Butler's daughters was +a man of substance and influence--yet, when the manor was divided, no +one of them was anything like so great a person as the old Sir +Richard. In those days, as in our own, there were much richer men in +the country than the country gentlemen, and in Rougham at this time +there were two very prosperous men who were competing with one +another as to which should buy up most land in the parish, and be the +great man of the place. The one of these was a gentleman called Peter +the Roman, and the other was called Thomas the Lucky. They were both +the sons of Rougham people, and it will be necessary to pursue the +history of each of them to make you understand how things went in +those "good old times." + +First let me deal with Peter the Roman. He was the son of a Rougham +lady named Isabella, by an Italian gentleman named lacomo de +Ferentino, or if you like to translate it into English, James of +Ferentinum. + +How James of Ferentinum got to Rougham and captured one of the +Rougham heiresses we shall never know for certain. But we do know +that in the days of King Henry, who was the father of King Edward, +there was a very large incursion of Italian clergy into England, and +that the Pope of Rome got preferment of all kinds for them. In fact, +in King Henry's days the Pope had immense power in England, and it +looked for a while as if every valuable piece of preferment in the +kingdom would be bestowed upon Italians who did not know a word of +English, and who often never came near their livings at all. One of +these Italian gentlemen, whose name was _John_ de Ferentino, was +very near being made Bishop of Norwich; [Footnote: At the death of +Thomas de Blunville in 1236. John de Ferentino must have been almost +supreme in the diocese. The see was practically vacant for three +years.] he _was_ Archdeacon of Norwich, but though the Pope +tried to make him bishop, he happily did not succeed in forcing him +into the see that time, and John of Ferentinum had to content himself +with his archdeaconry and one or two other preferments. + +Our friend at Rougham may have been, and probably was, some kinsman +of the archdeacon, and it is just possible that Archdeacon Middleton, +who, you remember, bought the Lyng House, may have had, as his +predecessor in it, another archdeacon, this John de Ferentino, whose +nephew or brother, James, married Miss Isabella de Rucham, and +settled down among his wife's kindred. Be that as it may, John de +Ferentino had two sons, Peter and Richard, and it appears that their +father, not content with such education as Oxford or Cambridge could +afford--though at this time Oxford was one of the most renowned +universities in Europe--sent his sons to Rome, having an eye to their +future advancement; for in King Henry's days a young man that had +friends at Rome was much more likely to get on in the world than he +who had only friends in the King's Court, and he who wished to push +his interests in the Church must look to the Pope, and not to the +King of England, as his main support. + +When young Peter came back to Rougham, I dare say he brought back +with him some new airs and graces from Italy, and I dare say the new +fashions made his neighbours open their eyes. They gave the young +fellow the name he is known by in the charters, and to the day of his +death people called him Peter Romayn, or Peter the Roman. But Peter +came back a changed man in more ways than one. He came back a cleric. +We in England now recognize only three orders of clergy--bishops, +priests, and deacons. But six hundred years ago it was very +different. In those days a man might be two or three degrees below a +deacon, and yet be counted a cleric and belonging to the clergy; and, +though Peter Romayn was not priest or deacon, he was a privileged +person in many ways, but a very unprivileged person in one way--he +might never marry. + +It was a hard case for a young man who had taken to the clerical +profession without taking to the clerical life, and all the harder +because there were old men living whose fathers or grandfathers had +known the days when even a Bishop of Norwich was married, and who +could tell of many an old country clergyman who had had his wife and +children in the parsonage. But now--just six hundred years ago--if a +young fellow had once been admitted a member of the clerical body, he +was no longer under the protection of the laws of the realm, nor +bound by them, but he was under the dominion of another law, commonly +known as the Canon Law, which the Pope of Rome had succeeded in +imposing upon the clergy; and in accordance with that law, if he took +to himself a wife, he was, to all intents and purposes, a ruined man. + +But when laws are pitted against human nature, they may be forced +upon people by the strong hand of power, but they are sure to be +evaded where they are not broken literally; and this law of +forbidding clergymen to marry _was_ evaded in many ways. +Clergymen took to themselves wives, and had families. Again and again +their consciences justified them in their course, whatever the Canon +Law might forbid or denounce. They married on the sly--if that may be +called marriage which neither the Church nor the State recognized as +a binding contract, and which was ratified by no formality or +ceremony civil or religious: but public opinion was lenient; and +where a clergyman was living otherwise a blameless life, his people +did not think the worse of him for having a wife and children, +however much the Canon Law and certain bigoted people might give the +wife a bad name. And so it came to pass that Peter Romayn of Rougham, +cleric though he were, lost his heart one fine day to a young lady at +Rougham, and marry he would. The young lady's name was Matilda. Her +father, though born at Rougham, appears to have gone away from there +when very young, and made money somehow at Leicester. He had married +a Norfolk lady, one Agatha of Cringleford; and he seems to have died, +leaving his widow and daughter fairly provided for; and they lived in +a house at Rougham, which I dare say Richard of Leicester had bought. +I have no doubt that young Peter Romayn was a young gentleman of +means, and it is clear that Matilda was a very desirable bride. But +then Peter _couldn't_ marry! How was it to be managed? I think +it almost certain that no religious ceremony was performed, but I +have no doubt that the two plighted their troth either to each, and +that somehow they did become man and wife, if not in the eyes of +Canon Law, yet by the sanction of a higher law to which the +consciences of honourable men and women appeal against the immoral +enactments of human legislation. + +Among the charters at Rougham I find eighteen or twenty which were +executed by Peter Romayn and Matilda. In no one of them is she called +his wife; in all of them it is stipulated that the property shall +descend to whomsoever they shall leave it, and in only one instance, +and there I believe by a mistake of the scribe, is there any mention +of their _lawful_ heirs. They buy land and sell it, sometimes +separately, more often conjointly, but in all cases the interests of +both are kept in view; the charters are witnessed by the principal +people in the place, including Sir Richard Butler himself, more than +once; and in one of the later charters Peter Romayn, as if to provide +against the contingency of his own death, makes over all his property +in Rougham without reserve to Matilda, and constitutes her the +mistress of it all. [Footnote: By the constitutions of Bishop +Woodloke, any _legacies_ left by a clergyman to his "concubine" +were to be handed over to the bishop's official, and distributed to +the poor.--Wilkins' "Cone." vol. ii. p. 296 b.] + +Some year or two after this, Matilda executes her last conveyance, +and executes it alone. She sells her whole interest in Rougham--the +house in which she lives and all that it contains--lands and ground +rents, and everything else, for money down, and we hear of her no +more. Did she retire from the world, and find refuge in a nunnery? +Did she go away to some other home? Who knows? And what of Peter the +Roman? I know little of him, but I suspect the pressure put upon the +poor man was too strong for him, and I suspect that somehow, and, let +us hope, with much anguish and bitterness of heart--but yet somehow, +he was compelled to repudiate the poor woman to whom there is +evidence to show he was true and staunch as long as it was possible-- +and when it was no longer possible I _think_ he too turned his +back upon the Rougham home, and was presented by the Prior of +Westacre Monastery to the Rectory of Bodney at the other end of the +county, where, let us hope, he died in peace. + +It is a curious fact that Peter Romayn was not the only clergyman in +Rougham whom we know to have been married. As for Peter Romayn, I +believe he was an honourable man according to his light, and as far +as any men were honourable in those rough days. But for the other. I +do not feel so sure about him. + +I said that the two prosperous men in Rougham six hundred years ago +were Peter Romayn and Thomas the Lucky, or, as his name appears in +the Latin Charters, Thomas Felix. When Archdeacon Middleton gave up +living at Rougham, Thomas Felix bought his estate, called the Lyng +House; and shortly after he bought another estate, which, in fact, +was a manor of its own, and comprehended thirteen free tenants and +five villeins; and, as though this were not enough, on September 24, +1292, he took a lease of another manor in Rougham for six years, of +one of the daughters of Sir Richard le Butler, whose husband, I +suppose, wanted to go elsewhere. Before the lease expired he died, +leaving behind him a widow named Sara and three little daughters, the +eldest of whom cannot have been more than eight or nine years old. +This was in the year 1294. Sara, the widow, was for the time a rich +woman, and she made up her mind never to marry again, and she kept +her resolve. + +When her eldest daughter Alice came to the mature age of fifteen or +sixteen, a young man named John of Thrysford wooed and won her. +Mistress Alice was by no means a portionless damsel, and Mr. John +seems himself to have been a man of substance. How long they were +married I know not; but it could not have been more than a year or +two, for less than five years after Mr. Felix's death a great event +happened, which produced very momentous effects upon Rougham and its +inhabitants in more ways than one. + +Up to this time there had been a rector at Rougham, and apparently a +good rectory-house and some acres of glebe land--how many I cannot +say. But the canons of Westacre Priory cast their eyes upon the +rectory of Rougham, and they made up their minds they would have it. +I dare not stop to explain how the job was managed--that would lead +me a great deal too far--but it _was_ managed, and accordingly, +a year or two after the marriage of little Alice, they got possession +of all the tithes and the glebe, and the good rectory-house at +Rougham, and they left the parson of the parish with a smaller house +on the other side of the road, and _not_ contiguous to the +church, an allowance of two quarters of wheat and two quarters of +barley a year, and certain small dues which might suffice to keep +body and soul together but little more. [Footnote: This appears from +the following charter, which it seems worth while to quote: "Pateat +universis... quod nos Robertas de Feletone, Miles, et Hawigia uxor +mea concessimus ... Alicie filie Thome de Rucham... Totum ius +nostrum... in terris... dicte Alicie... in Rucham, que ... habuimus +de dono et dimissione Johannis filii Roberti de Thyrsforde in Rucham +_ante diuorstium_ (sic) _inter eundem Johannem et dictam_ Aliciam +factum... Omnia munimenta et scripta que de dicto tenemento habuimus +eidem Alicie quiete reddidimus... Datum apud Lucham die Dom: +prox: post Annunc: B Mar: Virg: Anno R. R. Edw: fit. Reg. Henr: +tricessimotertio" (28 March, 1305).--_Rougham Charter_, No. 157.] + +John of Thyrsfordhad not been married more than a year or two when he +had had enough of it. Whether at the time of his marriage he was +already a _cleric_, I cannot tell, but I know that on October +10, 1301, he was a priest, and that on that day he was instituted to +the vicarage of Rougham, having been already divorced from poor +little Alice. As for Alice--if I understand the case, she never could +marry, however much she may have wished it; she had no children to +comfort her; she became by-and-by the great lady of Rougham, and +there she lived on for nearly fifty years. Her husband, the vicar, +lived on too--on what terms of intimacy I am unable to say. The vicar +died some ten years before the lady. When old age was creeping on her +she made over all her houses and lands in Rougham to feoffees, and I +have a suspicion that she went into a nunnery and there died. + +In dealing with the two cases of Peter Romayn and John of Thyrsford I +have used the term _cleric_ more than once. These two men were, +at the end of their career at any rate, what we now understand by +clergyman; but there were hosts of men six hundred years ago in +Norfolk who were _clerics,_ and yet who were by no means what we +now understand by clergymen. The _clerics_ of six hundred years +ago comprehended all those whom we now call the professional classes; +all, _i.e._, who lived by their brains, as distinct from those +who lived by trade or the labour of their hands. + +Six hundred years ago it may be said that there were two kinds of law +in England, the one was the law of the land, the other was the law of +the Church. The law of the land was hideously cruel and merciless, +and the gallows and the pillory, never far from any man's door, were +seldom allowed to remain long out of use. The ghastly frequency of +the punishment by death tended to make people savage and +bloodthirsty. [Footnote: In 1293 a case is recorded of three men, one +of them a goldsmith, who had their right hands chopped off in the +middle of the street in London.-"Chron. of Edward I. and Edward II.," +vol. i. p.--102. Ed. Stubbs. Rolls Series.] It tended, too, to make +men absolutely reckless of consequences when once their passions were +roused. "As well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" was a saying that had +a grim truth in it. When a violent ruffian knew that if he robbed his +host in the night he would be sure to be hung for it, and if he +killed him he could be no more than hung, he had nothing to gain by +letting him live, and nothing to lose if he cut his throat. Where +another knew that by tampering with the coin of the realm he was sure +to go to the gallows for it, he might as well make a good fight +before he was taken, and murder any one who stood in the way of his +escape. Hanging went on at a pace which we cannot conceive, for in +those days the criminal law of the land was not, as it is now, a +strangely devised machinery for protecting the wrongdoer, but it was +an awful and tremendous power for slaying all who were dangerous to +the persons or the property of the community. + +The law of the Church, on the other hand, was much more lenient. To +hurry a man to death with his sins and crimes fresh upon him, to +slaughter men wholesale for acts that could not be regarded as +enormously wicked, shocked those who had learnt that the Gospel +taught such virtues as mercy and longsuffering, and gave men hopes of +forgiveness on repentance. The Church set itself against the +atrocious mangling, and branding, and hanging that was being dealt +out blindly, hastily, and indiscriminately, to every kind of +transgressor; and inasmuch as the Church law and the law of the land +six hundred years ago were often in conflict, the Church law acted to +a great extent as a check upon the shocking ferocity of the criminal +code. And this is how the check was exercised. + +A man who was a _cleric_ was only half amenable to the law of +the land. He was a citizen of the realm, and a subject of the king, +but he was _more_; he owed allegiance to the Church, and claimed +the Church's protection also. Accordingly, whenever a _cleric_ +got into trouble, and there was only too good cause to believe that +if he were brought to his trial he would have a short shrift and no +favour, scant justice and the inevitable gallows within twenty-four +hours at the longest, he proclaimed himself a _cleric_, and +demanded the protection of the Church, and was forthwith handed over +to the custody of the ordinary or bishop. The process was a clumsy +one, and led, of course, to great abuses, but it had a good side. As +a natural and inevitable consequence of such a privilege accorded to +a class, there was a very strong inducement to become a member of +that class; and as the Church made it easy for any fairly educated +man to be admitted at any rate to the lower orders of the ministry, +any one who preferred a professional career, or desired to give +himself up to a life of study, enrolled himself among the +_clerics_, and was henceforth reckoned as belonging to the +clergy. + +The country swarmed with these _clerics_. Only a small +proportion of them ever became ministers of religion; they were +lawyers, or even lawyers' clerks; they were secretaries; some few +were quacks with nostrums; and these all were just as much +_clerics_ as the chaplains, who occupied pretty much the same +position as our curates do now--clergymen, strictly so called, who +were on the look out for employment, and who earned a very precarious +livelihood--or the rectors and vicars who were the beneficed clergy, +and who were the parsons of parishes occupying almost exactly the +same position that they do at this moment, and who were almost +exactly in the same social position as they are now. Six hundred +years ago there were at least seven of these _clerics_ in +Rougham, all living in the place at the same time besides John of +Thyrsford, the vicar. Five of them were chaplains, two were merely +_clerics_. If there were seven of these clerical gentlemen whom +I happen to have met with in my examination of the Rougham Charters, +there must have been others who were not people of sufficient note to +witness the execution of important legal instruments, nor with the +means to buy land or houses in the parish. It can hardly be putting +the number too high if we allow that there must have been at least +ten or a dozen _clerics_ of one sort or another in Rougham six +hundred years ago. + +How did they all get a livelihood? is a question not easy to answer; +but there were many ways of picking up a livelihood by these +gentlemen. To begin with, they could take an engagement as tutor in a +gentleman's family; or they could keep a small school; or earn a +trifle by drawing up conveyances, or by keeping the accounts of the +lord of the manor. In some cases they acted as private chaplains, +getting their victuals for their remuneration, and sometimes they +were merely loafing about, and living upon their friends, and taking +the place of the country parson if he were sick or past work. Then, +too, the smaller monasteries had one or more chaplains, and I suspect +that the canons at Castle Acre always would keep two or three +chaplains in their pay, and it is not unlikely that as long as +Archdeacon Middleton kept on his big house at Rougham he would have a +chaplain, who would be attached to the place, and bound to perform +the service in the great man's chapel. + +But besides the clerics and the chaplains and the rector or vicar, +there was another class, the members of which just at this time were +playing a very important part indeed in the religious life of the +people, and not in the religious life alone; these were the Friars. +If the monks looked down upon the parsons, and stole their endowments +from them whenever they could, and if in return the parsons hated the +monks and regarded them with profound suspicion and jealousy, both +parsons and monks were united in their common dislike of the Friars. + +Six hundred years ago the Friars had been established in England +about sixty years, and they were now by far the most influential +Religionists in the country. The Friars, though always stationed in +the towns, and by this time occupying large establishments which were +built for them in Lynn, Yarmouth, Norwich, and elsewhere, were always +acting the part of itinerant preachers, and travelled their circuits +on foot, supported by alms. Sometimes the parson lent them the +church, sometimes they held a camp meeting in spite of him, and just +as often as not they left behind them a feeling of great soreness, +irritation, and discontent; but six hundred years ago the preaching +of the Friars was an immense and incalculable blessing to the +country, and if it had not been for the wonderful reformation wrought +by their activity and burning enthusiasm, it is difficult to see what +we should have come to or what corruption might have prevailed in +Church and State. + +When the Friars came into a village, and it was known that they were +going to preach, you may be sure that the whole population would turn +out to listen. Sermons in those days in the country were very rarely +delivered. As I have said, there were no pulpits in the churches +then. A parson might hold a benefice for fifty years, and never once +have written or composed a sermon. A preaching parson, one who +regularly exhorted his people or expounded to them the Scriptures, +would have been a wonder indeed, and thus the coming of the Friars +and the revival of pulpit oratory was all the more welcome because +the people had not become wearied by the too frequent iteration of +truths which may be repeated so frequently as to lose their vital +force. A sermon was an event in those days, and a preacher with any +real gifts of oratory was looked upon as a prophet sent by God. Never +was there a time when the people needed more to be taught the very +rudiments of morality. Never had there been a time when people cared +less whether their acts and words were right or wrong, true or false. +It had almost come to this, that what a man thought would be to his +profit, that was good; what would entail upon him a loss, that was +evil. + +And this brings me to another point, viz., the lawlessness and crime +in country villages six hundred years ago. But before I can speak on +that subject it is necessary that I should first try to give you some +idea of the every-day life of your forefathers. What did they eat and +drink? what did they wear? what did they do from day to day? Were +they happy? content? prosperous? or was their lot a hard and bitter +one? For according to the answer we get to questions such as these, +so shall we be the better prepared to expect the people to have been +peaceable citizens, or sullen, miserable, and dangerous ruffians, +goaded to frequent outbursts of ferocious savagedom by hunger, +oppression, hatred, and despair. + +Six hundred years ago no parish in Norfolk had more than a part of +its land under tillage. As a rule, the town or village, with its +houses, great and small, consisted of a long street, the church and +parsonage being situated about the middle of the parish. Not far off +stood the manor house, with its hall where the manor courts were +held, and its farm-buildings, dovecote, and usually its mill for +grinding the corn of the tenants. No tenant of the manor might take +his corn to be ground anywhere except at the lord's mill; and it is +easy to see what a grievance this would be felt to be at times, and +how the lord of the manor, if he were needy, unscrupulous, or +extortionate, might grind the faces of the poor while he ground their +corn. Behind most of the houses in the village might be seen a croft +or paddock, an orchard or a small garden. But the contents of the +gardens were very different from the vegetables we see now; there +were, perhaps, a few cabbages, onions, parsnips, or carrots, and +apparently some kind of beet or turnip. The potato had never been +heard of. + +As for the houses themselves, they were squalid enough for the most +part. The manor house was often built of stone, when stone was to be +had, or where, as in Norfolk, no stone was to be had, then of flint, +as in so many of our church towers. Usually, however, the manor house +was built in great part of timber. The poorer houses were dirty +hovels, run up "anyhow," sometimes covered with turf, sometimes with +thatch. None of them had chimneys. Six hundred years ago houses with +chimneys were at least as rare as houses heated by hot-water pipes +are now. Moreover, there were no brick houses. It is a curious fact +that the art of making bricks seems to have been lost in England for +some hundreds of years. The labourer's dwelling had no windows; the +hole in the roof which let out the smoke rendered windows +unnecessary, and, even in the houses of the well-to-do, glass windows +were rare. In many cases oiled linen cloth served to admit a feeble +semblance of light, and to keep out the rain. The labourer's fire was +in the middle of his house; he and his wife and children huddled +round it, sometimes grovelling in the ashes; and going to bed meant +flinging themselves down upon the straw which served them as mattress +and feather bed, exactly as it does to the present day in the gipsy's +tent in our byways. The labourer's only light by night was the +smouldering fire. Why should he burn a rushlight when there was +nothing to look at? and reading was an accomplishment which few +labouring men were masters of. + +As to the food of the majority, it was of the coarsest. The fathers +of many a man and woman in every village in Norfolk can remember the +time when the labourer looked upon wheat-bread as a rare delicacy; +and those legacies which were left by kindly people a century or two +ago, providing for the weekly distribution of so many _white_ +loaves to the poor, tell us of a time when the poor man's loaf was as +dark as mud, and as tough as his shoe-leather. In the winter-time +things went very hard indeed with all classes. There was no lack of +fuel, for the brakes and waste afforded turf which all might cut, and +kindling which all had a right to carry away; but the poor horses and +sheep and cattle were half starved for at least four months in the +year, and one and all were much smaller than they are now. I doubt +whether people ever fatted their hogs as we do. When the corn was +reaped, the swine were turned into the stubble and roamed about the +underwood; and when they had increased their weight by the feast of +roots and mast and acorns, they were slaughtered and salted for the +winter fare, only so many being kept alive as might not prove +burdensome to the scanty resources of the people. Salting down the +animals for the winter consumption was a very serious expense. All +the salt used was produced by evaporation in _pans_ near the +seaside, and a couple of bushels of salt often cost as much as a +sheep. This must have compelled the people to spare the salt as much +as possible, and it must have been only too common to find the bacon +more than rancid, and the ham alive again with maggots. If the salt +was dear and scarce, sugar was unknown except to the very rich. The +poor man had little to sweeten his lot. The bees gave him honey; and +long after the time I am dealing with people left not only their +hives to their children by will, but actually bequeathed a summer +flight of bees to their friends; while the hive was claimed by one, +the next swarm might become the property of another. + +As for the drink, it was almost exclusively water, beer, and cider. +[Footnote: On a court roll of the manor of Whissonsete, of the date +July 22, 1355, I find William Wate fined "iiij botell cideri quia +fecit dampnum in bladis domini."] Any one who pleased might brew beer +without tax or license, and everybody who was at all before the world +did brew his own beer according to his own taste. But in those days +the beer was very different stuff from that which you are familiar +with. To begin with, people did not use hops. Hops were not put into +beer till long after the time we are concerned with. I dare say they +flavoured their beer with horehound and other herbs, but they did not +understand those tricks which brewers are said to practise now-a-days +for making the beer "heady" and sticky and poisonous. I am not +prepared to say the beer was better, or that you would have liked it; +but I am pretty sure that in those days it was easier to get pure +beer in a country village than it is now, and if a man chose to drink +bad beer he had only himself to thank for it. There was no such +monopoly as there is now. I am inclined to think that there were a +very great many more people who sold beer in the country parishes +than sell it now, and I am sorry to say that the beer-sellers in +those days had the reputation of being rather a bad lot. [Footnote: +The presentments of the beer-sellers seem to point to the existence +of something like a licensing system among the lords of manors. I +know not how otherwise to explain the frequency of the fines laid +upon the whole class. Thus in a court-leet of the manor of Hockham, +held the 20th of October, 1377, no less than fourteen women were +fined in the aggregate 30s. 8d., who being _brassatores vendidere +servisiam_ (sic) _contra assisam_, one of these brewsters was +fined as much as four shillings. + +The earliest attempt to introduce uniformity in the measures of ale, +&c., is the assize of Richard I., bearing date the 20th of November, +1197. It is to be found in "Walter of Coventry," vol. ii. p. 114 +(Rolls Series). On the importance of this document see Stubbs' +"Const. Hist.," vol. i. pp. 509, 573. On the _tasters_ of bread +and ale cf. "Dep. Keeper's 43rd Report," p. 207.] It is quite certain +that they were very often in trouble, and of all the offences +punished by fine at the manor courts none is more common than that of +selling beer in false measures. + +The method of cheating their customers by the beer-sellers was, we +are told, exactly the contrary plan followed by our modern publicans. +Now, when a man gets into a warm corner at the pot-house, they tell +me that John Barleycorn is apt to serve out more drink than is good +for him; but six hundred years ago the beer-seller made his profit, +or tried to make it, by giving his customer less than he asked for. +Tobacco was quite unknown; it was first brought into England about +three hundred years after the days we are dealing with. When a man +once sat himself down with his pot he had nothing to do but drink. He +had no pipe to take off his attention from his liquor. If such a +portentous sight could have been seen in those days as that of a man +vomiting forth clouds of smoke from his mouth and nostrils, the +beholders would have undoubtedly taken to their heels and run for +their lives, protesting that the devil himself had appeared to them, +breathing forth fire and flames. Tea and coffee, too, were absolutely +unknown, unheard of; and wine was the rich man's beverage, as it is +now. The fire-waters of our own time--the gin and the rum, which have +wrought us all such incalculable mischief--were not discovered then. +Some little ardent spirits, known under the name of _cordials_, +were to be found in the better appointed establishments, and were +kept by the lady of the house among her simples, and on special +occasions dealt out in thimblefuls; but the vile grog, that maddens +people now, our forefathers of six hundred years ago had never even +tasted. + +The absence of vegetable food for the greater part of the year, the +personal dirt of the people, the sleeping at night in the clothes +worn in the day, and other causes, made skin diseases frightfully +common. At the outskirts of every town in England of any size there +were crawling about emaciated creatures covered with loathsome sores, +living heaven knows how. They were called by the common name of +lepers, and probably the leprosy strictly so called was awfully +common. But the children must have swarmed with vermin; and the itch, +and the scurvy, and the ringworm, with other hideous eruptions, must +have played fearful havoc with the weak and sickly. + +As for the dress of the working classes, it was hardly dress at all. +I doubt whether the great mass of the labourers in Norfolk had more +than a single garment--a kind of tunic leaving the arms and legs +bare, with a girdle of rope or leather round the waist, in which a +man's knife was stuck, to use sometimes for hacking his bread, +sometimes for stabbing an enemy in a quarrel. As for any cotton +goods, such as are familiar to you all, they had never been dreamt +of, and I suspect that no more people in Norfolk wore linen +habitually than now wear silk. + +Money was almost inconceivably scarce. The labourer's wages were paid +partly in rations of food, partly in other allowances, and only +partly in money; he had to take what he could get. Even the quit- +rent, or what I have called the ground rent, was frequently +compounded for by the tenant being required to find a pair of gloves, +or a pound of cummin, or some other acknowledgment in lieu of a money +payment; and one instance occurs among the Rougham charters of a man +buying as much as 11-1/2 acres, and paying for them partly in money +and partly in barley. [Footnote: In the year 1276 halfpence and +farthings were coined for the first time. This must have been a great +boon to the poorer classes, and it evidently was felt to be a matter +of great importance, insomuch that it was said to be the fulfilment +of an ancient prophecy by the great seer Merlin, who had once +foretold in mysterious language, that "there shall be half of the +round." In the next century it appears that the want of small change +had again made itself felt: for in the 2nd Richard II. we find the +Commons setting forth in a petition to the King, that "_...les ditz +coes n'on petit monoye pur paier pur les petites_ mesures a grant +damage des dites coes," and they beg "Le plese a dit Sr. le Roi et a +son sage conseil de faire ordeiner Mayles et farthinges pur paier pur +les petites mesures... et en eovre de charitée...."--Rolls of Parl., +vol. iii. p. 65.] Nothing shows more plainly the scarcity of money +than the enormous interest that was paid for a loan. The only bankers +were the Jews; [Footnote: I am speaking of Norfolk and Suffolk, where +the Jews, as far as I have seen, had it all their own way.] and when +a man was once in their hands he was never likely to get out of their +clutches again. But six hundred years ago the Jews had almost come to +the end of their tether; and in the year 1290 they were driven out of +the country, men, women, and children, with unutterable barbarity, +only to be replaced by other bloodsuckers who were not a whit less +mercenary, perhaps, but only less pushing and successful in their +usury. + +It is often said that the monasteries were the great supporters of +the poor, and fed them in times of scarcity. It may be so, but I +should like to see the evidence for the statement. At present I doubt +the fact, at any rate as far as Norfolk goes. [Footnote: The returns +of the number of poor people supported by the monasteries, which are +to be found in the "Valor Ecclesiasticus," are somewhat startling. +Certainly the monasteries did not return _less_ than they +expended in alms. Note, too, the complaint of the St. Alban's men to +Wat Tyler, who are said to have slandered the abbey "de retentione +stipendiorum pauperum." Walsingham, i. 469.] On the contrary, I am +strongly impressed with the belief that six hundred years ago the +poor had no friends. The parsons were needy themselves. In too many +cases one clergyman held two or three livings, took his tithes and +spent them in the town, and left a chaplain with a bare subsistence +to fill his place in the country. There was no parson's wife to drop +in and speak a kind word--no clergyman's daughter to give a friendly +nod, or teach the little ones at Sunday school--no softening +influences, no sympathy, no kindliness. What could you expect of +people with such dreary surroundings?--what but that which we know +actually was the condition of affairs? The records of crime and +outrage in Norfolk six hundred years ago are still preserved, and may +be read by any one who knows how to decipher them. I had intended to +examine carefully the entries of crime for this neighbourhood for the +year 1286, and to give you the result this evening, but I have not +had an opportunity of doing so. The work has been done for the +hundred of North Erpingham by my friend Mr. Rye, and what is true for +one part of Norfolk during any single year is not likely to be very +different from what was going on in another. + +The picture we get of the utter lawlessness of the whole county, +however, at the beginning of King Edward's reign is quite dreadful +enough. Nobody seems to have resorted to the law to maintain a right +or redress a wrong, till every other method had been tried. Starting +with the squires, if I may use the term, and those well-to-do people +who ought to have been among the most law-abiding members of the +community--we find them setting an example of violence and rapacity, +bad to read of. One of the most common causes of offence was when the +lord of the manor attempted to invade the rights of the tenants of +the manor by setting up a fold on the heath, or _Bruary_ as it +was called. What the lord was inclined to do, that the tenants would +try to do also, as when in 1272 John de Swanton set up a fold in the +common fields at Billingford; whereupon the other tenants pulled it +down, and there was a serious disturbance, and the matter dragged on +in the law courts for four years and more. Or as when the Prior of +Wymondham impleads William de Calthorp for interfering with his +foldage at Burnham; Calthorp replying that the Prior had no right to +foldage, and that he (Calthorp) had the right to pull the fold down. +In these cases, of course, there would be a general gathering and a +riot, for every one's interest was at stake; but it was not only when +some general grievance was felt that people in those days were ready +for a row. + +It really looks as if nothing was more easy than to collect a band of +people who could be let loose anywhere to work any mischief. One man +had a claim upon another for a debt, or a piece of land, or a right +which was denied--had the claim, or fancied he had--and he seems to +have had no difficulty in getting together a score or two of roughs +to back him in taking the law into his own hands. As when John de la +Wade in 1270 persuaded a band of men to help him in invading the +manor of Hamon de Clere, in this very parish of Tittleshall, seizing +the corn and threshing it, and, more wonderful still, cutting down +timber, and _carrying it off_. There are actually two other +cases of a precisely similar kind recorded this same year, one where +a gang of fellows in broad day seems to have looted the manors of +Dunton and Mileham; the other case was where a mob, under the +leadership of three men, who are named, entered by force into the +manor of Dunham, laid hands on a quantity of timber fit for building +purposes, and took it away bodily! A much more serious case, however, +occurred some years after this when two gentlemen of position in +Norfolk, with twenty-five followers, who appear to have been their +regular retainers, and a great multitude on foot and horse, came to +Little Barningham, where in the Hall there lived an old lady, +Petronilla de Gros; they set fire to the house in five places, +dragged out the old lady, treated her with the most brutal violence, +and so worked upon her fears that they compelled her to tell them +where her money and jewels were, and, having seized them, I conclude +that they left her to warm herself at the smouldering ruins of her +mansion. + +On another occasion there was a fierce riot at Rainham. There the +manor had become divided into three portions, as we have seen was the +case at Rougham. One Thomas de Hauville had one portion, and Thomas +de Ingoldesthorp and Robert de Scales held the other two portions. +Thomas de Hauville, peradventure, felt aggrieved because some rogue +had not been whipped or tortured cruelly enough to suit his notions +of salutary justice, whereupon he went to the expense of erecting a +brand new pillory, and apparently a gallows too, to strike terror +into the minds of the disorderly. The other parceners of the manor +were indignant at the act, and collecting nearly sixty of the people +of Rainham, they pulled down the new pillory and utterly destroyed +the same. When the case came before the judges, the defendants +pleaded in effect that if Thomas de Hauville had put up his pillory +on his own domain they would have had no objection, but that he had +invaded their rights in setting up his gallows without their +permission. + +If the gentry, and they who ought to have known better, set such an +example, and gave their sanction to outrage and savagery, it was only +natural that the lower orders should be quick to take their pattern +by their superiors, and should be only too ready to break and defy +the law. And so it is clear enough that they were. In a single year, +the year 1285, in the hundred of North Erpingham, containing thirty- +two parishes, the catalogue of crime is so ghastly as positively to +stagger one. Without taking any account of what in those days must +have been looked upon as quite minor offences--such as simple theft, +sheep-stealing, fraud, extortion, or harbouring felons--there were +eleven men and five women put upon their trial for burglary, eight +men and four women were murdered; there were five fatal fights, three +men and two women being killed in the frays; and, saddest of all, +there were five cases of suicide, among them two women, one of whom +hanged herself, the other cut her throat with a razor. We have in the +roll recording these horrors very minute particulars of the several +cases, and we know too that, not many months before the roll was +drawn up, at least eleven desperate wretches had been hanged for +various offences, and one had been torn to pieces by horses for the +crime of debasing the king's coin. It is impossible for us to realize +the hideous ferocity of such a state of society as this; the women +were as bad as the men, furious beldames, dangerous as wild beasts, +without pity, without shame, without remorse; and finding life so +cheerless, so hopeless, so very very dark and miserable, that when +there was nothing to be gained by killing any one else they killed +themselves. + + Anywhere, anywhere out of the world! + +Sentimental people who plaintively sigh for the good old times will +do well to ponder upon these facts. Think, twelve poor creatures +butchered in cold blood in a single year within a circuit of ten +miles from your own door! Two of these unhappy victims were a couple +of lonely women, apparently living together in their poverty, gashed +and battered in the dead of the night, and left in their blood, +stripped of their little all. The motive, too, for all this horrible +housebreaking and bloodshed, being a lump of cheese or a side of +bacon, and the shuddering creatures cowering in the corner of a +hovel, being too paralyzed with terror to utter a cry, and never +dreaming of making resistance to the wild-eyed assassins, who came to +slay rather than to steal. + +Let us turn from these scenes, which are too painful to dwell on; +and, before I close, let me try and point to some bright spots in the +village life of six hundred years ago. If the hovels of the labourer +were squalid, and dirty, and dark, yet there was not--no, there was +not--as much difference between them and the dwelling of the former +class, the employers of labour. Every man who had any house at all +had some direct interest in the land; he always had some rood or two +that he could call his own; his allotment was not large, but then +there were no large farmers. I cannot make out that there was any one +in Rougham who farmed as much as two hundred acres all told. What we +now understand by tenant farmers were a class that had not yet come +into existence. Where a landlord was non-resident he farmed his +estate by a bailiff, and if any one wanted to give up an occupation +for a time he let it with all that it contained. Thus, when Alice the +divorced made up her mind in 1318 to go away from Rougham--perhaps on +a pilgrimage--perhaps to Rome--who knows?--she let her house and +land, and all that was upon it, live and dead stock, to her sister +Juliana for three years. The inventory included not only the sheep +and cattle, but the very hoes and pitchforks, and sacks; and +everything, to the minutest particular, was to be returned without +damage at the end of the term, or replaced by an equivalent. But this +lady, a lady of birth and some position, certainly did not have two +hundred acres under her hands, and would have been a very small +personage indeed, side by side with a dozen of our West Norfolk +farmers today. The difference between the labourer and the farmer +was, I think, less six hundred years ago than it is now. Men climbed +up the ladder by steps that were more gently graduated; there was no +great gulf fixed between the employer and the employed. + +I can tell you nothing of the amusements of the people in those days. +I doubt whether they had any more amusement than the swine or the +cows had. Looking after the fowls or the geese, hunting for the hen's +nest in the furze brake, and digging out a fox or a badger, gave them +an hour's excitement or interest now and again. Now and then a +wandering minstrel came by, playing upon his rude instrument, and now +and then somebody would come out from Lynn, or Yarmouth, or Norwich, +with some new batch of songs for the most part scurrilous and coarse, +and listened to much less for the sake of the music than for the +words. Nor were books so rare as has been asserted. There were even +story-books in some houses, as where John Senekworth, bailiff for +Merton College, at Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire, possessed, when he +died in 1314, three books of romance; but then he was a thriving +yeoman with carpets in his house, or hangings for the walls. +[Footnote: Rogers' "Hist, of Prices" vol. i. p. 124.] + +There was a great deal more coming and going in the country villages +than there is now, a great deal more to talk about, a great deal more +doing. The courts of the manor were held periodically, and the free +tenants were bound to attend and carry on a large amount of petty +business. Then there were the periodical visitations by the +Archdeacon and the Rural Dean, and now and then more august +personages might be seen with a host of mounted followers riding +along the roads. The Bishop of Norwich was always on the move when he +was in his diocese; his most favourite places of residence were North +Elmham and Gaywood; at both of these places he had a palace and a +park; that meant that there were deer there and hunting, and all the +good and evil that seems to be inseparable from haunches of vension. +Nay, at intervals, even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, the +second man in the kingdom, came down to hold a visitation in Norfolk, +and, exactly 602 years ago the great Archbishop Peckham spent some +time in the county, and though I do not think he came near Rougham or +Tittleshall, I think it not improbable that his coming may have had +some influence in bringing about the separation between Peter Romayn +and Matilda de Cringleford, and the divorce of poor Alice from John +of Thyrsford. + +That year, 1280, or just 602 years ago, when Archbishop Peckham paid +his visit to Norfolk, was a very disastrous year for the farmers. It +was the beginning of a succession of bad seasons and floods even +worse than any that we have known. The rain began on the 1st of +August, and we are told that it continued to fall for twenty-four +hours, and then came a mighty wind such as men had never known the +like of; the waters were out, and there was a great flood, and houses +and windmills and bridges were swept away. Nay, we hear of a sad loss +of life, and many poor people were drowned, and many lost their all; +flocks, and herds, and corn and hay being whelmed in the deluge. In +November there was a frightful tempest, the lightning doing extensive +damage; and just at Christmas-time the frost set in with such +severity as no man had known before. The river Thames was frozen over +above London Bridge, so that men crossed it with horses and carts, +and when the frost broke up on the 2nd of February there was such an +enormous accumulation of ice and snow that five of the arches of +London Bridge blew up, and all over the country the same destruction +of bridges was heard of. + +Next year and the year after that, things went very badly with your +forefathers, and one of the saddest stories that we get from a +Norfolk chronicler who was alive at the time is one in which he tells +us that, owing to the continuous rain during these three years, there +was an utter failure in garden produce, as well as of the people's +hope of harvest. The bad seasons seem to have gone on for six or +seven years; but by far the worst calamity which Norfolk ever knew +was the awful flood of 1287, when by an incursion of the sea a large +district was laid under water, and hundreds of unfortunate creatures +were drowned in the dead of the night, without warning. Here, on the +higher level, people were comparatively out of harm's way, but it is +impossible to imagine the distress and agony that there must have +been in other parts of the county not twenty miles from where we are +this evening. + +After that dreadful year I think there was a change for the better, +but it must have been a long time before the county recovered from +the "agricultural distress;" and I strongly suspect that the cruel +and wicked persecution of the Jews, and the cancelling of all debts +due to them by the landlords and the farmers, was in some measure +owing to the general bankruptcy which the succession of bad seasons +had brought about. Men found themselves hopelessly insolvent, and +there was no other way of cancelling their obligations than by +getting rid of their creditors. So when the king announced that all +the Jews should be transported out of the realm, you may be sure that +there were very few Christians who were sorry for them. There had +been a time when the children of Israel had spoiled the Egyptians-- +was it not fitting that another time should have come when the +children of Israel should themselves be spoiled? + +The year of the great flood was the frequent talk, of course, of all +your forefathers who overlived it, and here in this neighbourhood it +must have acquired an additional interest from the fact that Bishop +Middleton died the year after it, and his brothers then parted with +their Rougham property. + +Nor was this all, for Bishop Middleton's successor in the see of +Norwich came from this immediate neighbourhood also. This was Ralph +Walpole, son of the lord of the manor of Houghton, in which parish +the bishop himself had inherited a few acres of land. In less than +forty years no less than three bishops had been born within five +miles of where we are this evening: Roger de Wesenham, [Footnote: The +names of several members of the bishop's family occur in the Rougham +Charters as attesting witnesses, and a Roger de Wesenham is found +among them more than once.] who became Bishop of Lichfield in 1245; +William Middleton, who had just died; and Ralph Walpole, who +succeeded him. There must have been much stir in these parts when the +news was known. The old people would tell how they had seen "young +master Ralph" many a time when he was a boy scampering over +Massingham Heath, or coming to pay his respects to the Archdeacon at +the Lyng House, or talking of foreign parts with old James de +Ferentino or Peter Romayn. Now he had grown to be a very big man +indeed, and there were many eyes watching him on both sides of the +water. He had a very difficult game to play during the eleven years +he was Bishop of Norwich, for the king was dreadfully in need of +money, and, being desperate, he resorted to outrageous methods of +squeezing it from those whom he could frighten and force, and the +time came at last when the bishops and the clergy had to put a bold +face on and to resist the tyranny and lawless rapacity of the +sovereign. + +And this reminds me that though archdeacons, and bishops, and even an +archbishop, in those days might be and were very important and very +powerful personages, they were all very small and insignificant in +comparison with the great King Edward, the king who at this time was +looked upon as one of the most mighty and magnificent kings in all +the world. He, too, paid many a visit to Norfolk six hundred years +ago. He kept his Christmas at Burgh in 1280, and in 1284 he came down +with the good Queen Eleanor and spent the whole of Lent in the +county; and next year, again, they were in your immediate +neighbourhood, making a pilgrimage to Walsingham. A few years after +this he seems to have spent a week or two within five miles of where +we are; he came to Castle Acre, and there he stayed at the great +priory whose ruins you all know well. There a very stirring interview +took place between the king and Bishop Walpole, and a number of other +bishops, and great persons who had come down as a deputation to +expostulate with the king, and respectfully to protest against the +way in which he was robbing his subjects, and especially the clergy, +whom he had been for years plundering in the most outrageous manner. +The king gave the deputation no smooth words to carry away, but he +sent them off with threatening frowns and insults and in hot anger. +Some days after this he was at Massingham, and one of his letters has +been preserved, dated from Massingham, 30th of January, 1296, so that +it is almost certain the great king passed one night there at least. +It is a little difficult to understand what the king was doing at +Massingham, for there was no great man living there, and no great +mansion. Sometimes I have thought that the king rode out from Castle +Acre to see what state the Walpoles of those times were keeping up at +Houghton. Had not that audacious Bishop Walpole dared to speak +plainly to his Grace the week before? But the more probable +explanation is that the king went to Massingham to visit a small +religious house or monastery which had been recently founded there. I +suspect it had already got into debt and was in difficulties, and it +is possible that the king's visit was made in the interest of the +foundation. At any rate, there the king stayed; but though he was in +Norfolk more than once after this, he never was so near you again, +and that visit was one which your forefathers were sure to talk about +to the end of their lives. + + * * * * * * * + +And these were the days of old. But now that we have looked back upon +them as they appear through the mists of centuries, the distance +distorting some things, obscuring others, but leaving upon us, on the +whole, an impression that, after all, these men and women of the +past, whose circumstances were so different from our own, were +perhaps not so very unlike what we should be if our surroundings were +as theirs. Now that we have come to that conclusion, if indeed we +have come to it, let me ask you all a question or two. Should we like +to change with those forefathers of ours, whose lives were passed in +this parish in the way I have attempted to describe, six hundred +years ago? Were the former times better than these? Has the world +grown worse as it has grown older? Has there been no progress, but +only decline? + +My friends, the people who lived in this village six hundred years +ago were living a life hugely below the level of yours. They were +more wretched in their poverty, they were incomparably less +prosperous in their prosperity, they were worse clad, worse fed, +worse housed, worse taught, worse tended, worse governed; they were +sufferers from loathsome diseases which you knew nothing of; the very +beasts of the field were dwarfed and stunted in their growth, and I +do not believe there were any giants in the earth in those days. The +death-rate among the children must have been tremendous. The +disregard of human life was so callous that we can hardly conceive +it. There was everything to harden, nothing to soften; everywhere +oppression, greed, and fierceness. Judged by our modern standards, +the people of our county village were beyond all doubt coarser, more +brutal, and more wicked, than they are. Progress is slow, but there +has been progress. The days that are, are not what they should be; we +still want reforms, we need much reforming ourselves; but the former +days were not better than these, whatever these may be; and if the +next six hundred years exhibit as decided an advance as the last six +centuries have brought about, and if your children's children of the +coming time rise as much above your level in sentiment, material +comfort, knowledge, intelligence, and refinement, as you have risen +above the level which your ancestors attained to, though even then +they will not cease to desire better things, they will nevertheless +have cause for thankfulness such as you may well feel to-night as you +look back upon what you have escaped from, and reflect upon what you +are. + + + + +III. + +DAILY LIFE IN A MEDIEVAL MONASTERY. + + + "Now I think on't, + They should be good men; their affairs as righteous: + But all hoods make not monks." + + +[The commemoration of the birth of Martin Luther, which people would +have called his quater-centenary if they had not been deterred by the +terrific appearance of so huge a word, was the occasion of many +preachments and much lecturing, besides a great deal of heroic talk +in public and private. With so much to encourage cynicism and +persiflage among us it was comforting to find that the instinct of +hero-worship is not quite dead, and that the story of a great man's +life still stirs the heart. It was inevitable that, among the many +utterances with which we were treated in the year 1883, many should +be very foolish, and not a few mischievous and erroneous. Itinerant +Windbags are rarely scrupulous about their facts, and the allusive +style flavoured with stinging invective is far more telling than any +historical narrative, however picturesque and eloquent it may be. +Luther the Monk will always be a more attractive subject in the +lecture hall than Luther the Theologian, and an audience prepared to +be harrowed and shocked will greedily listen to broad hints about +_abominations_-the word is a very favourite one--which the +author could disclose, but mercifully withholds in pity for the +shuddering hearts of a too sensitive assembly. The consequence was +that an altogether disproportionate amount of declamation was wasted +up and down the country by gentlemen on the stump, in girding at +monks and nuns, their vices and crimes, till some men's minds were +not a little exercised, and some, horrified by what they were told, +asked in their perplexity, "Can these things be?" The present writer +knows nothing of the condition of the German Religious Houses in the +fifteenth or the sixteenth century, and not as much as he would wish +to learn of the condition of the English houses during the same +period, but he has been painfully convinced that the peripatetic +orators are about as qualified to lecture upon the subject as he is +to lecture on astronomy. + +It was while musing in my solitude upon the harm done by ignorant +pretenders in sowing error broadcast in the waste places of the world +that I received a call from one of the class, who came to beg my +countenance for a lecture upon Luther the Monk and Monkery. He was a +vociferous personage and prodigal of his words. He added to all his +sins this one, that he did not know when to go. He had no tact, only +talk. Irritated at last beyond endurance, my normal suavity forsook +me, and I spoke with brutal plainness. Of course he was wroth, and +pressed for an explanation. In a weak moment I yielded. "To begin +with," said I, "Luther, strictly speaking, was not a monk at all!" +[Footnote: He belonged to the order of Friars Eremite under the +Augustinian Rule.] It was a foolish speech: first, because it made my +friend an offender for a word; and, secondly, because there was more +truth in it than the man was capable of understanding or was prepared +to receive; but it had the effect of ridding me of a bore. As he took +his leave he shot at me this Parthian shaft--" If you are above +learning, sir," he said," perhaps teaching might not be beneath you. +Could you not, for instance, let the world know something about monks +and monasteries some day? Even I, ignorant as you pronounce me, have +heard of your lecturing on a thirteenth-century village. Why not try +a thirteenth-century monastery next?" I politely thanked him for his +valuable suggestion, and promised to give it my respectful attention. +The following sketch is the outcome of our interview. "Facit +indignatio versus."] + + * * * * * * * + +It may be assumed as a fact which scarcely requires to be more than +stated that there are few subjects which the great mass of Englishmen +are so curiously ignorant of as the History of Monasticism, of the +constitution of the various Orders, of the fortunes of any single +religious house, or the discipline to which its members were, in +theory at least, compelled to submit. The assumption being granted, +it may naturally be asked, How is such ignorance to be accounted for? +It is due to more causes than one, but chiefly and primarily to the +vastness of the subject itself. + +When the monasteries were suppressed by Henry VIII. there was an +utter obliteration of an order of things which had existed in our +island for certainly more than a thousand years, and how much longer +it is impossible to say. The names of religious houses which are +known to have existed before the Norman Conquest count by hundreds; +the names of men and women who presided over such houses during the +centuries preceding that event count by thousands. Some of these +religious houses had passed through the strangest vicissitudes; they +had been pillaged again and again; they had been burnt by Danish +marauders; their inmates driven out into the wilderness or ruthlessly +put to the sword; their lands given over to the spoiler or gone out +of cultivation; their very existence in some cases almost forgotten; +yet they had revived again and again from their ashes. When William +the Conqueror came among us, and that stern rule of his began, there +was scarcely a county in England and Wales in which one or more +religious houses were not to be found, and during his reign of +twenty-one years about thirty new monasteries of one sort or another +were added to those already existing. + +To begin with, the very word monastery is a misnomer: the word is a +Greek word, and means the dwelling-place of a solitary person, living +in seclusion. But, misnomer though it be, the employment of the word +in a sense so widely different from that which it first bore, until +it got to designate the dwelling-place of a corporate body, among +whom no solitude was allowed and privacy was almost impossible, is of +itself very significant as indicating the stages through which the +original idea of monasticism passed. + +It was natural enough, when society was in a condition of profound +disorganization, and sensuality and violence were in the ascendant, +that men and women of gentle nature should become convinced that the +higher life could only be lived in lonely retirement, far from the +sound of human voices and the contact of human creatures, whose very +nearness almost implies sin. But what a vast step from this to that +other conviction which the developed form of monasticism expresses, +when experience has convinced the devout searcher after God that no +great work can be done in improving the world, or raising the tone of +society, or in battling with our own weaknesses and vices, except by +earnest, resolute, and disciplined co-operation. It is when we draw +together that we are strong, and strongest when we are labouring +shoulder to shoulder for some common object, and that no mean and +sordid one; it is then that we best find deliverance from our self- +deception and most inveterate delusions, whilst living in the light +of other's eyes, and subjected to the influence and control of a +healthy and well-instructed public opinion. + +In the thirteenth century (and I shall as much as possible confine +myself to the limits of that period), a monastery meant what we now +understand it to mean--viz., the abode of a society of men or women +who lived together in common--who were supposed to partake of common +meals; to sleep together in one common dormitory; to attend certain +services together in their common church; to transact certain +business or pursue certain employments in the sight and hearing of +each other in the common cloister; and, when the end came, to be laid +side by side in the common graveyard, where in theory none but +members of the order could find a resting-place for their bones. When +I say "societies of men and women" I am again reminded that the other +term, "convent," has somehow got to be used commonly in a mistaken +sense. People use the word as if it signified a religious house +tenanted exclusively by women. The truth is that a convent is nothing +more than a Latin name for an association of _persons_ who have +_come together_ with a view to live for a common object and to +submit to certain rules in the ordering of their daily lives. The +monastery was the common dwelling-place: the convent was the society +of persons inhabiting it; and the ordinary formula used when a body +of monks or nuns execute any corporate act--such as buying or selling +land--by any legal instrument is, "The Prior and Convent of the +Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Norwich;" "the Abbot and Convent of +the Monastery of St. Peter's, Westminster;" "the Abbess and Convent +of the Monastery of St. Mary and St. Bernard at Lacock," and so on. + +Bearing in mind, then, that the term convent has to do with a +corporation of men or women united into an organized society, and +that the term monastery can strictly be applied only to the +buildings--the _domus_, in which that society has its home--it +will be well at starting that we should endeavour to gain some notion +of the general plan of these buildings first, and when we have done +that that we should proceed to deal next with the constitution of the +society itself and the daily routine of conventual life. + +A monastery in theory then was, as it was called, a Religious House. +It was supposed to be the home of people whose lives were passed in +the worship of God, and in taking care of their own souls, and making +themselves fit for a better world than this hereafter. As for this +world, it was lying in wickedness; if men remained in this wicked +world they would most certainly become contaminated by all its +pollutions; the only chance of ever attaining to holiness lay in a +man or woman's turning his back upon the world and running away from +it. It was no part of a monk's duty to reform the world; all he had +to do was to look after himself, and to save himself from the wrath +to come. It is hardly overstating the case if I say that a monastery +was not intended to be a benevolent institution; and if a great +religious house became, as it almost inevitably did become, the +centre of civilization and refinement, from which radiated light and +warmth and incalculable blessings far and wide, these results flowed +naturally from that growth and development which the original +founders had never looked forward to or could have foreseen, but it +was never contemplated as an end to be aimed at in the beginning. +Being a home for religious men, whose main business was to spend +their days and nights in worshipping God, the first requisite, the +first and foremost, the _sine qua non_ was, that there should be +a church. + +On the church of a monastery, as a rule, no amount of money spent, no +amount of lavish ornament or splendour of decoration, was grudged. +Sculpture and painting, jewels and gold, gorgeous hangings, and +stained-glass that the moderns vainly attempt to imitate, the purple +and fine linen of the priestly vestments, embroidery that to this +hour remains unapproachable in its delicacy of finish and in the +perfect harmony of colours--all these were to be found in almost +incredible profusion in our monastic churches. You hear some people +work themselves into a frenzy against the idolatrous worship of our +forefathers; but to a monk of a great monastery his church was his +one idol--to possess a church that should surpass all others in +magnificence, and which could boast of some special unique glory-- +that seemed to a monk something worth living for. The holy rood at +Bromholm, the holy thorn at Glastonbury, were possessions that +brought world-wide renown to the monasteries in which they were +found, and gave a lustre to the churches in which they were +deposited; and the intense _esprit de corps_, the passionate +loyalty, of a monk to his monastery is a sentiment which we in our +time find it so extremely difficult to understand that we can hardly +bring ourselves to believe that it could exist without some subtle +intermixture of crafty selfishness as its ruling force and motive. + +The church of a monastery was the heart of the place. It was not that +the church was built for the monastery, but the monastery existed for +the church; there were hundreds and thousands of churches without +monasteries, but there could be no monastery without a church. The +monks were always at work on the church, always spending money upon +it, always adding to it, always "restoring" it; it was always needing +repair. We are in the habit of saying, "Those old monks knew how to +build; look at their work--see how it stands!" But we are very much +mistaken if we suppose that in the twelfth or the thirteenth or the +fourteenth century there was no bad building. On the contrary, +nothing is more common in the monastic annals than the notices of how +this and that tower fell down, and how this and that choir was +falling into ruins, and how this or that abbot got into debt by his +mania for building. There was an everlasting tinkering going on at +the church; and the surest token that a monastery was in a bad way +was that its church was in a shabby condition. + +The church was, almost invariably, built in the form of a cross, +facing east and west, the long limb of the cross being called the +nave, the cross limbs being called the transepts, and the shorter +limb, or head of the cross, being called the choir. The choir, as a +rule, was occupied exclusively by the monks or nuns of the monastery. +The servants, workpeople, and casual visitors who came to worship +were not admitted into the choir; _they_ were supposed to be +present only on sufferance. The church was built for the use of the +monks; it was _their_ private place of worship. + +Almost as essential to the idea of a monastery as the church was the +cloister or great quadrangle, inclosed on all sides by the high walls +of the monastic buildings. Its usual position was on the south of the +church, to gain as much of the sun's rays as possible, and to insure +protection from the northerly and easterly winds in the bitter +season. All round this quadrangle ran a covered arcade, whose roof, +leaning against the high walls, was supported on the inner side by an +open trellis work in stone--often exhibiting great beauty of design +and workmanship--through which light and air was admitted into the +arcade. [Footnote: In other words the thirteenth-century monk passed +far the greater portion of his time in the open air, except that +there was a roof over his head. As time went on, and monks became +more self-indulgent, they did not by any means like the draughts and +exposure in the cloister, and the old-fashioned open arcades were +glazed, and the old open walks were turned into splendid lounges, +comfortable and luxurious, such as the cloisters of Gloucester could +be made into at a small outlay at the present day.] The open space +not roofed in was called the _garth_, and was sometimes a plain +grass plat and sometimes was planted with shrubs, a fountain of +running water being often found in the centre, which afforded a +pleasant object for the eye to rest on. The cloister was really the +living-place of the monks. Here they pursued their daily avocations, +here they taught their school, they transacted their business, they +spent their time and pursued their studies, always in society, co- +operating and consulting, and, as a rule, knowing no privacy. + +"But surely a monk always lived in a cell, didn't he?" + +The sooner we get rid of that delusion the better. + +Be it understood that until Henry II. founded the Carthusian Abbey of +Witham, in 1178, there was no such thing known in England as a monk's +_cell_, as we understand the term. It was a peculiarity of the +Carthusian order, and when it was first introduced it was regarded as +a startling novelty for any privacy or anything approaching solitude +to be tolerated in a monastery. The Carthusian system never found +much favour in England. The Carthusians never had more than nine +houses, all told; the discipline was too rigid, the rule too severe, +the loneliness too dreadful for our tastes and for our climate. In +the thirteenth century, if I mistake not, there were only two +monasteries in England in which monks or nuns could boast of having +any privacy, any little corner of their own to turn into, any place +where they could enjoy the luxury of retirement, any private study +such as every boy nowadays, in a school of any pretension, expects to +have provided for himself, and without which we assume that nobody +can read and write for an hour. + +The cloister arcade was said to have four _walks_. The south +walk ran along the south wall of the nave, the north walk was bounded +by the refectory or great dining hall, the east walk extended along +the south transept, and where the transept ended there usually came a +narrow passage called _slype_, passing between the end of the +transept and the chapter-house, which may be described as the +council-chamber of the convent. Beyond the chapter-house, and +abutting partly upon the east wall of the cloister, but extending far +beyond it till, in some cases, it made with the refectory a block of +buildings in the form of a T, ran the dormitory or common sleeping- +place for the fraternity. The dormitory was always approached by +steps, for it was invariably constructed over a range of vaulted +chambers, which served for various purposes; one of these chambers +was set apart for the reception of those monks who had been subjected +to the monthly bleedings which all were supposed to require, and +which all were compelled to submit to, that so by a mechanical +process, if in no other way, the flesh might be subdued. The beds of +the monks were arranged along the walls of the dormitory, at regular +intervals; and in some monasteries a wainscot partition separated the +sleepers from each other, thus making for each a little cubicle, with +a low door leading into it. The broad passage, running from end to +end, between the sleeping-places in the dormitory was strewn with +rushes; and at the end opposite to the flight of stairs were the +latrines or washing-places, which were open to the air, and under +which was always a sewer that could be flushed by a water-course hard +by. + +In the dormitory and the latrines lights were kept burning through +the night; a provision necessary, if for no other reason, because the +services in the church at night-time had to be kept up and attended +by the whole house. They who went from the dormitory to the church +always passed under cover--sometimes by going through the cloister, +sometimes by passing straight into the transept. + +We have been round three sides of the cloister: on the north the +church; on the east the chapterhouse and dormitory; on the south the +refectory. There remain the buildings abutting on the west wall. In +the arrangement of these no strict rule was observed. But generally +the western buildings were dedicated to the cellarer's hall with +cellars under it, the pitanciar's and kitchener's offices or +_chequers_ as they were called, and a guest-chamber for the +reception of distinguished strangers and for the duties of +hospitality, to which great importance was attached. + +These were the main buildings, the essential buildings of a monastery +great or small. Where a monastery was rich enough to indulge in +luxuries of "modern improvements and all the best appliances," there +was hardly any limit to the architectural freaks that might be +indulged in. There were the infirmary and the hospital; the +calefactory or warming apparatus, the recreation hall and the winter +hall, the locutorium and the common hall, and I know not what +besides. You observe I have as yet said nothing about the library. I +must remind you that in the thirteenth century the number of books in +the world was, to say the least, small. A library of five hundred +volumes would, in those days, have been considered an important +collection, and, after making all due allowances for ridiculous +exaggeration which have been made by ill-informed writers on the +subject, it may safely be said that nobody in the thirteenth century-- +at any rate in England--would have erected a large and lofty +building as a receptacle for books, simply because nobody could have +contemplated the possibility of filling it. Here and there amongst +the larger and more important monasteries there were undoubtedly +collections of books, the custody of which was intrusted to an +accredited officer; but the time had not yet come for making +libraries well stored with such priceless treasures as Leland, the +antiquary, saw at Glastonbury, just before that magnificent +foundation was given as a prey to the spoilers. A library, in any +such sense as we now understand the term, was not only no essential +part of a monastery in those days, but it may be said to have been a +rarity. + +But if the thirteenth century monastery possessed necessarily no +great Reading-Room, the Scriptorium, or Writing-Room, was almost an +essential adjunct. In the absence of the printing-press, the demand +for skilled writers and copyists throughout the country was enormous. +In the Scriptorium all the business, now transacted by half a dozen +agents and their clerks, was carried on. The land of the country in +those days was subdivided to an extent that it is now almost +impossible for us to realize, and the tenure under which the small +patches of arable or meadow-land were held was sometimes very complex +and intricate. The small patches were perpetually changing hands, +being bought or sold, settled upon trustees, or let out for a term of +years, and every transaction would be registered in the books of the +monastery interested, while the number of conveyances, leases, and +enfeofments made out in the course of the year was incalculable. In +such an abbey as that of Bury St. Edmunds a small army of writers +must have been constantly employed in the business department of the +Scriptorium alone. Obviously it became a great writing-school, where +the copyists consciously or unconsciously wrote according to the +prevailing fashion of the place; and there have been, and there are, +experts who could tell you whether this or that document was or was +not written in this or that monastic Scriptorium. Paper was very +little used, and the vellum and parchment required constituted a +heavy item of expense. Add to this the production of school-books and +all materials used for carrying on the education work, the constant +replacement of _church_ service books which the perpetual +thumbing and fingering would subject to immense wear and tear, the +great demand for music which, however simple, required to be written +out large and conspicuous in order to be read with ease, and you get +a rather serious list of the charges upon the stationery department +of a great abbey. + +But though by far the greater portion of work done in the Scriptorium +was mere office work, the educational department, if I may so term +it, being subsidiary, it must not be forgotten that the literary and +the historical department also was represented in the Scriptorium of +every great monastery. In the thirteenth century men never kept +diaries or journals of their own daily lives, but monasteries did. In +theory, every religious house recorded its own annals, or kept a +chronicle of great events that were happening in Church and State. +Where a monastery had kept its chronicle going for a long time, it +got to be regarded almost as a sacred book, and was treated with +great veneration: it lay in a conspicuous place in the Scriptorium, +and was under the care of an officer who alone was permitted to make +entries in it. When any great piece of news was brought to the +monastery that seemed worth putting on record, the person giving the +information wrote out his version of the story on a loose piece of +parchment, and slipped his communication into the book of annals for +the authorized compiler to make use of in any way that seemed best to +him, after due examination of evidence. This was the rule in all +monastic houses. Unfortunately, however, as it is with the journals +or diaries of men and women of the nineteenth century, so it was with +the journals and diaries of monks of the thirteenth, they evidently +were kept by fits and starts; and before the fourteenth century was +half out, the practice of keeping up these diaries in all but the +larger monasteries had come to an end. + +Before passing on from the Library and Scriptorium, on which a great +deal more might easily be said, it is necessary that one caution +should be given; I know not how that notion originated or how it has +taken such hold of the minds of ninety-nine men out of a hundred, +that the monks as a class were students or scholars or men of +learning; as far as the English monasteries of the thirteenth century +are concerned, I am sure that the notion is altogether erroneous. If +we except some few of the larger and nobler monasteries, which from +first to last seem always to have been centres of culture, +enlightenment, and progress, the monks were no more learned than the +nuns. As a class, students, scholars, and teachers they were not. +When King John died, in 1216, a little learning went a long way, and +whatever the Norman Conquest did for England (and it did a great +deal), it certainly was not an event calculated to increase the love +of study, or likely to make men bookish pundits. + +I should only confuse my readers if I dwelt more at length upon the +buildings of a monastery. It is enough for the present that we should +understand clearly that the essential buildings were (1) the church, +(2) the cloister, (3) the dormitory, (4) the refectory, (5) the +chapter-house. In these five buildings the life of the convent was +carried on. Having said thus much we will pass on to the corporation +itself--that which strictly was called the convent; and for +convenience and distinctness it will be as well if we use that word +_convent_ in the more accurate sense and employ it only as +signifying the corporate body of persons occupying those buildings of +which I have been speaking, and which in their aggregate were called +a _monastery_. + +Once more I think it necessary to start with a caution. Not only do I +propose to take no account here of that large class of conventuals +which comprehended the mendicant order or friars as they are called, +but I must needs pass by with little or no notice the various orders +of regular canons-_i.e._, canons living under a rule. The friars +came into England first in 1220. During the thirteenth century they +were, so to speak, upon their trial; and from the first the monks and +the friars were essentially opposed in the ideal of their daily +lives. So with the very numerous houses of canons regular up and down +the land. They and the monks did not love one another, and when I +speak of monks and their houses it will be advisable to exclude from +our consideration the friars on the one hand and the canons on the +other, and, in fact, to limit ourselves to that view of conventual +life which the great English monasteries under the rule of St. +Benedict afford. + +At the time of the Norman Conquest it may be said that all English +monks were professedly under one and the same Rule--the famous +Benedictine Rule. The Rule of a monastery was the constitution or +code of laws, which regulated the discipline of the house, and the +Rule of St. Benedict dates back as far as the sixth century, though +it was not introduced into England for more than a hundred years +after it had been adopted elsewhere. Four hundred years is a very +long time for any constitution or code of law to last unchanged, and +though the English monasteries professedly were living according to +the Benedictine Rule during all the Saxon and the Danish times, yet +there is too much reason to believe that if St. Benedict could have +risen from the dead in the days of Edward the Confessor and made a +visitation of many an English house, he would have been rather +astonished to be told that the monks were living according to his +Rule. + +About one hundred and fifty years before the Conquest, a great +reformation had been attempted of the French monasteries, which it +was said had fallen into a state of great decay as far as discipline +and fervour were concerned, and a revision of the old rule had been +found necessary, the reformers breaking away from the old +Benedictines and subjecting themselves to a new and improved Rule. +These first reformers were called _Cluniac_ monks, from the +great Abbey of Clugni, in Burgundy, in which the new order of things +had begun. The first English house of reformed or Cluniac monks was +founded at Lewes, in Sussex, eleven years after the Conquest, by +Gundrada, a step-daughter of William the Conqueror, and her husband, +William, Earl of Warrene and Surrey. The Cluniacs were at first +famous for the simplicity of their lives and the strictness of their +discipline, but as time went on they became too rich and so too +luxurious, and at last they too needed reforming, and a new reformer +arose. In this case the real moving spirit of reformation was an +Englishman, one Stephen Harding, probably a Dorsetshire man, who was +brought up at the Benedictine monastery of Sherborne, and in the +course of events chosen Abbot of the monastery of Citeaux, where St. +Bernard became his ardent disciple, and where the two enthusiasts, +working cordially together, brought about that second reform of the +Benedictines which resulted in the founding of the great Cistercian +order. + +Thus, without looking too minutely into the matter, we find that when +the thirteenth century opens, or if you will, when Henry III. came to +the throne in 1216, there were three great orders of monks in +England--the old Benedictines, who had held houses and lands for +centuries; the Cluniacs, who were the reformed Benedictines; and the +Cistercians, who may be styled the reformed Cluniacs. But inasmuch as +the architectural and other reforms among the Cistercians were many +and peculiar, it will again be advisable to pass by these +peculiarities without remark. + + * * * * * * * + +The constitution of every convent, great or small, was monarchical. +The head of the house was almost an absolute sovereign, and was +called the Abbot. His dominions often extended, even in England, over +a very wide tract of country, and sometimes over several minor +monasteries which were called Cells. Thus the Abbot of St. Alban's +had under himself the cell of Tynemouth in Northumberland and two +others in Norfolk-_viz._, Binham and Wymondham, the latter of +which eventually became an independent abbey--and the heads of these +cells or subject houses were called Priors. An _abbey_ was a +monastery which was independent. A priory was a monastery which in +theory or in fact was subject to an abbey. All the Cluniac +monasteries in England were thus said to be alien priories, because +they were mere cells of the great Abbey of Clugni in France, to which +each priory paid heavy tribute; while the priors were almost always +foreigners, and always appointed by the Abbot of Clugni, and +responsible to him much in the same way as a Pacha is to his suzerain +the Sultan. On the other hand, the Cistercian houses were all abbeys, +and their abbots sovereigns in alliance or confederation with one +another, and exercising over their several convents supreme +jurisdiction, though recognizing the Abbot of Citeaux as their over- +lord. The abbot not only had a separate residence within the +monastery and lived apart from his monks, but he had his separate +estate for the maintenance of his dignity, and to bear the very heavy +expenses which that dignity necessitated, and he had the patronage of +every office in the convent. These officers were numerous. The first +of them was the prior, who was the abbot's prime minister and head of +the executive and the abbot's representative in his absence. Under +him was the sub-prior, sometimes a third prior, and then a number of +functionaries, to whom, as in the case of the abbot, separate estates +were assigned out of which they were bound to provide for certain +charges which they were called upon to meet as best they could, while +a complicated system of finance provided for the surplus of one +office being applied when necessary for the deficiency of another. + +In the great Abbey of Evesham a very elaborate constitution was drawn +up and agreed to in the year 1214, after a long dispute between the +abbot and convent which had lasted for several years, and this scheme +has come down to us. + +From it we find that certain officers (obedientiaries was their +technical name) were charged with providing certain articles out of +the revenue of the office. The prior, to whom no mean share of the +revenues was assigned, had to provide the parchment that might be +required for business purposes or for legal instruments and all other +materials for the scriptorium, except ink. The manciple was to pro- +vide all wine and mead, the keeping up the stock of earthenware cups, +jugs, basins, and other vessels, together with the lamps and oil. The +precentor had to find all the ink used, and all colour required for +illumination, the materials for book-binding, and the keeping the +organ in repair. To the chamberlain were assigned certain revenues +for providing all the clothing of the monks, it being stipulated that +the abbot's dress was not to be paid for out of the fund. In the same +way certain small tithes are apportioned for buying basins, jugs, and +towels for the guests' chamber; while all rents levied from the +various tenants paid not in money, but in kind--as, _e.g_., +capons, eggs, salmon, eels, herrings, &c.--were to be passed to the +account of the kitchener. Every monk bearing office was bound to +present his accounts for audit at regular intervals, and the rolls on +which these accounts were inscribed exist in very large numbers, and +may still be consulted by those who are able to read them. + +It looks as if it were the policy of the Benedictines to give as many +monks as possible some special duty and responsibility--to give each, +in fact, a personal interest in the prosperity of the house to which +he belonged--and the vacancies occurring from time to time in the +various offices gave everybody something to look forward to. There +was room for ambition, and, I am bound to add, room for a good deal +of petty scheming, on the one hand, and truckling to the abbot, on +the other; but it all went towards relieving the monotony of the life +in the cloister--a monotony which has been very much over-stated by +those who have never studied the subject. To begin with, it does not +follow that what would be very dull to us would be dull and insipid +to the men of the thirteenth century. Before a man offered himself +for admission to a monastery, he must have had a taste for a quiet +life, and in many instances he had grown tired of the bustle, the +struggle, and all the anxious wear of the work-day world. He wanted +to be rid of _bothers_, in fact; he was pretty sure to have had +a fair education, and he was presumably a religious man, with a taste +for religious exercises; sometimes, and not unfrequently, he was a +disappointed man, who had been left wifeless and childless; +sometimes, too, he was one whose career had been cut short suddenly +by some accident which incapacitated him for active exertion and made +him long only for repose and obscurity. Moreover, in those distant +times the instinct of devotion was incomparably stronger than it is +now, and people found a real and intense delight in the services of +the sanctuary, to say nothing of their entire belief in the spiritual +advantages to be derived from taking part in those services. Add to +this that a monk had to pass through rather a long training before he +was regularly admitted to full membership. He had to submit to a term +of probation, during which he was subject to a somewhat rigorous +ordeal. + +A novice had the pride taken out of him in a very effectual way +during his novitiate--he was pretty much in the position of a +_fag_ at a great school nowadays, and by the time that he had +passed through his novitiate he was usually very well broken in, and +in harmony with the spirit of the place in which he found himself. It +was something to have a higher place assigned him at last in the +church and the dormitory, to have some petty office given him, and to +have a chance of being promoted by and by. There was Brother So-and- +so, who was getting infirm, and he could not do the pitanciar's work +much longer; the precentor was getting as hoarse as a raven, and the +sacrist was gouty, or the cellarer was showing signs of breaking up. +Nay, the prior's cough gave unmistakable signs of his lungs being +wrong, and if he _were_ to drop off, which we should of course +all of us deplore--there would be a general move up, it might be; +unless, indeed, Father Abbot should promote his chaplain over the +heads of all of us--for such things have been! + +But, when we come to look a little closer, we find that the monotony +of monastic life was almost confined to the frequent services in the +church. There were six services every day, of one kind or another, at +which the whole convent was supposed to be present, and one service +at midnight. [Footnote: Peckham's Register, ii, Preface, p. lxviii, +et seq.] The lay brethren among the Cistercians, and the servants +engaged in field labour, were excused attendance at the nocturnal +service, and those officials of the convent whose business required +them to be absent from the precincts were also excused. Indeed, it +would have been simply impossible for the whole brotherhood to +assemble at all these services; there would have been a dead-lock in +twenty-four hours if the attempt had ever been made in any of the +large monasteries, where the inmates sometimes counted by hundreds, +who all expected their meals punctually, and for whom even the +simplest cookery necessitated that fires should be kept up, the +porridge boiled, the beer drawn, and the bread baked. Hence, they +whose hands were full and their engagements many really had no time +to put in an appearance at church seven times in twenty-four hours. +While, on the other hand, the monk out of office, with nothing +particular to do, was all the better for having his time broken up; +going to church kept him out of mischief, and singing of psalms saved +him from idle talk, and if it did him no good certainly did him very +little harm. + +The ordinary life of the monastery began at six o'clock in the +morning, and when the small bell, called the skilla, rang, all rose, +washed themselves at the latrines, put on their day habit, and then +presented themselves at the matin Mass. _Mixtum_ or breakfast, +followed, and that over the convent assembled in chapter for +consultation. After chapter the officials dispersed; the kitchener to +arrange for the meals, and not unfrequently to provide hospitality +for distinguished guests and their retinue; the precentor to drill +his choir boys, to tune the organ, to look after the music, or to +arrange for some procession in the church, or some extraordinary +function; the infirmarer to take his rounds in the hospital; the +cellarer to inspect the brewhouse and bakeries; and each or all of +these officers might find it necessary to go far a-field in looking +after some bailiff or tenant who could not safely be left alone. At +Evesham the sacristan, the chamberlain, and the infirmarer were +allowed forage and the keep of one horse. Meanwhile in the cloister +all was stir and movement without noise. In the west alley the +schoolmaster was teaching his little pupils the rudiments of Latin, +or it might be the elements of singing; in the south alley, where the +light was best, a monk with a taste for art was trying his hand at +illuminating a MS. or rubricating the initial letters; while on the +other side, in the north alley, some were painfully getting by heart +the psalms, or practising meditation--alone in a crowd. + +Within the retirement of that cloister, fenced all round, as I have +said, with the high walls and the great buildings, there the monks +were working, there the real conventual life was going on; but +outside the cloister, though yet within the precincts, it is +difficult for us now to realize what a vast hive of industry a great +monastery in some of the lonely and thinly-populated parts of England +was. Everything that was eaten or drunk or worn, almost everything +that was made or used in a monastery, was produced upon the spot. The +grain grew on their own land; the corn was ground in their own mill; +their clothes were made from the wool of their own sheep; they had +their own tailors and shoemakers, and carpenters and blacksmiths, +almost within call; they kept their own bees; they grew their own +garden-stuff and their own fruit; I suspect they knew more of fish- +culture than, until very lately, we moderns could boast of knowing. +Nay, they had their own vineyards and made their own wine. + +The commissariat of a large abbey must have required administrative +ability of a very high order, and the cost of hospitality was +enormous. No traveller, whatever his degree, was refused food and +shelter, and every monastery was a vast hotel, where nobody need pay +more than he chose for his board and lodging. The mere keeping the +accounts must have employed no small number of clerks, for the +minuteness with which every transaction was recorded, almost passes +belief. Those rolls I spoke of--the sacrist's, cellarer's, and so on-- +were, it must be remembered, periodical balance-sheets handed in at +audit day. They deal, not only with pence and half-pence, but with +farthings and half-farthings, and were compiled from the tablets or +small account-books posted up from day to day and hour to hour. They +give the price of every nail hammered into a wall, and rarely omit +the cost of the parchment on which the roll itself is written. The +men must have been very busy, or, if you prefer it, very fussy-- +certainly they could not have been idle to have kept their accounts +in this painfully minute manner, even to the fraction of a farthing. + + * * * * * * * + +In the natural course of events, as a monastery grew in wealth and +importance, there was one element of interest which added great zest +to the conventual life, in the _quarrels_ that were sure to +arise. + +First and foremost, the most desirable person to quarrel with was a +Bishop. In its original idea, a monastery was not necessarily an +ecclesiastical institution. It was not necessary that an abbot should +be an ecclesiastic, and not essentially necessary that any one of his +monks should be in holy orders. Long before the thirteenth century, +however, a monk was almost invariably ordained, and being an ordained +person, and having his local habitation in a bishop's diocese, it was +only natural that the bishop should claim jurisdiction over him and +over the church in which he and the fraternity ministered; but to +allow a power of visitation to any one outside the close corporation +of the convent was fraught with infinite peril to the community. +Confessing their faults one to another, and asking pardon of the Lord +Abbot or his representative, the prior, was one thing; but to have a +querulous or inquisitive or even hostile bishop coming and intruding +into their secrets, blurting them out to the world and actually +pronouncing sentence upon them--that seemed to the monks an +absolutely intolerable and shocking condition of affairs. Hence it +seemed supremely desirable to a convent to get for itself, by fair +means or foul--and I am afraid the means were not always fair means, +as we should consider them--the exemption of their house from +episcopal visitation or control. I believe that the earliest instance +of such an exemption being granted in England was that of the +Conqueror's Abbey of Battle. The precedent was a bad one, and led to +all sorts of attempts by other houses to procure for themselves the +like privilege. Such attempts were stoutly resisted by the bishops, +who foresaw the evils that would inevitably follow, and which in fact +did follow; and, of course, bishop and abbey went to law. Going to +law in this case meant usually, first, a certain amount of +preliminary litigation before the Archbishop of Canterbury; but +sooner or later it was sure to end in an appeal to the Pope's court, +or, as the phrase was, an appeal to Rome. + +Without wishing for a moment to defend or excuse a state of things +which was always vexatious, and at last became intolerable, it is +impossible to deny that a great deal of nonsense has been talked and +written about these appeals. Almost exactly the same state of things +exists in the present day both in civil and ecclesiastical matters. +Parsee merchants fall to loggerheads in Bombay or Calcutta, and bring +their disputes before the courts in India; one side feels aggrieved +by the sentence, and straightway he removes the case to a court of +appeal in London. Or some heretical person in Asia or Africa or +somewhere else gets into hot water with an orthodox society for the +promotion of religious persecution, and sooner or later the +archbishop is appealed to, and the ecclesiastical lawyers have a most +delightful time of it. It all costs a great deal of money nowadays, +and leading advocates on this side or that are actually so +extortionate and exorbitant that they will not do anything for +nothing, and insist on receiving the most exorbitant fees. So it was +in the old days. The final court of appeal in all matters +ecclesiastical was before the Pope at Rome or Avignon, and the +proctors and doctors, and all the canonists and officials, actually +required to be paid for their work. + +When a monastery was in for a great fight with a bishop, it was a +serious matter for both parties. But it was much more serious for the +bishop than for the convent. The bishop had always his state to keep +up and his many houses to maintain, and his establishment was +enormously costly. His margin for law expenses was small; and I +suspect that a bishop in England during the thirteenth century who +had no private fortune outside his mere episcopal revenues would have +been likely sooner or later to find himself in serious difficulties. +On the other hand, in a great monastery all sorts of expedients could +be resorted to in order to effect a salutary retrenchment--as when +the monks of St. Alban's agreed to give up the use of wine for +fifteen years, and actually did so, that they might be able to +rebuild their refectory and dormitory in the days of John the twenty- +first abbot. Moreover, inasmuch as a corporation never dies, the +convent could raise very heavy sums on the security of its estates, +and take its own time to repay the loans. A bishop could not pledge +his episcopal estates beyond his own lifetime, and the result was +that, in the days when life assurance was unknown, a bishop who had +to raise money for a costly lawsuit would have to pay a rate of +interest which would make our blood run cold if we had to pay it, or +our hearts leap for joy if we could get it in these days of two and +three per cent. The bishop was always at a disadvantage in these +appeal cases; he stood to lose everything, and he stood to win +nothing at all except the satisfaction of his conscience that he was +struggling for principle and right. And thus it came to pass that the +monks enjoyed this kind of warfare, and rarely shrank from engaging +in it. Indeed, an appeal to Rome meant sending a deputation from the +convent to watch the case as it was going on, and there was all the +delight of a foreign tour an a sight of the world--a trip, in fact, +to the Continent at the expense of the establishment. + +But when there was no appeal case going on--and an appeal was too +expensive an amusement to be indulged in often--there was always a +good deal of exciting litigation to keep up the interest of the +convent, and to give them something to think about and gossip about +nearer home. We have the best authority--the authority of the great +Pope Innocent III.--for believing that Englishmen in the thirteenth +century were extremely fond of beer; but there was something else +that they were even fonder of, and that was law. Monastic history is +almost made up of the stories of this everlasting litigation; nothing +was too trifling to be made into an occasion for a lawsuit. Some +neighbouring landowner had committed a trespass or withheld a tithe +pig. Some audacious townsman had claimed the right of catching eels +in a pond. Some brawling knight pretended he was in some sense +_patron_ of a cell, and demanded a trumpery allowance of bread +and ale, or an equivalent. As we read about these things we exclaim, +"Why in the world did they make such a fuss about a trifle?" Not so +thought the monks. They knew well enough what the thin end of the +wedge meant, and, being in a far better position than we are to judge +of the significance and importance of many a _casus belli_ which +now seems but trivial, they never dreamed of giving an inch for the +other side to take an ell. So they went to law, and enjoyed it +amazingly! Sometimes however, there were disputes which were not to +be settled peaceably; and then came what University men in the old +days used to know as a "Town and Gown row." + +Let it be remembered that a Benedictine monastery, in the early +times, was invariably set down in a lonely wilderness. As time went +on, and the monks brought the swamp into cultivation, and wealth +flowed in, and the monastery became a centre of culture, there would +be sure to gather round the walls a number of hangers-on, who +gradually grew into a community, the tendency of which was to assert +itself, and to become less and less dependent upon the abbey for +support. These _towns_ (for they became such) were, as a rule, +built on the abbey land, and paid dues to the monastery. Of course, +on the one side, there was an inclination to raise the dues; on the +other, a desire to repudiate them altogether. Hence bad blood was +sure to arise between the monks and the townsmen, and sooner or later +serious conflicts between the servants of the monasteries and the +people outside. Thus, in 1223, there was a serious collision between +the Londoners and the Westminster monks; the mob rushed into the +monastery, and the abbot escaped their violence with difficulty by +slipping out at a back door and getting into a boat on the Thames. On +another occasion there was a very serious fray between the citizens +of Norwich and the priory there, in 1272, when the prior slew one man +with his own hands, and many lives were lost. At a later time there +was a similar disturbance at Bury St. Edmunds, and in the year 1314 +the great abbey of St. Alban's was kept in a state of siege for more +than ten days by the townsmen, who were driven to frenzy by not being +allowed to grind their own corn in their own handmills, but compelled +to get it ground by the abbey millers, and, of course, pay the fee. + +Thirty years later, again, that man of sin, Sir Philip de Lymbury, +lifted up his heel against the Abbey of St. Alban's, and actually +laid hands upon Brother John Moot, the cellarer; and on Monday, being +market day at Luton in Beds, did actually clap the said cellarer in +the pillory and kept him there, exposed to the jeers and contempt of +the rude populace, who, we may be sure, were in ecstasies at this +precursor of Mr. Pickwick in the pound. But the holy martyr St. Alban +was not likely to let such an outrage pass; and when the rollicking +knight came to the abbey to make it up, and was for presenting a +peace-offering at the shrine, lo, the knightly nose began to bleed +profusely, and, to the consternation of the beholders, the offering +could not be made, and Sir Philip had to retire, holding his nose, +and shortly after he died--and, adds the chronicler, was speedily +forgotten, he and his. + +Such ruffling of the peace and quiet of conventual life was, there is +reason to believe, not uncommon. But inside the cloister itself there +was not always a holy calm. When the abbot died there came all the +canvassing and excitement of a contested election, and sometimes a +convent might be turned for years into a house divided against +itself, the two parties among the monks fighting like cat and dog. +Nor did it at all follow that because the convent had elected their +abbot or prior unanimously that therefore the election was allowed by +the king, to whom the elect was presented. [Footnote: See a notable +instance in Carlyle's "Past and Present."] King John kept monasteries +without any abbot for years, sequestrating the estates in the +meantime, and leaving the monks to make the best of it. Sometimes an +abbot was forced upon a monastery in spite of the convent, as in the +case of Abbot Roger Norreys at Evesham, in 1191--a man whom the monks +not only detested because of his gross mismanagement, but whom they +denounced as actually immoral. Sometimes, too, the misconduct of a +prior was so abominable that it could not be borne, and then came the +very difficult and very delicate business of getting him deposed: a +process which was by no means easily managed, as appeared in the +instance of Simon Pumice, Prior of Worcester, in 1219, and in many +another case. + +Such hopes and fears and provocations as these all contributed to +relieve the monotony which it has been too readily assumed was the +characteristic of the cloister life. The monks had a world of their +own within the precincts, but they were not so shut in but that their +relations with the greater world outside were very real. Moreover, +that confinement to the monastery itself, which was necessarily very +greatly relaxed in the case of the officers or obedientaries of the +convent, was almost as easily relaxed if one of the brethren could +manage to get the right side of the abbot or prior. When Archbishop +Peckham was holding his visitations in 1282 he more than once remarks +with asperity upon a monk _farming_ a manor of his convent, and +declares that the practice must stop. The outlying manors must have +somebody to look after them, it was assumed, and if one of the +brethren was willing to undertake the management for the convent, why +should he not? + +Nor, again, must we suppose that the monks were debarred all +amusements. On August 29, 1283, there was a great wrestling match at +Hockliffe, in Beds, and a huge concourse of people of all sorts were +there to see the fun. The roughs and the "fancy" were present in +great force, and somehow it came to pass that a free fight ensued. I +am sorry to say that the canons of Dunstable were largely represented +upon the occasion. We are left to infer that the representatives were +chiefly the servants of the canons, but I am afraid that some at +least of their masters were there too. In the fight one Simon +Mustard, who appears to have been something like a professional +prize-fighter, "a bully exceeding fierce," says the annalist, got +killed; but thereon ensued much inquiry and much litigation, and +Dunstable and its "religious" had to suffer vexations not a few. In +fairness it should be remembered that these Dunstable people were not +monks but canons--regular or irregular--and those canons, we all +know, would do anything. We protest against being confounded with +canons! + +The amusements of monks were more innocent. The garden was always a +great place of resort, and gardening a favourite pastime. We may be +sure there was much lamentation and grumbling at St. Alban's when +Abbot John de Maryns forbade any monk, who from infirmity could only +be carried on a litter, from entering the garden at all. Poor old +fellows! had their bearers been disorderly and trodden upon the +flower-beds? Bowls was the favourite and a very common diversion +among them; but in the opinion of Archbishop Peckham, as appears by +his letters, there were other diversions of a far more reprehensible +character. Actually at the small Priory of Coxford, in Norfolk, the +prior and his canons were wholly given over to chess-playing. It was +dreadful! In other monasteries the monks positively hunted; not only +the abbots, but the common domestic monks! Nay, such things were to +be found as monks keeping dogs, or even birds, in the cloister, +Peckham denounces these breaches of decorum as grave offences, which +were not to be passed over and not to be allowed. What! a black monk +stalking along with a bull-pup at his heels, and a jackdaw, worse +than the Jackdaw of Rheims, using bad words in the garth, and showing +an evil example to the chorister boys, with his head on one side! + +But, after all, it must be confessed that the greatest of all +delights to the thirteenth-century monks was eating and drinking. +"Sir, I like my dinner!" said Dr. Johnson, and I don't think any one +thought the worse of him for his honest outspokenness. The dinner in +a great abbey was clearly a very important event in the day--I will +not say it was _the_ important event, but it was a _very_ important +one. It must strike any one who knows much of the literature of this +age that the weak point in the monastic life of the thirteenth century +was the gormandizing. It was exactly as, I am told, it is on board ship +on a long voyage, where people have little or nothing to do, they are +always looking forward to the next meal, and the sound of the dinner-bell +is the most exciting sound that greets the ear in the twenty-four hours. +And so with the monks in a great monastery which had grown rich, and +in point of fact had more money than it knew what to do with: the dinner +was the event of the day. It is not that we hear much of drunkenness, +for we really hear very little of it, and where it is spoken of it is +always with reprobation. Nor is it that we hear of anything like the +loathsome and disgusting gluttony of the Romans of the empire, but +eating and drinking, and especially eating, are always cropping up; +one is perpetually being reminded of them in one way or another, +and it is significant that when the Cistercian revival began, one of +the chief reforms aimed at was the rigorous simplification of the meals +and the curtailing the luxury of the refectory. + +But the monks were not the only people in those times who had a high +appreciation of good cheer. When a man of high degree took up his +quarters in a monastery he by no means wished to be put off with +salt-fish-and-toast-and-water cheer. Richard de Marisco, one of King +John's profligate councillors, who was eventually foisted into the +see of Durham, gave the Abbey of St. Alban's the tithes of Eglingham, +in Northumberland, to help them to make their ale better--"taking +compassion upon the weakness of the convent's drink," as the +chronicler tells us. The small beer of St. Alban's, it seems, was not +so much improved as was to be desired, notwithstanding this +appropriation of Church property, for twice after this the abbey had +the same delicate hint given to it that its brewing was not up to the +mark, when the rectory of Norton, in Hertfordshire, and two-thirds of +the tithes of Hartburn, in Northumberland, were given to the +monastery that no excuse might remain for the bad quality of the malt +liquor. + +And here let me remark in passing that another wide-spread delusion +needs to be removed from the popular mind with regard to the +relations between the monks and the clergy. We have again and again +heard people say, "Wonderfully devoted men, those monks! Look at the +churches all over the land! If it had not been for the monks how +could all the village churches have been built? The monks built them +all!" Monks build parish churches! Why, the monks were always robbing +the country parsons, and the town parsons, too, for that matter. +Every vicarage in England represents a spoliation of the church, +whose rectorial tithes had been appropriated by a religious house, +the parson being left with the vicarial tithes, and often not even +with them, but thrown for his daily bread upon the voluntary +offerings of his parishioners. The monks build churches! I could not +from my own knowledge bring forward a single instance in all the +history of England of a monastery contributing a shilling of money or +a load of stone for the repair, let alone the erection, of any parish +church in the land. So far from it, they pulled down the churches +when they had a chance, and they were always on the look-out to steal +the rectory houses and substitute for them any cheap-and-nasty +vicarage unless the bishop kept a sharp look-out upon them and came +to the help of his clergy. Of all the sins that the monks had to +answer for, this greedy grasping at Church property, this shameless +robbery of the seculars, was beyond compare the most inexcusable and +the most mischievous. To the credit of the Cistercians it must be +told that they _at first_ set themselves against the wholesale +pillage of the parochial clergy. I am not prepared to say they were +true to their first principles--no corporate society ever was, and +least of all a religious corporation--but at starting the Cistercians +were decidedly opposed to the alienating of tithes and appropriating +them to the endowment of their abbeys, and this was probably one +among other causes why the Cistercians prospered so wonderfully as +they did during the first hundred years or so after their first +coming here; people believed that the new order was not going to live +by robbing parsons, as the older orders had done without remorse. The +swindler always thinks his victim a fool, and the victim never +forgives the smarter man who has taken him in. Accordingly the monks +always pretended to think scorn of the clergy, and when the +monasteries fell the clergy were the very last people to lament their +fall. + +And this brings us to the question of the moral condition of the +monasteries. Bishop Stubbs has called the thirteenth century "the +golden age of English Churchmanship." Subject to correction from the +greatest of England's great historians--and subject to correction, +too, from others, who, standing in a rank below his unapproachable +eminence, are yet very much my superiors in their knowledge of this +subject--I venture to express my belief that the thirteenth century +was also the golden age of English Monachism. Certainly we know much +more about the monasteries and their inner life during this period +than at any other time. The materials ready to our hand are very +voluminous, and the evidence accessible to the inquirer is very +various. I do not believe that any man of common fairness and candour +who should give some years to the careful study of those materials +and that evidence could rise from his examination with any other +impression than that, as a body, the monks of the thirteenth century +were better than their age. Vicious and profligate, drunken and +unchaste, as a class, they certainly were not. Of course there were +scandalous brethren. Here and there--but rarely, very rarely--there +was a wicked abbot or prior. Of course there were instances of +abominations on which one cannot dwell; of course there are stories +which are bad to read; stories which find their way into the +chronicles because they were strange or startling; but these stories +are always told with horror, and commented upon with severity and +scorn. Excuse for wickedness or any palliation of it, you simply +never find. + +On the other hand, the intense _esprit de corps_ of a convent of +monks went beyond anything that we can now realize, and led to grave +sins against truth and honesty. The forgeries of charters, bulls, and +legal instruments of all kinds for the glorification of a monastery +by its members was at least condoned only too frequently. It can +hardly be doubted that the scriptorium of many a religious house must +have been turned to very discreditable uses by unscrupulous and +clever scribes, with the connivance if not with the actual knowledge +of the convent, for such things were not done in a corner. If the +forgeries succeeded--and that they often did succeed we know--the +monastery got all the advantage of the rascality; no inquiry was +made, and it was tacitly assumed that where so much was gained, and +the pride of "our house" was gratified, the end justified the means. + +There remains one question which may suggest itself to our minds as +it has often suggested itself to others. From what class or classes +in society were the monks for the most part taken? This is one of the +most difficult questions to answer. The late Dr. Maitland, who +perhaps knew more, and had read more, about monks and monasteries +than any Englishman of his time, professed himself unable to answer +it; and my friend Dr. Luard--whose labours in this field of research +have gained for him a European reputation, and whose wonderful +industry, carefulness, and profound knowledge, qualify him to speak +with authority on such a point, if any one might pronounce upon it-- +hesitates to give a decided opinion. The impression that is left upon +my own mind is, that the thirteenth-century monk, as a rule, was +drawn from the gentry class, as distinguished from the aristocracy on +the one hand, or the artisans on the other. In fact, _mutatis +mutandis_, that the representatives of the monks of the thirteenth +century were the Fellows of Colleges of the nineteenth before the +recent alteration of University and College statutes came into force. +An ignorant monk was certainly a rarity, an absolutely unlettered or +uneducated one was an impossibility, and an abbot or prior who could +not talk and write Latin with facility, who could not preach with +tolerable fluency on occasion, and hold his own as a debater and man +of business, would have found himself sooner or later in a very +ridiculous and very uncomfortable position, from which he might be +glad to escape by resignation. + + * * * * * * * + +Three centuries after the time we have been considering, the +religious houses were suppressed--to use that euphonious term which +has become universally accepted--only after they had existed in these +islands in one form or another for at least a thousand years. Century +after century monasteries continued to spring up, and there never was +much difficulty in finding devout people who were ready to befriend a +new order, to endow it with lands, and to give it a fair start. In +other words, there was always a _demand_ for new monasteries, +and the first sure sign that that demand had been met, and more than +met, was when the supply of monks began to fall short, and when, as +was the case before the end of the fifteenth century, the religious +houses could not fill up their full complement of brethren. Is it +conceivable that this constant demand could have gone on, unless the +common sense of the nation had been profoundly convinced, and +continuously convinced, that the religious orders gave back some +great equivalent for all the immense surrenders of wealth which +generation after generation of Englishmen had made--some equivalent +for all the vast stream of benefactions which flowed on from age to +age so strongly that kings and statesmen had to interfere and check, +if it might be, the dangerous prodigality of lavish benefactors? What +that equivalent was, what the real work of the monasteries was, what +great functions they discharged in the body politic, what the nation +at large gained by their continuance and lost by their fall--these +are questions which on this occasion I am not concerned with, and +with which I scrupulously forbear from dealing. But there are moments +when a great horror comes upon some men's minds, and a vision of a +lonely and childless old age rises before them in the gloom of a +dreary twilight, or when the mists of autumn hide the sunbeams, and +they think, "If desolation were to come upon our homes, where could +we hide the stricken head and broken heart?" To that question--a +morbid question if you will--I have never found an answer. The answer +was possible once, but it was in an age which has passed away. + +Yes, that age has passed away for ever. History repeats itself, it is +true, but history will not bear mimicry. In every melody that wakes +the echoes there is repetition of this note and that, the same single +sound is heard again and again; but the glorious intertwinings of the +several parts, the subtle fugues and merry peals of laughter that +"flash along the chords and go," the wail of the minor, as if crying +for the theme that has vanished and yet will reappear--"like armies +whispering where great echoes be"--these things are not mere +repetition; they are messages from the Eternal Father to the sons of +men, reminding them that the world moves on. Merely to ape the past, +and to attempt to reproduce in the nineteenth century the tree that +had taken a millennium to grow into its maturity in the thirteenth +and was rudely cut down root and branch in the sixteenth, is about as +wise as it would be to try and make us sing the Hallelujah Chorus in +unison! Let the dead bury their dead. + +Meanwhile the successors of the thirteenth-century monasteries are +rising up around us each after his kind; Pall Mall swarms with them, +hardly less splendid than their progenitors, certainly not less +luxurious. Our modern monks look out at the windows of the Carlton +and the Athenæum with no suspicion that they are at all like the +monks of old. Nor are they. They lack the old faith, the old loyalty +to their order, and with the old picturesqueness something else that +we can less afford to miss--the old enthusiasm. We look back upon the +men of the thirteenth century with much complacency. A supercilious +glance at the past seems to give the moderns an excellent opinion of +themselves. But suppose the men of the thirteenth century could turn +the tables upon us, and, from their point of view, pass their +judgment upon the daily life of the conventuals of St. James's, who +are, after all, only survivals, but just conceivably not quite +survivals of the fittest; would the monks of old find all things +quite up to the highest ideal, or would they hide their heads in +shame and confusion of face compelled to acknowledge that the new is +in all things so much better than the old? + + + + +IV. + +THE BLACK DEATH IN EAST ANGLIA. + + + "So they died! The dead were slaying the dying, + And a famine of strivers silenced strife: + There were none to love and none to wed, + And pity and joy and hope had fled, + And grief had spent her passion in sighing; + And where was the Spirit of Life?" + +From across the Channel during the last few months [Footnote: +February, 1884.] there have come to us tidings of a visitation of +pestilence which have seemed to some men very disquieting, and to +some heavy with menace. From Italy, the land beyond the Alps; from +Spain, the land beyond the Pyrenees; from seaports in France and +cities of the plain, we hear that the cholera has been striking down +its victims. The Phantom with the deadly breath has shown strange +caprice in his coming and going; but when he has been suspected to be +nigh at hand, wild-eyed Panic has shown herself as of old. It is sad +and discouraging to find that, spite of all our boasted progress--all +that science has taught us, and all that we are supposed to have +learnt--the attitude of the multitude when certain dangers threaten, +appears to be as it was, and that we still hear of shuddering +wretches trying to fight a dreaded enemy by letting off old muskets +and drenching portmanteaus with Condy's fluid. + +Such things have been before. Must they recur again? Philosophers +comfort us with the assurance that our brains are larger than those +of our forefathers. Nay, that the convolutions of the said brains are +more complex. How about the _moral fibre?_ Are we never to have +stouter hearts or more "bowels and mercies?" In the face of the same +circumstances, will men for ever show themselves the same? Or is it +that all these stories of mad stampedes and of chaotic anarchy +breaking loose here and there--anarchy gibbering, blind, profligate +and senselessly cruel--are true only of exceptional communities, as +yet unaffected by the great lift which optimists confidently believe +in, and which they unhesitatingly assure us is steadily going on? + +The cholera has abated, we are told; as we were told it would. Thus +far we in England have escaped its ravages. Experts--and experts are +the people whose vocation it is to speak without doubt or hesitation +whenever they speak--experts assure us that London was never more +free from cholera than during this present summer. Other experts-- +they too speaking with authority--confidently affirm that our time is +coming, that a severe visitation is impending; that all we have heard +of hitherto of the ravages of the epidemic elsewhere, will prove but +child's play in comparison with that which we shall hear of by and +by. "And then, sir, you'll see!" That is a comforting assurance--at +any rate, _some_ of us will survive. + +But what do we know of the march of any mysterious form of death that +has ever appeared in bygone ages, suddenly starting up and striding +over the earth--"the land as a garden of Eden before him, and behind +him a desolate wilderness?" We have most of us read of such frightful +visitations in Thucydides, in Ovid, in Virgil, in Lucretius, not to +mention the moderns; but if any of us were to write down the sum and +substance of his knowledge, and attempt to discover from any +trustworthy evidence the nature, the course, and the intensity of any +great plague that has ever proved a real scourge upon any large +section of the human race, what would his summing-up amount to? How +long would it take to write; or rather, when it was written, how long +would it take to read? + +This island of Great Britain has more than once been visited by +pestilence. De Foe has left us an inimitable romance, which he calls +"The History of the Plague in London in 1665." How much or how little +of sober fact there may be in those thrilling incidents, worked up so +marvellously by the great novelist, it is impossible to say. That +there is at least as much of fiction as of fact in the book none can +doubt. The author was a child when the plague was raging--a child of +two years' old, toddling about the butcher's shop. The plague of 1665 +did not travel far; out of London its incidence was comparatively +trifling. The cholera has visited us again and again, but never on a +scale to demoralize the people at large. Only once in our history has +the destroyer passed over England, leaving probably no shire +unvisited by his awful presence, and no parish in which there was not +one dead. It is never fair to draw inferences from the silence of +historians; but it is at least significant that among all +contemporary writers who have made mention of the Black Death--as it +has been agreed to call it--the Black Death in the reign of Edward +III.--there is little mention of any panic, few ugly tales of +desertion of the dying, no flagrant instances of miserable creatures +crying that the wells were poisoned. On the contrary, we have proof +that as a rule men died at their posts during all that trying time, +that those in authority never lost their heads, and that though there +must, of course, have been isolated cases of abject fear, expressing +itself in the maddest extravagances of despair, yet we have to look +long and look far and wide to find such cases--and after all our +search may be fruitless. + +As yet the history of the Black Death can hardly be said to have been +investigated at all; and until specialists can be prevailed upon to +examine the evidence ready at hand, we shall continue to be put off +with mere generalities when we ask for more light upon a calamity +which was the most stupendous that ever befell this island. + + * * * * * * * + +We have all heard of Boccaccio's _Decameron_--only naughty +people have _read it_--and how it was written when the plague +was raging at Florence, the great plague that carried off Petrarch's +Laura, and those other thousands of whom the world knew nothing then +and knows nothing now. Some, too, have heard that the plague swept +over Europe--desolating, devastating--the spectre with the swinging +scythe mowing down broad swathes of men. Some, when they hear of it, +picture to themselves Pope Clement VI. at Avignon, sitting in that +vast palace that overlooks the Rhone, the stench of corpses mastered +for him by the fragrant smoke of aromatic logs burning in huge pyres +round about him night and day. Some have heard of Giovanne Villani, +the historian of Florence, who wrote feebly about that same +pestilence in his native city, and who doubtless would have written +more, and more plainly and more strongly, but that in the midst of +his writing Azrael touched him too, and his pen fell from his hand. +[Footnote: Muratori, "Rerum Italicarum Scriptores," vol. xiii. pp, 1- +771.] Some few, again, have a faint recollection of that Emperor of +the West, John Cantacuzene, who ruled at Constantinople when the +plague was, and who wrote about it. [Footnote: His four books of +Histories are to be found in the "Corpus Scriptorum Historiae +Byzantinae."] Didn't he? Nay! Hadn't he a son, Andronicus, who died +of it? How did it come to pass that Gibbon did not so much as allude +to it? Some, peradventure, think of Rome and of Rienzi, and how it +was about that time that he was potent, or was he in hiding there +among the Fraticelli? And isn't there something too about the plague +visiting Greenland, and putting back the clock that was moving on +steadily, but which suddenly stopped? How vague we are! + + * * * * * * * + +What was this plague? How did it strike men down? + +"It showed itself," says Boccaccio, "in a sad and wonderful manner; +and _different from what it had been in the East_, where +bleeding from the nose is the fatal prognostic, here [at Florence] +there appeared certain tumours in the groin or under the armpits, +some as big as an apple, others as big as an egg; and afterwards +purple spots in most parts of the body: in some cases large and but +few in number, in others less and more numerous, both kinds the usual +messengers of death... They generally died," he adds, "the third day +from the first appearance of the symptoms, without a fever or other +bad circumstance attending." + +"It took men generally in the head and stomach, appearing first in +the groin," says Villani, "or under the armpits, by little knobs or +swellings called kernels, boils, blains, blisters, pimples, or +plague-sores; being generally attended with devouring fever, with +occasional spitting and vomiting of blood, whence, for the most part, +they died presently or in half a day, or within a day or two at the +most." + +Less precise and minute is the description of the great surgeon, +Guido de Chauliac, who nobly stayed at Avignon for the six months +during which the visitation was at its worst; but he too mentions the +carbuncular swellings in the axillae and the groin, the purple spots, +and the violent inflammation of the lungs, attended by fatal +expectoration of blood. + +As for the Emperor John Cantacuzene, his description is so flagrantly +a mere adaptation of the history of the plague at Athens by +Thucydides that it must be received with caution. It is only in what +it omits and in what it adds to the older narrative that it possesses +any great historic value. It agrees with the accounts quoted above in +making mention of the swellings, the blood-spitting, and the awful +rapidity with which the disease ran its course. It omits all mention +of the eruption on the surface of the skin, the flushed eyes, and, +above all, the swollen and inflamed condition of the larynx, the +cough, the sneezing, and the hiccough, which Dr. Collier found so +significant. + +Comparing, then, the several accounts which have come down to us, +meagre though they are, it ought to be possible to arrive at some +conclusions regarding the nature of the plague of the fourteenth +century which, for the pathologist, would amount to certainties. The +wonder is that such men as Dr. Hecker and his learned translator +should have shown so much reserve--not to say timidity--in +pronouncing judgment upon the question. + +A layman runs a risk of incurring withering scorn at his presumption, +and ridicule at his ignorance who ventures to express an opinion--or +to have one--on any subject which the medical profession claims as +within its own domain; and I should not dare to speak otherwise than +as a very humble inquirer when the learned are silent. There are, +however, some conclusions which may be accepted without hesitation +and which will be admitted by all. + +I. The Black Death was _not_ scarlatina maligna, as the plague +at Athens undoubtedly was. [Footnote: "The History of the Plague of +Athens," translated from Thucydides by C. Collier, M.D., London, +1857.] + +II. It was _not_ small-pox. + +III. It was _not_ cholera. + +IV. It probably _was_ a variety of the Oriental plague, which +has reappeared in Europe in more modern times, and regarding which +they who wish to know more must seek their information where it is to +be found. + +The next question usually asked is, Where did the new plague come +from? And here the answer is even more uncertain than that to the +other question--What the great plague was. + +In fact, a careful comparison of such testimony as comes to hand +leaves the inquirer in a very perplexed condition, and inclines him +rather to accept than reject the old-fashioned theory of a "general +corruption of the atmosphere" as the only working hypothesis whereby +to account for the startling spontaneity of the outbreak and its +appearance at so many and such distant points at the same time. + +The Imperial author, who appears to have done his best to gather +information, evidently found himself quite baffled in his attempt to +follow the march of the plague. It had originated among the +Hyperborean Scythians; it had passed through Pontus, and Libya, and +Syria, and the furthest East, and "in a manner all the world round +about." Other writers are just as much in the dark as Cantacuzene, +and it seems mere waste of time to endeavour to arrive at any +conclusion from data so defective and statements so void of +historical basis as have come down to us. This only seems +established, that during the year 1347 there was great atmospheric +disturbance extending over a large area of Southern Europe, and +resulting in extensive failure of the harvest, and consequent +distress and famine; and that in January, 1348, one of the most +violent earthquakes in history wrought immense havoc in Italy, the +shocks being felt in the islands of the Mediterranean, and even north +of the Alps. + +It is at least curious that the date of the earthquake coincides very +closely with the date which has been given by Guido de Chauliac for +the first appearance of the plague at Avignon. He tells us expressly +that it broke out in that city in January, 1348, and I think it would +be difficult to produce trustworthy evidence of any earlier outbreak +than this, at any rate, in Europe. [Footnote: One of our monastic +chroniclers states expressly that it began about St. James's Day in +1347. I _feel_ certain that the date is wrong, and that it could +be proved to be wrong without much difficulty by reference to +documentary evidence which might be consulted.] "It appeared at +Florence," says Villani, "at the beginning of April, and at Cesena, +on the other side of the Apennines, on the 1st of June." It is +asserted that it reached England at the beginning of August, is said +to have lingered for some months in the west, and to have devastated +Bristol with awful severity. + +There can be no doubt that in the towns of Italy and France there was +a dreadful mortality; but when we are told that 100,000 died in +Venice, and 60,000 in Florence, and 70,000 in Siena, it is impossible +to accept such round numbers as anything better than ignorant +guesses. Whether the great cities of the Low Countries were visited +by the pestilence with any severity, or how far the towns of Germany +were affected, I am unable to say, nor am I much concerned at present +with such an inquiry; that I leave to others to throw light upon. But +as to the progress, the incidence, and the effect of the Black Death +in England--when it came and where it showed itself, how long it +lasted, and what effects followed--on these questions the time has +come for pointing out that we have a body of evidence such as perhaps +exists in no other country--evidence, too, which hitherto has hardly +received any attention, its very existence entirely overlooked, +forgotten, nay! not even suspected. + + * * * * * * * + +Let us understand where we are, and look about us for a little while. + +When King Edward III. entered London in triumph on the 14th of +October, 1347, he was the foremost man in Europe, and England had +reached a height of power and glory such as she had never attained +before. At the battle of Creçi France had received a crushing blow, +and by the loss of Calais, after an eleven months' siege, she had +been reduced well-nigh to the lowest point of humiliation. David II., +King of Scotland, was now lying a prisoner in the Tower of London. +Louis of Bavaria had just been killed by a fall from his horse, the +Imperial throne was vacant, and the electors in eager haste +proclaimed that they had chosen the King of England to succeed. To +their discomfiture the King of England declined the proffered crown. +He "had other views." Intoxicated by the splendour of their sovereign +and his martial renown, and the Success which seemed to attend him +wherever he showed himself, the English people had gone mad with +exultation--all except the merchant princes, the monied men, who are +not often given to lose their heads. They took a much more sober view +of the outlook than the populace did--they had an eye to their own +interests and the interests of the trade and commerce in which they +were engaged. They were very much in earnest in asserting their +rights and protesting against their wrongs, and they presented their +petitions to the King after the fashion of the time--petitions which +must have seemed rather startling protests in the fourteenth century, +betraying, as they did, some advanced opinions for which the world at +large was hardly then prepared. + +Students of the manual, compendium, and popular handbook style of +literature may possibly be hardly aware that the war of protection +_versus_ free trade, and the other war concerned with the +incidence of taxation upon property, real and personal, had already +begun. Even my distinguished friend, Mr. Cadaverous, who never made a +mistake in his life, and whose memory for facts is portentous--even +Mr. Cadaverous assures me that he has never met with any mention of +the above fact in all his study of history. + +History! What is history but the science which teaches us to see the +throbbing life of the present in the throbbing life of the past? + +Note that these "gentlemen of the House of Commons," who made +themselves somewhat disagreeable in the Parliament of 1348, were not +the warriors who had gone out to fight the King's battles, but the +burghers who stayed at home, heaped up money, and grumbled. It was +otherwise with the roistering swash-bucklers who came back in that +glorious autumn. They are said to have returned laden with the spoils +of France, the plunder of Calais, and so on and so on. Calais must +have been rather a queer little place to afford much _plunder_ +after all that it had gone through. The swash-bucklers doubtless +brought prize-money home, but it did not all come from France--that +is pretty certain. Villani, our Florentine friend, tells us of an +unexampled commercial crisis at Florence about this time--brought +about, observe, by the English conqueror of France not paying his +debts. So the Bardi and the Peruzzi actually stopped payment; for the +King owed them a million and a half of gold florins, and there was +lamentation and distress of mind, and the level of the Arno rose by +reason of the flood of tears that fell "from tired eyelids upon tired +eyes." All that made no difference to the swash-bucklers, and up and +down England there was wild extravagance, and money seemed to burn in +people's pockets. Feasting and merriment, and all that appertains +thereto, were the order of the day, and all went merry as a marriage +bell. + +The King got all he could get out of the Parliament, but he did not +get, he could not get, all he wished. What was to be done next? The +Pope said, "Make peace!" and his Holiness did his little best to +bring about the desired end. The summer of 1348 had come, and it +seems that at Avignon the plague had by this time spent itself, +people were no longer afraid to go there now, and the Pope would +peradventure come out of his seclusion and receive an embassy. So on +the 28th of July Edward III. wrote a letter to Pope Clement, and +announced his intention of sending his ambassadors to Avignon to +treat about terms. The negotiations fell through, and on the 8th of +October the King announced by proclamation that he was once more +going to make an inroad upon France with an armed force. He did not +keep his word. In November a truce was patched up somehow; and on the +first of the next month we find the King once more at Westminster, +and there he seems to have remained over Christmas. If the dates are +correctly given, the news from the west of England about this time +was not likely to have provoked much merriment. + +Are the dates correct? Gentlemen of an antiquarian turn of mind, out +in the west there, might do worse than spend some weeks in looking +into this matter. + +Meanwhile, it is at this point that we get our first direct, +unquestionable proof, that the plague had reached our shores. On the +1st of January, 1349, the King wrote to the Bishop of Winchester, +informing him that although the Parliament had been summoned to meet +on the 19th of the month, yet because a _sudden visitation of +deadly pestilence had broken out at Westminster and the +neighbourhood,_ which was increasing daily, and occasioning much +apprehension for the safety of any great concourse of people, should +it assemble in that place at the time appointed; therefore it had +been determined to prorogue the Parliament to Monday, the 27th of +April. + +I gather from the wording of this document that the Government did +not look upon the outbreak with any very grave apprehension, that +they did not regard it as anything more than an epidemic which would +be confined to narrow limits, and one likely to pass off after a +little time as the spring advanced; and that they can hardly as yet +have received any very disturbing intelligence of its ravages, such +as must have soon come in from all points of the compass. Two months +passed, and the situation had seriously changed. On the 10th of March +the King issued another letter, in which, after referring to the +previous proclamation, he further prorogued the meeting of Parliament +_sine die._ The reason for this step is explained to be "because +the deadly pestilence in Westminster, _and in the City of +London,_ and in other places thereabouts, was increasing with +extraordinary severity" _(gravius solito invalescit)._ + +It is to be observed that, in the first notice of prorogation, no +mention is made of the City of London, only of Westminster and its +neighbourhood. In the second, we hear that the plague had already +extended over a wider area, and was showing no signs of abating. Nay, +by this time the King and his advisers had taken alarm--there was no +knowing where the mortality would stop. + +Two days after this (12th of March, 1349) William Bateman, Bishop of +Norwich, received his letters of protection as ambassador for the +King in France. His safe conduct--for himself and his suite--was to +extend till Whitsuntide next ensuing (31st of May, 1349). The suite +consisted of eight persons, all Norfolk men; two were wealthy laymen, +two were distinguished ecclesiastics, three were country parsons, of +one I know nothing. I believe they all got back safely, but the three +country parsons returned to their several cures only to be smitten by +the plague. The Bishop had not shown himself again in his diocese +many weeks before they were all three dead. In making this last +statement, I am a little anticipating the course of events, but only +a little. The Angel of Death moves at no laggard pace when once he +begins his march with his sword drawn in his hand. + + * * * * * * * + +Thus far I have been quoting from, or referring to, authorities which +are accessible to any one with an adequate command of books at his +elbow--the chroniclers and the historians named, the Foedera, the +Rolls of Parliament, and such authorities as whoever chooses may +consult for himself. These printed authorities, which have all been +consulted and looked into again and again, have told us very little, +but they have given us certain notes of time--furnished us, in fact, +with a _terminus a quo_. We have learnt this, at any rate, that +about Christmas, 1348, the plague appeared at Westminster and its +vicinity, and that it had increased alarmingly in London and +elsewhere by the beginning of March, 1349. + +We have next to deal with that other evidence to which I have +alluded--the unprinted documentary evidence ready to our hands--I +mean the Institution Books in the various Diocesan Registries and the +Rolls of the Manor Courts, which still exist in very great abundance, +though they are rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. It +is necessary that I should trespass upon my reader's attention while +I endeavour to explain the nature and the value of these two classes +of documents before proceeding to deal with their testimony. + +I. Students of English history know that few aggressions of the Pope +of Rome during the thirteenth century caused more deep discontent +among the laity than those which threatened interference with their +right of patronage to ecclesiastical benefices, and actually did +interfere with those rights. The disgraceful recklessness with which +Italians, ignorant of our language, were forced into English livings, +and the best preferment was claimed for Papal nominees, produced an +amount of irritation and revolt against Roman interference which had +never been known before. The feeling of the laity became more and +more outspoken, and at last Innocent IV. gave way, and the rights of +private patronage were assured to the great lords--assured, at any +rate, in word--though the Papal rescript "paltered with them in a +double sense" and the quibbles and reservations, which could always +be resorted to under colour of the _non obstante_ clause, +constantly afforded excuse for fresh encroachments and evasions when +the opportunity occurred. The jealousy of Roman interference +continued to increase, and the legislation of the first half of the +fourteenth century was largely taken up with enactments to guard the +rights of English patrons, from the King downwards. But there was +always a feeling of insecurity on the part of those who had any +benefices in their gift, and a corresponding feeling on the part of +those who were candidates for preferment. This led to a vicious +system, whereby appointments were made with almost indecent haste to +every vacant cure; institution was granted to an applicant for a +benefice with the least possible delay after a vacancy had once been +made known; the patron was willing to exercise his right in favour of +any one, rather than not exercise it at all; the candidate for the +living knew that it was a case of now or never; the Bishop had +nothing to gain, and something to fear, from asking too many +questions; and there is some reason to think that the parishioners +had more voice in the matter than they have now. That followed which +was likely to follow, namely, that the institutions to vacant +benefices were made as a rule within a very few weeks, or even days, +after the death of an incumbent. A man who had got his nomination +lost no time in presenting himself to the Bishop. There was no widow +or family of his predecessor to consider; and for every reason, the +sooner the new man got into the parsonage the better for all parties +concerned. Moreover, to guard against all chances of a disputed +claim, the Bishops' Registers of Institution were kept with the most +scrupulous care, and while enormous masses of ecclesiastical records +in every diocese in England have perished, the Institution Books have +been preserved with extraordinary fidelity, have survived all the +troubles and wars and spoliation that have gone on, and, speaking +within certain limits, have been preserved for five hundred years +from one end of England to the other. It is no exaggeration to say +that there are hundreds of parishes in England of whose incumbents +for centuries not only a complete list may be made out, but the very +day and place be set down where those incumbents received institution +into the benefice either at the hands of the Diocesan or his +official. This is certainly the case in the great East Anglian +diocese of Norwich, which comprehended, in the fourteenth century, +the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk and a portion of Cambridgeshire. +We may safely say that we are able to tell approximately--within a +few weeks or days--when any living fell vacant during the period +under review, who succeeded, and who the patron was who presented to +the cure. Nor is this true only of the secular or parochial clergy. +Jealous as the religious houses were of their rights and privileges, +the heads of monasteries, as a rule, were compelled to receive +institution too at the hands of the Bishops of the see in which they +were situated. They too presented themselves to their Diocesan that +their elections might be formally recognized; and thus the +Institution Books contain not only the records of the various changes +in the incumbency of the secular clergy, but also of such as were +occasioned by the death of all abbots, or priors or abbesses as +presided over that large number of religious houses as were not +exempt from Episcopal jurisdiction. It is obvious that these Records +constitute an invaluable body of evidence, from which important +information may be drawn regarding our parochial and ecclesiastical +history. The Institution Books, as might be expected, contain a great +deal of curious matter besides the mere records of admission to +benefices, but with this I am at present not concerned. + +II. I come now to the Court Rolls, which throw much more light upon +our parochial history than any other documents that have come down to +us; their information is concerned exclusively with the civil, +domestic, sometimes with the political life of our forefathers; about +their religious life, or their contentions with ecclesiastics, they +have rarely a word to say. + + * * * * * * * + +All who have at any time owned or purchased what is known as copyhold +land might be supposed to know something of the nature of the title +on which such land is held. If they do not it is not for want of +being reminded from time to time, in a very vexatious way, that they +are in theory and in fact not so much owners of their several +holdings as _tenants_ of the Lord of the Manor to which such +holdings appertain. But inasmuch as a great deal of ignorance +prevails as to the nature of this tenure, and as it is impossible to +estimate the value and importance of the evidence which the Rolls of +the Manor Courts supply in the inquiry on which we are engaged, I +feel it necessary to introduce at this point a few paragraphs +introductory to and explanatory of what follows. + + * * * * * * * + +In the thirteenth century it may be said that _in theory_ the +land of England belonged to the sovereign. The sovereign had indeed +assigned large tracts of territory to A or B or C; but under certain +circumstances, of no very unfrequent occurrence, these tracts of +territory came back into the hands of the sovereign, and were re- +granted by him at his will to whom he chose. In return for such +grants, A or B or C were bound to perform certain _services_ in +recognition of the fact that they were _tenants_ of the king; +and by virtue of such _services_-the equivalents of what we now +understand by _rent_-they were called _tenants in chief_, or +tenants _in capite_. + +The tracts of territory held by A or B or C were in almost every case +made up of lands scattered about over all parts of the kingdom. The +tenant in chief had his castle or capital mansion, [Footnote: Experts +will object to the use of this term and other terms as strictly +inaccurate. I am not writing for experts.]which was supposed to be +his abode; but as far as the larger portion--immensely the larger +portion--of his possessions, he was necessarily a non-resident +landlord, getting what he could out of them either by farming them +through the agency of a bailiff, or letting out his estates to be +held under himself in precisely the same way as he held his +_fief_, or original grant, from the King. + +_In theory_, the tenant in chief could not sell his land; he +could sublet it to a _mesne tenant_, who stood to himself +precisely in the same relation as he--the tenant _in capite_-- +stood to the sovereign, the mesne tenant in his turn being bound to +render certain _services_ to his over lord, and liable to +forfeit his _lease_--for in theory it was that--if certain +contingencies happened. It was inevitable that, as time went by, the +mesne tenant should regard his estate as his own, and that the same +necessities which compelled the tenant _in capite_ to relax his +hold over an outlying landed estate would compel the mesne tenant to +follow his example. The process went on till it was becoming a +serious difficulty to discover how the King was to get his +_services_ from the tenant _in capite_, who had practically +got rid of two-thirds of his _fief_, and how he again was to get +_his services_ from the mesne tenant, who had parted with two- +thirds of _his_ estate to half a dozen under tenants. Obviously, +when the King's _scutage_ had to be levied, there was no telling +who was liable for it, or how it should be apportioned. + +It was to meet this difficulty, and to check the prevailing sub- +division of land--_sub-infeudation_ men called it then--that the +statute of _Quia Emptores_ was passed in the eighteenth year of +King Edward I. [A.D. 1290]. The result of all the sub-division that +been going on had been that the number of what we now call _landed +estates_ had largely increased, each of them administered on the +model of the larger _fiefs_ originally granted to the tenants +_in capite_. There was a capital mansion in which the _lord_ +resided, or was supposed to reside, and sub-tenants holding +their land under the lord, and paying to him periodically certain +small money rents and rendering him certain _services_. The +_estate_ comprehended the capital mansion with its appurtenances +and the domain lands in the lord's occupation, the common lands over +which the tenants had certain common rights, and the lands in the +occupation of the tenants, which they farmed with more or less +freedom for their own behoof,--the whole constituting a manor +whose owner was the lord. At certain intervals the tenants were +bound to appear before their lord and give account of themselves; +bound, that is, to show cause why they had not performed their +_services_; bound to pay their quit rents, whether in money or +kind; bound to go through a great deal of queer business; but above +all, as far as our present purpose is concerned, _to do fealty_ +to the lord of the manor in every case where the small patches of +land had changed hands, and pay a fine for entering upon land +acquired by the various forms of alienation or by inheritance. In +some manors, if a tenant died the lord laid claim to some of his live +stock as a _heriot_, which was forthwith seized by the bailiff +of the manor; and in all manors, if a man died without heirs, his +land _escheated_ to the lord of the manor; that is, it came back +to the lord who _in theory_ was the owner of the soil. + +These periodical meetings at which all this business and a great deal +else was transacted were called the _Courts_ of the Manor, and +the Records of these Courts were kept with exceeding and most jealous +scrupulousness; they were invariably drawn up in Latin, according to +a strictly legal form, and were inscribed on long _rolls_ of +parchment, and are known as Manor Court Rolls. This is not the time +to say much more about the Court Rolls. They are not very easy +reading--they require a somewhat long apprenticeship before they can +be readily deciphered; but when one has once become familiar with +them, they afford the student some very curious and unexpected +information from time to time, though it must be allowed that you +have to do a good deal of digging for every nugget that you find. + +Observe, however, this--that it is not far from the truth to say that +in East Anglia--for I will not travel out of my own province--every +tiller of the soil who occupied a plot of land, however small, was +sure to be a tenant under some lord of the manor; when he died _a +record of his death was entered upon the_ _Court Rolls of the +Manor_; the name of his successor was inscribed; the amount of +fine set down which his heir paid for entering upon his inheritance; +and if he died _without heirs_ the fact was noticed, the lands +which he had held being forfeited, or _escheating_, as it was +called, to the lord. + +Thus the Court Rolls of a manor of the fourteenth century--for before +the statute _Quia Emptores_ I suspect that they were kept with +much less regularity and much less care than they were afterwards-- +are practically the _registers of the deaths_ of all occupiers +of land within the manor; and, as every householder was an occupier +of land, the death of every householder may be said to be inscribed +upon the Rolls. + + * * * * * * * + +Taken together, then, we have in the Diocesan Institution Books, on +the one hand, and in the Court Rolls, on the other, two sources of +information which--as far as they go--furnish us with a mass of +evidence absolutely irrefragable with regard to the mortality of +clergy and laity at any period during the fourteenth century. I say +"as far as they go," for it might happen that a country benefice--and +still more frequently that a town benefice--had been so cruelly +pillaged by a religious house, that little or nothing remained to +support the wretched parson, and that no one could be found who would +accept the cure. Then the cure would remain vacant for years. Where +this happened the death of the previous incumbent would not appear on +the Records for years after it had occurred, nor would any notice be +taken of the long vacancy when the next parson was instituted. In a +period of dreadful mortality, if the parsons died off in large +numbers, it would be inevitable that the impoverished livings would +"go a begging." It might be difficult to get the most valuable pieces +of preferment filled--it would be impossible to fill such as could +not offer a bare maintenance. Hence the Institution Books can only be +accepted as giving a part of the evidence with regard to the clerical +mortality. However startling the number of deaths of clergy within a +certain area during a given period may appear to be, they certainly +will not represent the whole number--only the number of such +incumbents as were forthwith replaced by their successors; and, +taking one year with another, it is fair to say that within any +diocese the _larger the number of institutions_ recorded in a +given time, the _more incomplete_ will be the record of the +deaths among the clergy during that time. When there are more men +than places the places are soon filled. When there are more places +than men there must needs be vacancies--square holes and round ones. + +So much for the Institution Books. With regard to the Court Rolls, +there the evidence is even much less exhaustive; for here we have the +registers of the deaths of the landholders within the manor, great +and small--_i.e._, of the heads of families; but, except in rare +instances, we have no notice of any other member of the household, or +of what happened to them. A man's whole household may have been swept +off--young and old, babe and suckling, sister and brother, and aged +mother, and wife, and children, and servant, and friend--every soul +of them involved in one hideous, horrible calamity. The steward of +the manor was not concerned with any but the head of the house--the +tenant of the manor. Was he missing? Then, who was his heir? Any +sons? Dead of the plague! Brothers? Dead of the plague! Wife? Dead of +the plague! Children? Kinsfolk? All gone! Their blackening carcases +huddled in sweltering masses of putrefaction in the wretched hovels, +while the pitiless July sun blazed overhead, "Calmer than clock-work, +and not caring!" + +The steward made his entry of one fact only. Thus:-- + +"The Jurors do present that Simon Must died seized of a Messuage and +4 acres of land in Stradset, and that he has no heir. Therefore it is +fitting that the aforesaid land be taken into the hands of the lord." + +Also that Matilda Stile... was she married or single, widow or mother +or maid? What cared the precise man of business on that 24th of July, +1349, as his pen moved over the parchment?...--"Matilda Stile died +seized of one acre and one rood of land held in Villenage. Therefore +it is fitting that the aforesaid land be taken into the hands of the +lord until such time as the heir may appear in court." + +He never did appear! Next year her little estate was handed over to +another. She was the last of her line. + +Such entries as these swarm in the Court Rolls of this year 1349. +They tell their own tale. But it is obvious that their tale is +incomplete, and that we must form our own conclusions from the number +of the deaths recorded as to the probable number of those whose names +have been quite passed over, sometimes, too, these Rolls are eloquent +in their silence. When country parsons were dying by scores and +hundreds, and the tillers of the soil by thousands and tens of +thousands, it could not but be that the lords of manors and their +stewards died also. Yes! they, too, were struck down. In one instance +that I have met with the first half of the entries of the business +carried on at one of these courts in the summer of this year is +written in the ordinary court hand of the time, and the rest is +rudely scrawled by some one whose hand is _not yet formed;_ it +looks like the writing of a lad apprenticed to the scrivener's +business. Was the steward of the manor actually smitten by the plague +as he was holding the court--a subordinate taking his place and +awkwardly finishing the work which his master's glazed eye perhaps +never rested on? Again and again I have found that a series of Court +Rolls of an important Norfolk manor is perfect for the first twenty- +two years of Edward III. and no record remains for the next year or +two. Then they begin once more, and have been preserved with unbroken +regularity. At Raynham, in a parish of 1,400 acres, there were three +small manors. The courts of one of them were held three times in the +year 1348. _Upon the same parchment,_ and immediately following +the records of the previous year, come some scarcely legible notes of +a court held in 1349, the precise day of the month omitted, the +entries scrawled informally by a scribe who not only did not know the +forms of the court, but who was evidently not a professional writer. +He bungled so that he seems actually to have given up his task. The +next court of the manor was not held till three years had gone by. At +Hellhoughton, a manor now belonging to the Marquis of Townshend, +where two courts were held annually, the series of rolls for the +first twenty-two years of Edward III. is complete. Then comes one +which scarcely deserves to be called a Court Roll, so entirely +informal is it, and so evidently drawn up by some one who did not +know his business, and who did not pretend to know it. It is little +more than a collection of rough memoranda of deaths. Twelve of the +_suitors_ of the court had died without heirs; seven others had +come to do fealty to the lord as successors to those whose heirs they +presumably were. Nothing else is recorded. At another manor of Lord +Townshend's, Raynham Parva, between the years 1347 and 1350 no court +seems to have been held, though the lord of the manor, Thomas de +Ingaldesthorp, had died in the interval. The scourge of the plague +had been so awful in its incidence that when the next court was held +on the 24th July, 1350, fourteen men and four women (holders of land, +be it remembered) are named as having died off, not one of whom had +left a living representative behind them. In all cases their little +holdings had escheated to the lord. Amongst them was one "John +Taleour, clericus." Was he the clerk who, up to this time, had kept +the Rolls so neatly, and who could not be easily replaced after he +fell a victim to the plague? + +Indeed, the inquirer who is desirous of pursuing researches in this +field must be prepared for frequent disappointment just at the moment +when he thinks he has made a "find." The Court Rolls for this +particular year are comparatively scarce, and this is true not only +for East Anglia, but for the whole of England, as any one may see who +will only cast his eye down those pages of the Deputy-Keeper's Forty- +third Annual Report, which are concerned with the Records of the +Duchy of Lancaster. These _registers of deaths_ are, as I have +before said, only _complete as far as they go._ + + * * * * * * * + +Let us now return to the point at which the King's letter of +prorogation left us on the 10th March, 1349. At that time it is +certain that the pestilence was raging fiercely in London and +Westminster, and almost as certain that it had abated in Avignon and +other towns in France. Two or three days after this date the Bishop +of Norwich crossed the Channel, leaving his diocese in the hands of +his officials. Had the plague broken out with any severity in East +Anglia? I think it almost demonstrable that it had not. A day or two +before the Bishop left London he instituted his friend Stephen de +Cressingham to the Deanery of Cranwich--in the west of Norfolk--which +had fallen vacant, but there is nothing to show that the vacancy was +due to anything out of the common. During the year ending 25th of +March, 1349, there were 80 institutions in the diocese of Norwich, as +against 92 in the year 1347 and 59 in the year 1346. The average +number of institutions for the five years ending 25th of March, 1349, +was 77. Between this date and the end of the month there were four +institutions only--that is, there was nothing abnormal in the +condition of the diocese. + +East Anglia had not long to wait. In the valley of the Stour, a mile +or two from Sudbury, where the stream serves as the boundary between +Suffolk and Essex, the ancestors of Lord Walsingham had two manors in +the township of Little Cornard--the one was called Caxtons, the other +was the Manor of Cornard Parva. At this latter manor a court was held +on the 31st of March--the number of tenants of the manor can at no +time have exceeded fifty--yet at this court six women and three men +are registered as having died since the last court was held, two +months before. + +This is the earliest instance I have yet met with of the appearance +of the plague among us, and as it is the earliest, so does it appear +to have been one of the most frightful visitations from which any +town or village in Suffolk or Norfolk suffered during the time the +pestilence lasted. On the 1st of May another court was held, fifteen +more deaths are recorded--thirteen men and two women. _Seven of +them without heirs._ On the 3rd of November, apparently when the +panic abated, again the court met. In the six months that had passed +thirty-six more deaths had occurred, and _thirteen more +households_ had been left without a living soul to represent them. +In this little community, in six months' time, twenty-one families +had been absolutely obliterated--men, women and children--and of the +rest it is difficult to see how there can have been a single house in +which there was not one dead. Meanwhile, some time in September, the +parson of the parish had fallen a victim to the scourge, and on the +2nd of October another was instituted in his room. Who reaped the +harvest? The tithe sheaf too--how was it garnered in the barn? And +the poor kine at milking time? Hush! Let us pass on. + + * * * * * * * + +Little Cornard lies almost at the extreme south of the county of +Suffolk. At the extreme north of Norfolk, occupying the elbow of the +coast, having the Wash on the west and the German Ocean on the north, +lies the deanery of Heacham, a district in which the Le Stranges have +for at least seven centuries exercised their beneficent influence. +Heacham itself is a large township extending over some 4,900 acres. +The manorial rights appear to have extended over the whole parish. +The series of Court Rolls is almost unbroken for the reign of Edward +III. During the years 1346, 1347, and 1348, ten, six, and nine deaths +are registered respectively. The courts were held every two months. +In December, 1348, there is no death recorded; in February, 1349, +again there is none. On the 28th of April a dispute was set down for +hearing to be adjudicated upon by the steward and a jury of the +homage. It was a dispute between a husband and wife on a question of +dower. The man's name was Reginald Goscelin, his wife's name was +Emma. The dispute was never settled. Before the day of hearing came +on, _every one_ of Emma Goscelin's witnesses was dead, and her +husband was dead too. Four other landowners had died. One of these +latter had a son and heir to succeed, but two months later the boy +had gone, and the sole representative of the family was a little +girl, who became straightway the ward of the lord of the manor. + +Contiguous to the township of Heacham lies Hunstanton--not the +pleasant little watering-place which the million will persist in +calling by that name, though scarcely forty years ago the maker and +builder of the modern town, the man who marked out its streets and +planned its roads, and foresaw its future before a brick of the place +was laid, gave it the name of St. Edmunds--Hunstanton, I say, in the +fourteenth century was a parish less than half the size of Heacham, +and probably much further from the sea than it is now. When, on the +20th of March, 1349, the steward of the manor of Hunstanton held his +court there he entered the name of only one old woman who had died +within the last month--that is, up to the 20th of March the plague +had not yet appeared. Five weeks after this, on the 23rd of April, +the next court was held. Five petty disputes had been entered for +hearing. Sixteen men were engaged in them as principals or witnesses. +When the day came eleven of the sixteen were dead. On the 22nd of May +again there was a court, and again three suits for debt were set +down. The defendant in one case, the plaintiff in a second, both +plaintiff and defendant in the third, died before the court day +arrived. In June no court was held--was there a panic? Except in this +month and in September the meetings were carried on as regularly as +if it had all been done by machinery. In September things got to +their worst, and in this month the parson died, and was speedily +succeeded by another. When the court of the 16th of October sat, it +was found that in two months sixty-three men and fifteen women had +been carried off. In thirty-one instances there were only women or +children to succeed; in nine cases there were no heirs, and the +little estates had escheated to the lord. Incredible though it may +sound the fact is demonstrable, that in this one parish of +Hunstanton, which a man may walk round in two or three hours, and the +whole population of which might have assembled in the church then +recently built, one hundred and seventy-two persons, tenants of the +manor, died off in eight months; seventy-four of them left no heirs +male, and nineteen others had no blood relation in the world to claim +the inheritance of the dead. + +I have no intention of laying before my readers a detailed statement +of the documentary evidence which has passed under my notice. The +time has not come yet for an elaborate report on the case, nor can I +pretend to have done more than break ground upon what must be +regarded still as virgin soil; but this I may safely say, that I have +not found one single roll of any Norfolk manor during this dreadful +23rd year of Edward, dating after April or May, which did not contain +only too abundant proof of the ravages of the pestilence--evidence +which forces upon me the conviction that hardly a town or village in +East Anglia escaped the scourge; and which in its cumulative force +makes it impossible to doubt that the mortality in Norfolk and +Suffolk must have exceeded the largest estimate which has yet been +given by conjecture. + +When I find in a stray roll of an insignificant little manor at +Croxton, near Thetford, held on the 24th of July, that seventeen +tenants had died since the last court, eight of them without heirs; +that at another court held the _same day_ at Raynham, at the +other end of the county, eighteen tenements had fallen into the +lord's hands, eight of them certainly escheated, and the rest +retained until the appearance of the heir; that in the manor of +Hadeston, a hamlet of Bunwell, twelve miles from Norwich, which could +not possibly have had four hundred inhabitants, fifty-four men and +fourteen women were carried off by the pestilence in six months, +twenty-four of them without a living soul to inherit their property; +that in manor after manor the lord was carried off as well as the +tenants and the steward; that in a single year _upwards of eight +hundred parishes lost their parsons,_ eighty-three of them twice, +and ten of them three times in a few months; and that it is quite +certain these large numbers represent only a portion of the mortality +among the clergy and the religious orders--when, I say, I consider +all this and a great deal more that might be dwelt on, I see no other +conclusion to arrive at but one, namely, that during the year ending +March, 1350, more than half the population of East Anglia was swept +away by the Black Death. If any one should suggest that _many +more_ than half died, I should not be disposed to quarrel with +him. + +It must be remembered that nothing has been here said of the +mortality in the towns. I believe we have no means of getting at any +evidence on this part of the subject which can be trusted. In no part +of England did the towns occupy a more important position relatively +to the rest of the population. In no part of England did three such +important towns as Lynn, Yarmouth, and Norwich, lie within so short a +distance of one another, not to mention others which were then rising +in the number and consideration of their inhabitants. But the +statements made of the mortality in the towns will not bear +examination--they represent mere guesses, nothing more. This, +however, may be assumed as certain--that the death-rate in the towns +at such a time as this cannot have been less than the death-rate in +the villages, and that the scourge which so cruelly devastated the +huts and cabins of the countrymen was not likely to fall less heavily +upon the filthy dens and hovels of the men of the streets. Town life +in the fourteenth century was a very dreadful life for the masses. + +How did the great bulk of the people comport themselves under the +pressure of this unparalleled calamity? How did their faith stand the +strain that was put upon it? How did their moral instincts support +them? Was there any confusion and despair? What effects--social, +political, economical--followed from a catastrophe so terrible? How +did the clergy behave during the tremendous ordeal through which they +had to pass? What glimpses do we get of the horrors or the sorrows of +that time--of the romantic, of the pathetic side of life? + + + + +V. + +_THE BLACK DEATH IN EAST ANGLIA._ (CONTINUED.) + + +When Bishop Bateman started on his journey upon the King's business, +in March 1349, he can scarcely have turned his back upon his diocese +without some misgivings as to what might happen during his absence. +In some parts of Norfolk a very grievous murrain had prevailed during +the previous year among the live stock in the farms, and though this +had almost disappeared, there was ample room for anxiety in the +outlook. If the plague had not yet been felt to any extent in East +Anglia, it might burst forth any day. London had been stricken +already, and there was no saying where it would next appear in its +most malignant form. It was hoped that the Bishop's mission would be +accomplished in a couple of months, and during his absence the charge +of the diocese was committed as usual to his officials, to one of +whom the palace at Norwich was assigned as a temporary residence. + +The good ship, with the Bishop and his suite, had hardly got out of +the channel, when a storm other than that which sailors care for +burst upon town and village in East Anglia. The Bishop's official +found his hands full of work. In April he was called upon to +institute twenty-three parsons to livings that had fallen vacant. +This was bad enough as a beginning, but it was child's play to what +followed. By the end of May _seventy-four_ more cures had lost +their incumbents and been supplied with successors. That is, in a +single month, the number of institutions throughout the diocese had +almost equalled the _annual_ average of the last five years. All +these stricken parishes were country villages, and the larger number +of them lay to the north and east of the county of Norfolk. We take +note of this that we call a fact, and straightway the temptation +presents itself to construct a theory upon it. Who knows not that in +the trying spring-time, the "colic of puff'd Aquilon" makes life hard +for man and beast in Norfolk, and that across our fields the cruel +gusts burst upon us with a bitter petulance, unsparing, pitiless, +hateful, till our vitality seems to be steadily waning? It was in the +month of March that the great plague smote us first:--did it not come +to us on the wings of the wind that swept across the sea the germs of +pestilence, say from Norway, or some neighbour land in which, +peradventure, the Black Death had already spent itself in hideous +havoc? A tempting theory! If I confess that such a view once +presented itself to my own mind I am compelled to acknowledge that I +abandoned it with reluctance. It was hard, but it had to be done. How +we all do hanker after a theory! What! live all your life without a +theory? It's as dreary a prospect as living all your life without a +baby, and yet some few great men have managed to pass through life +placidly without the one or the other, and have not died forgotten or +lived forlorn. + +The plague had apparently fallen with the greatest virulence upon the +coast and along the watercourses, but already in the spring had +reached the neighbourhood of Norwich, and was showing an unsparing +impartiality in its visitation. At Earlham and Wytton and Horsford, +at Taverham and Bramerton, all of them villages within five miles of +the cathedral, the parsons had already died. Round the great city, +then the second city in England, village was being linked to village +closer and closer every day in one ghastly chain of death. What a +ring-fence of horror and contagion for all comers and goers to +overpass! + +For two months Thomas de Methwold, the official, stayed where he had +been bidden to stay, in the thick of it all, at the palace. On the +29th of May he could bear it no longer. Do you ask was he afraid? Not +so! We shall see that he was no craven; but the bravest men are not +reckless, and least of all are they the men who are careless about +the lives or the feelings of others. The great cemetery of the city +of Norwich was at this time actually within the cathedral Close. The +whole of the large space enclosed between the nave of the cathedral +on the south and the bishop's palace on the east, and stretching as +far as the Erpingham gate on the west, was one huge graveyard. When +the country parsons came to present themselves for institution at the +palace, they had to pass straight across this cemetery. The tiny +churchyards of the city, demonstrably very little if at all larger +than they are now, were soon choked, the soil rising higher and +higher above the level of the street, which even to this day is in +some cases five or six feet below the soppy sod piled up within the +old enclosures. To the great cemetery within the Close the people +brought their dead, the tumbrels discharging their load of corpses +all day long, tilting them into the huge pits made ready to receive +them; the stench of putrefaction palpitating through the air, and +borne by the gusts of the western breeze through the windows of the +palace, where the Bishop's official sat, as the candidates knelt +before him and received institution with the usual formalities. It +was hard upon him, it was doubly so upon those who had travelled a +long day's journey through the pestilential villages; and on the 30th +of May the official removed from Norwich to Terlyng, in Essex, where +the Bishop had a residence; there he remained for the next ten days, +during which time he instituted thirty-nine more parsons to their +several benefices. By this time other towns in the diocese had felt +the force of the visitation. Ipswich had been smitten, and +Stowmarket, and East Dereham--how many more we cannot tell. Then the +news came that the Bishop had returned; Thomas de Methwold was at +once ordered back to Norwich--come what might, that was his post; +there he should stay, whether to live or die. + +The Bishop seems to have landed at Yarmouth about the both of June; +he did not at once push on to report himself to the King; urgent +private affairs detained him in his native county. Seventeen or +eighteen miles to the south-west of Yarmouth lies the village of +Gillingham, where the Bishop's brother, Sir Bartholomew Bateman, a +man of great wealth and consideration, had been the lord of the +manor. The parish contains about 2,000 acres, and at this time had at +least three churches, only one of which now remains. Besides these +Sir Bartholomew had a private chapel in his house. Here he kept up +much state, as befitted a personage who had more than once +represented Norfolk and Suffolk in Parliament. The plague came, and +the worthy knight was struck down; the parson too fell a victim; and +the Lady Petronilla, Sir Bartholomew's widow, presented to the living +a certain Hugh Atte Mill, who was instituted on the 7th of June. The +first news that the Bishop heard when he landed was that his brother +was dead. He started off at once to Gillingham. Death had been busy +all around, and the plague had broken out in the Benedictine Nunnery +of Bungay and carried off the prioress among others. Straightway the +few nuns that were left chose another prioress; on the morning of the +13th she came for institution, and received it at the Bishop's hands. +Hurrying on to Norwich, the Bishop stayed but a single day, leaving +his official at the palace. He himself had to present himself before +the King to give account of his mission; on the 19th he was in +London; on the 4th of July he was back again in his diocese. During +the twenty days that had passed since he had left Gillingham, exactly +_one hundred_ clergymen had been admitted to vacant cures, all +of them crossing the horrible cemetery where the callous gravediggers +were at work night and day, the sultry air charged with suffocating +stench, poisoning the breath of heaven. Yet there the Bishop's vicar- +general had to stay, eat, drink, and sleep--if he could--and there he +did stay till the Bishop came back and relieved him of the dreadful +work. + +Meanwhile the gentry too had been dying. It is clear that in the +upper ranks the men died more frequently than the women, explain it +how you will. During June and July no fewer than fifteen patrons of +livings were widows, while in thirteen other benefices the patronage +was in the hands of the executors or trustees of gentlemen who had +died. During the month of July in scarcely a village within five +miles of Norwich had the parson escaped the mortality, yet in Norwich +the intrepid Bishop remained in the very thick of it all, as if he +would defy the angel of death, or at least show an example of the +loftiest courage. Only towards the end of July did he yield, perhaps, +to the persuasion or entreaty of others, and moved away to the +southern part of his diocese, taking up his residence at Hoxne, in +Suffolk, where he stayed till October, when he once more returned to +his house at Thorpe by Norwich. The palace had become at last +absolutely uninhabitable. + +To Hoxne accordingly the newly-appointed clergy came in troops, and +during the first seven weeks after the Bishop's arrival he admitted +no less than eighty-two parsons, a larger number than had been the +average of a whole year heretofore. Did they all betake themselves to +their several parishes and brave the peril and set themselves to the +grim work before them? They could not help themselves. Where the +benefice was a vicarage an oath to reside upon his cure was in every +case rigorously imposed upon the newly-appointed; and though the law +did not sanction this in the case of rectors, yet not a single +instance of a licence of non-residence occurs; the difficulty of +finding substitutes was becoming daily more and more insuperable, and +the penalty of deserting a parish without licence was a great deal +too serious to be disregarded. In the months of June, July, and +August things were at their worst, as might have been expected. In +July alone there were two hundred and nine institutions. During the +year ending March, 1350, considerably more than two-thirds of the +benefices of the diocese had become vacant. + +In the religious houses the plague wrought, if possible, worse havoc +still. There were seven nunneries in Norfolk and Suffolk. Five of +them lost their prioresses. How many poor nuns were taken who can +guess? In the College of St. Mary-in-the-fields, at Norwich, five of +the seven prebendaries died. In September the abbot of St. Benet's +Hulm was carried off. Again we ask and receive no answer--what must +have been the mortality among the monks and the servants of the +convent? And yet sometimes we do get an answer to that question. In +the house of Augustinian Canons at Heveringland prior and canons died +to a man. At Hickling, which a century before had been a flourishing +house and been doing good work, only one canon survived. Neither of +these houses ever recovered from the effects of the visitation; they +were eventually absorbed in other monastic establishments. + +It is one of the consequences of the peculiar privileges granted to +the Friars that no notice of them occurs in the episcopal records. +They were free lances with whom the bishops had little to do. It is +only by the accident of every one of the Friars of our Lady who had a +house in Norwich having been carried off, and the fact that their +house was left tenantless, that we know anything of their fate. +Wadding, the great annalist of the Franciscans, while deploring the +notorious decadence in the _morale_ of the mendicant orders +during the fourteenth century--a decadence which he does not attempt +to deny--attributes it wholly to the action of the Black Death, and +is glad to find in that calamity a sufficient cause for accounting +for the loss of the old prestige which in little more than a century +after St. Francis's death had set in so decidedly. "It was from this +cause," he writes, "that the monastic bodies, and especially the +mendicant orders, which up to this time had been flourishing in +virtue and learning, began to decline, and discipline to become +slack; as well from the loss of eminent men as from the relaxation of +the rules, in consequence of the pitiable calamities of the time; and +it was vain to look for reform among the young men and the +promiscuous multitude who were received without the necessary +discrimination, for they thought more of filling the empty houses +than of restoring the old strictness that had passed away." How could +it be otherwise? In the two counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, at least +_nineteen_ religious houses were left without prior or abbot. We +may be quite sure that where the chief ruler dropped oft the brethren +of the house and the army of servants and hangers-on did not escape. +What happened at the great Abbey of St. Edmund's we know not yet, and +until we get more light it is idle to conjecture but, as a man stands +in that vast graveyard at Bury, and looks around him, he can hardly +help trying--trying, but failing--to imagine what the place must have +looked like when the plague was raging. What a Valley of Hinnom it +must have been! Those three mighty churches, all within a stone's +throw of one another, and one of them just one hundred feet longer +than the cathedral at Norwich, sumptuous with costly offerings, and +miracles of splendour within--and outside ghastly heaps of +corruption, and piles of corpses waiting their turn to be covered up +with an inch or two of earth. Who can adequately realize the horrors +of that awful summer? In the desolate swamps through which the +sluggish Bure crawls reluctantly to mingle its waters with the Yare; +by the banks of the Waveney where the little Bungay nunnery had been +a refuge for the widow, the forsaken, or the devout for centuries; in +the valley of the Nar--the Norfolk Holy Land--where seven monasteries +of one sort or another clustered, each distant from the other but a +few short miles--among the ooze and sedge and chill loneliness of the +Broads, where the tall reeds wave and whisper, and all else is +silent--the glorious buildings with their sumptuous churches were +little better than centres of contagion. From the stricken towns +people fled to the monasteries, lying away there in their seclusion, +safely, favoured of God. If there was hope anywhere it must be there. +As frightened widows and orphans flocked to these havens of refuge, +they carried the Black Death with them, and when they dropped death- +stricken at the doors, they left the contagion behind them as their +only legacy. Guilty wretches with a load of crime upon their +consciences--desperate as far as this world was concerned, and ready +for any act of wickedness should the occasion arrive--shuddered lest +they should go down to burning flame for ever now that there was none +to shrive them or to give the _viaticum_ to any late penitent in +his agony. In the tall towers by the wayside the bells hung mute; no +hands to ring them or none to answer to their call Meanwhile, across +the lonely fields, toiling dismally, and ofttimes missing the track-- +for who should guide them or show the path?--parson and monk and +trembling nun made the best of their way to Norwich; their errand to +seek admission to the vacant preferment. Think of them, after miles +of dreary travelling, reaching the city gates at last, and +shudderingly threading the filthy alleys which then served as +streets, stepping back into doorways to give the dead carts passage, +and jostled by lepers and outcasts, the touch of whose garments was +itself a horror. Think of them staggering across the great cemetery +and stumbling over the rotting carcases not yet committed to the +earth, breathing all the while the tainted breath of corruption- +sickening, loathsome! Think of them returning as they came, going +over the same ground as before, and compelled to gaze again at + + Sights that haunt the soul for ever, + Poisoning life till life is done. + +Think of them foot-sore, half-famished, hardly daring to buy bread +and meat for their hunger, or to beg a cup of cold water for Christ's +sake, or entreat shelter for the night in their faintness and +weariness, lest men should cry out at them--"Look! the Black Death +has clutched another of the doomed!" + + * * * * * * * + +I have said that upwards of 800 of the beneficed clergy perished in +East Anglia during this memorable year. Besides these we must make +allowance for the non-beneficed among the regulars; the +_chaplains,_ who were in the position of curates among ourselves; +the vicars of parishes whose endowments were insufficient to +maintain a resident parson under ordinary circumstances, and the +members of the monastic and mendicant orders. Putting all these +together, it seems to me that we cannot estimate the number of deaths +among regular and secular clergy in East Anglia during the year 1349 +at less than _two_ _thousand._ [Footnote: In the diocese of +Ely, where the mortality was less severe than in Norfolk and Suffolk, +57 parsons died in the three months ending the 1st of October, 1349. +When an ordination was held by the Bishop of Ely's suffragan at the +priory of Barnwell on the 19th of September, the newly-ordained were +fewer by 35 than those who had died at their posts since the last +ordination.] This may appear an enormous number at first hearing, but +it is no incredible number. Unfortunately the earliest record of any +ordinations in the diocese of Norwich dates nearly seventy years +after the plague year, but there is every reason for believing that +there were at least _as many,_ and probably many more, candidates +at ordinations in the fourteenth century as presented themselves +in the fifteenth. During the year ending January, 1415, Bishop +Courtenay's suffragan ordained 382 persons, and assuming that +in Bishop Bateman's days an equal number were admitted to the +clerical profession, the losses by death in the plague year would +have absorbed all the clergy who had been ordained during the six +previous years, but no more. Even so this constituted a tremendous +strain upon the reserve force of clergy unbeneficed and more or less +unemployed, and it was inevitable that with such a strain, there +would be a deterioration in the character and fitness of the newly- +appointed incumbents. Yet nothing has surprised me more than the +exceeding rareness of evidence damaging to the reputation of the new +men. That these men were less educated than their predecessors we +know; but that they were mere worthless hypocrites there is nothing +to show, and much to disprove. Nay! the strong impression which has +been left upon my mind, and which gathers strength as I study the +subject, is that the parochial clergy of the fourteenth century, +before _and after_ the plague, were decidedly a better set than +the clergy of the thirteenth. The friars had done some of their best +work in "provoking to jealousy" the country clergy and stimulating +them to increased faithfulness; they had, in fact, made them more +_respectable_; just as the Wesleyan revival acted upon the +country parsons and others four centuries later. Until the episcopal +_visitations_ of the monasteries during the fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries are made public--they exist in far larger numbers +than is usually supposed--it will be impossible to estimate the +effect of the plague upon the religious houses; but I am inclined to +think that the monasteries suffered very greatly indeed from the +terrible visitation, and that the violent disturbance of the old +traditions and the utter breakdown in the old observances acted as +disastrously upon these institutions as the first stroke of paralysis +does upon men who have passed their prime--they never were again what +they had been. + +It must be remembered that in the great majority of the smaller +monasteries, and indeed in any religious house where there were +chaplains to do the routine work in the church, there was nothing to +prevent an absolutely illiterate man or woman from becoming monk or +nun. It was, however, impossible for a man to discharge the duties of +his calling as a parish priest without some education and without at +least a knowledge of Latin. I will not stop to argue that point; they +who dispute the assumption have much to learn. Moreover it is only +what we should expect, that while some were hardened and brutalized +by the scenes through which they had passed, some were softened and +humbled. The prodigious activity in church building--church +_restoration_ is perhaps the truer term-during the latter part +of the fourteenth century in East Anglia is one of many indications +that the religious life of the people at large had received a mighty +stimulus. Here, again, the evidence near at hand requires to be +carefully looked into. In historical no less than in physical +researches, the microscope requires to be used. As yet it has +scarcely been used at all. History is in the empirical stage. +Meanwhile, such hints as that of Knighton's are significant when he +tells us that, as the parsons died, a vast multitude of laymen whose +wives had perished in the pestilence presented themselves for holy +orders. _Many,_ he says--not all--were illiterate, save that +they knew how to read their missals and go through the services +though unintelligently, they hardly understood what they read. Were +they, therefore, the worst of the new parsons? Men bowed down by a +great sorrow, bewildered by a bereavement for which there is none but +a make-shift remedy, men whose "life is read all backwards and the +charm of life undone," are not they whose sorrow usually makes them +void of sympathy for the distressed. Nay! their own sadness makes +them responsive to the cry of the needy, the lonely, and the fallen. +Experience proves to us every day that among such men you may find, +not the worst parish priests, but the best. + + * * * * * * * + +I wonder whether John Bonington, steward of the manor of Waltham, was +one of those whom Knighton alludes to. + +Sometime during the year 1343 there had been a disastrous fire in the +house of one Roger Andrew; the dwelling, with all that it contained, +was burnt to the ground. Poor Roger lost all his household stuff and +furniture and much else besides; worse than all, he lost all his +title deeds, the evidences and charters whereby he held his little +estate. As for Roger himself, he either perished in the flames or his +heart broke and he died very shortly afterwards. He left a son behind +him, young Richard Andrew, who must have found himself in sorry +plight when he came to take up his patrimony and enter upon his +inheritance. Those were not the days when the weak man and the beaten +man excited much pity in England. No! they were _not,_ whatever +sentimental people may say who maunder about the ages of faith and +refresh themselves with other such lackadaisical phrases. So, poor +Richard being down in his luck, John Bonington, acting for Henry, +Earl of Lancaster, [Footnote: His son and heir, Henry, Earl of Derby, +was created _Duke_ of Lancaster in 1351.] the lord of the manor, +put the screw on, and boldly claimed a heriot from the young man as +the right of the lord. Richard disputed the right, and protested that +his land was not _heriotable._ Bonington pleaded his _might_ +in a very effectual way, and took his heriot--to wit, the best horse which +Richard had in his stable, the best and probably the only one. +Then Richard appealed to the homage. The homagers were +afraid to give a verdict against the steward, and timidly objected +that all Richard's evidences had been burnt in the fire. Bonington +trotted off triumphant, leaving Richard to his bitter wrath. Six +years went by, and the plague came. It fell upon the district round +with terrific fury, and the people died in that dreadful April, 1349, +as the locusts die when the hurricane drives them seaward, and they +rot in piles upon the shore. The Roll of the Manor Court is a +horrible record of the suddenness and the force with which the Black +Death smote the wretched Essex people. When the steward's day's work +was done, and the long, long list of the dead had been written down, +he added a note wherein he gives us the facts which have come down to +us; and then he adds that, inasmuch as he, John Bonington, had come +to see that the aforesaid horse had been unrighteously taken from +Richard Andrew six years before, and that the conviction of his own +iniquity had been brought home to his contrite heart, _as well by +the dreadful mortality and horrible pestilence at that time raging as +by the stirring of religious emotion within his soul,_ therefore +the full value of the horse was to be restored to the injured +Richard, and never again was heriot to be levied on his land. After +six years' hard riding and scant feeding, peradventure Richard Andrew +would rather have had the hard cash than the poor brute, which by +this time, probably, had died and gone to the dogs! A shudder of +penitence and remorse had thrilled through John Bonington when the +plague was stalking grimly up and down the land; and this is what we +learn about him--this and no more. + +Had John Bonington lost _his_ wife; and was he meditating a life +of usefulness and penitence and prayer? + + Infert se sæptus nebula (mirabile dictu) + Per medics miscetque viris, neque cernitur ulli, + +A shadowy form looming out from the mists that have gathered over the +ages past, we see him for a moment, and he is gone. + +Fill up the gaps and tell all the tale, poet with the dreamy eyes, +eyes that can pierce the gloom--poet with the mobile lips, lips that +can speak with rhythmic utterance the revelations of the future or +the past. + +All the lonely ones, and all the childless ones, did not turn parsons +we may be sure; yet it is good for us to believe that John +Bonington's was not a solitary instance of a man coming out of the +furnace of affliction softened, not hardened; purified, not merely +blistered, by the fire. + +Was Thomas Porter at Little Cornard somewhat past his prime when the +plague came? It spared him and his old wife, it seems; but for his +sons and daughters, the hope of his eld and the pride of his manhood, +where were they? He and the good wife, cowering over the turf fire, +did they dare to talk with quivering lips and clouded eyes about the +days when the little ones had clambered up to the strong father's +knee, or tiny arms were held out to the rough yeoman as he reached +his home? "Oh! the desolation and the loneliness. No fault of thine +dear wife--nor mine. It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him +good!" + +Thomas Porter had a neighbour, one John Stone, a man of small +substance: he owned a couple of acres under the lord; poor land it +was, hardly paying for the tillage, and I suppose the cottage upon it +was his own, so far as any man's copyhold dwelling was his own in +those days. The Black Death came to that cottage among the rest, and +John Stone and wife and children, all were swept away. Nay! not all: +little Margery Stone was spared; but she had not a kinsman upon +earth. Poor little maid, she was barely nine years old and absolutely +alone! Who cared? Thomas Porter and his weeping wife cared, and they +took little Margery to their home, and they comforted themselves for +all that they had lost, and the little maid became unto them as a +daughter. Henceforth life was less dreary for the old couple. But +five years passed, and Margery had grown up to be a sturdy damsel and +very near the marriageable age. + +Oh, ho! friend Porter, what is it we have heard men tell? That when +the Black Death came upon us, your house was left unto you desolate +and there remained neither chick nor child. Who is this? Then some +one told the steward, or told the lord, and thereupon ensued inquiry. +What right had Thomas Porter to adopt the child? She belonged to the +lord, and he had the right of guardianship. Aye! and the right of +disposing of her in marriage too. Thomas Porter, with a heavy heart, +was summoned before the homage. He pleaded that the marriage of the +girl did not belong to the lord by right, and that on some ground or +other, which is not set down, she was not his property at all. That +might have been very true or it might not, but one thing was certain, +Thomas Porter had no right to her, and so the invariable result +followed--he had to pay a fine. What else ensued we shall never know. + +The glimpses we get of the ways and doings of the old stewards of +manors are not pleasing; I am afraid that as a class they were hard +as nails. Perhaps they could not help themselves, but they certainly +very rarely erred on the side of mercy and forbearance. Is not that +phrase "making allowances for," a comparatively modern phrase? At any +rate the _thing_ is not often to be met with in the fourteenth +century. Yet in the plague year every now and then one is pleased to +find instances actually of consideration for the distress and penury +of the homagers at this place and that. Thus at Lessingham, when the +worst was over and a court was held on the 15th of January, 1350, the +steward writes down that only thirty shillings was to be levied from +the customary tenants by way of tallage, "Because the greater part of +those tenants who were wont to render tallage had died in the +previous year by reason of the deadly pestilence." + +Here and there, too, we come upon heriots remitted because the heir +was so very poor, and here and there fines and fees are cancelled +_causa miseriæ propter pestilentiam._ Surely it is better to +assume that this kind of thing was done, as our friend Bonington puts +it, _mero motu pietatis suæ_ than because there was no money to +be had. Better give a man the benefit of the doubt, even though he +has been dead five hundred years, than kick him because he will never +tell any more tales. + +If it happened sometimes that the plague brought out the good in a +man, sometimes changed his life from one of covetous indifference or +grasping selfishness into a life of earnestness and devout +philanthropy, it happened at other times--and I fear it must be +confessed more frequently--that coarse natures, hard and cruel ones, +were made more brutal and callous by the demoralizing influences of +that frightful summer. + +I am sure it will be very gratifying to some enlightened and +chivalrous people to learn that I have at least one bad story against +a parson. + +Here it is! + +The rolls of the manor of Waltham show that the plague lingered about +there till late in the spring of 1350. As elsewhere, there must needs +have been much change in the benefices of the neighbourhood. Of +course some of the new parsons were scamps, the laity who survived +being, equally of course, models of all that was lovely and +estimable. One of these clerical impostors had got a cure somewhere +in the neighbourhood--where is not stated, but, inasmuch as his +clerical income had not come up to his expectations or his +necessities, or his own estimate of his deserts, he found it +necessary to supplement that income by somewhat unprofessional +conduct. In fact, the Rev. William--that was his name--seems actually +to have thrown up his clerical avocations and by his flagrant +irregularities had got to himself the notorious sobriquet of William +the One-day priest. I should not be surprised to find out that this +worthy was captain of a band of robbers who infested Epping Forest. +In the end of January, 1351. Matilda, wife of John Clement de +Godychester, was quietly riding homewards when, as she passed by the +sheepfold of Plesset, out came the Rev. William and bade the lady +stand and deliver. Her attendants, it is to be presumed, took to +their heels, and the lady, being unable to help herself, delivered up +her purse--the account says the Rev. William cut it off--and moreover +surrendered a ring of some value, after which she continued her +journey. She raised the hue and cry to some purpose, and the clerical +king of the road was taken and... there is no more. No! It is a story +without an end. + +But there were then, as there are now, other ways of preying upon our +fellow-creatures and levying blackmail from them, without going to +the length of highway robbery--cold work, and a little risky at +times. + +Henry Anneys, at Lessingham, could work upon the fears of Alice +Bakeman and extort a douceur from her without resorting to violence. +Mrs. Bakeman had succeeded to the property of some dead kinsman, and +Mr. Anneys heard of it. He called on the lady and informed her that +for a consideration he would save her from paying any heriot to the +lord; he had certain information which he could use either way. +Finally, it was agreed that Alice should give the rogue a cow as +hush-money, and with the cow Mr. Anneys departed. His triumph was +brief. When the time for holding the next court arrived, others came +round the poor woman, and made it quite evident that the lands she +had succeeded to were not heriotable at all, and that Henry Anneys +was a swindler. So the case was brought before the homage as usual, +the cow was ordered to be returned, and a substantial fine imposed +upon Anneys. + +Almost the first thing that strikes a novice who looks into the +village history of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is the +astounding frequency of bloody quarrels among the rustics. In the +records of the Courts Leet for Norfolk it is very seldom indeed, that +you can find a court held at which one or more persons, male and +female, are not amerced for "drawing blood" from somebody. Whether it +was by punching their opponents on the nose, or whether they used +their knives, I hesitate to decide; but I suspect, from the frequent +mention of knives and daggers, that sticking one's enemy with cold +steel was not so very un-English a practice as popular prejudice is +wont to assume it to be. One thing is very certain, and that is--that +all over East Anglia, five hundred years ago, there was such an +amount of bloodletting in village frays as would hardly have +disgraced the University of Heidelberg. In Norfolk these sanguinary +fights must have been a passion; but one would have thought that, +while the plague was raging and after it had begun to subside, then, +if ever, men and women would have become less savage and ferocious. +So far from it, such records of the years 1349 and 1350 as I have +examined are fuller than ever of fights and quarrels At Lessingham, +about Christmas time, 1349, there was a free fight of a most +sanguinary character, men and women joining in it freely. It seems to +have arisen from some one finding a horse wandering about the +deserted fields. As a stray it belonged to the lord--the finder took +a different view, somebody cried "Halves!" and somebody else said, +"Til give information," and somebody else replied, "So will I," +whereupon arose a bloody battle as has been told. About the same time +at Hunstanton, Catherine Busgey, evil-disposed old hag that she was, +had stript a dead man of his leather jerkin. Did she proceed to wear +the manly attire that she might be dagger-proof for the next +encounter? Rash woman! The dead man's friends recognized the well- +known coat, it was forfeited and delivered over to the lord. + +It might well be supposed that, while the whole executive machinery +of the country was being subject to a tremendous strain, there would +be in some districts a condition of affairs which differed very +little from downright anarchy. Yet here, again, the existing records +are surprisingly free from any evidence tending to support such an +assumption, England was not governed by the Home Secretary in those +days. Every parish was a living political unit with its own police +and its own local government. However desirable it may appear to some +to bring back such a state of things, the question nevertheless +remains how far it is ever possible to revivify an organization which +has long since died a natural death. That, in the fourteenth century, +the country districts governed themselves there can be no doubt at +all; with what results, as far as the greatest happiness of the +greatest number is concerned, this is not the time or the place to +inquire or to decide. Yet I cannot withhold my conviction that, if +any such gigantic calamity were to fall upon our people now as fell +upon them when the Black Death swept over the face of the land five +centuries ago--a calamity so sweeping, so overwhelming--its +consequences upon the whole social fabric would be incomparably more +disastrous than it was in times when centralization was almost +unknown and practically impossible. Be it as it may, since the days +when the Roman Senate passed a vote of confidence in a beaten general +because he had not despaired of the republic, I know nothing in +history that impresses a student more profoundly with a sense of the +magnificent self-possession, self-control, and self-respect of a +suffering nation, under circumstances of unexampled agony and horror, +than the simple prosaic annals which remain to us of the great plague +year in England. + +In only one district in Norfolk have I found evidence of any +widespread lawlessness. Even there one hears of it only to hear of +vigorous grappling with the ruffians, who were not allowed to have it +all their own way. + +The hundred of Depwade, lying to the south of Norwich, contains +twenty-three parishes; and at the time we are concerned with had very +few resident gentry of any consideration. Then, as now, the country +parsons were the most important people in the district, and the +benefices were above the average in value. In the summer and autumn, +at least fifteen of these clergymen fell victims to the plague; among +them the rector of Bunwell and the vicar of Tibenham, adjoining +parishes. The vicarage was a poor one; it was worth no one's holding; +the rectory had been held by William Banyard, a near relative of Sir +Robert Banyard, lord of the manor; the plague carried him off in +July, and his successor was instituted on the 25th of the month, but +does not seem to have come into residence immediately. There had been +a clean sweep of the old incumbents from all the parishes for miles +round; the poor people, left to themselves, became demoralized; there +seems to have been a general scramble, and for a while no redress +anywhere. It is recorded that the cattle roamed at will over the +standing corn with none to tend them, and that there had been none to +make the lord's hay; that among others who had died there were five +substantial men among the homagers on whose lands heriots of more or +less value were due; but no heriot was recoverable, inasmuch as since +the last court certain persons unknown had plundered all that could +be carried off--cattle and sheep and horses and goods, and there was +nothing to distrain upon but the bare lands and the bare walls. + +It may be presumed that where a scoundrel escaped the contagion +altogether, while others were dying all round him, or where another +recovered after being brought to death's door, in such cases the man +would, as a rule, be a person of exceptional strength and vigorous +constitution. Such fellows, when the evil spirit was upon them, would +be ugly customers to deal with. Gilbert Henry, of Tibenham, was a +somewhat audacious thief when he walked into John Smith's house, +where there was none alive to bar the door, and carried off certain +bushels of malt and barley, with other goods not specified; and, not +content therewith, stripped the dead man of his coat and waistcoat. +The value of these articles of apparel was not assessed very highly-- +only sixpence each--and Master Gilbert, after paying the price of the +garments, seems to have gone away with them. It is hardly to be +wondered at that neither steward nor lord greatly coveted that coat +and waistcoat. At the same court, too, William Hessland was amerced +for appropriating the few trumpery chattels of Walter Cokstone, a +_villein_ belonging to the lord. Another wretched pair--a man +and his wife--had deliberately cleared a crop of oats off an acre and +a half of land, and stacked it in their own barn. Their view was that +it belonged to no one; the steward took a different view, and +reminded them that what grew on no man's land was the property of +some one other than the smart man who ventured to lift it. + +It was at Bunwell, too, that William Sigge was by way of becoming a +terror to his neighbours. It was laid to his charge, generally, that +he had from time to time during the pestilence carried off and +appropriated various articles of property _(diversa catalla)_ +too numerous to specify. They must have been a very miscellaneous +lot, for they included several hurdles and the lead stripped off a +dead man's roof, not to mention such trifles as garments and pots and +pans. Sigge was a very successful plunderer, and, his success rather +turned his head. When the autumn of 1350 came, he refused to do his +autumn service, protested that there was none to do, and was fined +accordingly; not only so, but he was found to have stubbed up a hedge +which had been the boundary of the land of Robert Attebrigge, who had +died with no one to represent him. The women were as bad as the men; +they had their rights in those days. One of these beldames was caught +walking away with a couple of handmills from a plague-struck +dwelling, and another had looted a tenement where John Rucock's +corpse lay; she too had stripped the dead! + +It is not a little curious to notice how that love of going to law +which old Fuller two hundred years ago remarked upon as a +characteristic of Norfolk men comes out again when the confusion had +begun to subside. The plague is no sooner at an end than the local +courts are resorted to for the hearing of every kind of odd question +which the complications arising from the abnormal mortality had +occasioned. + +When Edward Burt died at Lessingham, he left his widow Egidia all he +had; but he owed Margery Brown the sum of thirty shillings. Egidia at +once provided herself with a second husband, and surrendered herself +and her belongings to Edward Bunting. Mrs. Brown applied for her +little bill. Egidia, now no longer a widow, but lawful wife of Mr. +Bunting, repudiated the debt; she was widow no longer, she had become +the property of another man; the debt, she pleaded, was buried in her +first husband's grave. That little quibble was soon overruled. But +there were often cases which were by no means so easily disposed of. +Robert Bokenham was lord of the manor of Tibenham, and Robert Tate +was one of his tenants. Tate died; then Bokenham died. Bokenham's son +was only nine years old, and no guardian had been appointed when +Tate's son died. Then followed a dispute as to who was guardian of +young Bokenham, and of whom Tate's land was held, and who was the +true heir. A pleasant little brief there for a rising barrister to +hold. + +A complication of much the same kind arose at Croxton. William +Galion, a man of some consideration, died in July, leaving his wife +Beatrix with two sons; but he died intestate..Beatrix had just time +to pay a heavy fine to the lord for the privilege of being her eldest +son's guardian when the plague took her. Before she died she left the +guardianship of her first-born son John to her husband's brother +Adam; a few days afterwards the boy John died, and his brother Robert +alone remained; the guardianship of the boy John is of course at an +end, and uncle Adam applies for the guardianship of the surviving +nephew; but by this time he is unable to find the money; whereupon +the child's estate is taken into the hands of the lord till such time +as the uncle can pay the fees demanded. + +Walter Wyninge had a wise woman for his wife, and her name was +Matilda. The Black Death left her & widow, but she speedily married +without any license from the lord to William Oberward. The second +husband had a very brief enjoyment of his married life; in a few days +he too died, and Matilda married a third husband, one Peter the +carpenter. At this point Matilda's turn came and she died. All this +had happened in the interval of two months since the last manor court +was held. The steward of the manor claimed a heriot from Wyninge's +land and another from Oberward's. But the astute Peter was equal to +the occasion: he pleaded that, according to the custom of the manor, +no heriot could be levied from a widow till she had survived her +husband a year and a day, and he demanded that the court rolls should +be searched to confirm or correct his assertion. I suspect he knew +his business, and no heriot came to that grasping steward. Who pities +him? + +Ladies and gentlemen of the romantic order of mind will be shocked at +the indelicacy of Mistress Matilda--she of the many names. I suspect +that they would be shocked by a great many things in the domestic +life of England five centuries ago. Marrying for love has a sweet +sound about it, but the thing did not exist in the old days. When did +it exist? History is very hard upon romance; History, disdaining +courtesy, lifts one veil after another, opens closed doors, reveals +long-buried secrets, turns her bull's-eye upon the dark corners, and +breaks the old seals. She is very cynical, and will by no means side +with this appellant or with that. Beautiful theories crumble into +dust when they stand before her judgment-seat, and old dreams, +offspring of brains that were wrestling with slumber in the darkness, +pass away as the dawn comes, bringing with it, too often, such +revelations as are not altogether lovely to dwell on. In the +fourteenth century an unmarried woman was a chattel, and belonged to +somebody who had the right to sell her or to give her away. That is +the naked truth. You may make a man an offender for a word if you +will, and object that "sell" is an incorrect term; but the fact +remains, however much some may-- + + leave the sense their learning to display, + And some explain the meaning quite away. + +Hence, when a wretched woman was mourning alone over the husband who +had just been hustled into his grave, the men were after her like +wolves, every one of her neighbours knowing exactly what she was +worth even to the fraction of a rood of land, or the last lamb that +had been dropped, or the litter of pigs that were rootling up the +beech-nuts in the woods. They gave her short time to make up her +mind. Sentiment? We in the East--the land of the wise men since time +was young--we know nothing of sentiment. We can hate with a sullen +tenacity of resentment which knows no forgiveness; but love--nay we +leave that for the "intense" of other climes. And women in the good +old times--positively women--love one man more than another? What +_they?_ + + "Whose love knows no distinction but of gender, + And ridicules the very name of choice!" + +Why, where were you born? + +The records of the marriages on the court rolls of the plague year +are hardly more startling than the deaths. Whether men and women paid +less to the lord for a license than they were compelled to pay if +they married without license I cannot tell; but that hundreds of +widows must have married only a few weeks or a few days after their +husbands' deaths is clear. Matilda's case was not a rare one. Alice +Foghal, at Lessingham, was another of those ladies who in a couple of +months had been the property successively of three husbands--the last +was actually a stranger. Where he came from is not stated, but he +sate himself down by the widow's hearth, claimed it as his own, and +paid a double fee for his successful gallantry. How he managed the +matter remains unexplained, but young brides were plentiful in the +parish just about that time; and at the same court where Alice's +matrimonial alliances were compounded for, no less than fifteen other +young women paid their fees for marrying without license from the +lord. I have only noticed one instance of anything like remission of +_marriage fees_, though I hope it was less uncommon than appears +on the rolls. The lady in this case was a butcher's widow, and it was +too much to expect that she could wait till the next court, wherefore +the steward graciously knocked off seventy-five per cent. of his due; +and, in lieu of two shillings, charged her only sixpence--_ratione +temporis et in misericordia_, as he sententiously observes. +Magnanimous steward! + +I have met with no evidence leading to the belief that anywhere in +the country villages there was anything approaching to a panic. Only +a novice would be led astray by what he might read occurred at +Coltishall. Five brothers named Gritlof and two other brothers named +Primrose, being _nativi_, i.e., _villeins born_, and so the +property of the lord, had decamped whither none could tell; the court +solemnly adjudicated upon the case, and decreed that the seven +runaways should be attached _per corpora_, whatever that may +mean. But Coltishall is barely five miles from Norwich, and from the +villages round the great city the _villeins_ were always running +away in the hopes of getting their freedom if they could keep in +hiding within the city walls for a year and a day. Oh, ye seven, had +the yellow primrose less charm for you, and the barley loaves that +were sure for you in breezy Coltishall--gritty though they might be-- +less charm than the garbage that might be picked up in Norwich, in +its noisome alleys reeking with corruption, and all that flesh and +blood revolts from? Ah! but to be free--to be free! How that thought +made their poor hearts throb! + +That there was panic--mad, unreasoning, insensate panic--elsewhere +than in the country villages there is abundant evidence to prove, but +it was among the well-to-do classes--the traders and the moneyed men, +_bourgeoisie_ of the towns--that a stampede prevailed. Any one +who chooses may satisfy himself of this by looking into Rymer's +_Faedera,_ to go no further. + + * * * * * * * + +Enough has been told in the foregoing pages to illustrate the +overwhelming violence with which the Great Plague ran its career in +East Anglia. Only a small part of the evidence still ready to our +hands has been examined; but if no more were scrutinized, the +impression left upon us of the severity of the visitation would be +quite sufficiently appalling. It is, however, when an attempt to +estimate the immediate effects and the remoter consequencs that +followed that our difficulties begin. + +Before a man is qualified to dogmatize upon those effects, he must +have gone some way towards making himself familiar with the social +and economic conditions of the country during at least the century +before the plague. Unfortunately the history of economics in England +has never been attempted by any one at all duly qualified for dealing +with so complex and difficult a subject, and the crudest theories +have been substituted for sound conclusions, then only to be accepted +when based upon the solid ground of ascertained fact. In the +childhood of every science dogmatism precedes induction, and in the +absence of clear knowledge, foolish and wild-eyed visionaries have +posed as discoverers again and again. Yet bluster and audacity have +their use, if only to stimulate the timid and the dilatory to quicken +their pace and move forwards. For my part, however, if it be +necessary to choose between the two, I should prefer to err with the +slow and cautious rather than with the rash and over-bold; the former +may for a while serve as a drag upon the chariot wheels of progress, +the latter are sure to thrust us out of the road and land us at last +in some quagmire whence it will be very hard to get back into the +right track. + +The great teacher who, with his transcendent genius, has done more to +create a school of English history than all who have gone before him, +who, in fact, has made English history, not what it is, but what it +will be, when his influence shall have permeated our literature, has +spoken on this subject of the Black Death with his usual profound +suggestiveness. The Bishop of Chester looks with grave distrust upon +any theory which ascribes to the Great Plague as a cause "nearly all +the social changes which take place in England down to the +Reformation: the depopulation of towns, the relaxation of the bonds +of moral and social law, the solution of the continuity of national +development caused by a sort of disintegration in society generally." +[Footnote: "Constitutional History," vol. ii. chap. xvi. p. 399, +Section 259, edit. 1875.] And yet this appalling visitation must have +constituted a very important factor in the working out of those +social and political problems with which the life of every great +nation is concerned. Such problems, however, are not simple ones; +rather they are infinitely complex; and he who would set himself to +analyse the processes by which the ultimate results are arrived at +will blunder hopelessly if he takes account of only a single unknown +quantity. + +I. It is obvious that the sudden exhaustion of the large reserve +force of clergy must have made itself felt at once in every parish in +England. In the diocese of Norwich a considerable number of the +parsons who died belonged to the gentry class. Then, as now, there +were family livings to which younger sons might hope to be presented, +and were presented, as vacancies occurred; but, in the face of the +sudden and widely extended mortality, it was inevitable that +appointments should be made with very little reference to a man's +social grade or intellectual proficiency. Patrons had to take whom +they could get. This of itself would tend to a deterioration in the +character of the clergy; but this was not all. The clergy died; but +other holders of offices, civil and ecclesiastical, were not spared. +There was a sudden opening out of careers in every direction for the +ambitious and the unemployed: young men who ten years before would +never have dreamt of anything but "resorting to holy orders," turned +their eyes to other walks and adopted other views; and it is plain +that a large number of those who presented themselves for admission +to the clerical profession as we now understand it, in many instances +belonged to a lower class than their predecessors. Some were devout +and earnest, such country parsons as Chaucer described--he does not +turn aside to caricature _them_--but others were mere adventurers, +hirelings whose heart was not in their work. These clerical scamps +gave Archbishop Simon Islip a great deal of trouble. The smaller +livings were forsaken, the curate market rose, the chaplains would +neither take the country vicarages nor engage themselves as +regular helpers to the parish priests. London swarmed with +itinerants who preferred picking up a livelihood by occasional +duty, when they could make their own terms, to binding themselves to +a cure of souls. [Footnote: Compare Chaucer's words--"He sette not +his benefice to hire, And lette his sheep accombred in the mire, +_And ran unto London, into Seint Paules To seken him a chanterie +for Soules_"---with Wilkins' "Concilia," vol. iii. I.] The primate +denounced these greedy ones again and again, but it was all in vain; +the bishops found it impossible to draw the reins of discipline as +tightly as they wished, and found it equally impossible to prevent +the extortionate demands of such curates as could be got. The evil +grew to such a height that the faithful Commons took the matter up +and petitioned the King to interfere, inasmuch as "les chappeleins +sont devenuz si chers" that they actually demanded ten or even twelve +marks a year as their stipend--"a grant grevance & oppression du +poeple." The usual methods were resorted to, and if people could be +made good by Act of Parliament the evils complained of would have +disappeared. They did not disappear, and the evil grew. Unhappily the +increased stipends did not serve to produce a better article, and it +is only too plain that the religious convictions and the religious +life of the people suffered seriously. Ten years after the Black +Death the Archbishop expresses his deep sorrow at the neglect of +Sunday, the desertion of the churches and the decline in religious +observances. Yet we must be cautious how we attribute this break-up +in the old habits of the people to the plague exclusively, or even +mainly. Some of the evils complained of had already begun to be felt +before the plague came, and may fairly be attributed, not to the +falling short of the numbers of the clergy, but exactly the reverse. + +Already a strong reaction had set in against the friars, their +influence and their teaching had begun to be regarded as menacing to +the stability of existing creeds and existing institutions. Langland +hated them. Chaucer held them up to scorn. Wickliffe denounced them +with a righteous wrath. Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop of Armagh, carried on +open war against them. All these leaders of the chosen bands that +fight the battles of God had arrived at man's estate when the Black +Death came, and all survived it. They certainly were not the product +of the great visitation; they were the spokesmen and representatives +of a generation that had begun to look at the world with larger, +other eyes than their fathers. That which was coming would have come +if there had been no plague at all, and so far from its being certain +that that calamity was in any great degree the cause of the upheaval +that ensued, it is at least as probable that the sudden decrease in +the population served to retard the action of forces already working +mightily in the direction of revolution--revolution it might be for +the better, or it might be for the worse. + +2. Whoever else may have been losers or sufferers by the plague, +there was one class which emerged from that dreadful year very much +richer than before. The lords of the manors, the representatives of +what we now call the country gentry, were great gainers. Not only did +the extraordinary amount paid in heriots and fees make up an +aggregate which in itself constituted a very large percentage upon +the capital embarked in agriculture, but the extent of land which +_escheated_ to the lords was very considerable. Moreover, the +manors themselves, or as we should say, the landed property of the +country, came into fewer hands; the gentry became richer and their +estates larger. Knighton draws attention to the fact that in the +towns a large number of houses became ruinous for want of occupants, +but he adds that in the hamlets and villages the same effects +followed, and that everywhere. Here again, the rolls of Parliament +corroborate the assertion and inform us that not only the dwellings +of the homagers but the capital mansions themselves, were deserted +and falling to decay. When, in the next reign, the manor of Hockham +came into the possession of Richard, Earl of Arundel, in right of his +wife, he took the precaution of having a careful survey made of the +condition of the estate as it came into his hands. The manor-house +had not been tenanted for thirty years. It had been a mansion of +considerable pretension and two stories high; on the ground-floor the +doors were all gone; on the upper floor the windows were open to the +air; the chamber "vocata ladyes chambre" was roofless, the offices +were too dilapidated to be worth repair. The enclosing walls and the +moat had been utterly neglected. The offices had formerly been +adapted for a large establishment; there had been extensive farm +buildings, and at least six substantial houses for the bailiff and +other farm servants. Among other buildings there were two +_fishouses_ built of timber and _daubur_, in which apparently +the keeper of the fishponds lived, and some elaborate arrangements +had existed for keeping up the supply of fish in the ponds by methods +of pisciculture to us unknown. The windmill had long ceased to be +used, its very grinding stones had disappeared. Worse than all, +there was no more any gallows or pillory, or even stocks, _pro_ +_libertate servanda_, as the jurors quaintly remark. Yet the records +show that at Hockham things had gone on pretty much as before +since the big house was deserted. The courts were held with +exemplary regularity, the fees had been exacted with unwavering +rigour, the homagers settled their own affairs in their own way; but +there was this difference, that for a generation the tenants had been +living under an absentee landlord, who so far from being the poorer +because the big house had been tumbling down, was the richer, +inasmuch as he had one mansion the less to keep up out of his income. +What happened at Hockham must have happened in hundreds of other +parishes; there must have been large tracts of country during the +latter half of the reign of Edward the Third where a resident +landlord was the exception to that which aforetime had been the rule. + + * * * * * * * + +3. In the present condition of our knowledge, any estimate of the +actual numbers who perished in the plague must be the merest +guesswork. It may be that two millions were carried off; it may be +there were three. It is undeniable that a very large proportion of +the inhabitants of this island died in a few months--employers and +employed. We must, however, remember that England in the fourteenth +century was incomparably more self-supporting than it is in the +nineteenth century; that there were no great centres of industry +then; that the rural population was largely in excess of the urban +population; that we exported the wool which the Flemings manufactured +into cloth; and that if there were fewer hands to till the soil, +there were fewer mouths to feed. No one can doubt that the labour +market must have been seriously disturbed, but it is very easy to +exaggerate this disturbance; and whether it were less or more than +has been asserted, we shall certainly err by attributing the rise in +wages, which undoubtedly took place after the Black Death, to it, and +to it alone--_post hoc ergo propter hoc_ is not a safe conclusion. +Granted, as we must grant, that the plague accelerated the rise in +wages, it is certain the upward movement had already begun before +the population had been seriously lessened. The number of clergy, +to be sure, was largely in excess of the needs of the country; the +clerical profession had become "choked" by the influx of young men +presumably with _some_ private means to fall back upon; among +them there must have been, and there was, serious competition for +every vacant post. When the reserve of supernumeraries became +absorbed, the competition turned the other way, and the surviving +clergy could make their own terms. It was otherwise with the masses, +especially with the peasantry. If there were an insufficient number of +labourers to till the land heretofore in cultivation, the worst land +fell out of cultivation, and no one was much the worse. It was all +very well for some landlords to complain that their rents had fallen off. +Yes! Then--as now, as always--the small proprietors suffered severely, +and needy men are wont to be clamorous. Then--as now, as always-- +the sufferers looked about them for a cause of their distress, and found +it in any event that was nearest at hand. But we know that the style of +living after the plague was incomparably more luxurious and extravagant +than it was before. The country was producing less, it may be; but the +people, man for man, were much richer than before. + +When we find ourselves confronted with the rhetorical stuff which the +literature of preambles and parliamentary petitions in the fourteenth +century flaunts so liberally before our eyes, we must learn to accept +the statements of draughtsmen _cum grano_, and to read between +the lines. The Commons were quite equal to making the most of any +calamity that occurred. When the Parliament, which had not met since +mid Lent, 1348, assembled once more in February, 1350, the plague was +not forgotten. In the petitions presented to the King, the havoc +wrought is dwelt upon and deplored, _not_ with a view to remedy +any of the distress that had ensued, but in the hope that the arrears +of taxation due from the dead might be excused to the survivors who +had succeeded to the others' property. If they complain of the +scarcity and dearness of corn, this is to give point to their protest +against the King's servants taking it for the victualling of his army +and the town of Calais. If, again, they sound a note of alarm at the +outrageous insolence of the labourers who presumed to demand a large +increase of wage, and would not work at the old scale of pay, there +is no pretence that the employers could not afford to accede to the +increased demand; the "grand meschief du poeple" consisted in this, +that the tillers of the soil should have dreamt of asserting +themselves in any way whatever. Moreover, when it came to legislating +against the mutinous labourers, King and Parliament, while sternly +setting their faces against the rise in wages, _do not take the +twenty-third year of the King as the standard year_ by which to +settle what the normal rate of wages should be. They go back to the +twentieth year, _ou cynk ou sis ans devans_. That is to say, the +wages had been steadily rising for ten years before the plague; the +labourers had been getting their share of the increased prosperity of +the country; and the Statute of Labourers was only one of the clumsy +attempts to interfere with the action of a great economical law which +had been working silently for the advantage of the operatives long +before the Black Death had come to perplex and confuse men's minds +and disturb their calculations. + + * * * * * * * + +Some of us remember when the science of geology was young--and we +were young too--we remember how there was a certain romance and +fascination about those fearless and richly imaginative theories +which explained all the great changes in the crust of the earth by +magnificent cataclysms, upheaving, exploding, overwhelming. The crack +of doom meant something after all! What had been should be again. Old +times had stories to tell of sublime catastrophes, the crash of +systems, and the swallowing up of chains of cloud-capped mountains in +the yawning abysses of a world that might at any moment turn itself +inside out. Alas! the cataclysm theories had to die the death, and we +had to comfort ourselves with a dull prosaic dream of forces acting +with infinite slowness, grinding, and evolving through unnumbered +ages, the great laws working themselves out without haste or any +tendency to those picturesque paroxysms which have a certain charm +for us in our nonage. When Sociology shall have risen to the dignity +of a science--and that day may come--I think she too will be chary of +resorting to the cataclysm theory; she and her handmaid History will +hardly smile approval upon pretenders who are anxious to discover a +single efficient cause for results which a million influences have +combined to bring about, or who assume that every new phenomenon must +disturb the equilibrium of the world. To take up with theories first +in the hope, and sometimes with the determination, that facts shall +be found to support them at last, is the vice--I had almost said the +crime--of too many of those who now are styled historians. + + * * * * * * * + +If at this point I leave to others the further pursuit of a subject +which deserves a more comprehensive treatment than it has yet +received, it is not because I have not much more that I could tell. +If it be true that the proper study of mankind is man, it is at least +as true that the proper study of Englishmen is the history of +England; that, however, means a great deal more than is usually +understood by the words. It means the history of English +institutions, of the social, the intellectual, and the religious life +of our forefathers--it means a great deal more than the life of our +sovereigns, their wars, their virtues or their follies. Unhappily +historic studies in England, notwithstanding the splendid impetus +that has been given to them of late by the brilliant achievements of +some philosophic enquirers, receive but scant encouragement, and for +the most part a man's labour must be his own reward. In our +elementary schools History is almost utterly ignored. A whole people +is rapidly breaking with the past from sheer ignorance that there is +any past that is worth knowing. Who shall estimate the immeasurable +harm that must be wrought to a nation that has lost touch with the +past? Let men but believe, to their shame, that + + The glories of our birth and state + Are shadows, not substantial things, + +and what becomes of patriotism? Granted, if you will, that English +history has been made too often a dry and repulsive study by those +who have undertaken to teach it and write it; need it remain so? It +must remain so as long as we keep to the old lines and content +ourselves with the old methods. What is wanted to make any science +_interesting_ is that it should push its inquiries into new +fields of research. The means and appliances, and opportunities for +pursuing historical researches open to those whose youth is not all +behind them, are such as we, their seniors, never dreamt of when we +were in our early manhood. There are whole worlds as yet unexplored +and waiting to be won. Do men whimperingly complain that there is no +longer a career for genius? Tush! It is enthusiasm that is wanted. +Give us that, and the career will follow. But the enthusiasm must be +of the real sort--not self-asserting, self-conscious, self-seeking; +but earnest, patient, resolute, and reticent: for science, too, needs +heroism no less than war. + +In the domain of Physical Science there has been in our own time no +lack of intelligent co-operation, and volunteers have been many and +earnest, nor have they spared themselves or shrunk from sacrifices. +In the domain of Historical Science the labourers are few and far +between; there research proceeds with lagging steps. No one sneers at +a philosopher who travels to Iceland to investigate the habits of a +gnat, or who counts it the pride of his life to have discovered a new +fungus, but simpletons are pleased to make themselves merry with +caricaturing any student of his country's institutions who is "always +poring over musty old parchments." And yet these minute researches +will have to be made sooner of later, and till we can bring ourselves +to study the structure and the tissues and the comparative anatomy of +Institutions, and to go through all the drudgery which sluggards +loathe and fools deride, the light of truth will be dim for us all; +our Ethical, equally with our political Philosophy must remain in a +condition of hopeless sterility. Nevertheless History too has her +mission, though her time has not yet come. It will not always be that +the past will be to us "as the words of a book that is sealed, which +men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: +and he saith I cannot, for it is sealed; and the book is delivered to +him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he +saith, I am not learned." + +No! It will not be always so. + + + + +VI. + +THE BUILDING UP OF A UNIVERSITY. + + . . . . "so famous, + So excellent in art, and still so rising." + +Some years ago I found myself in a Northern capital, and committed +myself to the guidance of a native coachman, whose business and pride +it was to drive me from place to place, and indicate to me the +important buildings of his majestic city. He was a patriotic showman, +and I am bound to say he showed us a great deal; but the most +memorable moment of that instructive day was when he stopped before, +what seemed to us, a respectable mansion in a respectable street, and +announced to us that "you" was "the Free Kirk _Univairsity_." It +was the first time in my life that I had heard four stone walls with +a roof over them called a University. It was not long, however, +before I discovered that I myself had been living with my head in a +sack and, in more senses than one, had been of those + + Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry, + And all the world go by them. + +Only so could it have come to pass that this new meaning for an old +word had struck me as strange, not to say ludicrous. + + Licuit semperque licebit + Signatum praesente nota producere nomen. + +_Allowable?_ Yes! and much more than merely allowable; it is +inevitable that as the ages roll we should attach new meanings to old +words. And if this is inevitable, not the less inevitable is it that, +when we desire to trace the history of the thing signified, we should +be compelled to recur to the original meaning of the name by which +the thing is designated. + +A word at starting upon the remarkable book [Footnote: "The +Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, and of the +Colleges of Cambridge and Eton." By the late Robert Willis, M.A., +F.R.S. Edited, with large additions, and brought up to the present +time, by John Willis Clark, M.A., late Fellow of Trin. Coll., Camb. 4 +vols. super-royal 8vo Cambridge: The University Press.] which has +suggested the following article. To say of it that it is quite the +most sumptuous work that has ever proceeded from the Cambridge Press, +is to say little. It is hardly too much to say that it is one of the +most important contributions to the social and intellectual history +of England which has ever been made by a Cambridge man. The title of +the work conveys but a very inadequate notion of its wide scope, of +the encyclopaedic learning and originality of treatment which it +displays, and, least of all, of the abundance of _human +interest_ which characterizes it so markedly. It is because of +this wealth of human interest that the book must needs exercise a +powerful fascination upon those who have a craving to get some +insight into the life of their forefathers; and it is because I +believe the number of such students of history is in our times +rapidly on the increase, that I am anxious to draw attention to some +few of the many matters treated of so ably in these magnificent +volumes. + + * * * * * * * + +The term _University_, in its original acceptation, was used to +designate any aggregate of _persons_ associated in a political, +religious, or trading corporation, having common interests, common +privileges, and common property. The inhabitants of a town, the +members of a fraternity, the brethren of a guild, the monks or canons +of a religious house, when addressed in formal instruments, were +addressed as a _University_. Nay! when the whole body of the +faithful is appealed to as Christian men, the ordinary phrase made +use of by lay or ecclesiastical potentate, when signifying his wishes +or intentions, is "Noverit _Universitas_ vestra." A University +in this sense, regarded as an aggregate of persons, might be +localized or it might not; its members might be scattered over the +whole Christian world, or they might constitute an inner circle of +some larger community, of which they--though a _Universitas_- +formed but a part. A University in its original signification meant +no more than our modern term an Association. When men associated +together for purposes of trade, they were a trading _Universitas_; +when they associated for religious objects, they were a religious +_Universitas_; when they associated for the promotion of learning, +they were a learned _Universitas_. But the men came first, the bricks +and mortar followed long after. The architectural history, in its merely +technical and professional details, could only start at a point where +the University, as an association of scholars and students, had already +acquired power and influence, had been at work for long, and had +got to make itself felt as a living force in the body politic and in the +national life. It was because the antiquaries of a former age lost sight +of this truth that they indulged in the extravagances they did. Starting +from the assumption that stonewalls make an institution, they professed to +tell when the Universities came into existence and who were their +earliest founders. The authors of this modern _Magnum Opus_ have +set themselves to deal with a far more instructive problem. Their +object has been to trace the growth of the University of to-day in +its concrete form, down from the early times when it existed only in +the germ; and to show us how "the glorious fellowship of living men," +which constituted the _personal_ University of the eleventh or +the twelfth century, developed by slow degrees into the brick-and- +mortar Universities of the nineteenth--such Universities as are +springing up all over the world; their teachers advertised for in +_The Times_, and their students tempted to come and be taught in +them by the bait of money rewards. + + * * * * * * * + +As to the exact time when a band of scholars and teachers first made +their home in Cambridge or Oxford, and began to attract to themselves +from the four winds classes of eager youths hungry for intellectual +food and anxious to listen and learn, that we must be content to +leave undetermined. They who like the flavour of the old +antiquarianism may enjoy it in its spiciest form, if they choose to +hunt up among certain forgotten volumes now grown scarce. They may +read what John Caius (pronounced Keys) wrote as the champion of +Cambridge, and Thomas Caius wrote as champion of Oxford; they may +rejoice their hearts over the Battle of the Keys, and come to what +conclusion they prefer to arrive at. For most of us, however, this +sort of old-world lore has lost its charm. A man lives through his +taste for some questions. The student of history nowadays is inclined +to say with St. Paul, "So fight I not as one that beateth the air," +and to reject with some impatience the frivolous questions which help +not a jot towards bringing us into closer relation with the life and +personality of our ancestors. + + "I am halt sick of shadows," said + The Lady of Shalott; + +and we, too, have grown weary of weaving our webs with our backs to +the light. There is no making any way in Cloudland. We ask for firm +ground on which to plant our footsteps, if we would move onwards. + + * * * * * * * + +It would have been very galling to the Oxford antiquaries of Queen +Elizabeth's days to have to acknowledge that there was a Cambridge +before there was an Oxford. Nevertheless the fact is so. Hide your +diminished heads, ye rash ones who would fain have us believe that a +thousand years before our era, King Mempric, the wicked king whom the +wolves ate--as was right and fitting they should--built a noble city, +which as time went on "was called _Oxonia_, or by the Saxons +_Oxenfordia_." Alack! it turns out that we must make an enormous +step along the course of time before we can find trace of any such +city or anything like it. It turns out that "the year 912 saw Oxford +made a fortified town, with a definite duty to perform and a definite +district assigned to it." What! Seven years after the great Alfred +had closed his eyes in death, and left to others the work which he +had showed them how to do? Yes! Even so. It may be very hard to have +to confess the odious crime of youth; but it seems almost capable of +demonstration that Cambridge, as a fortress and a a town existed a +thousand years before Oxford was anything but a desolate swamp, or at +most a trumpery village, where a handful of Britons speared eels, +hunted for deer, and laboriously manufactured earthenware pots. What +have we to do with thee, thou daughter of yesterday? Stand aside +while thine elder sister--ay, old enough to be thy mother--takes her +place of honour. She has waited long for her historian; he has come +at last, and he was worth waiting for. + +In times before the Roman legionaries planted their firm feet in +Britain, there was a very formidable fortress at Cambridge. It +contained about sixty acres; it was surmounted by one of those mighty +earthworks which the hand of man in the old days raised by sheer +brute force, or rather by enormous triumph of organized labour. The +Romans drove out the Britons, and settled a garrison in the place. +Two of the great Roman roads intersected at this point, and the +conquerors called it by a new name, as was their wont, retaining some +portion of the old one. In their language it was known as +_Caniboritum_. The primeval fortress stood on the left bank of +the river, which some called the Granta and some called the Cam; and +for reasons best known to themselves, the Romans did not think fit to +span that river by a bridge, but they made their great Via Devana +pass sheer through the river-as some Dutch or German Irrationalist +has pretended that the children of Israel did when they found the +Jordan barring their progress--that is, those Roman creatures +constructed a solid pavement in the bed of the sluggish stream, over +which less audacious engineers would have thrown an arch. Through the +water they carried a kind of causeway, and the name of the place for +centuries indicated that it was situated on the _ford_ of the +Cam. But what the Roman did not choose to do, that the people that +came after him found it needful to do. In the Saxon Chronicle we find +that the old fortress which the Romans had held and strengthened, and +then perforce abandoned, had got to be called Granta-brygge; and this +name, or something very like it, it retained when the great survey +was made as the Norman Conqueror's reign was drawing to its close. By +this time the town had moved across to the right bank of the river, +and had become a town surrounded by a ditch and defended by walls and +gates. Already it contained at least four hundred houses, and on the +site of the old mound the Norman raised a new castle, and in doing +that he laid some twenty-nine houses low. + +The early history of Oxford is more or less connected with that of +the obscure and insignificant monastery of St. Frideswide, though +even at Oxford it is observable that the town and the University grew +up in almost entire independence of any influence exercised by any of +the older religious houses. At Cambridge this was much more the case. +There were no _monks_ at Cambridge at any time; there never were +any nearer than at the Abbey of Ely, in the old times a long day's +journey off, and accessible in the winter, if accessible at all, only +by water. King Knut, we are told, greatly favoured the Abbey of Ely, +visited it, was entertained there, in fact restored it. But at +Cambridge there were no monks. No _real_ monks; a fact which +ought to be a significant hint to "all educated men," but which, +unhappily, is likely to be significant only to the few who have taken +the trouble to learn what a real monk professed to be. If there were +no monks at Cambridge, there was something else. Outside the walls of +the town there rose up, in the twelfth century, the priory of +Barnwell-a priory of Augustinian _canons_; and, moreover, a +nunnery-the Benedictine nunnery of St. Rhadegunda. Within the walls +there was another house of Augustinians, which was known as St. +John's Hospital; that is, a house where the canons made it part of +their duty to provide a spurious kind of _hospitality_ to +travellers, much in the same way that the Hospice of St. Bernard +offers food and shelter now to the wayfarer, and with such food and +shelter something more--to wit, the opportunity of worshipping the +Most High in peace, up there among the eternal snows. At St. John's +Hospital, as at St. Bernard's, the grateful wanderer who had found a +refuge would leave behind him his thankoffering in recognition of the +kindly treatment he had met with, and it might happen that these free +gifts constituted no small portion of the income on which the canons-- +for the most part a humble and unpretentious set of men-kept up +their houses. + +With the dawn of the thirteenth century came the great revivalists-- +the friars. Wherever the friars established themselves they began not +only to preach, but to teach. They were the awakeners of a new +intellectual life; not only the stimulators of an emotional pietism +always prone to run into religious intoxication and extravagance. +With the coming of the friars what may be called the modern history +of Cambridge begins. Not that it can be allowed that there were no +schools of repute on the banks of the Cam till the coming of the +friars; it is certain that learning had her home at Cambridge long +before this time. + +As early as 1187 Giraldus Cambrensis came to Oxford and read his +_Expugnatio Hiberniae_ in public lectures, and entertained the +doctors of the diverse faculties and the most distinguished scholars. +[Footnote: Bishop Stubbs's "Lectures on Mediaeval and Modern +History," p. 141, 8vo, 1886.] Oxford was doubtless at that time more +renowned, but Cambridge followed not far behind. If the friars +settled at Cambridge early in their career, it was because there was +a suitable home for them there--an opening as we say--which the +flourishing condition of the University afforded. There were scholars +to teach, there were masters to dispute with, there were doctors to +criticize, oppose, or befriend. Doubtless, too, there were already +strained relations between the townsmen and the gownsmen at Cambridge +as at Oxford. The first great "town and gown row" which we hear of +took place at Oxford in 1209, but when we do hear of it we find the +other University mentioned by the historian in close connection with +the event recorded. The townsmen under great provocation had seized +three of the gownsmen _in hospitio suo_ and threw them into the +gaol. King John came down to make inquiry, and he hung those three, +guiltless though they were, as Matthew Paris assures us. Hereupon +there was intense indignation, and the University dispersed. Three +thousand of the gownsmen migrated elsewhere, some to Cambridge we +learn. Oxford for a while was deserted. This was fifteen years before +the Franciscans settled among us. It was the year in which King John +was excommunicated. There were only three bishops left in England; +the king had worried all the rest away. There was misery and anarchy +everywhere. Yet, strange to say, in the midst of all the bitterness +men _would_ have their sons educated, and the Universities did +not despair of the republic. Shadowy and fragmentary as all the +evidence is on which we have to rely for the history of the +Universities during the twelfth century, it is enough to make us +certain that the friars settled at Cambridge because there they found +scope for their labours. There was undoubtedly a University there +long before they arrived. Nevertheless, it is not till the middle of +the reign of Henry the Third (A.D. 1216-1272) that we come upon any +direct mention of a corporation which could be regarded as a +chartered society of scholars at Cambridge, and it is difficult to +resist the conviction that, whatever may have been its previous +history, and however far back its infancy may date, the friars were +to some extent nursing fathers of the University of Cambridge. + +And this brings us again to the point from which we started a page or +two back, and gives me the opportunity of quoting a passage from +Professor Willis's introduction, which will serve at once as a +continuation of and comment upon what has been said, while leading us +on to what still lies before us. + +The University of the Middle Ages was a corporation of learned men, +associated for the purposes of teaching, and possessing the privilege +that no one should be allowed to teach within their dominion unless +he had received their sanction, which could only be granted after +trial of his ability. The test applied consisted of examinations and +public disputations; the sanction assumed the form of a public +ceremony, and the name of _a degree_; and the teachers or +doctors so elected or created carried out their office of instruction +by lecturing in the public schools to the students who, desirous of +hearing them, took up their residence in the place wherein the +University was located. The degree was in fact merely a license to +teach; the teacher so licensed became a member of the ruling body. + + * * * * * * * + +We have arrived at this point--we find ourselves at the beginning of +the thirteenth century face to face with a _University_ at +Cambridge, a University which, existing originally in its inchoate +condition of an association vaguely aiming at the improvement of the +methods of education and the encouragement of scholars, had gradually +grown into a recognized and powerful body, with direct influence and +control over its members; a body, too, which had become so identified +with the interests of culture and research that a change had already +begun in the generally received acceptation of its name, and already +the word "university" had begun to be restricted to such a +_Universitas_ as was identified with the life and pursuits of +learning and learned men. This means that, _pari passu_ with its +increase in power, the University had grown too, in the number of its +members--the teachers and the taught. The time had arrived when the +demands of professors and students for adequate accommodation would +become pressing. Lecturers with popular gifts would expect a hall +capable of holding their audiences. Public disputations could not be +held in a corner. Receptions of eminent scholars from a distance, and +all those ceremonials which were so dear to gentle and simple in the +middle ages, required space, and were the more effective the grander +the buildings in which they were displayed, Yet how little the +Cantabs of the thirteenth century could have dreamt of what was +coming! What a day of small things it was! Six hundred years ago the +giant was in his cradle. + +Meanwhile, another need than that of mere schools and lecture-halls +had begun to be felt. The scholars who came for what they could get +from the teachers--the regents and the doctors--flocked from various +quarters; they were young, they were not all fired with the student's +love of learning; they were sometimes noisy, sometimes frolicsome, +sometimes vicious. As now is the case at Edinburgh and Heidelberg, so +it was then at Cambridge, the bonds of discipline were very slight; +the scholars had to take their chance; they lodged where they could, +they lived anyhow, each according to his means; they were homeless. +It was inevitable that all sorts of grave evils should arise. + +The lads--they were mere boys--got into mischief, they got into debt +with the Jews; for there were Jews at Cambridge, not a few; they were +preyed upon by sharpers, were fleeced on the right hand and on the +left; many of them learned more harm than good. The elder men, and +they who had consciences and hearts, shook their heads, and asked +what could be done? For a long time the principle of _laissez +faire_ prevailed: the young fellows were left to the tender +mercies of the townsfolk. There was no grandmotherly legislation in +those days. Gradually a kind of joint-stock arrangement came into +vogue. Worthy people seemed to have hired a house which they called a +_hostel_ or hall, and sub-let the rooms to the young fellows; +the arrangement appears to have been clumsily managed, and led to +dissensions between town and gown; the townsmen soon discovered that +the gownsmen were gainers by the new plan, and they themselves were +losers. They grumbled, protested, quarrelled. But it was a move in +the right direction, and a beginning of some moral discipline was +made, and that could not but be well. These _hostels_ were set +up at Cambridge certainly at the beginning of the thirteenth century, +and how long before we cannot tell; but it was at Oxford that the +first _college_, as we understand the term, rose into being. It +was Walter de Merton, Chancellor of England, who was the father of +the collegiate system in England. So far from embarking upon a new +experiment without careful deliberation, he spent twelve years of his +life in working out his ideas and in elaborating the famous _Rule +of Merton_, of which it is not at all too much to say that its +publication constituted an era in the history of education and +learning in England. Merton died in 1277. Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of +Ely, who survived him nine years, appears to have been moved with a +desire to do for Cambridge what Merton had done for Oxford. Balsham +is spoken of as the founder of St. Peter's College, and in one sense +he was so. The bishops of Ely were the patrons of Cambridge. Bishop +Balsham asked himself what could be done, and set himself to deal +with the problems which presented themselves for solution in the +condition of his own University. He was not a great man, that seems +clear enough: his schemes were crude; he bungled. The truth seems to +me to be that the feeling at Cambridge was one of suspicion, and +there are indications that the bishops of Ely in an awkward fashion +were opposed to anything like _secular education_. We hear of +money being left to support _priests_ studying theology, and of +an experiment for introducing scholars as residents in the Hospital +of St. John. The canons were to take in the young scholars as +_boarders_ into their house, and look after their conduct and +morals. The plan did not answer. It was an attempt to put new wine +into old bottles. There came an explosion. Cambridge in the +thirteenth century had not the _men_ that Oxford had, so Oxford +kept the lead. Perhaps there was some soreness. Did ecclesiastics +shake their heads as they saw the walls of Balliol College rise, and +learnt that there was just a little too much importance given to mere +scholarship, and no prominence given to theology in those early +statutes of 1282? Did they, without knowing why, anticipate with +anxiety the awakening of a spirit of free thought and free inquiry +among those scholars of the Merton, Rule? Did the orthodox party +resort to prophecy, which is seldom very complimentary or cheerful in +its utterances? + +This is certain, that while Balliol College was building there was a +stir among the Benedictines, and an effort made to assert themselves +and take their place among the learned. John Giffard started his +great college for the reception of student monks at Oxford. It +became, and for centuries continued to be, the resort of the +Benedictine order, and was supported by levies from a large number of +the old monasteries. The inference is forced upon us that the English +monasteries no longer stood in the front rank as seats of learning. +Students and scholars would no longer go to the monks; the monks must +go to the scholars. But the establishment of a seminary for the +reception of young monks at Oxford tended to the strengthening of the +ecclesiastical influence in that University. Cambridge lost in the +same proportion that Oxford gained. Even the great Priory of Norwich +sent its promising young monks to Qxford, passing by the nearer and +more conveniently situated University. As early as 1288 we find +entries in the Norwich Priory Rolls of payments for the support of +the schools and scholars at Oxford. It was long after this that +Cambridge offered any similar attraction to the "religious." + +Be it noted that until Merton's day people had never heard of what we +now understand by a _college_. It was a novelty in English +institutions. Men and women had lived commonly enough in societies +that were essentially religious in their character. Some of those +societies, and only some, had drifted into becoming the quiet homes +of learning as well as of devotion; but the main business-the +_raison d'être_ of monks and nuns and canons-was the practice of +asceticism, the keeping up of unceasing worship in the church of the +monastery--the endeavour to be holier than men of the world need be, +or the endeavour to make the men of the world holier than they cared +to be. The religious orders were religious or they were nothing. Each +new rule for the reformation of those orders aimed at restoring the +primitive idea of self-immolation at the altar--a severer ritual, +harder living, longer praying. Nay! the new rules, in not a few +instances, were actually aimed against learning and culture. The +Merton Rule was a bringer in of new things. Merton would not call his +society of scholars a _convent_, as the old monkish corporations +had been designated. That sounded too much as though the mere +promotion of pietism was his aim; he revived the old classical word +_collegium_. There had been _collegia_ at Rome before the imperial +times; though some of them had been religious bodies, some were +decidedly not so. They were societies which held property, pursued +certain avocations, and acted in a corporate capacity for very mundane +objects. Why should not there be a _collegium_ of scholars? Why +should students and men of learning be expected to be holier than other +people? When Merton started his college at Oxford, he made it plain by +his statutes that he did not intend to found a society after the old +conventual type, but to enter upon a new departure. + +The scholars of the new college were to take no vows; they were not +to be worried with everlasting ritual observances. Special chaplains, +who were presumably not expected to be scholars and students, were +appointed for the ministration of the ceremonial in the church. +Luxury was guarded against; poverty was not enjoined. As long as a +scholar was pursuing his studies _bonâ fide_, he might remain a +member of the college; if he was tired of books and bookish people, +he might go. + +When a man strikes out a new idea, he is not allowed to keep it to +himself very long. The new idea soon gets taken up; sometimes it gets +improved upon; sometimes very much the reverse. For a wise man acts +upon a hint, and it germinates; a fool only half apprehends the +meaning of a hint, and he displays his folly in producing a +caricature. Hugh de Balsham seems to have aimed at improving upon +Merton's original idea. He meant well, doubtless; but his college of +Peterhouse, the first college in Cambridge, was a very poor copy of +the Oxford foundation. Merton was a man of genius, a man of ideas; +Balsham was a man of the cloister. Moreover, he was by no means so +rich as his predecessor, and he did not live to carry out his scheme. +The funds were insufficient. The first college at Cambridge was long +in building. Cambridge, in fact, was very unfortunate. Somehow there +was none of the dash and enthusiasm, none of the passion for +progress, which characterized Oxford. Cambridge had no moral genius +like Grosseteste to impress his strong personality upon the movement +which the friars stirred, no commanding intellect like that of Roger +Bacon to attract and dazzle and lead into quite new regions of +thought the ardent and eager spirits who felt that a new era had +begun; no Occam or Duns Scotus or Bradwardine; no John Wielif to +kindle a new flame--say, rather, to take up the torch which had +dropped from Bradwardine's hand, and continue the race which the +others had run so well. What a grand succession of men it was! + +Five colleges had been founded at Oxford before a second arose at +Cambridge. After that they followed in rapid succession, and the +reign of Edward the Third had not come to an end when no fewer than +seven colleges had been opened at Cambridge. Five of them have +survived to our own days, and two were eventually absorbed by the +larger foundation which Henry the Seventh was ambitious of raising, +and which now stands forth in its grandeur, the most magnificent +educational corporation in the world. + + * * * * * * * + +Where did all the money come from, not only to raise the original +buildings in which the _University_, as a teaching body, pursued +its work, but which also provided the _houses_ in which the +_colleges_ of scholars lived and laboured? + +Unhappily, we know very little of the University buildings during +this early period. All the industry of Mr. Clark has not availed to +penetrate the thick obscurity; but this at least is pretty certain, +namely, that the earliest University buildings at Cambridge were very +humble structures clustering round about the area now covered by the +University schools and library, that it was not till the middle of +the fourteenth century that any attempt was made to erect a building +of any pretension, and that the "Schools Quadrangle was not completed +till 130 years after the first stone was laid." The University of +Cambridge was for ages a very poor corporation; it had no funds out +of which to build halls or schools or library. The ceremonies at +_commencement_ and on other great occasions took place in the +churches, sometimes of the Augustinian, sometimes of the Franciscan +friars. In these early times the gownsmen dared not contemplate the +erection of a senate-house wherein to hold their meetings. When the +fourteenth-century schools were planned their erection was doubtless +regarded as a very bold and ambitious experiment. The money came in +very slowly, the work stopped more than once, and when it proceeded +it was only by public subscription that the funds were gathered. In +1466, William Wilflete, Master of Clare Hall and Chancellor of the +University, actually made a journey to London to gather funds from +whatever quarters he could, and he dunned his friends, and those on +whom the University had any claim, so successfully that on June 25 of +that year a contract for proceeding with the work was drawn up and +signed, but it was nearly nine years after this before the schools +were finally completed, together with a new library over them, by the +special munificence of Archbishop Rotherham, who had further enriched +the library with numerous volumes of great value. + +The tie which bound the members of the _University_ together was +much weaker than that which united the members of the same +_college_. The colleges were, in almost every case, founded by +private munificence, and in most cases were commenced during the +lifetime of the several founders; but when we come to look into the +sources of the college revenues we find that the actual gifts of +money, or indeed of lands, was less than at first sight appears. A +very large proportion of the endowments of these early colleges came +from the _spoliation of the parochial clergy_. Popular writers +in our own time declaim against the horrible sin of buying and +selling church preferment, as if it were a modern abomination. Let a +man only spend half an hour in examining the _fines_ or records +of transfers of property in England during the fourteenth century and +he will be somewhat surprised to discover what a part the buying and +selling of advowsons played in the business transactions of our +forefathers five centuries ago. Advowsons were always in the market, +and always good investments in those days, But not only so. A pious +founder could do a great deal in the way of making perpetual +provision for the mention of his name by posterity at a small cost if +he took care to manipulate ecclesiastical property with prudence. +There was a crafty device whereby the owner of the advowson could +_appropriate_ the tithes of a benefice to the support of any +corporation which might be considered a _religious_ foundation. +The old monasteries had benefited to some extent from this +disendowment of the secular clergy, the Augustinian canons, during +the twelfth century, being the chief gainers by the pillage. When the +rage for founding colleges came in, and the awful ravages of the +Black Death had depopulated whole districts, the fashion of +alienating the revenues of the country parsons and diverting them +into the new channel grew to be quite a rage. The colleges of secular +priests living together in common, or what it is now the fashion to +call a clergy house, might be and were strictly _religious_ +foundations; and could the colleges of scholars, of teachers and +learners who presumably were all priests, or intended for the +priesthood, be regarded as less _religious_ than the others? So +it came to pass that the tithes of parish after parish were diverted +into a new channel, and these very colleges at Cambridge which were +professedly meant to raise the standard of education among the +seculars were endowed at the expense of those same secular clergy. In +order that the country parsons might be better educated, it was +arranged that the country parsons should be impoverished! + + * * * * * * * + +Seven new colleges opened in less than thirty years at Cambridge +alone! Think what this must have meant. I suspect that Oxford had +attracted the reading men, and Cambridge possessed charms for the +fast ones. How else are we to explain Archbishop Stratford's +stringent order in 1342 for the repression of the dandyism that +prevailed among the young scholars? These young Cantabs of the +fourteenth century were exquisites of the first water. Their fur- +trimmed cloaks and their tippets; their shoes of all the colours of +the rainbow; their dainty girdles, bejewelled and gilt, were a sight +to see. And then their hair! positively curled and powdered, and +growing over their shoulders, too; and when they passed their fingers +through the curls, look you, there were rings on their fingers! Call +you these scholars? Chaucer's "Clerk of Oxenforde" was of a very +different type:-- + + For all that he might of his frendes hentc + On books and in learning he it spente. + +Nevertheless it can hardly have been but that the foundation of so +many colleges at Cambridge brought in a stricter discipline; the new +collegiate life of the scholars began. Perhaps for the majority of +readers no part of Mr. dark's great work will prove so attractive as +the last four hundred pages, with their delightful essays on "The +Component Parts of a College." Here we have traced out for us in the +most elaborate manner, the gradual development of the collegiate +idea, from the time when it expressed itself in a building that had +no particular plan, down to our own days, when colleges vie with one +another in architectural splendour and in the lavish completeness of +their arrangements. + +At the outset the uninitiated must prepare to have some of their +favourite theories rudely shattered. We are in the habit of assuming +that a quadrangle is one of the essential features of a college. It +is almost amazing to learn that the quadrangular arrangement was +adopted very gradually. + +Again, we are often assured that the colleges at the two older +universities are the only relics of the monastic system, and are +themselves monastic in their origin. A greater fallacy could hardly +be propounded. It would be nearer the truth to say that the founding +of the colleges was at once a protest against the monasteries and an +attempt to supersede them. + +More startling still is the fact that a college did not at first +necessarily imply that there was a chapel attached. So far from this +being the case, it is certain that Peterhouse, the oldest college in +Cambridge, never had a chapel till the present building was +consecrated in 1632. It was with great difficulty that the Countess +of Pembroke in 1366 was allowed to build a chapel within the +precincts of her new college; and, so far from these convenient +adjuncts to a collegiate establishment having been considered an +essential in early times, no less than eight of the college chapels +at Cambridge and four at Oxford date from a time after the +Reformation. In the fourteenth century and later the young scholars, +as a rule, attended their parish church. Sometimes the college added +on an aisle for the accommodation of its members; sometimes it +obtained a _licence_ to use a room in which Divine Service might +be conducted for a time; once the founder of a college erected a +collegiate quire in the middle of the parish church, a kind of +gigantic _pew,_ for the accommodation of his scholars. Downing +College has never had a chapel to the present hour. + +Of all the developments, however, in the college idea, none has been +more remarkable than that of the master's lodge. In the fourteenth +century the master of a college was but _primits inter pares,_ +and the distance between him and his _fellows_ or _scholars_ +was less than that which exists now between the Commanding officer +of a regiment in barracks and his brother officers. The master had no +sinecure; the discipline of the place depended upon him almost entirely, +for in those days the monarchial idea was in the ascendant; the king +was a real king, the bishop a real bishop, the master a real master. +Everything was referred to him, everything originated with him, +everything was controlled by him. But as for the accommodation +assigned to him in the early colleges, it was very inferior indeed to +that which every graduate at Trinity or St. John's expects to find in +our time. The Provost of Oriel in 1329 was permitted by the statutes +to dine apart if he pleased, and to reside outside the precincts of the +college if he chose to provide for himself another residence; but this +was clearly an exceptional case, for the master was at this time the +actual founder of the college, and Adam de Brune might be presumed +to know what was good for his successors in the office for which he +himself had made provision. But for generations the master enjoyed +no more than a couple of _chambers_ at the most, and it was +not till the sixteenth century that an official residence was provided, +and then such residence consisted only of _lodgings_ a little more +spacious and convenient than those of any of the fellows, and in no +case separated from the main buildings of the college. Even when +masters of colleges began to marry (and the earliest instance of this +seems to have been Dr. Heynes, Master of Queens' College, in 1529), +it was long before the master's wife was so far recognized as to be +received within the precincts; and as late as 1576, when the fellows +of King's complained of their provost's wife being seen within the +college, Dr. Goad replied that she had not been twice in the college +"Quad" in her life, as far as he knew. When the great break-up came +in the next century, then the establishment of the master demanded +increased accommodation for his family, and the master's lodge began +to grow slowly, until university architects of the nineteenth century +displayed their exalted sense of what was due to the dignity of a +"head of a house" by erecting two such palaces as the lodges of +Pembroke and St. John's Colleges; for the glorification of the +artist, it may be, but whether for the advantage of the college, the +university, or the occupants of the aforesaid lodges may be +reasonably doubted. One master's lodge in Cambridge _is at this +moment let,_ presumably for the benefit of the head of the house, +whose official residence it is; and, if things go on as they are +tending, the day may come--who knows how soon?--when Cambridge shall +at last be able to boast of a really good hotel, "in a central and +very desirable situation, commanding a delightful view of"--what +shall we say?--"fitted up with every convenience, and formerly known +as the Master's Lodge of St. Boniface College." + +I am inclined to think that there is such a thing as architecture run +to seed. + + * * * * * * * + +If any one imagines that it would be possible within the limits of a +single essay to follow Mr. Clark through the exhaustive processes of +investigation which he has pursued, or to summarize at all satisfactorily +the results which he has arrived at and set forth in so masterly a +manner, let such an one spend only a single hour in turning over +the leaves of these splendid volumes. The exquisite illustrations +alone (which count by hundreds), and the elaborate maps and +ground-plans, are full of surprises; they speak with an eloquence +of their own to such as have eyes to see and in whom there is a spark +of imagination to enlighten the paths along which their accomplished +guide can lead them. Do you think that such a work as this tells us +no more than how the stone walls rose and the buildings assumed +their present form, and court was added to court, and libraries and +museums and lecture-rooms and all the rest of them were constructed +by the professional gentlemen who drew the plans, and piled up by +the masons and the bricklayers? Then you will do it a grievous injustice. + + Horizons rich with trembling spires + On violet twilights, lose their fires + +if there be no human element to cast a living glow upon them. The +authors of this architectural history knew better than any one else +that they were dealing with the architectural history of a great +national institution. They knew that these walls--some so old and +crumbling, some so new and hard and unlovely--bear upon them the +marks of all the changes and all the progress, the conflicts and the +questionings, the birth-throes of the new childhood, the fading out +of a perplexed senility, the earnest grappling with error, the +painful searching after truth which the spirit of man has gone +through in these homes of intellectual activity during the lapse of +six hundred years. Do you wish to understand the buildings? Then you +must study the life; and the converse is true also. Either explains, +and is the indispensable interpreter of, the obscurities of the +other. Mr. Clark could not have produced this exhaustive history of +university and collegiate fabrics if he had not gained a profound +insight into the student life of Cambridge from the earliest times. + +How did they live, these young scholars in the early days? Through +what whimsical vagaries have the fashions changed? As the centuries +have rolled on, have the youth of England become better or wiser than +their sires? Neither better nor wiser seems to be the answer. The +outer man is not as he was; the real moral and intellectual stamina +of Englishmen has at least suffered no deterioration. Our habits are +different; our dress, our language, the look of our homes, are all +other than they were. Our wants have multiplied immensely; the amount +of physical discomfort and downright suffering which our ancestors +were called upon to endure doubtless sent up the death-rate to a +figure which to us would be appalling. We start from a standing-point +in moral, social, and intellectual convictions so far in advance of +that of our forefathers that they could not conceive of such a +_terminus ad quern_ as serves us as a terminus a quo._ In +other words, we _begin_ at a point in the line which they never +conceived could be reached. Yet the more closely we look into the +past the more do we see how history in all essentials is for ever +repeating herself--impossible though it may be to put the clock back +for ourselves. + +How significant is the fact that through all these centuries of +building and planting, of pulling down and raising up, the makers of +Cambridge--that is, the men who achieved for her her place in the +realms of thought, inquiry, and discovery--never seemed to have +thought that Death could play much havoc among them. In the old +monasteries there was always a cemetery. The canon or the monk who +passed into the cloister came there once for all--to live _and +die_ within the walls of his monastery. The scholar who came to +get all the learning he could, and who settled in some humble hostel +or some unpretentious college of the old type, came to spend some few +years there, but no more. He came to live his life, and when there +was no more life in him--no more youthful force, activity, and +enthusiasm-there was no place for him at Cambridge, There they wanted +men of vigour and energy, not past their work. Die? No! as long as he +was verily alive it was well that he should stay and toil. When he +was a dying man, better he should go. No college at Cambridge had a +cemetery. Let the dead bury their dead! + +Indeed, it must have been hard for the weak and sickly--the lad of +feeble frame and delicate organization-to stand that rugged old +Cambridge life. "College rooms" in our time suggest something like +the _ne plus ultra_ of aesthetic elegance and luxury. We find it +hard to realize the fact that for centuries a Fellow of a college was +expected to have two or three _chamber fellows_ who shared his +bedroom with him; and that his _study_ was no bigger than a +study at the schoolhouse at Rugby, and very much smaller than a +fourth-form boy enjoys at many a more modern public school. At the +hostels, which were of course much more crowded than the colleges +were, a separate bed was the privilege of the few. What must have +been the condition of those semi-licensed receptacles for the poorer +students in the early times, when we find as late as 1598 that in St. +John's College there were no less than seventy members of the college +"accommodated" (!) in twenty-eight chambers. This was before the +second court at St. John's was even begun, and yet these seventy +Johnians were living in luxury when compared with their predecessors +of two hundred years before. + +"In the early colleges the windows of the chambers were unglazed and +closed with wooden shutters; their floors were either of clay or +tiled; and their halls and ceilings were unplastered." We have +express testimony that at Corpus Christi College not even the +master's lodge had been glazed and panelled before the beginning of +the sixteenth century. By an inventory which Mr. Clark has printed, +dated July 3, 1451, it appears that in the master's lodge at King's +College, "the wealthiest lodge of the university, there was then only +one chair; that the tables were supported on trestles; and that those +who used them sat on forms or stools." As for the chambers and +studies, not only were they destitute of anything in the shape of +stoves or fire-places, but their walls were absolutely bare, while in +the upper chambers there were not even lath and plaster between the +tiles and the beams of the roof. It is to us almost incomprehensible +how vitality could have been kept up in the winter under such +conditions. The cold must have been dreadful. + +At four only of five earlier and smaller colleges was there any fire- +place in the hall, and the barbaric braziers in which first charcoal +and afterwards coke was burned, were actually the only heating +apparatus known in the immense halls of Trinity and St. John's till +within the last twenty years! The magnificent hall of Trinity +actually retained till 1866 the brazier _which had been in use for +upwards of 160 years!_ The clumsy attempt to fight the bitter cold +which was usual in our mediaeval churches and manor-houses, by +strewing the stone floor with rushes, was carried out too in the +college halls, and latterly, instead of rushes, sawdust was used, at +least in Trinity. "It was laid on the floor at the beginning of +winter, and turned over with a rake as often as the upper surface +became dirty. Finally, when warm weather set in, it was removed, the +colour of charcoal!" Well might the late Professor Sedgwick, in +commenting upon this practice, exclaim; "The dirt was sublime in +former years!" + +Yet in the earliest times a lavatory was provided in the college +halls, and a towel of eight or nine yards long, which at Trinity, as +late as 1612, was hung on a hook--the refinement of hanging a towel +on a _roller_ does not appear to have been thought of. These +towels were for use _before_ dinner; _at_ dinner the fellows of +Christ's in 1575 were provided with table-napkins. If they wiped +their fingers on the table-cloth they were fined a penny. The temptation +must have been strong at times, for _no forks were in use_--not even +the iron-pronged forks which some of us remember in hall in our +young days. The oldest piece of furniture in the college halls were +the stocks, set up for the correction of refractory undergraduates +who should have been guilty of the enormity of bathing in the Cam +or other grave offence and scandal. + +Of the amusements indulged in by the undergraduates at Cambridge in +the early times we hear but little. The probability seems to be that +they had to manage for themselves as best they could. Gradually the +bowling-green, the butts for archery, and the tennis-courts were +provided by several colleges. Tennis seems to have been the rage at +Cambridge during the sixteenth century, and the tennis-courts became +sources of revenue in the Elizabethan time, It is clear that by this +time the old severity and rigour had become relaxed, the colleges had +become richer, and in another hundred years the combination-rooms had +become comfortable and almost luxurious before the seventeenth +century closed. In Queens' College in 1693 there were actually +_flowers_ in the combination-room, and at Christ's College in +1716 a card-table was provided "in the fellows' parlour." + +It may be said that the immense expansion of the University, as +distinct from a mere aggregate of colleges, dates from the beginning +of the eighteenth century. Up to that time the colleges had for four +hundred years been steadily growing into privileged corporations, +whose wealth and power had been too great for the Commonwealth, of +which they were in idea only members. With the Georgian era the new +movement began. When Bishop Moore's vast library was presented by +George II. to the _University,_ when the first stone of the +Senate House was laid in 1722, when the _University_ arranged +for the reception of Dr. Woodward's fossils in 1735--these events +marked the beginning of a new order of things. Whatever confusion may +have existed in the minds of our grandfathers, who had a vague +conviction that the University meant no more than the aggregate of +the colleges, and a suspicion that what the University was the +colleges made it--we, in our generation, have been assured that the +colleges owed their existence to the sufferance of universities; or, +if that be putting the case too strongly, that the colleges exist for +the sake of the University. The new view has at any rate gained the +approval of the Legislature; the University is in no danger of being +predominated over by the colleges in the immediate future; the danger +rather is lest the colleges should be starved or at least +impoverished for the glorification of the University, the college- +fellowships being shorn of their dignity and emoluments in order to +ensure that the University officials shall become the exclusive +holders of the richest prizes. + +For good or evil we have entered upon a new career. The old +Cambridge, which some of us knew in our youth, with its solemn +ecclesiasticism, its quaint archaisms, its fantastic anomalies, its +fascinating picturesqueness, its dear old barbaric unintelligible +odds and ends that met us at every turn in street and chapel and +hall--that old Cambridge is as dead as the Egypt of the Pharaohs. The +new Cambridge, with its bustling syndics for ever on the move--its +bewildering complexity of examinations--its "sweet girl-graduates +with their golden hair," its delightful "notion of grand and +capacious and massive amusement," its glorious wealth of collections +and appliances and facilities for every kind of study and research, +is alive with an exuberant vitality. + +What form will the new life assume in the time that is coming? Will +the Cambridge of six centuries hence be able to produce such a record +of her past as that which she can boast of now? Among her alumni of +the future will there arise again any such loyal and enlightened +historians as these who have raised to themselves and their +University so noble a monument? + + + + +VII. + +_THE PROPHET OF WALNUT-TREE YARD._ + + + "Did you ever hear tell of Lodowick Muggleton?" + + "Not I." + + "That is strange. Know then that he was the founder + of our poor society, and after him we are frequently, + though oppro-briously, termed Muggletonians, for we + are Christians. Here is his book; I will sell it cheap." + --LAVENGRO. + + +Scrupulous veracity was hardly a characteristic of the late George +Borrow. A man of great memory, he was also a man of fertile +imagination, and where the two are found in excess, side by side in +the same intellect, they are apt to twine round one another, so to +speak, and the product is something which the matter-of-fact man +abhors. I do not doubt that Borrow did meet a Muggletonian at +Bristol--I think it was there--some sixty years ago; but I am pretty +sure that he knew very little indeed about the Muggletonians, and +that he could have hardly opened the book which he implies that he +purchased, and which I am almost certain he never read. I have a +strong suspicion that he very much antedated the incident which he +narrates, for I myself knew an old secondhand bookseller in a back +street at Bristol, who was a Muggletonian, with whom I made +acquaintance when a lad. He was a slow-speaking, wary, suspicious, +and dirty old man, and as I had not sufficient funds to be a good +customer, I daresay he did not think it worth his while to be +communicative, but he told me one day that he had been one of the +original subscribers to the _Spiritual Epistles_ which were +reprinted in quarto years before I was born; though, as he confessed, +his name does not appear on the list of names printed at the end of +the preface, which list, he assured me, was very incomplete, as he +from his own knowledge could certify. This old man would have been +very old indeed if he had been old when Borrow was a youth; and yet, +as I say, I suspect he was the very man of whom mention is made in +the extract I have given above. He was the only Muggletonian I ever +knew, but he certainly was not the last of his sect, and I should not +be at all surprised to hear that it is a flourishing sect still, and +that it still has its assemblies, its votaries, its literature, and +its propaganda. It is true that the name _Muggletonians_ does +not appear in that astonishing list of religious denominations which +the Registrar-General was enabled to compile for the year 1883; but +that proves little, inasmuch as the closer a religious corporation +is, the more exclusive, the less does it care to register the name of +the building in which it may choose to assemble for worship; and I +observe that the Southcotians are no longer to be found upon that +list, though I happen to know that they are not extinct yet, nor has +their faith in their prophetess and her mission quite died out from +the face of the earth. + +This is certain, that as late as 1820 an edition of the _Spiritual +Epistles,_ which must have cost at that time two or three hundred +pounds to print, was subscribed for, and that nine years afterwards +appeared _Divine Songs of the Muggletonians_--they were not +ashamed of the name--printed also by subscription, filling 621 pages, +and showing pretty clearly that there had of late been a strange +revival of the sect: an outburst of new fervour having somehow been +awakened, and an irrepressible passion for writing "Songs" having +displayed itself, which had not been without its effect in +resuscitating dormant enthusiasm. The vagaries of the human mind in +what, for want of any better designation, we call "religious belief" +have always had for me a peculiar fascination, as they have for +others. Epiphanius, whose name is and used to be a terror to her +Royal Highness in days gone by, when I insisted upon reading to her +about the peculiar people who made it a matter of faith to eat bread +and cheese at the Eucharist--Epiphanius is to me positively +entertaining, and Pagitt's _Heresiography_ is none the less +instructive because it is a vulgar catch-penny little book, made up, +like Peter Pindar's razors, to sell. To me it seems that to dismiss +even the wildest and foolishest opinion _which makes way,_ as if +it were a mere absurdity that does not deserve notice, is to show a +certain flippancy and shallowness. Do not all thoughtful men pass +through certain stages of intellectual growth, and are not the +convictions of our youth held very differently from those which we +find ourselves swayed by in our later years? The beliefs which the +multitude take up with are such as the untrained and the half-trained +are always captivated by, whether individually or in the mass. There +are limits to our powers of assimilation according as our development +has been arrested or is still going on, and he who hopes to +understand the course of human affairs or to make any intelligent +forecast of what is coming can never afford to neglect the study of +morbid appetites or morbid anatomy in the domain of mind. + +There is a strong family likeness among all fanatics; and this is +characteristic of them all, that they are profusely communicative and +absolutely honest. Prophets have no secrets, no reserve, no doubts, +they are always true men. John Reeve and Lodowick Muggleton are no +exception to the general rule. We can follow their movements pretty +closely for some years. The book of _The Acts of the Witnesses of +the Spirit_ furnishes us with quite as much as we want to know +about the sayings and doings of the grotesque pair and their early +extravagances; and Muggleton's letters cover a period of forty years, +during all which time he was going in and out among the artisans and +small traders of the city, obstinately asserting himself in season +and out of season, and leaving behind him in his eccentric chronicle +such a minute and faithful picture of London life among the middle-- +the lower middle--class during the last half of the seventeenth +century as is to be found nowhere else. The reader must be prepared +for the most startling freaks of language, for very vulgar profanity, +the more amazing because so manifestly unintended. When people break +away from all the traditions of the past and surrender themselves to +absolute anarchy in morals and religion the old terminology ceases to +be employed in the old way, ceases indeed to have any meaning. The +prophet or the philosopher who sets himself to invent a new theory of +the universe or a new creed for his followers to embrace, can hardly +avoid shocking and horrifying those who are content to use words as +their forefathers did and attach to these words the same sort of +sacredness that the Hebrews did to the Divine name. There is no need +to do more than allude to this side of the Muggletonian writing. What +we are concerned with is the story of the prophet's life, which has +been told with the utmost frankness and simplicity; a more +unvarnished tale it would be difficult to find, or one which bears +more the stamp of truth upon its every line. + +_The Acts of the Witnesses of the Spirit_ is a posthumous work +written by Muggleton when he was very old, and left behind him in +manuscript with directions that it should be published after his +death. It is a quarto volume of 180 pages and is a book of some +rarity. It was published in 1699, with an epistle dedicatory to all +true Christian people, apparently written by Thomas Tomkinson, one of +the chosen seed. After preparing us for what is coming by dwelling +upon the wonderful stories in the Old Testament and the New, +Muggleton plunges into his subject by giving us a brief account of +his own and his brother prophet's parentage and early biography. Let +the reader understand that here beginneth the third chapter of _The +Acts of the Witnesses_ at the third verse:-- + +"3. As for John Reeve, he was born in Wiltshire; his father was clerk +to a deputy of Ireland, a gentleman as we call them by his place, but +fell to decay. + +"4. So he put John Reeve apprentice here at London to a tailor by +trade. He was out of his apprenticeship before I came acquainted with +him; he was of an honest, just nature, and harmless. + +"5. But a man of no great natural wit or wisdom; no subtlety or +policy was in him, nor no great store of religion; he had lost what +was traditional; only of an innocent life. + +"7. And I, Lodowick Muggleton, was born in Bishop-gate Street, near +the Earl of Devonshire's house, at the corner house called Walnut- +tree Yard. + +"8. My father's name was John Muggleton; he was a smith by trade-- +that is, a farrier or horse doctor; he was in great respect with the +postmaster in King James's time; he had three children by my mother, +two sons and one daughter, I was the youngest and my mother loved +me." + +His mother died, his father married again, whereupon the boy was sent +into the country--_boarded out_ as we say--and kept there till +his sixteenth year, when he was brought back to London and +apprenticed to-a tailor--one John Quick--"a quiet, peaceable man, not +cruel to servants, which liked me very well." Muggleton took to his +trade and pleased his master. The journeymen were a loose lot, "bad +husbands and given to drunkenness, but my nature was inclined to be +sober." Hitherto the young man had received no religious training; +when he had served his time, however, "hearing in those days great +talk among the vulgar people and especially amongst youth, boys, and +young maids, of a people called Puritans.... I liked their discourse +upon the Scriptures and pleaded for a holy keeping of the Sabbath +day, which my master did not do, nor I his servant." + +This must have been about the year 1630--for Muggleton was born in +June 1610--when the Sabbatarian controversy was at its height, and +the feeling of the country was approaching fever heat, and when +Charles the First had resolved to try and govern without a +Parliament, and when Archbishop Abbot was in disgrace, and Laud had +begun to exercise his predominant influence. Muggleton was but little +impressed by "the people called Puritans," and he went on his old +way. When he had nearly served his time, he began to look about him. +The tailor's trade did not seem likely to lead to much, unless it +were combined with something else, and a brilliant opening offered +itself, as he was at work for a pawnbroker in Hounsditch. "The +broker's wife had one daughter alive. The mother, being well +persuaded of my good natural temper, and of my good husbandry, and +that I had no poor kindred come after me to be any charge or burthen +to her daughter, ... proposed to me that she would give me a hundred +pounds with her to set up.... So the maid and I were made sure by +promise, and I was resolved to have the maid to wife, and to keep a +broker's shop, and lend money on pawns, and grow rich as others did." +Muggleton had not yet been admitted to the freedom of the city, and +the marriage was arranged to take place after he should have done so. +In the meantime he found himself working side by side with William +Reeve, Prophet John Reeve's brother, at this time a "very zealous +Puritan," with whom he talked of his prospects. "I loved the maid, +and desired to be rich," he tells us; but these Puritan people were +horrified at his deliberately intending to live the life of a usurer, +and they "threatened great judgments, and danger of damnation +hereafter." + +It is clear that the frightful eschatology of the time was exercising +a far greater power upon the imagination of the masses than anything +else. People were dwelling upon all that was terrible and gloomy in +the picture of a future life; the one thought with the visionaries +was this--Save yourselves from the wrath to come. "I was extremely +fearful of eternal damnation," says Muggleton, "thinking my soul +might go into hell fire without a body, as all people did at that +time." + +There was evidently a struggle between conviction and inclination, +and it ended as we should have expected--the marriage was broken off. +Then followed some years of vehement religious conflict; "Neither did +I hear any preach in these days but the Puritan ministers, whose hair +was cut short. _For if a man with long hair had gone_ into the +pulpit to preach, I would have gone out of the Church again, though +he might preach better than the other." All through this time visions +of hell and torment, and devils and damnation troubled him; now and +then there were "elevations in my mind, but these were few and far +between; a while after all was lost again." He soon consoled himself +for his matrimonial disappointment; he married and had three +daughters, then his first wife died. He throve in his calling, "only +the spirit of fear of hell was still upon me, but not so extreme as +it was before." He took a second wife, and the civil war began. + +"And generally the Puritans were all for the Parliament, and most of +my society and acquaintance did fall away and declined in love one +towards another. Some of them turned to Presbytery, and some turned +Independents; others fell to be Ranters, and some fell to be mere +Atheists. So that our Puritan people were so divided and scattered in +our religion, that I was altogether at a loss; for all the zeal we +formerly had was quite worn out. For I had seen the utmost perfection +and satisfaction that could be found in that way, except I would do +it for loaves, _but loaves was never my aim."_ + +The civil war ran its course, but Muggleton cared nothing for the +general course of events. What were kings and bishops and Lords and +Commons to him? he was living in quite another world. As for Laud and +Strafford, and Pym and Hampden, he does not even once name them. He +makes not the slightest allusion to the death of Charles the First, +though he was living within half a mile of Whitehall when the king's +head fell on the block. Prophets of the Muggleton type are so busied +about their own souls and their own spiritual condition, that the +battles, murders, and sudden deaths of other men, great or small, +give them no concern whatever. + +A couple of years or so after the execution of the king, "it came to +pass I heard of several prophets and prophetesses that were about the +streets.... Also I heard of two other men that were counted greater +than prophets--to wit, John Tannye and John Robins. John Tannye, he +declared himself to be the Lord's High Priest, therefore he +circumcised himself according to the law. Also he declared that he +was to gather the Jews out of all nations,... with many other strange +and wonderful things. And as for John Robins, he declared himself to +be God Almighty. Also he said that he had raised from the dead +several of the prophets, as Jeremiah and others. Also I saw several +others of the prophets that was said to be raised by him, _for I +have had nine or ten of them at my house at a time, of those that +were said to be raised from the dead."_ + +Is madness contagious? Or is it that, while the sane can exercise but +a very limited power over the insane, there is no limit to the +influence which the insane can gain over one another? Living in a +world of their own, where delusions pass for palpable facts, where +the logical faculty accepts the wildest visions as of equal +significance with actual realities, these dreamers have a calculus of +their own which includes the symbols in use among the sane, but +comprehends besides a notation which these latter attach no meaning +to, reject, and deride. + +"Would you be so kind as tell me, sir, what's a ohm?" said the worthy +Mr. Stiggins to me the other day. "It's a modern term used in +electricity, which I am too ignorant to explain to you." He looked +full at me for more than five seconds without a word then he said, +"I'm thinking that this man was a fool to talk about ohms when not +even you knew what a ohm means. And he came from Cambridge College +too, and he's got a vote! I reckon when a man can't talk the same as +other folks he'd ought to be shut up." Indignant Stiggins! But are we +not all intolerant? + +John Robins had acquired an almost unlimited ascendency over his +crazy prophets, and speedily acquired the like ascendency over +Muggleton. What specially fascinated him was that all John Robins's +prophets "had power from him to damn any that did oppose or speak +evil of him. So his prophets gave sentence of damnation upon many, to +my knowledge, for speaking evil of him, they not knowing him whether +he was true or false." Muggleton was profoundly impressed, but +according to his own account he was a silent observer, and waited. +One of the prophets often came to his house and was welcome; he +"spake as an angel of God, and I never let him go without eating and +drinking," for Muggleton was a man of large appetite and demanded +large supplies of food, nor did he stint himself of meat and drink or +withhold creature comforts from those he loved. + +Just at this time Muggleton "fell into a melancholy." He had arrived +at the prophetic age--he had completed his fortieth year. "Then did +two motives arise in me and speak in me as two lively voices, as if +two spirits had been speaking in me, one answering the other as if +they were not my own spirit." So that our noble laureate was +anticipated by two centuries, unless indeed the "two lively voices" +make themselves heard at times to most men who have ears to hear +them. Muggleton's voices were not very high-toned voices; they were +voices that spake of heaven and hell, nothing more. Love and duty +never seem to have formed the subject of his meditations. "For I did +not so much mind to be saved, as I did to escape being damn'd. For I +thought, if I could but lie still in the earth for ever, it would be +as well with me as it would be if I were in eternal happiness... for +I did not care whether I was happy so I might not be miserable. I +cared not for heaven so I might not go to hell. These things pressed +hard upon my soul, even to the wounding of it." + +The battle within him went on fiercely for some time, and it ended as +we should have expected. "I was so well satisfied in my mind as to my +eternal happiness, that I was resolved now to be quiet and to get as +good a living as I could in this world and live as comfortably as I +could here, thinking that this revelation should have been beneficial +to nobody but myself." The "motional voices," and visions, and +questionings, continued from April 1651 to January 1652; and it was +during this time that the intimacy between Muggleton and Reeve became +more closely cemented, for "John Reeve was so taken with my language +that his desires were _extreme earnest_ that he might have the +same revelation as I had. His desires were so great that he was +troublesome unto me, for if I went into one room, into another, he +would follow me to talk to me." His persistence was rewarded, and +just when Muggleton's visions ceased "in the month of January 1652, +about the middle of the month, John Reeve came to me very joyful and +said, Cousin Lodowick, now said he, I know what revelation of +Scripture is as well as thee." Reeve's revelations increased, and +never ceased for two weeks. "First visions, then by voice of words to +the hearing of the ear three mornings together the third, fourth, and +fifth days of February, 1652, and the year of John Reeve's life +forty-two, and the year of my life forty-one." + +Two men in this curious ecstatic condition obviously could not stop +at this point. It was a critical moment--would they enter into +rivalry or spiritual partnership? If the latter, then who was to be +the leader, who would make the first move? It was soon settled. + +"The first evening God _spake_ to John Reeve he came to my house +and said, Cousin Lodowick, God hath given thee unto me for ever, and +the tears ran down both sides his cheeks amain. So I asked him what +was the matter, for he looked like one that had been risen out of the +grave, he being a fresh-coloured man the day before, but the tears +ran down his cheeks apace." John Reeve was not yet prepared to +deliver his commission with authority; it was coming, but not yet. +Meanwhile he turned to Muggleton's children and pronounced them +blessed, "but especially thy daughter Sarah, she shall be the teacher +of all the women in London." Sarah was hiding on the stairs and was +not a little afraid; she was a girl of fourteen, but she accepted her +mission there and then. + +She proved to be a valuable helper, "and several persons came +afterwards to my house more to discourse with her than us, and they +marvelled that one so young should have such knowledge and wisdom." +Next day John Reeve came again, and Muggleton was pronounced to be +the _mouth_ of the new revelation, "as Aaron was given to be +Moses' mouth." + +The first thing to be done was to depose the other two prophets, +Robins and Tannye, and to hoise them on their own petard. It had to +be seen who could damn hardest. For one moment even Muggleton's stout +heart failed, he would take another with him to be present at the +great trial of strength. He called upon a certain Thomas Turner to +accompany him, "else you must be cursed to all eternity. But his wife +was exceeding wroth and fearful, and she said, if John Reeve came +again to her husband that she would run a spit in his guts, so John +Reeve cursed her to eternity." Whereupon Turner, appalled by the +sentence, complied with the order and went. The three presented +themselves before the other madman, and John Reeve uttered his +testimony, denouncing him as a false prophet and gave him a month to +repent of his misdeeds. When the month had elapsed Reeve wrote the +sentence of eternal damnation upon him "and left it at his lodging, +and after a while he and his great matters perished in the sea. For +he made a little boat to carry him to Jerusalem, and going to Holland +to call the Jews there, he and one Captain James was cast away and +drowned, so all his powers came to nothing." + +The day after the interview with Tannye, the prophets proceeded to +deal with John Robins. He had been thrown into Bridewell by Cromwell, +and there he lay, his worshippers still resorting to him for any one +with money could visit a prisoner in gaol as often as he pleased. +When the prophets appeared at the gate empty handed, the keeper as a +matter of course refused them admittance. Then said John Reeve to the +keeper, "Thou shall never be at peace." By and by they were shown +where Robins's cell was; they summoned him to the window, and a +strange interview took place, which is minutely described. It ended +by Reeve delivering his charge and pronouncing his sentence. Many had +been the crimes of John Robins. He had ruined and deceived men in a +multitude of ways; among others "thou givest them leave to abstain by +degrees from all kinds of food, thou didst feed them with windy +things, as apples and other fruit that was windy, and they drank +nothing but water; therefore look what measure thou hast measured to +others we will measure again to thee." + +John Robins was utterly mastered; "he pulled his hands off the grates +and laid them together and said, It is finished; the Lord's will be +done." In two months he had written a letter of recantation, was +released from durance, and is heard of no more. + +"Thus the reader may see that these two powers were brought down in +these two days' messages from the Lord." + +The world was all before them now. It remained that the new prophets +should have some distinctive dogma, and that the printing press +should be called in as an accessory to spread their fame. Again John +Reeve took the lead, and in 1652 he wrote an account of his divine +commission and published his first work, _A Transcendant Spiritual +Treatise_, which told of his last revelation of the message to +Tannye and Robins. + +While the book was passing through the press the prophets lived by +their trade, and made no attempt to preach before any assembly. They +_talked_ incessantly, and they cursed liberally. At last the +children in the streets began to follow Reeve and pelt him, crying +after him, "There goes the prophet that damns people!" Muggleton, +meanwhile, was always ready to meet an inquirer, and to eat and drink +with him. "On one occasion an old acquaintance would needs have me +drink with him, that he might have some talk with me, and there +followed a neighbour of his, a gentleman, as we call them; his name +was Penson, and he sat down in our company." Soon Penson began to +deride and abuse the prophet; whereupon Muggleton calmly "did +pronounce this Penson cursed to eternity." Penson did not like being +damned under the circumstances. "Then he rose up, and with both his +fists smote upon my head... But it came to pass that this Penson was +sick immediately after, and in a week or ten days after he died, much +troubled in his mind, and tormented insomuch that his friends and +relations sought to apprehend me for a witch, he being a rich man, +but they couldn't tell how to state the matter, so they let it fall." + +It is pretty clear that John Reeve was from the first disposed to go +beyond his brother prophet; and shortly after the incident of +Penson's death Reeve made a grand _coup_, which produced a +profound impression. Muggleton had damned a _gentleman_. Reeve +tried his power upon the same class, and succeeded in actually +converting two of them, who were influential men among the Ranters. +The Ranters were startled and puzzled. "And it came to pass that one +of these Ranters kept a victualling house and sold drink in the +Minories, and they would spend their money there. So John Reeve and +myself came there, and many of them despised our declaration. So John +Reeve gave sentence of eternal damnation upon many of them, and one +of them, being more offended than all the rest, was moved with such +wrath and fury that five or six men could hardly keep him off, his +fury was so hot. Then John Reeve said unto the people standing by, +'Friends,' said he, 'I pray you stand still on both sides of the +room, and let there be a space in the middle, and I will lay down my +head upon the ground and let this furious man tread upon my head and +do what he will unto me....' So John Reeve pulled off his hat and +laid his face flat to the ground, and the people stood still. So the +man came running with great fury, and when he came near him, lifting +up his foot to tread on his neck, the man started back again and +said, 'No, I scorn to tread upon a man that lieth down to me.' And +the people all marvelled at this thing." + +Though Muggleton does not make much of this incident, it appears to +have been a very important one in the early history of the sect, for +from this moment the numbers of Muggletonians began to increase, and +they began to absorb a small army of wandering monomaniacs who were +roaming about London and talking about _religion_, and visions, +and revelations, and attaching themselves first to one body and then +to another, according as they could get admission to the meeting- +houses and be allowed to preach and harangue. Astrologers too, came +and conferred with the prophets, and drunken scoffers laid bets that +they would get the prophet's blessing; and on one occasion a company +of "Atheistical Ranters" made a plot to turn the tables upon +Muggleton, and damn him and Reeve. Three of "the most desperatest" +agreed to do it. "So the time appointed came, and there was prepared +a good dinner of pork, and the three came ready prepared to curse +us." Part of the agreement was that the dinner should follow upon the +cursing. But whether it was that the rogues could do nothing until +they were fortified with drink, or that a sudden spasm of +conscientiousness came upon them, or that they were like +superstitious people who with blanched lips loudly protest that they +do not believe in ghosts, but decline on principle to walk through a +churchyard after dark, these three fellows all ran away from their +engagements at the eleventh hour. "So they departed without their +dinner of pork." + +The prophets were becoming notorious. The Ranters and John Robins had +been vanquished; their first book was published and was selling; they +were advertising themselves widely, and being advertised by friends +and foes; but as yet they had not been persecuted, and as yet they +had not put very prominently forward any distinctive or special +theology. They claimed to be prophets, but their mission, What was +it? What were they charged to proclaim? + +It was just about this time that the works of Jacob Boehm had begun +to exercise a very great influence upon the visionaries in England. +The _Mercurius Teutonicus_ was first published in an English +translation in 1649, and the _Signatura_ _Rerum_ had appeared +in 1651. Muggleton had certainly read these books, and as certainly +turned them to account. The jargon of the German mystic was exactly +what he wanted in his present state of mind, and there was that +in the new philosophy which commended itself vastly to him. Not +that he, as an inspired prophet, could for one moment admit that he +had received any light from man or was under any obligation to +anything but the divine illumination enlightening him directly and +immediately; but the obligation was there all the same, and to Jacob +Boehm's influence we must attribute the evolution of the distinctive +doctrine of the Muggletonians, which just about this time comes into +obtrusive prominence. + +It was at the beginning of the year 1653 that the prophets made their +first important convert. Up to this time they had been heard of only +in the back streets of London. But now a New England merchant named +Leader, who had made a fortune in America, and had come back in +disgust at the intolerance and persecution that prevailed among the +colonists, made advances to Muggleton. Leader was in a despondent +state of mind, and on the lookout for a religion with some novelty in +it. He too had, it seems, been a student of Jacob Boehm, and the +_Signatura Rerum_ had opened out a new line of speculation to +him. "His first question was concerning God--whether God, that +created all things, could admit of being any form of Himself?" + +Prophets are never at a nonplus, and never surprised by a question; +the more transcendental the problem, the more need for the prophetic +gift to solve it. In fact, the prophet comes in to help when all +human cunning is at fault. + +Accordingly Mr. Leader's question led to a discussion which is all +set down at full for those who choose to read it, and as the result +of that discussion comes out into clearness the astounding +declaration which henceforth appears as the main article of the +Muggletonian theology. + +"God hath a body of His own, as man hath a body of his own; only +God's body is spiritual and heavenly, clear as _christial_, +brighter than the sun, swifter than thought, yet a body." + +Hitherto the prophets had been groping after a formula which might be +their strength, but they had not been able to put it into shape. +Jacob Boehm's mysticism, passing through the alembic of such a mind +as Leader's, and subjected to that occult atmosphere which Muggleton +lived in, came forth in the shape of a new theology, transcendental, +unintelligible, but therefore celestial and sublime. The prophets +from this moment made a new departure. + +Meanwhile, the unhesitating and authoritative damning of opponents +exercised a strange fascination over the multitude. Reeve and +Muggleton lived among the blackguards at their first start, and they +damned the blackguards pretty freely. In numberless instances the +blackguards were to all intents and purposes damned before +Muggleton's sentence was pronounced. They were fellows given over to +drink and debauchery, sots who had not much life in them, scoundrels +who were in hiding, skulking in the vilest holes of the city, whom +the plague or famine would be likely to rid the world of any day. +They died frequently enough after the sentence was pronounced, and it +is quite conceivable that the sentence may have hastened the end of +many a poor wretch who had nothing to live for. Nay, in more cases +than one a timid man, when the sentence was passed, was so terrified +that he took to his bed there and then, and never rose from it, or +became insane, neglected his business, and so was ruined; and as the +number of the damned was always increasing, the chances of strange +accidents and misfortunes would go on increasing also. People heard +of these, and of these only. + +What the prophets themselves did, it was only natural that their +followers would try to do also; indeed, it is wonderful that the +damning prerogative was not invaded much oftener than it was. It was +very rarely intruded upon, however. Once, indeed, a misguided and too +venturous believer named Cooper took upon him to usurp authority, and +pronounced the sentence of damnation upon a small batch of fifteen +scoffers who had jeered at him and the prophet's mission. The +precedent was a dangerous one, there was no telling what it would +lead to if such random and promiscuous damning was to go on. Next day +Cooper fell grievously sick, and conscience smote him; he could not +be at peace till he had confessed his fault and been forgiven. He was +forgiven accordingly, but he was admonished to lay to heart the +warning, and to presume no more. "Not but that I do believe," says +Muggleton, "they will all be damned," all the whole fifteen! + +The movement was becoming a nuisance by this time, and Reeve got a +hint, and no obscure one, that a warrant would be issued against him, +"either from General Cromwell, or the Council of State, or from the +Parliament." So far from being deterred by the prospect--was there +ever a prophet who was frightened into silence?--he declared that if +Cromwell or the Parliament should despise him and his mission, "I +would pronounce them damned as I do you!" Though no warrant came from +the Council or Cromwell--a matter much to be regretted--yet a warrant +was taken out by five of the opponents, and the prophets were brought +before the Lord Mayor. As usual, a detailed account is given of the +proceedings, which are valuable as illustrating the method pursued in +those days in the examination of an accused person, and the procedure +of the court--so very different from our modern practice. The +prophets were committed for trial; they refused to give bail, and +were thrown into Newgate. It was the 15th of September, 1653, one of +the great festivals among the believers. The hideous picture of +prison life in Newgate deserves to be read even by those who have +some acquaintance with the horrors of our prisons at this time. The +prophets were well supplied with money, and so were spared some of +the worst sufferings of the place; but it was bad enough, in all +conscience, and one night the two narrowly escaped being hanged in +their own room, and were only saved by five condemned men, who came +to the rescue. Muggleton says the highwaymen and _the boys_ were +most set against him; one of the highwaymen, whenever he saw him in +the Hall, "would come and deride at me, and say, 'You rogue, you +damn'd folks.' And so it was with the boys that were prisoners; they +would snatch off my hat, and pawn it for half-a-dozen of drink. So +the boys did, and I gave them sixpence every time they did it, to +please them." Highly gratifying to the boys! + +While the two were in Newgate John Reeve wrote a letter to the Lord +Mayor and another to the Recorder, mildly damning them both. If we +are to believe Muggleton, the Recorder was somewhat disturbed and +alarmed by the sentence. When the day of trial came, Reeve bade the +Lord Mayor hold his peace and be silent, as became a damned man in +the presence of the prophets, and we are told the Mayor obeyed and +said nothing more. The two were condemned, nevertheless, and thrown +into Bridewell for seven months. Under the horrors of that dreadful +imprisonment Reeve's constitution broke down. He was never the same +man again. He languished on, indeed, for four years more, but he was +a dying man, and he spent his time in writing books, his followers +kindly ministering to him in his broken health and feebleness. The +end came to him while visiting some convents at Maidstone--good +women, of course. "The one was Mrs. Frances, the eldest; the second, +Mrs. Roberts; the third, Mrs. Boner. This Mrs. Frances closed up his +eyes, for he said unto her, 'Frances, close up mine eyes, lest my +enemies say I died a staring prophet.'" + +While Reeve and Muggleton were lying in Newgate, another mystic--are +we to call him a prophet too?--was lying in Carlisle gaol. George +Fox, the Quaker, had fallen into the hands of Wilfrid Lawson, then +High Sheriff for the county, who had not spared him. Just about the +time that the London prophets were discharged, Fox arrived in London +under the custody of Captain Drury, and had that memorable interview +with Cromwell which readers of Fox's Journal are not likely to +forget, though Carlyle has gone far to spoil the story by slurring it +over. + +It was a great event to the Quakers to have their leader in London. +He had only once before been in the Metropolis--that was nine years +ago--and then he had been "fearful," had done nothing, was tongue- +tied, and had gladly escaped to itinerate among the _steeple +houses_ in the north. This time he had gained acceptance with the +Protector. No man would meddle with him from henceforth or let them +look to it! The Quakers were, of course, elated; they were going to +carry all before them; they met to organize a grand campaign for +proselytizing all England. The two _commissionated prophets_ +were by no means dismayed, by no means inclined to be outdone by the +Quakers; they invited them to a disputation--a trial of the spirits, +in fact. It came off, accordingly, in Eastcheap, and George Fox was +there, and with him two or three of his "ministers whom the Lord +raised up." It is not a little significant that Fox makes no mention +of this meeting in his Journal-significant because he never omits to +speak of his successes, and never tells us anything of his failures. +Nay, he studiously omits all mention of Muggleton's name throughout +the Journal, and in his books against him indulges in really violent +language. Muggleton, on the other hand, speaks of this discussion at +Eastcheap as if it had been a serious check to the Quakers, and from +this time to his death he never ceased to assail them with a resolute +aggressiveness which indicates no sort of misgiving in his power to +deal with his antagonists. The discussion, however, ended in Fox and +his supporters-five in all-receiving the sentence of damnation from +the two prophets, and from this moment there was internecine war +between the Quakers and the Muggletonians; each denouncing the other +fiercely, and issuing books against the other by the score-works +which have happily been long ago forgotten, to the great advantage of +mankind. If, however, any one, curious in such lore, is desirous of +finding out what cursing and swearing, regarded as one of the Fine +Arts, may achieve when skilfully managed by adepts, let him by all +means turn to the pamphlets of Pennington, Richard Farnsworth, and +others of the Quaker body, while delivering their souls against +Muggleton, and the counterblasts of Muggleton, Claxton, and their +friends in reply. One of the choicest diatribes of these _esprits +forts_, as we may well call them, was hurled at the prophet by +William Penn. + +Muggleton had some very zealous converts at Cork--for there were +believers everywhere by this time--and as they were people of +substance and much in favour, they were making some way. Of course +they came into collision with the Quakers, and not without success. +Penn had early fallen under the influence of Richard Farnsworth, whom +Muggleton had damned in 1654, and Penn's father had sent him over to +manage his Irish estates, in the hope of getting the new notions out +of the young man's head. The experiment failed, and young Penn, now +only twenty-four years old, had returned to England in 1668 as +staunch a Quaker as ever. There was a leading man among the Quakers, +Josiah Cole by name, whom Muggleton had solemnly damned; he was in +failing health, and he died a few days after the sentence was +pronounced. The Muggletonians were jubilant, and some of the Quakers +were disturbed and alarmed. Penn's heart was moved within him, and +with all the fervid indignation of youth he stepped forward to draw +the sword of the Lord. He printed a letter to Muggleton which should +reassure the waverers. It thundered out defiance. "Boast not," he +says, "thou enemy of God, thou son of perdition and confederate with +the unclean croaking spirits reserved under chains to eternal +darkness.... I boldly challenge thee with thy six-foot God and all +the host of Luciferian spirits, with all your commissions, curses, +and sentences, to touch and hurt me. And this know, O Muggleton: on +you I trample, and to the bottomless pit are you sentenced, from +whence you came, and where the endless worm shall gnaw and torture +your imaginary soul." + +Muggleton replied with his usual coolness, and pronounced his +sentence upon the young enthusiast. Neither was a man easily to be +put down; but whereas the prophet's followers were wholly unmoved by +all the attacks upon them, the Quakers found the Muggletonians +extremely troublesome, and it is impossible to resist the conviction +that large numbers of the Quakers were won over to join the opposite +camp. Nay, it looks as if Muggleton had really some strange power +over the weaker vessels among the Quakers, and had actually +_frightened_ some of them. Writing in 1670, he says: "You are +not like the people you were sixteen years ago; there were few +Quakers then, but they had witchcraft fits, but now of late I do not +hear of any Quaker that hath any fits, no, not so much as to buz and +hum before the fit comes. But if you, Fox, doth know of any of you +Quakers that have any of those witchcraft fits as formerly, bring +them to me, and I shall cast out that devil which causeth those +fits." The Quakers could hardly have been as angry as they were, nor +their books have been so many and their writers so voluble during +twenty years and longer, if Muggleton had not been a disputant to be +dreaded, and a prophet with the faculty of drawing others after him. + +In the whole course of his career, which extended over nearly half a +century, Muggleton never found any difficulty in maintaining his +authority over his followers. There were indeed two attempts at +mutiny, but they were promptly suppressed, and they collapsed before +they had made any head. The first was in 1660, shortly after the +death of John Reeve. Lawrence Claxton, a "great writer" among the +Muggletonians, had during Reeve's long illness come very much to the +fore as an opponent of the Quakers, and his success had a little +turned his head. In one passage of his writings he had taken rank as +Reeve's equal and representative, and had put himself on a level with +"the Commissionated." It was an awful act of impiety. "For," says +Muggleton, "as John Reeve was like unto Elijah, so am I as Elisha, +and his place was but as Gehazi, and could stand no longer than my +will and pleasure was." Claxton had been formally blessed, therefore +he could never be damned, but excommunicated he could be and was. He +at once dropt out and we hear of him no more. + +The second revolt was much more serious. "There were four +conspirators in the rebellion... for which I damned two of them, and +the other two I did excommunicate." This time the fomenter of discord +was a busy Scotchman. Muggleton calls him Walter Bohenan, which +appears to be only a _bhonetic_ representation of Walter +_Buchanan_. That so sagacious a seer as Muggleton should have +been betrayed into associating himself intimately with a canny Scot +is truly wonderful, and illustrates the eternal verity that "we are +all of us weak at times," even the prophets. _Bohenan's_ self- +assertion led him on to dizzy heights of towering presumption, until +at last "he acted the highest act of rebellion that ever was acted." +It was all in vain; he was cut off for ever--perished from the +congregation; utterly damned, and thereupon disappears, swallowed up +of darkness and silence. + +Muggleton lived twenty-six years after this last revolt, exercising +unquestioned authority; an autocratic prophet to whom something like +worship was offered even to the last. He was far advanced in his +eighty-ninth year when he died. He was far on towards seventy when he +was brought before Jeffreys, then Common Serjeant, and other +justices, on a charge of blasphemy. Jeffreys was as yet a novice in +those arts of which he became the acknowledged master a few years +after, but already he quite equalled his future self in his savage +brutality to the poor monomaniac. "He was a man," says Muggleton, +"whose voice was very loud; but he is one of the worst devils in +nature." The jury hesitated to bring in their verdict, knowing well +enough what would follow, but Jeffrey's look and manner cowed them. +The prophet was condemned to pay a fine of L 500, to stand in the +pillory three times for two hours _without the usual protection to +his head_, which those condemned to such a barbarous punishment +were allowed. He was to have his books burned by the common hangman, +and to remain in Newgate till his fine was paid. Only a man of an +iron constitution could have come out of the ordeal with his life. +Muggleton bore it all; remained in Newgate for a year, compounded for +his fine in the sum of L 100, which his friends advanced, and was a +free man on the 19th of July, 1677, a day which the Muggletonians +observed as the prophet's Hegira. + +As early as 1666 he had many followers on the Continent, and in that +year the _Transcendant Spiritual Treatise_ was translated into +German by a convert who came over to London to confer with the sage. +Except on very rare occasions he never left London, nor indeed the +parish in which he was born. He pursued the trade of a tailor till +late in life, but his books had sold largely, and he managed to get +together a competence, and was at one time worried by his neighbours +and fined for refusing to serve in some parish offices. There was a +fund of sagacity about the man which appears frequently in his later +letters, but an utter absence of all sentiment and all sympathy. He +had no _nerves_. Staid, stern, and curiously insensible to +physical pain, he was absolutely fearless, with a constitution that +could defy any hardships and bear any strain upon it. + +When we come to the _teaching_ of Muggleton, we find ourselves +in a tangled maze of nonsense far too inconsequential to allow of any +intelligible account being given of it. Jacob Boehm's mistiest dreams +are clearness itself compared with the English prophet's utterances. +Others might talk of the divine cause or the divine power or the +divine person, "fumbling exceedingly" and falling back in an +intellectual swoon upon the stony bosom of the Unknowable. Muggleton +grimly told you that there was a personal Trinity in the universe-- +God, man, and devil--and each had his body. If you pressed him for +further particulars he poured forth words that might mean anything, a +metallic jargon which you were ordered to receive and ponder. Such as +it was, however, you had to accept or reject it at your peril. Why +should an inspired prophet argue? + +Something must be set down to the circumstances in which he found +himself, and to the dreadfully chaotic condition which the moral +sentiments and religious beliefs of the multitude had been reduced to +during the wild anarchy of the seventeenth century. There were two +men in England who were _quite certain_--George Fox was one, +Muggleton was the other. Everybody else was doubting, hesitating, +groping for the light, moaning at the darkness. These two men +_knew_, other people were seeking to know. George Fox went forth +to win the world over from darkness to light. Muggleton stayed at +home, he _was_ the light. They that wanted it must come to him +to find it. All through England there was clamour and hubbub of many +voices, men going to and fro, always on the move, trying experiments +of all kinds. Here was one man, "a still strong man in a blatant +land," who was calm, steadfast, unmovable, and always at home. He did +not want you, whoever you were; he was perfectly indifferent to you +and your concerns. Preach? No! he never preached, he never cared to +speak till he was spoken to. If you went to him as an oracle, then he +spake as a god. + +Moreover, when the Restoration came and the high pressure that had +been kept up in some states of society was suddenly taken off, there +was a frantic rage for pleasure, which included the wildest +debauchery and the most idiotic attempts at amusement. Then, too, the +haste to be rich agitated the minds of all classes; Westward ho! was +the cry not only of Pilgrim Fathers but of reckless adventurers of +all kinds. From across the sea came the ships of Tarshish bringing +gold, and silver, and ivory, and apes, and peacocks, and a thousand +tales of El Dorado. Muggleton the prophet, with that lank brown hair +of his and the dreamy eye and the resolute lips, waited unmoved. +Pleasure? If he wondered at anything it was to know what meaning +there could be in the word. Riches? What purpose could they serve? To +him it seemed that the Decalogue contained one wholly superfluous +enactment; why should men covet? There would have been some reason in +limiting the number of the commandments to nine; nine is the product +of three times three. Think of that! This man in that wicked age must +have appeared to many a standing miracle, if only for this reason, +that he was the one man in London who was content, passing his days +in a stubborn rapture, as little inclined for play or laughter as the +sphinx in the desert, which the sand storms can beat against but +never stir. + +So far from Muggleton's influence and authority growing less as he +grew older, it went on steadily increasing; there was a mystery and +an awe that gathered round him, and latterly he was regarded rather +as an inspired oracle than as a seer. The voice of prophecy ceased; +he had left his words on record for all future ages, but from day to +day his advice was asked, and people soon found it was worth +listening to. In the latter years of his life his letters dealt with +the ordinary affairs of men. People wrote to inquire about their +matrimonial affairs, their quarrels, their business difficulties, +whether they must conform to this or that enactment of the State, how +they might outwit the persecutors and skulk behind the law. Muggleton +replies with surprising shrewdness and good sense, and now and then +exhibits a familiarity with the quips and quirks of the law that he +can only have acquired by the necessity which suffering had laid upon +him. His language is always rugged, for he had received little or no +education; he is very unsafe in his grammar, but he has a plain, +homely vocabulary, forcible and copious, which, like most mystics, he +was compelled to enrich on occasion, and which he does not scruple to +enrich in his own way. His style certainly improves as he gets older, +and in these letters one meets now and then with passages that are +almost melodious, the sentences following one another in a kind of +plaintive rhythm, and sounding as you read them aloud, like a +Gregorian chant. He died of natural decay, the machine worn out. His +last words were, "Now hath God sent death unto me." They laid him on +his bed, and he slept and woke not. Nearly 250 of the faithful +followed him to his grave. It is clear that the sect had not lost +ground as time moved on. + +Not the least feature in this curious chapter of religious history is +that the Muggletonians should have survived as a sect to our own +days. As late as 1846 an elaborate index to the Muggletonian writings +was issued, and the _Divine Songs of the Muggletonians_, written +exclusively by believers, show that there has been a strange +continuity of composition among them, and that, too, such composition +as ordinary mortals have never known the like of. Yet Muggleton never +broke forth into verse. Joanna Southcott could not keep down her +impulse to pour forth her soul in metre; Muggleton is never excited, +the emotional had no charm for him. So, too, he never cared for +music, he makes no allusion to it. Nay, he speaks slightingly of +worship, of prayer and praise, especially of congregational worship. +It was allowable to the little men, a concession to the weak which +the strong in the faith might be expected to dispense with sooner or +later. For himself, isolated and self-contained, he could do without +the aids to faith which the multitude ask for and find support in. He +held himself aloof; he had no sympathy to offer, he asked for none; +nay, he did not even need his followers, he could do without them. +The question for them was, Could they do without him? For more than +two centuries they have kept on vehemently answering No! + +Of late years a class of specialists has risen up among us who have +treated us to quite a new philosophy--to wit, the philosophy of +religion. To these thinkers I leave the construction of theories on +Muggleton's place in the history of religion or philosophy; to them, +too, I leave the question of what was the secret of his success and +power. Much more interesting to me is the problem how the sect has +gone on retaining its vitality. Perhaps the great secret of that +permanence has been that Muggleton did not give his followers too +much to believe or too much to do. He disdained details, he was never +precise and meddlesome. If the Muggletonians wished to pray, let +them; to sing, there was no objection; to meet together in their +conventicles, it was a harmless diversion. But they must manage these +things themselves, and provide for difficulties as they arose. It was +no part of the prophet's office to make bye-laws which might require +to be altered any day. Thus it came about that the sect was left at +Muggleton's death absolutely unfettered by any petty restraints upon +its freedom of development. The believers must manage their own +affairs. There is one God and Muggleton is His prophet--that was +really the sum and substance of their creed. That followed on a small +scale which is observable on a large scale among the Moslems, the +prophet's followers found themselves more and more thrown back upon +their prophet till he became almost an object of adoration. The creed +of Islam without Mahomet would be to millions almost inconceivable; +the Muggletonian God without Muggleton would not be known. + + * * * * * * * + +Says her Royal Highness, looking over my shoulder, "You have written +quite enough about those crazy, vulgar people. It's all old world +talk. There are no prophets now; there never will be any more." + +No more prophets! The _prophetical succession_ never stops, +never will stop. When Muggleton died Emanuel Swedenborg was a boy of +ten; twenty years afterwards the new prophet was walking about London +just as the old one had done, living the same lonely life, conversing +with the angels and writing of heaven and hell and conjugal love, +and--well, a great deal else besides; and, odd coincidence, it was in +that same Eastcheap where Muggleton had damned the Quakers in 1653 +that the Swedenborgians held their first assembly in 1788, just about +the same time that Joanna Southcott came to London, and before Joseph +Smith and Brigham Young were born or thought of. No, no. The prophets +are not improved off the face of the earth. They never will be. They +will turn up again and again. You can no more hope to exterminate +them by culture than you can hope to produce them by machinery. +_Propheta nascitur non fit_. For once her Royal Highness was +wrong. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Coming of the Friars, by Augustus Jessopp + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING OF THE FRIARS *** + +This file should be named cmfrs10.txt or cmfrs10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, cmfrs11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cmfrs10a.txt + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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