Manners, Customs, and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Part 2

So as to understand the numerous charges, dues, and servitudes, often as quaint as iniquitous and vexations, which weighed on the lower orders during the Middle Ages, we must remember how the upper cla.s.s, who a.s.sumed to itself the privilege of oppression on lands and persons under the feudal System, was const.i.tuted.

The Roman n.o.bles, heirs to their fathers' agricultural dominions, succeeded for the most part in preserving through the successive invasions of the barbarians, the influence attached to the prestige of birth and wealth; they still possessed the greater part of the land and owned as va.s.sals the rural populations. The Grerman n.o.bles, on the contrary, had not such extended landed properties, but they appropriated all the strongest positions. The dukes, counts, and marquises were generally of German origin. The Roman race, mixed with the blood of the various nations it had subdued, was the first to infuse itself into ancient Society, and only furnished barons of a secondary order.

These heterogeneous elements, brought together, with the object of common dominion, const.i.tuted a body who found life and motion only in the traditions of Rome and ancient Germany. From these two historical sources, as is very judiciously pointed out by M. Mary-Lafon, issued all the habits of the new society, and particularly the rights and privileges a.s.sumed by the n.o.bility.

These rights and privileges, which we are about to pa.s.s summarily in review, were numerous, and often curious: amongst them may be mentioned the rights of treasure-trove, the rights of wreck, the rights of establishing fairs or markets, rights of marque, of sporting, &c.

The rights of treasure-trove were those which gave full power to dukes and counts over all minerals found on their properties. It was in a.s.serting this right that the famous Richard Coeur de Lion, King of England, met his death. Adhemar, Viscount of Limoges, had discovered in a field a treasure, of which, no doubt, public report exaggerated the value, for it was said to be large enough to model in pure gold, and life-size, a Roman emperor and the members of his family, at table. Adhemar was a va.s.sal of the Duke of Guienne, and, as a matter of course, set aside what was considered the sovereign's share in his discovery; but Richard, refusing to concede any part of his privilege, claimed the whole treasure. On the refusal of the viscount to give it up he appeared under arms before the gates of the Castle of Chalus, where he supposed that the treasure was hidden. On seeing the royal standard, the garrison offered to open the gates. "No,"

answered Richard, "since you have forced me to unfurl my banner, I shall only enter by the breach, and you shall all be hung on the battlements."

The siege commenced, and did not at first seem to favour the English, for the besieged made a n.o.ble stand. One evening, as his troops were a.s.saulting the place, in order to witness the scene, Richard was sitting at a short distance on a piece of rock, protected with a target--that is, a large shield covered with leather and blades of iron--which two archers held over him. Impatient to see the result of the a.s.sault, Richard pushed down the shield, and that moment decided his fate (1199). An archer of Chalus, who had recognised him and was watching from the top of the rampart, sent a bolt from a crossbow, which hit him full in the chest. The wound, however, would perhaps not have been mortal, but, shortly after, having carried the place by storm, and in his delight at finding the treasure almost intact, he gave himself up madly to degrading orgies, during which he had already dissipated the greater part of his treasure, and died of his wound twelve days later; first having, however, graciously pardoned the bowman who caused his death.

The right of shipwrecks, which the n.o.bles of seaboard countries rarely renounced, and of which they were the more jealous from the fact that they had continually to dispute them with their va.s.sals and neighbours, was the pitiless and barbaric right of appropriating the contents of ships happening to be wrecked on their sh.o.r.es.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figs. 24 and 25.--Varlet or Squire carrying a Halberd with a thick Blade; and Archer, in Fighting Dress, drawing the String of his Crossbow with a double-handled Winch.--From the Miniatures of the "Jouvencel," and the "Chroniques" of Froissart, Ma.n.u.scripts of the Fifteenth Century (Imperial Library of Paris).]

When the feudal n.o.bles granted to their va.s.sals the right of a.s.sembling on certain days, in order to hold fairs and markets, they never neglected to reserve to themselves some tax on each head of cattle, as well as on the various articles brought in and put up for sale. As these fairs and markets never failed to attract a great number of buyers and sellers, this formed a very lucrative tax for the n.o.ble (Fig. 26).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 26.--Flemish Peasants at the Cattle Market.--Miniature of the "Chroniques de Hainaut." Ma.n.u.scripts of the Fifteenth Century, vol.

ii. fol. 204 (Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, Brussels).]

The right of _marque_, or reprisal, was a most barbarous custom. A famous example is given of it. In 1022, William the Pious, Count of Angouleme, before starting for a pilgrimage to Rome, made his three brothers, who were his va.s.sals, swear to live in honourable peace and good friendship.

But, notwithstanding their oath, two of the brothers, having invited the third to the Easter festivities, seized him at night in his bed, put out his eyes so that he might not find the way to his castle, and cut out his tongue so that he might not name the authors of this horrible treatment.

The voice of G.o.d, however, denounced them, and the Count of Angouleme, shuddering with horror, referred the case to his sovereign, the Duke of Aquitaine, William IV., who immediately came, and by fire and sword exercised his right of _marque_ on the lands of the two brothers, leaving them nothing but their lives and limbs, after having first put out their eyes and cut out their tongues, so as to inflict on them the penalty of retaliation.

The right of sporting or hunting was of all prerogatives that dearest to, and most valued by the n.o.bles. Not only were the severest and even cruellest penalties imposed on "vilains" who dared to kill the smallest head of game, but quarrels frequently arose between n.o.bles of different degrees on the subject, some pretending to have a feudal privilege of hunting on the lands of others (Fig. 27). From this tyrannical exercise of the right of hunting, which the least powerful of the n.o.bles only submitted to with the most violent and bitter feelings, sprung those old and familiar ballads, which indicate the popular sentiment on the subject.

In some of these songs the inveterate hunters are condemned, by the order of Fairies or of the Fates, either to follow a phantom stag for everlasting, or to hunt, like King Artus, in the clouds and to catch a fly every hundred years.

The right of jurisdiction, which gave judicial power to the dukes and counts in cases arising in their domains, had no appeal save to the King himself, and this was even often contested by the n.o.bles, as for instance, in the unhappy case of Enguerrand de Coucy. Enguerrand had ordered three young Flemish n.o.blemen, who were scholars at the Abbey of "St. Nicholas des Bois," to be seized and hung, because, not knowing that they were on the domain of the Lord of Coucy, they had killed a few rabbits with arrows. St. Louis called the case before him. Enguerrand answered to the call, but only to dispute the King's right, and to claim the judgment of his peers. The King, without taking any notice of the remonstrance, ordered Enguerrand to be locked up in the big tower of the Louvre, and was nearly applying the law of _retaliation_ to his case. Eventually he granted him letters of pardon, after condemning him to build three chapels, where ma.s.ses were continually to be said for the three victims; to give the forest where the young scholars had been found hunting, to the Abbey of "St. Nicholas des Bois;" to lose on all his estates the rights of jurisdiction and sporting; to serve three years in the Holy Land; and to pay to the King a fine of 12,500 pounds tournois. It must be remembered that Louis IX., although most generous in cases relating simply to private interests, was one of the most stubborn defenders of royal prerogatives.

A right which feudalists had the greatest interest in observing, and causing to be respected, because they themselves might with their wandering habits require it at any moment, was that of _safe convoy_, or _guidance_. This right was so powerful, that it even applied itself to the lower orders, and its violation was considered the most odious crime; thus, in the thirteenth century, the King of Aragon was severely abused by all persons and all cla.s.ses, because in spite of this right he caused a Jew to be burned so as not to have to pay a debt which the man claimed of him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 27.--n.o.bleman in Hunting Costume, preceded by his Servant, trying to find the Scent of a Stag.--From a Miniature in the Book of Gaston Phoebus ("Des Deduitz de la Cha.s.se des Bestes Sauvaiges").--Ma.n.u.script of the Fourteenth Century (National Library of Paris).]

The right of "the Crown" should also be mentioned, which consisted of a circle of gold ornamented in various fashions, according to the different degrees of feudal monarchy, which va.s.sals had to present to their lord on the day of his invest.i.ture. The right of seal was a fee or fine they had to pay for the charters which their lord caused to be delivered to them.

The duty of _aubaine_ was the fine or due paid by merchants, either in kind or money, to the feudal chief, when they pa.s.sed near his castle, landed in his ports, or exposed goods for sale in his markets.

The n.o.bles of second order possessed among their privileges that of wearing spurs of silver or gold according to their rank of knighthood; the right of receiving double rations when prisoners of war; the right of claiming a year's delay when a creditor wished to seize their land; and the right of never having to submit to torture after trial, unless they were condemned to death for the crime they had committed. If a great baron for serious offences confiscated the goods of a n.o.ble who was his va.s.sal, the latter had a right to keep his palfrey, the horse of his squire, various pieces of his harness and armour, his bed, his silk robe, his wife's bed, one of her dresses, her ring, her cloth stomacher, &c.

The n.o.bles alone possessed the right of having seats of honour in churches and in chapels (Fig. 28), and to erect therein funereal monuments, and we know that they maintained this right so rigorously and with so much effrontery, that fatal quarrels at times arose on questions of precedence.

The epitaphs, the placing of tombs, the position of a monument, were all subjects for conflicts or lawsuits. The n.o.bles enjoyed also the right of _disinheritance_, that is to say, of claiming the goods of a person dying on their lands who had no direct heir; the right of claiming a tax when a fief or domain changed hands; the right of _common oven_, or requiring va.s.sals to make use of the mill, the oven, or the press of the lord. At the time of the vintage, no peasant might sell his wine until the n.o.bles had sold theirs. Everything was a source of privilege for the n.o.bles.

Kings and councils waived the necessity of their studying, in order to be received as bachelors of universities. If a n.o.ble was made a prisoner of war, his life was saved by his n.o.bility, and his ransom had practically to be raised by the "vilains" of his domains. The n.o.bles were also exempted from serving in the militia, nor were they obliged to lodge soldiers, &c.

They had a thousand pretexts for establishing taxes on their va.s.sals, who were generally considered "taxable and to be worked at will." Thus in the domain of Montignac, the Count of Perigord claimed among other things as follows: "for every case of censure or complaint brought before him, 10 deniers; for a quarrel in which blood was shed, 60 sols; if blood was not shed, 7 sols; for use of ovens, the sixteenth loaf of each baking; for the sale of corn in the domain, 43 setiers: besides these, 6 setiers of rye, 161 setiers of oats, 3 setiers of beans, 1 pound of wax, 8 capons, 17 hens, and 37 loads of wine." There were a mult.i.tude of other rights due to him, including the provostship fees, the fees on deeds, the tolls and furnaces of towns, the taxes on salt, on leather, corn, nuts; fees for the right of fishing; for the right of sporting, which last gave the lord a certain part or quarter of the game killed, and, in addition, the _dime_ or tenth part of all the corn, wine, &c., &c.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 28.--Jean Jouvenel des Ursins, Provost of the Merchants of Paris, and Mich.e.l.le de Vitry, his Wife, in the Reign of Charles VI.--Fragment of a Picture of the Period, which was in the Chapel of the Ursinus, and is now in the Versailles Museum.]

This worthy n.o.ble gathered in besides all this, during the religious festivals of the year, certain tributes in money on the estate of Montignac alone, amounting to as much as 20,000 pounds tournois. One can judge by this rough sketch, of the income he must have had, both in good and bad years, from his other domains in the rich county of Perigord.

It must not be imagined that this was an exceptional case; all over the feudal territory the same state of things existed, and each lord farmed both his lands and the persons whom feudal right had placed under his dependence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 29.--Dues on Wines, granted to the Chapter of Tournai by King Chilperic.--From the Windows of the Cathedral of Tournai, Fifteenth Century.]

To add to these already excessive rates and taxes, there were endless dues, under all shapes and names, claimed by the ecclesiastical lords (Figs. 29 and 30). And not only did the n.o.bility make without scruple these enormous exactions, but the Crown supported them in avenging any act, however opposed to all sense of justice; so that the n.o.bles were really placed above the great law of equality, without which the continuance of social order seemed normally impossible.

The history of the city of Toulouse gives us a significant example on this subject.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 30.--The Bishop of Tournai receiving the t.i.the of Beer granted by King Chilperic.--From the Windows of the Cathedral of Tournai, Fifteenth Century.]

On Easter Day, 1335, some students of the university, who had pa.s.sed the night of the anniversary of the resurrection of our Saviour in drinking, left the table half intoxicated, and ran about the town during the hours of service, beating pans and cauldrons, and making such a noise and disturbance, that the indignant preachers were obliged to stop in the middle of their discourses, and claimed the intervention of the munic.i.p.al authorities of Toulouse. One of these, the lord of Gaure, went out of church with five sergeants, and tried himself to arrest the most turbulent of the band. But as he was seizing him by the body, one of his comrades gave the lord a blow with a dagger, which cut off his nose, lips, and part of his chin. This occurrence aroused the whole town. Toulouse had been insulted in the person of its first magistrate, and claimed vengeance. The author of the deed, named Aimeri de Berenger, was seized, judged, condemned, and beheaded, and his body was suspended on the _spikes_ of the Chateau Narbonnais.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 31.--Fellows of the University of Paris haranguing the Emperor Charles IV. in 1377.--From a Miniature of the Ma.n.u.script of the "Chroniques de St. Denis," No. 8395 (National Library of Paris).]

Toulouse had to pay dearly for the respect shown to its munic.i.p.al dignity.

The parents of the student presented a pet.i.tion to the King against the city, for having dared to execute a n.o.ble and to hang his body on a gibbet, in opposition to the sacred right which this n.o.ble had of appealing to the judgment of his peers. The Parliament of Paris finally decided the matter with the inflexible partiality to the rights of rank, and confiscated all the goods of the inhabitants, forced the princ.i.p.al magistrates to go on their knees before the house of Aimeri de Berenger, and ask pardon; themselves to take down the body of the victim, and to have it publicly and honourably buried in the burial-ground of the Daurade. Such was the sentence and humiliation to which one of the first towns of the south was subjected, for having practised immediate justice on a n.o.ble, whilst it would certainly have suffered no vindication, if the culprit condemned to death had belonged to the middle or lower orders.

We must nevertheless remember that heavy dues fell upon the privileged cla.s.s themselves to a certain degree, and that if they taxed their poor va.s.sals without mercy, they had in their turn often to reckon with their superiors in the feudal hierarchy.

_Albere_, or right of shelter, was the princ.i.p.al charge imposed upon the n.o.ble. When a great baron visited his lands, his tenants were not only obliged to give him and his followers shelter, but also provisions and food, the nature and quality of which were all arranged beforehand with the most extraordinary minuteness. The lesser n.o.bles took advantage sometimes of the power they possessed to repurchase this obligation; but the rich, on the contrary, were most anxious to seize the occasion of proudly displaying before their sovereign all the pomp in their power, at the risk even of mortgaging their revenues for several years, and of ruining their va.s.sals. History is full of stories bearing witness to the extravagant prodigalities of certain n.o.bles on such occasions.

Payments in kind fell generally on the abbeys, up to 1158. That of St.

Denis, which was very rich in lands, was charged with supplying the house and table of the King. This tax, which became heavier and heavier, eventually fell on the Parisians, who only succeeded in ridding themselves of it in 1374, when Charles V. made all the bourgeois of Paris n.o.ble. In the twelfth century, all furniture made of wood or iron which was found in the house of the Bishop at his death, became the property of the King. But in the fourteenth century, the abbots of St. Denis, St. Germain des Pres, St. Genevieve (Fig. 32), and a few priories in the neighbourhood of Paris, were only required to present the sovereign with two horse-loads of produce annually, so as to keep up the old system of fines.

This system of rents and dues of all kinds was so much the basis of social organization in the Middle Ages, that it sometimes happened that the lower orders benefited by it.

Thus the bed of the Bishop of Paris belonged, after his death, to the poor invalids of the Hotel Dieu. The canons were also bound to leave theirs to that hospital, as an atonement for the sins which they had committed. The Bishops of Paris were required to give two very sumptuous repasts to their chapters at the feasts of St. Eloi and St. Paul. The holy men of St. Martin were obliged, annually, on the 10th of November, to offer to the first President of the Court of Parliament, two square caps, and to the first usher, a writing-desk and a pair of gloves. The executioner too received, from various monastic communities of the capital, bread, bottles of wine, and pigs' heads; and even criminals who were taken to Montfaucon to be hung had the right to claim bread and wine from the nuns of St. Catherine and the Filles Dieux, as they pa.s.sed those establishments on their way to the gibbet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 32.--Front of the Ancient Church of the Abbey of Sainte-Genevieve, in Paris, founded by Clovis, and rebuilt from the Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries.--State of the Building before its Destruction at the End of the Last Century.]

Fines were levied everywhere, at all times, and for all sorts of reasons.

Under the name of _epices_, the magistrates, judges, reporters, and counsel, who had at first only received sweetmeats and preserves as voluntary offerings, eventually exacted substantial tribute in current coin. Scholars who wished to take rank in the University sent some small pies, costing ten sols, to each examiner. Students in philosophy or theology gave two suppers to the president, eight to the other masters, besides presenting them with sweetmeats, &c. It would be an endless task to relate all the fines due by apprentices and companions before they could reach mastership in their various crafts, nor have we yet mentioned certain fines, which, from their strange or ridiculous nature, prove to what a pitch of folly men may be led under the influence of tyranny, vanity, or caprice.

Thus, we read of va.s.sals descending to the humiliating occupation of beating the water of the moat of the castle, in order to stop the noise of the frogs, during the illness of the mistress; we elsewhere find that at times the lord required of them to hop on one leg, to kiss the latch of the castle-gate, or to go through some drunken play in his presence, or sing a somewhat broad song before the lady.

At Tulle, all the rustics who had married during the year were bound to appear on the Puy or Mont St. Clair. At twelve o'clock precisely, three children came out of the hospital, one beating a drum violently, the other two carrying a pot full of dirt; a herald called the names of the bride-grooms, and those who were absent or were unable to a.s.sist in breaking the pot by throwing stones at it, paid a fine.

At Perigueux, the young couples had to give the consuls a pincushion of embossed leather or cloth of different colours; a woman marrying a second time was required to present them with an earthen pot containing twelve sticks of different woods; a woman marrying for the third time, a barrel of cinders pa.s.sed thirteen times through the sieve, and thirteen spoons made of wood of fruit-trees; and, lastly, one coming to the altar for the fifth time was obliged to bring with her a small tub containing the excrement of a white hen!

"The people of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period were literally tied down with taxes and dues of all sorts," says M. Mary-Lafon. "If a few gleams of liberty reached them, it was only from a distance, and more in the hope of the future than as regarded the present. As an example of the way people were treated, a certain Lord of Laguene, spoken of in the old chronicles of the south, may be mentioned. Every year, this cunning baron a.s.sembled his tenants in the village square. A large maypole was planted, and on the top was attached a wren. The lord, pointing to the little bird, declared solemnly, that if any 'vilain' succeeded in piercing him with an arrow he should be exempt from that year's dues. The vilains shot away, but, to the great merriment of their lord, never hit, and so had to continue paying the dues."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 33.--Ramparts of the Town of Aigues-Mortes, one of the Munic.i.p.alities of Languedoc.]

One can easily understand how such a system, legalised by law, hampered the efforts for freedom, which a sense of human dignity was constantly raising in the bosoms of the oppressed. The struggle was long, often b.l.o.o.d.y, and at times it seemed almost hopeless, for on both sides it was felt that the contest was between two principles which were incompatible, and one of which must necessarily end by annihilating the other. Any compromise between the complete slavery and the personal freedom of the lower orders, could only be a respite to enable these implacable adversaries to reinforce themselves, so as to resume with more vigour than ever this desperate combat, the issue of which was so long to remain doubtful.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Louis IV Leaving Alexandria on the 24th of April 1507 To chastise the city of Genoa.

From a miniature by Jean Marot. No 5091, Bibl. nat'le de Paris.]

These efforts to obtain individual liberty displayed themselves more particularly in towns; but although they became almost universal in the west, they had not the same importance or character everywhere. The feudal system had not everywhere produced the same consequences. Thus, whilst in ancient Gaul it had absorbed all social vitality, we find that in Germany, the place of its origin, the Teutonic inst.i.tutions of older date gave a comparative freedom to the labourers. In southern countries again we find the same beneficial effect from the Roman rule.