Part 16

The fourteenth century was not remarkable for much luxury or feminine display. Among the most characteristic objects used in those times were the extraordinary clogs, with double heels and enormously high, on which women went about in order to keep their skirts out of the mud. For the streets and lanes were not even paved, and there seems to have been no great effort made to clean them. The principal scavengers seem to have been the little pigs of the monastery of Saint Anthony of Padua, which had an official right-of-way about the city, and devoured greedily whatever the good wives of Venice chose to throw into the streets when they cleaned out their kitchens. It will easily be understood that clogs might be useful in such a town. As another illustration of the times, here is a list of the exiguous outfit provided for a young lady of great family on her marriage in the year 1300: One bed, two down quilts, two pillows, four sheets, one coverlet, six silver spoons, one copper pail; one piece of scarlet stuff long enough to make a bodice, one skirt of the same material; one skirt of striped stuff, and one trimming for the said skirt of the price of nine soldi grossi; one skin of a fox; seven amber beads, one ornament made of pearls, an ornament of gold, a silver belt and some silver beads.

The display of jewellery on that occasion was certainly not magnificent, but the list of clothes leaves even more to be desired. The document explains further and determines precisely how the wedding is to be conducted, and what it is to cost the family of the bride. The bride, when she reaches Padua, is to receive twelve soldi grossi for her pocket money, a like sum to pay for the drums, and the same again for the cook; but only half as much for the duenna who is to accompany her, and who rejoices in the high-sounding name of Richadonor, ‘rich in honour’! Furthermore, forty soldi grossi were to be spent on beef, pork, poultry, biscuits, apples, birds, eggs, bread, torches, wax candles, and the hire of boats.

Living was certainly not dear in those days, and we have no means of calculating the value of the coins used, about which learned men have fruitlessly quarrelled for generations; we cannot by any means establish the value of such an outfit, but we can affirm most positively that the outfit itself bore no resemblance whatever to those provided two centuries later for brides of the very same family.

[Sidenote: _Galliccioli. vi. 18._]

In this connection it is as well to say that the marriage customs of Venice had changed considerably during the thirteenth century. It had become altogether impossible to celebrate all marriages on the same day of the year in the same church, as was formerly done, and weddings now took place throughout the year in the different parishes.

An edict of the year 1255 recommends the publication of marriage bans in Venice, but very little attention was paid to this regulation, and clandestine

marriages became one of the great evils of the day. If, for instance, an unmarried woman of any condition found herself hopelessly in debt, she had only to marry in order to be safe from any legal action on the part of her creditors. It was so easy to get the ceremony performed, if one wished to keep the affair quiet, that it was not even necessary to go to church. A priest could be sent for to a private house, or even to an inn, the witnesses heard the necessary words pronounced, the priest blessed the couple, and the union was irrevocable.

The government took cognisance of the innumerable abuses which resulted from this manner of proceeding, and a law was passed which would have introduced a real reform if it had been rigorously enforced. But instead it was so completely overlooked and forgotten that the archives of the law-courts a century later teem with amusing anecdotes of such marriages. The following is a specimen taken from the case of a certain Dame Caterina of the parish of Saint Gervasio.

One evening, as this good lady was lingering on the threshold of her own door, a certain Pierin da Trento came by, selling brooms. Having greeted Dame Caterina, who appears to have been an acquaintance, the man said, ‘Good madam, I pray you find me out some handsome girl.’ Thereupon the good lady was immediately very angry, and loaded Pierin with the choicest epithets in the Venetian language, all of which are scrupulously quoted in the report of the case. Pierin, however, protested, ‘No, no, Dame Caterina, I did not mean what you think! I am asking you to find me a nice little wife to whom I will be a model husband.’ She answered, ‘Well, well, on my faith I will try and find one for you. Come back to-morrow.’ She immediately thought of a young girl called Maria who waited upon herself and her daughter. On the morrow the parties met in the house of Dame Caterina, and one Menego Moisè, who was there, asked, ‘Maria, does Pietro suit you as a husband according to the commandments of God and Holy Church?’ She answered, ‘Yes.’ So they took each other by the hand, and all the company sat down to table with great joy.

This was apparently all that was necessary to make a marriage binding. It is not even explicitly stated that the man Menego who asked the ritual question was a priest; but unless we suppose that something like common-law marriage was legal in Venice, we may take it for granted that he was.

Of course, in the absence of a divorce law, the chief object of such summary marriages was that they might be denied, and such cases led to some lively fencing between the civil and religious authorities.

In spite of these abuses, however, and in spite of the numerous regular and proper marriages that took place in the parish churches, the old custom of marrying wholesale on the thirty-first of January had not fallen wholly into disuse. I shall describe in another place the Feast of the Maries, instituted to recall the one which had been disturbed long ago by the Dalmatian pirates, and which was celebrated every year with the same mixture of simplicity, display, and jollity.

One might get married quietly, with closed doors and without sound of drum or trumpet, but it was quite impossible to be buried with the same simplicity and privacy. All the chroniclers of those times have left accounts of funerals, which remind one very strongly of the East, and even of ancient Egyptian and Assyrian rites. It was absolutely indispensable that a husband on the death of his wife, or a wife on the death of her husband, should exhibit in public the most extravagant grief. The bereaved widow or widower was expected to scream, to roll upon the ground, to tear out his or her hair by the handful, to howl and moan with scarcely a moment’s intermission.

When at last the friends of the dead came to carry away the body, the frenzied relict was always found stretched upon the threshold of the house, to prevent the funeral from passing, and had to be dragged out of the way by main force. The body having been carried out of the house at last, the whole family followed it to the parish church with screams and howls, and kept up the same terrific noise during the chanting of the whole funeral service. This insane custom was so deeply rooted amongst the people that centuries elapsed before the Church could put it down, and only threats of excommunication sufficed to prevent the unseemly interruption of the Office for the Dead. Those who have lived in the far East, and especially in India, are familiar with such sights. No one who has heard the lamentations of hired mourners at an Asiatic funeral is likely to forget the impression he received; but it is hard to understand such doings amongst the Venetians of the fourteenth century, and that the poor sometimes even went so far as to expose their dead in the streets during several days, in order to excite the compassion and solicit the alms of those who passed by.

[Sidenote: _Schupper, Manuale della Storia del Diritto._]

It is quite certain that slavery was not only common but almost universal in Venice until the fifteenth century at least. The custom of keeping household slaves was indeed general throughout Italy in the Middle Ages, but it was nowhere so deep-rooted as in Venice. Church and State laboured in vain to put down the traffic and to discourage the purchase of slaves. In the year 960 the Doge Pier Candiano IV. threatened with very severe punishments all those who should either engage in or encourage the slave trade. And at the same time the patriarch declared himself as follows: ‘Moreover, we and our brother bishops will excommunicate all those who shall be proved guilty before the tribunals of the state; they shall be deprived of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist; they shall not be allowed to enter any church; and if they do not repent, they shall burn everlastingly with Judas, who sold our Lord Jesus Christ.’

The civil and ecclesiastic authorities could not have expressed themselves in stronger language, but it is clear that their edicts could not be enforced, for slavery continued to flourish during four centuries after that time. We have not even the satisfaction of telling ourselves that it was at last put down by a noble impulse of humanity, since the most superficial examination proves to us that slavery did not begin to diminish in Venice until the general depravity of women had brought them down to the moral level of slaves. That very depravity was itself in great part produced by the presence of an immense number of Eastern female slaves, absolutely without any moral sense, and having no object whatever in life except to extract favours from their masters by making themselves the willing instruments of every passion and of every vice. They possessed many means of accomplishing this end, and in particular a great many of them claimed the secret knowledge of philtres, which would not only heal every malady, but which could instantly satisfy their masters’ thirst for love or revenge. They pretended, by means of incantations, to destroy by degrees the life of an enemy who could not be safely stabbed or otherwise violently put to death; and in a vast number of cases the victim actually died, if not by supernatural means, by subtle poisons administered to him by some slave of his own in collusion with the witch. Often, too, men and women went suddenly raving mad from poison thus secretly administered, and remained permanently insane. This crime was so common that it had a name of its own, and was called ‘Erbaria.’

[Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Costumi._]

The whole of Venice was undermined by these slave intrigues. The Eastern woman possesses beyond all others the secret of secrecy. The thousands of them who lived in Venice were in communication with each other, helped each other, and could accomplish for their respective masters almost anything they desired. There was a certain number of male slaves also, who, though far less astute than the women, often rendered their owners great services, sometimes to their own destruction; for there are records of their having been imprisoned, tortured, and hanged instead of their masters, and sometimes with the latter, for having committed crimes of which their owners did not wish to take the responsibility.

IX

THE FEAST OF THE MARIES

The reader will not have forgotten how the Venetian brides were carried off by pirates of Narenta towards the middle of the tenth century, in the reign of Pier Candiano III. When, at a later date, the custom of celebrating all marriages on the same day of the year and in the same church was abandoned, the ceremony called ‘the Maries’ was continued each year in memory of the romantic event.

The brides were replaced by twelve young girls, who were chosen among the most well-behaved in the city, so that the choice became a sort of prize of virtue--a ‘Prix Montyon’--and the selection was made with the utmost care. At that time the city was divided into six wards, each of which contained thirty ‘contrade,’ or districts. Two of the latter were named each year to furnish the ‘twelve Maries.’ The headmen of the districts, who were like police magistrates, called together the people in the principal open place of the district, and the election began. The chroniclers do not agree upon the qualities which were required in candidates; some say that they were all to be noble, some that they were to be poor, another says that they were the most beautiful. There is only one point upon which all agree: their behaviour was required to be perfect.

The twelve Maries having been chosen, the meeting proceeded to elect the twelve nobles at whose houses the young girls were to be entertained. These personages were to be of the same district, or were at least to live in the immediate vicinity; and it was no sinecure to fulfil this office of hospitality. The district spent from eight hundred to a thousand ducats in decorating the streets and houses, and the boats that conveyed the Maries; and the patrician whose ill-luck had designated him as one of the patrons was obliged to make such a display and to furnish such a magnificent banquet in honour of the girl he was supposed to protect, and such a reception for the inhabitants of the whole district, that his pocket suffered severely, and he was obliged to economise for some time afterwards. It often happened that there were not so many as twelve rich nobles living in the district, and in that case matters were arranged by giving two Maries to one, who was thus condemned to a double expenditure, if not to actual ruin, for the greater glory of patriotic institutions. However, as time went on, the State was moved by such misfortunes, which were not really justified by any serious necessity, and the Great Council voted that the Doge should exercise a certain control over the election of the Maries and their official protectors. By this means it became possible for a noble in poor circumstances to pass on the burden of the feast to some richer man. It was further decided that the procurators of Saint Mark should be authorised to lend on security, to the districts and to the patrons chosen, all the jewels from the treasure of the basilica, with which to adorn the attire of the twelve young girls. These jewels consisted of numerous necklaces and diadems of immense value, and the fact that they were lent for such an occasion proves the great importance which the Venetians attached to the festivity. For the time being the Republic behaved as if it had fallen in love with the maidens whose part was to recall to memory the stolen brides of old. On one occasion it is recorded that no less than 72,000 ducats were expended on the feast.

By far the most interesting and charmingly simple account of the feast is that left by a certain Martin da

[Sidenote: _Arch. Stor. Ital. Series I., vol. viii._]

Canal, written in a dialect half French and half Provençal. It describes the Feast of the Maries in the second half of the twelfth century, when Ranier Zeno was Doge; and though a few modifications were afterwards introduced in the ceremonial, this account continues to be quite the most accurate that has come down to us. The only way of accounting for its having been written in the Provençal tongue is that the latter was the language of polished society in that age. Here is an attempt to translate it as simply and accurately as possible:--

I shall now tell you about the festival which the Venetians hold on the last day of January, to wit, in remembrance of how our Lord St. Mark came to Venice; and of the beautiful festival which the Venetians hold in reverence of our Lady St. Mary. You must know that the Lord Doge has divided the districts of Venice into thirty parts, two districts to each part. Now on the eve of our Lord St. Mark a company of young gentles come by water, and when they have reached the palace they land and hand their banners to little boys, and go two by two before the church of our Lord St. Mark; and after them come trumpeters, and after them again young gentles who carry silver dishes loaded with confectionery, and with them are brought vessels of silver, full of wine, and cups of gold and silver carried by more young nobles, and last of all come clerks singing, dressed in their copes of velvet and gold, and they all together go as far as the church of St. Mary, which is called Formosa; and they find women and maidens in great numbers, and present them with the confectionery and with wine to drink....

So far I have told you of the eve, and now I shall tell you of the day of our Lord St. Mark.

You must know, sirs, that on the last day of January is the feast and double procession, when come youths and men of age to the palace of our Lord the Doge by water; and they get out upon the dry land, and give more than one thousand banners to little children, and send them before them two and two to the church of our Lord St. Mark; and after them come the older children carrying in their hands more than a hundred crosses of silver; and afterwards come the clergy, all dressed in copes of velvet and gold; and trumpets and cymbals; and a clerk comes in the midst of the company, dressed in a cloth all of gold damask, after the manner of the Virgin, our Lady St. Mary; and that clerk is placed upon a very richly ornamented chair, which is carried by four men on their shoulders; and before him, and on each side, the standards of gold, and the clerks go singing in the procession. While they are thus going, three clerks come out of the procession, and where they see our Lord the Doge at the windows of his palace, in company with noble Venetians, they go up to a platform singing with a loud voice, and they all sing as follows:--‘Christ is King. Christ reigns!’ ‘To our Lord Ranier Zeno, by the grace of God Doge of Venice, Dalmatia, and Croatia, and ruler of the fourth part and one-half a fourth part of all the empire of the Romans, health, long life, and victory!’ ‘St. Mark, help thou him!’ When the praises are finished they come down from the platform, and our Lord the Doge causes to be thrown down to them a quantity of his medals, and they return into the procession with the rest who have meanwhile been waiting for them; and then comes forward a clerk who wears a crown of gold, and is richly attired after the manner of the Holy Virgin, as I have told you; and when he is very near our Lord the Doge he greets him, who returns his greeting, and then those who carry him on their shoulders go forward, and the procession follows them, and they go their way into the church of our Lady St. Mary, and wait there until those of the other district have also entered. Now these others come in the manner which I have explained, with banners, crosses, and priests, and cause three clerks to sing the same praises of our Lord the Doge, as did the others, and our Lord the Doge causes medals to be thrown down to them. You must know our Lord the Doge is dressed in cloth of gold, and has a crown of gold upon his head; and in order to see the procession, which is made in honour of our Lady, there are present the nobles of Venice, all the people, and a great number of ladies and maidens, and there are many of them both in the streets and at the windows of the palaces.

When the three clerks have sung the praises of the Lord Doge, in the same manner in which those who came first had done, they go on in procession again, and another clerk comes forward, who sits upon a seat most richly adorned, in the dress of an angel, and he is carried on the shoulders of four men. When he is near our Lord Doge he salutes him, and the Lord Doge returns his salute; and then they go on in the procession, and the clerks go on singing. [It is amusing to note that until 1328 the priests who figured as the Madonna and the angel rose in the presence of the Doge, but this was discontinued from that date as improper.] You must know that both clerks and laymen have good ‘ramarri’ (?) and they go until they enter the church of our Lady St. Mary. When the priest who is arrayed to resemble the angel has entered into the church and sees the other who is arrayed to resemble the Virgin Mary, he stands up and says as follows: ‘Hail, Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Thus saith the Lord.’ And the priest who is arrayed to resemble our Lady answers and says, ‘How can this be, oh thou angel of God, since I know not a man?’ And the angel answers, ‘The Holy Spirit descends in thee. Oh, Mary, fear nothing, thou shalt conceive the Son of God.’ And she answers and says, ‘Behold the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be with me according to Thy word.’