Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages Third Edition

We do not aim in these chapters at writing general history, or systematic treatises. Our business is to give a series of sketches of mediæval life and mediæval characters, looke...

In the year 529 A.D., St. Benedict, an Italian of noble birth and great reputation, introduced into his new monastery on Monte Cassino--a hill between Rome and Naples--a new mon...

We come next to another great monastic family which is included under the generic name of Augustinians. The Augustinians claim the great St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, as their...

We have already sketched the history of the rise of monachism in the fourth century out of the groups of Egyptian eremites, and the rapid spread of the institution, under the ru...

We have seen how for three centuries, from the beginning of the tenth to the end of the twelfth, a series of religious orders arose, each aiming at a more successful reproductio...

Having thus given a sketch of the history of the various monastic orders in England, we proceed to give some account of the constitution of a convent, taking that of a Benedicti...

We proceed next to give some account of the buildings which compose the fabric of a monastery. And first as to the site. The orders of the Benedictine family preferred sites as...

We have already related, in a former chapter (p. 3), that the ascetics who abandoned the stirring world of the Ægypto-Greek cities, and resorted to the Theban desert to lead a l...

And now we proceed to speak more particularly of the recluses. The old legend tells us that John the Hermit, the contemporary of St. Anthony, would hold communication with no ma...

Just as in a monastery, though it might be large or small in magnitude, simple or gorgeous in style, with more or fewer offices and appendages, according to the number and wealt...

Besides all other religious people living under vows, in community in monasteries, or as solitaries in their anchorages, there were also a number of Widows vowed to that life an...

The fashion of going on pilgrimage seems to have sprung up in the fourth century. The first object of pilgrimage was the Holy Land. Jerome said, at the outset, the most powerful...

We shall not wonder that these various pilgrimages were so popular as they were, when we learn that there were not only physical panaceas to be obtained, and spiritual pardons a...

The present organisation of the Church of England dates from the Council of Hertford, A.D. 673. Before that time the Saxon people were the object of missionary operations, carri...

It is necessary, to a complete sketch of the subject of the secular clergy, to notice, however briefly, the minor orders, which have so long been abolished in the reformed Churc...

We shall obtain further help to a comprehension of the character, and position, and popular estimation of the mediæval seculars--the parish priests--if we compare them first wit...

We proceed to give some notes on the costume of the secular clergy; first the official costume which they wore when performing the public functions of their order, and next the...

When, in our endeavour to realise the life of these secular clergymen of the Middle Ages, we come to inquire, What sort of houses did they live in? how were these furnished? wha...

It would carry us too far a-field to attempt to give a sketch of the early music of the principal nations of antiquity, such as might be deduced from the monuments of Egypt and...

Every nobleman and gentleman in the Middle Ages, we have seen, had one or more minstrels as part of his household, and among their other duties they were required to assist at t...

It is not unlikely that the principal minstrel of every great noble exercised some kind of authority over all minstrels within his lord's jurisdiction. There are several famous...

We proceed, in this division of our work, to select out of the inexhaustible series of pictures of mediæval life and manners contained in illuminated MSS., a gallery of subjects...

The Conquest and subsequent confiscations put the land of England so entirely into the hands of William the Conqueror, that he was able to introduce the feudal system into Engla...

In arriving at the fourteenth century, we have reached the very heart of our subject. For this century was the period of the great national wars with France and Scotland; it was...

We have no inclination to deny that life is more safe and easy in these days than it was in the Middle Ages, but it certainly is less picturesque, and adventurous, and joyous. T...

In the British Museum are two volumes containing a rather large number of illuminated pictures which have been cut out of MSS., chiefly of the early fourteenth century, by some...

To attempt to represent the knights in their manor-houses and castles would be to enter upon an essay on the domestic and military architecture of the Middle Ages, which would b...

In former papers we have seen the characteristic feature of the armour of Saxon, Norman, and Early English times, down to the latter part of the thirteenth century, was that of...

The manner of bringing up a youth of good family in the Middle Ages was not to send him to a public school and the university, nor to keep him at home under a private tutor, but...

The romances, confirmed as they are by such documents as we have referred to in our last paper, may be taken as perfectly safe authorities on all that relates to the subject of...

The archers of England were so famous during the Middle Ages that we feel special interest in knowing something about them. As early as the Conquest we find the Norman archers g...

As the fifteenth century advanced the wars of the Roses gave urgent reason for attention to the subject of defensive armour; and we find, accordingly, that the fashions of armou...

In the remotest antiquity, before European civilisation dawned in Greece, Britain was already of some commercial importance. In those days, before the art of tempering iron was...

In the time of the earlier Norman kings we seem not to have had any war-ships. The king had one or two ships for his own uses, and hired or impressed others when he needed them;...

Though the commerce of England has now attained to such vast dimensions, and forms so much larger a proportion of the national wealth and greatness than at any former period, ye...

It is difficult at first to believe it possible that the internal trade of mediæval England was carried on chiefly at great annual fairs for the wholesale business, at weekly ma...

We have, in a former chapter, given some pictures from illuminated MSS., in illustration of the costume and personal appearance of the merchants of the Middle Ages; but they are...

Mediæval towns in England had one of four origins; some were those of ancient Roman foundation, which had lived through the Saxon invasion, like Lincoln, Chester, and Colchester...