Life on a Mediaeval Barony A Picture of a Typical Feudal Community in the Thirteenth Century

All the folk of St. Aliquis are Christians. Nobody, far and wide, except a few Jews in Pontdebois, openly dissents from the Catholic religion, denies the validity of the creeds,...

Inasmuch as from time immemorial a wedding has seemed primarily a matter of clothes, what better place than this wherein to consider the costumes of the good folk of St. Aliquis...

The castle makes the feudal ages possible. It is because western Europe is covered with thousands of strongholds, each of which can stand off a considerable army, that we have t...

Thus have been seen Messire Conon and his familiars in their pleasures, feasts, and wars. The gentle folk seem to monopolize all the life of the barony. Yet at best they number...

Baron Conon and Adela had still another duty ere they returned to St. Aliquis. They were fain to go with their sons, and each burn a tall candle before the altar of Our Lady in...

After Conon and his baroness have soiled their gentle blood by discreet trafficking at the Pontdebois fair, the seigneur must needs pay a ceremonious call upon the lord bishop....

Now it is as certain as that God reigns in heaven, that if one desires a wedding and a tournament, although the first thought must be of raiment, the second must be of food and...

If Baron Conon has been fortunate enough to receive a noble guest, almost the first question is how to divert the stranger. The inevitable program will be to constrain the visit...

Conon, we have said, has lived in great harmony with his baroness. Well he might. A short time ago a visiting cavalier, who had learned to string words after the South Country t...

One of the great duties of a high seigneur is to render justice. It is for that (say learned men) that God grants to him power over thousands of villeins and the right to obedie...

The thing which really separates a noble from a villein is the former's superiority in arms. True, God has made the average cavalier more honorable, courteous, and sage than the...

The great St. Bernard has written thus of the convent: "Good is it for us to dwell there--where man lives more purely, falls more rarely, rises more quickly, treads more cautiou...

We have visited St. Aliquis in days of peace, and at peace the seigneury remains while we tarry. But peace and pageants no more deadly than tourneys are seldom the continuous st...

When Conon decided to give a tourney as a climax to the wedding and adubbement festivities, he sent out several servitors of good appearance and loud voices to course the countr...

The St. Aliquis folk have come to Pontdebois largely to attend the great fair soon to open, but the more ordinary articles they will purchase can be found on sale on any week da...

As the summer advances, Conon, his baroness, and his familiars make their annual visit to the great fair always held at this time at Pontdebois. Practically nothing except wheat...

In the duchy of Quelqueparte there lay, in the later days of the great King Philip Augustus, the barony of St. Aliquis. Perhaps you may have trouble in finding any such places u...

The St. Aliquis folk delight in music. It is very desirable for a cavalier to have a rich voice and know how to twang a harp. Aimery, soon to be Sire Aimery, can sing and play a...

Some days intervene between the wedding festivities of the sister of Messire Conon and the adubbement as knight of his brother with the tourney which follows this second ceremon...

After a monk has taken the great vow "renouncing my parents, my brothers, my friends, my possessions, and the vain and empty glory of this world ... and renouncing also my own w...

Even a seigneur who nods pious assent to all that the monks and priests affirm in praise of peace wishes in his heart that it were not sinful to pray for brisk fighting. To be a...

So ended the feud between St. Aliquis and Foretvert--a less exhausting and more decisive baronial war than were many, and causing correspondingly less misery to the helpless pea...

Even upon a well-ordered seigneury the number of the poor, disabled, and generally miserable is great. Despite the contempt displayed by the great for the lowly, the Feudal Age...

Whatever the sins of the men of the thirteenth century, they are not late risers. The lamps and candles are so poor that only rarely, when there is a great festival or imperativ...

No History of Art fills the place of this one. It shows art to be the expression of the race, not an individual expression of the artist. It tells _why_ and _how_ man constructs...