A Literary History of the English People Part 15

[207]

"Or dont," dit n.o.bles, "au deable!

Por le cuer be, sire Ysengrin, Prendra ja vostre gerre fin?"

(Vol. i. p. 8.)

[208]

... Sire Chanticler li cos, Et Pinte qui pont les ues gros Et Noire et Blanche et la Rossete Amenoient une charete Qui envouxe ert d'une cortine.

Dedenz gisoit une geline Que l'en amenoit en litere Fete autresi con une bere.

Renart l'avoit si maumenee Et as denz si desordenee Que la cuisse li avoit frete Et une ele hors del cors trete.

(Vol. i. p. 9.)

[209]

... Renart ne l'en laissa De totes cinc que une soule: Totes pa.s.serent par sa goule.

Et vos qui la gisez en bere, Ma douce suer m'amie chere, Con vos estieez tendre et cra.s.se!

Que fera vostre suer la la.s.se?

(Vol. i. p. 10.)

[210]

Pinte la la.s.se a ces paroles Cha, pamee el pavement Et les autres tot ens.e.m.e.nt.

Por relever les quatre dames, Se leverent de leurs escames Et chen et lou et autres bestes, Eve lor getent sor les testes.

[211]

Par mautalant drece la teste.

Onc n'i ot si hardie beste, Or ne sangler, que poor n'et Quant lor sire sospire et bret.

Tel poor ot Coars li levres Que il en ot deus jors les fevres.

Tote la cort fremist ensemble, Li plus hardis de peor tremble.

Par mautalent sa coue drece, Si se debat par tel destrece Que tot en sone la meson, Et puis fu tele sa reson.

Dame Pinte, fet l'emperere, Foi que doi a l'ame mon pere....

[212] Examples of sculptures in the stalls of the cathedrals at Gloucester, St. David's, &c.; of miniatures, MS. 10 E iv. in the British Museum (English drawings of the beginning of the fourteenth century, one of them reproduced in "English Wayfaring Life," p. 309); of ma.n.u.scripts: MS. fr. 12,583 in the National Library, Paris, "Cest livre est a Humfrey duc de Gloucester, liber lupi et vulpis"; of a translation in English of part of the romance: "Of the Vox and the Wolf" (time of Edward I., in Wright's "Selection of Latin Stories," Percy Society; see below, pp. 228 ff.). Caxton issued in 1481 "Thystorye of Reynard the Foxe," reprinted by Thoms, Percy Society, 1844, 8vo. The MS. in the National Library, mainly followed by Martin in his edition, offers "a sort of mixture of the Norman and Picard dialects. The vowels generally present Norman if not Anglo-Norman characteristics." "Roman de Renart," vol. i. p. 2.

[213] In Migne's "Patrologia," vol. lxxvii. col. 153. "Dialogorum Liber I."; Prologue.

[214] "De vita eremitica," in Migne's "Patrologia," vol. x.x.xii. col.

1451, text below, p. 213.

[215] Council of Sens, 1528, in "The Exempla, or ill.u.s.trative Stories from the Sermones Vulgares of Jacques de Vitry," ed. T. F. Crane, London, 1890, 8vo, p. lxix. The collection of sermons with _exempla_, compiled by Jacques de Vitry (born ab. 1180, d. ab. 1239), was one of the most popular, and is one of the most curious of its kind.

[216]

Si che le pecorelle, che non sanno, Tornan dal pasco pasciute di vento ...

Ora si va con motti, e con iscede A predicare....

Di questo ingra.s.sa il porco Sant' Antonio, Ed altri a.s.sai, che son peggio che porci, Pagando di moneta senza conio.

("Paradiso," canto xxix.)

[217] To be found, _e.g._, in Jacques de Vitry, _ibid._ p. 105: "Audivi de quadam vetula que non poterat inducere quandam matronam ut juveni consentiret," &c. See below, pp. 225, and 447.

[218] Bedier, "Les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo, p. 241; Bedier's definition of the same is as follows: "Les fabliaux sont des contes a rire, en vers," p. 6. The princ.i.p.al French collections are: Barbazan and Meon, "Fabliaux et contes des poetes francais," Paris, 1808, 4 vols.

8vo; Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil general et complet des Fabliaux,"

Paris, 1872-90, 6 vols. 8vo.

[219]

Ge sai contes, ge sai fableax, Ge sai conter beax diz noveax, &c.

"Des deux bordeors ribauz," in Montaiglon and Raynaud, "Recueil general," vol. i. p. 11.

CHAPTER III.

_LATIN._

I.

The ties with France were close ones; those with Rome were no less so.

William had come to England, politically as the heir of the Anglo-Saxon kings, and with regard to ecclesiastical affairs as the Pope's chosen, blessed by the head of Christianity. In both respects, notwithstanding storms and struggles, the tradition thus started was continued under his successors.

At no period of the history of England was the union with Rome closer, and at no time, not even in the Augustan Age of English literature was there a larger infusion of Latin ideas. The final consequence of Henry II.'s quarrel with Thomas Becket was a still more complete submission of this prince to the Roman See. John Lackland's fruitless attempts to reach absolute power resulted in the gift of his domains to St. Peter and the oath of fealty sworn by him as va.s.sal of the Pope: "We, John, by the grace of G.o.d, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy, earl of Anjou, ... Wis.h.i.+ng to humiliate ourselves for Him who humiliated Himself for us even unto death ... freely offer and concede to G.o.d and to our lord Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors, all the kingdom of England and all the kingdom of Ireland for the remission of our sins,"[220] May 15, 1213.

From the day after Hastings the Church is seen establis.h.i.+ng herself on firm basis in the country; she receives as many, and even more domains than the companions of the Conqueror. In the county of Dorset, for instance, it appears from Domesday that "the Church with her va.s.sals and dependents enjoyed more than a third of the whole county, and that her patrimony was greater than that of all the Barons and greater feudalists combined."[221]

The religious foundations are innumerable, especially at the beginning; they decrease as the time of the Renaissance draws nearer. Four hundred and eighteen are counted from William Rufus to John, a period of one hundred years; one hundred and thirty-nine during the three following reigns: a hundred and eight years; twenty-three in the fourteenth century, and only three in the fifteenth.[222]

This number of monasteries necessitated considerable intercourse with Rome; many of the monks, often the abbots, were Italian or French; they had suits in the court of Rome, they laid before the Pope at Rome, and later at Avignon, their spiritual and temporal difficulties; the most important abbeys were "exempt," that is to say, under the direct jurisdiction of the Pope without pa.s.sing through the local episcopal authority. This was the case with St. Augustine of Canterbury, St.

Albans, St. Edmund's, Waltham, Evesham, Westminster, &c. The clergy of England had its eyes constantly turned Romewards.

This clergy was very numerous; in the thirteenth century its ranks were swelled by the arrival of the mendicant friars: Franciscans and Dominicans, the latter representing more especially doctrine, and the former practice. The Dominicans expound dogmas, fight heresy, and furnish the papacy with its Grand Inquisitors[223]; the Franciscans do charitable works, nurse lepers and wretches in the suburbs of the towns.

All science that does not tend to the practice of charity is forbidden them: "Charles the Emperor," said St. Francis, "Roland and Oliver, all the paladins and men mighty in battle, have pursued the infidels to death, and won their memorable victories at the cost of much toil and labour. The holy martyrs died fighting for the faith of Christ. But there are in our time, people who by the mere telling of their deeds, seek honour and glory among men. There are also some among you who like better to preach on the virtues of the saints than to imitate their labours.... When thou shalt have a psalter so shalt thou wish for a breviary, and when thou shalt have a breviary, thou shalt sit in a chair like a great prelate, and say to thy brother: 'Brother, fetch me my breviary.'"[224]

Thirty-two years after their first coming there were in England twelve hundred and forty-two Franciscans, with forty-nine convents, divided into seven custodies: London, York, Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford, Newcastle, Worcester.[225] "Your Holiness must know," writes Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, to Pope Gregory IX., "that the friars illuminate the whole country by the light of their preaching and teaching. Intercourse with these holy men propagates scorn of the world and voluntary poverty.... Oh! could your Holiness see how piously and humbly the people hasten to hear from them the word of life, to confess their sins, and learn the rules of good conduct!..."[226] Such was the beginning; what followed was far from resembling it. The point to be remembered is another tie with Rome, represented by these new Orders: even the troubles that their disorders gave rise to later, their quarrels with the secular clergy, the monks and the University, the constant appeals to the Pope that were a result of these disputes, the obstinacy with which they endeavoured to form a Church within the Church, all tended to increase and multiply the relations between Rome and England.

The English clergy was not only numerous and largely endowed; it was also very influential, and played a considerable part in the policy of the State. When the Parliament was const.i.tuted the clergy occupied many seats, the king's ministers were usually churchmen; the high Chancellor was a prelate.

The action of the Latin Church made itself also felt on the nation by means of ecclesiastical tribunals, the powers of which were considerable; all that concerned clerks, or related to faith and beliefs, to t.i.thes, to deeds and contracts having a moral character, wills for instance, came within the jurisdiction of the religious magistrate. This justice interfered in the private life of the citizens; it had an inquisitorial character; it wanted to know if good order reigned in households, if the husband was faithful and the wife virtuous; it cited adulterers to its bar and chastised them. Summoners (Chaucer's somnours) played the part of spies and public accusers; they kept themselves well informed on these different matters, were constantly on the watch, pried into houses, collected and were supposed to verify evil reports, and summoned before the ecclesiastical court those whom Jane's or Gilote's beauty had turned from the path of conjugal fidelity. It may be readily imagined that such an inst.i.tution afforded full scope for abuses; it could hardly have been otherwise unless all the summoners had been saints, which they were not; some among them were known to compound with the guilty for money, to call the innocent before the judge in order to gratify personal spite.[227] Their misdeeds were well known but not easy to prove; so that Chaucer's satires did more to ruin the inst.i.tution than all the pet.i.tions to Parliament. These summoners were also in their own way, mean as that was, representatives of the Latin country, of the spiritual power of Rome; they knew it, and made the best of the stray Latin words that had lodged in their memory; they used them as their s.h.i.+bboleth.

Bishops kept seigneurial retinues, built fortresses[228] and lived in them, had their archers and their dogs, hunted, laid siege to towns, made war, and only had recourse to excommunication when all other means of prevailing over their foes had failed. Others among them became saints: both in heaven and on earth they held the first rank. Like the sovereign, they knew, even then, the worth of public opinion; they bought the goodwill of wandering poets, as that of the press was bought in the day of Defoe. The itinerant minstrels were the newspapers of the period; they retailed the news and distributed praise or blame; they acquired over the common people the same influence that "printed matter"