CHAPTER IV

_S. Ives and the Crusades_

‘A pretty burgh and such as Fancy loves For bygone grandeurs.’--LOWELL.

The town of Chartres is clearly divided into two sections--the upper (_quartier du luxe_), modern, unimpressive and inelegant, and the lower, picturesque, poor, mediæval. This lower part of the town is watered by an arm of the Eure,

‘Dont l’eau distille Autour de notre ville, Et d’un murmurant flot Maint beau verger enclot,’

as a local sixteenth-century poet has it. Like most old towns, Chartres consisted originally of a small city enclosed by strong walls and of suburbs stretching along the main roads which led to it. As these suburbs increased in size and importance, the enceinte was enlarged so as to include them. This took place at Chartres notably in the twelfth century. But up to that time the area enclosed was remarkably small, for after Hastings had sacked the town ‘the inhabitants had not the heart,’ says the monk Paul, ‘to rebuild all their city, but contented themselves with fortifying the little corner of the ancient town which is still’ (1060) ‘surrounded with walls.’

The line of the enceinte enclosing this ‘little corner of the ancient town’ cannot be exactly traced. But

it certainly ran from the Place de l’Étape-au-Vin (the picturesque old shop built out on wooden supports), and, passing behind the Church of S. Aignan, the Castle of the Counts (Place Billard), crossed the Petit-Boucherie to join the Tertre S. Eman,[44] where was the Porte Evière (Porta Aquaria). Tertres, it should be remarked, are, in Chartrain dialect, little streets of stone steps which facilitate communication between the upper and lower towns. The rest of the town was defended by ditches and ramparts. A few wooden forts guarded the bridges.

Within the walls, the Cathedral and the castle frowned over the rest of the town and other churches, representing the double power of bishop and count, around which was growing up the crowd of dependants who were destined, in the fulness of time, to become the bourgeoisie of Chartres. And without the walls lay the Monastery of S. Père, waxing yearly in lands and wealth, stirring the jealousy of bishops and tempting the cupidity of counts. About the castle, the Cathedral and the monastery there were gradually being established groups of artisans who, by instinct and necessity, herded together in distinct quarters of the town, and thus gradually formed the redoubtable corporations and guilds of the Middle Ages--unions which, in the learned and unlearned professions alike, still exercise so potent an influence in England and on the Continent. Already there were the quarters of the money-changers, the saddlers, the skinners, the goldsmiths in Chartres. Later, as we shall see, almost every street will fly the banner of some particular Craft.

The liberty of the peasant was also being gradually asserted throughout this period. He was passing from the condition of a farmer under a proprietor to that of a proprietor owing duties to a lord. From these duties and obligations, again, the tendency now was for the peasant, by purchase or refusal, to free himself.

Side by side with this very gradual exaltation of the humble and meek, there begin to occur, as the era of the Crusades approaches, numerous instances of the voluntary abasement of the great. Old seigneurs, in strange paroxysms of religious enthusiasm, giving up their old way of life, left lance and sword to younger hands and themselves put on the armour of God. The example of these soldiers of the Lord, having become _pauvre et peuple_ for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, living as mere monks in the Monastery of S. Père, went some way towards inspiring pity and consideration for the truly poor and the naturally low-born.

Generally, also, throughout this period there is a tendency to substitute for arbitrary exactions and violence arrangements settled by charter and definite duties and rights. But it is only a tendency. The amelioration of life was only very gradual. Neither life nor property in the eleventh and twelfth century were, as a rule, what we should call secure. Take for an instance the behaviour of the sons of one Échambaud when they had a difference over the possession of some land with the Abbot of S. Père. They refused to submit their case either to the jurisdiction of the Church courts or of Hélisende, the lady of the land. For they preferred to have recourse to the intervention of a powerful friend named John, living at Étampes, who was a total stranger to the matter in dispute. Relying upon his protection, these sons of Échambaud proceeded to plunder the property of the abbey and to burn the houses of the tenants. They were only induced to cease from their ways and to follow the peaceable paths of justice when the monks presented themselves at Étampes and threatened to excommunicate the town.

Crimes were paid for in cash. There was indeed a regular tariff for injuries done in the Middle Ages. The material damage once made good, the moral damage was left out of account. We learn from the _Cartulaire_ the price of a monk of S. Père, for it is there recorded that Richard de Réviers, having slain one of these, Giraud by name, bought the pardon (pax) of the monks by making over to them four acres of land and an annual tribute of _four quartants_ of corn. A century later (1239) we find the monks releasing from prison a man, who had slain a clerk, on receipt of a promise to pay _thirty sous tournois_ yearly, in addition to certain other minor considerations.

Private wars arising from personal quarrels and ambitions, or damages of the sort described, were very frequent. The intervention of the Crown was rare. We have an instance of the exercise of the royal prerogative, however, when Louis le Gros stepped in and destroyed, after three years’ war, the fortress of the Seigneurs du Puiset, who had long been a thorn in the side of Chartres, continually committing brigandage on the Church lands and caring nothing for ecclesiastical pains and penalties. The King abolished the oppressive institutions of these lords, and re-established in their ancient liberty the possessions of Notre-Dame and the Monastery of S. Père.

In the thirteenth century the power of the King grew stronger, and asserted itself over the monastic property. The monks of S. Père none the less retained the right of jurisdiction in their own lands. Thus when Geoffroi, Seigneur d’Illiers, had arrested a murderer in an inn on their property and had hung the man (1229), he was afterwards constrained to admit that he had exceeded his rights. All jurisdiction, he acknowledged, appertained to the abbot and monks; he gave them satisfaction, and paid them a fine.

Whilst they upheld their rights against the encroachments of Grands Seigneurs in this fashion, the monks were no less frequently involved in similar disputes with the _Communes_. Such disputes were often carried for settlement to the court of the King. Occasionally we find the courts ordering a point in dispute to be decided by judicial combat. These combats seldom actually took place. The proposal of them seems to have stimulated both parties to come to some arrangement, or to have frightened one of them perhaps into withdrawal. The absurd and cruel practice of trial by single combat had been borrowed from the warlike tribes of Germany, who could not believe that a brave man deserved to suffer or that a coward deserved to live. The old, the feeble and infirm, therefore, in civil and criminal proceedings, were exposed to mortal challenge from the antagonist who was destitute of legal proofs, and thus condemned to renounce their fairest claims and possessions, to sustain the danger of an unequal conflict, or to trust the doubtful aid of a mercenary champion. Two instances of such challenges are recorded by the monk Paul, and are full of human interest.

The Lord Payen de Rémalard brought an action (1090) against the Abbot of S. Père with regard to some land in the possession of the monastery. The two parties appeared in the Bishop’s Court. S. Ives was the Bishop of Chartres, and he appeared among the witnesses for the monks. Geoffrey, Count of Perche and many others were present on behalf of Rémalard. The advocates on either side had begun to discuss and expound the case, when suddenly a servant of S. Père, Laurent by name, burst into the middle of the assembly and cried aloud that he had witnessed the gift of the property in question by the Lady Ermengarde to the monks. Rémalard himself, he further asserted, was present at the time and had made no objection then. Rémalard denied the story; the servant affirmed it again and again. Neither would give way. It was a question of word against word, and who was to decide which was the better? At last, at the suggestion of the monks, and with the assent of Rémalard, Laurent boldly named _diem belli et locum_--the day and place of combat. But on the day, and at the place named, Rémalard failed to put in an appearance--_suam presentiam minime exhibuit_, and the land passed peaceably into the undisputed possession of the monastery.

On another occasion, some twenty years later, the men of God proved themselves too sturdy for their opponents. Again it was the question about the donation of some property. Again one of the witnesses for the monastery, Walter of Treleveisin, offered to make good in a duel his testimony that he had been present on the occasion of the gift. This time once more the offer was accepted, and the opposite party, thinking to succeed by means of many subterfuges which they had prepared, at first put on a bold face. But when there was no sign of wavering on the part of the monks, the adversary’s heart failed him; we are told his conscience smote him. He acknowledged the wrong he had done, and begged pardon of the abbot, promising, in the presence of the whole Chapter, that in future he would champion the cause of the monastery, both by word and deed, in court and in battle.

Occasionally, when temporal power failed to secure them justice, Divine aid helped the monks to maintain their rights. Wiard, son of Drogon de Conflans, found this to his cost when he had wrongfully exacted a horse from the Monastery of S. Père. Each time that he mounted the beast he was attacked by a sudden malady. So much so that, after making four unsuccessful attempts, he gave in and restored the horse to the monks, as is recorded by the monk Paul in the year 1098.

The same writer relates an incident of the same year, which throws a vivid light upon the social conditions of the days of chivalry. War was the profession of your true chevalier and brigandage his pastime. The excesses of a life spent in these occupations were to be repeated and at the same time expiated by the Crusader. The preliminary expenses of equipment for the Holy War were only to be met by selling some portion of his property to the Church. Many transactions of this sort are recorded in the telltale Chartularies of Notre-Dame and S. Père. The incident to which I refer will serve as an example of this:--

Nivelon, son of Faucher, Lord of Fréteval, confesses that, as often as he was carried away by chivalrous ardour (of a sort sufficiently inconvenient to his neighbours), it was his custom to fall upon the village of Emprainville with a troop of his followers and to ‘commandeer’ all the provisions to be found there belonging to the men of the Abbey of S. Père. But when, in after years, he determined to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he agreed, in order to obtain pardon for his trespasses and money for his journey, in consideration, that is, of thirteen silver pounds from the monks, to forego this vexatious habit of his.

And he adds that if any of his descendants dispute the validity of this concession, he hopes he may ‘be struck down by the thunderbolt that awaiteth on perjurers, and that he may be condemned with Dathan and Abiram to hell fire, and there to suffer everlasting torture.’ There is a fine ecclesiastical ring about the legal documents of those days, it will be noticed. Imprecations on breakers of contracts are indeed common enough in mediæval diplomatics. The monk Paul supplies us with an instance in which the guilty man is consigned ‘to the everlasting fires of hell along with Nero, who caused the Apostle S. Peter to perish on the cross, and S. Paul the Apostle to perish by the sword.’ In another case the hope is expressed that the transgressor may incur, amongst other inconveniences, the penalty of eternal damnation, the loss of his eyesight, and the infliction of the _mal royal_.

Nor was it a marauding knight only or an aggressive seigneur who was likely to interrupt the even tenor of a man’s way in those times. There were not infrequently bishops in his path also--bishops of the feudal, fighting, robbing sort, whose style of blessing was a blow with a sword.

Notable among these persecuting Bishops of Chartres is Robert of Tours, Cardinal and Legate (1065), who excommunicated a whole parcel of monks because they refused to accept the abbot he wished to force upon them. Then, too, there was Arrald, deceitful and fair of speech, against whom the chronicler is mightily wroth. But the bishop must at least have had a sense of humour. For his dictum was that gold and silver and the precious ornaments of the Church had no place in a monastery; they were only provocative of pride and the occasion of wantonness in the monks. Therefore he would take such things away, to save them from temptation. He remarked, too, that it was a wicked thing for monks to eat fish or the fat of beasts; they ought to eat simple herbs only, and he advised them to strive to be xerophagi, or eaters of dry, plain food. And to help them, no doubt, he confiscated their fish ponds, for he had a nice taste in good fish himself, and a liking for foreign dishes, ‘always indulging,’ adds our monk savagely, ‘his own natural tendency to gormandise’ (ventri suo castrimargiam semper habens vernaculam)![45] But it is the monks themselves who have left us an imperishable tradition of gormandising; even on fast days they would put a fowl in the pot, and salve their consciences with the argument that as birds and fishes had been created on the same day, they might be of the same species; and, as to drink, they were often under the patronage of S. Martin, in cloisters or at the tavern, quite theologically drunk. As early as 847 the councils of the Church were busy with the scandals of monks in inns. And cleanliness of the body they considered to be a culpable vanity, a pollution of the soul.

But, whether Arrald deserved the censure of the monk Paul or not, that kind of bishop was not uncommon in this century. Geoffrey the First, seven years later, was excommunicated for simony and other vices. His simony he had defended with shameless cynicism.

When the King reproached him with having given to others the benefices which he had asked of him, ‘I have not given them at all, sire,’ he replied; ‘I have sold them very profitably.’

But his treason, his adulteries and his perjuries became at last unbearable. Pope Gregory VII. determined to make an example of him. He was compelled to resign his bishopric, and in his stead was appointed one of the greatest of Chartrain Bishops--S. Ives.

The Feast of S. Ives is kept at Chartres on the 20th of May, when his relics, which are kept in the Treasury of the Cathedral, are shown. His name has been given to the passage in the cloister opposite the great north porch, and it lives in the mouth of the peasants as S. Yvre, protector of sheep; his stone image stands near that of Fulbert on the _clôture_ of the choir, but his spirit lives most surely in those square grey towers which he began to build, and which, so massive and yet so spiritual, point with their spires heavenwards, like hands that have been clasped and raised in prayer.

A man of high birth, he had joined one of the severest Augustine orders, who eat neither fish nor meat; a man of great talents, he had improved them by study under the famous Lanfranc, at the Monastery of Le Bec. There he had been the friend and fellow-student of Anselm, who in later years paid him a visit at Chartres, on his way from Canterbury to Rome. The characters of the two men, as revealed by their lives and letters, are much alike in their sweetness and their strength. S. Ives was a man before his time; in every way superior to his century. A scholar, he was also a man of action, a statesman of indomitable will, a theologian of surpassing acumen and enthusiasm. He did not, like Fulbert, found a school of philosophy, but he made of his monks practical philosophers. As a canonist his famous ‘Décret’ caused him to be consulted by high and low, learned and learners alike, on questions of theology, jurisprudence or conduct. On questions of practical politics his advice was sought by Popes and Kings, whether of France or England; by Counts and Seigneurs, and men of low degree. It was always given with sympathy, science, and a charming humility. His letters are indeed full of sweetness and light, of dignity and logic, of firmness and vigour, tempered by Christian charity and meekness. Take, for an example, his reply to the Bishop of Orléans, who had consulted him on the question whether a free man, married to a woman of whose servile condition he had been ignorant, could divorce her and marry again. ‘If the laws of the world are to be consulted,’ S. Ives writes, ‘the answer must be that, marriage between equals alone being legitimate, the divorce ought to take place. But if we consult the law of God, which makes us all equal, and is careless of social conditions, we shall answer, No.’ And elsewhere he says, ‘Reject these pretended trials by ordeal of fire and sword. It is tempting God, and I have often seen the innocent punished and the guilty acquitted by this means.’

Such was the pure and fearless spirit of the man who was now called to govern Chartres, and who set himself to introduce order, discipline and a right tone in a diocese which had suffered much from Geoffrey’s lawless rule.

It was much against his will that he left his monastery at Beauvais to take up what he called ‘the heavy burden of the episcopate’ (Letter III.).

And since he was not willing to receive the insignia of his pastoral charge from the throne, the Canons of Chartres dragged him by main force before Philippe, and compelled him (as Anselm in England also was forcibly compelled) to receive the pastoral staff from the King.[46]

Geoffrey, however, the deposed bishop, was not the man to retire without a struggle. He enlisted the support of his uncle, Bishop of Paris, and of the Archbishop of Sens. Gently but firmly S. Ives ignored their protests, resting his claim on the supreme decision of the Pope. The storm wore itself out against his unflinching calmness. But scarcely was he settled peaceably in possession of his bishopric when, like the conscientious man of action that he was, S. Ives felt bound to stir up another storm, destined to make itself felt throughout Christendom.

The union of Philippe the First with Bertrade de Montfort was a flagrant violation of the laws of the Church. Against this adulterous marriage S. Ives arose and protested. In order to understand the part S. Ives took in this matter it is necessary to realise that the sanctity of marriage was a point, the observance of which, in his aim of securing not the appearance only but the reality of virtue, S. Ives had set himself to enforce in all classes. He deals with the subject in his letters with broad judgment and sound sense.

In the case of princes--for the sake of example--he had continually exerted himself to prevent or to annul marriages which transgressed the laws of holy matrimony.

Now, therefore, with immense courage, he determined to stop the adulterous and incestuous union of the quinquagenarian Philippe I. with Bertrade, third wife of Fouques, Count of Anjou. For the King wished to repudiate Queen Bertha and to make a wife of that fascinating and ambitious woman.

To quiet all scruples and objections, he began by endeavouring to obtain the consent of the bishops, and especially that of S. Ives (S. Ives,