Women of Mediaeval France Part 1

Women of Mediaeval France.

by Pierce Butler.

PREFACE

IT is the customary privilege of the author to meet you at the threshold, as it were, bid you welcome, and in his own person explain more fully and freely than he may elsewhere the plan and intent of his book. After you have crossed this imaginary boundary you may judge for yourself, weigh and consider, and condemn even with scant regard for the author's feelings; for as a guest it is your privilege. But here outside I am still speaking as one with authority and unabashed; for I know not, and will not let myself fancy, how the reader will censure me. Though the little that need be said may be said briefly, I trust the reader will be a reader gentle enough to permit me graciously this word of general comment upon the whole work.

From the mediaeval _Ladies' Book_, of a kind that will be referred to in the following pages, to the very latest volume of _Social England_, or more aptly, perhaps, to the most local and frivolous _Woman's World_ edited by an Eve in your daily paper, all the little repositories of ebbing gossip help immensely in the composition of a picture of the life of any period. They are not history; by the dignified historian of a few generations ago they were neglected if not scorned; but more and more are they coming to their own as material for history. In like manner the volume hardly claims to be a formal history, but rather ancillary to history. It has been the aim to present pictures from history, scenes from the lives of historic women, but above and through all to give as definite an idea as might be of the life of women at various periods in the history of mediaeval France.

The keenness of your appet.i.te for the repast spread will be the measure of the author's success. But whether I have been successful or not, the purpose was as has been said. Figures more or less familiar in history have been selected as the centrepieces; but scarcely anywhere have I felt myself bound to expound at length the political history of France: that was a business in which few women had a controlling voice, however lively their interest may have been, however pitifully or tragically their fate may have been influenced by battle or politics or mere masculine capricious pa.s.sion.

"Theirs not to reason why; Theirs but to do or die,"

may be said of the soldier. Of these women of mediaeval France, as of all in the good days of old, it might be better said that it was not even theirs to do; the relief of action was not theirs; but to suffer and to die, without question. Yet the life was not all pain and suffering and sadness, as the scenes depicted will show. It is merely that the laughter has fallen fainter and fainter and died away--comedy perishes too often with the age that laughed at it--while the tears have left their stain.

With this little hint to the reader I have done, and let the book tell him more if he please. To those who helped me in the writing of, nay, who made it possible to write this book, my grat.i.tude is none the less strong that I do not write them down in the catalogue. Many a page will bring back vividly to them as well as to me the circ.u.mstances under which it was written. May these memories sweeten my thanks to them.

PIERCE BUTLER.

New Orleans.

CHAPTER I

IN THE DAYS OF THE CAPETIAN KINGS

In the older conception, history was a record chiefly of battles, of intrigues, of wicked deeds; it was true that the evil that men did lived after them; at least, the even tenor of their ways was pa.s.sed over without notice by the chroniclers, and only a salient point, a great battle or a great crime, attracted attention. If little but deeds of violence is recorded about men, still less notice does the average mediaeval chronicler condescend to bestow upon women. History has been unjust to women, and this is preeminently the case in the history of France at the period with which we are to begin in this chapter. The age of the good King Robert was an age of warfare; the basic principle of feudalism was military service; and what position could women occupy in a social system dependent upon force? The general att.i.tude toward women is hinted at by the very fact that, in the great war epic of Roland, the love story, upon which a modern poet would have laid much stress, is entirely subordinated; it is the hero and his marvellous valor that the poet keeps before us. The heroine, if she can be so called, the sister of Roland's brother in arms, Oliver, is not once named by the hero. In the midst of the battle, when Roland proposes to sound his horn to summon Charlemagne to his aid, Oliver reproaches him:

"Par ceste meie barbe!

Se puis vedeir ma gente soror Aide, Vos ne gerrez jamais entre sa brace."

(By my beard! if I live to see my sister, the beautiful Aude, you shall never be her husband!) After this she is mentioned no more until Charlemagne returns to Aix with the sad news of Roland's heroic death.

Then comes to him _la belle Aude_ to ask where is her betrothed Roland.

"Thou askest me for one who is dead," says Charlemagne; "but I will give thee a better man, my son and heir, Louis." "I understand thee not,"

replies Aude. "G.o.d forbid that I should survive Roland!" She falls fainting at the emperor's feet, and when he lifts her up he finds her dead. Then he calls four countesses, who bear the body into a convent and inter it, with great pomp, near the altar. (II. 3705-3731.) _La belle Aude_ has fulfilled her mission when she dies for love of Roland.

If she had been on the battlefield, she might have dressed Roland's wounds, since the role of physician and nurse was frequently played by women. Otherwise there is little use for women in an age of warfare, and so we shall find most of the good women pa.s.sed over in silence, and only those of more masculine traits prominent in the earlier parts of our story.

Before we can begin the story of those women whose names have come down to us from the France of the year 1000, it is necessary to have some sort of understanding of the social, if not of the political, condition of France, to learn what sort of influences environed and moulded the lives of women in those days. Such a survey of society, indeed, will be useful for the whole period of the Middle Ages, and will serve as a background for the figures of the women we shall have to consider, whether they be saints or sinners.

At the beginning of the reign of the good King Robert, the France over which he ruled was still scarcely consolidated. The power of the kings of France hardly yet extended, in reality, over more than the little duchy of France, a territory bounded, roughly, by the cities of Orleans on the south, Sens on the east, Saint-Denis on the north, and Chartres on the west. Not only were the more powerful barons, counts, and dukes, among whom the land was parcelled out, subject to the kings only at their good pleasure, but the very people over whom they directly ruled were still dimly conscious of the fact that they sprang from different races. Even as late as the middle of the tenth century we hear of "Goths, Romans, and Salians" as more or less distinct. The fusion of the several races on the soil of France was, however, at that time probably complete in all but name, if we except the Celts in Brittany; even the latest arrivals in France, the Nors.e.m.e.n, had ceased to be mere wandering freebooters and were fast developing, like the rest of France, a caste of hereditary n.o.bles whose t.i.tle and power depended upon the tenure of land.

We may roughly divide the society of the period into four cla.s.ses. In the first we must place the n.o.bles and their bands of retainers. In the second we find the churchmen, the greater among whom are hardly to be distinguished from the secular n.o.bility, Below these, and a long distance below, come the inhabitants of the larger towns, the merchants and the better cla.s.s of artisans. At the bottom, trodden down to the very soil from which they are forced to extract food for all the rest, and perhaps, if any is left, for themselves, come the peasantry.

Since the disruption of the great conglomerate empire of Charlemagne, the power of the nominal kings of France had been gradually restricted.

Powerless to protect the kingdom from the attacks of foreign enemies, the king was also powerless to preserve order within it. Personal immunity from force could be obtained only by the use of force; and if one were not strong enough to protect one's self, the only way was to purchase protection from a stronger neighbor. This was the reason for the growth of the complicated system of feudalism, with whose remote origins and exact details we are not here concerned.

As regards the influence of the feudal system upon the position of women, it might be safe to say that feudalism at first made little change in their condition. They enjoyed neither more nor less rights than during the ages of barbaric _Sturm und Drang_; but certainly they found a little greater security against violence and oppression, since greater security was the general aim and the general effect of feudalism. The weak must always occupy a relatively better position in a compactly organized society than in a democracy of violence; and so the feudal system, retaining for women such small civil rights as they already possessed, added a greater personal security.

This was not all. Though the transmission of property, on which all social standing was based, was regularly from male to male, and though female heirs might be pa.s.sed over or disposed of by violence or chicanery, there were exceptions, which become more numerous as we go on. It cannot be said that there was at any time absolute prohibition of a daughter's inheriting from her father. In the Salic law, so called, there was a provision that "no part _of the salic land_ shall pa.s.s to a woman;" but all land was not salic, or allodial, and this provision was later held to apply particularly to the lands of the crown, and hence to the crown itself, as we shall see. Under the feudal system, the fief was held on condition of military service, and each va.s.sal, as a rule, must _servir son fief_ (do the service of his fief) in person; but it was expressly stipulated that ecclesiastics, women, and children could perform this service by proxy, generally through a seneschal or baillie.

Though warlike churchmen not infrequently led their va.s.sals in person, witness the Bishop of Beauvais at the battle of Bouvines, "who shed no blood, though he brake many bones with his club," women appeared but rarely in the earlier time as Amazons, and then half in sport, as in the case of Queen Eleanor in the second Crusade.

But, however they chose to perform their duty in the _host_ summoned by the sovereign's _ban general_, women were recognized as members of the feudal n.o.bility. At the very top we find them, among the immediate great va.s.sals of the crown, the _pairs de France_. We find, for example, Mathilde, or Mahault, Countess of Artois, sitting as a peer in the a.s.sembly which rendered judgment against the claims of her nephew, Robert, to the countship of Artois, in 1309; and the same countess receives a special summons to attend the court of peers in 1315; and in the next year, at the coronation of Philip V., she is among the peers who hold the crown over the king's head. This function was also performed by another Countess of Artois at the consecration of Charles V., in 1364.

In less exalted stations, too, women held fiefs, and there may frequently have been personal reasons for the suzerain's preferring female va.s.sals. For first by custom, and then by written law (see the _a.s.sises de Jerusalem_ and the _Etabliss.e.m.e.nts de Saint Louis_), the suzerain exercised a right of guardianship over his female va.s.sals, maids or widows, as long as they were unmarried. In England very serious abuses followed from this right of wardship, as it was called, and the unfortunate French girls and children who were subjected to it were no better off than the English. We are not especially concerned here with the case of minor heirs under _garde-n.o.ble_, or ward, except where these heirs were girls. The girl so situated must not marry without the consent of the lord who held the _garde-n.o.ble_ of her person and of her domain. If she did so she was liable to fines and even to forfeiture of her fief; and this power was one which the feudal lords did not hesitate to exercise. We find Saint Louis objecting to the marriage of Jeanne, heiress of the county of Ponthieu, to the King of England, and to the marriage of the Countess of Flanders, widow of Count Ferrand, to Simon de Montfort, a va.s.sal of the King of England. Both these instances show the reason which, in such a system as feudalism, underlay a power apparently so arbitrary; the suzerain, in mere self-defence, could not allow one of his fiefs to fall into the possession of a possible enemy.

There was another right, a corollary to this one. The lord could compel his female ward to marry in order that the military duties of the fief might be performed by a man. Saint Louis compelled Matilda of Flanders to marry Thomas, Prince of Savoy. The famous _a.s.sises de Jerusalem_, organizing one of the most compact bodies which feudalism developed, to defend the Holy Sepulchre in the midst of hostile infidels, contains express provisions on this subject. According to this code, the baron could say to his female va.s.sal: "Dame, you owe service of marriage." He then designated three suitable candidates, and she had to choose from among them. The regulations of the so-called _Etabliss.e.m.e.nts de Saint Louis_ on this subject are so interesting that we may give a paraphrase of a considerable portion of them. "When a lady becomes a widow, and is advanced in years, and has a daughter, the seigneur to whom she owes allegiance may come to her and say: 'Dame, I wish you to give me surety that you will not marry your daughter without my advice and consent, or without the advice and consent of her father's relatives; for she is the daughter of my liegeman, and therefore I do not wish her to be deprived of this advice.' Then it behooves the lady to give him due surety. And when the girl shall be of marriageable age, if the lady find anyone who asks her in marriage, she must come before the seigneur and the relatives of the girl's father and say to them: 'Sire, my daughter is asked in marriage, and I will not give her without your consent, nor should I do so. Now give me your good and faithful counsel; for a certain man has asked for her' (and she must give his name). And if the seigneur say: 'I do not wish this man to have her, for so-and-so, who is richer and of better rank than the one you have named, has asked me for her, and will take her willingly' (and he shall name the man); or if the relatives on the father's side say: 'We know a richer and a better man than either of those you have named to us' (and they shall name him); then shall they deliberate and choose the best of the three and the one most advantageous to the demoiselle. And he who is chosen as the best should be really thought so, for no one should make a mockery of law.

And if the lady marry her daughter without the consent of her seigneur and of the relatives on the father's side, after she had been forbidden to do so, she shall lose her movable goods," on which the seigneur is given the power of distraint. There is in this enactment elaborate provision for satisfying everybody but the person one would think most interested the young lady. Her consent to the arrangement was, to the mediaeval mind, a matter of small moment.

The powers thus given to the seigneur by formal law were certainly exercised by right of custom, and probably with far less restraint of justice than that provided for in the _Etabliss.e.m.e.nts_. For caprice, tyranny, or avarice might be satisfied by forcing an unfortunate ward into marriage. Frequently, the unscrupulous baron forced his ward to marry the highest bidder, or proposed some absolutely impossible candidate for her hand merely to have her buy her freedom. "You will either marry this decrepit old knight, to whose rank and wealth you cannot reasonably object, or you will pay me so much." We can well imagine that the impulse of youth would suggest surrender of almost any worldly wealth to have "freedom in her love." The romances are full of incidents akin to this, where the authority of either father or guardian was exerted in vain; and the romances, however fantastic in some respects, are but the reflections of actual conditions.

The unmarried woman, whether princess or mere demoiselle, was in a condition almost as dependent as the serf. If she did not choose to marry, or if her face or her fortune could not tempt anyone to ask her in marriage, she might enter a monastery. Indeed, a father unwilling or unable to provide a suitable dower for her might force her to become a nun. The eldest son must be provided for first. If the patrimony were small and the family large, younger sons had to fend for themselves, and daughters had to take what they could get. The convent was the cheapest and the safest place in which to establish them.

Yet in the age of feudalism there were certain safeguards for women, whether these were altogether of feudal origin or merely survivals of homely, common-sense custom. To cite but a few examples, we find in the _a.s.sises de Jerusalem_ most stringent provisions for the punishment of seduction or crimes of violence against women. The statute provides that the seducer, if he be able to do so and is approved by the parents, shall marry the girl. In another connection, we learn that in Paris it was for a while customary to marry such a couple, whether they would or not, in the obscure little church of Sainte-Marine, and with a ring of straw as a symbol of their shame. In case marriage was not acceptable to the parents of the girl, the seducer might provide for her suitably in a convent, and he himself might be punished by mutilation, confiscation of his goods, and banishment. The husband had to secure to his wife a certain proportion of, if not all, her dowry, and in the book of the customs of Anjou we find it definitely stated that: _Il est usage que gentil home puit doer sa fame a porte de mostier dou tierz de sa terre_ (It is the custom for a gentleman to endow his wife with the third of his goods at the church door). Then, to protect widows from oppressive feudal reliefs, as they were called, the _Etabliss.e.m.e.nts de Saint Louis_ ordain that "no lady shall pay a redemption fee (to secure succession to the fief), except in case she marry. But if she marry, her husband shall pay the fee to the seigneur whose va.s.sal she is. And if what is offered does not please the seigneur, he can claim but the revenues of the fief for one year."

Once admitted to the recognized cla.s.s of the n.o.bility, either as a wife or as one of the greater va.s.sals, a woman's position was decidedly improved. Her rights were not many, but yet the feudal chatelaine occupied a position of some dignity and importance. She was regarded as in some sort the representative of her husband during his presence as well as during his absence. The _a.s.sises de Jerusalem_ provide, among other things, that she shall not be proceeded against in court as the representative of her husband until a respite of a year and a day has elapsed, to allow for his possible return; and in the chateau, at all times the lady had charge of domestic affairs, and on state occasions shared the dignity of her husband.

The feudal chateau of a great baron was not only a fortress to secure him against his enemies; it was also a home for his family and for scores of dependents and retainers, and frequently a hostelry for the entertainment of travellers of high and low degree. The moat, the drawbridge and portcullis, the strong walls pierced with narrow slits to admit scant light and air in time of peace and to deliver arrows in time of war, the battlements, and the lofty tower of strength, all these are familiar in our conceptions of the feudal castle. Many of us have followed Marmion in his mad dash under the descending portcullis and across the drawbridge of Lord Angus's castle; and we have watched the arrows flying against the walls of Front de Boeuf's donjon and old mad Ursula raving on its battlements. But the other features of the dwellings, though sometimes described with equal care by the great Sir Walter and his disciples, attract less attention and fade sooner from our memories. Such a manor hall as that of Cedric the Saxon should be kept in mind if we wish to get a fair idea of the actual life of the better cla.s.ses, not only in England but in France, for the main features of the architecture and of the furnishings were the same. The nature and extent of the fortifications might vary greatly, according to the power or ambition of the owner; but the domestic arrangements of the feudal home would be substantially the same in all.

The main portion of the house was given up to a huge hall. Entering the gateway of the outer wall, one found one's self in a court, around which were ranged the great hall, the smaller sleeping apartments, the domestic offices, and the stables. Every possible provision was made for men and animals to live within the enclosure in case of siege. The great hall itself was usually at least thirty or forty feet in length, and often so wide that its high, vaulted roof had to be supported on a row of columns extending down the middle. In the ceiling was a hole, or _louvre_, to allow the smoke to escape when fire was lighted on the hearth in the centre of the floor for chimneys were used as yet, if at all, only in the smaller rooms. At one end of the hall there was probably a slightly elevated dais, or platform, on which were the seats for the lord and lady, and perhaps for distinguished guests. In the tall ogival windows, which were glazed only in the houses of the very wealthy, were window seats, and along the rude board or table in the body of the hall were rough benches and stools for the retainers and guests of lesser rank. And if the lord were rich, there would be a gallery, at the opposite end from the dais, for the minstrels who played during banquets. Armorial bearings and weapons and armor hung upon the walls. If the roof were so broad as to require the support of pillars, these and the arches of the roof were decorated with carving. Sometimes a further effect of color might be added by tapestries upon the walls, and sometimes, though rarely, by mural paintings, as we are told in the lay of _Guingamor_:

"La chambre est paint tut entur; Venus, la devesse d'amur, Fu tres bein en la paintur."

(The room is painted all about; Venus, the G.o.ddess of Love, was beautifully pictured in the painting.)

The floor of the hall might be of wood, though at the early period of which we write it was very commonly of earth. There were no carpets, except in palaces of great luxury, even at a much later date; instead, the floor was covered with rushes or straw. Straw was anciently one of the symbols of invest.i.ture; in the Salic law the person conveying an estate cast a wisp of straw into the bosom of him to whom the property was to be conveyed. With this custom in mind, we can understand the anecdote told by Alberic des Troisfontaines of William the Conqueror.

The floor of the room in which he was born was covered with straw. The newborn child, having been placed on the floor for a moment, seized in his tiny hands a bit of the straw, which he held vigorously. _"Parfoi!"_ cried the midwife, _"cet enfant commence jeune a conquerir."_ Obviously, the anecdote, with its allusion to the Conquest, was made up long after the event, but it serves to show that even in the mansions of the well to do straw was the usual floor covering; and even much later we do not find the old coverings of rushes, branches, or straw displaced by carpets. In 1373 the inhabitants of a certain town (Aubervilliers) were exempted from a feudal tax on condition of their furnishing annually forty cartloads of straw to the hotel, or palace, of Charles V., twenty to that of the queen, and ten to that of the dauphin. On special occasions the ordinary straw might be displaced by fresh green boughs upon the floor and against the walls. Froissart tells us that on a very warm day "the count of Foix entered his chamber and found it all strewn with verdure and full of fresh new boughs; the walls all about were covered with green boughs to make the room more fresh and fragrant....

When he felt himself in this fresh new chamber, he said: 'This greenery refreshes me greatly, for a.s.suredly this has been a hot day.'" When the rushes or straw remained long on the floor without being renewed, as was a.s.suredly often the case, trampled on by men and used as a couch by the dogs of the establishment, the effect must have been quite other than refreshing. This must have been the case in many a private house, but especially in such public places as the great churches and the great university of the Sorbonne, whose students sat on the floor upon straw, and had to pay twenty-five sous each to the chancellor for furnishing it.

In the hall of the castle thus rudely furnished the inmates lived a large part of their lives. There the household a.s.sembled for meals.

There the minstrel, if one chanced to be present, recited his romance.

There the lord in person, or his seneschal or baillie, held his court to administer justice. It was the common room of the house, and usually contained all there was in the way of decoration. Comfort even here was hardly to be found; one can fancy that the fire on the open hearth gave out more smoke than heat, and the windows, often entirely unglazed and ill-fitting, let in more cold than light.

The smaller apartments were even less pretentious in the way of comfort.

Opening out of the hall, or arranged around the court, were little cubby-holes of places to serve as sleeping apartments. The furniture in them was of the simplest description, and one was not even sure of finding a bedstead; for unless the occupant were outrageously affected by what the old folks doubtless called the degenerate effeminacy of the age--in the year 1000--his bed was apt to be made on the floor, or in a bunk against the wall. Sometimes there was a larger apartment opening from the rear of the hall and destined for the private use of the lord and his lady. As luxury increased, this apartment gradually became better furnished, and at length there developed the lady's bower, where she might retire with her maids. Of these there would often be a goodly number, some mere domestics, some young girls of good family sent to learn polite manners and domestic arts under the lady of the castle. In the bower also tapestries would be hung on the walls, and, in place of arms, perhaps there would be the various musical instruments in popular use, particularly the harp, in various forms, known as _psalterions, cythares, decacordes_; the rote, which was what we should now call a viol; various forms of violins, such as the rebec and the lute; guitars; and perhaps flutes. The use of these instruments was, of course, not unknown to the ladies themselves, and we find many references in the romances to maidens at the courts playing upon the harp and singing, though the professional minstrel or the page in training was oftener the performer.

In the bower, the lady was not occupied with mere amus.e.m.e.nts. We are apt to forget that our more complex civilization has taught us to rely upon others to do many things which even our great-grand-mothers had to do for themselves. Placed in the position of Robinson Crusoe, even with the help of the simple tools which Defoe allows him to have, how helpless would be the average man of to-day, simply because, from long dependence on the little conveniences of modern life,--from Lucifer matches and cooking stoves to ready-made clothing and ready-made houses,--he would have lost the use of the most elementary faculties. So the female Crusoe, in a feudal castle lone island, far from the conveniences of town and shops, must, if she expected to get any comfort for herself and those around her, know how to do innumerable small things that even the modern shopgirl finds done for her as a matter of course.

She must know how to make bread, without question. In the romance of King Florus a faithful wife disguises herself as a page and accompanies her husband without his recognizing her. They fall upon evil days, and the wife-page earns a living for herself and her master by starting a bakery and eventually an inn. The lady of the manor must not only know how to make the greater part of the clothing that she wears, but must know how to weave the cloth of which her gown is made, and to spin the yarn from which cloth and thread alike must come, and to card the wool or prepare the flax before that. If soap be considered necessary,--and there seems to have been no excessive use of it,--it would be wise for her to know how to make it, since there might be no place near by where soap could be bought. Candles, too, of a rude sort, or some sort of rushlight, for domestic use, it would be well to know how to make; and, of course, she should know how to make cheeses and to cure meats for use during the long months when fresh meats might not be had. Even on the tables of the rich, salt meats were the staple article. Unable to provide for the feeding of large flocks through the winter--forage was scarce, root crops were little cultivated for stock, and the omnipotent potato had not yet come to its own,--the lord's steward would have a large number of animals slaughtered just at the beginning of winter, and the flesh of these had to be salted down. The good housewife would, of course, know something of the process. Though in large households the management of the male servants, the outdoor servants generally, fell to the steward or baillie, the lady even here undoubtedly had to give a general supervision, and had to provide work for and maintain discipline among the women of the household. It must have required no small amount of ability and tact, therefore, successfully to be the lady of the chateau.

We need not pause here to consider the amus.e.m.e.nts and the traditional occupations of women, such as fine sewing and embroidery, or music and the care of flowers. These can best be noticed when we examine the romances of a later age.

For women of the upper cla.s.ses feudalism was not, we may say, entirely unjust or evil in its operations; but as feudalism meant oppression verging on slavery for Jacques Bonhomme, the peasant, his wife Jeanne could hardly have been in better case. With peasant marriages the seigneur could interfere even more tyrannically than with those of his feudal wards. In some places the bride and groom owed to the seigneur certain gifts called _mets de manage_. On the day of the wedding these "must be brought to the chateau by the bride, accompanied by musicians; the said mets shall consist of a leg of mutton, two fowls, two quarts of wine, four loaves of bread, four candles, and some salt, under pain of a fine of sixty sous." In some places that most infamous right known _par excellence_ as the _droit du seigneur_ was claimed, and we find a writer even as late as the seventeenth century recording the fact that the husband was sometimes required to purchase his bride's exemption from this right.

At the early date of which we write, however, there is little or no information to be had about the peasantry; the monkish chroniclers mention them but rarely, and then unsympathetically. Popular literature, with its _lais, contes, fabliaux_, or rude dramas in which Jacques and Jeanne appear, did not yet exist. We may, however, guess from the barbarity with which they were treated how near to that of the brutes was their condition.