Part I. The Mythological Poems.

[193] The best account of the Sagas, in English, is the Prolegomena to Vigfusson’s edition of the Sturlunga Saga (Clarendon Press, 1878). Dasent’s Introduction to his translation of the Njáls Saga (Edinburgh, 1861) is instructive as to the conditions of life in Iceland in the early times. W. P. Ker’s _Epic and Romance_ (Macmillan & Co., 1897) has elaborate literary criticism upon the Sagas. The following is Vigfusson’s: “The Saga proper is a kind of prose Epic. It has its fixed laws, its set phrases, its regular epithets and terms of expression, and though there is, as in all high literary form, an endless diversity of interest and style, yet there are also bounds which are never over-stepped, confining the Saga as closely as the employment and restrictions of verse could do. It will be best to take as the type the smaller Icelandic Saga, from which indeed all the later forms of composition have sprung. This is, in its original form, the story of the life of an Icelandic gentleman, living some time in the tenth or eleventh centuries. It will tell first of his kin, going back to the settler from whom he sprung, then of his youth and early promise before he left his father’s house to set forth on that foreign career which was the fitting education of the young Northern chief. These _wanderjahre_ passed in trading voyages and pirate cruises, or in the service of one of the Scandinavian kings, as poet or henchman, the hero returns to Iceland a proved man, and the main part of the story thus preluded begins. It recounts in fuller detail and in order of time his friendships and his enmities, his exploits and renown, and finally his death; usually concluding with the revenge taken for him by his kinsmen, which fitly winds up the whole. This tale is told in an earnest, straightforward way, as by a man talking, in short simple sentences, changing when the interest grows into the historic present, with here and there an ‘aside’ of explanation put in.... The whole composition, grouped around a single man and a single place, is so well balanced and so naturally unfolded piece by piece, that the great art shown therein often at first escapes the reader.”

[194] The Story of Burnt Njal (Njáls Saga or Njála), trans. by Dasent (2 vols. Edinburgh, 1861). A prose narrative interspersed with occasional lyric verses is the form which the Icelandic Sagas have in common with the Irish. In view of the mutual intercourse and undoubted mingling of Norse and Celtic blood both in Ireland and Iceland, it is probable that the Norse Saga-form was taken from the Irish. But, except in the Laxdæla Saga (trans. by Mrs. Press in the Temple Classics, Dent, 1899), one seems to find no Celtic strain. The Sagas are the prose complement of the poetic _Edda_. Both are Norse absolutely: fruit of one spirit, part of one literature, a possession of one people. As to racial purity of blood in their authors and fashioners, or in the men of whom the tales are told, that is another matter. Who shall say that Celtic blood and inherited Celtic gifts of expression were not the leaven of this Norse literature? But whatever entered into it and helped to create it, became Norse just as vitally as, ages before, every foreign suggestion adopted by a certain gifted Mediterranean race was Hellenized, and became Greek. In Iceland, in the Orkneys and the Faroes, Viking conditions, the Viking spirit, and Norse blood, dominated, assimilating, transforming and doubtless using whatever talents and capacities came within the vortex of Viking life.

It may be added that there is merely an accidental likeness between the Saga and the Cantafable. In the Saga the verses are the utterances of the heroes when specially moved. One may make a verse as a short death-song when his death is imminent, or as a gibe on an enemy, whom he is about to attack. In the Cantafable--_Aucassin and Nicolette_, for example--the verses are a lyric summary of the parts of the narrative following them, and are not spoken by the _dramatis personae_. The Cantafable (but not the Sagas) perhaps may be traced back to such a work as Boëthius’s _De consolatione_, which at least is identical in form, or Capella’s _De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii_. The _De planctu naturae_ of Alanus de Insulis (_post_, Chapter XXXII. 1) plainly shows such antecedents.

[195] Story of Gisli the outlaw, trans. by Dasent, chap. ix. (Edinburgh, 1866).

[196] The Story of Burnt Njal, chap. i., trans. by Dasent.

[197] The Story of Grettir the Strong (Grettis Saga), chaps. 32-35, trans. by Magnusson and Morris (London, 1869). See also _ibid._ chaps. 65, 66. These accounts are analogous to the story of Beowulf’s fights with Grendal and his dam; but are more convincing.

[198] The stories of the Kings of Norway, called the _Round World_ (Heimskringla), by Snorri Sturluson, done into English by Magnusson and Morris (London, 1893). Snorri Sturluson (b. 1178, d. 1241) composed or put together the _Heimskringla_ from earlier writings, chiefly those of Ari the Historian (b. 1067, d. 1148), “a man of truthfulness, wisdom, and good memory,” who wrote largely from oral accounts.

[199] The Story of Egil Skallagrimson, trans. by W. C. Green (London, 1893).

[200] These poems are in the Saga, and will be found translated in Mr. Green’s edition. They are also edited with prose translations in _C.P.B._, vol. i. pp. 266-280. With Egil one may compare the still more truculent, but very different Grettir, hero of the Grettis Saga. The Story of Grettir the Strong, trans. by Magnusson and Morris (2nd ed., London, 1869).

[201] Bede, _Hist. Ecc._ i. 13. Moreover, the chief partisan of Pelagius (a Briton) was Coelestinus, an Irishman whose restless activity falls in the thirty years preceding the mission of Palladius.

[202] As for the Irish Church in Ireland, there were many differences in usage between it and the Church of Rome. In the matters of Easter and the tonsure the southern Irish were won over to the Roman customs before the middle of the seventh century, and after that the Roman Easter made its way to acceptance through the island. Yet still the Irish appear to have used their own Liturgy, and to have shown little repugnance to the marriage of priests. The organization of the churches remained monastic rather than diocesan or episcopal, in spite of the fact that “bishops,” apparently with parochial functions, existed in great numbers. Hereditary customs governed the succession of the great abbots, as at Armagh, until the time of St. Malachy, a contemporary of St. Bernard. See St. Bernard’s _Life of Malachy_, chap. x.; Migne 182, col. 1086, cited by Killen, _o.c._ vol. i. p. 173. The exertions of Gregory VII. and Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, did much to bring the Irish Church into obedience to Rome. Various Irish synods in the twelfth century completed a proper diocesan system; and in 1155 a bull of Adrian IV. delivered the island over to Henry II. Plantagenet. Cf. Killen, _Eccl. Hist. of Ireland_, vol. i. pp. 162-222.

[203] The works of St. Columbanus or Columban, usually called of Luxeuil, are printed in Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_, 80, col. 209-296. The chief source of knowledge of his life is the _Vita_ by Jonas his disciple: Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 87, col. 1009-1046. It has been translated by D. C. Munro, in vol. ii. No. 7 (series of 1895) of _Translations, etc._, published by University of Pennsylvania (Phila. 1897). See also Montalembert, _Monks of the West_, book vii. (vol. ii. of English translation).

[204] The article of H. Zimmer, “Über die Bedeutung des irischen Elements für die mittelalterliche Cultur,” _Preussische Jahrbücher_, Bd. 59, 1887, presents an interesting summary of the Irish influence. His views, and still more those of Ozanam in _Civilisation chrétienne chez les Francs_, chap, v., should be controlled by the detailed discussion in Roger’s _L’Enseignement des lettres classiques d’Ausone à Alcuin_ (Paris, 1905), chaps. vi. vii. and viii. See also G. T. Stokes, _Ireland and the Celtic Church_, Lect. XI. (London, 1892, 3rd ed.); D’Arbois de Jubainville, _Introduction à l’étude de la littérature celtique_, livre ii. chap. ix.; F. J. H. Jenkinson, _The Hisperica Famina_ (Cambridge and New York, 1909). Obviously it is unjustifiable (though it has been done) to regard the scholarship of gifted Irishmen who lived on the Continent in the ninth century (Sedulius Scotus, Eriugena, etc.) as evidence of scholarship in Ireland in the sixth, seventh, or eighth century. We do not know where these later men obtained their knowledge; there is little reason to suppose that they got it in Ireland.

[205] See the narrative in Green’s _History of the English People_.

[206] There is no positive evidence that Augustine painted the terrors of the Day of Judgment in his first preaching. But it was a chief part of the mediaeval Gospel, and never absent from the soul of Augustine’s master, Gregory. The latter set it forth vividly in his letter to Ethelbert after his baptism (Bede, _Hist. Ecc._ i. 32).

[207] Bede, _Hist. Ecc._ iii. 22, tells how a certain noble gesith slew his king from exasperation with the latter’s practice of forgiving his enemies, instead of requiting them, according to the principles of heathen morality.

[208] Bede, _Hist. Ecc._ i. 30. Well known are the picturesque scenes surrounding the long controversy as to Easter between the Roman clergy and the British and Irish. The matter bulks hugely in Bede’s book, as it did in his mind.

[209] Bede ii. 13.

[210] _E.g._ as in Bede iii. 1.

[211] One may bear in mind that practically all active proselytizing Christianity of the period was of a monastic type.

[212] A.D. 709. _Hist. Ecc._ v. 19, where another instance is also given; and see _ibid._ v. 7.

[213] See the pieces in Thorpe’s _Codex Exoniensis_, _e.g._ the “Supplication,” p. 452.

[214] _Ecc. Hist._ iv. 22.

[215] Bede, _Hist. Ecc._ iii. 19; v. 12, 13, 14. Of these the most famous is the vision of Fursa, an Irishman; but others were had by Northumbrians. Plummer, in his edition of Bede, vol. ii. p. 294, gives a list of such visions in the Middle Ages.

[216] On Aldhelm see Ebert, _Allegemeine Ges. des Lit. des Mittelalters_; and Roger, _L’Enseignement des lettres classiques_, etc., p. 288 _sqq._

[217] This is noticeable in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 92, col. 633 _sqq._

[218] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 91, col. 9. In another prefatory epistle to the same bishop Acca, Bede intimates that he has abridged the language of the Fathers: he says it is inconvenient always to put their names in the text. Instead he has inscribed the proper initials of each Father in the margin opposite to whatever he may have taken from him (_in Lucae Evangelium expositio_, Migne 92, col. 304).

[219] Migne 90, col. 258; _ibid._ col. 422. I have not observed this statement in Isidore.

[220] All of these are in t. 90 of Migne.

[221] His writings fill about five volumes (90-95) in Migne’s _Patrol. Latina_. A list may be found in the article “Bede” in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. _Beda der Ehrwürdige_, by Karl Werner (Vienna, 1881), is a good monograph.

[222] _Ante_, Chapter IV.

[223] _The Works of King Alfred the Great_ are translated from Anglo-Saxon in the Jubilee edition of Giles (2 vols., London, 1858). The _Pastoral Care_ and the _Orosius_ are translated by Henry Sweet in the publications of the Early English Text Society. W. J. Sedgefield’s translation of Alfred’s version of the _Consolations of Boëthius_ is very convenient from the italicizing of the portions added by Alfred to Boëthius’s original. The extracts given in the following pages have been taken from these editions.

[224] Boëthius’s words, which Alfred here paraphrases and supplements are as follows: “Tum ego, scis, inquam, ipsa minimum nobis ambitionem mortalium rerum fuisse dominatam; sed materiam gerendis rebus optavimus, quo ne virtus tacita consenesceret” (_De consol. phil._ ii. prosa 7).

[225] The substance of this bracketed clause is in Boëthius--the last words quoted in the preceding note.

[226] Toward the close of his life Alfred gathered some thoughts from Augustine’s _Soliloquies_ and from other writings, with which he mingled reflections of his own. He called the book _Blossoms_. He says in his preface: “I gathered me then staves and props, and bars, and helves for each of my tools, and boughs; and for each of the works that I could work, I took the fairest trees, so far as I might carry them away. Nor did I ever bring any burden home without longing to bring home the whole wood, if that might be; for in every tree I saw something of which I had need at home. Wherefore I exhort every one who is strong, and has many wains, that he direct his steps to the same wood where I cut the props. Let him there get him others, and load his wains with fair twigs, that he may weave thereof many a goodly wain, and set up many a noble house, and build many a pleasant town, and dwell therein in mirth and ease, both winter and summer, as I could never do hitherto. But He who taught me to love that wood, He may cause me to dwell more easily, both in this transitory dwelling ... and also in the eternal home which He has promised us” (Translation borrowed from _The Life and Time of Alfred the Great_, by C. Plummer, Clarendon Press, 1902). These metaphors represent Alfred’s way of putting what Isidore or Bede or Alcuin meant when they spoke in their prefaces of searching through the pantries of the Fathers or culling the sweetest flowers from the patristic meadows. See _e.g._ _ante_, Chapter V. and _post_, Chapter X.

[227] Far into the Frankish period there were many heathen in northern Gaul and along the Rhine: Hauck, _Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands_, I. Kap. i. (second edition, Leipzig, 1898). Cf. Vacandard, “L’Idolatrie en Gaule au VI{e} et au VII{e} siècles,” _Rev. des questions historiques_, 65 (1899), 424-454.

[228] _Mon. Germ. hist. Auctores antiquissimi_, tom. i. Cf. Ebert, _Ges. des Lit. des Mittelalters_, i. 452 _sqq._

[229] Cf. _ante_, Chapter VI.

[230] In those of its lands which were granted immunity from public burdens, the Church gradually acquired a jurisdiction by reason of its right to exact penalties, which elsewhere fell to the king.

[231] The synod of 549 declared (ineffectually) for the election of bishops, to be followed by royal confirmation.

[232] Hauck, _Kirchenges. Deutschlands_, Bd. I. Buch ii. Kap. ii.; Möller, _Kirchengeschichte_, Bd. II. p. 52 _sqq._ (2nd ed., Leipzig, 1893).

[233] Carloman went at first to Rome, and built a monastery, in which he lived for a while. But here his _contemptum regni terreni_ brought him more renown than his monk’s soul could endure. So, with a single companion, he fled, and came unmarked and in abject guise to Monte Cassino. He announced himself as a murderer seeking to do penance, and was received on probation. At the end of a year he took the vows of a monk. It happened that he was put to help in the kitchen, where he worked humbly but none too dexterously, and was chidden and struck by the cook for his clumsiness. At which he said with placid countenance, “May the Lord forgive thee, brother, and Carloman.” This occurring for the third time, his follower fell on the cook and beat him. When the uproar had subsided, and an investigation was called before the brethren, the follower said in explanation, that he could not hold back, seeing the vilest of the vile strike the noblest of all. The brethren seemed contemptuous, till the follower proclaimed that this monk was Carloman, once King of the Franks, who had relinquished his kingdom for the love of Christ. At this the terrified monks rose from their seats and flung themselves at Carloman’s feet, imploring pardon, and pleading their ignorance. But Carloman, rolling on the ground before them (_in terram provolutus_) denied it all with tears, and said he was not Carloman, but a common murderer. Nevertheless, thenceforth, recognized by all, he was treated with great reverence (_Regino, Chronicon_, Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 132, col. 45).

[234] For example, immunity (from governmental taxation and visitation) might attach to the lands of bishops and abbots, as it might to the lands of a lay potentate. On the other hand, the lands of bishops and abbots owed the Government such temporal aid in war and peace as would have attached to them in the hands of laymen. Such dignitaries had high secular rank. The king did not interfere with the appointment and control of the lower clergy by their lords, the bishops and abbots, any more than he did with the domestic or administrative appointments of great lay functionaries within their households or jurisdictions.

[235] There are numerous editions of the _Heliand_: by Sievers (1878), by Rückert (1876). Very complete is Heyne’s third edition (Paderborn, 1883). Portions of it are given, with modern German interlinear translation, in Piper’s _Die älteste Literatur_ (Deutsche Nat. Lit.), pp. 164-186. Otfrid’s book is elaborately edited by Piper (2nd edition with notes and glossary, Freiburg i. B., 1882). See also Piper’s _Die älteste Literatur_, where portions of the work are given with modern German interlinear translation. Compare Ebert, _Literatur des Mittelalters_, iii. 100-117.

[236] The _Heliand_ uses the epic phrases of popular poetry: they reappear three centuries later in the _Nibelungenlied_.

[237] _Ante_, Chapter I.

[238] _Ante_, Chapter VI.

[239] _Ante_, Chapter IX.

[240] _E.g._ Charles Martell and Pippin drove the Saracens from Narbonne--not Charlemagne, to whom these _chansons_ ascribe the deed.

[241] The dates are 801 and 765.

[242] Historical atlases usually devote a double map to the Empire of Charlemagne, and little side-maps to the Merovingian realm, which included vast German territories, and for a time extended into Italy.

[243] A part of the serious historian’s task is to get rid of “epochs” and “renaissances”--Carolingian, Twelfth Century, or Italian. For such there should be substituted a conception of historical continuity, with effect properly growing out of cause. Of course, one must have convenient terms, like “periods,” etc., and they are legitimate; for the Carolingian period did differ in degree from the Merovingian, and the twelfth century from the eleventh. But it would be well to eliminate “renaissance.” It seems to have been applied to the culture of the _quattrocento_, etc., in Italy sixty or seventy years ago (1845 is the earliest instance in Murray’s _Dictionary_ of this use of the word), and carries more false notions than can be contradicted in a summer’s day.

[244] The architecture, sculpture, and painting of the Carolingian time continued the Christian antique or Byzantine styles. Church interiors were commonly painted, a custom coming from early Christian mosaic and fresco decoration. Charlemagne’s Capitularies provided for the renovation of the churches, including their decorations. No large sculpture has survived; but we see that there was little artistic originality either in the illumination of manuscripts or in ivory carving. The royal chapel at Aix was built on the model of St. Vitale at Ravenna, and its columns appear to have been taken from existing structures and brought to Aix.

[245] Charlemagne’s famous open letters of general admonition, _de litteris colendis_ and _de emendatione librorum_, and his _admonitio generalis_ for the instruction of his legates (_missi_), show that the fundamental purpose of his exhortations was to advance the true understanding of Scripture: “ut facilius et rectius divinarum scripturarum mysteria valeatis penetrare.” To this end he seeks to improve the Latin education of monks and clergy; and to this end he would have the texts of Scripture emended and a proper liturgy provided; and, as touching the last, he refers to the efforts of his father Pippin before him. The best edition of these documents is by Boretius in the _Monumenta Germaniac historica_.

[246] As to the stylistic qualities of Carolingian prose and metre see _post_, Chapters XXXI., XXXII.

[247] Alcuin’s works are printed conveniently in tomes 100 and 101 of Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_. Extracts are given, _post_, Chapter XXXI., to indicate the place of Carolingian prose in the development of mediaeval Latin styles.

[248] Printed in Migne 101, col. 849-902. Alcuin adopted for his _Grammar_ the dialogue form frequent in Anglo-Saxon literature; and from his time the question and answer of _Discipulus_ and _Magister_ will not cease their cicada chime in didactic Latin writings.

[249] Migne 101, col. 857. See Mullinger, _Schools of Charles the Great_, p. 76 (an excellent book), and West’s _Alcuin_, chap. v. (New York, 1892).

[250] As in his _Disputatio Pippini_ (the son of Charlemagne), Migne 101, col. 975-980, which is just a series of didactic riddles: What is a letter? The guardian of history. What is a word? The betrayer of the mind. What generates language? The tongue. What is the tongue? The whip of the air--and so forth.

[251] _De orthographia_, Migne 101, col. 902-919.

[252] Migne 101, col. 919-950. Mullinger, _o.c._ pp. 83-85.

[253] Migne 101, col. 951-976.

[254] Migne 101, col. 956.

[255] Migne 101, col. 11-56.

[256] Migne 101, col. 613-638.

[257] Migne 100, cols. 737, 744.

[258] An important person. He was born at Mainz about 776. Placed as a child in the convent of Fulda, his talents and learning caused him to be sent at the age of twenty-one to Alcuin at Tours for further instruction. After Alcuin’s death in 804, Rabanus returned to Fulda and was made Principal of the monastery school. In 822 he was elected Abbot. His labours gained for him the title of Primus praeceptor Germaniae. Resigning in 842, he withdrew to devote himself to literary labours; but he was soon drawn from his retreat and made Archbishop of Mainz. He died in 856. While archbishop, and also while abbot, Rabanus with spiteful zeal prosecuted that rebellious monk, the high-born Saxon Gottschalk, who, among other faults, held too harsh views upon Predestination. His works are published in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 107-112.

Rabanus has left huge Commentaries upon the books of the Old and New Testaments, in which he and his pupils gathered the opinions of the Fathers. He also added such needful comment of his own as his “exiguity” of mind permitted (Praef. to _Com. in Lib. Judicum_, Migne 108, col. 1110). His Commentaries were superseded by the _Glossa ordinaria_ (Migne 113 and 114) of his own pupil, Walafrid Strabo, which was systematically put together from Rabanus and those upon whom he drew. It was smoothly done, and the writer knew how to eliminate obscurity and prolixity, and in fact make his work such that it naturally became the Commentary in widest use for centuries. The dominant interest of these commentators is in the allegorical significance of Scripture, as we shall see (Chapter XXVII.). On Rabanus and Walafrid, see Ebert, _Allge. Gesch. der Lit. des Mittelalters_, ii. 120-166.

[259] _De cleric. inst._ iii. 26 (Migne 107, col. 404).

[260] _Ibid._ iii. 18.

[261] _Ibid._ iii. 20 (Migne 107, col. 397).

[262] Migne III, col. 9-614.

[263] Raban’s excruciating _De laudibus sanctae crucis_ shows what he could do as a virtuoso in allegorical mystification (Migne 107, col. 137-294).

[264] _De cleric. inst._ iii. 16 (Migne 107, col. 392).

[265] _De cleric. inst._ iii. 25 (Migne 107, col. 403).

[266] Compare his _De magicis artibus_, Migne 110, col. 1095 _sqq._

[267] Migne 107, col. 419 _sqq._

[268] Migne 120, col. 1267-1350.

[269] Ratramnus, _De corpore, etc._ (Migne 121, col. 125-170).

[270] On the Carolingian controversies upon Predestination and the Eucharist, see Harnack, _Dogmengeschichte_, vol. iii. chap. vi.

[271] Migne 119, col. 102. Florus called his tract “Libellus Flori adversus cuiusdam vanissimi hominis, qui cognominatur Joannes, ineptias et errores de praedestinatione,” etc. Florus was a contemporary of Eriugena.

[272] Migne 106.

[273] Hincmar, _Ep._ 23 (Migne 126, col. 153).

[274] Migne 122, col. 357.

[275] _De div. nat._ i. 69 (Migne 122, col. 513).

[276] One may say that the work of Eriugena in presenting Christianity transformed in substance as well as form, stood to the work of such a one as Thomas Aquinas as the work of the Gnostics in the second century had stood toward the dogmatic formulation of Christianity by the Fathers of the Church. With the Church Fathers as with Thomas, there was earnest endeavour to preserve the substance of Christianity, though presenting it in a changed form. This cannot be said of either the Gnostics or Eriugena.

[277] See Prantl, _Ges. der Logik_, ii. 20-36.

[278] Claudius died about 830. His works are in tome 104 of Migne.

[279] Migne 104, col. 147-158.

[280] Compare Agobard’s Ep. _ad Bartholomaeum_ (Migne 104, col. 179).

[281] _Liber contra judicium Dei_ (Migne 104, col. 250-268). Here the powerful Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, is emphatically on the opposite side, and argues lengthily in support of the _judicium aquae frigidae_, in _Epist._ 26, Migne 126, col. 161. Hincmar (cir. 806-882) was a man of imposing eminence. He was a great ecclesiastical statesman. The compass and character of his writings is what might be expected from such an archiepiscopal man of affairs. They include edifying tracts for the use of the king, an authoritative Life of St Remi, and writings theological, political, and controversial. As the writer was not a profound thinker, his works have mainly that originality which was impressed upon them by the nature of whatever exigency called them forth. They are contained in Migne 125, 126.

[282] _Liber de imaginibus sanctorum_ (Migne 104, col. 199-226).

[283] These writings are also in vol. 104 of Migne.

[284] See Wattenbach, _Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen_, i. 130-142 (5th ed.). Writings known as _Annales_ drew their origin from the notes made by monks upon the margin of their calendars. These notes were put together the following year, and subsequently might be revised, perhaps by some person of larger view and literary skill. Thus the Annals found in the cloister of Lorsch are supposed to have been rewritten in part by Einhart.

[285] There were two great earlier examples of such histories: one was the _Historia Francorum_ of Gregory of Tours, the author of which was of distinguished Roman descent, born in 540 and dying in 594; the other was Bede’s _Church History of the English People_, which was completed shortly before its author’s death in 735. In individuality and picturesqueness of narrative, these two works surpass all the historical writings of the Carolingian time.

[286] In _Mon. Germ. hist. scrip._ ii.; also Migne, vol. 116, col. 45-76; trans, in German in _Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit_ (Leipzig). See also Wattenbach, _Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen_, i., and Ebert, _Ges. der Lit._ ii. 370 _sqq._

[287] In both these respects a contrary condition had made possible the endurance of the Roman Empire. Its territories in the main were civilized, and were traversed by the best of roads, while many of them lay about that ancient common highway of peoples, the Mediterranean. Then the whole Empire was leavened, and one part made capable of understanding another, by the Graeco-Roman culture.

[288] Within his hereditary domain, Hugh had the powers of other feudal lords; but this domain, instead of expanding, tended to shrink under the reigns of the Capetians of the eleventh century.

[289] In Conrad’s reign “Burgundy,” comprising most of the eastern and southern regions of France, and with Lyons and Marseilles, as well as Basle and Geneva within its boundaries, was added to the Empire.

[290] Papal elections were freed from lay control, and a great step made toward the emancipation of the entire Church, by the decree of Nicholas II. in 1059, by which the election of the popes was committed to the conclave of cardinals.

[291] For the matter of clerical celibacy, and the part played by monasticism in these reforms, see _post_, Chapter XV.

[292] Gregory VII., _Ep._ iv. 2 (Migne 148, col. 455).

[293] _Ep._ viii. 21 (Migne 148, col. 594).

[294] Migne 148, col. 407, 408. Cf. _post_, Chapter XXXIII.

[295] As between the Empire and the Papacy the particular struggle over investitures was adjusted by the Concordat of Worms (1122), by which the Church should choose her bishops; but the elections were to be held in the presence of the king, who conferred, by special investiture, the temporal fiefs and privileges. For translations of Gregory’s Letters and other matter, see J. H. Robinson’s _Readings in European History_, i. 274-293.

[296] See _post_, Chapter XII. The copying of manuscripts was a lucrative profession in Italy.

[297] Tetralogus, Pertz, _Mon. Germ, scriptores_, xi. 251.

[298] The clerical schools were no less important than the lay, but less distinctive because their fellows existed north of the Alps. Cathedral schools may be obscurely traced back to the fifth century; and there were schools under the direction of the parish priests. In them aspirants for the priesthood were educated, receiving some Latin and some doctrinal instruction. So the cathedral and parochial schools helped to preserve the elements of antique education; but they present no such open cultivation of letters for their own profane sake as may be found in the schools of lay grammarians. The monastic schools are better known. From the ninth century they usually consisted of an outer school (_schola exterior_) for the laity and youths who wished to become secular priests, and an inner school (_interior_) for those desiring to become monks. At different times the monastery schools of Bobbio, Farfa, and other places rose to fame, but Monte Cassino outshone them all.

As to the schools and culture of Italy during the early Middle Ages, see Ozanam, _Les Écoles en Italie aux temps barbares_ (in his _Documents inédits, etc._, and printed elsewhere); Giesebrecht, _De literarum studiis apud Italos, etc._ (translated into Italian by C. Pascal, Florence, 1895, under the title _L’ Istruzione in Italia nei primi secoli del Medio-Evo_); G. Salvioli, _L’ Istruzione publica in Italia nei secoli VIII._, _IX._, _X._ (Florence, 1898); Novati, _L’ Influsso del pensiero latino sopra la civilità italiana del Medio-Evo_ (2nd ed., Milan, 1899).

[299] See _post_, Chapter XXXIII., III.

[300] At Salerno, according to the Constitution of Frederick II., three years’ preliminary study of the _scientia logicalis_ was demanded, because “numquam sciri potest scientia medicinae nisi de scientia logicali aliquid praesciatur” (cited by Novati, _L’ Influsso del pensiero latino, etc._, p. 220). Just as Law and Medical Schools in the United States may require a college diploma from applicants for admission.

[301] On Constantine see Wüstenfeld, “Übersetzungen arabischer Werke,” etc. _Abhand. Göttingen Gesellschaft_, vol. 22 (1877), pp. 10-20, and p. 55 _sqq._ Also on the Salerno school, Daremberg, _Hist. des sciences médicales_, vol. i. p. 254 _sqq._

[302] _Traube_, “O Roma nobilis,” _Abhand. philos.-philol. Classe Bayer. Akad._ Bd. 19, p. 301. This poem probably belongs to the tenth century. “Archos” is mediaeval Greek for “The Lord.”

[303] The _Rationes dictandi_, a much-used book on the art of composing letters, comes from the hand of one Alberic, who was a monk at Monte Cassino in the middle of the eleventh century. He died a cardinal in 1088. The _ars dictaminis_ related either to drawing legal documents or composing letters. See _post_, Chapter XXX., II.

[304] See E. Bertaux, _L’Art dans l’Italie méridionale_, i. 155 _sqq._ (Paris, 1904).

[305] The poems of Alphanus are in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 147, col. 1219-1268.

[306] “Ad Romualdum causidicum,” printed in Ozanam, _Doc. inédits_, p. 259.

[307] Printed in Giesebrecht, _De lit. stud. etc._

[308] Printed by Dummler in _Anselm der Peripatetiker_, pp. 94-102. See also the rhyming colloquy between Helen and Ganymede, of the twelfth century, printed in Ozanam, _Documents inédits, etc._, p. 19.

[309] On Liutprand see Ebert, _Ges. der Lit._ iii. 414-427; Molinier, _Sources de l’histoire de France_, i. 274. His works are in the _Monumenta Ger._, also in 136 of Migne. The _Antapodosis_ and _Embassy to Constantinople_ are translated into German in the _Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit_.

[310] See _Antapod._ vi. 1 (Migne 136, col. 893).

[311] _Antapod._ i. 1 (Migne 136, col. 791).

[312] Migne 136, col. 837.

[313] _Legatio Constantinopolitana_ (Migne 136, col. 909-937).

[314] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 136, col. 1283-1302.

[315] See Ebert, _Allgem. Ges._ iii. 370, etc.; Novati, _L’Influsso del pensiero latino, etc._, p. 31 _sqq._; and Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 136.

[316] See Novati, _L’Influsso, etc._, pp. 188-191. The passage is from the vituperative polemic of a certain Ademarus (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 141, col. 107-108).

[317] Dummler, “Gedichte aus Abdinghof,” in _Neues Archiv_, v. 1 (1876), p. 181 (cited by Novati, p. 192).

[318] Dummler, _Anselm der Peripatetiker_, p. 36 _sqq._; cf. Hauréau, _Singularités historiques_, p. 179 _sqq._

[319] The account is from Radolphus Glaber, _Historiarum libri_, ii. 12.

[320] On Damiani’s views of classical studies, see _Opusc._ xi., _Liber qui dicitur Dominus vobiscum_, cap. i. (Migne 145, col. 232); _Opusc._ xlv., _De sancta simplicitate_ (_ibid._ col. 695); _Opusc._ lviii., _De vera felicitate et sapientia_ (_ibid._ col. 831). For the life and works of this interesting man see _post_, p. 262 _sqq._, and _post_, Chapter XVI.

[321] _Vita Anselmi_, 1247 (cited by Ronca, p. 227).

[322] Another great politico-ecclesiastical Italian was Lanfranc (cir. 1005-1089), whose life was almost exactly contemporaneous with that of Hildebrand. He was born in high station at Pavia, and educated in letters and the law. Seized with the desire to be a monk, he left his home and passed through France, sojourning on his way, until he came to the convent of Bec in Normandy, in the year 1042. A man of practical ability and a great teacher, it was he that made the monastery great. Men, lay and clerical, noble and base, came thronging to hear him: Anselm came and Ives of Chartres, both future saints, and one who afterwards as Pope Alexander II. rose before Lanfranc, then Archbishop of Canterbury, and said: “Thus I honour, not the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the master of the school of Bec, at whose feet I sat with other pupils.” William the Conqueror made Lanfranc Primate of England and prince-ruler of the land in the Conqueror’s absence.

[323] _Petri Damiani Ep._ i. xvi. (Migne 144, col. 236). Damiani’s works are contained in Migne 144 and 145. Alexander II. was pope from 1061 to 1073, when he was succeeded by Hildebrand.

[324] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 145, col. 961, 967.

[325] _Opusculum_, xxxvi. (Migne 145, col. 595). It is also bad to be an abbot, as Damiani shows in plaintive and almost humorous verses:

“Nullus pene abbas modo Valet esse monachus, Dum diversum et nocivum Sustinet negotium: Et, quod velit sustinere, Velut iniquus patitur

* * *

“Spiritaliter abbatem Volunt fratres vivere, Et per causas saeculares Cogunt illum pergere; Per tam itaque diversa Quis valet incedere?” _De abbatum miseria rhythmus_ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 145, col. 972).

[326] Lib. v. Ep. iv.; cf. Jer. xiii.

[327] Ep. iv. 11 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 144, col. 313).

[328] He died in 1072, a year before Hildebrand was made pope.

[329] _Opusc._ xvii., _De coelibatu_; _Opusc._ xviii., _Contra intemperantes clericos_; _Opusc._ xxii., _Contra clericos aulicos_, etc.

[330] Lib. iv. Ep. 5 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 144, col. 300).

[331] Lib. v. Ep. 3 (Migne 144, col. 343).

[332] Lib. v. Ep. 2 (Migne 144, col. 340). Damiani’s _Rhythmus poenitentis monachi_ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 145, col. 971) expresses the passionate remorse of a sinful monk.

[333] _Post_, Chapter XIX.

[334] Lib. vii. Ep. 18 (Migne 144, col. 458).

[335] Much is contained in the eighth book of his letters. The third letter of this book is addressed to a nobleman who did not treat his mother as Peter would have had him. The whole family situation is given in two sentences: “But you may say: ‘My mother exasperates me often, and with her rasping words worries me and my wife. We cannot endure such reproaches, nor tolerate the burden of her severity and interference.’ But for this, your reward will be the richer, if you return gentleness for contumely, and mollify her with humility when you are sprinkled with the salt of her abuse” (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 144, col. 467). Some sentences from this letter are given _post_, Chapter XXXI., as examples of Latin style.

The next letter is addressed to the same nobleman and his wife on the death of their son. It gently points out to them that his migration to the _coelestia regna_, where among the angels he has put on the garment of immortality, is cause for joy.

[336] _Opusc._ ix., _De eleemosyna_ (Migne 145, col. 207 _sqq._).

[337] _Opusc._ ix., _De eleemosyna_, cap. i.

[338] Seneca, _De vita beata_, 20.

[339] Lib. viii. Ep. 8 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 144, col. 476). Cf. _ante_, p. 260.

[340] Extracts will be given _post_, Chapter XVI., together with Damiani’s remarkable Life of Romuald.

[341] Migne 158, col. 50 _sqq._

[342] Anselm was born in 1033 and died in 1109. His works are in Migne 158, 159. See also Domet de Vorges, _S. Anselme_ (Les grands Philosophes, 1901).

[343] “Districtio ordinis,” _Vita_, i. 6. This indicates that liberal studies were not favoured in Cluny at this time, cir. 1060.

[344] In a convent where there is an abbot, the prior is the officer directly under him.

[345] _Ante_, Chapter X.

[346] _Cur Deus homo_, i. 1 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 158, col. 361).

[347] In the _Cur Deus homo_, i. 2, Anselm has his approved disciple state the same point of view: “As the right order prescribes that we should believe the profundities of the Christian Faith, before presuming to discuss them by reason, so it seems to me neglect if after we are confirmed in faith we do not study to understand what we believe. Wherefore, since by the prevenient grace of God, I deem myself to hold the faith of our redemption, so that even if I could by no reason comprehend what I believe, there is nothing that could pluck me from it, I ask from thee, as many ask, that thou wouldst set forth to me, as thou knowest it, by what necessity and reason, God, being omnipotent, should have assumed the humility and weakness of human nature for its restoration.”

[348] There is indeed an early treatise, _De grammatico_ (Migne 158, col. 561-581), in which Anselm seems to abandon himself to dialectic concerned with an academic topic. The question is whether _grammaticus_, a grammarian, is to be subsumed under the category of substance or quality; dialectically is a grammarian a man or an incident?

[349] Cf. Kaulich, _Ges. der scholastischen Philosophie_, i. 293-332; Hauréau, _Histoire de la philosophie scholastique_, i. 242-288; Stöckl, _Philosophie des Mittelalters_, i. 151-208; De Wulf, _History of Medieval Philosophy_, 3rd ed. (Longmans, 1909), p. 162 _sqq._, and authorities.

[350] The _locus classicus_ is _Proslogion_, cap. 2.

[351] _Cur Deus homo_, i. 12.

[352] _Ibid._ i. 5.

[353] _Ibid._ i. 7.

[354] Examples of Anselm’s prose are given _post_, Chapter XXXI.

[355] On Gerbert see _Lettres de Gerbert publiées avec une introduction, etc._, par Julien Havet (Paris: Picard, 1889; I have cited them according to this edition); _Œuvres de Gerbert_, ed. by Olleris (Clermont and Paris, 1867); also in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 139; Richerus, _Historiarum libri IV._ (especially lib. iii. cap. 55 _sqq._); _Mon. Germ. script._ iii. 561 _sqq._; Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 138, col. 17 _sqq._ Also Picavet, _Gerbert, une pape philosophe_ (Paris: Leroux, 1897); Cantor, _Ges. der Mathematik_, i. 728-751 (Leipzig, 1880); Prantl, _Ges. der Logik_, ii. 53-57 (Leipzig, 1861).

[356] _Ep._ 12.

[357] _Mon. Germ. scriptores_, iii. 686.

[358] _Ep._ 44.

[359] Presumably Gerbert’s German-speaking scholars are meant.

[360] _Ep._ 45, _Raimundo monacho_.

[361] _Ep._ 46, _ad Geraldum Abbatem_.

[362] _I.e._ on the affairs of the monastery of Bobbio.

[363] A Greek doctor of Augustus’s time, who wrote on the diseases of the eye.

[364] _Ep._ 130.

[365] _Ep._ 167 (in Migne, _Ep._ 174).

[366] Richer, _Hist._ iii. 47, 48.

[367] Several of his compositions are extant.

[368] Richer, _Hist._ iii. 48-53.

[369] Richer, _Hist._ iii. cap. 55-65.

[370] See _post_, Chapter XXXV. If one should hesitate to find a phase of the veritable Gerbert in Richer’s report of the disputation with Otric, one may turn to Gerbert’s own philosophic or logical _Libellus--de rationali et ratione uti_ (Migne 139, col. 159-168). It is addressed to Otto II., and the opening paragraph recalls to the emperor the disputation which we have been following. The _Libellus_ is naturally more coherent than the disputation, in which Otric’s questions seem intended rather to trip his adversary than to lead a topic on to its proper end. It is devoted, however, to a problem exactly analogous to the point taken by Otric, that the term rational was not as broad as the term mortal. For the _Libellus_ discusses whether the use of reason (_ratione uti_) can be predicated of the rational being (_rationale_). The concept of the predicate should be the broader one, but here it might seem less broad, since all reasonable beings do not exercise reason. The discussion closely resembles the dispute in the character of the intellectual interests disclosed, and its arguments are not more original than those employed against Otric. Disputation and _Libellus_ alike represent necessary endeavours of the mind, which has reached a certain stage of tuition and development, to adjust itself with problems of logical order and method.

[371] _Post_, Chapter XV.

[372] Cf. Sackür, _Die Cluniacenser_, ii. 330 _sqq._; Pfister. _Études sur le règne de Robert le Pieux_, p. 2 _sqq._ (the latter takes an extreme view).

[373] Aimoin’s _Vita Abbonis_, cap. 7 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 139, col. 393). The same volume contains most of Abbo’s extant writings, and those of Aimoin. On Abbo see Sackür, _Die Cluniacenser_, ii. 345 _sqq._

An incredibly large number of students are said to have attended Abbo’s lectures. His studies and teaching lay mainly in astronomy, mathematics, chronology, and grammar. The pupil Aimoin cultivated history and biography, compiling a History of the Francs and a History of the miracles of St. Benedict, the latter a theme worthy of the tenth century. One leaves it with a sigh of relief, so barren was it save for its feat of gestation in giving birth to Gerbert.

[374] Jotsaldus, _Vita Odilonis_ (Migne 142, col. 1037).

[375] Odilo, _Vita Maioli_ (Migne 142, col. 951).

[376] See Taylor, _Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages_, p. 74 _sqq._ One may compare the influence of Cicero’s _De amicitia_ on the _De amicitia Christiana_ of Peter of Blois (cir. 1200), Migne 207, col. 871-898.

[377] _Vita Odilonis_, chaps. vi.-xiii. (Migne 142, col. 909 _sqq._).

[378] _Bellum Gallicum_, vi. 13.

[379] Migne 143, col. 1290.

[380] For a description of these works, see _post_, Chapter XXX. II.

[381] The substance of this sketch of the school of Chartres is taken chiefly from the Abbé Clerval’s exhaustive study, “Les Écoles de Chartres au moyen âge,” _Mémoires de la Société archéologique d’Eure-et-Loir_, xi., 1895. For the later fortunes of this school see _post_, Chapter XXX.

[382] The Histories of Gerbert’s pupil Richer are somewhat better, and show an imitation of Sallust.

[383] Cf. Molinier, _Les Sources de l’histoire de France_, v., lxix.

[384] _Post_, Chapters XXXIV.-XLII.

[385] Born 1078; king from 1108-1137.

[386] _Ante_, Chapter X.

[387] _Ante_, Chapter IX.

[388] On Notker see Piper, _Die älteste Litteratur_ (Deutsche Nat. Lit.), pp. 337-340.

[389] _Ante_, Chapter XI., where something was said of Liutprand also. Ratherius was a restless intriguer and pamphleteer, a sort of stormy petrel, who was born in 890 near Liège. In the course of his career he was once bishop of that northern city, and three times bishop of Verona, where he died, an old man of angry soul and bitter tongue. Two years and more had he passed in a dungeon at Pavia--a sharpening experience for one already given overmuch to hate. There he compiled his rather dreary six books of _Praeloquia_ (Migne 136, col. 145-344), preparatory discourses, perhaps precursive of another work, but at all events containing moral instruction for all orders of society. It was in the nature of a compilation, and yet touched with a strain of personal plaint, which sometimes makes itself clearly audible in words that show this work to have been its author’s prison _consolatio_: “Think what anguish impelled me to it, what calamity, what necessity showed me these paths of authorship. Dread of forgetting was my first reason for writing. Buried under all sorts of the rubbish of wickedness, surrounded by the darkness of evil, and distracted with the clamours of affairs, I feared that I should forget, and was delighted to find how much I could remember. Books were lacking, and friends to talk with, while sorrow gnawed the soul; so I used this book of mine as a friend to chat with, and was comforted by it as by a companion. Nor did I worry, asking who will read it; since I knew me for its reader, and as its lover, if it had none other” (_Praeloq._ vi. 26; Migne 136, col. 342). On Ratherius see Ebert, _Ges. der Lit._, iii. 375 _sqq._

[390] _Vita Brunonis_, caps. 4, 6.

[391] _Vita Brunonis_, cap. 8.

[392] Cf. _post_, Chapter XXXII., III.

[393] Enough will be found regarding Hrotsvitha and her works in Ebert, _Allgem. Ges. der Lit._, iii. 285-329.

[394] _Vita Bernwardi_, 6 (Migne 140, col. 397), by Thangmar, who was Bernward’s teacher and outlived him to write his Life.

[395] Migne 141, col. 1229.

[396] See Froumundus, _Ep._ 9, 11, 13 (Migne 141, col. 1288 _sqq._). A number of his poems are published by F. Seiler, _Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie_, Bd. 14, pp. 406-442.

[397] Migne 141, col. 1292. I am not sure that I have caught Froumund’s meaning.

[398] _Mon. Ger. Scriptores_, v. 134 _sqq._ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 146, col. 1027 _sqq._).

[399] _Vita Hermanni_ (Migne 143, col. 29).

[400] The writings of Hermannus Contractus are in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 143. The poem is reprinted from Du Meril’s _Poésies populaires_; a more complete text is in Bd XI. of the _Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum_.

[401] _Ante_, Chapter XII., 1.

[402] Prantl, _Ges. Logik_, ii. 83.

[403] Cf. Endres, “Othloh’s von St. Emmeram Verhältnis zu den freien Kunsten,” _Philos. Jahrbuch_, 1904.

[404] _Liber visionum._

[405] Othloh’s works are all in tome 146 of Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_.

[406] _Ante_, Chapter XII. 11.

[407] _Ante_, Chapters VIII., IX.

[408] Printed in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 139, col. 871 _sqq._ and elsewhere. For editions see Wattenbach, _Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen_, 6th ed. i. 485.

[409] _Post_, Chapter XVI.

[410] Cf. Taylor, _Ancient Ideals_, chaps. xv., xvi.; _Classical Heritage_, chaps. ii., iii.

[411] Hosea i.-iii.

[412] Sulpicius Severus, _Epist._ iii.

[413] These words occur in Jerome’s famous letter (_Ep._ xiv.), in which he exhorts the wavering Heliodoras to sever all ties and affections: “Do not mind the entreaties of those dependent on you, come to the desert and fight for Christ’s name. If they believe in Christ, they will encourage you; if they do not,--let the dead bury their dead. A monk cannot be perfect in his own land; not to wish to be perfect is a sin; leave all, and come to the desert. The desert loves the naked. O desert, blooming with the flowers of Christ! O solitude, whence are brought the stones of the city of the Great King! O wilderness rejoicing close to God! What would you, brother, in the world,--you that are greater than the world? How long are the shades of roofs to oppress you? How long the dungeon of a city’s smoke? Believe me, I see more of light! Do you fear poverty? Christ called the poor “blessed.” Are you terrified at labour? No athlete without sweat is crowned. Do you think of food? Faith fears not hunger. Do you dread the naked ground for limbs consumed with fasts? The Lord lies with you. Does the infinite vastness of the desert fright you? In the mind walk abroad in Paradise. Does your skin roughen without baths? Who is once washed in Christ needs not to wash again. And in a word, hear the apostle answering: The sufferings of the present time are not to be compared with the glory to come which shall be revealed in us!”

[414] In my _Classical Heritage_, pp. 136-197, I have given an account of the origins of monasticism, and of its distinctive western features. There I have also set out the Rule of Benedict, with sketches of the early monastic character.

[415] Cyprian said in the third century, addressing himself to Christian virgins: “Dominus vester et caput Christus est ad instar ad vicem masculi” (_De habitu virginum_, 22). To realize how near to the full human relationship was this wedded love of Christ, one should read the commentaries and sermons upon Canticles. Those of a later time--St. Bernard’s, for example--are the best, because they sum up so much that had been gathering fervour through the centuries. One might look further to those mediaeval instances that break through mysticism to a sensuousness in which the man Christ becomes an almost too concrete husband for ecstatic women. See _post_, Chapter XIX.

[416] The whole Christian love, first the love of God and then the love of man, is felt and set forth by Augustine. “Thou hast made us toward thee, and unquiet is our heart until it rests in thee.... That is the blessed life to rejoice toward thee, concerning thee and because of thee.... Give me thyself, my God.... All my plenty which is not my God is need.” With his love of God his love for man accords. “This is true love, that cleaving to truth we may live aright; and for that reason we contemn all mortal things except the love of men, whereby we wish them to live aright. Thus can we profitably be prepared even to die for our brethren, as the Lord Jesus Christ taught us by His example.... It is love which unites good angels and servants of God in the bond of holiness, joins us to them and them to us, and subjoins all unto God.” These passages are from the _Confessions_ and from the _De Trinitate_.

[417] Cf. _Classical Heritage_, p. 123 _sqq._

[418] Augustine, _Epp._ 155, c. 13.

[419] _Ante_, Chapter V.

[420] _Ante_, Chapter IX.

[421] Alcuin, _Ep._ 40 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 100, col. 201).

[422] Cf. Odo’s _Collationes_, in Migne 133, and Chapter XII. II., _ante_. Gregory was Odo’s favourite author.

[423] Before Constantine’s reign there had been few Christian basilicas; Christian art was sepulchral, drawing upon the galleries of the Catacombs, in meagre and monotonous designs, the symbols of the soul’s deliverance from death. These designs were antique in style and poor in execution.

[424] See Taylor, _Classical Heritage_, chap. x. sec. 2.

[425] See _Classical Heritage_, p. 267, and cf. _ibid._ chap. ix. sec. 1.

[426] See _post_, Chapter XXXII. II.

[427] The account of the evolution of the hymn from the prose sequence is given _post_, Chapter XXXII. III.

[428] Further illustrations of the mediaeval emotionalizing of Latin Christianity could be made from the history of certain Christian conceptions, angels for example:--the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha contain the revelation of their functions; next, their natures are defined in the works of the Fathers and the _Celestial Hierarchy_ of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The matter is gone over at great length, and their nature and functions logically perfected, by the schoolmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But, all the while, religious feeling, popular credences, and the imagination of poet and artist went on investing with beauty and loveliness these guardian spirits who carried out God’s care of man. Thus angels became the realities they were felt to be.

[429] Hartmann belongs to that great group of courtly German poets whose lives surround the year 1200. He was the translator of Chrètien de Troye’s _Erec_ and _Ivain_. See Bech’s _Hartmann von Aue_ (Deutsche klassiker). The verses quoted can hardly be rendered; but the meaning is as follows:

“My joys were never free from care until the day which showed me the flowers of Christ which I wear here (_i.e._ the Crusader’s cross). They herald a summer-time leading to sweet pastures of delight. God help us thither! The world has treated me so that my spirit yearns therefor;--well for me! God has been good to me, so that I am released from cares which tie the feet of many, chaining them here, while I in Christ’s band with blissful joys fare on.”

These lines carry that same yearning of the simple soul for heaven, _its home_, which was expressed, some centuries before, in Otfried’s _Evangelienbuch_ (_ante_, Chapter IX.). The words and their connotations (_augenweide_, _wünneclich_) are utterly German. Yet the author lived in a literary atmosphere of translation from the French.

[430] _Post_, Chapter XXV.

[431] The makers of love poems borrowed expressions from poems to the Virgin. Cf. Wilmanns, _Leben und Dichtung Walter’s Von der Vogelweide_, p. 179. Touches of mortal passion sometimes appear in the adoration of men for the Blessed Virgin. See _Caesar of Heisterbach_, vii. 32 and 50, and viii. 58. Of course, many suggestions were drawn also from the antique literature. See _post_, Chapter XXXII. IV. The subject of courtly and romantic love will come up properly for treatment in Chapter XXIII.

[432] One will bear in mind that much mediaeval phraseology goes back to the Fathers. For example, in monkish vilification of woman there is no phrase more common than _janua diaboli_, and it was Tertullian’s, who died in the first part of the third century.

[433] For the different meanings of the term _clericus_ see Du Cange, _Glossarium_, under that word.

[434] For the meanings of this term also see Du Cange, _Glossarium_, under that word.

[435] Regular clergy are the monks, who live under a _regula_.

[436] _Dialogus miraculorum_, ed. J. Strange, iv. i. (Cologne, 1851). Of course Caesar was a monk.

[437] _Ante_, Chapter XIV.

[438] See Sackur, _Die Cluniacenser, etc._, _passim_, and Bd. II. 464 (Halle, 1892).

[439] On the differences between Cluny and Citeaux see Vacandard, _Vie de St Bernard_, chap. iv. (2nd ed., Paris, 1897), and Zöckler, _Askese und Mönchtum_, 2nd ed. pp. 406-415 (Frankfurt a. M., 1897).

[440] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 166, col. 1377-1384.

[441] In fact, paragraph 15 provides that at the Chapter accusations against an abbot shall be brought only by an abbot.

[442] It is interesting to observe how much of Stephen of Bourbon’s description of the Poor of Lyons applies to Franciscan beginnings, and how much more of it would have applied had not St. Francis possessed the gift of obedience among his other virtues. Stephen was a Dominican of the first half of the thirteenth century, and himself an inquisitor. Thus he describes these misled people: “The Waldenses are called after the author of this heresy, whose name was Waldensis. They are also called the Poor of Lyons, because there they first professed poverty. Likewise they call themselves the Poor in Spirit, because the Lord says: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit....’ Waldensis, who lived in Lyons, was a man of wealth, but of little education. Hearing the Gospels, and curious to understand their meaning, he bargained with two priests that they should make a translation in the vulgar tongue. This they did, with other books of the Bible and many precepts from the writings of the saints. When this townsman had read the Gospel till he knew it by heart, he set out to follow apostolic perfection, just as the Apostles themselves. So, selling all his goods, in contempt of the world, he tossed his money like dirt to the poor. Then he presumed to usurp the office of the Apostles, and preached the Gospels in the open streets. He led many men and women to do the same, exercising them in the Gospels. He also sent them to preach in the neighbouring villages. These ignorant men and women running through villages, entering houses, and preaching in the open places as well as the churches, drew others to the same ways.”

Up to this point we are close to the Franciscans. But now the Archbishop of Lyons forbids these ignorant irregular evangelists to preach. Their leader answers for them, that they must obey God rather than man, and Scripture says to preach the Gospel to every creature. Thus they fell into disobedience, contumacy, and incurred excommunication, says Stephen (_Anecdotes, etc., d’Étienne de Bourbon_, edited by Lecoy de la Marche (Soc. de l’Histoire de France, Paris, 1877), cap. 342).

[443] The rôle of Franciscans and Dominicans in the spread of philosophic knowledge in the thirteenth century will be considered _post_, Chapter XXXVII. Chapter XVIII., _post_, is devoted to the personal qualities of Francis.

[444] Peter Damiani, _De contemptu saeculi_, cap. 32 (Migne 145, col. 287).

[445] On Damiani, see _ante_, Chapter XI. IV.

[446] Peter Damiani, _Opusc._ xi., _Dominus vobiscum_, cap. 19 (Migne 145, col. 246).

[447] Peter Damiani, _De contemptu saeculi_, cap. 25 (Migne 145, col. 278).

[448] Peter Damiani, _De perfectione monachi_, caps. 2, 3 (Migne 145, col. 294).

[449] _De perfectione monachi_, cap. 8 (Migne 145, col. 303).

[450] _De perf. mon._ cap. 13 (Migne 145, col. 307).

[451] _De ins. ord. eremitarum_, cap. 26 (Migne 145, col. 358). On the distraction from the _vita contemplativa_ involved in an abbot’s duties see Damiani’s verses, _De abbatum miseria_, _ante_, Chapter XI. IV.

For such as have feeling for these matters, I give the following extracts from Damiani’s _Opusc._ xiii., _De perfectione monachi_, caps. 12, 13: “Let the brother love fasting and cherish privation, let him flee the sight of men, withdraw from affairs, keep his mouth from vain conversation, seek the hiding-place of his mind wherein with his whole strength he burns to see the face of his Creator; and let him pant for tears, and beset God for them with daily prayer. For the dew of tears cleanses the soul from every stain and makes fruitful the meadows of our hearts so that they bring forth the sprouts of virtue. For often as under an icy frost the wretched soul sheds its foliage, and, grace departing, it is left to itself barren and stripped of its shortlived blossoms. But anon tears given by the Tester of hearts burst forth, and this same soul is loosed from the cold of its slothful torpor, and becomes green again with the renewed leafage of its virtues, as a tree in spring kindled by the south wind.

“Tears, moreover, which are from God, with fidelity approach the tribunal of divine hearing, and quickly obtaining what they ask, assure us of the remission of our sins. Tears are intermediaries in concluding peace between God and men; they are the truthful and the very wisest (_doctissimae_) teachers in the dubiousness of human ignorance. For when we are in doubt whether something may be pleasing to God, we can reach no better certitude than through prayer, weeping truthfully. We need never again hesitate as to what our mind has decided on under such conditions.

“Tears,” continues Damiani, “washed the noisomeness of her guilt from the Magdalen, saved the Apostle who denied his Lord, restored King David after deadly sin, added three years to Hezekiah’s life, preserved inviolate the chastity of Judith, and won for her the head of Holophernes. Why mention the centurion Cornelius, why mention Susanna? indeed were I to tell all the deeds of tears, the day would close before my task were ended. For it is they that purify the sinner’s soul, confirm his inconstant heart, prepare joy out of grief, and, breaking forth from our eyes of flesh, raise us to the hope of supernal beatitude. For their petition may not be set aside, so mighty are their voices in the Creator’s ears. Before the pious Judge they hesitate at nothing, but vindicate their claim to mercy as a right, and exult confident of having obtained what they implore.

“O ye tears, joys of the spirit, sweeter than honey, sweeter than nectar! which with a sweet and pleasant taste refresh minds lifted up to God, and water consumed and arid hearts with a flood of penetrating grace from heaven. Weeping eyes terrify the devil; he fears the onslaught of tears bursting forth, as one would flee a tempest of hail driven by the fury of all the winds. As the torrent’s rush cleanses the river-bed, the flowing tears purge the weeper’s mind from the devil’s tares and every pest of sin.”

[452] _De inst. ord. er._ cap. 1 (Migne 145, col. 337).

[453] The _Vita Romualdi_ is printed in Migne 144, col. 950-1008.

[454] Romuald died in 1027; _lustrum_ here may mean four years, which would bring the time of writing to 1039.

[455] _Vita Romualdi_, caps. 8, 9. Damiani does not say this here, but quite definitely suggests it in cap. 64. The lives of these eastern hermits were known to Romuald; hermits in Italy had imitated them; and the connection with the knowledge of the Orient was not severed. See Sackur, _Die Cluniacenser, etc._, i. 324 _sqq._ Thus for their models these Italian hermits go behind the _Regula Benedicti_ to the anchorite examples of Cassian and the East. Cf. Taylor, _Classical Heritage_, p. 160. A good example was St. Nilus, a Calabrian, perhaps of Greek stock. As Abbot of Crypta-Ferrata in Agro-Tusculano, he did not cease from his austerities, and still dwelt in a cave. He died in 1005 at the alleged age of ninety-five. His days are thus described: from dawn to the third hour he copied rapidly, filling a τετραδεῖον (quaternion) each day. From the third to the sixth hour he stood before the Cross of the Lord, reciting psalms and making genuflections; from the sixth to the ninth, he sat and read--no profane book we may be sure. When the ninth hour was come, he addressed his evening hymn to God and went out to walk and study Him in His works. See his _Vita_, from the Greek, in _Acta sanctorum_, sept. t. vii. pp. 279-343, especially page 293.

[456] _Vita Romualdi_, cap. 13.

[457] _Ibid._ cap. 20.

[458] _Vita Romualdi_, cap. 51.

[459] _Vita Romualdi_, cap. 35.

[460] _Ibid._ cap. 40.

[461] _Ibid._ cap. 45.

[462] _Vita_, caps. 49, 50.

[463] The Syrian region famous for its early anchorites.

[464] _Vita Romualdi_, cap. 64.

[465] Cf. Sackur, _Die Cluniacenser_, i. 328 note.

[466] _Vita Romualdi_, 69.

[467] Peter Damiani, _Vitae SS. Rodulphi et Dominici loricati_, cap. 8 (Migne 144, col. 1015.)

[468] _Ibid._ cap. 10 (Migne 144, col. 1017).

[469] This story is told in all the early lives of Bruno, the _Vita antiquior_, the _Vita altera_, and the _Vita tertia_ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 152, col. 482, 493, and 525). These lives, especially the _Vita altera_, are interesting illustrations of the ascetic spirit, which, as might be expected, also moulds Bruno’s thoughts and his understanding of Scripture. All of which appears in his long _Expositio in Psalmos_ (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 152). To us, for example, the note of the twenty-third (in the Vulgate the twenty-second) psalm is love; to Bruno it is disciplinary guidance: the Lord guides me in the place of pasture, that is, He is my guide lest I go astray in the Scriptures, where the souls of the faithful are fed; I shall not want, that is an understanding of them shall not fail me. Thy rod, that is the lesser tribulation; thy staff, that is the greater tribulation, correct and chastise me.

[470] Guigo was born in 1083 at St. Romain near Valence, of noble family (like most monks of prominence). There was close sympathy between him and St. Bernard, as their letters show. Cf. _post_, Chapter XVII.

[471] Migne 153, col. 601-631.

[472] A bibliography of what has been written on Bernard would make a volume. His own writings and the _Vitae_ and _Acta_ (as edited by Mabillon) are printed in Migne, tomes 182-185. The _Vie de Saint Bernard_, by the abbé Vacandard, in two volumes, is to be recommended (2nd ed., Paris, 1897).

[473] _Vita prima_, iii. cap. 1 (Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 185). This _Vita_ was written by contemporaries of the saint who knew him intimately. But one must be on one’s guard as to these apparently close descriptions of the saints in their _vitae_; for they are commonly conventionalized. This description of Bernard, excepting perhaps the colour of his hair, would have fitted Francis of Assisi.

[474] _Vita prima_, iii. 3. Bernard himself said that his aim in preaching was not so much to expound the words (of Scripture) as to move his hearers’ hearts (_Sermo xvi. in Cantica canticorum_). That his preaching was resistless is universally attested.

[475] See, _e.g._, Vacandard, _o.c._ chap. i.

[476] _Post_, Chapter XLIII.

[477] _Vita prima_, i. cap. 11. This William became Abbot of St. Thierry and one of Bernard’s biographers.

[478] _E.g._ _Ep._ 107.

[479] _Ep._ 2.

[480] _Ep._ 110 (this is the whole letter).

[481] _Ep._ 112 (the entire letter). The Latin of this letter is given _post_, Chapter XXXI.

[482] _Ep._ 111.

[483] _Ep._ 152, _ad Innocentium papam_, A.D. 1135.

[484] _Ep._ 170, _ad Ludovicum_. Written in 1138.

[485] _Ep._ 191.

[486] Cf. _post_, Chapter XXXVI. I., regarding this instance of Bernard’s zeal. His position is critically set out in Wilhelm Meyer’s “Die Anklagesätze des h. Bernard gegen Abaelard,” _Göttingische gelehrte Nachrichten, philol. hist. Klasse_, 1898, pp. 397-468.

[487] _Ep._ 196, _ad Guidonen_; cf. _Ep._ 195 (A.D. 1140). See for the Latin of this letter _post_, Chapter XXXI.

[488] _Ep._ 147, to Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny (A.D. 1138).

[489] _Ep._ 101, _ad religiosos_; cf. also _Ep._ 136.

[490] _Ep._ 300.

[491] _Vita prima_, lib. vii. cap. 15.

[492] It was Bernard’s third absence in Italy.

[493] _Ep._ 144, _ad suos Clarae-Vallenses_.

[494] _Vita prima_, lib. iii. cap. 7.

[495] _Sermo xxvi. in Cantica._

[496] “Finem verborum indicunt lacrymae; tu illis, Domine, finem modumque indixeris.”

[497] _Ante_, Chapter XVI.

[498] As Augustine before him. Cf. Taylor, _The Classical Heritage, etc._, pp. 129-131.

[499] _Ep._ 11, _ad Guigonem_. Bernard adds that when Paul says that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God, it is not to be understood that the substance of flesh will not be there, but that every carnal necessity will have ceased; the love of flesh will be absorbed in the love of the spirit, and our weak human affections transformed into divine energies.

[500] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 182, col. 973-1000.

[501] Love, fear, joy, sorrow.

[502] Migne 183, col. 785-1198.

[503] _Sermo xx. in Cantica._

[504] _Sermo lxxix. in Cantica._

[505] _Sermo lxxxiii. in Cantica._ This is nearly the whole of this sermon. Bernard’s sermons were not long. See _post_, Chapter XXXVI. II., as to Bernard’s use of the symbolism of the kiss.

[506] _Post_, Chapter XIX.

[507] The present chapter is intended as an appreciation of the personality of Francis; incidents of his life are used for illustration. I have endeavoured to confine myself to such as are generally accepted as authentic, and to those parts of the sources which are confirmed by corroborative testimony. The reader doubtless is aware that the sources of Franciscan history are abundant, but that there is still much critical and even polemic controversy touching their trustworthiness. Of the _Speculum perfectionis_, edited by Sabatier, I would make this remark: many of its narratives contain such wisdom and human truth as seem to me to bring them very close to the acts and words of some great personality, _i.e._ Francis. This is no sure proof of their authenticity, and yet is a fair reason for following their form of statement of some of the incidents in Francis’s life, the human value of which perhaps appears narrowed and deflected in other accounts.

The chief sources for the life of St. Francis of Assisi are first his own compositions, edited conveniently under the title of _Opuscula sancti patris Francisci Assisiensis_, by the Franciscans of Quarrachi (1904). They have been translated by P. Robinson (Philadelphia, The Dolphin Press, 1906). Next in certainty of authenticity come the two Lives by Celano, _i.e._ _Vita prima S. Francisci Assisiensis_, auctore B. Thoma de Celano, ejus discipulo, Bollandi _Acta sanctorum_, tome 46 (Oct. tome 2), pp. 683-723; also edited by Canon Amoni (Rome, 1880); _Vita secunda seu appendix ad Vitam primam_, ed. by Amoni (Rome, 1880). Better editions than Amoni’s are those of Edouard d’Alençon (Rome, 1906), and H. G. Rosedale (Dent, London, 1904). Of great importance also is the _Legenda trium sociorum_ (_Leo, Rufinus, Angelus_), Bollandi _Acta sanctorum_, t. 46 (Oct. t. 2), pp. 723-742; also ed. by Amoni (Rome, 1880). (Amoni’s texts differ somewhat from those of the Bollandist.) It is also edited by Pulignani (Foligno, 1898), and edited and hypothetically completed from the problematical Italian version, by Marcellino da Civezza and Teofilo Domenichelli (Rome, 1899). Perhaps most vivid of all the early sources is the so-called _Speculum perfectionis seu S. Francisci Assisiensis legenda antiquissima auctore fratre Leone_, as edited by Paul Sabatier (Paris, 1898). It has been translated into English several times. Its date and authenticity are still under violent discussion. One may conveniently refer to the article “Franciscan Literature” in the _Edinburgh Review_ for January 1904, and to P. Robinson’s _Short Introduction to Franciscan Literature_ (New York, 1907) for further references, which the student must supplement for himself from the mass of recent literature in books and periodicals touching the life of Francis and its sources. See also Fierens, _La Question franciscaine, etc._ (Louvain, 1909). Among modern Lives, that of Sabatier is probably known to all readers of this note. The Lives by Bonghi and Le Monnier may be referred to. Gebhard’s _Italie mystique_ is interesting in connection with Francis.

[508] Consciousness of direct authority from God speaks in the saint’s unquestionably authentic Testament: “And after the Lord gave me some brothers, no one showed me what I ought to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I ought to live according to the model of the holy Gospel.” It is also rendered with picturesque vehemence in a scene (_Speculum perfectionis_, ed. Sabatier, ch. 68) which may or may not be authentic. At a general meeting of the Order, certain wise brethren had persuaded the Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia to advise Francis to follow their counsel, and had adduced certain examples from the monastic rule of Benedict and others. “When the Cardinal had related these matters to the blessed Francis, in the way of admonition, the blessed Francis answered nothing, but took him by the hand and led him before the assembled brothers, and spoke to the brothers in the fervour and power of the Holy Spirit, thus: ‘My brothers, my brothers, the Lord called me in the way of simplicity and humility, and showed me in truth this way for myself and for those who wish to believe and imitate me. And therefore I desire that you will not name any rule to me, neither the rule of St. Benedict, nor that of St. Augustine or St. Bernard, or any other rule or model of living except that which was mercifully shown and given me by the Lord. And the Lord said that He wished me to be a new covenant (_pactum_) in the world, and did not wish us to live by any other way save by that knowledge.’”

[509] These songs (none of which survive) were apparently in the _langue d’oïl_ and not in the _langue d’oc_. The phrases used by the biographers are _lingua francigena_ (1 Cel. i. 7) and _lingua gallica_ (_III. Soc._ iii.) or _gallice cantabat_ (_Spec. perf._ vii. 93).

[510] In fact this is vouched for in _III. Soc._ i.

[511] St. Martin of Tours had done the same.

[512] _III. Soc._ v. par. 13, 14.

[513] _III. Soc._ vi. par. 20.

[514] “Sancta paupertas,” “domina paupertas” are the phrases. The first is used by St. Bernard.

[515] _III. Soc._ viii.; 1 Cel. ix.

[516] _III. Soc._ viii.; see 1 Cel. x. and 2 Cel. x.

[517] _Spec. per._ 3, 9, 19, 122. How truly he also felt their spirit is seen in the story of his words, at a somewhat later period, to a certain Dominican: “While he was staying at Siena, a certain doctor of theology, of the order of the Preachers, himself an humble and spiritual man, came to him. When they had spoken for a while about the words of the Lord, this master interrogated him concerning this text of Ezekiel: ‘If thou dost not declare to the wicked man his wickedness, I will require his soul of thy hand’ (Ezek. iii. 18). And he added: ‘I know many indeed, good father, in mortal sin, to whom I do not declare their wickedness. Will their souls be required at my hand?’

“To whom the blessed Francis humbly said that it was fitting that an ignorant person like himself should be taught by him rather than give answer upon the meaning of Scripture. Then that humble master replied: ‘Brother, albeit I have heard the exposition of this text from a number of the wise, still would I willingly make note of your understanding of it.’

“So the blessed Francis said: ‘If the text is to be understood generally, I take it to mean that the servant of God ought by his life and holiness so to burn and shine in himself, that the light of his example and the tenor of his holy conversation would reprove all wicked men. Thus I say will his splendour and the odour of his reputation declare their iniquities to all,’” _Spec. perf._ 53; also 2 Cel. iii. 46.

[518] As to the acquisition of the Portiuncula see _Spec. perf._ 55, and on Francis’s love of it see _Spec. perf._ 82-84, 124.

[519] 1 Cel. xi.

[520] This seems to be true of Francis’s great Exemplar.

[521] _Spec. perf._ 69; 2 Cel. iii. 124; _III. Soc._ 25.

[522] _Francisci admonitiones_, xx.

[523] _Spec. perf._ 62; 2 Cel. iii. 71.

[524] _Spec. perf._ 61; see 1 Cel. 19.

[525] 2 Cel. iii. 81; _Spec. perf._ 39.

[526] _Spec. perf._ 50.

[527] _Spec. perf._ 54; 2 Cel. iii. 84.

[528] _Spec. perf._ 44.

[529] _Spec. perf._ 64; _III. Soc._ 39; 2 Cel. iii. 83; cf. _Admon._ iii.

[530] Cf. _Spec. perf._ 22 and 23; 2 Cel. iii. 23.

[531] _III. Soc._ xii. 50, 51.

[532] _Spec. perf._ 18; cf. 2 Cel. iii. 20.

[533] _Spec. perf._ 25; 2 Cel. iii. 22.

[534] _Spec. perf._ 95; 2 Cel. iii. 65. But Francis condemned all vain and foolish words which move to laughter (_Admon._ xxi.; _Spec. perf._ 96).

[535] _Spec. perf._ 93; 2 Cel. iii. 67.

[536] _Spec. perf._ 34.

[537] Cf. _Spec. perf._ 108; 2 Cel. 132.

[538] _Spec. perf._ 27, 28, 33; cf. 2 Cel. i. 15; _ibid._ iii. 30 and 36.

[539] _Spec. perf._ 101. This is one of the apparently unsupported stories of the _Speculum_, that none would like to doubt.

[540] 2 Cel. iii. cap. 101.

[541] One is tempted to amuse oneself with paradox, and say: Not he of Vaucluse, who ascended a mountain for the view and left a record of his sentiments, but he of Assisi, who loved the sheep, the birds, the flowers, the stones, and fire and water, was “the first modern man.” But such statements are foolish; there was no “first modern man.”

[542] _Spec. perf._ 113.

[543] 1 Cel. xxi. 58.

[544] 1 Cel. cap. xxviii.

[545] 1 Cel. cap. xxix.

[546] 2 Cel. iii. 101. These matters are set forth more picturesquely in the _Speculum perfectionis_; if authentic, they throw a vivid light on this wonderful person. Here are examples:

“Francis had come to the hermitage of Fonte Palumbo, near Riete, to cure the infirmity of his eyes, as he was ordered on his obedience by the lord-cardinal of Ostia and by Brother Elias, minister-general. There the doctor advised a cautery over the cheek as far as the eyebrow of the eye that was in worse state. Francis wished to wait till brother Elias came, but when he was kept from coming Francis prepared himself. And when the iron was set in the fire to heat it, Francis, wishing to comfort his spirit, lest he be afraid, spoke to the fire: ‘My Brother Fire, noble and useful among other creatures, be courteous to me in this hour, since I have loved and will love thee for the love of Him who made thee. I also beseech our Creator, who made us both, that He may temper thy heat so that I may bear it.’ And when his prayer was finished he made the sign of the cross over the fire.

“We indeed who were with him then fled for pity and compassion, and the doctor remained alone with him. When the cautery was finished, we returned, and he said to us: ‘Fearful and of little faith, why did you flee? I tell you truly I felt no pain, nor any heat of the fire. If it is not well seared he may sear it better.’

“The astonished doctor assured them all that the cautery was so severe that a strong man, let alone one so weak, could hardly have endured it, while Francis showed no sign of pain” (_Spec. perf._ 115). “Thus fire treated Francis courteously; for he had never failed to treat it reverently and respect its rights. Once his clothes caught fire, and he would not put it out, and forbade a brother, saying: ‘Nay, dearest brother, do no harm to the fire.’ He would never put out fire, and did not wish any brother to throw away a fire or push a smoking log away, but wished that it should be just set on the ground, out of reverence to Him whose creature it is” (_ibid._ 116).

“Next to fire he had a peculiar love for water, wherein is figured holy penitence and the tribulation with which the soul’s uncleanness is washed away, and because the first washing of the soul is through the water of baptism. So when he washed his hands he would choose a place where the water which fell would not be trodden on. Also when he walked over rocks, he walked with trembling and reverence for the love of Him who is called the ‘Rock’; and whenever he repeated that psalm, ‘Thou hast exalted me upon a rock,’ he would say with great reverence and devotion: ‘Under the foot of the rock thou hast exalted me.’”

“He directed the brother who cut and fetched the fire-wood never to cut a whole tree, so that some part of it might remain untouched for the love of Him who was willing to work out our salvation upon the wood of the cross.

“Likewise he told the brother who made the garden, not to devote all of it to vegetables, but to have some part for flowering plants, which in their seasons produce Brother Flowers for love of Him who is called the ‘Flower of the field and the Lily of the valley.’ He said indeed that Brother Gardener always ought to make a beautiful patch in some part of the garden, and plant it with all sorts of sweet-smelling herbs and herbs that produce beautiful flowers, so that in their season they may invite men seeing them to praise the Lord. For every creature cries aloud, ‘God made me for thy sake, O man.’ We that were with him saw that inwardly and outwardly he did so greatly rejoice in all created things, that touching or seeing them his spirit seemed not to be upon the earth, but in heaven” (_ibid._ 113).

“Above all things lacking reason he loved the sun and fire most affectionately, for he would say: ‘In the morning when the sun rises every man ought to praise God who created it for our use, because by day our eyes are illumined by it; in the evening, when night comes, every man ought to give praise on account of Brother Fire, because by it our eyes are illumined by night. For all of us are blind, and the Lord through those two brothers lightens our eyes; and therefore for these, and for other creatures which we daily use, we ought to praise the Creator.’ Which indeed he did himself up to the day of his death” (_ibid._ 119).

[547] Translated from the text as given in E. Monaci’s _Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli_. Substantially the same text is given in _Spec. perf._ 120.

[548] The mediaeval term _apex mentis_ is not inapt.

[549] Assurance of the soul’s communion, and even union, with God is the chief element of what is termed mysticism, which will be discussed briefly in connection with scholastic philosophy, _post_, Chapter XXXVI. II. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries those who experienced the divine through visions, ecstasies, and rapt contemplation, were not as analytically and autobiographically self-conscious as later mystics. Yet St. Theresa’s (sixteenth century) mystical analysis of self and God (for which see H. Delacroix, _Études d’histoire et de psychologie du mysticisme_, Paris, 1908) might be applied to the experiences of St. Elizabeth of Schönau or St. Hildegard of Bingen.

[550] _Ante_, Chapter XIII. II.

[551] Neither Othloh’s visions, nor those to be recounted, were narratives of voyages to the other world. The name of these is legion. They begin in _Bede’s Ecclesiastical History_, and continue through the Middle Ages--until they reach their apotheosis in the _Divina Commedia_. See _post_, Chapter XLIII.

[552] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 195.

[553] The works of St. Hildegard of Bingen are published in vol. 197 of Migne’s _Pat. Lat._ and in vol. viii. of Pitra’s _Analecta sacra_, under the title _Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis opera Spicilegio Solesmensi parata_ (1882). Certain supplementary passages to the latter volume are published in _Analecta Bollandiana_, i. (Paris, 1882). These publications are completed by F. W. E. Roth’s _Lieder und die unbekannte Sprache der h. Hildegardis_ (Wiesbaden, 1880). The same author has a valuable article on Hildegard in _Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft, etc._, 1888, pp. 453-471. See also an article by Battandier, _Revue des questions historiques_, 33 (1883), pp. 395-425. Other literature on Hildegard in Chevalier’s _Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge_, under her name.

Her two most interesting works, for our purposes at least, are the _Scivias_ (meaning _Scito vias Domini_), completed in 1151 after ten years of labour, and the _Liber vitae meritorum per simplicem hominem a vivente luce revelatorum_ (Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 1-244), begun in 1159, and finished some five years later. Extracts from these are given in the text. Other works show her extraordinary intellectual range. Of these the _Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis_ (Migne 197, col. 741-1038) is a vision of the mysteries of creation, followed by a voluminous commentary upon the world and all therein, including natural phenomena, human affairs, the nature of man, and the functions of his mind and body. It closes with a discussion of Antichrist and the Last Times. The work was begun about 1164, when Hildegard finished the _Liber vitae meritorum_, and was completed after seven years of labour. She also wrote a Commentary on the Gospels, and sundry lives of saints, and there is ascribed to her quite a prodigious work upon natural history and the virtues of plants, the whole entitled: _Subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum libri IX._ (Migne 197, col. 1118-1351); and probably she composed another work on medicine, _i.e._ the unpublished _Liber de causis et curis_ (see Pitra, _o.c._, prooemium, p. xi.). Preger’s contention (_Geschichte der deutschen Mystik_, i. pp. 13-27, 1874) that the works bearing Hildegard’s name are forgeries, never obtained credence, and is not worth discussing since the publication of Pitra’s volume.

[554] _Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis opera Spicilegio Solesmensi parata_, p. 523; cf. _ibid._ p. 561; also _Ep._ 27 of Hildegard in Migne 197, col. 186.

[555] These questions and Hildegard’s solutions are given in Migne 197, col. 1038-1054, and the letter in Pitra, _o.c._ 399-400.

[556] Pitra, _o.c._ 394, 395.

[557] By _visio_ as used here, Hildegard refers to the general undefined light--the _umbra viventis lucis_, in which she saw her special visions.

[558] Pitra, _o.c._ 332.

[559] This is from the prologue to the _Scivias_, Pitra, _o.c._ 503, 504 (Migne 197, 483, 484). Guibert in his _Vita_ speaks of Hildegard as _indocta_ and unable to penetrate the meaning of Scripture _nisi cum vis internae aspirationis illuminans eam juvaret_, Pitra, _o.c._ 413. Compare Hildegard’s prooemium to her _Life of St. Disibodus_ (Pitra, _o.c._ 357) and the preface to her _Liber divinorum operum_ (Migne 197, 741, 742).

[560] Guibertus to Radilfus, a monk of Villars (Pitra, _o.c._ 577) apparently written in 1180.

[561] Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 1-244.

[562] Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 8-10. The translation is condensed, but is kept close to the original.

[563] _Ibid._ p. 13.

[564] Pitra, _o.c._ p. 24.

[565] _Ibid._ p. 51 _sqq._

[566] Pitra, _o.c._ p. 92 _sqq._

[567] _Ibid._ p. 131 _sqq._ Of course, one at once thinks of the punishments in Dante’s _Inferno_, which in no instance are identical with those of Hildegard, and yet offer common elements. Dante is not known to have read the work of Hildegard.

[568] Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 230-240. I am not clear as to Hildegard’s ideas of Purgatory, for which she seems to have no separate region. In the case of sinners who have begun, but not completed, their penances on earth, the punishments described work _purgationem_, and the souls are loosed (_ibid._ p. 42). In Part III. of the work we are considering, the paragraphs describing the punishments are entitled _De superbiae_, _invidiae_, _inobedientiae_, _infidelitatis_, etc., _poenis purgatoriis_ (_ibid._ p. 130). But each paragraph is followed by one entitled _De poenitentia superbiae_, etc., and the _poenitentia_ referred to is worked out with penance in this life. Consequently it is not quite clear that the word _purgatoriis_ attached to _poenis_ signifies temporary punishment to be followed by release.

In a vision of the Last Times (_ibid._ p. 225) Hildegard sees “black burning darkness,” in which was _gehenna_, containing every kind of horrible punishment. She did not then see _gehenna_ itself, because of the darkness surrounding it; but heard the frightful cries. Cf. _Aeneid_, vi. 548 _sqq._

[569] This is the view expounded so grandly by Hugo of St. Victor in his _De sacramentis_, _post_, Chapter XXVIII.

[570] Migne 197, col. 433. All this is interesting in view of the many figures of the Church and Synagogue carved on the cathedrals, most of them later than Hildegard’s time. The “Synagogue” of sculpture has her eyes bound, the sculpturesque expression of eyelessness. The rest of Hildegard’s symbolism was not followed in sculpture.

[571] Migne 197, col. 437 _sqq._ Cf. St. Bernard, _Sermo xix. in Cantica_.

[572] Migne 197, col. 449.

[573] Notice the supra-terrestrial term, which can hardly be translated so as to fit an actual wall.

[574] Migne 197, col. 583. Compare this vision with the symbolic interpretation of the cathedral edifice, _post_, Chapter XXIX.

[575] Cf. St. Bernard’s treatment of this matter, _ante_, Chapter XVII.

[576] In a Middle High German Marienleben, by Bruder Phillips (13th century) the young virgin is made herself to say to God:

“Du bist min lieber priutegam (bridegroom), Dir gib ich minen magetuom (maidenhood), Du bist min vil schoener man.

“Du bist min vriedel (lover) und min vriunt (ami); Ich bin von diner minne entzundt.”

Bobertag, _Erzählende Dichtungen des späteren Mittelalters_, p. 46 (Deutsche Nat. Litt.).

[577] _Vita B. Mariae Ogniacensis_, per Jacobum de Vitreaco, Bollandi, _Acta sanctorum_ t. 21 (June t. iv. pp. 636-666). Jacques had good reason to canonize her bones, since one of them, in his saddle-bags, had saved his mule from drowning while crossing a river in Tuscany.

[578] Cant. ii. 5. The translation in the English Revised Version is: “Stay me with cakes of raisins, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love.” The phrases of Canticles, always in the words of the Latin Vulgate, come continually into the minds of these ecstatic women and their biographers. The sonorous language of the Vulgate is not always close to the meaning of the Hebrew. But it was the Vulgate and not the Hebrew that formed the mediaeval Bible, and its language should be observed in discussing mediaeval applications of Scripture.

[579] “Dum esset Rex in accubitu suo,” Cant. i. 11, in Vulgate; Cant. i. 12, in the English version, which renders it: “While the King sitteth at His table.”

[580] _Vita B. Mariae, etc._, par. 2-8. Since we are seeing these mediaeval religious phenomena as they impressed contemporaries, it would be irrelevant to subject them to the analyses which pathological psychology applies to not dissimilar phenomena.

[581] It is reported of St. Catharine of Siena that she would go for weeks with no other food than the Eucharist.

[582] I am drawing from her _Vita_ by her contemporary, Thomas of Cantimpré, _Acta SS._, Bollandi, t. 21 (t. 3 of June), p. 234 _sqq._

[583] Cf. Canticles iii. 2; _Vita_, lib. iii. par. 42.

[584] Cant. iii. 1, 7; i. 16.

[585] _Vita_, lib. iii. pars. 9, 11. It is well known how great a love of her Lord possessed St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and how she sent her children away from her, that she might not be distracted from loving Him alone. The vision which came to her upon her expulsion from the Wartburg, after the death of her husband, King Louis of Thuringia, is given as follows, in her own words, according to the sworn statement of her waiting-women: “I saw the heaven open, and that sweet Jesus, my Lord, bending toward me and consoling me in my tribulation; and when I saw Him I was glad, and laughed; but when He turned His face, as if to go away, I cried. Pitying me, He turned His serene countenance to me a second time, saying: ‘If thou wishest to be with me, I wish to be with thee.’ I responded: ‘Thou, Lord, thou dost wish to be with me, and I wish to be with thee, and I wish never to be separated from thee’” (_Libellus de dictis quatuor ancillarum_, Mencken, _Scriptores Rerum Germ._ ii. 2020 A-C, Leipzig, 1728). The German sermon of Hermann von Fritzlar (cir. 1340) tells this vision in nearly the same words, putting, however, this phrase in Elizabeth’s mouth: “Our Lord Jesus Christ appeared to me, and when He turned from me, I cried, and then He turned to me, and I became red (blushed?), and before I was pale” (Hildebrand, _Didaktik aus der Zeit der Kreuzzüge_, p. 36, Deutsche Nat. Lit.).

[586] _Offenbarungen der Schwester Mechthild von Magdeburg oder das fliessende Licht der Gottheit_, ed. by P. G. Morel, Regensburg, 1869. See Preger, _Gesch. der deutschen Mystik_, i. 70, 91 _sqq._ Preger points out that the High-German version of this work, which we possess, was made from the Low-German original in the year 1344. Extracts from Mechthild’s book are given by Vetter, _Lehrhafte Literatur des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts_, pp. 192-199; and by Hildebrand, _Didaktik aus der Zeit der Kreuzzüge_, pp. 6-10 (Deutsche Nat. Lit.).

[587] We pass over these portions of Mechthild’s book which exemplify the close connection between ecstatic contemplation and the denunciation of evil in the world.

[588] Mechthild constantly uses phrases from the courtly love poetry of her time.

[589] _Das fliessende Licht, etc._, i. cap. 3. Hildebrand, _o.c._ p. 6, cites this apposite verse from the thoughtful and knightly Minnesinger, Reimar von Zweter:

“Got herre unuberwundenlich, Wie uberwant die Minne dich! Getorste ich, so spraech ich: Si wart an dir so sigerich.”

[590] _Das fliessende Licht, etc._, i. 38-44.

[591] “I would gladly die of love, might that be my lot; for Him whom I love I have seen with my bright eyes standing in my soul” (_ibid._ ii. cap. 2).

[592] Cf. ii. 22.

[593] See i. 10; ii. 23.

[594] i. 13.

[595] ii. 4.

[596] iii. 1, 10.

[597] It is quite true that in the earliest Christian times the marriage of priests was recognized, and continued to be at least connived at until, say, the time of Hildebrand. Yet the best thoughtfulness and piety from the Patristic period onward had disapproved of priestly marriages, which consequently tended to sink to the level of concubinage, until they were absolutely condemned by the Church.

[598] _Anecdotes, etc., d’Étienne de Bourbon_, ed. by Lecoy de la Marche, p. 249 (Soc. de l’Histoire de France, t. 185, Paris, 1877). This story refers to the years 1166-1171.

[599] Many bishops and abbots held definite secular rank; the Archbishop of Rheims was a duke, and so was the Bishop of Langres and Laon; while the bishops of Beauvais and Noyon were counts. In Germany, the archiepiscopal dukes of Cologne and Mainz were among the chief princes of the land.

[600] There were, however, some (naturally shocking) instances of inheritance, as where the Bishop of Nantes in 1049 admitted that he had been invested with the bishopric during the lifetime of his father, the preceding bishop. See Luchaire, in vol. ii. (2), pp. 107-117 of Lavisse’s _Hist. de France_, for this and other examples of episcopal feudalism.

[601] _Sermo in Cantica_, 33, par. 15 (Migne 183, col. 958-959). With this passage from St. Bernard, one may compare the far more detailed picture of the luxury and dissolute ways of the secular clergy in France given in the _Apologia of Guido of Bazoches_ (latter part of the twelfth century). W. Wattenbach. “Die Apologie des Guido von Bazoches,” _Sitzungsberichte Preussichen Akad._, 1893, (1), pp. 395-420.

[602] Ed. by T. Wright (Camden Society, London, 1841).

[603] The poem called _De ruina Romae_. It begins, “Propter Syon non tacebo.”

[604] _Post_, Chapter XXVI.

[605] The “Bible” of Guiot is published in Barbazan’s _Fabliaux_, t. ii. (Paris, 1808). It is conveniently given with other satirical or moralizing compositions in Ch. V. Langlois, _La Vie en France au moyen âge d’après quelques moralistes du temps_ (Paris, 1908).

[606] Salimbene gives an amusing picture of our worthy Rigaud hurrying to catch sight of the king at a Franciscan Chapter. _Post_, Chapter XXI.

[607] _Regestrum visilationum archiepiscopi Rothomagensis_, ed. Bonnin (Rouen, 1852). It is analyzed by L. V. Delisle, in an article entitled “Le Clergé normand” (_Bib. de l’École des Chartes_, 2nd ser. vol. iii.).

[608] _Reg. vis._ p. 9.

[609] _R. V._ p. 10.

[610] _R. V._ p. 18.

[611] _R. V._ pp. 19-20.

[612] _R. V._ p. 222.

[613] _R. V._ p. 379.

[614] _R. V._ p. 154.

[615] See _e.g._ _R. V._ pp. 159, 162, 395-396.

[616] _R. V._ p. 109.

[617] _R. V._ p. 73.

[618] _R. V._ pp. 43-45.

[619] _R. V._ p. 607.

[620] In Pfeiffer’s ed. No. 159. See also _ibid._ 162.

[621] The above is drawn from the “Vita Sancti Engelberti,” by Caesar of Heisterbach, in Boehmer, _Fontes rerum Germanicarum_, ii. 294-329 (Stuttgart, 1845). E. Michael, _Culturzustände des deutschen Volkes während des 13{n} Jahrhunderts_, ii. 30 _sqq._ (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1899), has an excellent account drawn mainly from the same source.

[622] The _Dialogi miraculorum_ of Caesar of Heisterbach, and the _Exempla_ of Étienne de Bourbon (d. 1262) and Jacques de Vitry (d. 1240) present a huge collection of such stories. For the early Middle Ages, the decades just before and after the year one thousand, the mechanically supernatural view of any occurrence is illustrated in the five books of _Histories_ of Radulphus Glaber, an incontinent and wandering, but observing monk, native of Burgundy. Best edition by M. Prou, in _Collection des textes, etc._ (Paris, Picard, 1886); also in Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 142. An interesting study of his work by Gebhart, entitled, “Un Moine de l’an 1000,” is to be found in the _Revue des deux mondes_, for October 1, 1891. Glaber’s fifth book opens with some excellent devil stories. As there was a progressive enlightenment through the mediaeval centuries, such tales gradually became less common and less crude.

[623] _Anecdotes historiques d’Étienne de Bourbon_, par. 422, ed. by Lecoy de la Marche (vol. 185 of Société de l’Histoire de France), Paris, 1877; cf. _ibid._ par. 383.

[624] _Dialogus miraculorum_, iii. 2. Similar stories are told in _ibid._ iii. 3, 15, 19.

[625] _Exempla_ of Jacques de Vitry, ed. by T. F. Crane, pp. 110-111, vol. 26 (Folk-lore Society, London, 1890).

[626] _Dialogus miraculorum_, vii. 34. Caesar’s seventh book has many similar tales.

[627] Ed. in eight volumes by Gaston Paris and U. Robert for the Société des Anciens Textes Français.

[628] Étienne de Bourbon tells this same story in his Latin; _Anecdotes historiques etc._, p. 114.

[629] See Étienne de Bourbon, _o.c._ pp. 109-110, 120.

[630] Étienne de Bourbon, _o.c._ p. 119.

[631] Étienne de Bourbon, _o.c._ p. 83.

[632] The chief part of the “Chronica Fr. Salembenis Parmensis” was printed in 1857 in the _Monumenta Historica ad provincias Parmensem, etc._ The manner of its truncated editing has ever since been a grief to scholars. The portions omitted from the Parma edition, covering years before Salimbene’s time, are printed by Clédat, as an appendix to his Thesis, _De Fr. Salimbene, etc._ (Paris, 1878). Novati’s article, “La Cronaca di Salimbene” in vol. i. (1883) of the _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_, pp. 383-423, will be found enlightening as to the faults of the Parma editor. A good consideration of the man and his chronicle is Emil Michael’s _Salimbene und seine Chronik_ (Innsbruck, 1889), with which should be read Alfred Dove’s _Die Doppel Chronik von Reggio und die Quellen Salimbene’s_ (Leipzig, 1873). A short translation of some of the more or less autobiographical parts of Salimbene’s narrative, by T. L. K. Olyphant, may be found in vol. i. of the _Translations of the Historical Society_, pp. 449-478 (London, 1872); and much of Salimbene is translated in Coulton’s _From St. Francis to Dante_ (London, 1907).

[633] Parma edition, p. 3.

[634] P. 31.

[635] The Latin is a little strong: “Non credas istis pissintunicis, idest qui in tunicis mingunt.”

[636] These qualities led Salimbene to accept the teachings of Joachim and the _Evangelium eternum_ (_post_, pp. 510 _sqq._).

[637] Parma ed. pp. 37-41. This coarse story is given for illustration’s sake; there are many worse than it in Salimbene. Novati prints some in his article in the _Giornale Storico_ that are amusing, but altogether beyond the pale of modern decency.

[638] This in fact became the later legend of Eccelino.

[639] Pp. 90-93.

[640] He whose _Regesta_ we have read, _ante_ Chapter XX.

[641] Parma ed. pp. 93-97.

[642] _Post_, Chapter XXII.

[643] Cf. Tocco, _L’Eresia nel medio evo_, pp. 449-483 (Florence, 1884).

[644] From Novati, _o.c._ pp. 415, 416. Cf. pp. 97 _sqq._ of the Parma ed.

[645] For further interesting allusions to the prophecies of Merlin, see Salimbene, pp. 303, 309 _sqq._

[646] Pp. 104-109.

[647] Cf. Joinville’s account, _post_, Chapter XXII.

[648] P. 225.

[649] Pp. 179, 180.

[650] P. 324.

[651] See Bourgain, _La Chaire française au XII{e} siècle_; Lecoy de la Marche, _La Chaire française au XIII{e} siècle_.

[652] Certain kinds of literature, in nature satirical or merely gross, portray, doubtless with grotesque exaggeration, the ways and manners of clerks and merchants, craftsmen and vile serfs, as well as those of monks and bishops, lords and ladies. A notable example is offered by the old French _fabliaux_, which with coarse and heartless laughter, rather than with any definite satirical intent, display the harshness, brutality, the degradation and hardship of the ways of living coming within their range of interest. In them we see the brutal and deceived husband, the wily clerk, the merchant with his tricks of trade, the _vilain_, raised above the brute, not by a better way of life as much as by a certain native wit. The women were reviled as coarsely as in monkish writings; but a Rabelaisian quality takes the place of doctrinal prurience. In weighing the evidence of these fabliaux their satirical nature should be allowed for. Cf. Langlois, _La Vie en France au moyen âge d’après quelques moralistes du temps_ (Paris, 1908); also the _Sermons_ of Jacques de Vitry; Pitra, _Analecta novissima spicilegii Solesmensis_, t. ii., and Haurèau upon the same in _Journal des savants_, 1888, p. 410 _sqq._

[653] Such immunities were common before Charlemagne. Cf. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 243-302.

[654] _Gesta regum Anglorum_, iii. (Migne 179, col. 1213).

[655] Taken from the note to p. 274 of Gautier’s _Chevalerie_.

[656] See Du Cange, _Glossarium_, under “Miles,” etc.; where much information may be found uncritically put together.

[657] Cf. Brunner, _Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte_, ii. 202-216.

[658] The way that _miles_ came to mean knight, has its analogy in the etymological history of the word “knight” itself. In German and French the words “Ritter” and “chevalier” indicate one who fought on horseback. Not so with the English word “knight,” which in its original Anglo-Saxon and Old-German forms (see Murray’s _Dictionary_) as _cniht_ and _kneht_ might mean any armed follower. It lost its servile sense slowly. “In 1086 we read that the Conqueror _dubbade his sunu Henric to ridere_; this ... is the next year Englished by _cniht_” (Kington-Oliphant, _Old and Middle English_, p. 130; Macmillan, 1878).

[659] We naturally use the term “free” with reference to modern conditions, where law and its sanctions emanate, in fact as well as theory, from a stable government. But in these early feudal periods where a man’s life and property were in fact and theory protected by the power of his immediate lord, to whom he was bound by the strongest ties then recognized, to be “free” might be very close to being an unprotected outlaw.

[660] In these respects it exhibits analogies to monkhood, which likewise was recruited commonly from the upper classes of society.

[661] See Gautier, _La Chevalerie_, p. 256 _sqq._; Du Cange, under the word “Miles.”

[662] Cf. Gautier, _o.c._ 296-308. It must be remembered that an abbot or a bishop might also be a knight and so could make knights. See Du Cange, _Glossarium_, “Abbas” (_abbates miletes_).

[663] On this blow, called in Latin _alapa_, in French _accolée_, in English _accolade_, see Du Cange under “Alapa,” and Gautier, _o.c._ pp. 246-247, and 270 _sqq._

[664] _Chanson de Roland_, 2344 sqq. Lines 2500-2510 speak of Charlemagne’s sword, named _Joiuse_ because of the honour it had in having in its hilt the iron of the lance which pierced the Saviour.

[665] Gautier, _Chevalerie_, pp. 290, 297. Examples of these ceremonies may be found as follows: the actual one of the knighting of Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou by Henry I. of England, at Rouen in 1129, in the Chronicle of Johannis Turonensis, _Historiens de France_, xii. p. 520; Gautier, _Chevalerie_, p. 275. Gautier gives many examples, and puts together a typical ceremony, as of the twelfth century, in _Chev._ p. 309 _sqq._ Perhaps the most famous account of all is that of the poem entitled _Ordene de Chevalerie_ (thirteenth century), published by Barbazan, _Fabliaux, etc._, i. 59-82 (Paris, 1808). It relates how a captive Christian knight bestowed the order of chivalry, _i.e._ knighthood, upon Saladin. See other accounts cited in Du Cange under “Miles.”

[666] Not war as we understand it, where with some large purpose one great cohesive state directs its total military power against another; but neighbourhood war, never permanently ended. When not actually attacking or defending, men were anticipating attack, or expecting to make a raid. Perhaps nothing better suggests the local and neighbourly character of these feudal hostilities than the most famous means devised by the Church to mitigate them. This was the “Truce of God,” promulgated in the eleventh century. It forbade hostilities from Thursday to Monday and in Lent. Whether this ordinance was effective or not, it indicates the nature of the wars that could stop from Thursday to Monday!

[667] Courtly, chivalric, or romantic, love as an element of knightly excellence is so inseverably connected with its romantic literature that I have kept it for the next chapter.

[668] The following remarks upon the _regula_ of the Templars, and the extracts which are given, are based on the introduction and text of _La Règle du Temple_, edited by Henri de Curzon for the Société de l’Histoire de France (Paris, 1886).

[669] The phraseology of the Latin _regula_ often follows that of the Benedictine rule.

[670] Chaps. 33, 35.

[671] Chaps. 40, 41.

[672] Chap. 42.

[673] Chaps. 46, 48.

[674] Chap. 62 Latin _regula_ and chap. 14 of French _regle_.

[675] Chap. 51.

[676] Chap. 58 of the Latin, chap. 11 of the French. The chapters of the French translation do not follow the order of the Latin.

[677] Page 167 of de Curzon’s edition.

[678] See in de Curzon’s edition, sections 431, 436, 448, 454, and 657 _sqq._

[679] It would seem as if military discipline, as moderns understand it, took its rise in these Templars and Hospitallers.

[680] See _e.g._ de Curzon’s edition, sections 419, 420, 574.

[681] Raimundus de Agiles, _Hist. Francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalem_, cap. 38-39. (Migne 155, col. 659).

[682] On these poems see Pigeonneau, _Le Cycle de la Croisade_ (St. Cloud, 1877); Paulin Paris, in _Histoire littéraire de la France_, vol. 22, pp. 350-402, and _ibid._ vol. 25, p. 507 _sqq._; Gaston Paris, “La Naissance du chevalier au Cygne,” _Romania_, 19, p. 314 _sqq._ (1890).

[683] “Vita Ludovici noni auctore Gaufrido de Belloloco” (_Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France_, t. xx. pp. 3-26).

[684] The Testament of St. Louis, written for his eldest son, is a complete rule of conduct for a Christian prince, and indicates St. Louis’ mind on the education of one. It has been printed and translated many times. Geoffrey of Beaulieu gives it in Latin (chap. xv.) and in French at the end of the _Vita_. It is also in Joinville.

[685] One sees here the same religious anxiety which is so well brought out by Salimbene’s account of St. Louis, _ante_, Chapter XXI.

[686] The founder of the College of the Sorbonne.

[687] _Chroniques de J. Froissart_, ed. S. Luce (Société de l’Histoire de France). The opening of the Prologue. It seemed desirable to render this sentence literally. The rest of my extracts are from Thomas Johnes’s translation, for which I plead a boyhood’s affection. For a brief account of Froissart’s chief source (Jean le Bel), with excellent criticism, see W. P. Ker, “Froissart” (_Essays on Medieval Literature_, Macmillan and Co., 1905).

[688] Froissart, i. 210.

[689] Froissart, i. 220.

[690] Froissart, i. 290.

[691] Yet the matter was fit for legend and romance; and a late impotent _chanson de geste_ was formed out of the career of du Guesclin.

[692] On the _chansons de geste_ see Gaston Paris, _Littérature française au moyen âge_; Leon Gautier in Petit de Julleville’s _Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_, vol. i.; more at length Gautier, _Épopées nationales_, and Paulin Paris in vol. 22 of _L’Histoire littéraire de France_; also Nyrop, _Storia dell’ epopea francese nel medio evo_. Ample bibliographies will be found in these works.

[693] On the field of Roncesvalles, Roland folds the hands of the dead Archbishop Turpin, and grieves over him, beginning:

“E! gentilz hum chevaliers de bon aire, ...” (_Roland_, line 2252).

[694] Leon Gautier, in his _Chevalerie_, makes the _chansons de geste_ his chief source.

[695] 1006-1016.

[696] 1051 _sqq._ and 1700 _sqq._

[697] 1851-1868.

[698] 1940-2023.

[699] 2164 _sqq._

[700] _Raoul de Cambrai_, cited by Gautier, _Chevalerie_, p. 75.

[701] Unless indeed Oberon, the fairy king, be a romantic form of the Alberich of the _Nibelungen_ (Gaston Paris).

[702] See Gaston Paris, _Lit. française, etc._, chaps. iii. and v.; and Émile Littré in vol. 22 of the _Histoire littéraire de la France_. For examples of these _romans_, see Langlois, _La Société française au XIII{e} siècle d’après dix romans d’aventure_ (2nd ed., Paris, 1904).

[703] Chrétien, _Cligés_, line 201 _sqq._

[704] The Old French from vol. ii. of P. Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, p. 96. One sees that the coronation is a larger knighting, and kingship a larger knighthood.

[705] _Romans de la Table Ronde_, iii. 96. This scene closely parallels that between Bernier and Raoul de Cambrai, instanced above.

[706] See the first part of vol. iii. of _Romans de la Table Ronde_, especially pp. 113-117.

[707] It would be easy to go on drawing illustrations of the actual and imaginative elements in chivalry, until this chapter should grow into an encyclopedia. They could so easily be taken from many kinds of mediaeval literature in all the mediaeval tongues. The French has barely been touched upon. It affords an exhaustless store. Then in the German we might draw upon the courtly epics, Gottfried of Strassburg’s _Tristan_ or the _Parzival_ of Wolfram von Eschenbach; or on the _Nibelungenlied_, wherein Siegfried is a very knight. Or we might draw upon the knightly precepts (the Ritterlehre) of the Winsbeke and the Winsbekin (printed in Hildebrand’s _Didaktik aus der Zeit der Kreuzzüge_, Deutsche Nat. Litt.). And we might delve in the great store of Latin Chronicles which relate the mediaeval history of German kings and nobles. In Spanish, there would be the _Cid_, and how much more besides. In Italian we should have latter-day romantic chivalry; Pulci’s _Rotta di Roncisvalle_; Boiardo’s _Orlando innamorato_; Ariosto’s _Orlando furioso_; still later, Tasso’s _Gerusalemme liberata_, which takes us well out of the Middle Ages. And in English there is much Arthurian romance; there is _Chevy Chace_; and we may come down through Chaucer’s _Knight’s Tale_, to the sunset beauty of Spenser’s _Fairie Queen_. This glorious poem should serve to fix in our minds the principle that chivalry, knighthood, was not merely a material fact, a ceremony and an institution; but that it also was that ultra-reality, a spirit. And this spirit’s ideal creations--the ideal creations of the many phases of this spirit--accorded with actual deeds which may be read of in the old Chronicles. For final exemplification of the actual and the ideally real in chivalry, the reader may look within himself, and observe the inextricable mingling of the imaginative and the real. He will recognize that what at one time seems part of his imagination, at another will prove itself the veriest reality of his life. Even such wavering verity of spirit was chivalry.

[708] See Gaston Paris in _Journal des savants_, 1892, pp. 161-163. Of course the English reader cannot but think of the brief secret marriage between Romeo and Juliet.

[709] Marriage or no marriage depends on the plot; but occasionally a certain respect for marriage is shown, as in the _Eliduc_ of Marie de France, and of course far more strongly in Wolfram’s _Parzival_. In Chrétien’s _Ivain_ the hero marries early in the story; and thereafter his wife acts towards him with the haughty caprice of an _amie_; Ivain, at her displeasure, goes mad, like an _ami_. The _romans d’aventure_ afford other instances of this courtly love, sometimes illicit, sometimes looking to marriage. See Langlois, _La Société française au XIII{e} siècle d’après dix romans d’aventure_.

[710] On Provençal poetry see Diez, _Poesie der Troubadours_ (2nd ed. by Bartsch, Leipzig, 1883); _id._, _Leben und Werke der Troubadours_; Justin H. Smith, _The Troubadours at Home_ (New York and London, 1899); Ida Farnell, _Lives of the Troubadours_ (London).

[711] Cf. Gaston Paris, t. 30, pp. 1-18, _Hist. lit. de la France_; Paul Meyer, _Romania_, v. 257-268; xix. 1-62. “Trouvère” is the Old French word corresponding to Provençal “Troubadour.”

[712] On this work see Gaston Paris, _Romania_, xii. 524 _sqq._ (1883); _id._ in _Journal des savants_, 1888, pp. 664 _sqq._ and 727 _sqq._; also (for extracts) Raynouard, _Choix des poésies des Troubadours_, ii. lxxx. sqq.

[713] On origins and sources see, generally, Gaston Paris, _Tristan and Iseult_ (Paris, 1894), reprinted from _Revue de Paris_ of April 15, 1894; W. Golther, _Die Sage von Tristan und Isolde_ (Munich, 1887).

[714] Cf. generally, J. L. Weston, _The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac_ (London, 1901, David Nutt).

[715] See Gaston Paris, _Romania_, xii. 459-534.

[716] Paulin Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, iv. 280 _sqq._

[717] See Paulin Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, iv. Guinevere’s woman-mind is shown in the following scene. On an occasion the lovers’ sophisticated friend, the Dame de Malehaut, laughs tauntingly at Lancelot:

“‘Ah! Lancelot, Lancelot, dit-elle, je vois que le roi n’a plus d’autre avantage sur vous que la couronne de Logres!’

“Et comme il ne trouvait rien à répondre de convenable, ‘Ma chère Malehaut, dit la reine, si je suis fille de roi, il est fils de roi; si je suis belle, il est beau; de plus, il est le plus preux des preux. Je n’ai donc pas à rougir de l’avoir choisi pour mon chevalier’” (Paulin Paris, _ibid._ iv. 58).

[718] Galahad’s mother was Helene, daughter of King Pelles (_roi pêcheur_), the custodian of the Holy Grail. A love-philter makes Lancelot mistake her for Guinevere; and so the knight’s loyalty to his mistress is saved. The damsel herself was without passion, beyond the wish to bear a son begotten by the best of knights (_Romans, etc._, v. 308 _sqq._).

[719] “For what is he that may yeve a lawe to lovers? Love is a gretter lawe and a strengere to himself than any lawe that men may yeven” (Chaucer, _Boece_, book iii. metre 12).

[720] As in Chrétien’s _Cligés_, 6751 _sqq._, when Cligés is crowned emperor and Fenice becomes his queen, then: _De s’amie a feite sa fame_--but he still calls her _amie et dame_, that he may not cease to love her as one should an _amie_. Cf. also Chrétien’s _Erec_, 4689.

[721] See also Gawain’s words to _Ivain_ when the latter is married--in Chrétien’s _Ivain_, 2484 _sqq._

[722] As a matter of fact, in those parts of Wolfram’s poem which are covered by Chrétien’s unfinished _Perceval le Gallois_, the incidents are nearly identical with Chrétien’s. For the question of the relationship of the two poems, and for other versions of the Grail legend, see A. Nutt, _Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail_ (Folk-Lore Society Publications, London, 1888); Birch-Hirshfeld, _Die Graal Sage_; _Einleitung_ to Piper’s edition of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Stuttgart, Deutsche Nat. Litteratur; _Einleitung_ to Bartch’s edition in Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 1875). These two editions of the poem are furnished with modern German glossaries. There is a modern German version by Zimmrock, and an English translation by Jessie L. Weston (London, D. Nutt, 1894).

[723] In other versions of the Grail legend there is much about the virgin or celibate state, and also plenty of unchastity and no especial esteem for marriage.

[724] The Fisher King (_roi pêcheur_) was the regular title of the Grail kings. See _e.g._ Pauline Paris, _Romans de la Table Ronde_, t. i. p. 306.

[725] _E.g._ the love-potion in the tale of Tristan.

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