Of Six Mediaeval Women Part 4

[24] The first of these subjects--the Holy Mother and Christ pleading for sinners--is to be found in a miniature in King Henry VI.'s Psalter (Brit. Mus. Cotton MS. Domitian. A. xvii.

_circ._ 1430, fol. 205), and the two intercessions separately form two of the subjects in the _Speculum Humanae Salvationis_ (fourteenth century). Though the _S.H.S._ is of later date than the time of Mechthild the literary source of the subject appears to be a pa.s.sage in the _De laudibus B.M.V._ of Arnaud of Chartres, abbot of Bonneval 1138-1156 (J. Lutz and P. Perdrizet, _Spec. Hum. Sal._ vol. i., Mulhouse, 1907), which might quite well have been known to her, especially if, as Messrs. Lutz and Perdrizet consider, the _S.H.S._ was written by a Dominican, who would naturally make use of Dominican teaching and tradition, and we know that Mechthild, even if not, as has been suggested, a tertiary of that Order, was in constant and close touch with it. The second subject, the reference to rose-leaves and Christ's wounds, seems to be a purely original thought, and one amongst the many fascinating ideas that have centred round the rose ever since Aphrodite anointed the dead body of Hector with rose-scented oil (_Iliad_, xxiii. 186).

Of Love, as she conceived it in relation to herself individually, she can never write enough. "I also may not suffer that any single comfort move me, save my love alone. I love my earthly friends in a heavenly fellowship, and I love my enemies with a holy longing for their salvation. G.o.d has enough of all good things, save of union with the soul."

But where Mechthild seems to strike an original note for her time is in her insistence on G.o.d's craving for the soul, as well as the soul's craving for G.o.d. We find the same insistence in Meister Eckhart, who followed her closely in time, and perhaps, in this respect, in thought also. "G.o.d needs man," says Eckhart, quite simply. And again, "G.o.d can do as little without us as we without Him." With Mechthild it is from ecstasy to ecstasy that "heart speaks to heart." Says the soul of Mechthild: "Lord, Thou art ever sick of love for me, and that hast Thou Thyself well proved. Thou hast written me in the Book of the G.o.dhead. Thou hast fashioned me after Thine own image. Thou hast bound me hand and foot to Thy side. O grant it to me, Beloved, to anoint Thee."

"Where wilt thou get thine ointment, dear one?"

"Lord, I will tear my happy heart in twain, and lay Thee therein."

"It is the most precious ointment thou couldest give Me, that I should evermore hover in thy soul."

Further G.o.d says: "I longed for thee ere the world was. I long for thee, and thou longest for me. When two burning desires come together, then is love perfected."

Sometimes the loving soul traverses a dark way, and cries out in desolation and despair: "Lord, since Thou hast taken from me all that I had of Thee, yet of Thy grace leave me that gift which every dog has by nature--that in my distress I may be true to Thee, without any ill-will. This do I truly desire more than all Thy heavenly kingdom."

And Divine Love makes answer: "Sweet Dove, now list to me. Thy secret seeking must needs find me, thy heart's distress must needs compel me, thy loving pursuit has so wearied me, that I long to cool myself in thy pure soul in the which I am imprisoned. The throbbing sighs of thy sore heart have driven my justice from thee. All is right between me and thee. I cannot be sundered from thee. However far we are parted, never can we be separated. I cause thee extreme pain of body. If I gave myself to thee as oft as thou wouldst, I should thus deprive myself of the sweet shelter I have in thee in this world."

Again the soul cries out--but now discomfited by the Divine Love from whose tireless quest there is no escape--"Thou hast pursued and captured and bound me, and hast wounded me so deeply that never shall I be healed. Thou hast given me many a hard blow. Tell me, shall I ever get whole from Thee? Shall I not be slain by Thee? Thus would it have been better for me if that I had never known Thee."

Then answers Love: "That I pursued thee gave me delight. That I made thee captive was my desire. That I bound thee was my joy. When I wounded thee, then did I become one with thee. Thus I give thee hard blows so that I may be possessed of thee. I drove Almighty G.o.d from His heavenly kingdom, and took from Him His mortal life, and have restored Him with honour to His Father. How canst thou, poor worm, save thyself from me?"

Of all Mechthild's visions, there is none that seems to reach a greater height of supreme beauty than that in which the loving soul learns the way to its Divine Lover. It is strangely reminiscent of courtly life and courtly poetry, translated into the ecstatic state, and etherealised into the very perfume of spirituality as the soul becomes one with G.o.d. Having pa.s.sed the distress of repentance, the pain of confession, and the labour of penance, and having overcome the love of the World, the tempting of the Devil, and its own self-will, the soul, weary, and longing for her Divine Lover and G.o.d, cries out: "Beautiful Youth, I long for thee. Where shall I find thee?"

Then says the youth: "I hear a voice which speaks somewhat of love.

Many days have I wooed her, but never have I heard her voice. Now I am moved. I must go to meet her. She it is who bears grief and love together. In the morning in the dew is the most intimate rapture which first penetrates the soul."

Then speak her Chamberlains, which are the live senses: "Lady, thou must adorn thyself. We have heard a whisper that the Prince comes to meet thee in the dew, and the sweet song of the birds. Tarry not, Lady."

So she puts on a shift of gentle humility, so humble that nothing could be more so, and over it a white robe of pure chast.i.ty, so pure that she cannot endure thoughts, words, or desires which might stain it. Then she wraps herself in a cloak of holy desire, which she has wrought in gold with all the virtues. So she goes into the wood, which is the company of holy people. The sweetest nightingales sing there, day and night, of the right union with G.o.d. She tries to join in the festal dance, that is, to imitate the example of the elect. Then comes the youth and says to her: "Thou shalt dance merrily even as my Elect." And she answers: "I cannot dance, Lord, if Thou dost not lead me. If Thou wilt that I leap joyfully, Thou must first Thyself sing.

Then will I leap for love, from love to knowledge, from knowledge to fruition, from fruition to beyond all human senses. There will I remain, and circle evermore."[25]

[25] It may be recalled that Dante (_Par._ xxiv.) sees the Saints in Paradise as circling lights from whence issues divine song, and again (_Par._ xxv.) "wheeling round in such guise as their burning love befitted."

Then speaks the youth: "Thy dance of praise is well done. Thou shalt have thy will, for thou art heartily wearied. Come at mid-day to the shady fountain, to the bed of love. There shalt thou be refreshed."

Then, weary of the dance, the soul says to her Chamberlains, the senses: "Withdraw from me, I must go where I may cool myself."

Then say the senses: "Lady, wilt thou be refreshed with the loving tears of St. Mary Magdalene? They may well suffice thee."

"Be silent, sirs; you know not what I mean. Hinder me not. I would drink for a s.p.a.ce of the unmingled wine."

"Lady, in the Virgin's chast.i.ty the great love is reached."

"That may be. For me it is not the highest."

"Lady, thou mightst cool thyself in the martyrs' blood."

"I have been martyred many a day, so that I have no need to come to that now."

"Lady, bright are the angels, and lovely in love's hue. Wouldst thou cool thyself, be lifted up with them."

"The bliss of the angels brings me love's woe unless I see their Lord, my Bridegroom."

"Lady, if thou comest there, thou wilt be blinded quite, so fiery hot is the G.o.dhead, as thou thyself well knowest, for the fire and the glow which make heaven and all the holy ones burn and shine, all flow from His divine breath, and from His human mouth, through the wisdom of the Holy Ghost. How couldest thou endure it for an hour?"

And the soul answers: "The fish cannot drown in the water, the bird cannot sink in the air, gold cannot perish in the fire, where it gains its clear and shining worth. G.o.d has granted to each creature to cherish its own nature. How can I withstand my nature? I must go from all things to G.o.d, who is my Father by Nature, my Brother through His Humanity, my Bridegroom through Love, and I am His for ever."

Silenced by this wondrous flight of holy pa.s.sion, we bid farewell to Mechthild. She lived for her time, and she lives for us, as one of "humanity's pioneers on the only road to rest." "Out of the depths,"

she cried to Heaven. We leave her in the music of the spheres.

A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY ART-PATRON AND PHILANTHROPIST, MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS

It has been well said that "out of things unlikely and remote may be won romance and beauty." Perhaps the truth of this reflection has never been more signally exemplified than in the case of Mahaut, Countess of Artois and Burgundy, the record of whose life, in the absence of any contemporary biographer, has been ably deciphered from such commonplace material as the household accounts of her stewards.[26] This great lady, one of the greatest patrons of art of her time, lived at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. She was a great-niece of St. Louis. No poet has sung of her. It is merely through the prose of daily expenditure that she is made known to us. She stands before us, not the ideal creation of the mediaeval romancer, but a real woman, with her virtues and failings, her joys and sorrows, real by very reason of this union of contrasts, a woman trying to grapple with difficulties forced upon her by her position, and by an age when intrigue and cunning were as freely resorted to, and as deftly handled, as the sword and the lance.

[26] Richard (Jules Marie), _Une Pet.i.te Niece de S. Louis: Mahaut, Comtesse d'Artois_.

Dehaisnes (M. le Chanoine), _L'Histoire de l'art dans la Flandre, l'Artois, et le Hainaut avant le XVme siecle_.

Mahaut was the daughter of Robert the Second, Count of Artois, a valiant and chivalrous man, and of Amicie de Courtenay, of whom it was said that she was esteemed whilst she lived, and mourned of all when she died. Her brother, Philip, predeceased his father, leaving one son, Robert. In accordance with local custom, Mahaut, on the death of her father, inherited Artois, but her nephew, Robert, on attaining his majority at the age of fourteen, set up a counter-claim. This family feud was a constant source of trouble and vexation to her, since Robert again and again returned to the attack, not only appealing to the king to consider his cause, and fabricating spurious doc.u.ments as a means of gaining his end, but also employing unscrupulous agents to spread false charges against her. He further took advantage of the growing discontent amongst the n.o.bles, who were gradually realising that their power was waning, to attach them to his cause, and to induce them to join him in hara.s.sing Mahaut by making raids upon her lands and her castles. She, however, through her extraordinary personality, was able to triumph over all this opposition, which, far from marring, only seemed to add l.u.s.tre to the work she had set herself to do.

Mahaut was religious, artistic, and literary. All these characteristics, together with the circ.u.mstance of wealth, she inherited, and right well did she make use of her inheritance.

Being religious, and living in an age when the frenzy for crusading had subsided and when architecture was the ruling pa.s.sion, she expended her zeal in building religious houses and hospitals.

Being artistic, she made her favourite castle at Hesdin, and the town around its walls, a centre of art life. Here, seemingly, she favoured all the arts, including to a certain extent music, then still in its infancy, for although she apparently had no regular minstrel or minstrels in her employ as was customary in the houses of the n.o.blesse, she seems to have engaged them for Church festivals and sundry fetes, and we know that on one occasion she hired a minstrel to soothe her sick child with the sweet soft music of the harp, thus suggesting that she herself had felt the power of music to minister to both body and soul.

Being literary, Mahaut collected what MSS. and books she could, and the list of them serves to show what might be found in a library of the early fourteenth century. Her religious books included a Bible in French,[27] a Psalter, a Gradual, various Books of Hours for private devotion, Lives of the Saints and of the Fathers, and the Miracles of Our Lady. Philosophy was represented by a French translation of Boethius (probably a copy of a translation made by order of King Philip le Bel, by Jean de Meun, the writer of the second portion of _The Romance of the Rose_), Law by a verse translation of the laws of Normandy, History by the Chronicles of the Kings of France, and Travel by _The Romance of the Great Kan_, known to us as _The Travels of Marco Polo_. But by far the largest category consisted of Romances, such as that of Oger le Danois from the national Epic, and another of Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance of Troy, Percival le Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and the Violet, the story which forms the chief episode in the play of Cymbeline. Of course there was no great choice, but that Mahaut read them and loved them we may be certain, since we know that she took some with her on her journeyings, and to preserve them from the wear and tear of travel, had leather wallets made to protect them. Mahaut was, in truth, the first wealthy individual of the age to spend her substance with the express purpose of surrounding herself with beauty of every kind. The foremost thought of a man in a like case would probably have been to add to his power.

_Her_ thought was of beauty, a quality much more far-reaching and less transient, and one which, even like Time itself, triumphs over the changes of fame and fortune.

[27] The Bible was first translated into French, and reduced in size so that it could be carried in the hand, between 1200 and 1250.

Though Mahaut did not live the allotted three score years and ten, she lived long enough to see seven kings on the throne of France, two of whom--Philip the Fifth and Charles the Fourth--were her sons-in-law.

She was a mere child when her great-uncle, King Louis, died in 1270.

In 1285, the year in which Philip the Fourth, surnamed le Bel, ascended the throne, she wedded Otho, Count Palatine of Burgundy, a widower of forty-five, a companion in arms of her father, and a brave and generous man, who died fighting for his country, but one absolutely incapable in administration, and, as a consequence, always in debt and in the clutches of the usurer. There are few doc.u.ments to throw any light on her life until after Otho's death in 1303. This may be due partly to the fact that she only came into her great possessions on her father's death in 1302, and partly to the circ.u.mstance that the careless and luxurious expenditure of her husband in no small degree dissipated her resources, and naturally prevented, for the time, any material encouragement of art. Doubtless also much of her time was spent in superintending the education of her children--two daughters who were destined to marry kings of France, and a son who was born a peer of the realm, and inheritor of one of its richest territories. But adverse fate, by the disgrace of one of her daughters, and the death of her son, intervened to darken these brilliant prospects, and forms a grey background to her otherwise wonderful and glorious career.

The more the life of this remarkable woman is studied, the more apparent it becomes that what gives it its peculiar charm and worth is the sense she possessed of the value of all human endeavour, whether in great things or in simple. To her the humblest matters of home life, and the affairs connected with the administration of her domains, had each their particular significance. The ordering of a small grooved tablet on which her little boy could arrange the letters of the alphabet claimed her attention equally with the founding and arranging of a hospital. In her capacity as ruler we see the same wide and reasonable outlook on life, for whilst strict as an administrator, in personal relations she was charitable and sympathetic. Sometimes a rebellious baron was deprived of his fief and banished, or was condemned to expiate his misdeed by making a pilgrimage to sundry shrines. But Mahaut was practical withal, and recognised human frailty, and as the pilgrimage was for correction, no pardon was granted unless the offender brought from each of the sanctuaries a certificate that his vow had been fulfilled. On the other hand, if any were sick or in trouble, she was solicitous for their relief, and even aided them personally where possible. She thus put into practice the charge of her saintly kinsman, King Louis the Ninth, who always counselled those about him to have compa.s.sion on all mental or physical suffering, since the heart may be stricken as well as the body.

As Mahaut had no biographer, and contemporary history merely treats her as if she were one of many p.a.w.ns on a chess-board, her stewards'

entries furnish the only materials from which we can weave some outline of her life, an outline, nevertheless, which enables us to reason somewhat concerning her inner life, the pattern, as it were, that is not wrought for the world.

When, in 1302, Mahaut took over the reins of government in Artois, Paris was the great centre of art and literature as well as of the science of the day, a condition largely due to the genius of Philip Augustus, and fostered by succeeding kings. Thither, from far and near, flocked scholars, poets, and artists alike. Some of these took up their abode permanently within its walls. Others pa.s.sed to and fro, thus creating that constant interchange of thought which is essential to vitality, so that it was said that "the G.o.ddess of Wisdom, after having dwelt in Athens and Rome, had taken up her abode in Paris."

There, at least twice a year, came Mahaut to her sumptuous dwelling, the Hotel d'Artois, situated near the Temple, and extending with its gardens and its outbuildings to the walls built by Philip Augustus.

Here all who loved the arts and learning were made welcome, and it is interesting to think it possible, nay even probable, that during one of her many sojourns there she may have met and talked with Dante.