A Literary History of the English People Part 17

In these innumerable well-told tales, full of sprightly dialogue, can be already detected something of the art of the _conteur_ which will appear in Chaucer, and something almost of the art of the novelist, destined five hundred years later to reach such a high development in England.

The curiosity of the Celt, reawakened by the Norman, is perpetuated in Great Britain; stories are doted on there. "It is the custom," says an English author of the thirteenth century, "in rich families, to spend the winter evenings around the fire, telling tales of former times...."[268]

Subjects for tales were not lacking. The last researches have about made it certain that the immense "Gesta Romanorum," so popular in the Middle Ages, were compiled in England about the end of the thirteenth century.[269] The collection of the English Dominican John of Bromyard, composed in the following century, is still more voluminous. Some idea can be formed of it from the fact that the printed copy preserved at the National Library of Paris weighs fifteen pounds.[270]

Everything is found in these collections, from mere jokes and happy retorts to real novels. There are coa.r.s.e fabliaux in their embryonic stage, objectionable tales where the frail wife derides the injured husband, graceful stories, miracles of the Virgin. We recognise in pa.s.sing some fable that La Fontaine has since made famous, episodes out of the "Roman de Renart," anecdotes drawn from Roman history, adventures that, transformed and remodelled, have at length found their definitive rendering in Shakespeare's plays.

All is grist that comes to the mill of these authors; their stories are of French, Latin, English, Hindu origin. It is plain, however, that they write for Englishmen from the fact that many of their stories are localised in England, and that quotations in English are here and there inserted into the tale.[271]

In turning the pages of these voluminous works, glimpses will be caught of the Wolf, the Fox, and Tybert the cat; the Miller, his son and the a.s.s; the Women and the Secret (instead of eggs, it is here a question of "exceedingly black crows"); the Rats who wish to hang a bell about the Cat's neck. Many tales, fabliaux, and short stories will be recognised that have become popular under their French, English, or Italian shape, such as the lay of the "Oiselet,"[272] the "Chienne qui pleure," or the Weeping b.i.t.c.h, the lay of Aristotle, the Geese of Friar Philip, the Pear Tree, the Hermit who got drunk. Some of them are very indecent, but they were not left out of the collections on that account, any more than miniaturists were forbidden to paint on the margins of holy, or almost holy books, scenes that were far from being so. A ma.n.u.script of the decretals, for example, painted in England at the beginning of the fourteenth century, exhibits a series of drawings ill.u.s.trating some of these stories, and meant to fit an obviously unexpurgated text.[273]

The Virgin plays her usual part of an indulgent protectress; the story-tellers strangely deviate from the sacred type set before them in the Scriptures. They represent her as the Merciful One whose patience no crime can exhaust, and whose goodwill is enlisted by the slightest act of homage. She is transformed and becomes in their hands an intermediate being between a saint, a G.o.ddess, and a fairy. The sacristan-nun of a convent, beautiful as may be believed, falls in love with a clerk, doubtless a charming one, and, unable to live without him, "throws her keys on the altar, and roves with her friend for five years outside the monastery." Pa.s.sing by the place at the end of that time, she is impelled by curiosity to go to the convent and inquire concerning herself, the sacristan-nun of former years. To her great surprise she hears that the sister continues there, and edifies the whole community by her piety. At night, while she sleeps, the Virgin appears to her in a vision, saying: "Return, unfortunate one, to thy convent! It is I who, a.s.suming thy shape, have fulfilled thy duties until now."[274] A conversion of course follows. A professional thief, who robbed and did nothing besides, "always invoked the Virgin with great devotion, even when he set out to steal."[275] He is caught and hanged; but the Virgin herself holds him up, and keeps him alive; he is taken down, and turns monk.

Another tale, of a romantic turn, is at once charming, absurd, immoral, edifying, and touching: "Celestinus reigned in the City of Rome. He was exceedingly prudent, and had a pretty daughter."[276] A knight fell in love with her, but, being also very prudent after a fashion, he argued thus: "Never will the emperor consent to give me his daughter to wife, I am not worthy; but if I could in some manner obtain the love of the maiden, I should ask for no more." He went often to see the princess, and tried to find favour in her eyes, but she said to him: "Thy trouble is thrown away; thinkest thou I know not what all these fine speeches mean?"

He then offers money: "It will be a hundred marks," says the emperor's daughter. But when evening comes the knight falls into such a deep sleep that he only awakes on the following morning. The knight ruins himself in order to obtain the same favour a second time, and succeeds no better than at first. He has spent all he had, and, more in love than ever, he journeys afar to seek a lender. He arrives "in a town where were many merchants, and a variety of philosophers, among them master Virgil." A merchant, a man of singular humour, agrees to lend the money; he refuses to take the lands of the young man as a security; "but thou shalt sign with thy blood the bond, and if thou dost not return the entire sum on the appointed day, I shall have the right to remove with a well-sharpened knife all the flesh off thy body."

The knight signs in haste, for he is possessed by his pa.s.sion, and he goes to consult Virgil. "My good master," he says, using the same expression as Dante, "I need your advice;" and Virgil then reveals to him the existence of a talisman, sole cause of his irresistible desire to sleep. The knight returns with speed to the strange palace inhabited by the still stranger daughter of this so "prudent" emperor; he removes the talisman, and is no longer overpowered by sleep.

To many tears succeeds a mutual affection, so true, so strong, accompanied by so much happiness, that both forget the fatal date.

However, start he must. "Go," says the maiden, "and offer him double, or treble the sum; offer him all the gold he wishes; I will procure it for thee." He arrives, he offers, but the merchant refuses: "Thou speakest in vain! Wert thou to offer me all the wealth of the city, nothing would I accept but what has been signed, sealed, and settled between us."

They go before the judge; the sentence is not a doubtful one.

The maiden, however, kept herself well informed of all that went on, and, seeing the turn affairs were taking, "she cut her hair, donned a rich suit of men's clothes, mounted a palfrey, and set out for the palace where her lover was about to hear his sentence." She asks to be allowed to defend the knight. "But nothing can be done," says the judge.

She offers money to the merchant, which he refuses; she then exclaims: "Let it be done as he desires; let him have the flesh, and nothing but the flesh; the bond says nothing of the blood." Hearing this, the merchant replies: "Give me my money and I hold you clear of the rest."

"Not so," said the maiden. The merchant is confounded, the knight released; the maiden returns home hurriedly, puts on her female attire, and hastens out to meet her lover, eager to hear all that has pa.s.sed.

"O my dear mistress, that I love above all things, I nearly lost my life this day; but as I was about to be condemned, suddenly appeared a knight of an admirable presence, so handsome that I never saw his like." How could she, at these words, prevent her sparkling eyes from betraying her? "He saved me by his wisdom, and nought had I even to pay.

"_The Maiden._--Thou might'st have been more generous, and brought home to supper the knight who had saved thy life.

"_The Knight._--He appeared and disappeared so suddenly I could not.

"_The Maiden._--Would'st thou recognise him again if he returned?

"_The Knight._--I should, a.s.suredly."[277]

She then puts on again her male attire, and it is easy to imagine with what transports the knight beheld his saviour in his friend. The end of this first outline of a "Merchant of Venice" is not less nave, picturesque, and desultory than the rest: "Thereupon he immediately married the maiden," and they led saintly lives. We are not told what the prudent emperor Celestinus thought of this "immediately."

Next to these compilers whose works became celebrated, but whose names for the most part remained concealed, were professional authors, who were and wanted to be known, and who enjoyed a great personal fame.

Foremost among them were John of Salisbury and Walter Map.

John of Salisbury,[278] a former pupil of Abelard, a friend of St.

Bernard, Thomas Becket, and the English Pope Adrian IV., the envoy of Henry II. to the court of Rome, which he visited ten times in twelve years, writes in Latin his "Policratic,"[279] or "De nugis Curialium,"

his "Metalogic," his "Enthetic" (in verse), and his eulogy on Becket.[280] John is only too well versed in the cla.s.sics, and he quotes them to an extent that does more credit to his erudition than to his taste; but he has the gift of observation, and his remarks on the follies of his time have a great historical value. In his "Policratic"

is found a satire on a sort of personage who was then beginning to play his part again, after an interruption of several centuries, namely, the _curialis_, or courtier; a criticism on histrions who, with their indecent farces, made a rough prelude to modern dramatic art; a caricature of those fashionable singers who disgraced the religious ceremonies in the newly erected cathedrals by their songs resembling those "of women ... of sirens ... of nightingales and parrots."[281] He ridicules hunting-monks, and also those chiromancers for whom Becket himself had a weakness. "Above all," says John, by way of conclusion and apology, "let not the men of the Court upbraid me with the follies I trust them with; let them know I did not mean them in the least, I satirised only myself and those like me, and it would be hard indeed if I were forbidden to castigate both myself and my peers."[282] In his "Metalogic," he scoffs at the vain dialectics of silly logicians, Cornificians, as he calls them, an appellation that stuck to them all through the Middle Ages, and at their long phrases interlarded with so many negative particles that, in order to find out whether yes or no was meant, it became necessary to examine if the number of noes was an odd or even one.

Bold ideas abound with John of Salisbury; he praises Brutus; he is of opinion that the murder of tyrants is not only justifiable, but an honest and commendable deed: "Non modo licitum est, sed aequum et justum." Whatever may be the apparent prosperity of the great, the State will go to ruin if the common people suffer: "When the people suffer, it is as though the sovereign had the gout"[283]; he must not imagine he is in health; let him try to walk, and down he falls.

Characteristics of the same sort are found, with much more sparkling wit, in the Latin works of Walter Map.[284] This Welshman has the vivacity of the Celts his compatriots; he was celebrated at the court of Henry II., and throughout England for his repartees and witticisms, so celebrated indeed that he himself came to agree to others' opinion, and thought them worth collecting. He thus formed a very bizarre book, without beginning or end, in which he noted, day by day,[285] all the curious things he had heard--"ego verb.u.m audivi"--and with greater abundance those he had said, including a great many puns. Thus it happens that certain chapters of his "De Nugis Curialium," a t.i.tle that the work owes to the success of John of Salisbury's, are real novels, and have the smartness of such; others are real fabliaux, with all their coa.r.s.eness; others are scenes of comedy, with dialogues, and indications of characters as in a play[286]; others again are anecdotes of the East, "quoddam mirabile," told on their return by pilgrims or crusaders.

Like John of Salisbury, Map had studied in Paris, fulfilled missions to Rome, and known Becket; but he shared neither his sympathy for France, nor his affection for St. Bernard. In the quarrel which sprung up between the saint and Abelard, he took the part of the latter. Though he belonged to the Church, he is never weary of sneering at the monks, and especially at the Cistercians; he imputes to St. Bernard abortive miracles. "Placed," says Map, "in the presence of a corpse, Bernard exclaimed: 'Walter, come forth!'--But Walter, as he did not hear the voice of Jesus, so did he not listen with the ears of Lazarus, and came not."[287] Women also are for Map the subject of constant satires; he was the author of that famous "Dissuasio Valerii ad Rufinum de ducenda uxore,"[288] well known to the Wife of Bath and which the Middle Ages persistently attributed to St. Jerome. Map had a.s.serted his authorship and stated that he had written the dissertation "changing only our names," a.s.suming for himself the name of Valerius "me qui Walterus sum,"

and calling his uxorious friend Rufinus because he was red-haired. But it was of no avail, and St. Jerome continued to be the author, in the same way as Cornelius Nepos was credited with having written Joseph of Exeter's "Trojan War," dedicated though it was to the archbishop of Canterbury. Map is very strong in his advice to his red-haired friend, who "was bent upon being married, not loved, and aspired to the fate of Vulcan, not of Mars."

As a compensation many poems in Latin and French were attributed to Map, of doubtful authenticity. That he wrote verses and was famous as a poet there is no question, but what poems were his we do not know for certain. To him was ascribed most of the "Goliardic" poetry current in the Middle Ages, so called on account of the princ.i.p.al personage who figures in it, Golias, the type of the gluttonous and debauched prelate.

Some of those poems were merry songs full of humour and _entrain_, perfectly consistent with what we know of Map's fantasy: "My supreme wish is to die in the tavern! May my dying lips be wet with wine! So that on their coming the choirs of angels will exclaim: 'G.o.d be merciful to this drinker!'"[289] Doubts exist also as to what his French poems were; most of his jokes and repartees were delivered in French, as we know from the testimony of Gerald de Barry,[290] but what he wrote in that language is uncertain. The "Lancelot" is a.s.signed to him in many ma.n.u.scripts and is perhaps his work.[291]

V.

The subjects of the Angevin kings also took part in the scientific movement. In the ranks of their literary men using the Latin language are jurists, physicians, savants, historians, theologians, and, among the latter, some of the most famous doctors of the Middle Ages: Alexander of Hales, the "irrefragable doctor"[292]; Duns Scot, the "subtle doctor"; Adam de Marisco, friend and adviser of Simon de Montfort, the "ill.u.s.trious doctor"; Ockham, the "invincible doctor"; Roger Bacon, the "admirable doctor"; Bradwardine, the "profound doctor,"

and yet others.

Scot discusses the greatest problems of soul and matter, and amid many contradictions, and much obscurity, arrives at this conclusion, that matter is one: "Socrates and the brazen sphere are identical in nature."

He almost reaches this further conclusion, that "being is one."[293] His reputation is immense during the Middle Ages; it diminishes at the Renaissance, and Rabelais, drawing up a list of some remarkable books in St. Victor's library, inscribes on it, between the "Maschefaim des Advocats" and the "Ratepenade des Cardinaux," the works of the subtle doctor under the irreverent t.i.tle of "Barbouillamenta Scoti."[294]

Ockham, in the pay of Philippe-le-Bel--for England, that formerly had to send for Lanfranc and Anselm, can now furnish the Continent with doctors--makes war on Boniface VIII., and, drawing his arguments from both St. Paul and Aristotle, attacks the temporal power of the popes.[295] Roger Bacon endeavours to clear up the chaos of the sciences; he forestalls his ill.u.s.trious namesake, and cla.s.sifies the causes of human errors.[296] Archbishop Bradwardine,[297] who died in the great plague of 1349, restricts himself to theology, and in a book famous during the Middle Ages, defends the "Cause of G.o.d" against all sceptics, heretics, infidels, and miscreants, confuting them all, and even Aristotle himself.[298]

No longer is Salerno alone to produce ill.u.s.trious physicians, or Bologne ill.u.s.trious jurists. A "Rosa Anglica," the work of John of Gaddesden, court physician under Edward II., has the greatest success in learned Europe, and teaches how the stone can be cured by rubbing the invalid with a paste composed of crickets and beetles pounded together, "but taking care to first remove the heads and wings."[299] A mult.i.tude of prescriptions, of the same stamp most of them, are set down in this book, which was still printed and considered as an authority at the Renaissance.

Bartholomew the Englishman,[300] another savant, yet more universal and more celebrated, writes one of the oldest encyclopedias. His Latin book, translated into several languages, and of which there are many very beautiful ma.n.u.scripts,[301] comprises everything, from G.o.d and the angels down to beasts. Bartholomew teaches theology, philosophy, geography, and history, the natural sciences, medicine, worldly civility, and the art of waiting on table. Nothing is too high, or too low, or too obscure for him; he is acquainted with the nature of angels, as well as with that of fleas: "Fleas bite more sharply when it is going to rain." He knows about diamonds, "stones of love and reconciliation"; and about man's dreams "that vary according to the variation of the fumes that enter into the little chamber of his phantasy"; and about headaches that arise from "hot choleric vapours, full of ventosity"; and about the moon, that, "by the force of her dampness, sets her impression in the air and engenders dew"; and about everything in fact.

The jurists are numerous; through them again the action of Rome upon England is fortified. Even those among them who are most bent upon maintaining the local laws and traditions, have constantly to refer to the ancient law-makers and commentators; Roman law is for them a sort of primordial and common treasure, open to all, and wherewith to fill the gaps of the native legislation. The first lessons had been given after the Conquest by foreigners: the Italian Vacarius, brought by Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, had professed law at Oxford in 1149.[302] Then Anglo-Normans and English begin to codify and interpret their laws; they write general treatises; they collect precedents; and so well do they understand the utility of precedents that these continue to have in legal matters, up to this day, an importance which no other nation has credited them with. Ralph Glanville, Chief Justice under Henry II., writes or inspires a "Treatise of the laws and customs of England"[303]; Richard, bishop of London, compiles a "Dialogue of the Exchequer,"[304]

full of wisdom, life, and even a sort of humour; Henry of Bracton,[305]

the most renowned of all, logician, observer, and thinker, composes in the thirteenth century an ample treatise, of which several abridgments[306] were afterwards made for the convenience of the judges, and which is still consulted.

In the monasteries, the great literary occupation consists in the compiling of chronicles. Historians of Latin tongue abounded in mediaeval England, nearly every abbey had its own. A register was prepared, with a loose leaf at the end, "scedula," on which the daily events were inscribed in pencil, "c.u.m plumbo." At the end of the year the appointed chronicler, "non quic.u.mque voluerit, sed cui injunctum fuerit," shaped these notes into a continued narrative, adding his remarks and comments, and inserting the entire text of the official doc.u.ments sent by authority for the monastery to keep, according to the custom of the time.[307] In other cases, of rarer occurrence, a chronicle was compiled by some monk who, finding the life in cloister very dull, the offices very long, and the prayers somewhat monotonous, used writing as a means of resisting temptations and ridding himself of vain thoughts and the remembrance of a former worldly life.[308] Thus there exists an almost uninterrupted series of English chronicles, written in Latin, from the Conquest to the Renaissance. The most remarkable of these series is that of the great abbey of St. Albans, founded by Offa, a contemporary of Charlemagne, and rebuilt by Paul, a monk of Caen, who was abbot in 1077.

Most of these chronicles are singularly impartial; the authors freely judge the English and the French, the king and the people, the Pope, Harold and William. They belong to that Latin country and that religious world which had no frontiers. The cleverest among them are remarkable for their knowledge of the ancients, for the high idea they conceive, from the twelfth century on, of the historical art, and for the pains they take to describe manners and customs, to draw portraits and to preserve the memory of curious incidents. Thus shone, in the twelfth century, Orderic Vital, author of an "Ecclesiastical History" of England[309]; Eadmer, St. Anselm's biographer[310]; Gerald de Barry, otherwise Geraldus Cambrensis; a fiery, bragging Welshman, who exhibited both in his life and works the temperament of a Gascon[311]; William of Malmesbury,[312] Henry of Huntingdon,[313] &c.

These two last have a sort of pa.s.sion for their art, and a deep veneration for the antique models. William of Malmesbury is especially worthy of remembrance and respect. Before beginning to write, he had collected a mult.i.tude of books and testimonies; after writing he looks over and revises his text; he never considers, with famous Abbe Vertot, that "son siege est fait," that it is too late to mend. He is alive to the interest offered for the historian by the customs of the people, and by these characteristic traits, scarcely perceptible sometimes, which are nevertheless landmarks in the journey of mankind towards civilisation. His judgments are appreciative and thoughtful; he does something to keep awake the reader's attention, and notes down, with this view, many anecdotes, some of which are excellent prose tales.

Seven hundred years before Merimee, he tells in his own way the story of the "Venus d'Ille."[314] He does not reach the supreme heights of art, but he walks in the right way; he does not know how to blend his hues, as others have done since, so as to delight the eye with many-coloured sights; but he already paints in colours. To please his reader, he suddenly and navely says: "Now, I will tell you a story. Once upon a time...." But if he has not been able to skilfully practice latter-day methods, it is something to have tried, and so soon recognised the excellence of them.

In the thirteenth century rose above all others Matthew Paris,[315] an English monk of the Abbey of St. Albans, who in his sincerity and conscientiousness, and in his love for the historical art, resembles William of Malmesbury. He, too, wants to interest; a skilful draughtsman, "pictor peroptimus,"[316] he ill.u.s.trates his own ma.n.u.scripts; he depicts scenes of religious life, a Gothic shrine carried by monks, which paralytics endeavour to touch, an architect receiving the king's orders, an antique gem of the treasury of St.

Albans which, curiously enough, the convent lent pregnant women in order to a.s.sist them in child-birth; a strange animal, little known in England: "a certain elephant,"[317] drawn from nature, with a replica of his trunk in another position, "the first, he says, that had been seen in the country."[318] The animal came from Egypt, and was a gift from Louis IX. of France to Henry III. Matthew notes characteristic details showing what manners were; he gives great attention to foreign affairs, and also collects anecdotes, for instance, of the wandering Jew, who still lived in his time, a fact attested in his presence by an Archbishop of Armenia, who came to St. Albans in 1228. The porter of the praetorium struck Jesus saying: "Go on faster, go on; why tarriest thou?"

Jesus, turning, looked at him with a stern countenance and replied: "I go on, but thou shalt tarry till I come." Since then Cartaphilus tarries, and his life begins again with each successive century. Matthew profits by the same occasion to find out about Noah's ark, and informs us that it was still to be seen, according to the testimony of this prelate, in Armenia.[319]

In the fourteenth century the most ill.u.s.trious chroniclers were Ralph Higden, whose Universal History became a sort of standard work, was translated into English, printed at the Renaissance, and constantly copied and quoted[320]; Walter of Hemingburgh, Robert of Avesbury, Thomas Walsingham,[321] not to mention many anonymous authors. Several among the historians of that date, and Walsingham in particular, would, on account of the dramatic vigour of their pictures, have held a conspicuous place in the literature of mediaeval England had they not written in Latin, like their predecessors.[322]

From these facts, and from this ample, many-coloured literary growth, may be gathered how complete the transformation was, and how strong the intellectual ties with Rome and Paris had become; also how greatly the inhabitants of England now differed from those Anglo-Saxons, that the victors of Hastings had found "agrestes et pene illiteratos," according to the testimony of Orderic Vital. Times are changed: "The admirable Minerva visits human nations in turn ... she has abandoned Athens, she has quitted Rome, she withdraws from Paris; she has now come to this island of Britain, the most remarkable in the world; nay more, itself an epitome of the world."[323] Thus could speak concerning his country, about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the results of the attempted experiment were certain and manifest, that great lover of books, a late student at Paris, who had been a fervent admirer of the French capital, Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham.

FOOTNOTES:

[220] "Volentes nos ipsos humiliare pro Illo Qui Se pro n.o.bis humiliavit usque ad mortem ... offerimus et libere concedimus Deo et ... domino nostro papae Innocentio ejusque catholicis successoribus, totum regnum Angliae et totum regnum Hiberniae, c.u.m omni jure et pertinentiis suis, pro remissione peccatorum nostrorum." Hereupon follows the pledge to pay for ever to the Holy See "mille marcas sterlingorum," and then the oath of fealty to the Pope as suzerain of England. Stubbs, "Select Charters,"

Oxford, 1876, 3rd ed., pp. 284 ff.

[221] R. W. Eyton, "A key to Domesday, showing the Method and Exact.i.tude of its Mensuration ... exemplified by ... the Dorset Survey," London, 1878, 4to, p. 156.

[222] "Historical maps of England during the first thirteen centuries,"

by C. H. Pearson, London, 1870, fol. p. 61.