C a11-1-1
LC-l,




!_1!34P                                                        A
Tl
J'w
"lluillull knill
OF%
ON
I, AO IN G-.01.0 M'::l
rj
WI
Mim
01,
IL
14
AV
is
"ell
ol
no=




~4




II





L.




1 -



SCIENCE AND LETTERS I-IN THE IMIDDLE AGES,/ 
SCIENCEAND T ETT PERS I THE MIDDLE SSAGES,
AND AT THiE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE.




:IX


i




I ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~




~~~UY'~~~  LJG  ) \  ' I  1I  BTI NI 1J 'l N1 G,
Ti  N T'~5 fiNl CC; OF  N I VA   (\ I'  I3  I  ') AA JN
IN   T I IFN  G.A' IR F) ENS  I I"' N /  1  VN.
itself~~~~~~~~        f~ r




L~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I










SCIENCE AND LITERATURE
IN
THE M:IIDDLE AGES,
=  w  I.....................................~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I -x   i 


AND AT THE PERIOD OF.,..*
THE RENAISSANCE.
1-v)  PA    t      C ACROIX
(Bibliophile Jacob),
CURATOR OF THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY OF THE ARSENAL, PARIS.
itlltutratebt  ith
I' HIRTEEN C llOMOIATHOGRAPHIC ItRINTS BY F. K.ELLER.HOVEN
AND UPWARDS OF
FOUR HUNDRED ENGR'A VINGS OiN WIOOD.
LONDON:
BICKERS AND SON, i, IsEICESTII R S.U tIAR ti.
878.








f I  /  n' } 
PREFACE.
ITH this new and last volume, the subject of which
k,~F-\ / _E  k   is not less replete with interest than that of the
/it,^sS^^ ^  ^  three preceding volumes, we bring to a close our
|.3,tX~'~.~'~       work upon the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
//,.!._J            Il~In the beginning of the Middle Ages, at the,,(O ixf  ~ ~    commencement of the fifth century, the Barbarians,,~. /~made an inroad upon the old world; their renewed invar   -~ ] Fsions crushed out, in the course of a few years, the Greek
r(k,  and Roman civilisation; and everywhere darkness succeeded to;J^       light. The religion of Jesus Christ was alone capable of resisting
this barbarian invasion, and science and literature, together with the
arts, disappeared from the face of the earth, taking refuge in the
churches and the monasteries. It was there that they were preserved
as a sacred deposit, and it was thence that they emerged when Christianity
had renovated pagan society. But centuries and centuries elapsed before the
sum of human knowledge was equal to what it had been at the fall of the
Roman empire. A new society, moreover, was needed for the new efforts of
human intelligence as it resumed its rights. Schools and universities were
founded under the auspices of the clergy and of the religious corporations, and
thus science and literature were enabled to emerge from their tomb. Europe,
amidst the tumultuous conflicts of the policy which made and unmade
kingdoms, witnessed a general revival of scholastic zeal; poets, orators,




vi


PREFA CE.


novelists, and writers increased in numbers and grew in favour; savants,
philosophers, chemists and alchemists, mathematicians and astronomers,
travellers and naturalists, were awakened, so to speak, by the life-giving
breath of the Middle Ages; and great scientific discoveries and admirable
works on every imaginable subject showed that the genius of modern society
was not a whit inferior to that of antiquity. Printing was invented, and
with that brilliant discovery, the Middle Ages, which had accomplished their
work of social renovation, made way for the Renaissance, which scattered
abroad in profusion the prolific and brilliant creations of Art, Science, and
Literature.
Such is the grand and imposing picture which we have attempted to bring
before our readers in a concise form, limiting ourselves to narrative and
description, and not plunging into the imaginary regions of theory and
historical discussion.  The impartial and truth-loving historian confines
himself to narrative, and though his personal opinions must, as a matter of
course, show themselves in his narrative of facts, whether given in detail or
abridged, he should not seek to force them upon his readers by systematic
violence and by efforts of philosophical demonstration. The history of the
Middle Ages has, more than any other period, given rise to these excesses of
conflicting opinions. According to some, everything relating to the Middle
Ages is bad and blameworthy; according to others, everything is admirable
and good. We are not concerned to pronounce between these two extreme
opinions; we have written our narrative in all sincerity and truth, and our
readers can judge for themselves. Moreover, the greater part of our work
was done for us. With respect to this volume, as to the preceding ones, we
have simply analyzed several chapters of our first book, "The Middle Ages
and the Renaissance," completing, and in some cases amending, the collective
work of our former collaborateurs, and adding at the same time to this work,
which is now deservedly appreciated, the chapters which were wanting, and
the absence of which showed that it was imperfect.
It is none the less a high honour for us to have had the planning of this
work, which is unfortunately left incomplete, and to have superintended the
execution of a literary enterprise which obtained the most honourable encouragement, and almost unanimous praise. Our dear friend Ferdinand Ser4,
who died while engaged upon it, had struck the right vein with regard to the
illustration of this magnificent book, in which were to be reproduced so many




PREFA CE.


vii


unpublished records of the art of drawing. But we had fallen upon evil
times, and after expending much courage and perseverance, we had to stop
before we had completed our programme, and terminate a work upon which
we had spent so many years of labour. Thus "The Middle Ages and the
Renaissance" had only five volumes instead of six.
I have written an absolutely new work, availing myself, however, of the
original work, which remains as it was before. The four volumes of which
the new work now consists are, at the same time, less extensive and more
complete than the five volumes of the first one. Very few of the wood
engravings which illustrate these four volumes, and none of the lithochromes,
appeared in the first work.
With regard to the text, in compiling which I have made free use of the
works of my former collaborateurs (so few of whom, alas! are alive to receive
my thanks), I have not scrupled to avail myself of the excellent works which
have appeared since the publication of the first "Middle Ages," and which
have enabled me to recast altogether certain parts of this book. Thus, to
speak only of the present volume, I have revised the chapters on Philosophy
and Universities, after the valuable treatises on philosophy and history by
M. Ch. Jourdain; the chapter on Ronmances, after the latest researches of
M. Paulin Paris and the works of MM. Gaston Paris and Leon Gautier; and
the chapter on Popular Songs, after the report of M. Ampere to the Committee
of the Learned Societies. If I have succeeded in bringing into my work some
of the fresh information which I have derived in abundance from my contemporaries, the credit lies with them. But it must not be forgotten that
each of my chapters forms a sort of monograph, and that this monograph has
often been made the subject of one, or even of several special treatises.
I could only make a succinct, and often incomplete, summary in compiling
this book, which comprises so many different subjects; but I have at all events
conformed as nearly as possible to the instructions of the late M. FirminDidot, who urged me to "leave to others the display of profound and minute
erudition; content yourself with being an ingenious, intelligent, and, if
possible, an agreeable interpreter; try to make yourself read and understood by everybody. The greatest successes are achieved less by savants than
by vulgarisers."
PAUL LACROIX(Bibliophile Jacob).








TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.1
Legend of the foundation of the Paris University by Charlemagne.-The Schools of the
Notre-Damne Cloisters.-Origin of the name Univ'ersity.-The organization of the
University.-The four Nations and the four Faculties.-The Rector and the other
officers of the University.-The great and the little messengers.-Privileges of the
University.-Its power and its decadence. —Its political ro'le.-Creation of provincial
'Universities.-Great Schools of the Rue du Fouarre.-The Paris Colleges.-Turbulence of the Students.-Their Games.-Their Festivals.-The Lendit Fair.-Foreign
Universities.
PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.41
Annihilation of the Pagan Philosophy.-New Christian Philosopby.-Martianus Capella.
-Boethius and Cassiodorus.-Isidore of Seville.-Bede, Alcuin, and Raban Maurus.
-John Scotus Erigena.-Origin of Scholasticism.-Gerbert.-Realism and Nominalism.- Be'ranger of Tours.-Roscelin and St. Anselm.-William of Champeaux and
Abelard.-Gilbert de la Porre'e and St. Bernard.-Amaury de B~ne.-Albertus
Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas.-The Franciscans and the Dominicans.-William
of Ockham. - Decadence of Scho'asticism. - Platonists and Aristotelians. -The
Philosophy of the Renaissance.-The Lutheran Schools.-P. Ramus.-Montaigne.
MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.77
Ancient Systems of the Planetary World.-Ptolemy and Aristarchus of Samos.Boethius, Pappus, and Gerbert.-Schools of Bagdad.-Mathematical School in Spain,
Italy, England, and France.-Astronomical Researches of the Arabs.-Roger Bacon
and Master Pierre. - Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas. - Progress of
Mathematicsi.-Popes and Kings protectors of the Exact Scie~ces.-The King of
Hungary, Matthias Corvinus.-Principal Works composed in the Fifteenth Century.
-Pic Mirandola.-Peter Ramus.-T-!ycho Brahe and Copernicus.
NATURAL SCIENCES.105
Natural Sciences in Antiquity.-Their Decadence in the Middle Ages.-Rural Economy
in the time of Charlemagne.-The M1onk Strabus.-Botanical Gardens.-Botany aided
by Medicine. - Hildegarde, Abbess of Bingen. - Peter of Crescentiis. - Vincent of




x


x           TA~~~-~,,IBLE OF CONTENTS.


PAOR
Beauvais. -Fables and Popular Errors. -Jean Dondi. -Bartholomew Glanvil.Naturalist Travellers. -Aris~totle and Pliny restored to honour.-Gardens in the
Sixteenth Century. -The Conquests of Science in Travel. -Bernard Palissy. -
G. Agricola. -Conrad Gesner. -Methods of Botany. -'Painters and Engravers of
Natural History.
MEDICAL SCIENCES..134
Decline of Medicine after the death of Hippocrates.-The School of Galen.-The School
of Alexandria.-Talismans and Orisons against Illness.-Monastic Medicine.-Female
Doctors.-The Arab Schools.-The Schools of Naples, Monte Casino, and Salerno.The Hospitallers.-The School of Cordova.-Epidemics coming from the East.-The
appearance of Military Surgery.-The Schools of Montpellier and Paris.-Lanfrane as
upholder of Surgery.- College of St. Cosmo at Paris.-Guy de Chauliac.-Rivalry of
the Surgeons and the Barbers.-Medical Police.-The Occult Sciences in Medicine.Rivalry of the Surgeons and the Doctors.-The Doctors in the Sixteenth Century.
-Andrew Vesalius.-Ambroise Pare6.
CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.                                                             174
Diocletian burns the Books of Chemistry.-Haroun Al-Raschid protects the Sacred Art.
- Geber, one of the first Chemists. - Rhazes. - Chemistry in honour amongst the
Saracens. -Avicenna, Serapion, Mesu6. -Albucasis and Averroes.- Morienus the
Solitary.-Albertus Magnus and Gerbert.-Yincent of Beauvais.-Raymnond Lulli.
-The Lullists, or Dreamers.-Arnauld de Villeneuve.~-Roger Bacon.-Invention of
Spectacles.-Alchemy in the Fifteenth Century.-J. B. Porta, the Italian.-Origin
of the Rosicrucians. -Paracelsus. -George Agricola. -Conrad Gesner.- Cornelius
Agrippa.-The Story of Nicholas Flamel.-Alchemy engenders Metallurgy.
THE OCCULT SCIENCES...200
The Origin of Magic.-The Savants and Philosophers reputed to be Magicians.Different Forms of Occult Sciences.-Oneiromancy.-Oneirocritics and Diviners.Necromancy.-Practices of the Necromancers.-Astrology.-Celebrated Astrologers.
-Chiromancy.-A~romancy and other kinds of Divination.-The Angelic Art and
the -Notorious Art.-The Spells of the Saints.-Magic.-The Evocation of Good and
Evil Genii.-Pacts with Demons.-Celebrated Magicians.-Formula and Circles.-.
Incense and Perfumes.-Talismans and Images.-The tormenting of Wax Images.
-The Sagittarii.-The Evil Eye.-Magic Alchemy.-Cabalism. —The Fairies, Elfs,
and Spirits.-The Were-wolves.-The Sabbath.-A Trial for Sorcery.
POPULAR BELIEFS..237
Superstitions derived from Paganism.-Saturnalia of the Ancients.-Festival of the
Barbatorii.-F stival of the Deacons.-The Liberty of December, or the Fools' Feast.
-Festival of the Ass.-The Sens Ritual.-Feast of the Innocents.-The Moneys of
the Innocents and the Fools.-Brotherhood of the.Mke Sotte.-The Mere Folle of
Dijon.-The Set pent, or the Devil.-Purgatory of St. Patrick.-The Wandering Jew.
-The Antichtist and the End of the World.-The Prophecies of the Sibyls, of
Merlin, and of Noistradamus.-Dreams and Visions.-Spectres and Apparitions.Prodigies.-Talismans.




TA~lBL E OF C ONTENTS.          x


xi


PAGE
GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.265
Latin and Greek Geographers.-Measurement of the Roman World.-Voyages of Hippains and Diogenes.-Mkarinus of Tyre, Pomponius MSela, and Ptolemy.-Coloured
and Figurative Itineraries.-Barbarian Invasions.-Stephen of Byzantium.-Geographical Ignorance from the Sixth to the Tenth Century.-Charlemagne and Albertus
Magnus.-Dicuil.-Geography amongst the Arabs.-Master Peter and Roger Bacon.
-XVincent of Beauvais.-Asiatic Travellers in the Thirteenth Century.-Portuguese
Navigation.-The Planisphere of Fra Mauro.-First Editions of Ptolemy.-Maritime
Expeditions in the Fifteenth Century.-Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucei.
-Spanish, Dutch, and FrenchkTravellers, &c., in the Sixteenth Century.
HERALDIC SCIENCE.296
The fabled Origin of Armorial Bearings.-Heraldic Science during the Feudal Period.The First Armorial Bearings in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.-The Meaning
of the Colours and Divisions on the Shield.-Kings of Arms and Heralds.-Heraldic
Figures.-Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes.-Plants, Flowers, Fruits.-The Legend of the
Fleur-de-lis.-Emblematic Arms.-Prevalence of Armorial Bearings in the Thirteenth
Century.-Helmets and Crests.,-Mottoes and Emblems.-Traders' Sign-boards.U~surpers of Armorial Bearings.-Decadence of the Science of Heraldry.
PROVERBS..                                                                 3.25
Antiquity of Proverbs amongst all Nations.-Pro-rerbs in the Middle Ages.-Solomon and
Marcoul.-The Philosophers' Proverbs.-Rural and Vulgar Proverbs.-Guillaume de
Tignonville.-Proverbs of the T'illeins.-" Dit de l'Apostoile."-Historicai Proverbs.
-Proverbs in Works of Prose and Verse.-French Proverbs in the Sixteenth Century.
-Foreign Proverhs.-The Use of Proverbs.-Constable de Bourhon's Collection of
Proverbs.
LANGUAGES.845
The Origin of Languages.-Decadence of the Latin Language.-The Celtic and Teutonic
Langunges.-The Rustic Language.-Common Neo-Latin Dialects.-First Evidences
of the French Language.-The Oath of Louis the German in 842.-Laws of William
the Conqueror.-The Oc and Oil Languages.-Poem of Boethius.-The "1Chanson de
Roland."-Fabliaux.-The "1Romance of the Rose."-Villehardouin.-The Sire de
Joinville.-Froissart.-Infiuence of Flemish Writers.-Antoine de la Sale.-The
" Cent Nouvelles nouvelles " and Villon.-Hellenism and Italianism.-Cle'ment
Marot and Rabelais.-Ronsard, Montaigne, and Malherbe.
ROMANCES.8.....                                    01                              63
Origin of the Name Romance.-Greek and Latin Romnances.-The Discussion of the
Savants as to the first French Romances.-These Romances were the Emanation of
Popular Songs and Latin Chronicles.-Ancient Romances in Prose and Rhyme.-The
Three Miateres (Metre's) of the Chansons de Geste.-Their Classification.-Manuscripts
Of the Jugglers.-Assemblies and Trouveurs.-The "1Chanson de Roland."-Prgress
of lo'maneerie (Ballad Songs) during the Crusades.-Breton Romances.-Tristan.Launcelot.-Merlin.-The Holy Grail. -Decadence of Romances in the Fourteenth
Century.-.Remodelling of the Early Romances.-The Short Romances of the Fifteenth Century.-Romance Abroad.-The "1Amadis."




xii


xii         ~~~~TA-BLE OF CONTENTS.


PAGE
POPULAR SONGS.396
Definition and Classification of Popular Song.-Songs of the Germans, the Gauls, the
Goths, and the Franlks. —They are collected by order of Charlemagne.-Vestiges of
the most Ancient Songs.-The Historical Songs of France down to the Sixteenth
Century.-iRomanesque Songs.-Religious Songs.-The Christmas Carols and the
Canticles.-Legendary Songs.-Domestic Songs.-The Music of the Popular Songs.
- Provincial Songs.-The Songs of Germany.-The Minnesingers and the Meistersingers.-The Songs of England, of Scotland, and of Northern Countries.-The Songs
of Greece, of Italy, and of Spain.
NATIONAL POETRY..421
Decadence of Latin Poetry.-Origins of Vulgar Poetry.-Troubadours, Trouve'res, and
Jugglers.-Rutebeuf.-Thibaucd of Navarre and his School.-Mlarie de France."Romance of the RenDard."-The Guyot Bible.-" The Romance of the Rose."-The
Minnesingers. -Dante.-"The Romancero."- The Meistersingers. -Petrarch. -
English Poets; Chaucer.-Eustache Deschamps, Alain Chartier, Charles d'Orle'ans,
Villon.-Chambers of Rhetoric.-Poets of the Court of Burgundy.-Modern Latin
Poetry.-The Poems of Chivalry in Italy.-Clement Marot and his School.-The
Epic Poems; Tasso, Camoens.-Poets of Germany and of the Northern Countries.Ronsard and his School.-Poetry under the Valois Kings.
CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.455
First Historians of the Church. - The Last Latin and Greek Historians. - Latin
Chronicles: Marius, Cassiodorus, Jornande's. -Gregory of Tours. -Fredd'gaire.Monastic Chronicles.-Chronicles from the Eighth to the Eleventh Century.Historians of the Crusades.-Historians of Foreign Countries.-Latin Chronicles of
the Abbey of St. Denis.-Chronicles in Rhyme.-Early French Chronicles.-Villehardouini.-The Sire do Joinville.-Cbronicles of St. iDenis.-Froissart.-Monstrelet.
-Chastellain.-French Translations of the Ancient Historians.-Library of Charles V.
-Chroniclers of the Fifteenth Century.-Historians of the Court of Burgundy.Private Chronicles and Lives of Illustrious Men.- Personal Memoirs.-Histories of
France in the Sixteenth Century.
THE DRAMA..488
Disappearance of the Ancient Theatre.-First Essays of the Christian Theatre.-Pious
Representations in the Churches.-The Latin Drama of Hrosvitha.-The Mystery of
Adam.-The Great Mysteries.-Progress of the Theatre in Europe.-Brothers of the
Passion in Paris.-Public Representations.-The Mystery of St. Louis.-Conledy
since the Thirteenth Century. -Jean do la Halle.-The Farce de Pathelin.-The
Bazoche. —The Enfants sans Souci.-The Theatre in Spain and in Italy.-Creation of
the Literary Theatre, in the Sixteenth Century, in L'rance.
CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY..519
The Oratorical Genius of the Gauls.-The Origin of the French Bar.-Christian Oratory
in the First Centuries..-Gallo-Roman Oratory.-Preachers and Missionaries.Orators of the Crusades.-St. Bernard and St. Dominic.-Pleadings at the Bar
under Louis XI.-Political Oratory under Charles VI.-Popular Preachers.-Orators
of the Reformation.-Orators of the League.-Parliamentary Harangues.-Oratory
in the States-General.-Military Oratory.




TABLE    OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
I. CIROMOLITHOGRAPHS.


Plate                            To face page
1. The King of Navarre, Henri d'Albret,
meeting Marguerite in the Gardens
of Alenqon. Fac-simile of Miniature
of the Sixteenth Century.. FRONTISPIECE.
2. Georges Chastelain offering his Book
to Charles, Duke of Burgundy. Miniature of the Fifteenth Century..  20
3. The Resurrection of the Dead and the
Weighing of Souls in the Balance.
Miniature of the Thirteenth Century  64
4. The Sibyl of Tiburtis announcing to
Augustus the Coming of Jesus Christ.
Miniature of the Sixteenth Century. 210
5. Map of America. Reduced Fac-simile
of a Map from the Spanish Atlas
executed in 1582 by Joan Martins. 290
6. The King-at-Arms shows the Due de
Bourbon the Armorial Bearings of
the Chevaliers who are to take part
in the Tournament. Miniature of
the Fifteenth Century............ 300


Plate                            To face page
7. The Arms and Emblematic Device of
Marguerite of Navarre. Miniature
of the Sixteenth Century.......... 314
8. Adenez, the King of the Minstrels.
Miniature of the Thirteenth Century  402
9. The Virgin, Queen of Heaven. Picture
in the Gallery at Frankfort-on-theMaine. Fifteenth Century........ 442
10. Battle of Jonathan against Baccide.
Miniature showing Embattled Castle
and Military Uniforms of the Fifteenth  Century..................  456
11. Siege of a Town defended by the Burgundians under Charles VI. Miniature of the Sixteenth Century...... 474
12. The Ancient Theatre. Miniature from
the Terence of Charles V. Fifteenth
Century........................ 490
13. The Preaching of St. Stephen. Fresco
by Fra Angelico, at the Vatican.
Fifteenth Century................ 526


II. ENGRAVINGS.


Page
Abduction of Helen, The.............. 515
Alchemist, The, after Vriese............ 229,,    German.,............... 185,,   Laboratory of an............ 197
Alexander doing Battle with the Beast with
three Horns.............. 278,,    doing Battle with White Lions 279,,    engaged in Combat with Men
having Horses' Heads...... 204,,    engaged in Combat with Pigs.. 207,,   fighting the Dragons...... 115, 117


Page
Alfonso X., the Wise, King of Castile.... 466
Antichrist, Reign of.................... 257
Apocalypse, Miniature from a Commentary
upon the..............            224, 250
Apostle of Christianity, Preaching of an.. 525
Arc with Double Compartment..........    99
Arms of Alfonso X., King of Castile...... 306,,  Anne of Brittany.............. 318,    Catherine of Arragon.......... 309,,  Emanuel, King of Portugal.... 305,,   France, Fifteenth Century...... 323




xiv


ENGRA VINGS.


Page
Arms of Godfrey de Bouillon...........  307,,  Henry V. of England joined to
those of Catherine deValois.... 487,,  Joan  of Arc....................  310,,  John II., King of France........ 305,,  Martin I., King of Arragon..... 305,   Mary Tudor, Queen of England.. 315,,  Orsini Family..................  311,,  Paul III......................  308,,  Piccolomini Family............ 305,,  Richard Coeur-de-Lion.......... 305,,  Robert of Anjou, King of Naples.. 306,,  William, Prince of Orange...... 306
Astronomer and Cosmographist, German..  98,,    with Magic Figures........   92
Astronomy, A Lesson in.........   87,,    with the Three Fates........ 209
Author, The, of the Poem entitled "Le
Debat de la Noire et de la Tann6e "....  439
Bacon, the Alchemist............... 183
Ballad Singer accompanying himself upon
the  Violin..........................  411
Banner of Amiens Butchers......  320,,    Apothecaries of Caen..... 158,,    Apothecaries of St. LO........ 158,,    Bethune Tailors..........     320,,    Bordeaux Upholsterers........  320,,    Calais Innkeepers............ 320,,    Corporation of Apothecaries in
the Mayenne..........  173,,    Corporation  of Physicians at
Amiens....................  167,,    Corporation of Physicians in the
Mayenne.................. 167,,    Corporation of Physicians at Vire  167,     Corporation of Surgeons at Caen  167,,    Corporation of Surgeons at Le
Mans                         167,,    Corporation  of Surgeons   at
Saintes....................  167,,    Douai Shoemakers............ 321,,    Lyons Tinmen.............    321,,    Paris Founders............   321,,    Pin and Needle Makers......  321
St. L6 Blacksmiths............  321,,    St. LO Dyers............... 320
St. Omer Cobblers............ 320
Tours Slaters................ 321
Banners and Coats-of-Arms displayed from
the Heralds' Lodge.......... 312
Bas-relief in the Church of St. Julian the
Poor...,..................  23
Battle of Beggars and Peasants..........  75
Beadles of the University of Pont-aM ousson............................  163
Betrothal Interview between the Archduke
Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy.... 473


Page
Binding of Durand's "Rationale," Fragment of a.......................... 552
Boethius takes Counsel of Dame Philosophy  42
Border of a Page in Manuscript of the
Fifteenth Century................. 125
Bourbon, Duc de, armed Cap-a-pie......  313
Brunehaut superintending the making of
the Seven Roads which led from the City
of Bavay.........................  274
Buffoon holding the Bauble............ 241,,  playing the Bagpipe........... 241
Burgundy Cross, Origin of the.......... 481
Calendar of a " Book of Hours," Miniature
from   the............................  90
"Cancionero," The, of Juan Alfonso de
Baena,..........................  444
Carol in Burgundy Patois, with Music...  408
Casting a Bell....................... 184
Castle of Loves, The................... 441
Cathedral of Cordova.................  141
Celtic Monument................. 137
Centaur, The..........................  85
Chariot of the 2ere Fole................ 247
Charlatan performing an Operation...... 169
Charlemagne, Conquest of Jerusalem by.. 463,,     Coronation of............ 461
Vision of................    208
Charles VII. entering Rouen............  477,,    setting out to besiege the Town
of Harfleur.............. 479,,    Vigiles de.............. 467, 470
Chartier, Alain, comforted by Hope..... 438
Chest of Carved Wood of the Fourteenth
Century............................  503
"Chevalier  D6eibere,"  Miniature from
the..................... 393, 509, 513
Christina de Pisan being urged to write a
Book of Ethics....................   359
"City of God," Miniature of the........  67
Clovis, Equestrian Statue of........... 458
Comb made of Carved Wood, of the Fifteenth Century............... 340
Compiler, A............................  368
Conflagration of the Bel-Acceuil Prison.. 356
Copyist writing upon Vellum............ 391
Counter-Seal of the English Nation......  4,,        Faculty of Medicine,
Paris..............  150,,        French Nation......    4,,        Normandy Nation....    5,,        Picardy Nation......   5
Rheims University...        6
University of Paris..     66
Court Jester, A.......................  331
Cure through the Intercession of a Healing
Spirit..............................  144
Dame Philosophy......................   71




ENGRA VINGS.


xv


Page
Dante's "Divina Commedia," Fragment of 358
Death presiding over Battles             486
Device of Catherine de' Medicis.......... 317
Charles IX., King of France.... 316,,   Charles V..................  316,  Flemish Gueux.............. 332
Francois I., King of France.... 332,    Henry III., King of France.... 316,,   Henry VII., King of England.. 316,  Jean sans Peur, Duke of Burgundy.............337, Leo  X......................  316
Louis XII., King of France.... 332
Louis, Duke of Orleans (1406).. 337
Devil, Angel enchaining the............  222
The, attempting to seize a Magician. 223
Discovery of San Domingo.............. 289
Doctor Death.......................      153
Flemish, haranguing the People.. 539
Doctor's House, Interior of a............  157
Dragons.............................  221
Drawings of Proverbs, Adages, &c.... 342, 343
Dream of Childeric....................   261
Druids...............................   202








Instruments of Mathematical Precision for
executing Portraits.................
Italian  Doctors........................
Jerusalem, Coronation of Charlemagne in
the  City  of..........................
Joseph of Arimathea, Death of..........
Joshua, King David, and Judas Maccabasus..............................
Khan of Tartary, Coronation of the......
King of Arms..........................
Knight, Arming of a....................


Page
96
65
373
387
366
465
301
389


Envoys from the Soudan..............
Equatorial Rings......................
Esus, the God of Nature................


471
101
107


Fantastic Forms and Figures seen in the
Sky in the Sixteenth Century.......... 217
Farce de Pathelin, Wood Engravings of the 508
First Missionary Apostles, Preazhing of the 529
Fleet of Maximus, Arrival at Cologne of the  273
Fresco, Fragment of, by Simone Memmi..   50
Furnace, Retorts, Stills, and Distillery
Apparatus..................... 193-195
Galley of the Sixteenth Century.......... 293
Gallic Vulcan, The........... 175
Gargouille, The.................. 252
Geber, The Alchemist.................. 178
"Genealogy of the Kings of France and
of England," Fragment of the........ 475
Genethliac, or Astrological Horoscope.... 213
God creating the World by Compass..... 109
"Grammaire Latine," by.Elius Donatus,
Specimen of a Page of the............  349
Gregory the Great sending Missionaries to
England................... 527




Languages, The Institution of.......... 348
Launcelot and Guinivere................ 385
Le Feron presenting a Work to King
H enry  II..........................  319
Leper House..........................  146
Lequeux, Jean, Messenger in the Diocese of
Laon................................  14
Leyden University, External View of....   38
Lines on Left Hand, and their Horoscopic
Denominations.............. 215
" Livre de Faits d'Armes et de Chevalerie,"
Miniatures from the.............. 483, 484
Lulli, Raymond, The Alchemist.......... 180
Mandeville, John de, taking leave of King
Edward III........................ 285
Man-dog, Man-wolf, Man-bull, and Manpig...........................  233
Map of Gaul, Fragment of.............. 271,    Island of Sardinia.............  269,,  Island of Taprobana............  287,    Roman World..................   267
Marine World, The.................... 119
Mark, King, stabbing Tristan............ 383
Marriage of a Young Man and an Old
Woman............................     226
Mathematician Monks..................   81
Melusine, The Fay.................... 263
Merlin, transformed into a Student, meets
the Fairy Viviana....................  386
Metals, Colours, and Furs interpreted by
the Engravers of the Middle Ages...... 297
Miner............................... 182
Minnesingers.........................  415
Mint of the Fifteenth Century.......... 186,,  Officer of the.................... 187
Monks chanting the Litanies for the Dead.. 254,,  engaged in Agriculture.......... 112
Monsters born from the Deluge.......... 251
Morienus, The Alchemist................ 198
Mosque of Cordova....................   433
Mountebank Seller of Drugs, The Stage
of a.............................61
Musicians, German....................   417


Hermes, The Alchemist...............
Horace's Poems........................
HotelDieu, A Ward in the............
Hour of Death, The....................
Initial designed by Pen................
Instrument of Mathematical Precision for
designing Objects in Perspective......


176
422
148
54
3


7


97




xvi


ENGRA VINGS.


Narcissus at the Fountain..............
Natural Sciences, The, in the Presence of
Philosophy..........................
Navigators who have mistaken a Whale's
Back for an Island...................
Noah's Ark.........................
Old-maid Witch.......................
Operator, An..........................
Order of St. Dominic, The Glories of the..


Page
356
73
277
111
231
164
535




Paracelsus, The Alchemist..............  191
Pegasus..............................   435
Perseus and Andromeda..,...........       83
Personification of Music, The...........413
Philip the Good intrusts the Education of
his Son to Georges Chastelain........  401
Phoenix rising from his Ashes...........  133
Physician, The................. 139, 155
Plan of Clermont en Beauvaisis..........281
Planetary Systems, The........79
Plenary Court of Dame Justice........     52
Poem by Wolfram of Eschenbach, Fragment
of, with the Notation of the Thirteenth
Century............................   431
Poetical and Musical Congress at WVartburg
in 1207.....................    429
Poetry and Music......................397
Portraits:Abbatia, Bernard...........04
Ariosto............................  447
Baf.............................. 452
Claude of France..................   170
Clement IV....................      58
Commines, Philippe de..............  485
Cujas, J...............48
Daurat, J........................  452
Despence, Claude.................. 544
Du Bellay................        452
Dumesnil, B.....................  546
Dumoulin, C...................       547
Erasmus.......................   74
Faye, J..........................    546
Froissart..........................  478
Garnier, Robert.................     518
Gregory IX.............,....        533
Henri III................    549
Honorius III.......................  532
Hospital, M. de 1'...............    548
Innocent IV.........            159
Jodelle............................  452
Lemaitre, G....................  547
Lorraine, Cardinal de..............  544
Marguerite of Valois..............   451
Marot, Clement...................    510
Pibrac......................       546
Pithou............................  548




Page
Portraits:
Ponthus de Thyard...............  453
Remy Belleau...................     452
Ronsard.........................   452
Sannazar.......................... 445
Savonarola................541
Seguier, P......           547
Sixtus Quintus...................   54
Tycho Brahe                          103
Prague University, Rector of the........ 35
Precious Metals, The Extraction of the.. 188,,,    Foundry of............ 189
Prince of Darkness....................219
Printers' Marks:Berton, Barthelemy................ 130
Bonhomme, Mace..................    259
Brie, Jehan de.................   341
Estienne, Charles.................132
Fezandat, Michel..................  344
Le Dru, Pierre................      511
Morrhy, Gerard..................    264
St. Denis, Jehan.................  102
Tory, Geoffroy...................  362
Verard, Antoine.................... 3!)5
Procession of the Boeuf Gras............ 239
"Prose of the Ass," plain.............. 244,,,,     set to Music,.......  245
Provost of Paris, Servants of the, apologizing  31
Ptolemy's System......................   94


Quadrant, Small.....................


99


Reception of a Doctor..................  -17
Representative Characters of the Ancient
Theatre, from Terence.... 489-491, 493, 495
Riddle taken from the " Heures de Nostredame ".............................   341
River Fishing.......................  123
Robert, King, composing Sequences and
Responses in Latin.................... 353
Robert le Diable forced to declare his
Identity............................  499
Sacred  Oratory......................  537
St. Augustine........................  59
St. Bonaventure........................  61
St. Francis of Assisi talking to the Birds.. 113
St. Germain des Pres and the Pre-aux-Clercs  63
St. James the Elder combating the Enchantments of a Magician.................. 235
St. Jerome and two Cardinals.......... 521
St. Louis, King of France, going to Matins  19
St. Mark Library, The, Venice.......... 371
St. Patrick, The Purgatory of..........  253
St. Peter as Pope, Imaginary Election of.. 367
School, Interior of a.................   24,,  of Mendicant Monks, A..........   8
Schoolmaster, The, from the Daese Macabre  28






ENGRA VINGS.


xvii


Page
Schoolmaster, The, after a Drawing by
Soquand............................  29
Sea-Dog, The.......................     120
Seal of Aix University..................  7,,  Balliol College..................  37,   Bourges University...........    7,   English Nation..................   4,   Faculty of Law, Prague..........  76,   Faculty of Medicine, Paris.......  150,   Faculty of Theology, Paris......  56,   Faculty of Theology, Prague....  76,   Four  Nations, or   Faculty  of
Arts.............     10,,  French Nation..................   4,,  Normandy Nation..............  5,,  Picardy  Nation..................  5,  Rheims University..............  6,   Town of Dunwich.............. 275,   University of Cambridge........  37,   University of Oxford............  37,   University of Prague............  37
Sermon upon    the  Vanity  of Human
Things..............          543
L Serventois" of the Trouveur, Quenes of
Bethune, with Music........          427
Seven Saints of Brittany, The.......... 459
Sextant, Astronomical.................. 101
Sheep-shearing........................  121
Shepherds celebrating the Birth of the
Messiah........................... 407
Shoemaker and his Customer............ 338,,   fitting a Shoe..............  338
Shops in an Apothecary's Street.......  161
Signature at Foot of Autograph Letter of
Christopher Columbus................ 291
Siren, Token of Gerard Morrhy.......... 264
Solomon and Marcoul.................. 327
Song of the Crusaders, set to Music... 400,,  Druidic Epoch, A, Words and
Music...................  398,,  Thibaud, Count of Champagne,
with Music......,,........,.428,,  Troubadour, with Music........ 424
Staff of the Dijon Infantry in 1482...... 249


Page


Stained Glass:Battle of Roncevaux and Death of
Roland......................
Legend of St. Nicholas..............
Stork its own Doctor, The..............
Surgeon, German......................
Swiss Courier..........................


375
33
138
165
13


Table Ornament............   129
Terms of Heraldry.     Partitions of the
Shield...........          302, 303
Tower of Babel, Construction of the....  347
Tree of Beings and Substances..........   51
Tristan at the Chase................     381
"Trois Morts et des Trois Vifs," Legend of
the...................... 437
Trouveur accompanying himself upon the
Violin..........425,,    French......................  420
University Beadle....................     14,,    of Paris, Rector and Doctor of
the...........   11,,    of Pont-a-Mousson, Bachelors
of the....................   69,,    Teaching, Allegorical Composition representing.......... 523
Vandeuil, Master Jean de, Proctor of the
Picardy Nation......................    12
Vanity of Human Things, The.......... 443
Vegetable Kingdom, The..............  131
Venetian Gondola...................... 419
Vesalius, Andrew...................... 172
"Vigiles du Roi Charles VII.," Miniature
from the........................      550
Vivien, Count, dedicating a Bible to Charles
the  Bold...........................   46
Vow of the first Companions of St. Ignatius................................  294


W eeping-tree..........................
Wheel of Fortune......................
Wolf cheating the Donkey, The..........


255
43
329




i




SCIENCE AND LETTERS


IN
THIE MIDDLE AGES,
AND AT THE
PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE.
UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.
Legend of the foundation of the Paris University by Charlemagne.-The Schools of the NotreDame Cloisters.-Origin of the name University.-The organization of the University.-The
four Nations and the four Faculties.-The Rector and the other officers of the University.The great and the little messengers. -Privileges of the University.-Its power and its
decadence.-Its political role.-Creation of provincial Universities.-Great Schools of the
Rue du Fouarre.-The Paris Colleges.-Turbulence of the Students.-Their Games.Their Festivals.-The Lendit Fair.-Foreign Universities.
iHE schools of Marseilles, Autun, Narbonne,
Lyons, Bordeaux, and Toulouse, which,
under the Roman dominion, had, thanks to
land. 1  -    the names of their famous professors and
pupils, such as the poets Petronius and
Ausonius, Trogus Pompeius the historian,
the orators Salvian and Cesareus, &c., reflected so much credit upon Gaul, had, in
the sixth century of the Christian era,
ceased to be more than a mere souvenir.
The reign of Dagobert (6838) witnessed
the extinction of the ancient genius of the
land. The clergy, who remained the sole depositaries of human knowledge, had
allowed themselves to be enveloped, in their turn, in the gloom of ignorance,
when Charlemagne set to work to bring about a sort of intellectual regeneration throughout his vast empire.    By his orders the Anglo-Saxon monk


B




[UNI LVERSITIES, SCHOOI S, S'rTUDENTS.


Alcuin and some learned foreign clerks were summoned to the court. It was
under their supervision that he created within the walls of his own palace an
academy, to which he made a point of belonging, and at the sittings of which
he was sometimes present. The mode of writing, which had become illegible,
was remodelled; the Latin tongue, which had been replaced by barbaric
idioms, resumed its place; the ancient manuscripts, which were lying in the
monasteries, were revised and recopied with great care; and thus the teaching of sciences and letters began to flourish anew in the ecclesiastical schools.
So it was that, long after the death of the great Emperor, the literary
renaissance which was attributed to him, and which was perpetuated by the
legends of the time, also acquired for him the title of patron and founder of
the University: even to the present day the forehead of St. Charlemagne
remains crowned with the literary aureole conferred upon him by the gratitude of our ancestors.
"In those days," says Nicholas Gilles, a chronicler of the fifteenth century, paraphrasing a passage from the Carlovingian chronicle of the MIonk
of St. Gall, "there arrived in France from Ireland two Scotch monks of
great erudition, and very saintly men. They preached and proclaimed in the
cities and in the fields that they had knowledge to sell, and whoso wished to
purchase it came to them. This was told to the Emperor Charlemagne, who
had them brought before him, and asked them if it was true that they had
knowledge to sell, to which they replied that they had it by the grace of
God, and that they had come to France to lend it and to teach it to all who
wished to learn. The Emperor asked them what remuneration they expected,
and they replied that they asked for nothing more than a fitting place to
teach in, and subsistence for their bodies. When the Emperor heard this he
was very joyful, and retained them with him until he had to set out for the
war. Ile then ordered that one of them, Clement, should remain in Paris,
that children of all ranks, the most intelligent that could be found, should be
sent to him, and provided him with proper schools to teach in, and ordered
that their wants should be ministered to, and gave them  great privileges,
rights, and liberties; and therefrom came the first institution of the body of
the University of Paris, which was at Rome, whither it had been transferred
from Athens."
Such are the facts which were generally taken as undeniable for more than
eight centuries; that is to say, until the learned Etienne Pasquier (1564),




U'NI'VIERSIJIES, SCHOOLS, S7'.TUDENTVS.


3


defending with ardour, but at the same time with impartiality, the ancient
privileges of the University of Paris, had proved, in concert with Loisel the
advocate and Andre Duchesne the historian, that these glorious traditions had
no real foundation. It must be said, however, that such distinguished savants
as Du Cange, Mlabillon, and Crevier did their best to revive the legendary
origin of the University; but, all questions of patriotism apart, it became
clear that the academic or scholasiic establishments of Charlemagne, like


Fig. 1.- Grand Initial, designed by pen (end of Fifteenth Century), representing Types of
Students, in one of the Manuscript Registers of the German Nation.
University Archives.
many other creations of his universal genius, did not survive the indomitable
will of their founder, and that the famous schools of Paris came into existence and developed themselves under the immediate influence of the Church.
The etymology of the word university must be sought in the Latin word
n?,icersitas, which, in the Middle Ages, signified a reunion or category of
persons. Thus, in the acts and ordinances published in the name of the
schools of Paris, the form    generally employed was, "Noverit universitas




4


UNIIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, ST'UDENTS.


vestra;" and this formula, which applied to all the protocols, also figured at
the heading of all the diplomas issued by the masters and addressed to the
students.  It is easy to understand that the word tiniversitas, gradually


Fig. 2.-Seal of the French Nation          Fig. 4.-Seal of the English Nation
(Fourteenth Century).                      (Fourteenth Century).


Fig. 3.-Counter-Seal of the French Nation
(Fourteenth Century).


Fig. 5.-Counter-Seal of the English Nation
(Fourteenth Century).


From the Sigillographic Collection in the National Archives.
assuming a special or limited meaning, was finally taken to mean the
University or whole body of students, then the establishment itself to which
these students belonged, and, lastly, the large quarter of the town which was
almost exclusively reserved for them on the left bank of the Seine.




UIV7ELRSTI ES, SCHOOLS, S'TUI)fVTS.


5


The annals of the University of Paris cannot, however, be traced further
back than to the lectures of Peter Abelard, that great and popular teacher


iiili 0 —
I ",,


lohll!Ili


Fig. 8.-Seal of the Picardy Nation
(Fourteenth Century).


Fig. 6.-Seal of the Normandy Nation
(Fourteenth Century).


Fig. 7.-Counter-Seal of the Normandy        Fig. 9.-Counter-Seal of the Picardy
Nation (Fourteenth Century).              Nation (Fourteenth Century).
From the Sigillographic Collection in the National Archives.
who has left so deep an impression behind him.         When the young and
unfortunate professor came to Paris for the first time (1057) to complete his
studies, the school was still, so to speak, beneath the wing of the Church.  It




6


rlFUNVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


was in the cloisters of Notre-Dame that those gifted masters, William of
Champeaux and Anselm of Laon, whose lessons he at first received, but
both of whom   he eventually surpassed, taught their pupils. Fifty years
later there came the dawn of the University, for Henry II., King of England,
proposed to submit the matters in dispute between himself and Thomas
a Becket to the arbitrament of the schools of the variots natious studying at
Paris. This proof of esteem for the scholars of Paris says a great deal for


Fig. 10.-Seal of the Rheims University (1568).


Fig. 11.-Counter-Seal of the
Rheims University (1568).


From the Sigillographic Collection in the National Archives.
the reputation which the cosmopolitan University must have enjoyed at that
period, not only in France, but throughout Europe. In the year 1200 a
charter from Philip Augustus, dated Bethesy, in which may be discovered
almost the foundation of the privileges of the University, shows us this
institution being carried on under a head whose immunity from the interference of the ordinary law is solemnly guaranteed, together with that of all
its members. Lastly, in 1260, the University body stands out fully organized,
and having attained its complete development.




UNIVIERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDANTS.


7


It is necessary to give a summary sketch of this ingenious and complex
organization, as it may be gathered from the researches of Vallet de Viriville
and those of the learned M. Charles Jourdain, the last historian of the
University of Paris.
From the very beginning a natural division established itself between the
young men whom    the fame of the great Parisian school attracted thither
from all parts of Christendom. The students grouped themselves into nations,


Fig. 12.-Seal of the Aix University           Fig. 13.-Great Seal of the Bourges University
in Provence (Sixteenth Century).                         (Fifteenth Century).


From the Sigillographic Collection in the National Archives.
and these nations having adopted, by analogy of language, interests, and
sympathy, a more regular form, there were but four nations: that of France
(Figs. 2 and 3), that of England (Figs. 4 and 5), that of Normandy (Figs. 6
and 7), and that of Picardy (Figs. 8 and 9).  The French nation consisted of
five tribes, which included the bishoprics or metropolitan provinces of Paris,
Sens, Rheims, and Bourges (Figs. 10 to 13), and all the south of Europe,
so that a Spaniard or an Italian, who came to study at Paris, was comprised in




8


TI UN'VERSI7TES, SCHOOLS, STUTDENTS.


the French nation. The English nation, which was subdivided into two
tribes, that of islanders and that of continentals, embraced all the northern
and eastern parts of Europe beyond the frontiers of France.   But when


Fig. 14.-A School of Mendicant Monks: a Birching. —Miniature of the Manuscript No. 21,252
in the Burgundy Library, Brussels (Fifteenth Century).
the two peoples separated frpm each other by the channel became violent
antagonists, and the name of England had got to be an object of general
execration for Frenchmen, the nation which for more than a century had




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


9


borne it became the German nation, and this is the only name made use of
in the public documents after the return of Charles VII. to Paris in 1437
(Fig. 1). The Normandy nation had only one tribe, corresponding with the
province after which it was called; while the Picardy nation, on the other
hand, had five, representing the five dioceses of Beauvais, Noyon, Amiens,
Laon, and Terouanne, otherwise called des Morins.
The four nations together constituted at first the University of Studies,
but afterwards a fresh division was established; according to the order of the
studies of each nation, and the Faculties came into existence. From that
time forward, the distinction of nations only existed in the Faculty of Arts,
a denomination which comprised grammar, philosophy, and the humanities
as they were taught in the schools. Looked at from another point of view,
the liberal arts, so called, comprised the trivium, that is to say, grammar,
rhetoric, and dialectics; and the quadrivium, that is to say, arithmetic,
geography, music, and astronomy.
When we consider the position held by the Church in society during the
Middle Ages, it is not surprising that religious instruction should have been
taken in hand at once, and have become the object of a special faculty, that
of Theology.  When, some time later, the mendicant orders were founded
by St. Dominic and St. Frangois, the ancient masters of theology and those of
the Faculty of Arts refused at first to have anything to do with the new-comers;
but they were compelled to do so by St. Louis and Pope Alexander IV., and
the useful co-operation of the allies whom it had at first repelled soon turned
to the profit and to the glory of the Faculty of Theology (Fig. 14).
In 1151 a clerk from Bologna, called Gratian, having united under the
title of Decree the ancient and recent decisions of the ecclesiastical authorities,
which comprised the whole canonical jurisprudence, Pope Eugene III.
gave his approval to this compilation, and ordered it to be taught throughout
Christendom. Such was the origin of the Faculty of the Decree, which was
at first but a branch of the Faculty of Theology.  At about the same period
the Pandects of the Emperor Justinianus, discovered at Amalfi, in Calabria,
added a very valuable source of documents to the study of law, which had
hitherto possessed no other bases than the Theodosian Code, the barbarous
laws and " capitularies" of the Kings of France. The labours of the Jurisconsults everywhere receiveda new impetus, and especially in the University
of Paris; but notwithstanding it was not until much later that civil law
c




10             UrNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.
came to rank beside canon law.     Several popes, considering profane or
secular jurisprudence as useless, and even opposed to ecclesiastical law, issued
bulls in which students were enjoined to learn only canon law.
It is towards the close of the twelfth century, also, that the study of
medicine appears to have begun in the lay schools of Paris.    Up to that
period the clerks, and especially the clergy, who alone possessed sufficient
learning to pursue the study of medicine, had been the sole masters of the
art; but in course of time ecclesiastical discipline hampered and even
Fig. 15.-Seal of the four Nations or Faculty of Arts (Sixteenth Century).
Paris National Library. The Cabinet of Medals.
put a ban upon the study of it, as it had done upon that of civil law.  It
was, therefore, only after great difficulties that a Faculty of Medicine was
founded at the University.  It is true that medicine-a science of facts and
observations-could not well make much progress amidst the prejudices of
every kind, and under the blind authority of the categories, the formalities,
and the empiric methods which so long clung to the University teaching.
The Paris Faculty of Medicine could not, in these circumstances, hope to
dethrone the famous schools of Salerno and Montpellier, which preserved the
deposit of the medical knowledge of antiquity as it had been transmitted to the




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


I I


Middle Ages by the Greeks and the Arabs.  The three new faculties created
at the University continued to be subordinate, notwithstanding their gradual
development, to the Faculty of Arts (Fig. 15); the body of the four nations,
of which this last-mentioned faculty consisted, assured it a clear preponderance, with the maintenance of certain essential prerogatives.  Thus each
nation elected a proctor, and each faculty a dean.  The mode of election


Fig. 16.-Rector and Doctor of the University of Paris.-After a Miniature of the " Cite de
Dieu " (Fifteenth Century).  Manuscript of the Paris National Library.


for the proctors and their term of office varied, however, with different
nations. The Faculty of Arts had four proctors (Fig. 15).  The Faculty
of Theology, besides its dean, who was the senior doctor, chose every other
year a syndic, whose business it was to administer the private business of the
company.   The Decree Faculty had only a dean selected by seniority in the
grade of doctor, and the Faculty of Medicine had a dean elected every year




12


UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


from amongst the doctors in practice.    Deans and proctors, to the number
of seven, formed the higher tribunal of the University.      The Faculty of
Arts had, therefore, a clear majority of its own upon this tribunal; it had,
moreover, assumed for itself the exclusive right of nominating the rector
or supreme head of the University, and he was bound to be a member of the
faculty (Fig. 16). The Faculty of Arts also had the care of the archives,
the management of the Pre-aux-Clercs, and the nomination or presentation
of all the University officials not chosen by vote.
Originally the elected rector did not hold office for more than six weeks,
Fig. 17.-Master Jean de Vandeuil, Proctor of the Picardy Nation (Fifteenth Century).
Miniature of the Manuscript Register, No. 11 (1476-83). University Archives.
but in the thirteenth century the period was extended to three months, and
towards the close of the fifteenth century the post came to be held in fact, if
not in right, for a twelvemonth. The proctors of the nations (Fig. 17) were
at first invested with the right of choosing the rector, but so many scandals
were caused in this connection that the nations nominated four special
electors, who, before proceeding to a selection, swore to make a choice honourable and useful to the University.
The rector, whose office conferred upon him high prerogatives, exercised
a sovereign jurisdiction over all the schools, and recognised no authority as




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


'3


superior to his own within the precincts of the University.  Often summoned to the King's Council, he took rank with the Bishop of Paris and
with the Parliament at all public ceremonials.  He gave to all the students,


Fig. 18.-Swiss Courier.-After a Statue preserved in the Town Hall at Bale
(Fifteenth Century).
and also to the tutors, the letters or diplomas which conferred upon them
the privileges of their grade, and he received from them their oath of passive
obedience, " no  matter to what dignity they might attain "-an oath the




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


14.


breaking of which entailed very serious consequences.  He appointed to all
the offices of the University; his accession to, and his resignation of, the
post were celebrated by a procession, to which he invited, in addition to all
the University officials, the religious communities residing within his jurisdiction.  In 1412, according to the chronicler Jouvenel des Ursins, when
there was a solemn procession from the University to the Abbey of St. Denis
to pray that war might be averted, the cortege was so long that the head of


Fig. 19.-University Beadle.-Jean Lequeux, Messenger of Guise en Thierache, Diocese of Laon.
Miniature of the Manuscript Register, No. 11 (1476-83). University Archives.


the procession entered St. Denis, while the rector was still at the Mathurins
Monastery, in the Rue St. Jacques.
Next to the rector came the syndic, also called proctor, promoter, or procurator-fiscal, and it was he who was in reality the general manager of the
University, and who could alone, in certain circumstances, counterbalance the
preponderance of the rector.
The treasurer had the control of the revenue and expenditure of the
University.  The expenses were large, and the revenues comprised, apart




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


I5


from the fee paid by all the students, a multiplicity of legacies and charitable
foundations, the annual produce of the Pre-aux-Clercs and that of the office
of messenger.
The registrar, secretary, or scribe, took notes or read documents at the
meetings of the University, and preserved in the archives the registers, of
which only a few are still extant.
The name of grand messager was given to certain of the principal
burghers of Paris who, established in the capital, acted as correspondents for
the scholars from the different provinces of France and the various countries
of Europe.   Accredited by the scholars' families, and sworn servants of the
University, they were exempted from the service of the urban guard, and
enjoyed other immunities.    They were bound to supply the students,
under certain securities, with the money which they might require.  The
number of these messengers was limited to one for each diocese.  They had
under their orders a number, varying according to circumstances, of submessengers, or mere postmen, who were perpetually coming and going to
and from Paris with letters and parcels for the students and their relatives. This organization may be looked upon as the origin of the Letterpost and the Messageries, which have since been raised to the rank of public
services-the Post by Louis XI., the Messageries by Louis XIV. (Figs. 18
and 19).
The University had, in addition, its beadles, also called sergeants, massiers,
or apparitors, to the number of fourteen, each nation and each faculty
appointing two, an upper and an under one. The rector was generally
preceded by the two beadles of the nation to which he belonged.   These
functionaries, whose duties at first were purely ceremonial, afterwards were
employed in the transcribing of public documents, and so came to be looked
upon as half-copyists, half-literary persons (Fig. 19).
To these officials, of high and low degree, must be added the two chancellors, attached to the churches of Notre-Dame and St. Genevieve, the two
conservators of the privileges of the University. One of these, the royal
conservator, was the provost of Paris, who, upon his appointment, took an
oath that he would respect and maintain the rights of the University, while
the second, or apostolic conservator, was selected from amongst the three
Bishops of Meaux, Beauvais, and Senlis.
The titles borne by the superior and subordinate officers of the University




i6


UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


merely formed part of their temporary functions.  These titles were quite
distinct and independent of the scholastic titles, grades, or degrees, which
were only to be acquired by examination.   Previously to the thirteenth
century, it is certain that there were only two degrees in the University body:
that of the students and that of the masters. Anybody who had the amount of
knowledge or hardihood to face an audience could open a school, and it is to
be remarked that daring often had its reward. Thus Abelard was often
taunted with having dubbed himself of his own authority master of theology.
Immediately after the foundation of the University there were three
degrees which students had to pass in turn.  The first, that of bachelor,
derived its name indirectly, according to several theologists, from the Latin
word baculum (rod, and so, by extension, any weapon held in the hand), out
of allusion to the different exercises which were the prelude to the military
education of the young nobility. The first bachelors were the Bachelors of
Arts. After having well studied his trivium, the candidate for the baccalaureat underwent an examination, and had to enter into arguments upon
grammar, rhetoric, and dialectics.  These arguments-disputes they were
called-took place at Christmas and during Lent.    The candidate, if he
came well out of them, obtained the treble privilege, 1st. of wearing the
round hat, a mark of his rank; 2nd. of being present at the masses of the
nations; 3rd. of commencing in the arts, that is to say, of teaching in his
turn, under the direction and superintendence of a master.  The bachelor,
who was at the same time both student and teacher, explained Aristotle's
treatises on logic, natural philosophy, metaphysics, and moral philosophy;
and when he believed that he had mastered all these subjects, which now
seem so far behind us, he applied to the ecclesiastical authorities for a license.
The right of conferring this second University degree was at first shared by
the Bishop of Paris and the Abbot of St. Genevieve, as spiritual sovereigns
of the scholastic territory; but afterwards it was accorded exclusively to the
Chancellor of Notre-Dame, as delegate of the bishop.
The licentiate, as soon as he had been approved of by the Church, again
came up before the masters of the Faculty of Arts, to obtain from them the
third degree, consisting of the cap and other insignia of the order, which
gave him the title of Master of Arts.
In the higher faculties, so called because the Faculty of Arts served,
in a manner, as an introduction to the Faculties of Theology, Decree, and




-UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


7


Medicine, the procedure was much the same, excepting that the third grade
or degree, which was only conferred after the candidate had sustained a long
p~~~~~~~~~~~
IF~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~T
~~~~~f. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  f
-
~~~:li ~ ~~~~'it I11I
kill III~
1i I  I 1  I  i
li lt
C  -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ —
//   V)           I ~~~~~        vJ$~~i  p l 
Ij        U~~~~~~~~~~~e
%1,'                        -' II  1  r ( I  1
Il  I  t   O
tlIIG
~~~~~~~~~~Iiil l,1   tll  i, ' t~  's I   ~!~I' I il!',il i ' "  '":~!   i[!!!!!11111Illllltlli         '' l iill llltJi '~
r Ir  I 1     O
I I  II ir~ll,II  (I I   cI 


and difficult thesis in public, was more specially accompanied by the title of
doctor (Fig. 20).
The University of Paris, like all the institutions destined to last and to
D




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


succeed, was placed beneath the fostering protection of the Church and the
Crown.    Thus the generous assistance of the temporal power and the
tutelary influence of the spiritual power never failed it.  The Holy See
loved and encouraged in the University the eloquent voice of France, which,
since the reign of Clovis, converted by St. Clotilde, had placed at the service
of the Catholic faith all the forces and influence of her national genius and
character.  The Kings of France were equally well disposed towards
the University, which was, for the capital of their kingdom, a source of
wealth and of honour, a reserve of eminent statesmen for their council,
a nursery of clever and distinguished youths for their diplomacy.    Thus
sovereigns, spiritual and temporal, each in their own way, vied in showering
favours upon this fruitful and powerful institution, which, nevertheless,
showed itself, in certain grave circumstances, the reverse of grateful for the
benefits heaped upon it by its august protectors.
The history of Paris teems with episodes, some curious, and only too
many tragic, which denote the turbulent and seditious tendencies of the
University students.  These headstrong and undisciplined youths took advantage of the sort of inviolability which they owed to the blind and generous
affection of their religious and lay patrons to gratify their love of disorder.  The University itself set the students an example of disobedience
when the smallest of its prerogatives was called in question.  The University possessed three means of protesting against, or, as its historian, Egasse
du Boulay, puts it, of remedying any infraction of its privileges. If the
violation was committed by the secular power, it referred the matter at once
to the King, as its jurisdiction emanated direct from the Crown.    If the
infraction was committed by the ecclesiastical authority, the University sent
to Rome an embassy, consisting of its own doctors, who often found in the
successor of St. Peter a former comrade, whose associations inclined him in
favour of a University to which, as a graduate, he had formerly taken an
oath of fidelity.  If the Pope refused to comply with the request addressed
to him by the University, the latter appealed to the universal Church and to
the future council.  Its last resource was what may be called a University
excommunication. This meant a general-stoppage of all studies and lectures.
The masters and doctors in theology abstained from preaching in the
churches.   The intellectual, moral, and religious life of the capital was suspended.   If the crisis lasted, the doctors, regents, and bachelors of the four




UNIVERSI7TES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


I9


faculties closed their schools, and threatened to emigrate in a body, taking
with them a whole army of ushers and clients, who formed nearly a third of
the population of Paris. No power existed in the thirteenth century capable
of holding out long against this silent and inflexible protest.
Thus, in 1221, the University, having to complain of some undue exercise of authority by the Bishop of Paris, closed its schools for six months.
In similar circumstances, four years later, the Papal Legate was assailed in
his own house by a band of armed students, who wounded several of his
retinue, and would have maltreated him if he had not avoided capture.      At
Fig. 21.-St. Louis, King of France, going to IMatins at the Cordeliers Church, Paris, "ung
estudiant par mesprison lui tumba son orinal sur son chief." The King, instead of punishing the student, gave him the prebendary of St. Quentin, en Vermandois, "because he was
in the habit of getting up at this hour to study."-Miniature of Manuscript of the Fifteenth
Century. Burgundy Library, Brussels.
the close of the Carnival of 1228, Queen Blanche, who was Regent during
the minority of her son, Louis IX., inflicted severe punishment upon the
students who, under the influence of drink, had committed great disorder and
had shed blood in the Faubourg of St. Marcel.        The University, finding
the remonstrances which it in consequence addressed to the King of no
effect, dismissed the students and masters to their respective homes, left the
capital for two years under an interdict, and only consented to resume the




20            UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.
normal course of teaching after having wrung from the Crown the reparation which it had demanded at first (Fig. 21).
It must, however, be admitted that the University could only earn such
victories as these at the cost of its own privileges, and with much injury to
itself; for the masters, scattered here and there during the time that the
schools were closed, often co-operated in the foundation of rural universities
at the places where they had taken up a temporary residence, and settled
there permanently.  Moreover, these periods of disturbance and strife were
taken advantage of by other teaching bodies, who lost no time in opening
schools, and in creating chairs, and who often obtained through the spiritual
or temporal authority the favour of being admitted, either by a bull or an
ordinance, into the University itself.  It was in this way that in 1257 the
Dominicans, supported by Louis IX., who had been their pupil, and by the
popes, who had been their comrades, forced their way through the breach
into the University of Paris, and this in spite of the distrust and animosity
which their doctrines excited.  It was in the same way that the University
was compelled to open its ranks to, and confer the doctor's cap upon, Brother
Thomas Aquinas and Brother Bonaventura, who were the lights of the philosophic schools, but who remained far more attached, the one to the Order of
St. Dominic, the other to that of St. Francis, than to the Faculty of
Theology.  Moreover, the sort of moral and political omnipotence acquired
by the University in the Middle Ages was not the same at every epoch,
and it is easy to recognise in the course of its history different phases, in the
process of which its character and tendencies underwent various modifications.
In the first period the Paris schools were but the emanation of the Church,
which was gradually becoming secularised. As the institution became more
and more stable, it got to be more in harmony with other establishments. In
the year 1200 Philip Augustus issued a charter, uniting the University into
one body, and endowed the multitude of students gathered together from all
parts of the world with very valuable privileges.  From this laborious and
intellectual mass of students were recruited several popes and cardinals, a
great many archbishops or bishops, and a vast number of men of the
highest ability in other professions throughout the thirteenth century.  Up
to the middle of the fourteenth century the authority and importance of the
University continued to increase.  From 1297 to 1304 it was of material
aid to Philippe le Bel in his struggle with Pope Boniface VIII.  In 1316,




NW^




p






I




__1__~11 ~1 Iri_:___i~ i L_ _ _ __


l~ ~     ~&ftia Te/axh
fNgZe eqip i4z oKnt           n     entm;! f'..F. - I~: -; ~~~C ---- ~~~~~; ~~:; ~~~; -;;;- ~ ~ ~- - ~:~~; —;~~-~~~;; ~ Si~...... a  _:I~ ~~~.................


tsb,                               %~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
te r's  t o ~~~~~J u rt oy  u, 1, t%, I'l I v  Australian"~~~~~~~~~~




I, t    '
*    3,... I. I
4 I
'O




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


21


at the death of Louis X., and in 1328, at the death of Charles IV., its vote
went a long way towards securing the triumph of the Salic law, and preventing the government of France from falling into the hands of an English
prince.  Councillor of the kings, instructor of the people, the Universitythe permanent Council of the Gauls-pursued its high mission with great
credit, and this was the period when it reached the apogee of its splendour.
Then it was that all its members, masters and pupils alike, were recognised
as inviolable, exempt from all tolls, subsidies, imposts, and military service of
every kind.   Then it was that, to complete the measure of its honours,
Charles V. conferred upon the University the proud title, which it never let
drop, of Eldest Daughter of the Kings.
But the period of its decadence was soon about to begin.   Venality,
sophistry, and party spirit took possession of its leaders.  In 1380 the gold
of the house of Burgundy was the stipend of several political creatures in
the ranks of the doctors in theology.    In 1407 the Duke of Orleans,
brother of the King, was waylaid and murdered, and Master Jean Petit took
up the murderers' part in the pulpit, and justified political assassination.
Then came the English, to whose yoke part of the University submitted with
so much cowardice as to provoke, with a sort of complacent fanaticism,
the iniquitous sentence which condemned the heroic Joan of Arc to the
stake. Reprisals and punishment were not long in overtaking them. King
Charles VII. inflicted the first blow upon this ancient institution, which his
royal predecessors had protected, and it almost seems as if he punished the
University for not having sustained its ancient reputation for patriotism and
good sense.  Not only did he recognise and confirm the existence of several
new universities in the provinces (Figs. 10-13), but, rejecting the demand
of the Paris University, which insisted that its only tribunal should be the
King's Council, ordered its disputes to be judged by the Parliament (1445).
Fifty-five years later, Louis XII., taking into consideration the wishes of
the States-General convoked during the reign of Charles VIII., curtailed
many of the privileges of the University; and, by his edict of August
31st, 1498, brought it within the jurisdiction of the common law.  The
University attempted to resist, and, as in its palmy days, to resort to its
traditional practices.  The rector ordered the schools to be closed, and no
sermons to be preached in the churches; but the King, absent from the
capital, received his eldest daughter with a bad grace.  Upon his return,




22


UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


escorted by his military household, all fully armed, he rode through the
University quarter of the city without condescending to draw bridle to
hear the harangue of the rector, who had come out to meet him, followed by
all the officers and students.  The University gave way, and this was her
last attempt to maintain by force her feudal prerogatives.
The University ceased from this time to be the centre of intellectual
domination.   Printing was invented about this time, and diffused the
instruments of study and knowledge in all directions.  The Reformation
proclaimed the liberty of self-examination, and the free schools established
under the new religious doctrines throughout Europe obtained the preference.  Paris ceased to be the exclusive source of science, but Rome
remained the sole focus of divine light.  The University lost its unity and
its strength when it ceased to lean exclusively for support upon the Church
and the Crown.
Having thus rapidly reviewed the vicissitudes which the University
underwent up to the sixteenth century, it becomes necessary to notice the
various scholastic establishments which, affiliated to it, or independent of it
altogether, constituted the totality of the educational system in schools
during the Middle Ages.
When Abelard came to Paris in 1107 he found two masters of great
reputation, who gave their lessons in the Bishop's house, by the side of the
cathedral.  It was not far from this house, and at the very entrance to the
cloisters of Notre-Dame, where Canon Fulbert and his pupil Heloise lived,
that Abelard first opened his school.  A few years later, William of Champeaux resigned his archdeaconship, and withdrew to the priory of St. Victor,
upon the left bank of the Seine, outside the walls of the city, in order to
found a new school there.  Abelard, expelled from  the school which he
occupied in the city, near the episcopal residence, took refuge upon Mount
St. Genevieve, whither he was followed by his pupils.  Notwithstanding,
the cathedral schools continuing to increase, and being short of room within
the enclosure of the city, were divided into two parts.  The one, consisting
of artiens (students of Arts), crossed the bridge, and took up their quarters
close to the Church of St. Julian the Poor, which was a branch of the
Metropolitan Cathedral (Fig. 22).  The theologians retained their residence
under the walls of Notre-Dame.    It was in this way that the elements
which a century later constituted the University began to collect.  In a




UANIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


23


short time the nations erected four large rooms or schools, close to the
Church of St. Julian the Poor, in the Rue Fouarre, or Feurre, so called


Fig. 22.-Bas-relief of the Principal Altar in the Church of St. Julian the Poor (Twelfth. Century
Work).-Two Scholars upon their Knees on each side of the Crucifix.
because the students had to sit upon straw       (fouarre), grouped around the
chair occupied by the master.      Independently of these great schools, which




24


UNIIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


represented a sort of general school, any one who had obtained a license hired
a room, and invited the public to take lessons from him.  Thus the University quarter, which was afterwards called the "Latin quarter," became
peopled with masters and schools.  It soon became necessary to erect hotels
or private dwellings to take in the students, who were at once eager to
learn, and very scantily provided with money (Fig. 23).  This was the
origin of the Paris colleges, under which name were founded, in the early
days of the University, various establishments, in which aspirants for religious orders studied at the expense of the monastic orders to which they


Fig. 23.-Interior of a School.-After a Design of the Sixteenth Century.-National Library.
Cabinet of Designs (Old Masters) on Wood.


belonged.   Private charity soon created colleges of a similar kind for
laymen, veritable houses of refuge, in which the students were provided,
to use the apposite expression of one founder, with bread for the body and
the mind.   This double character of liberality and devotion is a prominent
feature in the primitive constitution of these establishments, which were
founded and endowed by pious persons with the view of assisting the education of the poor. Such were, in the thirteenth century, the Colleges of the
Bons Enfants St. Honore (1208), and of the Bons Enfants St. Victor (1248),
the Colleges of St. Catherine du Valdes Ecoliers (1229), and of Pr4montre




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOL, S STUDENTS.                   25
(1252), the Treasurer's College (1268), and, oldest of all, the College of the
Eighteen, which dates from the first half of the twelfth century.
Nothing, however, can be imagined more pitiable and more deserving of
sympathy than these colleges of the Middle Ages, in which, under the
control of a regent or principal, a few masters, as poor as their scholars,
devoted themselves to the education of a dozen or so of students, who shared
with them their scanty pittance.  With scarcely enough money to keep
body and soul together, they were compelled to do some menial work, or else
to appeal to public charity.  In the fourteenth century, as we learn from
the ditty called "Crieries de Paris," the scholars of the College of the Bons
Enfants, in the Rue St. Honore, wandered about the streets, and, holding out
their hands to the passers-by, exclaimed"Les Bons Enfants orrez (hear) crier:
Du pain!...."
Some few colleges were better off than this woe-stricken house, for, being
endowed with fixed revenues by their founders, encouraged and enriched by
the clergy and the great, they prospered and continued in existence until
the Revolution.
The one which long remained the most famous of all, the Sorbonne,
owed its name and its origin to the liberality of the learned Robert Sorbon,
who, after having undergone privations of every kind in his youth, became
the chaplain and confessor of Louis IX.  By letters patent in 1250 the
saintly King, himself contributing to this foundation, granted for the use of
the future college a house and stables adjoining, situated in the Rue CoupeGueule, in front of the ruins of the palace of the Thermae, or of the Csesars.
This college was specially destined for a certain number of needy youths, who,
after having taken their arts degree, gave themselves up to the study of sacred
lore. It is needless to remind our readers that the Sorbonne, rebuilt, enlarged,
and richly endowed by Cardinal Richelieu, who bequeathed to it a part of his
property, became at last the seat of the Faculty of Theology.
Created upon the model of Robert Sorbon's foundation, a great many
colleges, instituted by men of mark either in the Church or in society, were
erected as if by magic-no less than sixty were built between 1137 and 1360
-in all parts of the University quarter, which extended in the shape of an
amphitheatre from the summit of Mount Genevieve down to the Seine, and
E




26


6UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


which also spread along the then deserted banks of the stream, from the
bridge of La Tournelle to what is now the bridge of the Saints-Peres.
Two of these colleges call for special notice.  The first is the College of
Navarre, which was founded in 1304 by Queen Jeanne de Navarre, wife
of Philippe le Bel. This college, constructed to receive seventy students, of
whom   thirty were students of arts, twenty of theology, and twenty of
grammar, soon became a model for establishments of a similar kind, and the
high reputation which it had acquired endured for four centuries.  The
University deposited its valuable archives in the chapel of the college, which;was dedicated to St. Louis, the ancestor of the royal founders.  The sons of
the highest families, and even princes of the reigning house, received in
this learned retreat the elements of a classical education, and moreover, by
the terms of the charter, the King was the first bursar of the Navarre
College, which may be considered as one of the most aristocratic institutions of that time, and also the one in which the rules and regulations were
the least strict.
The College de Montaigu, established at a later date in the Rue des
Sept-Voies, upon Mount St. Genevieve, was scarcely less famous than that of
Navarre, but its history is a very different one.  Though it was originally
founded by the wealthy Parisian family of Montaigu, upon such liberal
terms that an income of ten livres (equivalent to twelve or fifteen pounds
sterling in the present day) was secured for the maintenance of each student,
it was so badly managed by the regents that the total revenue of the college
fell to eleven sols in gold, equivalent to about ~40 at the present time. At
this period (1483) the college passed into the hands of Jean Standonck, one
of the most original characters amongst the ancient schoolmasters.  Son of
a Mechlin tailor, arriving in Paris with an ardent desire to obtain a liberal
education, and received out of charity by the Abbey of St. Genevieve,
whose hospitality he repaid by doing odds and ends of work, Jean Standonck,
being endowed with an uncommon degree of energy and perseverance, rose
from the condition of a servant to that of pupil, and eventually became a
master.  Selected by his fellows to manage the affairs of the Montaigu
College, he succeeded in restoring order and economy in the house, in
founding twelve fresh bursarships, and meeting all expenses, without incurring any new debt.    But he only effected all these improvements by
imposing upon his students a very austere regime, and compelling them to




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


27


lead a life as full of privations as his own had been.    Arduous study,
frequent fasts, a meagre pittance, and a rigid discipline, such became the
proverbial condition of the Montaigu students-a condition wittily expressed
in their Latin motto: Moons acUtius, igenlitmu2   acitumit, dentes acuti (a sharppointed mountain, a sharp-pointed mind, and sharp-pointed teeth). Attired
in a cape of coarse cloth, closed in front, and surmounted by a hood fastening
at the back, they were called the paucres capettes of MNontaigu, and they
were to be seen daily fetching their share, conformably with their statutes, of
the bread which the Carthusians of the Rue d'Enfer distributed to the poor.
Erasmus and Rabelais, both of whom learnt by personal experience, at a few
years' interval, the hardships of the Montaigu regime, have immortalised, each
after his own fashion, their melancholy college recollections; the first in one
of his ingenious colloquies, by pouring his maledictions on the inhuman
treatment, the unhealthy lodging, the unwholesome and insufficient food
which had seriously injured his health while a student there; the second by
putting in the mouth of his mock heroes many a stinging epigram about the
college de pouillerie.
Independently of the University and of the colleges, there also existed in
France, as in all Christendom during the Middle Ages, several kinds of
schools, some elementary, open to both sexes, and generally termed little
schools, or French schools, as all that was taught in them was reading and
writing, with a few rudiments of the vulgar tongue and sacred music; the
others, reserved for boys, and called the great schools, or the Latin schools
(Fig. 24). Both of these schools, generally attached to the churches, were
in most cases under the control of a single superintendent responsible to the
bishop of the diocese.   This superintendent, called either rector or headmaster of schools, received from each scholar a fixed annual fee, payable in
two instalments, and a supplementary sum, also divided into two parts, one
of which was set apart for the repair of the building, and placed in the
hands of the provost, while the other was used for the purchase of birches,
which were kept in hand by the head-porter or brtcher (Fig. 25). These
schools only received free scholars whom their parents or relatives undertook to board. They had at their disposal, most of them under the patronage
of some private founder, if not under the auspices of the parochial chapter,
a certain number of purses or gratuities, which were given to the needy
students in return for some small services which they were required to render.




28


UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


Thus, for instance, in the schools at Troyes, the primitives, so called because
of the early morning work they had to do, were exempted from the payment
of any fees, in return for which they had to clean and sweep out the schoolrooms twice a week.
We learn from an inventory of the silver plate of Marie d'Anjou, wife of
Charles VII., for the years 1454-55-an inventory in which are mentioned
the school books used by Charles, Duke of Berry, their second son-what were
Fig. 24.-The Schoolmaster, from the Danse macabre, Guyot Marchant edition (1490).
the works used for the elementary classes previously to the invention of
printing.   These books, which had already been used for the education of
the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI., are: 1st, an A, B, C; 2nd, a psalter,
called the Seven Psalns, which children had to get by heart; 3rd, a Donat,
or treatise of the eight parts of the discourse by IElius Donatus, a grammarian of the fourth century; 4th, an Accidens, another grammar treating of
the cases and conjugations of verbs; 5th, a Cato, a collection of moral
distichs in Latin, with a French translation, attributed to Valerius Cato, a




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


29


poet and grammarian mentioned very favourably by Suetonius; 6th, a
Doctrinal, or Latin grammar, taken from the great work of Priscianus, a
grammarian of the fourth century, and made into Leonine verse (the last
syllable of each line rhyming with the middle syllable) as a help to the
memory, by Alexander de Ville-Dieu, who in 1209 was a distinguished
teacher in the Paris schools. 
These works, although intended for primary instruction, were also meant
to give the pupils some elementary knowledge of the Latin tongue, which,
in almost general use during the Middle Ages, was at once the language
of the Church, of letters, and of sciences, and was the common idiom
Fig. 25.-The Schoolmaster, after a Drawing by Soquand (1528).
amongst all Christian nations.  This will explain how it was that Latin
was not only taught, but spoken, to the exclusion of the vulgar tongue, in the
Universities, the colleges, and the principal schools. It was not until later,
when the modern spirit had propagated amongst the people a multitude of
new ideas and sentiments difficult to translate literally into Latin, that the
struggle began between the language of the ancients and the living tongues
-a long and eventful struggle, which, after heroic efforts in favour of the
beautiful language immortalised by the masterpieces of the ancient classic
writers, ended in Latin being finally relegated to the list of dead languages.
It is interesting to note what efforts were made by the University of Paris,
by the imposition of fines and punishments, in the fifteenth, and even up to




30


UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


the beginning of the seventeenth century, to repel the invasion of French,
which the scholars naturally brought with them when they arrived from
home.   It is true that a regulation, passed in 1434, allowed the use of two
kinds of Latin: the congruous Latin, which every student who had reached
his doctrinal, or Latin syntax, used exclusively; and the incongruous Latin,
which students were permitted to speak amongst each other in the elementary
classes.  French, even in private conversation and out of school hours, was
generally prohibited.
But the Latin tongue, limited, so to speak, to the domain of the
University, recovered all its credit and renown when, at the epoch of the
Renaissance, the literary masterpieces of Rome were once more sought
after, studied, and commented on with ardent emulation by the learned,
circulated in a number of new and revised editions, and welcomed with
enthusiasm by all literary Europe.   Then it was that men of mark and
genius, such as Erasmus, Melancthon, and Mathurin Cordier, composed
colloquies and dialogues, which made the language of the Augustan age
more familiar to the youth of the age of Francois I. and Charles V.  But
these efforts, though successful for the time, were not long triumphant, and
it is a singular and significant fact that of the books of study published
at this period the only one which has survived was written in French, viz.
the Cizilite puerile et hoonnete, which first appeared at Poitiers in 1559, with
the title, far more appropriate to the character of the book, of "A mirror in
which the young may learn good morality and the decencies of life."
But if the books of study used in the ancient schools are now out of date
and long since forgotten, such is not the case with the different kinds of
recreation in which boys and young men used to indulge as a relaxation
from a course of study often abstract and always severe.  The Garglantu of
Rabelais, and the familiar dialogues of Mathurin Cordier, enable us to frame
a list of games which are still played, though in some cases under slightly
different names; as, for instance, the ball, prisoner's-base, leap-frog, quoits,
clicquette (pieces of wood, or shords, which were beaten one against another
to make them ring), ninepins, bat and trap, spinning-tops and whipping-tops,
thefossette, or pitch-farthing (which was formerly played with nuts), odd or
even, cards, draughts, tennis, heads or tails, tip-cat, &c.
These were the peaceable games of children and scholars, but they were
too tame for the turbulent tastes of the older students, whose bad reputation




UNIV"ERSITIES. SCHJOOLS. STUJ)F2VTv


is still proverbial. From all time, grave magistrates, illustrious writers,
famous citizens, and even saintly personages have prefaced their career of.0 0
-81   0
-   -~~~~~~~~~   /  __ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ M
~~  110 ~OWWD  __________________~~___


labour, study, and virtue by a more or less prolonged sowing of wild oats.
At all times, moreover, Paris offered only too many temptations to viee and
dissipation. It is easy, therefore, to understand what miust have been the




32


lT3UNlVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


condition, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the police, as an
institution, were hardly known, and when public morality still felt the
effects of long years of decadence, of a population of students penned up in
a territory which they looked upon as a freehold, consisting, as they did, of
youths on the verge of manhood and of full-grown men, belonging to various
nationalities, and left to their own passions.  When it is further remembered
that a degree of arts could not be obtained before the age of one-andtwenty, and one of theology till the age of thirty-five (after eight years'
study in the latter case), no wonder that this turbulent quarter was a
nuisance, and even a danger for the honest and peaceful inhabitants of Paris.
The whole city was more than once disturbed, and public safety endangered, by the aggressive and disorderly habits of the students. Not a day
passed without quarrels and fights, arising out of the most futile causes.
The insulting epithets which the students applied to each other show, moreover, the antipathies which prevailed amongst them, and the coarseness which
was common to them all.  The English had the reputation of being cowards
and drunkards; the French were proud and effeminate; the Germans dirty,
gluttonous, and ill-tempered; the Normans boastful and deceitful; the
Burgundians brutal and stupid; the Flemish bloodthirsty, vagabond, and
house-burners; and so forth for the rest.
With all this, the person of a clerk (a title appertaining to every student
who had obtained his license) was, according to the canons of the Church,
inviolable; to lay hands upon a student was to commit a crime which
entailed excommunication, and which the Pope alone could absolve (Fig. 26).
This will explain the audacity and arrogance of the students, and it is no
wonder that the civil authorities were, for all the most minute precautions,
continually at a loss how to repress the excesses of these riotous youths,
who, going about day and night in armed bands, indulged in every kind of
disorder, and did not stop at any crime.
The establishment of the colleges led to a decided change for the better.
Previously to this happy innovation the students took advantage of the most
trifling religious or literary occurrence to increase the number of festivals,
which were celebrated with no lack of dancing, masquerades, banquets, &c.
All these scholastic rejoicings were afterwards reduced to two refreshments
(days intended for a carousal), one at the beginning, the other at the end of
the public examinations, a period at which the candidates elected a captain




UNIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


33


from amongst themselves, and to a fete in honour of the patron saint of each
nation.  This was exclusive of the great festivals celebrated in honour of
such and such a patron of the University corporation.
The University, after having at first been placed beneath the guardianship of the Holy Virgin, patroness of the Church and of the city of Paris,
and whose image is to be traced at every epoch upon the seals and other dis

Fig. 27.-The legend of St. Nicholas, after the Bourges stained glass of Fathers Cahier and
Martin (Thirteenth Century). The lower part refers to the popular story of the three students
whom an innkeeper and his wife assassinated and put into a salt-tub,.and whom the saint
brought to life again. At the top the same saint is seen bringing by night a sum of money
sufficient for the dowry of three poor maidens whom their father was unable to provide for.
tinctive emblems of the schools, had adopted as patrons and protectors
several saints to whom      special homage was rendered, viz. St. Thomas a
Becket of Canterbury, St. Cosmo, St. Adrian, and St. Andrew.               Afterwards the only saints feted were St. Nicholas and St. Catherine (Fig. 27), the
one patron of the clerks, the other of young people generally, but especially
of girls.   The nations also had their special patrons.      When the wars with
the English lessened the popularity of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the nation of
F




34             Ny1 VERSITIES, SC, SCHOOLS, STUDETS.
France invoked by preference St. William  of Bourges, an ancient pupil of
the University.  One tribe of the Picardy nation honoured St. Firmin, the
first Bishop of Amiens, while the other tribe feted St. Piat, Bishop of
Tournay. The patron saint of the Normandy nation was St. Romain, Archbishop of Rouen.   The nation of England, after having stamped upon its
seal the image of Edmund the Martyr, Bishop of Norwich, and of St.
Catherine and St. Martin, made a point, when it became the nation of
Germany, of celebrating the festival of St. Charlemagne, who was looked
upon as the founder of the clergy throughout Christendom.
The patron festivals were, therefore, very numerous in the University of
Paris, and the students were always ready to interrupt their studies to take
part in the solemnities which were generally held in the famous Pre-auxClercs, their veritable domain, beginning at the Faubourg St. Germain des
Pres, and extending down to the Seine, all along what are now the Rue St.
Dominique and the Rue de i'Universite.
Of all the festivals at which the students took part in a body, the most
popular was the Lendit fair, which they looked upon as instituted expressly
for their amusement, though it dates back beyond the foundation of the
University itself.
The Paris Cathedral, having received from Constantinople in 1109 some
authentic fragments of the cross, the Bishop, in compliance with the wishes
of the population who could not find room in the Cathedral, where the
relics had been deposited, carried them in great pomp, accompanied by his
clergy, to the plain of St. Denis, where there was room enough for the vast
concourse of worshippers who assembled to contemplate and adore these
relics.  It is a well-ascertained fact that the schools of the cloister of NotreDame took part in the procession. The same ceremony and procession were
renewed at stated periods; and, in the course of time, a market or fair was
established upon the very spot consecrated by the religious ceremony. Every
year, on the 12th of June, the day after the feast of St. Barnabas, the Lendit
(or rather the Indict, that is to say, the day appointed) fair was opened.
It was also called the feast of the parchment (see the volume, " Arts in the
Middle Ages," chapter Parchment, Paper).  Early in the morning of that
day, the students, attired in their best, assembled on horseback at the top
of Mount St. Genevieve, to accompany the rector of the University, who,
arrayed in his scarlet cloak, and wearing his doctor's cap, proceeded on a




I
I
i
J6,
t -
I i I


f. I~~ii~i~.     1;,4 ' 
I-      "   -p 0


("    v,      ",J(,,   'u,  1%p


IA- -                    '         -- A —                    xx
1Fg. 28 -Rector of the Prague University and Scholars of the different Nations who studied in the same University.
From an ancient Picture still possessed by the Prague University.




36


3Ui'SVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUiDEAWTS.


mule or hackney, and accompanied by the deans, proctors, and myrmidons,
to the plain of St. Denis, where the market for the sale of parchment was
already opened.   The rector, upon reaching the fair, caused to be put
aside as much parchment as would be required by the University for the
coming year, and received from the sellers a donation equivalent to ~100
in the present day.   After this the students alighted from their horses,
and, instead of forming part of the procession back to Paris, amused themselves at the fair.  This invariably led to riot and disorder, and not a
year passed without blood being spilt.  Thus, from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, the decrees of Parliament against the carrying of arms or
sticks, decrees which were continually being renewed and always neglected,
testify to the gravity of the evil and to the obstacles in the way of putting
a stop to it.  At last, in 1566, the fair was transferred from the plain to the
town of St. Denis, and at about the same period paper began to supersede
parchment even in public documents.   The rector, therefore, ceased getting
a supply of it at the Lendit fair, and the students had no further pretext to
attend this fair, which soon fell into disuse.  By the beginning of the
seventeenth century the only vestige left of it was the general holdiday which
the rector granted to the students of the University upon the first Monday
after the feast of St. Barnabas.
The clerks and students of Paris were also the principal actors in, if not the
inventors of, certain ridiculous and burlesque ceremonies which, commenced
in the Church, and, after having been tolerated by it, under the name of the
Feasts of the Fusans, of the Ass, and of the Innocents, were only suppressed
by the action of the Church itself (see in this volume the chapter on Popular
Superstitions).  These singular and absurd buffooneries, which were so
popular amongst the students, were, in course of time, succeeded by more
sober recreations, such as theatrical representations within the colleges, openair games, periodical excursions to the country, as, for instance, those to Our
Lady of the Vines and Our Lady of the Fields, or the May excursion, which
terminated in the planting of a tree in full bloom before the rector's gate.
But, as Vallet de Viriville remarks, it took many years to efface the old
traditions of violence and insubordination, for the French chroniclers of the
sixteenth century represent the students of their time as amusing themselves
in a manner that generally exceeded the limits of propriety. To pace the
streets at night, without regard for the tranquillity of the citizens or for the




,UN/VERSITIE,~S, SCHOOLS, STCDEN7SL      3


37


Fig. 29. -Seal of the University of Oxford.


Fig. 30.-Seal of the University of Cambridge.


Fig. 31.-Seal of Balliol College
(founded 1269), Oxford.


Fig. 32.-Seal of the University of Prague.




Cs


38


tUNIVTERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.


modesty of their wives and daughters, to belabour the watchmen and throw
the sergeants into the Seine, were deeds of valour recorded in the souvenirs
of the University, and long talked of by the pupils of the Navarre and
Montaigu Colleges.
The student of the Middle Ages was, as a peculiar type, essentially
Parisian at first, though he soon became naturalised in all the towns where
a University was founded after the twelfth century. He was, perhaps, the


~~ ~~^ --- —-- ~~~ —`-"~~~~~~~~ ~I~~~- ~~". T"r!7-..  -  -— ~-  -  - -- _7,,  ---  --...  1.;.i.;

tf: 
=;;,_; —i ---  ---; —;
1 - ---11 ---5=i:._-iLt- jrl ~i


Fig. 33.-External View of Leyden University, founded in 1575 by William of Nassau. From a
contemporary Drawing in the work entitled, "Illustrium Hollandir, etc., ordinum alma
Academia Leydensis " (Lugd. Batav., 1614, in quarto).
greatest gossip and pedant in Italy, where the University of Bologna, founded
in 1158, soon led to the creation of Universities at Naples (1224), Padua
(1228), Rome (1245), and Pisa (1333).     Students of this stamp naturally
became still more arrogant and quarrelsome in the Germanic Universities
which were founded in succession at Prague (1348), Cologne (1385), Heidelberg (1386), and Leipsic (1409).   The English students at Oxford (1200) and
Cambridge (1257) were less noisy; the Spanish students in the Universities
of Valencia (1209), Salamanca (1250), and Yalladolid (1246) were imie




UNIVERSITIES OF FRANCE.


Date of Foundation. Name of University.


Name of Founders.


About 1180.   MONTPELLIER.    W~illiami, Seigneur of Montpellier; confirired in 1289 by Pope Nicholas IV.
1223.  TOULOUSE.       Pope Gregory IX.
1305.  ORLEANS.        Clement V. and Philippe 10 Bel.
1339.  GRtENOBLE.      IIlumbert IT., Dauphin of the Viennois.
1364.  ANGERS.         Charles V., King of France.
1365.  ORANGE.         Raymond V., Prince of Orange.
1423.  DOLE.           Philippe le Bon, Duke of Borgundy.
1431.  POITIERIS.      Pope Euog6ne IV.; and Charles VII.,$
King of France.
1436.  CAEN.            Henry VI., King of England.
1460.  NANTES.          Pope Pius II.; and Francis II., Duke
of Brittany.
14 69.  BounlcEFS.     Louis XI., King of France.
1472.  BORDEAUX.               Ditto.
15-48.  RIHEIMS.       Henry II., King of France.
1572.  DOUTAI.          Philippe II., King of Spain.
1572.  PON-T-'-IO'USSON. Charles III., Duke of Lorraine.


FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES.


1158. BOLOGNA.
12C0. OXFRDam
1209. YALENCIk (Spain).
1224. NAPLES.
1228. PADUA.
1245. lROME.
1250. SALA-MANCA.
1257. CAMBRIDGE.
1279. COIMBRtA.
1290. LISBON.
1307. PERUGIA.
1333. PISA.
1346. VALLADOLID.


1348. PRAGUE.
1354. HUESCA.
1365. VIENNA.
1368. GENEVA.
1380. SIENNA.
1385. COLOGNE.
1386. HEIDELBERG.
1392. ERFURT.
1394. PALERMO.
1400. CRACOW.
1405. TURIN.
1409. L iiPsTc( 


1426.
1438.
1454.
1454.
1459.
1475.
1502.
1504.
1531.
1575.
1591.


LOUVAIN.
FLORENCE.
TiREYES.
COPENHAGEN.
BILE.
ALCALA.
WITTEMBERG.
SEVILLE.
GRENADA.
LEYDEN.
DUBLIN., / lk" dF,, I
I


r-   o I
K ),K?i4I


j. - 1-1. -1 -  I ". 1.
1412. ST. ANDREZJN" (Scotland).
d,
-40                        — _w  17A
-,             7--)  
— O -I --- —--


 ft" * w,7   'I,) Jl-   ) b
O, I"
I            I


Fig. 34.-Framework of the first page of the MS. of the ",Donize dames de Rh6torique " (Sixteenth Century).
Paris National Library.




40            UVIVERSITIES, SCHOOLS, STUDENTS.
pompous and austere; the Portuguese students at Coimbra (1279) and
Lisbon (1290) were more proud and vain; the Swiss students at Geneva
(1368) and Bale (1459) appear to have been rather torpid and full of
formality, while the Dutch students at Louvain (1426) and Leyden (1575)
were remarkable for their close application to work. But the Paris student
hardly changed in any respect; he remained the same gay and mirthful
companion that Rabelais has depicted in the Panurge of his "Pantagruel."




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.
Annihilation of the Pagan Philosophy.-New Christian Philosophy.-Martianus Capella.Boethius and Cassiodorus.-Isidore of Seville.-Bede, Alcuin, and Raban Maurus.-John
Scotus Erigena.-Origin of Scholasticism.-Gerbert.-Realism and Nominalism.- Beranger of
Tours.-Roscelin and St. Anselm.-William of Champeaux and Abelard.-Gilbert de la Porree
and St. Bernard.-Anmary de Bene.-Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas.-The
Franciscans and the Dominicans.-William of Ockham.-Decadence of Scholasticism.Platonists and Aristotelians.-The Philosophy of the Renaissance.-The Lutheran Schools.
-P. Ramus.-Montaigne.
HE   love  of knowledge, says Aristotle, is
natural to all men.   It is the passion to
which the wise men of antiquity were
r  r  s        slaves, and which still inflames the learned
in our own day.    It is the source of all
science and   of all philosophy.     From
an etymological point of view, what is
philosophy?   It is the love of knowledge.
The Middle    Ages, notwithstanding    the
ardour of religious faith at that period,
were not without philosophy; for during
that period, memorable for the fervour
of belief, the human heart was not insensible to the noble passion which is
innate in it of knowing and understanding all things.       Men sought with
more or less success to discover the truth, and hence resulted the various
aspects which the philosophy of the Middle Ages offers to those who study it.
In the first centuries of the Christian era, when the traditions of the
schools of antiquity seem lost, the cultivation of science was abandoned by
all save a few, and even with them the whole of their philosophy consisted
in a few ill-defined aphorisms. They were succeeded by a few bold thinkers,
who, anxious to obtain the credit of being thought masters, put forth the


G




42


PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


most daring statements, some wholesome and others dangerous, which took
root a little later; and the thirteenth century shows us the thinkers of the
Middle Ages grappling vigorously with barbarism, and gradually attaining a
philosophy which reconciled the verities of the faith and rational conceptions.  But this philosophy was, in turn, attacked by daring innovators,
H!~~~~~~~~~~~ii;-~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fig. 35.-Boetnius takes counsel of Dame Philosophy.-Miniature of the "Consolation of
Boethius," Translation of Jean de Meung, Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-Library
of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.
and, well founded as it was, could not resist their onslaught.   Men's minds
became very agitated, new systems came into existence, and the Christian
faith grew weaker; and so we find ourselves no longer in the century of
St. Louis, but in that of Francois I. and Leo X.
Such are the principal phases through which philosophy passed during::?~~; ~~~~~:iiiiii~ii::~ii




PHILOSOPHIC SCIL'ENCES.


43


the long period which began with the last tumults of the barbarian invasion,
and ended with the Renaissance in the sixteenth century.   Its history is for
the most part difficult to study, and always very dry; yet it has been made
the subject in our day of many works, the best of which, despite its
numerous defects, is that of M. Haureau, from which we shall borrow largely,
availing ourselves also of the valuable researches of AM. Charles Jourdain, the
_C. M cAti      n ^A^ F. L                  t N
Fig. 36.-The Wheel of Fortune.-Miniature from the "Consolation of Boethius," Translation of
Jean de Meung, Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.
editor of Abelard's works, and the historian of the philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas.
Amongst the Christian writers who preserved a few remnants of ancient
learning amidst the ruins of the Roman empire must be mentioned, first of
all, Martianus Capella, philosopher and poet of the fifth century, the author of
the " Satyricon," a sort of encyclopaedia in prose and in verse, which was long




44


PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


adopted in the schools of the Middle Ages as the poetic summary of the
teaching which it attributes to the seven liberal arts-grammar, dialectics,
rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music.  This great work,
which is more remarkable for wit and imagination than for learning and
good taste, may be looked upon as the final flicker of ancient thought-as the
first glimmer of the dawn of modern thought.
Almost contemporaneous with Martianus Capella comes the patrician
Boethius, minister of Theodoric, put to death by order of his master, the
learned interpreter of Aristotle's treatises on Logic, and author of a work in
prose and in verse, which he entitled, " Of the Consolation of Philosophy " (Figs.
35 and 36), and which was one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages.
A contemporary and friend of Boethius at the court of Theodoric was Cassiodorus, also famous for his learning and for his fondness for ancient works, copies
of which he had made, and which he, more than any one else, was instrumental
in preserving for the benefit of future generations. Cassiodorus was the
author of a treatise on the Mind, another on the Seven Liberal Arts, a great
work on Divine Institutions, and letters which form a very valuable contribution to the history of his time.
A century after Boethius and Cassiodorus, the part which they had played
in Italy fell in Spain to Isidore of Seville, who, discouraged at first by the difficulties of study, obtained by force of perseverance the foremost place amongst
the writers of his time for the extent and variety of his works.  In addition
to Commentaries on Holy Writ, and a History of the Visigoth Kings, he has
left a great work, " De Originibus, or the Etymologies," in the twenty volumes
composing which he sums up the elements of theology, jurisprudence, natural
history, agriculture, mechanics, and the liberal arts.
In another part of Europe, Ireland, converted to Christianity by St.
Patrick, became rapidly covered with monasteries, as densely populated as
many towns, and which still retained some remnants of literary culture.  In
England, at the monastery of Jarrow (Durham), was educated the venerable
Bede; there he lived, taught, and died (735), just as he was completing the
commentary of a Psalm, leaving behind him various works, amongst which
are several treatises useful as an introduction to the study of science.
It was in an English monastery, too, at York, that Alcuin, the most
energetic and learned of the assistants employed by Charlemagne to improve
the condition of his schools, was brought up.  The books which he has left




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


45


behind him are instinct with the noblest enthusiasm for philosophy, which he
does not separate from the liberal arts, but the importance of which he
foresees, and which he looks upon as the best preparation for the study of
divinity.
The work of Alcuin was continued by his disciple, Raban Maurus, who
died Archbishop of Mainz in 856.  He contributed to the first progress of
the vulgar tongue by the composition of a Latin-Teuton glossary for all the
books of the Old and New Testament.    The voluminous collection of his
works comprises, together with commentaries upon the Sacred Scriptures, a
treatise upon the "Instruction of Clerks," another upon the " Calculation of
Time," and, above all, an encyclopaedia in twenty books, which he entitled,
" On the Universe," and in which he treats successively of God, of the Divine
Persons, of the angels, of men, and of the other creatures.
A man possessing more original but less solid and reliable qualities than
Raban was the Irish John, surnamed Scotus or Erigena, who figured in the
reign of Charles the Bold (Fig. 37) amongst the masters of the Palace
School founded in Paris by Charlemagne. Scotus, whose talent was subtle
and hardy, and who was well versed in the Greek language, got lost in the
mazes of a philosophy which compromised the verities of the faith by confounding them with the pantheistic hallucinations of the school of Alexandria.
His principal work is a treatise upon the " Division of Natures," in which he
teaches that the creation is eternal; that God derived the world from himself,
and formed it of his own substance; that the Creator and the creature must not,
therefore, be regarded as objects distinct from one another; that the creature
exists in God; and that God, by an ineffable marvel, is created in the creature,
&c. No wonder that these strange doctrines were anathematized by the Church,
and that in the early part of the Middle Ages they had few adepts. The
name of John Scotus had but a momentary celebrity, and was soon forgotten.
There is no need to dwell upon several other masters, such as Heiric and
Remi of Auxerre, whom posterity has almost forgotten, much as they were
thought of by their contemporaries.  But a few words are essential about
that remarkable man, Gerbert, born in Auvergne in the first half of the tenth
century, educated at Aurillac by the monks of the Abbey of St. Geraud,
mixed up in the course of his life in the events which agitated France,
Germany, and Italy, councillor of the Emperors of Germany, in turn schoolman, diplomatist, Archbishop of Rheims and Ravenna, Pope in the year




46


PHILOSOPHIC SCIENACL'S.


K)                                   -
Fig. 37.-Count Vivien, Titular Abbot of St. Martin of Tours, dedicating to Charles the Bold
a Bible written il his Abbey. Charles is seated on his throne, surrounded by his nobles and
guards. The Abbot comes before him, escorted by ten priests, right and left.-Miniature from
"Charles the Bold's Bible," Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-National Library, Paris.
1000, and, amidst the cares of public life, finding time to cultivate the
sciences, a gifted dialectician, well versed in mathematics and physics, and
inventor of an hydraulic organ and clock.       The learning and good fortune




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


47


of Gerbert made such an impression upon the popular mind that he was
reputed to have sold himself to the devil.
Towards the middle of the twelfth century there were some symptoms
of the change which was coming over men's minds, and which was destined
to profit both sacred study and secular science.
A discussion took place as to the dogma of the Eucharist.  It was commenced by the Archdeacon Beranger, a native of Tours, who denied that in
the sacrament the bread and wine were transformed into the body and blood
of Christ.  The doctrine of Beranger was reproved by the whole Church;
several councils condemned it, amongst the fiercest of its adversaries being
Lanfranc of Paris, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Beranger had represented reason as having confidence in herself, and
being more disposed to follow, in the interpretation of the Christian mysteries,
her own lights than mere tradition.  Faith-docile, humble, and submissive,
but faith making an effort to arrive at an understanding of Divine truth-was
represented by the pious and illustrious St. Anselm, the successor of Lanfranc
at Canterbury.  Amongst other works, St. Anselm has bequeathed to us the
"Monologium" and the "Prologium," in which, without resorting to the scholastic formule, and without going back to Holy Writ for any important proofs,
he demonstrates the existence and the attributes of God by the very idea of
God, and the logical sequence of that idea.  This is the argument which,
five hundred years afterwards, runs through the philosophy of Descartes.
The works of St. Anselm earned for him the title of the second St. Augustine.
But at the same period there arose a controversy, wholly philosophical in
appearance, but which had a close affinity with theology, as to the nature of
general and universal ideas-that is to say, of the ideas which can be applied
to several things; as, for instance, the idea of humanity applies to all men.
Are general ideas merely convenient formulae for abridging mental effort and
assisting the memory? or is there, apart from special ideas, a distinct
essence, an unchangeable model of their common characteristics, and the
expression of which in the intelligence is an idea or notion of the same kindthat is to say, general? The question was raised from the very earliest times,
and Plato had decided it in the sense of the reality of ideas: it was handed
down to the Middle Ages by the books of Aristotle, or rather by those of
Porphyrius, his interpreter; and, after having long been dormant in the
schools, solved now in one sense, now in another, it acquired, towards the




48


IPHIL OSOPHIC SCIEINCES.


close of the eleventh century, an extraordinary importance, when a canon of
Compiegne, Roscelin, maintained that all reality is in the individual; that
general ideas, or the unirersals, as they were then called, have no real object;
that they are purely verbal abstractions, mere words, nonmina; whence the term
nomir1inlism applied to this doctrine. His opponents, who attributed to the
unicersals a certain amount of reality, were called realists. Roscelin, applying
his theory to the dogma of the Trinity, argued that the three Divine Persons,
having only in common the resemblance or identity of power and will,
constitute three distinct beings, and, so to speak, three Gods.
St. Anselm protested, in the name of the Church, against this interpretation of the dogma, of which it was the negation. Condemned in 1092 by
the Council of Soissons, Roscelin retracted; but the discussion which he
had raised was destined to last a long time. The school was divided into
two camps: upon the one side the nominalists who, in presence of the
anathema launched against Roscelin, scarcely dared to avcw their opinions;
upon the other the realists, amongst whom   may be mentioned, besides
St. Anselm, Odo of Cambrai, Hildebert of Lavardin, and William of Champeaux. The last mentioned, who died Bishop of Chalons-sur-Marne in 1120,
expounded the doctrine of realism in the schools of Paris, at the cloister of
Notre-Dare, and at the Abbey of St. Victor.   The original part of his
teaching was the theory of the universal.   He maintained that as the
universal is the primitive substance properly so called, individuals are merely
mocdalities or fashions of being, who manifest themselves, soon to disappear,
upon the surface of the unique and indivisible subject. Pressing the consequences of his system a little further, he would have been brought to deny
human personality and liberty-an error from which he was saved by the
sincerity of his religious faith.  William  of Champeaux none the less
recognised reason as the arbiter of natural philosophy, and his disciple,
Bernard of Chartres, declared that human thought is an emanation of the
Divine thought.
Pierre Abelard had at first followed the lessons of William of Champeaux,
but he afterwards declared against him and the realist doctors in a public
course of philosophy which he commenced on his own account, without any
patronage-sine magisfro, as his rivals tauntingly said. From the very first
his success was so great that thousands of enthusiastic hearers assembled to
listen to his arguments and embrace his doctrine. He outdid his predecessors




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


49


in subtlety, boldness of thought, and especially in eloquence; he carried all
his hearers with him; and his system, which was but another form of
nominalism, was generally accepted in the schools, and received the name of
Conceptionalism. It consists in the argument that the universals are neither
realities, as asserted by the realists, nor mere words, as the nominalists would
have it, but conceptions of the intelligence, which, having observed the
resemblance that several individuals have to one another, resumes these
resemblances in a notion which it extends to all these individuals. There
exist only in nature individuals; the only reality of general qualities themselves is in the individuals which possess them; but, in presence of
individual objects, there is the thought which perceives their relations to one
another, which extracts from them what they have in common with each
other, and which thus engenders the notion of kind and species; in a word,
the universals.
If Abelard had confined himself to propounding this theory, he would
have, in all probability, escaped the censure of the Church and some of the
troubles of his after-life. But, like Roscelin, he claimed to apply his
philosophic doctrine to the interpretation of the mystery of the Trinity. Like
Roscelin, he failed, was condemned by two councils, and ended his days,
repentant and submissive, at the Abbey of Cluny.
While Abelard was going astray in the paths of a perilous theology,
other masters who believed themselves to be wiser than he was, carried away
in their turn, struck upon the same shoal. One of them, Gilbert de la
Porree, was at first well received by the Church, for, notwithstanding the
boldness of his doctrine, he was raised to the bishopric of Poitiers. Ile had
been an ardent adversary of the opinions of the nominalists, but without
declaring himself openly for the realists. His realism consisted in supposing
that if "the generation of things began from the moment that the breath of
the Creator produced motion, the primordial forms have not, however, been
altered in their nature by the new act which produced the second forms;
thus the primitive and real substances of the air, of fire, of water, of the
earth, of humanity, of corporeity, &c., have been, are, and ever will be in
themselves permanent, immovable, separate from the subaltern substances or
born forms, which communicate the essence to the sentient phenomena"
(Fig. 38).  According to Gilbert, it is form  which gives being.   The
principle of the common essence-that is to say, of the species or kind-will
H




Fig. 38.-The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, with the political authority by which it is supported. The Religious Orders and the Afflicted appear in the foreground, and, according to an allegory also represented at Florence, the black and white dog at the feet of the Pope is meant to represent the
Dominicans protecting the lambs from heresy in the form of a wolf.-Fragment of the great Fresco, the 1" Church Militant and the Church
Triumphant," painted by Simone Memmi, Sienna Cathedral (Fourteenth Century).




PHIL OSOPIIC SCIENCES.


51


not be a negation, like the non-difterecce, but an affirmation, like the
conformity. But gradually far-seeing minds, alarmed by the novelty of these
theories, grew apprehensive as to the consequences which they might have
upon the faith. Gilbert de la Porree had not hesitated to declare that the
essence being, in the order of generation, above the substance, the Diriity
rIust be something superior to the individual of the Divine system, who, in


Fig. 39.-The Tree of Beings and of Substances. —Fac-simile 'of a Wood Engraving of the
" Cuer de Philosophie," translated from Latin into French, at the request of Philippe le Bel,
King of France. Printed at Paris for Jehan de la Garde, bookseller, in 1514.
human language, is called God.     This declaration caused great scandal; the
author of it was accused of blasphemy against the Divine Persons, and was
cited to appear before an ecclesiastical tribunal at Rheims (1148), and answer
the accusation which was sustained by St. Bernard.       Hle not only expressed
his regret at having unwittingly propagated perilous doctrines, but he
retracted them   and abjured his errors.      St. Bernard   insisted that these




52


PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


doctrines should be solemnly condemned, declaring that they were culpable,
inasmuch as they might have troubled innocent consciences (Fig. 39).
In spite of the perils which the abuse of reasoning might entail upon the
faith, Peter, surnamed the Lombard, who was Bishop of Paris in 1159,
furnished abundant material for his controversy in his book "Les Sentences,"


Fig. 40.-Plenary Court of Dame Justice.-An Allegory referring to Book V. of Aristotle's
"Ethics."   Upon the pendants are inscribed "Fortitudo," "Private Justice," "Legal
Justice," "Mansuetudo," " Eutrepelie," "Distributive Justice," "Commutative Justice."Miniature of a Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.-Burgundy Library, Brussels.


a vast collection of extracts from the writings of the fathers on the principal
points of metaphysics and Christian morality. The author obtained the name
of Maitre des Sentences, and his work became the basis of theological teaching,
and no other work, perhaps, except the Bible, has had so many interpreters.
John of Salisbury, whom Louis le Jeune raised, in 1176, to the bishopric of




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.                         53
Chartres, had attended in his youth all the principal masters of his time,
and had not attached himself to any of their schools. A man of refined
mind, a gifted writer, a great admirer of antiquity, he had no inclination for
the frigid subtleties of the logicians of his day, and though he was animated
by a sincerely religious faith, he inclined towards scepticism in philosophy.
The abuses of dialectics encountered a fierce opposition from two monks of
the Abbey of St. Victor, Hugh, and Richard, his disciple, both of whom
were familiar with the profane sciences, and, to a certain extent, friends of
philosophy, but both the declared adversaries of arid speculations, and
partisans of that method which raises us to God less by the light of the mind
than by that of the heart, less by reason than by faith and love. They were,
in the twelfth century, the representatives of Catholic mysticism.
At that time, however, Christian Europe had not got beyond the logical
works of Aristotle; but at the close of the twelfth century the " Physics," the
"Metaphysics," and the "Ethics" of that great philosopher travelled westward.
They found their way into the Catholic Universities in Latin translations, some
from the Greek text, others from the Arabic version which had long been
employed in the Mahometan schools. To these translations must be added
the commentaries from the pens of Arab writers. The unlooked-for appearance of these monuments of the philosophical genius of Greece and of the
East made a profound impression upon men's minds. Some men lost their
heads, such as Amaury de Bene, David of Dinant, and their disciples, a great
number of whom perished at the stake, victims of their errors and of the alarm
they had caused in the ranks of Christian society. Others, more circumspect,
more attached to tradition, endeavoured to turn to the profit of religion
these treatises and commentaries, hitherto unknown, which had enriched the
literature of the West. They sought to discover in them truths which the
Church was accustomed to teach, and which they set to work to advocate
(Fig. 40). The "Physics" and "Metaphysics," first of all proscribed, gradually
became, for the most pious of the doctors, subjects of assiduous study and the
source from which they drew a part of their doctrines. Alexander of Hales,
surnamed the Irrefutable Doctor, who died in 1245, was one of the most able
interpreters of the philosophy of Aristotle.  After him, William   of
Auvergne, who had studied the philosophers of the Neo-Platonist school of
Alexandria and the Arab philosophers, employed his theological erudition in
combating the erroneous consequences which the modern partisans of these




54


PIIL OS 0PHIC SCIENACES.


Fig. 41.-The Hour of Death.-Allegoric Miniature placed at the beginning of the Service for
the Dead in a "Liber Horarum."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-The Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.
The sinner, at the point of death, with his sins staring him in the face, turns away from
them to listen, but too late, to the advice of his good angel; his conscience, black with his
faults, reminds him of them all, and remorse like a serpent is devouring his heart. He
remains suspended between hell, a monster vomiting flames and awaiting his prey, and God,
who with his right hand threatens him with his justice, and with his left expresses his desire
to show mercy.




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.                         55
philosophers had drawn from their doctrine. He was raised to the see of Paris,
which he occupied until his death (1249); and his episcopacy, which did
honour to the Church, also rendered good service to the cause of sound
philosophy.
Another doctor of that time, Jean de la Rochelle, who acknowledged
Avicenna as his master, wrote a "Treatise on the Soul," which ranks as one
of the principal monuments of philosophy in the thirteenth century.
The appearance of a man not less remarkable for his genius than for his
learning, and who renewed and extended the course of teaching by introducing into it the experimental study of nature, was Albertus Magnus, whose
reputation spread through France, Germany, and Italy.  Born at Lauingen,
in Swabia, in 1193, and belonging to an old family in that country, he commenced his studies at Padua; and from thence he proceeded to the schools of
Bologna and Paris, in order to perfect himself in all the sciences by attending
the lectures of the best masters.  At the age of twenty-nine he joined the
Order of St. Dominic, and was immediately commissioned by his superiors to
go and teach philosophy in the Dominican house at Cologne. He returned
to Paris in 1228, and was received Doctor.   There he opened, at the
Monastery of the Preaching Brothers in the Rue St. Jacques, a public course
of lectures, which inaugurated the success of the Dominican school. "From
all parts," says M. Haureau, "people flocked to his lectures, and the students
would not listen to anybody but this insignificant-looking man, worn to a
skeleton by study, but for whom, as it seemed, neither heaven nor earth had
any secrets; whose learning was, compared with that of others, like the light
of the sun to the flickering fires of a burnt-out lamp; and whose eloquence
ravished all who heard him, communicating to them the divine passion for
knowledge."  Appointed Provincial of the Dominicans in Germany, Albert
was compelled to abandon his teaching in order to visit the monasteries of
his order, travelling on foot, and subsisting on alms.  He had the good
fortune to discover in the libraries of these monasteries several ancient works
which he had thought lost: he had them copied out under his own eyes, and
thus saved many precious relics of Latin antiquity.  He was summoned to
Rome by Pope Alexander IV., who conferred upon him the freedom of the
sacred palace, and soon afterwards raised him to the episcopacy.  But
Albert, after holding the bishopric of Ratisbon for three years, resigned his
charge in order to resume his favourite studies, and returned to the monastery




56


PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.




of the Dominicans at Cologne, where he opened a fresh course of teaching.
His contemporaries surnamed him the Universal Doctor; and when he died in
1280, aged eighty-seven, he left behind him countless works upon every
branch of human learning-amongst others, some voluminous commentaries
on all the books of Aristotle.
Albertus Magnus has erroneously been classed amongst the realists; he
belonged rather to the nominalists, having declared in favour of the doctrine
of Abelard upon the principal questions which excited the controversy of
the schools.  Thus, far from considering the kinds and species as substances,
he looked upon them as essential modes, as manners of being inherent in the
Fig. 42.-Seal of the Faculty of Theology  Fig. 43.-Counter-Seal of the Unierity
Fig. 42.-Seal of the Faculty of Theology  Fig. 43.-Counter-Seal of the University
of Paris (Fourteenth Century).         of Paris (Fourteenth Century).
substance of individuals.  He defined, after the fashion of the nominalists,
the things which are the object of empirical research; that is to say, the
beings which together make up the universe. Albertus Magnus was never
persecuted, or even looked upon with suspicion, because of his doctrines; he
had the good sense to stop short at the limits beyond which lay heresy. His
doubts and indecision began at the point where it was dangerous to follow up
the argument, and to resolve problems which the Church will not allow to
be approached except by the foot of faith.
These problems the great St. Thomas Aquinas, the pupil and contemporary of Albertus Magnus, brought, so to speak, within the limits of




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


57


orthodoxy, and, starting from well-understood principles, deduced from them
their ultimate consequences by the superiority of his dialectical method.
This method enabled him to range his opinions and judgments in logical order,
and at the same time saved him from taking a single step in the direction
of heresy. His " Somme de Theologie " and his " Somme contre les Gentils"
rank with the most remarkable productions of human genius.  The precision
and surety with which the author of these two works maintained his balance
amidst the mazes of the questions involved are something marvellous.  St.
Thomas Aquinas was born at Naples in 1227, upon the territory of Aquino,
from which he derived his name, and he was only thirteen years of age when
he completed his studies at the school of Naples.  The Preaching Brothers
of that city induced him to join their order, notwithstanding the efforts of
his family, which was both noble and influential, to make him adopt a
judicial or diplomatic career.  After taking the vows, he was sent first to
Paris, and afterwards to Cologne, where he attended the lectures of Albertus
Magnus. Thomas was of a pensive and dreamy disposition, talking little,
and avoiding argument and dispute.  His fellow-pupils nicknamed him the
" Dumb ox of Sicily."   His master had one day occasion to question him
upon several intricate matters in the presence of a numerous audience, and
Thomas Aquinas answered him with remarkable boldness and accuracy. Albert,
turning with delight towards the audience, which had listened in silence to
the able answers of the young Neapolitan, said, "You call Thomas a dumb
ox, but the day will come when the lowings of his doctrine will be heard
all over the world."  Thomas, eager to learn and study, returned to Paris,
and again became a student in the house of the Dominican Friars in the Rue
St. Jacques; but at the expiration of three years he was recalled to Cologne
by his esteemed master, with whom he studied for another four years sciences
of all kinds, sacred science in particular. In 1248, when Albertus became the
Provincial of his order in Germany, Thomas returned to Paris, to the house
in the Rue St. Jacques where he had already learnt so many useful lessons,
and it was there that he completed his theological studies by a commentary
on Pierre Lombard's " Sentences." After being received Doctor, he began his
lessons, in which he developed with marvellous lucidity the various parts of
his " Sum of Theology," which became the basis of his great reputation. Ile
continued his teaching to large audiences for many years, and he wrote
without intermission a vast number of theological treatises, forming altogether
I




58                   PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.
eighteen folio volumes. The University of Paris had adopted him as one of
her sons, and was proud of being able to own him as such.  But Charles of
Anjou, King of Naples. was anxious to place him at the head of that University, and induced Pope Clement IV. (Fig. 44) to recall him to Italy. Thomas
Aquinas reluctantly obeyed, for he was in declining health, and afflicted with
premature infirmities. The frequent journeys which he had been obliged to
take in the interests of the Church added to his fatigues, and while on his


z&


Fig. 44.-Portrait of Clement IV.-Fresco Painting, on gold ground, in Mosaic, in the
Basilica of St Paul-without-the-Walls at Rome (Thirteehth Century).
way to the Council of Lyons, in 1274, he was compelled to break the journey
near Terracina, at a Cistercian monastery, where he died, after a few days'
illness, at the age of forty-eight.
Thomas Aquinas, whom the Church afterwards placed amongst her saints,
left the highest reputation behind him in the Paris schools.  He was called
the Second St. Augttine, the Angel of the Schools, the Angelic Doctor, the
Doctor of Doctors.  In fact, his was the only theology taught in most of the
Catholic schools subsequently to the thirteenth century.




Fig. 45 -St.. Augustine, Bishop of IHippo, wearing the dress of his order under his episcopal
cape, surrounded by monks to wbl~.di he is giving the books of prayer. At his feet is Aristotle,
holding in his right hand a pendant upon which is written, "1Dicimtis mtundum esse teternuni,
non habere principium, neque, finem." Aristotle declares the eternity of matter, a doctrine
refuited by St. Augustine.-From a Picture in the Campaina Mluseum.-Italian School of the
Fifteenth Century.




60


PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


However, the scholastic spirit had not quenched the ardour for research,
and St. Thomas, notwithstanding his immense authority, had more than one
opponent. The dispute took place, it is true, upon the ground of philosophy,
between the Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis. Albertus Magnus, by
declaring himself the enemy of the realists, had excited the hostility of the
Franciscans, who adhered to the opinion of their first doctor, Alexander of
Hales.  St. Thomas, out of respect for his master, Albert, had joined the
camp of the nominalists, but he was often at variance with them, and could
not follow Albert the Great in all his conclusions of doctrine.  Thus, notwithstanding his deep study of the natural sciences, he had less inclination
for physics than for metaphysics, and his favourite subjects of discussion were
those relating to the spiritual substance, its faculties, its functions, and its
acts.  When it was a question of explaining the nature of ideas, he inclined
towards realism.  A disciple of St. Augustine, and, through him, of Plato,
he held that ideas are distinct forms, which exist in permanency in the Divine
intellect; they are, according to him, substantial entities forming part of
a world which is the pattern of the external and the intellectual world
(Fig. 45).
The philosophical doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas was not attacked in
earnest until after his death, though the questions were mooted while he was
alive.  Henry of Ghent and Roger Bacon had warmly espoused the cause of
the Franciscans and the doctrine of Alexander of Hales, which was pure
realism.  St. Bonaventure (Fig. 46), who died at about the same time as
St. Thomas Aquinas, had waged war more against rationalism than nominalism.  He belonged to the Order of St. Francis, and he had certain mystic
tendencies, urging his hearers to avoid the schools and despise science.  The
detractors of philosophy ranged themselves to the banner of John of Wales,
who was also a Franciscan; and this was not the only defection in their
ranks, for Richard of Middleton professed nominalism at the University of
Paris, but he met a stout adversary in William of Lamarre, who advocated
the Franciscan doctrine against the Dominicans.  And so the struggle went
on.   The best supporter of the doctrine of St. Thomas was his pupil and
fellow-countryman, Egidio Colonna, who acquired in this war of the schools
the curious nickname of Doctor fiundamentariu8s, his  partisans having
ascribed to him the honour of having laid the foundation of nominalist
science.




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


The Franciscans got the best of the dispute, under the leadership of one
of the most celebrated masters of his time, the formidable opponent of the


m.."A.
Ir


I


Fig. 46.-St. Bonaventure.-From a Fresco Painting by John of Florence, in the Chapel of
Nicholas V. at the Vatican (Fifteenth Century).


school of St. Thomas. This was the doughty Duns Scotus, who was surnamed
the Stbtle Doctor, and whom the Franciscans called the Column, the Torch,




62                   PHIL OSOPHIC S(CIECES.
the ever-shining Star of Science. He was born in 1274, in the British Islesin England according to some, in Ireland according to others; but the probability is, as his name implies, that he was Scotch.  He donned the garb of
St. Francis before going to study at Merton College, Oxford, and his talents
at first lay in the direction of mathematics.  But he soon filled the chair of
philosophy in the college where he had completed his classes, and thousands
of pupils assembled to hear him (Fig. 47).   He studied theology, and
obtained his doctor's degree at Paris, and the superior of the Franciscans
sent him to Cologne, where he taught both theology and philosophy.  He
died in 1308, at the early age of thirty-four, leaving'behind him an enormous
mass of philosophical treatises, which were not collated till the seventeenth
century, when they were published in twenty-five folio volumes.
Albertus Magnus had sought in natural philosophy the fundamental basis
of knowledge, and St. Thomas thought that it was to be found in theology,
while Duns Scotus endeavoured to trace it back to logic. According to him,
syllogism is the sole rule of certainty. But, as M. Haureau remarks, starting
from  this principle, the journey is full of perils. Duns Scotus, in fact,
was very near falling into them, and only escaped by taking refuge behind
the quibbles of sophistry. He was, nevertheless, a firm believer and full
of piety, and it was from his ardour in dialectics that he was led to uphold
the most extreme views of the realists.  In his researches into the distinct
nature of every compound, he endeavoured to extract from it the various
qualities which he found inherent in or adherent to the same subject. In this
way he looked upon matter separated from all form, form separated from all
matter, or merely matter separated from certain forms, and at the same time
united to certain others.  Each of these notions, each of these distinct
conceptions, he made to correspond with a nature, an existence of its ownIt was to obscure and intangible lucubrations such as these that scholasticism
devoted voluminous treatises, which led to passionate discussion, and which
were the main subject of conversation amongst the students while they were
pacing up and down the Pre'-aux-Clercs (Fig. 47).
The champions of St. Thomas and Duns Scotus waged war against each
other for several centuries in the vague domain of obscure abstractions.
Alexander of Hales was superseded by Duns Scotus, as represented by his
disciples and followers, viz. Francois de Mayronis (surnamed the Enlightened
Doctor), Antonio Andrea, John Bassolius, and Pietro d'Aquila (Fig. 48). The




Fig. 47.-View of St. Germain des Pres and of the Pre-aux-Clercs during the reign of Charles V.-l, the Abbey of St. Germain des Pres; 2, the Louvre; 3, the
Petit Bourbon; 4, the Seine; 5, Montmartre.-Fac-simile in Miniature of the Engraving " History of St. Germain des Pres," by Dom Bouillart, in folio (1724).




64


PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


Dominicans did not give up the contest, and St. Thomas had many fervent
and eloquent successors.  "In order to avoid being accused of betraying
their cause," says M. Haureau, "all Franciscans were obliged to declare
against St. Thomas, and all Dominicans against Duns Scotus. The few
exceptions were denounced as schismatics.   Thus, for instance, Pierre
d'Auriol, surnamed in the University of Paris the Eloquent Doctor, was,
although a Franciscan, one of the nominalists.  A dialectician of the first
rank, he attacked without mercy psychological realism in St. Thomas,
and did not spare the natural species, the image-ideas of his school.  This
fierce controversy, which indirectly attacked the doctrine of Duns Scotus,
caused great excitement in the ranks of the realists, most of whom belonged
to the Order of Franciscans.  Upon the other hand, the secession of Durand
de St. Pourcain, called the Very Resolute Doctor, who, while professing
philosophy, forgot that he was a Dominican and upheld the doctrines of
Duns Scotus, was a gain to the Franciscans. M. Haureau says, " From this
epoch, the fact of belonging to one particular order in religion ceased to
imply implicit obedience to any one philosophical sect; the ties of discipline
were loosened, and though the two schools still existed, each individual took
up the position which seemed best in his own eyes."
It was from England, once more, that came the next celebrity of scholasticism.  William of Ockham, born in the town from which he took his
name, was a pupil of Duns Scotus, and proved worthy of his great master,
After having passed his youth with the Dominican Friars at Guildford, he
repaired to Paris, where he found more scope for expounding his doctrine of
nominalism.  At first he had upheld the realist doctrines of his master,
but the force of logic drove him into the opposite camp.  His system is best
described in the words of M. Haureau, who says that William of Ockham,
by an analysis of the faculty of knowledge, saw that it was seconded by the
intuitive, which we call perception, and by the abstractive, which we call
abstraction. With these two energies correspond the simple ideas which
the view of tangible objects affords us, and the compound ideas which
the intelligence forms by comparison, by abstraction.  William  of Ockham
further demonstrated that the realists, having misapprehended human intelligence in its manner of being and its manner of action, had fallen into a profound error in their definition of Divine Intelligence. God is the name of the
mystery; everybody can see and judge his works; nobody can appreciate








AP,




[ItE R. T SURRJC(>TI()N OF THE DIf)AD AND) T411E \WitKiGIING OF SOULS iN TH1E B1,AlANC:,
Al 1TLIE LAST JUDGM I   N T
Mi  niat ure   fr i, i tt',I/ ' $   I s. tf f e xflro  ( ' iftiLr,  rtinf t  th  ' t   t n  rt of thie treasul-  I  ti -
'n bie t Tof, isy*  > nI  T. L A  'ienIl library, laris.




I. t
I  It
0




PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


the nature of God. Realism, therefore, has committed a grave and dangerous
error in attempting to explain the nature of Divine ideas.  God imagined
the world before creating it: St. Augustine has stated this; but is it necessary
to go any further?   Why people the thought of God with elements, and
intelligibles, and spiritual atoms?  To credit God himself with all these
imaginary things, does not this imply the placing of limits and bounds upon
his omnipotent will, and submitting Him, by analogy, to the same conditions


Fig. 48.-Italian Doctors (Fifteenth Century).-Miniature of " The Life of St. Catherine of
Sienna."-Manuscript in the Paris National Library.
as his creatures?  Is it becoming to reduce the nature of God to a conception derived from experience, formed by human reason, representing a sum of
qualities abstract from things, but not defining the pure essence of God,
inasmuch as that mysterious essence escapes by its very nature all the investigations of intuitive energy?   Such was the principal thesis of William of
Ockham, who was the most thorough-going interpreter of nominalism during
the Middle Ages.
K




66


PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


This great doctor was not attacked by the Sorbonne, though he had many
formidable adversaries, but his attitude towards the Papacy, with reference to
the dispute between Philippe le Bel and Boniface VIII., marked him out for
the resentment and vengeance of the Court of Rome.  He had sided with
the French king, and was well seconded by Michael de Cesene, General of the
Franciscans, when he continued his aggressive attacks against John XXII.
and the Papal power.  The Pope resented the attack, not so much in his
individual capacity as in that of Vicar of Christ, and he summoned William
of Ockham and Michael de Cesene to Avignon, where the Holy See had fixed
its residence during the establishment of an antipope at Rome. The two
Franciscans, having obeyed the order, were cast into prison, and their trial bid
fair to result in summary punishment; but they managed to escape to AiguesMortes, where they were received on board a vessel belonging to Louis of Bavaria.
Welcomed by him, they ended their days in obscurity within his dominions.
The doctrine of William of Ockham survived him in the schools, and the
doctors who endeavoured to oppose it had few followers.  Walter Burleigh
himself, notwithstanding his courageous endeavours to revive the cause of
realism, could not secure any attention. The nominalists were everywhere
the most numerous and the most zealous. Their masters were esteemed doctors,
doughty dialecticians, evangelic and zealous party leaders; such as Robert
Holcot, Thomas of Strasburg, Jean Buridan, and Pierre d'Ailly.  Most of
them were professors, and their teaching acquired them influence and renown.
Above all these discordant doctrines there rose the venerable voice of
Jean Charlier de Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, who, protesting against the abuses of dialectics, said, "Let us put an end to frivolous
disputes; let us make use of Reason solely in order to arrive at the truth,
which it cannot do without the aid of Faith. It is the rule-of Faith that we
need follow, and if some refractory or stubborn minds still cling to the
quibbles of philosophy, let us deplore their being led astray, and humbly seek
in the bosom of the Church, far from the schools, peace, light, and life."
This touching appeal, by one who well deserved the title of Evangelical and
Very Christian Doctor, for a return to mystic theology (Fig. 49) did not find
an echo in many minds; it did not prevent the young from being led away in
the heat of dialectics, and siding with the philosophers of logic.
But all these systems, springing from logic pursued to its final limits,
were destined to fall of themselves, involving in their ruin that of nearly all




Fig. 49.-Miniature of the " City of God," by St. Augustine, translated by Raoul de Presles.-Manuscript
of the Fifteenth Century. St. Genevieve Library.-The upper enclosure represents the saints who have
been already received into heaven; the seven lower enclosures represent those who are preparing themselves, by the exercise of Christian virtues, for the heavenly kingdom, or who are excluding themselves
from it by committing one or other of the seven capital sins.




68


PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


their champions.  The triumph of nominalism completed the discomfiture
of scholasticism, which was no longer so popular in the Universities, and
which was gradually being confined to the cloisters.  It may be added that
the struggle between the rival schools was much abated by the discovery of
printing; for, owing to this invention, which was called divine, the works of
ancient philosophy, which had been used as texts for the oral teaching of the
professors, became multiplied amongst the friends of science.  These printed
books, making their way everywhere, were calculated to take the place of the
lessons which students had previously come to learn at the Universities famous
for the ability of their masters of dialectics.  As M. Haureau very justly
observes, "Before the invention of printing, students learnt the lessons of
science from one master, and nearly always became his partisans: to quit one
school for another required no common degree of courage. But afterwards
students were enabled, before making their choice, to weigh the merits of ten
masters at a time." These masters were the books issued from the presses in
every country of Europe (Fig. 51).
The philosophy of the Renaissance was just coming into existence when the
fugitive Greeks, after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, imported
into Italy manuscripts containing the works of Plato and of philosophers of
the Alexandrian school. These works, which it was believed had been lost,
and of which only a vague recollection had been preserved by tradition, were
welcomed in the middle of the fifteenth century with even more respect and
enthusiasm than the books of Aristotle had been in the twelfth century.
The comparison of ancient philosophy with the scholasticism of the more
modern schools was not to the advantage of the latter, which seemed too
narrow, too obscure, and too servile.  The writings of Plato gave a better
idea of the opinions of Heraclitus and Pythagoras, and opened new vistas to
many minds which were eager to shake off all bonds, and to emerge from the
paths in which theology had been guiding them for the last four or five
centuries (Fig. 50).
This period of philosophical renovation began by a sharp discussion
between two Grecian philosophers of Constantinople, Gemistes Plethon and
Theodoros de Gaza: the first a fanatical partisan of the Alexandrian school
of Plotinus, the second a faithful votary of Aristotle. The old scholasticism
was dead; the chairs which it formerly had at Florence and the great cities
of Italy were tenanted by the new doctors, who expounded the principles of




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


69


Plato and Aristotle.  The names talked of in the schools were those of
Ermolao Barbaro, Angelo Politien, and Lorenzo Valla. A student of Louvain,
Rudolph Agricola, came to take lessons from these illustrious masters, and
returned to Flanders to propagate their doctrines. In Spain, as in France,
these doctrines, taken from the ancient philosophers of Greece and of Egypt,
were hailed with unanimous enthusiasm.    The University of Paris was
powerless to arrest this stream of novelties which the Italian Renaissance


Fig. 50.-Bachelors of the Faculty of Theology, and Professors of the Faculties of
Theology, Jurisprudence, and Medicine at the University of Pont-a-Mousson.-From
the Funeral of Henry IT., Duke of Lorraine, by Claude de la Ruelle.-National
Library, Paris. Cabinet of Engravings.


poured upon the West. There was an end to schools and to discipline;
license, anarchy, and confusion reigned supreme.
Upon the one hand, Nicholas de Cusa declared with Pythagoras that
knowledge is hidden in the mysterious notion of numbers, and he went so
far as to represent the Divine Essence as an harmonious centre in which all
differences are blended. Upon the other hand, Marsilius Ficinus, who died in
1499, founded a Platonist academy, and, under colour of explaining the Holy




70


PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


Gospels, he worshipped exclusively his divine Plato. Then, again, we have
the infant prodigy, Jean Pic de la Mirandola, who, after having studied all
the sciences known at that time, and after having, at the age of three-andtwenty, argued the thesis "De omni re scibili," endeavoured to reconcile the
philosophy of Aristotle and Plato by the aid of wild cabalistic and astrological evocations.  This was the origin of a new school of cabalists,
magicians, and astrologers. They were, no doubt, consummate men of
learning, those Germans and Italians (Fig. 52), who sought to bring to the
light of day the material and immaterial arcana of nature. Thus, Jean
Reuchlin associated in his writings cabalism and scholasticism. George of
Venice held that in the mysteries of generation and of life substance is the
unique and absolute being, the only God. Theophrastus Paracelsus, who is
no other than Philip Bombastes of Hohenheim, mixing metaphysics with
physics like two medical substances, affirmed that God, of whom he made the
principle of universal life, has united the body and the soul by an animal
fluid. There was a wide interval between these vain musings and the safe
doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas, or the dialectical abstractions of Duns Scotus.
Aristotle still had followers who alleged that they remained faithful to
his doctrine, but the general tendency of the time carried them over the
precipice. Peter Pomponacius of Mantua (born in 1462, died in 1526)
announced that he took his stand upon peripateticism, but he raised a very
dangerous question by inquiring whether or not Aristotle admitted the
principle of the immortality of the soul.  He concluded in the negative,
adding that reason and faith must supplement the silence of the master in
this respect. This reverse was not taken any account of by his adversaries,
who reproached him, the one side with outraging Aristotle, and denounced
him as a heretic; the other side with having made a treacherous use of the
doctrines of peripateticism to advance an abominable heresy.  Pomponacius
had, notwithstanding, many devoted followers, who went more or less astray
in the occult sciences or in scholasticism, amongst them being Augustine
Niphus of Calabria, and Julius Caesar Scaliger of Padua.
As to scholasticism, the aberration of its opponents obtained for it several
ardent champions. Such were Thomas de Vio, surnamed Cajetan, born in
1469, who became cardinal, after having professed the philosophy of
St. Thomas; his pupil, Leonicus Thomaeus of Venice, who devoted all his
energies to the restoration of purq logic, which was neither more nor less




PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


7'


than the doctrine of Aristotle; James Zabarella of Padua, who was fully
versed in all the great philosophers of the thirteenth century, and who sought
to make them harmonize with Aristotle.
These in their turn were succeeded by the old Arab commentators of the
books of Aristotle, Averroes in particular; Achillini of Bologna, and
Zabarella merely reproduced the opinions of the last named. But the most
illustrious of the new Averroists was Jerome Cardan of Pavia, that great
genius who, by the elevation to which he raised all the sciences, became the


Fig. 51.-Dame Philosophy.-Miniature of the " Treasure," by Brunetto Latini.
Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-The Arsenal Library.


wonder of his century. M. Haureau says of him, "This man, whose mind,
enthusiastic, restless, and incapable of repose, welcomed all doctrines of every
kind, was the slave of every system in turn; first worshipping, then insulting
all the gods, even the god of conscience; he was not an individual, he was a
whole generation of philosophers."  He had more play of mind than of
judgment, and his inconsiderate ardour, regulated neither by good sense nor
by a sincere faith, led him into the most monstrous anomalies.    Like
Averroes and all the pantheists, he upheld the double principle of the




72


PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


unity of substance and the unity of motion. He was accused of being an
atheist, but he dissembled his real opinions so well that he was pensioned by
the Pope, and died at Rome (1576), drawing horoscopes and selling elixirs.
This same school naturally produced several lunatics and victims of
hallucination, some inclining to pantheism, and others to scepticism, the
latter having studied medicine and the former scholasticism before they were
smitten with a desire to know and to define the essence of God and the
essence of the soul. Andrew Cesalpin of Arezzo, who had been physician to
Pope Clement VIII., was, upon good grounds, suspected of pantheism, and
even of atheism, for having maintained with Averroes that God was not so
much the cause as the substance of all things. Notwithstanding the errors
contained in his works, he escaped all persecution, and died a Christian death
at Rome in 1603. But the unhappy Jordano Bruno, a Dominican monk,
was less fortunate than Andrew Cesalpin. Possessed of talents more prolific
than judicious, endowed with a brilliant imagination, and carrying his
confidence to the point of presumption, Bruno, who had already been
denounced for the boldness of his systems, was about to be proceeded against
by the ecclesiastical authorities when he fled into Naples.  He wandered
from city to city during twenty years, and printed at London, Paris, and
Frankfort several philosophical treatises, in which he attacked both the
Catholic dogma and the doctrine of Aristotle. His boldness proved fatal to
him, and, having the imprudence to return to Italy, the Inquisition caused
him to be arrested, tried, and condemned to the stake as a relapsed heretic.
He was burnt at Rome in 1600.
While the doctrine of Aristotle was supreme in North Italy, the schools
of the kingdom of Naples accorded the preference to Plato and to the
Alexandrian philosophers; but whether under the auspices of Plato or
Aristotle, it was none the less pantheism which reigned everywhere alike.
Thus Telesio was pantheist in his chair at Cosenza; Patrizzi, who occupied
the chair at Ferrara, was not only a pantheist, but came to profess this
pagan doctrine in the very University of Rome. The great names of Plato
and Aristotle served as a cloak for the tendencies of their interpreters. The
Inquisition did not consider itself called upon to defend the Church against
science, for the apostles of the Aristotelist and Platonist philosophy had no
part in the schemes of the heretical innovators.
It was necessary, however, to select a philosophy for the Lutheran schools.




PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


73


That of Plato was rejected; and Melancthon obtained the adoption of
that of Aristotle, and himself prepared, for the teaching of philosophy and in
conformity with Aristotelian principles, several elementary works which were
received with merited favour. Erasmus (Fig. 53), who remained a Catholic
with Lutheran tendencies, also followed the example of Melancthon, and
undertook the translation of several treatises of Aristotle, revising them for
the use of the Bale school. But the philosophy of Aristotle took another
direction and attained another aim when carried into the Netherlands. The
Flemish Justus Lipsius, born near Brussels in 1547, followed in the wake of


Fig. 52.-The Natural Sciences in the presence of Philosophy.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving
attributed to Holbein in the German Translation of the " Consolation of Philosophy," by
Boethius, Augsburg Edition, 1537, in folio.


the Stoics, applied their moral philosophy to the theories of peripateticism,
and did not separate theology from philosophy.  Gaspard Scioppius and
Thomas Gataker were his principal disciples.
France also had her share in these philosophical innovations.  She had
been the first home of scholasticism, but the civil and religious wars of the
sixteenth century had caused an almost total suspension of study.  But
Pierre Ramus, more commonly called La Ramee, born in Picardy in 1515,
set to work to revive the teaching of philosophy, condemning Aristotle, and
L




74


PHILOSOPHIC SCIE CES.


recommending his pupils to read Plato.     He endeavoured to make logic
generally comprehensible by freeing it of sophistical verbiage, and he very
ingeniously made use of this new logic to inculcate in the minds of his pupils
the maxims of the Reformation, for he was a Calvinist with fanatical
tendencies.  He was cited before the parliament, not for his religious
opinions, but for his blasphemies against peripateticism, and though his trial
Fig. 53.-Portrait of Erasmus, after a Wood Engraving of the Sixteenth Century.
National Library, Paris. Cabinet of Designs.
was not of an inquisitorial character, he was condemned, deprived of his
professor's chair at the Royal College, and compelled to leave the country.
His implacable enemies, Antonio de Govea, Jacques Charpentier, and others
saw in him less the Huguenot than the detractor of Aristotle. Ramus, who
had become the chief of the small school of Ramists, went to lecture in the




PHIL OSOPHIC SCIENCES.


75


towns on the banks of the Rhine. After three years' exile he returned to
France, and was included in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. His personal
enemy, Jacques Charpentier, of Clermont (in the Oise), professor of mathematics at the Royal College, was accused of having had him massacred by his
pupils during that terrible night.
Plato, notwithstanding the efforts of Ramus, had not many followers in
the University of Paris, where scholasticism endeavoured to regain its sway.
Aristotle continued to be the favourite of the school, and his philosophical


Fig. 54.-Battle of Beggars and Peasants over a Barrel of Wine in the Chapter headed, " Comment les vices se combattirent les uns aux autres pour les vivres."-Miniature of the "Roi
Modus."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-Burgundy Library, Brussels.


predominance was fostered by the decrees of the Parliament and the royal
ordinances.  But the true French spirit was less in the direction of the
study of logic, even reformed and renewed, than in moral philosophy,
especially when it had a tendency to be sceptical and sarcastic (Fig. 54).
Montaigne, at the close of the fifteenth century, was, so to speak, the founder
of this philosophy, which neither denies nor affirms anything, which calls everything in question, and makes light of all subjects.  He was born at the




76


PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES.


Chateau de Montaigne, in the Perigord, upon the 28th of February, 1533.
Though he attended all the classes at the College of Bordeaux, he may be
said to have been self-taught, and to have become a philosopher in his own
way through his intercourse with the poets, historians, and philosophers of
antiquity.  He delighted in the works of Seneca and Plutarch, but he would
not "bite his nails over Aristotle, the monarch of modern doctrine."  In
after-years, when he wrote his immortal " Essays," he unhesitatingly declared
against the dialectics of the schools-against every kind of doctrinal teaching.
" It is pitiable," he writes, "that in our century philosophy should be, even
for men of intelligence, a vain and fantastic name, which is without use or
value in opinion or in fact. I believe that sophistry, by choking up the
approaches to it, is the cause. 'It is a great mistake to depict it as inaccessible to children, of a forbidding countenance, full of frowns, and fearful to
look at.  Nothing can be more cheerful, sprightly, I was almost saying
frolicsome."  Michael de Montaigne inaugurated in France the philosophy
of the libertines-that is to say, of the free-thinkers-different in some respects
from that which Francois Rabelais professed, fifty years before, in his Pantagruelic works, and which John Calvin denounced as a pagan doctrine, accusing
the libertines of atheism and impiety.  "Scepticism," writes M. Haureau,
"had the last word in this propaganda in favour of the sprightly and almost
frolicsome philosophy; and the young, only too easily led away by such
remarks, gladly left, under the guidance of this new teacher, the arduous
paths of study to revel in the intercourse of poets, and to turn the melancholy
eyebrows of the logicians into derision."
Fig. 55.-Seal of the Faculty of Theology,  Fig. 56.-Seal of the Faculty of Law,
Prague.                          Prague.




MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.
Ancient Systems of the Planetary World.-Ptolemy and Aristarchus of Samos.-Boethius,
Pappus, and Gerbert.-Schools of Bagdad.-Mathematical School in Spain, Italy, England,
and France.-Astronomical Researches of the Arabs.-Roger Bacon and Master Pierre.Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas.-Progress ofr3athematics.-Popes and Kings
protectors of the Exact Sciences.-The King of Hungary, Matthias Corvinus.-Principal
Works composed in the Fifteenth Century.-Pic Mirandola.-Peter Ramus.-Tycho Brahe
and Copernicus.
S a proof of the forward state of the exact
sciences in the Middle Ages, it would be
il A  E m   -_          ~sufficient to instance a Roman basilica or a
Gothic cathedral.    What immensity     and
depth of mathematical calculations; what
Jl  S^ii   E    m    ii~ill     knowledge of geometry, statics, and optics;
what experience and skill in execution must
have been possessed by the architects and
builders in hewing, carving, and fitting the
-Hp^"""^;-A=wy! >stones, in raising them to great heights, in
constructing enormous towers and gigantic belfries, in forming the
many arches, some heavy and massive, others light and airy, in combining and neutralising the thrust of these arches which interlace and
hide each other up to the very        summit of the edifice-all as if
t  the most complicated science had humbly made herself the servant
of art, placing no obstacle in the way of its free development!
From   the commencement of the Middle Ages and henceforward,
mathematics were not so much the object of special and public teaching as
of individual and solitary study, either in the shade of the cloisters or amidst
associations of artisans who zealously preserved the traditions of their
predecessors.
In the University centres, as in the Arab and Jewish schools which had




78


MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.


so much importance, practical science was generally made subordinate to
speculative science.  Thus the theory of the calculus, the formulae of
algebra, the projections of lines through space, the problems of triangulation,
were by preference applied to astronomical observations, so that the transcendental mathematics were always inseparable from astronomy.
It was as follows that Claudius Ptolemaeus, a Greek or Egyptian astronomer, constituted the mundane system in a "Cosmography" written in
Greek, which became one of the bases of mathematical and astronomical
science in the Middle Ages:-" The world is divided into two vast regions;
the one ethereal, the other elementary. The ethereal region begins with the
first mover, which accomplishes its journey from east to west in twenty-four
hours; ten skies participate in this motion, and their totality comprises the
double crystalline heaven, the firmament, and the seven planets." According
to Ptolemaeus, the double crystalline heaven was placed between the first
mover and the firmament.    The elementary region, comprising the four
elements of fire, air, water, and earth, reigned beneath the cavity of the sky,
and was subject to the influence of the moon.    The terrestrial globe,
composed of earth and water, existed motionless in the centre of the world,
and was surrounded by the element of air, in which was mingled that of fire.
This system was not, however, exclusively adopted by all the philosophers.
Some of them accorded their preference to the system of Aristarchus of
Samos, who did not place the earth in the centre of the world, and who
attributed to it a rotary motion around the sun, which was suspended motionless amidst the planets and the planetary circles.  According to Aristarchus
of Samos, Mercury, the planet which is nearest the sun, completed his motion
around it in three months, whilst Venus took seven months and a half to
execute hers.  The earth, apart from its motion round the sun in the space
of a year, effected a second motion, revolving upon its own axis, in the space
of twenty-four hours, thus causing the succession of day and night.  The
monthly motion of the moon around the earth was accomplished in about
twenty-seven days.  The fourth planet, Mars, took two years to accomplish
his revolution round the sun; Jupiter, much farther distant, took twelve
years, and Saturn thirty.
The system of Ptolemy eventually triumphed over that of Aristarchus,
and at the close of the fifth century the great Boethius (Fig. 57), the favourite
minister of Theodoric the Great, who loved and patronised literature and




MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.


79


science, made a Latin translation of the " Cosmography," to which he appended
various mathemathical works, some translated from the Greek, others of his
own composition, none of which have come down to us.  We still possess
two books on Geometry by Boethius, but we have lost his Latin translations
of the treatise of Nicomachus upon Arithmetic, of the " Geometry" of Euclid,
of a treatise upon the Squaring of the Circle, as also several original treatises
in which he commented with great erudition on the cosmogonic doctrines of
Pythagoras and Ptolemy. King Theodoric, who afterwards had him put to a


1-1


Fig. 57.-The Planetary Systems.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving attributed to Holbein in the
German Translation of the " Consolation of Philosophy," by Boethius, Augsburg Edition,
1537, in folio.


cruel death (525), at that time wrote to him in the following complimentary
terms:-" By means of your Latin translations, Rome has received from you
all the sciences and arts which the Greeks had brought to such a high pitch
of perfection.  Those who know both Latin and Greek will prefer your
translations to the original. The four portions of mathematics have been to
you a sort of door, as it were, giving admittance to the science of mechanics,
and this science you have extracted from the very entrails of nature."
The school of Alexandria was the centre of mathematical studies, and
Boethius undertook to acquaint the Roman world with the principal works of




80


oMA THEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


the Greek mathematicians. Pappus, one of the most celebrated, who, at the
close of the fourth century, formed his mathematical collections, was not
translated into Latin until the Renaissance. The influence of Boethius upon
the progress of the exact sciences in Europe was not destined to survive him,
and for more than two centuries mathematics were applied only to architecture, hydraulics, and celestial cosmography, with regard to which the most
absurd notions were entertained.
However, science was still worthily represented in the schools of Alexandria
and Constantinople.  Two geometers belonging to them, Anthemius of
Tralles and Eutocius of Ascalon, flourished in the reign of Justinian (527 -565).  The former, busying himself more especially with the problems of
mechanics, contributed to the erection of the basilica of St. Sophia at Constantinople, and obtained great renown as an architect and sculptor; the
latter, by his commentaries on the mathematical writings of Archimedes and
Apollonius of Perga, made them of practical and general utility.
But it was in the East, and in the very extreme East, that the pursuit of
mathematics, applied to the study of astronomy, had acquired the greatest
impetus. In China the Mandarin Yhiang noted the eclipses, drew up a
catalogue of the stars, marked the degrees of longitude, and formed a new
calendar. In India the first astronomical tables were established by aid of
the Send-hind, the sacred book of the Brahmins. The Caliph Al-Mansour
ordered these tables to be translated into Arabic. Following his example,
the Caliph Haroun Alraschid constituted himself protector of the mathematical sciences, which fitted in so well with the genius and tendencies of
his people: he had the books of Euclid, Diophantus, Ptolemy, Pliny, and the
best mathematicians, astronomers, and cosmographers of Greek and Latin
antiquity, translated into Arabic and Syriac. Under the Caliphs the school
of Bagdad attracted an immense number of students, who came to learn the
exact sciences. Geometry and astronomy were taught concurrently with
medicine. It is true that, owing to the prejudices from which even the most
eminent in science were subject, all the powers of calculation were employed
in the measurement of the sidereal conjunctions, and in stating precisely the
action of the moon upon the human body and upon the fecundation of germs.
From Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt, the exact sciences passed to the
Arab schools of Spain at Cordova, Seville, and Granada, where they were
cultivated with much success. Many Jewish rabbis, physicians, and astro



MA THEMIA TICAL SCIENCES.


8i


nomers addicted to the art of divination, to astrology, and even to magic,
contributed in a large degree to the scientific and intellectual movement in
the Iberian peninsula; but they were obliged to conceal their Hebrew
origin under Arab pseudonyms.
Charlemagne, when he instituted his palatine academy, did not omit the
exact sciences, which found a place upon the same footing as the speculative
sciences, literature, and the arts. Astronomers and geometricians naturally
ranked with natural philosophers, musicians, and poets. The Irish man of


Fig. 58.-Mathematician Monks; one teaching the Globe, the other copying a Manuscript.After a Miniature of the Romance of the "Image of the World."-Manuscript of the
Thirteenth Century.-National Library, Paris.
letters, Dungal, was selected by the great Emperor to superintend the
investigations necessitated by the reform of the calendar, and to collate the
annals of celestial phenomena, and he was assisted by Alcuin, Amalaire, and
Raban Maur.
At the death of Charlemagne, the exact sciences, which had flourished for
a brief space at his court, seemed to shrink into the seclusion of the
monasteries (Fig. 58). Dungal set his pupils the example of retirement,
M




82


A MA THEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


as he became a monk at the Abbey of St. Denis, where he died in 829. The
Order of St. Benedict had almost made a monopoly of the exact sciences,
which were held in high honour at the Abbeys of Mount Cassini, in Italy;
of St. Martin, at Tours (France); of St. Arnulph, at Metz; of St. Gall, in
Switzerland; of Prum, in Bavaria; of Canterbury, in England, &c. It was
there that were formed the able architects and ecclesiastical engineers who
erected so many magnificent edifices throughout Europe, and most of whom,
dedicating their lives to a work of faith and pious devotion, have, through
humility, condemned their names to oblivion.
Gerbert, born at Aurillac about 930, and admitted while very young
into a monastery of that town, was one of those monks who devoted their
time to the sciences; but he distinguished himself from amongst his contemporaries as much by the extensiveness of his learning as by the practical
direction which he gave to his labours by the applications that he contrived
to extract from them. Linguist, geometrician, astronomer, and mechanist,
he went to complete his mathematical studies at the schools of Cordova and
Toledo, and thence repaired to Germany, where the Emperor Otho III.
conceived a great liking for him. He held the see of Ravenna, after having
been Archbishop of Rheims, and was elected Pope under the title of
Sylvester II. Gerbert was, beyond question, the first mathematician of his
day. He it was who popularised the use of numerals and the system of
numbering which we still employ-a system very different from that of
which the Romans made use, but falsely attributed to the Arabs, as traces
of it are to be found in the works of Boethius. It was not, however, to the
introduction of Arab figures into Europe, but to the use which he made of
his universal learning, that Gerbert owed his fame. During his stay at the
imperial court he fabricated with his own hands, amongst other curious
works, a clock worked by water, and the movement of which was regulated
by the polar star. His inventions caused him to be looked upon as a
sorcerer, and of his numerous scientific works all that remain extant are
several treatises on Geometry and Cosmography.
His pupil and friend, Adelbold, a native of Liege, after studying the
sciences there under the learned Heriger, acquired an early celebrity as the
brilliant rival of Fulbert of Chartres, and of Abbon, Abbot of Fleury. The
Emperor Henry II. attached him to his household as chancellor or secretary,
and was loath to lose his services by raising him to the see of Utrecht.




3MA THEA/IA ICA L SCILENCELS.


83


Adelbold, like Gerbert, was accused of magic, and though he did not make
a clock, he constructed several splendid churches with truly marvellous
rapidity, and it was no doubt owing to the jealousy of the masons that
this accusation was made against him.  The only scientific work which
Adelbold left was a treatise on the Globe, dedicated to Pope Sylvester II.
The salutary influence of Gerbert and Adelbold made itself felt in the
Catholic world at the approach of the year 1000 A.D., which, owing to the


Fig. 59.-Perseus and Andromeda.-After a Miniature of the Fourteenth Century, "Liber de
Locis Stellarum Fixarum."-Spanish Manuscript.-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.


superstitious ignorance of the people, was looked forward to with dread as
destined to usher in the reign of Antichrist. These two illustrious savants
protested against the threat of the millennium, and announced in advance
the eclipses and comets which were considered to be sinister presages of the
end of the world. Instead of recognising their learning and admiring their
genius, people believed that they were holding criminal intercourse with the
spirits of evil.




84


8MA 1-HEMIA 77CAL SCIENCES.


The exact sciences continued to be taught and to make progress amongst
the Greeks, the Eastern peoples, and the Arabs in Spain.  Astronomy was
still the favourite science in the Mussulman schools, and the wise men of
Islam were always drawing up astronomical tables. Al-Battany spent fifty
years of his life upon his Sabean Table; Aben Byhan (died in 941),
Mohammed al-Saghany (died in 989), Absoufy and Aboul-Waffa (at the end
of the tenth century), and the most celebrated of all these philosophers,
Aly ben Abdel-Rhaman, spent their whole existence in drawing up different
astronomical tables, calculating according to the laws of the motion of the
stars, for astronomy was at that time a science rather of calculation than of
observation. The Spanish schools (Figs. 59 and 60) were not behindhand
with the academy of Bagdad and the school of Alexandria, although the
scientific celebrities in them were not so numerous in the eleventh as they
had been in the tenth century. The most famous of these Arab savants
were Spanish Jews: such as Soliman ben Gavirol (died in 1070), who was not
less distinguished as a poet and moralist than he was as a mathematician, and
Abraham ben Chija, who at about the same period drew up a Celestial
Cosmography which was held in high repute for more than six centuries.
The rabbis who were most famous for their mathematical and astronomical
works, written in Arabic, such as Ibn-Zarcali, Abraham Arzachel, Aben-Ezra,
all more or less mingled with the theorems and calculations which they took
from the exact sciences fanciful deductions from the Talmud.
Astronomy in those days was very often no more than astrology; that is
to say, the art of drawing horoscopes and making predictions by a study of
the position of the stars and of the mutual relations of the planets. The
Eastern peoples, Persians, Arabs, Jews, were much addicted to these practices.
They endeavoured to ascertain the future by means of the celestial conjunctions, and believed that they could read in the heavens not only the
fate of empires, but the destiny of all human beings. This so-called
philosophical doctrine was inaugurated in the ninth century by the Arab
astrologer Albumazar, in his book on the Great Conjunctions. He asserted
that the appearance of the prophets and of religions had coincided with the
conjunctions of the planets. Thus, according to him, the conjunction of
Jupiter with Mercury produced the Christian law; but, in a given time, the
conjunction of the Moon with Jupiter would bring about the total downfall
of all religious beliefs. A doctrine such as this, as insane as it was impious,


x.




MA THEMIA TICAL SCIENCES.


naturally excited the reprobation of the Church.  Judicial astrology was
forbidden in all Christian countries, and condemned by the Holy See. The
Catholic professors very properly denounced this chimerical science, as
opening a path to fatalism of the most reckless and culpable kind.
While astrology was prohibited as an occult science, and the Church was
anathematizing it, astronomy took her place as one of the seven liberal arts
which were taught, for more than a thousand years, at the school of
Alexandria.  When the University of Paris was being formed upon the


Fig. 60.-The Centaur.-After a Miniature of the Fourteenth Century, "Liber de Locis Stellarum
Fixarum."-Spanish Manuscript.-Arsenal Library, Paris.


model of that celebrated school, astronomy, as a matter of course, was
included in the qiadriviumn, which formed the second order of study, and
which further consisted of arithmetic, geometry, and music. But the
quadrivium, representing higher education, was followed by a very limited
number of students, most of them not getting further than the triviurm,
which comprised only the primary sciences or the humanities, grammar,
rhetoric, and dialectics.




86


JIA THEMATICAL SCIEN2CES.


The same was the case in all the schools of Europe; but those of Italy
and England accorded more time to mathematical sciences towards the
close of the twelfth century. At Pisa, a learned mathematician, Leonardo
Fibonacci, better known as Leo of Pisa, brought back from his journey to
the East the algebraic notation which Gerbert had invented, or rather propagated in Europe, two centuries previously; and Fibonacci has often been
credited with the introduction of Arab figures and the use of the abbreviative
method in lengthy calculations. Amongst the professors at Oxford about
this period there was another mathematician not less remarkable, who, though
he had not travelled like Fibonacci, had the talent to discover all the formulae
of the exact sciences. This was Robert, surnamed Grossetete, who was the
master and friend of Adam of Marisco and of the celebrated Roger Bacon.
Roger Bacon, in all his allusions to Robert Grossetete, speaks of him in
the most respectful terms. He describes him as one of the most enlightened,
the best informed, and most eminent men of his day; as fully conversant
with all languages, even Greek and Hebrew, which were then but little
known; as very dissatisfied with the Latin translations of Aristotle which
were at that time used in the Universities, and endeavouring, with the
assistance of his friends and pupils, to provide better ones; as allying the
love of science to that of letters; as being as much versed in mathematics
and astronomy as was possible in his day; as the interpreter of Aristotle's
logic; and as the author of a treatise upon the Celestial Globe. It may be
mentioned, also, that, in addition to these uncommon qualities of philosopher
and savant, Robert Grossetete possessed sincere piety and deep theological
learning. Raised to the episcopal see of Lincoln (he died in 1253), he left
behind him letters, still extant, which contain unequivocal proof of the
sincerity of his devotion to the Papacy, of which he was falsely represented
as an open enemy.
Adam de Marisco belonged, like Robert Grosstete, to the Church. He
passed the greater part of his days in England, in a Franciscan monastery,
but the life of the cloister did not deaden in him the love of science. Roger
Bacon almost always speaks of him, as of the Bishop of Lincoln,'as one of
the lights of his age-as a master in grammar, mathematics, and astronomy.
But it was, above all, the name, the learning, and the genius of Roger
Bacon (born in 1214) which predominated in the scientific history of the
thirteenth century. The school itself, often as he combated its views, gave




MA THEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


87


him the title of Adminrable Doctor, and he proved himself worthy of it by the
general curiosity which animated him, by the ardour which he displayed for


Fig. 61.-A Lesson in Astronomy (Thirteenth Century).-Miniature from the Breviary of
St. Louis.-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.
the advancement of science, and, above all, by the grandeur and originality
of the views expressed by him in his works. He represents more accurately
than any one else in the thirteenth century the movement which was already




88


8MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.


urging so many minds to the study of nature, and to the experimental
method without which the mysteries of nature remain unfathomable. Whilst
St. Thomas Aquinas was devoting to Christian theology all the resources of
his dialectics and all the glow of his piety, Roger Bacon applied himself to
natural philosophy and mathematics, paying special attention to the study of
languages, which he looked upon as closely connected with the progress of
the natural sciences (Fig. 61).
But a too exclusive devotion to these his favourite studies eventually led
Roger Bacon astray, and he came to look with contempt upon all methods
except his own.  Upon repairing to Paris after his residence at Oxford, he
unhesitatingly attacked the system of teaching in the Universities, accusing
the masters and professors either of ignorance or bad faith; and, though
himself belonging to the Order of St. Francis, he declared war upon the
Franciscans and Dominicans in France, whom he did not consider equal to
the learned friends he had left behind him in England, such as Robert of
Lincoln, William of Sherwood, John of London, and, above all, the person
whom he spoke of as Master Nicholas. "Experience is worth more than
Aristotle," he said; "all the metaphysics of the school are not to be compared
with a little grammar and mathematics; Alexander of Hales and Albert are
presumptuous schoolmen who exercise a fatal influence; let us beware of
becoming subject to it, and let us complete for ourselves our education, which
is scarcely as yet begun."
From this time he applied himself to the study of four ancient languages,
higher mathematics, astronomy, optics, and Platonist philosophy.  He was
assisted in his studies by a man of incomparable genius, a French savant
belonging to Picardy, whom he always speaks of as Jagister Petrus or
Magister Peregrinus, and who would be absolutely unknown if his illustrious
pupil had not handed his name down, in his "Opus Tertium" and his " Opus
Minus," to the admiration of posterity.  Magister Petrus led a solitary life,
avoiding the society of his fellow-men, whom he looked upon as mad, or as
sophists incapable of enduring the light of truth; he endeavoured to penetrate the secrets of nature; he observed the stars, and sought out the causes of
the celestial phenomena; he imposed upon science the task of multiplying the
metamorphoses of matter; he invented arms and instruments of war; he
gave a practical and useful application to alchemy; he paid attention at the
same time to agronomy, surveying, and architecture, and he sought to




MA THEMA TICAL SCIE~NCES.


89


extract from the devices of sorcerers and magicians whatever experimental
science could discover therein.  In a word, Magister Petrus deserved the
surname which his pupil gave him of Magister Experimentorum.
Such a guide was invaluable to Roger Bacon in the wonderful inventions
attributed to him, for in most of his researches and experiments he was
doubtless assisted by the advice of Magister Petrus.  His works, more
particularly his " Opus Majus," show to what a height he elevated science,
substituting the experimental for the scientific method.  It is easy to understand how the invention of gunpowder, telescopes, magnifying glasses, &c.,
came to be attributed to him.  He merely put into execution, as it would
appear, the scientific discoveries of his master, who had observed the
phenomenon of refraction and the properties of the loadstone, and who constructed a movable sphere which reproduced all the motions of the stars.
Roger Bacon also devoted his attention to philosophy, and as early as the year
1269 he proposed the reform of the calendar (Figs. 62-67).
But the attitude which he had assumed, and the severity of his criticisms
upon the most illustrious of his contemporaries, made him many bitter
enemies.
His principal adversaries-or rather, perhaps, his rivals-were, like himself,
monks of the Franciscan Order. He was denounced to his superiors as being
guilty of heresy in his teaching of science, and he was confined in a prison
where he could not have any communication with his pupils.  The latter,
most of whom belonged to the same religious order, and all of whom were
famous astronomers or mathematicians, such as Thomas Bungey, Jean de
Paris, John Bacon or Baconthorp, nicknamed the Prince of Averroists,
did not venture to espouse his cause for fear of being involved in his disgrace.
He had, however, a friend in Clement IV., to whom he had dedicated his
"Opus Majus," and was, by his order, set at liberty. But, at the death of that
pontiff, he was again imprisoned and treated with still greater severity, for
he was refused the use of writing materials. He managed, however, to revise
and perfect his "Opus Majus," which contains the substance of his doctrine,
and he wrote two epitomes of it, far more advanced than the original, with.he titles of " Opus Minus " and " Opus Tertium." Both of these books, though
they long remained unpublished, were not destroyed, notwithstanding the
persecution to which their author was subjected during his lifetime, but it is
not many years since they first saw the light.  This man of genius, who
N




go


A/ATH-EA/ATICAL SCIENCES.


Fig,. 62.-The Burgher in Winter.              Fig. 63.-The Sower.


Fig. 65.-The Sheep Shearer.


-j
Fig. 64.-Lovers in SpriDgtide.
-           
III        11IT;   'O l
t


Fig. 66.-A Ride in Summer.I.         Fig. 67.-The Reaper.
Miniatures from the Calendar of a "1Book of Hours."-Manuscript of the beginning of the
Sixteenth Century.




MA THEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


9I


had received the title of Admirable Doctor, died about 1294, almost forgotten
by the men of that generation, without having been able to realise that
regeneration of the scientific school which he had made the object of his
life. It should be added, however, that he had become a dupe to the Arabism
of Albumazar and the Aristotelism of Averroes, and that he acquiesced in all
the wild conceptions of astrology and alchemy.
The Oxford school, to which the illustrious Roger Bacon belonged,
appears to have been the cradle of English scepticism, which, after a long and
sullen opposition to the teaching of the Catholic dogma, finally terminated
in the most uncompromising heresy.  The contemporaries of Bacon were all
more or less of sceptics.  John Basingstoke, who became Archdeacon of
London and of Leicester, where he died in 1252, entered upon scholasticism
with much mistrust and doubt. He made a journey into Greece, to give the
agitation excited by his works upon the Bible time to cool down, and there
devoted himself to the study of the exact sciences, and brought back to
England the figures and ciphers which the Greeks used to signify numerals.
Another pupil of the Oxford school, John of Holywood, called Sacrobosco,
had already a reputation as astronomer or cosmographist when he came to
study at the University of Paris, where he afterwards taught mathematics
with great success. He composed a treatise on the Celestial Globe (" De Sphera
Mundi "), which was an imninal and abridgment of Ptolemy's book, and
which continued to be a classic work in all the schools of Europe for more
than three centuries.  He also left a work considered to be of great value
upon the Reckoning of Time (" De Anni Ratione "), a treatise upon Astrolabe,
and another on Algorithms. Like most mathematicians of his day, he also
sought to predict the future and to draw horoscopes.
The school of Canterbury, less impulsive than that of Oxford, pursued
very steadily the study of the exact sciences under the superintendence of
eminent prelates, amongst whom may be mentioned Thomas Bradwardin,
Archbishop of Canterbury, surnamed the Profound Doctor, and Richard
Walinford, Abbot of St. Albans, who were the first mathematicians of the
fourteenth century.  Denmark, at the same period, was rejoicing in the
discoveries of a learned astronomer, De Duco, author of a new Ecclesiastical
Computation and of a valuable treatise upon the Calendar.
All the greatest astronomical discoveries were effected in the East, in
Persia, Arabia, and even in the provinces of Lebanon.  Nassir-Eddin, a




92


MA THEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


Persian, invented some ingenious instruments for mathematical calculations,
and he collected, under the title of "Ilkhanian Tables," a number of daily
observations upon the state of the sky and the course of the stars.  The
Armenian Ezenkansti not only observed the celestial phenomena, but he
described them in verse, and celebrated them in his poetry. Astronomy
comprised  studious and zealous followers even in Morocco, where Aly
Aboul-Kalan wrote his book on " Beginnings and Endings," supplementing the
compared results of telescopic observations with the most minute calculations.
But, from the close of the thirteenth century, the savants of Italy had
Fig. 68.-Astronomer accused of Sorcery, holding a Disc
with Magic Figures. Capital Letter in a " Book of
Jurisprudence."-Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century.
In the Library bf M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.
devoted themselves by preference to mathematics, though the study of the
exact sciences was too often suspected of heresy.    Campano, who had
translated Euclid, had some difficulty in defending himself from the
suspicions and denunciations of the theologians, while Pietro d'Abano, who
professed medicine and astronomy at the University of Padua, had the
misfortune to lean towards the errors of Averroism, and to fall a victim to
astrology. Accused of sorcery, and condemned to the stake, he escaped that
punishment by suicide (131 6), or else died suddenly-it is not known whichbefore the sentence was executed. The principal mathematicians belonged to




MlA THEAlIA TICAL SCIENCES.                    93
the school of Florence.  Dugomari, called Paul the Geometer, and Abbaco
contributed simultaneously to the progress of the exact sciences, but none of
their pupils were capable of taking their place.
Mathematics were but little cultivated in France, though in the fourteenth
century may be mentioned Jean de Lignieres, whom a chronicler calls "the
restorer of the science of the stars," and Jean des Murs, canon of the
Cathedral of Paris, who compiled some valuable works on Arithmetic.
Bonnet de Lates, a physician in Provence, conceived the idea of an astronomical ring for measuring the height of the sun and the stars (Fig. 68).
This mathematician failed, however, to guard himself from the errors of
contemporary science, and his weighty study of astronomy did not save him
from making predictions based upon the conjunctions of the planets and so
forth.
During the Italian Renaissance mathematics were not neglected, and they
were taught with success during the fifteenth century at Rome, Naples,
Padua, -Bologna, Pisa, and more especially at Florence.  They were at that
time almost entirely extricated from the dangerous illusions of astrology,
and no longer involved noble minds in the fatal paths of doubt and heresy.
They were professed, moreover, by some of the principal doctors of the
Church, and were in a certain degree honoured by the direct protection of
the Holy See, when _iEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, one of the first mathematicians of his century, was elected Pope, with the title of Pius II. (1458 -1464).  Pope Pius II. was a man of general learning, but his favourite
study was that of cosmography.  At the same time, Cardinal Nicholas de
Cusa, his rival in learning, found time, while fulfilling his diplomatic
functions at the Court of Rome, to write works on Mathematics, Geometry,
and Astronomy, in which he maintained the system of the earth's rotation
around the sun, and admitted in principle the plurality of worlds, two
centuries before Galileo.
The example of Pius II. induced his successors, Paul II. and Sixtus IV.,
to favour the exact sciences.  It was Sixtus IV. who summoned to Rome the
celebrated K6nigsberg astronomer, Johann Muller, called Regiomontaus, who
had been recommended to him by Cardinal Bessarion.  Regiomontanus, the
most celebrated pupil of G. Purbach, had already obtained a great reputation
in Italy, whither he accompanied Cardinal Bessarion in 1463.  The course
of astronomy which he commenced at Padua in that year attracted an




94


i+A7HEl1A H I CAL SCIENCES.


enormous audience. He afterwards became astronomer-royal to Matthias
Corvinus, King of Hungary. But, unfortunately for him, he was unable to
resist the entreaties of Pope Sixtus IV., who induced him to come to Rome.


Fig. 69.-Ptolemy's System, explained by Johann Muller, called Regiomontanus.-Fac-simile of a
Wood Engraving of the "Epitome... Johannes de Monte Regio " (Basilese, ap. H. Petri,
1543, in folio).
It is generally believed that the envy and revenge of his scientific rivals had
something to do with his premature death in 1476.         Although he died at
under forty years of age, he had written a number of astronomical and




MIA 7THEIA TICAL SCIENCES.


95


mathematical works, which had a great success both during his lifetime
and after his death (Fig. 69). His researches upon the calendar and upon
triangulation were the basis of the remarkable labours of the Wurtemberg
astronomer, Stoffler (1452-1531), who can claim the honour of compiling
the great Roman Calendar (" iKalendarium Romanum magnum").
The teaching of mathematics was very brilliant at Naples during the
reign of Alfonso of Aragon, the Magnanimous (1415-1458).  People came
thither from all parts to hear the Tuscan professor, Buonencontro, who, in his
double capacity of poet and orator, gave an unusual charm to the exposition
of the celestial phenomena, and who had the good fortune to allude openly
to astrology, and even to magic, without provoking the remonstrances or the
repression of the ecclesiastical authorities.  These were the preludes of the
Reformation, which made its presence felt in science by proclaiming the right
of free examination before applying it to the dogmas of religion.  It must
also be said that the Greek savants, who had emigrated into Europe, and
especially into Italy, after the occupation of Constantinople by the Turks,
brought with them more fondness and aptitude for the occult than for the
exact sciences.  Several of these Greek savants had been received by
Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, who, in his admiration for the sciences,
gave the palm to astrology and alchemy; and the observatory attached to his
palace' at Buda was used less for observing the position of the stars, and
studying the laws of their motions, than for seeking thereby to forecast the
future.  His library was composed of the most rare and magnificent manuscripts, but a great part of them referred to alchemy and the philosopher's
stone.  While harbouring these Greeks from Constantinople, who claimed to
be alchemists and astrologers, Matthias Corvinus also placed great confidence
in a true Italian savant, Fioravanti Alberti, who had little dealing with
astrology, and who applied almost exclusively to works of architecture and
design his profound knowledge of mathematics, and especially of geometry.
At this epoch astrology was everywhere beginning to supplant astronomy.
There was not a sovereign or prince in Europe but had in his service an
astrologer, more or less able and crafty, who in many cases sailed under the
colours of a physician.  King Louis XI. never arrived at any important
decision without having consulted his Neapolitan astrologer, Angelo Cattho
de Sopino, whom he created Archbishop of Vienne in Dauphiny, as a reward
for the accuracy of his sidereal predictions.  The Emperor Maximilian was




96


6IMA THEMAT JICAL SCIENCES.


always accompanied by his physician, Grunpek, whose prescriptions were
dictated by the stars, and who paid more heed to the politics than to the
health of his august master.
The exact sciences still found a home, however, in Italy at Florence,
where Buonencontro and the Alberti had formed a numerous school, and
the application of mathematics to arts and industry was the result of a


Fig. 70. —Instruments of Mathematical Precision for executing Portraits.-Fac-simile of a Wood
Engraving by Albert Diirer, "Institutionum Geometricarum Libri Quafuor" (Parisiis, ex officina Christiani Wecheli, 1535, in folio).-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.


serious and solid course of teaching.  At the end of the fifteenth century
the astronomer Pozzo Toscanelli traced for Christopher Columbus, who
derived material assistance from his teaching, the route which he must take
across the ocean in order to reach the western coasts of the Indies; the
mathematician Paccioli was animated by Christian faith when he wrote his
great cosmographical and philosophical work entitled, "De Divina Propor



MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.


97


tione;" and the great Michael Angelo, surrounded by a group of younger artists,
who looked upon him as the regenerator of modern art, sought in the science
of mathematics the most wonderful secrets of architecture and sculpture.
Like Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci, there was not a single great
artist of that day who was not, in addition, a consummate mathematician
(Figs. 70 and 71).
The mathematicians, it is true, did not all develop into artists, notwith

Fig. 71.-Instrument of Mathematical Precision for designing Objects in Perspective.-Fac-simile
of a Wood Engraving from Albert Diirer's Work, "Institutionum      Geometricarum Libri
Quatuor" (Parisiis, ex officina Christiani Wecheli, 1535, in folio).-In the Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.


standing the general tendency which led them to cultivate the arts.  At
Ferrara Alumno remained cosmographist, and devoted part of his life to
composing voluminous works upon celestial mechanics ("De Fabrica Mundi");
at Perugia the Dantes, who were not of the same family as the writer of the
" Divine Comedy," devoted their time to purely mathematical works; and one
of them, Egnazio Dante, who collated in his repertory of the "Scienze Mathematice in Tavole" (the Mathematical Sciences in Tables) all the problems
o




98


8MA THEMIA TICAL SCIENCES.


resolved by his predecessors, constructed an immense table, upon which were
marked with great precision the equinoxes and the solstices.
In Spain, as in Portugal, where the adventurous spirit of the nation
favoured long sea voyages and expeditions to the East and West Indies, the
exact sciences contributed to the progress of navigation, especially in regard
to hydrography and astronomy. A Portuguese Jew, Abraham ben Samuel
Zacuth, published at Lisbon a perpetual almanac, which was afterwards


Fig. 72.-German Astronomer and Cosmographist.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the
Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.
completed and perfected by Alfonso of Cordova, a Seville physician, who also
published some excellent astronomical tables.
England and Germany (Fig. 72) were not behindhand in this forward
movement of science; but the savants of these two countries belonged more
or less to the sceptical school which brought about the Reformation, and
found means in all their works, however excellent from a scientific point of
view, a pretext or an opportunity for attacking the Catholic religion.  It
might have been supposed that mathematics were offensive weapons placed in
the hands of blind sectaries of heresy. At the same time it would be unjust




lMA THtEATICAL SCIENCES.


99


to under-estimate the importance of the labours of Batecumbe, an Englishman,
'who composed so many works on astronomy; of Peyrbach, an Austrian, who
conceived an ingenious theory of the planets; or of Gaspard Peucer, a
Saxon, who described the motion of the stars, and represented for the first
time the true configuration of the earth.
But it may be said that all the science of the Middle Ages is summed
up in the memorable book of Pic Mirandola, "De omni re scibili," which
I
Fig. 73.-Arc with Double Compartment for  Fig. 74.-Small Quadrant, or Quarter of
measuring the Shortest Distances of the    a Circle, in Copper Gilt.
Stars.
Ftc-simile of Copper Engravings in the Work, "Tychonis Brahe Astronomim Tnstaunratm
Mechanica" (Noriberge, apud Levinum Hulsium, 1602, in folio).
contains nine hundred propositions embracing the totality of human knowledge at this epoch.  Pic Mirandola was but nine-and-twenty years of age
when he undertook to sustain in public these nine hundred propositions
against any one who would accept the immense responsibility of this scientific
and oratorical tournament, in which, as may be supposed, the mathematical
and astronomical sciences held a large place. No one came forward to pick
up the glove, but Pic Mirandola's book, submitted to pontifical censure, was




100


MA 7HEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


condemned as heretical with regard to a number of points, in dealing with
which the writer had openly declared himself the partisan of Averroism, a
bastard kind of scholasticism which linked the principles of Plato and
Aristotle to the vagaries of Albumazar.  He was not persecuted, as Roger
Bacon and Pietro d'Abano had been, but he voluntarily submitted himself to
exile, and found a peaceful asylum in France, under the protection of the
University of Paris, in which he had previously studied the higher sciences,
and even cabalism.
Averroism, with its attendant mysteries of astrology and magic, continued to reign in the schools of Italy and of Germany, making its baneful
influence felt in the exact as well as in the speculative sciences. Its principal
centre was the University of Padua.  The illustrious Jerome Cardan of
Pavia (died in 1576) had begun his career of professor by teaching mathematics at Milan, and it was then that he invented a new mode of resolving
algebraic equations.  But his passion for astrblogy and the occult sciences
soon dragged him into a vicious circle of wild crazes and visions.  So it was
with Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (born at Cologne in 1486), with
Theophrastus Bombastes, surnamed Paracelsus (born at Einsiedlen, in Switzerland, about 1493), who would have been two great philosophers, two great
physicians, and two great mathematicians, if they had not preferred to be
astrologers and cabalists; but, as it was, they lived in poverty, and died in
misery, one at the Grenoble Hospital (1535), the other at the Hospital of
Salzburg (1541). Another dreamer, who, lika Agrippa and Paracelsus, was
a man of universal attainments, and who, like them, visited all the Universities
and courts of Europe, Lucilio Vanini, born in the kingdom of Naples, lived
as wretched and precarious a life as they did, and came to a still more
miserable end.  As M. Cousin has remarked, Vanini had no other God than
Nature, and his morality was that of Epicurus.  He was burnt alive, as an
atheist, at Toulouse, upon the 9th of February, 1619.
France was, however, more hospitable for the astrologers and sorcerers,
though the celebrated Pierre La Ramee, surnamed Ramus, Principal of the
College of Presles, at Paris, where he himself taught philosophy and mathematics in 1545, opened an eloquent campaign against the extravagances of
astrology (Fig. 79). But Ramus was one of the apostles of the Reformation,
and his philosophic reasoning was no match for the allied forces of madmen
and impostors who dishonoured true science.   Cosmo Ruggieri, whom




lMA THEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


101


Catherine de' Medicis brought to France as astrologer-royal, was not capable
of doing more than compiling prophetical almanacs, and yet his credit at
court extended over four reigns.   As to Pierre de Nostredame, surnamed
Nostradamus, who set up for astronomer and physician, though he had never
studied either medicine or astronomy, he merely observed the stars for the
purpose of making predictions therefrom, and his mathematical calculations
were confined to the composition of horoscopes.   He was in great favour
Fig. 75.-Astronomical Sextant for          76.-Equatorial Rings or
measuring Distances.                         Circles.
Fac-simile of Copper Engravings in the Book, "Tychonis Brahe Astronomim Instauratae
Mechanica" (Noribergee, apud Levinum Hulsium, 1602, in folio).
with Charles IX. and the Queen-mother, who loaded him with presents, but
he had the prudence to withdraw from the court and live in retirement at
Salon, in Provence, where he died in 1566, leaving behind him a great
reputation and a large fortune.  He did not leave any astronomical work,
but merely some collections of pharmaceutical receipts and unintelligible
prophecies in rhymed verse, and written in a mystic and barbarous tongue.
To discover the true science of astronomy in the sixteenth century, it was




I02


MA THEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


necessary to go, not to France, but to Poland, where Nicholas Copernicus,
born at Thorn, in 1473, had returned home, after professing mathematics at
Rome, without awaking the susceptibilities of the Roman clergy, who
would not admit of the utterance of any scientific idea contrary to the facts
set forth in Holy Writ.    But, once settled at Frauenburg, where he was
appointed to a canonry, he threw   off the reserve imposed upon him by the
fear of ecclesiastical censure, and unhesitatingly declared that he accepted,
with certain rectifications, the system formerly taught by the philosophers of
ENS EG NEDIMOYM ONoDILVa
A3!iiiao3                  L 
Fig. 77.-Marque of Jehan St. Denis, Bookseller at Paris, Rue Neufve Nostre-Dame, at the Sign
of St. Nicholas: "Petit Compost en franqoys" (printed in 1530, small octavo). "The
present book, for the use of simple persons who do not understand Latin, contains a small and
easy process for understanding the course of the sun and moon, festivals, and time according
to the order of the ' Latin Compost.'"
ancient Greece, according to which the planets revolved, from east to west,
around the sun, while the earth described two distinct motions, one of rotation
upon its own axis, the other of circumvolution around the sun.   Copernicus,
however, waited for some time before publishing this system, which was
violently attacked by the defenders of biblical lore, and he took the precaution
of dedicating to Pope Paul III. his book, "De Revolutionibus Orbium Cwelestibus," in which he had expounded the whole of his system. He did not live




l/MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.


I03


to see this book published, for it appeared on the very day of his death in
1543; and he thus escaped the posthumous condemnation passed upon the
work, which was placed in the Index by the Court of Rome in 1616, notwithstanding its having been dedicated to a pope.


Fig. 78.-Portrait of Tycho Brahe, engraved by Gheyn, at the end of the Sixteenth Century.
In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.


Copernicus confined himself to astronomy; his successor and imitator,
the celebrated Tycho Brahe (Fig. 78), who did not, perhaps, excel him, but who
was in some respects his equal in his learned treatises on Astronomy, fell a




o04


MlA TiHEMA TICAL SCIENCES.


victim in many instances to the errors of astrology, and even of cabalism.
He had laboured in all the observatories of Germany and Sweden, when
the King of Denmark constructed for him upon the island of Haven, near
Copenhagen, a magnificent observatory, in which, for seventeen years, he followed the motions of the planets and the stars, in order to connect them with
the system which he had conceived to replace those of Ptolemy and Copernicus
(Figs. 73-76).   According to his system the earth was motionless in the
centre of the world, and the sun and moon revolved around it, while the
other five planets gravitated around the sun. But Tycho Brahe, acceding to
the pressing invitation of the Emperor Rudolph II., who was anxious to get
him to his court, turned astrologer, in order to obtain the pension which was
paid him, and lost himself in the vagaries of cabalism.  He died at Prague
in 1601, leaving behind him a European reputation, which his works, very
inferior to those of Copernicus, scarcely justified.
And yet Copernicus and Tycho Brahe were the creators of true astronomy,
and it may be said in their praise that, at a time when astrologers, necromancers, and diviners were alone in favour, like Cosmo Ruggieri at the
French court, and John Dee at the court of Queen Elizabeth, the observations and systems of the Polish astronomer and the Danish astronomer
inaugurated a new era in the scientific world, and opened the route which was
afterwards followed, and with so much renown, by Galileo, Keppler, Huygens,
and Newton. As has been remarked by the learned Dr. Hoefer, "Copernicus
begat Keppler, and Keppler begat Newton.    What a genealogical tree!"
NVLLA DIES
SINE LINEA
Fig. 79.-Portrait of Bernard Abbatia, Astronomer to the King.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the "Prognostication sur le mariage de Henry, roy de Navarre, et de Marguerite de
France" (Paris, Guillaume de Nyverd, 1572, small octavo).-The Latin motto, "Nulla dies
sine linea," signifies "There's no life without an ending," or " There is no day which is not
regulated by the stars."




NATURAL SCIENCES.
Natural Sciences in Antiquity.-Their Decadence in the Middle Ages.-Rural Economy in the
time of Charlemagne.-The Monk Strabus.-Botanical Gardens.-Botany aided by Medicine.-Hildegarde, Abbess of Bingen.-Peter of Crescentiis.-Vincent of Beauvais.-Fables
and Popular Errors.-Jean Dondi.-Bartholomew Glanvil.-Naturalist Travellers.Aristotle and Pliny restored to honour.-Gardens in the Sixteenth Century.-The Conquests
of Science in Travel.-Bernard Palissy.-G. Agricola.-Conrad Gesner.-Methods of Botany.
-Painters and Engravers of Natural History.
HE great work of Pliny the Elder, which
contains in its one hundred and thirtyseven books the sum and substance of all
the knowledge of antiquity with regard to
arts and sciences, is unquestionably replete
with erudition, but it is also typical of the
extreme confusion which then prevailed in
the domain of natural and physical sciences.
o   i ele  a      The tendency to sophistry and paradox, the
subtleties of dialectics, had changed the
direction of scientific studies, and abruptly
closed the broad vistas which the admirable
labours oi Aristotle opened to the human mind, in teaching it to studv
directly and materially Nature, which all the ancient religions had made
divine, under the manifold form of the gods and goddesses of paganism
(Fig. 80). The observation of facts and the search of causes seemed to have
become useless; the marvellous and the strange were preferred before simple
and logical truth; and prevalent opinions were accepted without putting them
to the test of criticism or the control of experience. With regard to the
theory of the elements and the three reigns, as to the history of minerals,
plants, and animals, the most absurd and extravagant fables, allied to the
wildest conceptions of popular credulity, had become current.          Pliny,


p




Io6


VNA TURAL SCIENCES.


however, whose statements were often adduced in support of them, was not
merely an observant compiler of facts; he had watched and studied for
himself, and he died a victim to science, in attempting to contemplate too
closely the great eruption of Vesuvius, which destroyed the cities of Pompeii
and Herculaneum (ii.c. 79).
WVhen the Roman decadence set in, the natural sciences, which had
remained motionless for four centuries, were at the same point as they had
been left by Claudius lJlianus, who, in his " History of Animals," collected
without any cohesion the vague or erroneous notions which he had gathered
from various Greek and Latin authors whose works are no longer extant.
These sciences, almost abandoned, had been relegated, together with speculative philosophy, amongst the misty conceptions of the sophists, and were
merely interpreted by a few rhetoricians, such as Nemesianus, Calpurnius, and
Ausonius, who translated in their descriptive poems the ideas of pagan antiquity
as to the phenomena and products of nature. Pliny is always cited in
works which treat incidentally of any facts appertaining to the physical
world.  Moreover, in these times, from the fourth to the eighth century, so
unfavourable to science, writers, whether physicians, historians, or philosophers,
merely treated of material things from a utilitarian point of view; they
spoke of minerals, plants, and animals without reference to their organization, their shape, or their physiognomy; they examined and appreciated them
solely from the point of view as to the best use that could be made of them
in industry or social life; and the only scientific classification they gave them
was to place them in the Hexameron, or theory of the six days of the creation,
according to the Genesis of Moses (Fig. 81).
Charlemagne himself, notwithstanding his great genius, does not seem
to have taken any interest in the study of natural history, and we know
that it was not included in the course of study at the Palace School.  The
Emperor was doubtless familiar with all wild animals, from a hunting point
of view; with the domesticated animals, from the point of view of rural
economy, and with plants in connection with agriculture, for he paid great
attention to the care of his lands and gardens.  Thus, in his Capitularies, he
lays special stress upon the good kinds of fruits, vegetables, and grain for
the use of the table, and scarcely gave a place for the exotic vegetables, &c.,
sent to him from Spain and Greece.  It was at this epoch that a monk in
the monastery of St. Gall, Walafrid Straba, described with no little accuracy,




iVA T iRA L SC IENCES.


107


in a Latin poem entitled "I ortulus," the vegetables which he had cultivated with his own hands.    Another poet, almost his contemporary, and
believed to be a Frenchman, Macer Floridus, also composed a similar poem
upon the culture and virtue of herbs, amongst which certain solaneaw had
already been remarked as most effective for curing various diseases.  This
culture of medicinal herbs took place in most of the monasteries, and was the


Fig. 80.-Esus, the great God of Nature among the Gauls, worshipped in the Forests.-Celtic
Monument discovered at Paris, under the Choir of Notre-Dame, in 1771, and preserved in the
Cluny Museum.
origin of those botanical gardens which afterwards contributed so much to
the progress of medicine.   (See below, chapter on 3edical Sciences.)
Though from    the eighth to the tenth century the natural sciences were
altogether neglected in the West, it was not the same with Eastern peoples,
who sought not so much to embrace the vast totality of physical knowledge
as to perfect themselves in the study of materia medica, for all the sciences




fo8


NATURlAL SCIENCES.


led up to medicine.  During the prosperous reign of Al-Mansour, in the
eighth century, a large school was founded at Bagdad, which became a
refuge for the sciences when exiled from Athens and Alexandria.  There
were translated into Syriac the works of Aristotle and Galen, the two
lights of Greece and of Rome, whom the Arabs in turn translated for the use
of their schools at Granada and Cordova.  The legendary caliph, Haroun
Alraschid, followed the example of Al-Mansour, his predecessor, and showed
still more generosity towards the savants.  His son, Al-Mamoun, obedient
to these traditions, carried the love of science so far as to declare war upon
the Emperor of Constantinople, in order to compel him to send into Asia
Minor not only several Greek savants, but also some ancient manuscripts
relating to arts and sciences.
The Arabs had before this cultivated several branches of natural history,
and made some valuable botanical discoveries, thereby enlarging the domain
of materia medica.   Thus, in place of the violent purgatives, such as
hellebore, which were previously resorted to, the Arab doctors recommended
the moderate use of cassia, senna, and tamarinds: a quantity of plants
useful for medicinal purposes were brought from India, Persia, and Syria by
Rhazes. At the same time Serapion the younger commentated Dioscorides,
and added to that work a description of the newly discovered plants; and
Avicenna scoured Bactriana and Sogdiana in search of medicines, and especially of vegetable preparations. Mesue wrote his treatise on Medicine (" De
Re Medica"), which, several times translated into Latin, was used as a manual
in all the schools up to the Renaissance. But, apart from the materia medica,
disorder and confusion prevailed in the works composed by the Arabs, who
were not acquainted with Aristotle's "History of Animals," or the "History
of Plants" by Theophrastus, and whose translations of, and commentaries
upon, Pliny and Dioscorides are a mass of nonsense, and for the most part
unintelligible.
Constantine of Africa first introduced into Europe certain Arab works
upon the materia medica, but in his own works, though they give proof of a
certain experience in practical medicine, it is easy to see that he was not well
informed in matters of detail, and this because there was a want of method in
his study of nature. Thus, in dividing medicines into four distinct classes,
he ranged them upon a sort of scale according to their degree of relative
activity. At about the same period the natural sciences were represented




NA TURAL SCIENCES.


log


with no little dclat in the East by several Arab botanists, such as Ebn-Taitor,
a native of Malaga, who travelled into Asia to study plants previously to
becoming minister of the Caliph at Cairo; and Abdallatif, author of a
very accurate description of the plants and animals of Egypt, who, in the
dissection of a mummy, corrected several important errors which Galen
had made in matters of osteology. This knowledge of human anatomy is all
the more remarkable because the law of Mahomet absolutely forbids dissection
of dead bodies.  Thus a great part of such science as there then was in the


Fig. 81.-God creating the World by Compass.-Miniature from Brunetto Latini's " Treor."
Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.


world came directly from the Arabs, and especially from the caliphate of
Cordova. It was there that Gerbert, who became, in turn, Archbishop of
Rheims, of Ravenna, and afterwards Pope, under the name of Sylvester II.
(999), repaired to increase his already large store of learning, and he may
claim the honour of having imported into Italy the first elements of the
natural sciences. Otho of Cremona sets forth the facts relating to medicinal
plants with which he is acquainted in a learned poem of fifteen hundred
lines; and John of Milan summarised, also in verse, all the medical botany




1 10


NA TURAL SCIENCES.


of his century in the " Code of the School of Salerno," a work which is not
devoid of importance from a hygienic point of view, but which is very
imperfect in its treatment of the natural sciences.
Although the light of science emanated chiefly from the Saracen schools in
Spain, it was not extinguished when the empire of the Caliphs was overthrown, and when reviving civilisation was once more threatened with an
invasion of barbarism. The Jewish nation picked up the scattered fragments
of the sacred arts of science, and divided them between the various countries
of Europe, where the rabbis for some time preserved the monopoly of real
learning. Physicians for the most part, often favourites and advisers of their
sovereigns, and even of popes, they had chairs at the Colleges of Bologna,
Milan, and Naples, and they substituted a new mode of teaching for the
"Etymologicon" of Isidore of Seville, which had been, since the seventh
century, the basis of scientific studies.  The natural sciences-amongst
others, zoology, mineralogy, and botany-were doubtless represented in this
abridged dictionary of human attainments, but Isidore of Seville, at the
remote epoch when he wrote, was unable to treat them save in a superficial and
illogical fashion, for want of sufficient experience and observation (Fig. 82).
The progress of the natural sciences was not very rapid during the twelfth
century, but there might already be perceived, in several writings on those
subjects, a tendency to observation of facts, though no one had yet conceived
the.simple idea of interrogating Nature herself. Botany continued to have
the preference of early observers, and medicine was the starting-point of all
scientific investigation. Amongst the works which give the best summary of
the opinions and principles of science, as to plants, minerals, and animals,
useful or noxious, must be mentioned the "Jardin de Sante," compiled by
Hildegarde, Abbess of Bingen, as a very valuable collection of receipts to be
used in cases of illness. Hildegarde, like many other abbesses of her time,
was much addicted to the study of everything relating to the art of healing;
she cultivated herself many medicinal plants, and ascertained their respective
properties. Thus a great many monasteries (Fig. 83) and convents possessed
not only botanical gardens, but also collections of fossils, minerals, shells,
herbs, and animals preserved by various processes of desiccation. This was
the origin of those encyclopaedie of the Aiddle Ages, vast descriptive compilations, full of popular errors, it is true, but at the same time replete with
curious and interesting details, which have been published in every language




NA T77R AT 7..    F


~L ~-C  VLL~IU  Y~-lLLV.L V U r_.......
fill 1ll
iiiiriiiiiioiiiii ~
tj~~~~~~~~~~~~~it
i,  it            ii:::::::::.:';:::   jiy   ii   Iliiiii
il-::::::::;li~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Prjl
N",J,:::::
Fig 8. Noh' Ak.Miiaur o      aCometar uonth Aoclyse-Mnucrptofth
Twlt Cnuy.I heLbar       fM    AboseFrinDdtPrs




I 12


NATURAL SCIENCES.


since the twelfth century, and which, with engravings that often explain
and complete the text, are buried in the great libraries without having ever
obtained the honours of print.  Most of these works contain singular revelations as to the nature of plants and of stones, as to the usage and properties of simples, as to the hygienic qualities of various foods, &c. Several
special and less voluminous treatises, written by certain doctors of the twelfth
century, were alone printed at the close of the fifteenth century. Amongst
these latter may be mentioned a moral poem entitled, " Anti-Claudianus, sive
de Officio viri boni et perfecti," which was composed at the close of the
twelfth century by the celebrated Alain de l'Isle, or de Lille, called the
Fig. 83.-Monks engaged in Agriculture.-Capital Letter in the "Livre de Jurisprudence."
Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century.-In M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot's Library, Paris.
Universal Doctor, and which contains, with a general table of arts and
sciences, a number of very sensible remarks on natural history.
The savants and philosophers of this epoch who had a taste for natural
sciences were but commentators and compilers, but the thirteenth century
produced observers, the first of whom were those whom the Crusades and a
passion for Eastern travel took into distant and hitherto unexplored lands,
where everything they saw was strange and unknown. Observations, imperfect as they no doubt were, resulted from these voyages, in which the curiosity
was continually being stimulated by the sight of novel objects; and the
natural sciences profited largely by the expeditions, whether political, com



NA TURAL SCIENCES.


'13


mercial, or what not, which were undertaken in Asia and Africa.  The
Mendicant Orders, Franciscans and Grey Friars, Dominicans and Preaching
Brothers, whom the Church sent forth as her representatives, contributed in
no small degree to these triumphs of natural history (Fig. 84). A Grey
Friar, John de Plano Carpini, sent by the Pope upon a mission to a Tartar


Fig. S4. -St. Francis of Assisi talking to the Birds.- Miniature from a Psalter of the Thirteenth
Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
chief (1246), was the first Christian who penetrated into the savage regions
beyond the Caspian Sea; another Grey Friar, Guillaume Picard, sent by
St. Louis to the residence of another Asiatic chief, wrote a detailed account
of his voyage (1253); Pierre Ascelin, sent by the Pope into Mongolia, and
Guillaume de Rubruquis, also sent by St. Louis into the depths of Tartary
(1253), were alike monks of the Franciscan Order.        These travellers, in
Q




J 4


NA TURAL SCIENCES.


relating their journeys, did not merely record what struck them the most in
the way of plants, animals, and stones; they brought back to Europe specimens which might be of use to science, and serve to correct anything incoherent or exaggerated in what they had written. The most celebrated Indian
explorer of the thirteenth century, Marco Polo, the Venetian, who passed
more than twenty years in those then unknown lands, and who penetrated as
far as China, has left a very curious account of his long journeys, in the
course of which he relates all that he saw or heard. Natural history occupies
a large place in his story, which but too often testifies to his ignorance and
credulity. (See below, chapter on Geographical Sciences.)
The most prominent botanists of that period, always in regard to the
materia medica, were: two Englishmen, Gilbert and Hernicus Arviell, who
travelled, the one through Europe, the other through Asia, to study plants
and prepare treatises on botany; Simon de Cordo, called Simon of Genoa,
who had undertaken a herborising expedition into the islands of the Archipelago and to Sicily, and who, borrowing largely from the Greek and Arab
writers, compiled a Botanic Dictionary; and Jean de St. Amand, Canon of
Tournay, who proceeded experimentally to his discoveries in therapeutics,
and devoted a remarkable work to the research of the medicinal properties of
a certain number of simples. But the most learned and experienced of these
botanists of the thirteenth century was Peter de Crescenzi, or de Crescentiis,
born at 3ologna in 1230, a man of mark both in regard to birth and fortune,
who had a great predilection for agriculture and horticulture, and who,
adding to his own observations all that the ancient authors and those of the
Middle Ages had written about the vegetable productions of nature, compiled a sort of agronomical encyclopaedia called "Opus Ruralium Commodorum."   This great work, replete with information, judicious advice, and
excellent practical notions, was translated into several languages, and
especially into French, by order of King Charles V., and called "Livre des
Prouffits champestres et ruraux."
Peter de Crescenzi treated but one side of natural history, but three of
his contemporaries, Vincent of Beauvais, Albertus Magnus, and Arnaud de
Villeneuve, entered upon the study of this science in a spirit of observation
which embraced all its aspects. They were, in fact, astrologers, alchemists,
theologians, and physicians first; naturalists afterwards. Vincent of Beauvais, a Dominican monk, who had translated the story of the voyage of John




NA TURAL SCIENCES.


II5


de Piano Carpini in Great Tartary, became enamoured of those distant
expeditions, which he looked upon as confirmatory of the strangest tales
of antiquity related by Pliny.     These fables he consequently embodied
in his enormous encyclopaedia, the "Speculum Naturale," not omitting any
of the superstitious errors of his time.  According to him, the mandragora
was of the same shape as the human body; the winged dragon was capable
of flying off with an ox, and devouring it in mid-air; the Scythian lamb, a
sort of animal-plant, was attached to the ground by a stem and by roots; and
Fig. 8,5.-" How Alexander fought the Dragons and a species of Beast called Scorpion."Miniature of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century, No. 11,040.-In the Burgundy Library,
Brussels.
the tree of life, or the weeping-tree, was to be found, like a living allegory, in
the harems of the East.  Vincent of Beauvais related wonderful stories about
the basilisk serpent, repeated the old legend of the tenderness of the pelican
towards her young, spoke of the never-ending flight of the phoenix, and
declared that in Scotland the fruits of certain trees, when they fall into the
water, produce black ducks of the species termed black divers. (See the
chapter on Popular Superstitions.)  This shows that natural history was still
in its infancy in the reign of St. Louis (Figs. 85, 87, and 95).
Albertus Magnus, the illustrious Albert de Bollstadt, was not, perhaps,




I 6


NA TURAL SCIENCES.


more learned than Vincent of Beauvais, but he was a greater logician, and
ought not to have been subjected to the insult of being credited with the
authorship of a wretched rhapsody called the "Secrets of the Great Albert,"
and of several similar productions, which, though equally unworthy of him,
were even more read than some of the most learned books which he really did
write. But, in response to the aspirations of science in the Middle Ages, he
had written treatises upon the properties of plants, stones, and animals, which
were afterwards disfigured and misrepresented by shameless charlatans.
Arnaud de Villeneuve, whose learning has, without sufficient grounds as it
seems, been compared to that of Albertus Magnus, had to submit, like the
latter, to a blundering and unfair interpretation of his doctrines. He had
studied in the schools of Italy and in that of Montpellier before coming to
teach, in the University of Paris, medicine and botany, philosophy and
astrology.  This was the first time that lessons in natural history were
taught concurrently with theology and medicine. The immense number of
hearers lent still greater notoriety to these lessons, in which the professor
boldly declared that the most solemn mysteries of the Catholic faith were to
be explained by the teachings of natural history and experimental physics.
Scientific teaching so opposed to the dogmas of the Church excited the alarm
of the Inquisition, and Arnaud de Villeneuve was accused, not of impiety or
heresy, but of sorcery and magic. It was only through the special protection
of Charles of Anjou, King of Naples and Sicily, that he was enabled to leave
France without appearing before the tribunal of the Inquisition, and he
sought a refuge at the court of this French prince, who retained him as
physician. Arnaud de Villeneuve found at Naples and Palermo, where he
had established his residence, greater facilities than he would have enjoyed
elsewhere for completing his studies in natural history, for this science
appears to have been specially favoured at the court of the kings of the
house of Anjou, as at that of the kings of the house of Arragon. After the
Sicilian Vespers, Arnaud de Villeneuve quitted the service of Charles II., and
attached himself for the rest of his life to the court of Frederick,., who,
more than any other sovereign of his time, favoured the study of the natural
sciences. This king of the Two Sicilies had Aristotle's "History of Animals"
translated into Latin; he went to great expense in forming a collection of
the rarest animals for his royal menagerie from Asia and Africa; and the
"Treatise on Falconry," which he found time, amidst the political anxieties




ATA W7TPT  A Tr CR T TyA T T'C.Ve.nl.U1V~J_ OIL/JILL\  0.                II7
1 17
of his reign, to compose himself, shows that he was very well versed in
everything relating to birds of prey.
The study of natural sciences had become more general and complete by
the beginning of the fourteenth century, though observations from nature
were not yet given the preference over the ancient descriptions to be found
in the Greek, Latin, and Arab authors. The difficulty of recognising under its
Arab name a plant described by Dioscorides also led to endless confusion.
Thus, for instance, Matthew Sylvaticus of Mantua, who possessed a superb
botanical garden at Salerno, had great difficulty in putting the right
names to his plants and ascertaining their specific qualities; for, though he
knew  Greek, he was ignorant both of Arabic and Hebrew, and hence
Fig. 86.-"How Alexander fought the Dragons with Sheep's Horns upon their Foreheads."Miniature of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century, No. 11,040.-In the Burgundy Library,
Brussels.
arose the absurd errors in his nomenclature. The writings of Dino del
Garbo, the Florentine; of John Ardern of Newark, the Englishman; and
of several other botanists were almost valueless for the same reasons. But
James Dondi and his son, John dall' Orologio, who worked in concert about
the middle of th     e fourteenth century at a perfected Codex of the materia
medica, lived at Bologna, and studied only the native plants, which they
have described with great precision and accuracy in their book on Simples,
written in Latin, with the title of "Liber de Medicamentis Simplicibus," and
translated into Italian as the "Herbolario Vulgare."  Another book, inferior
to the above in every respect, but very much better known, was that of
Bartholomew Glanvil, an English monk, who compiled, for the benefit of




i 18


NAA TURAL SCIENCES.


the wealthy, an encyclopecdia of natural history, filled with popular
stories and a mass of worthless erudition. This singular work, written in
Latin-it was styled the "Liber de Proprietatibus Rerum"-had a great
reputation so late as the sixteenth century; it was translated into French by
Brother Jean Corbichon, under the amphibological title of "Proprietaire des
choses," at the request of King Charles V., and it was one of the works most
frequently published in different languages when printing was first invented.
A like honour was reserved for the treatises which Albert of Saxony, Bishop
of Halberstadt, had imitated after the analogous treatises of Aristotle and of
Albertus Magnus, and which enumerated the more or less problematical
properties of plants, minerals, and animals (Fig. 88). In the fifteenth
century a light shone upon the darkness of the natural sciences, and this
light was the art of designing, by which a precise and unvarying form was
given to the objects described. A German of the Rhine provinces, whose
very name has been forgotten, conceived the idea of executing a work of
natural history, embellished with paintings intended to illustrate the writer's
descriptions. This book, entitled "Das Buch der Natur," was in reality an
abridged translation of Martin de Cantimpre's Latin work, "De Rerum
Natura;" but it contained a description of various animals, trees, and shrubs,
represented by figures, which in their drawing and colouring were very true
to nature. This book earned him such great celebrity that it was one of the
first books on natural history which the printing-press multiplied throughout
Germany as early as 1475, when the first edition appeared at Augsburg.
Wood engraving was henceforward the handmaiden of printing, and they
combined in offering to the eyes and to the mind some elementary
notions of the natural sciences. Printing, which, driven from its mysterious sanctuary by the siege and sack of Mayence (1462), had made its
way, with its typographers and engravers, into the great cities of Italy,
stimulated the rivalry of philologists and savants in bringing to light the
literary productions of ancient Greece and Rome. Aristotle, Theophrastus,
Dioscorides, and, still more, Pliny, at once found translators, commentators,
and editors. As early as the year 1468 John Spire published at Venice an
edition of Pliny; the following year the German printers, Sweynheim and
Arnold Pannartz, published at Rome a new edition, also in folio, revised and
corrected by the great philologist, Andrew, Bishop of Aleria. Two years afterwards a French printer settled at Venice, Nicholas Jenson, published an edition




NA TURAL SCIENCES.


II9


not inferior to either of the above. The Greek texts of Aristotle and Dioscorides were not published until the beginning of the sixteenth century; but as


Fig. 87.-The Marine World according to the Conceptions of the Middle Ages.-" How Alexander
lowered himself into the Sea in a Glass Barrel."-Miniature of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth
Century, No. 11,040.-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.


early as the year 1476, the "History of Animals," so long neglected, or, to
speak more correctly, eclipsed by the philosophical treatises of the illustrious
peripatetic of Stagira, was translated into Latin by Theodore Gaza.




120


ArA TURAL SCIENCES.


The numerous treatises and large works on natural history printed in the
fifteenth century show how eagerly this science was studied.  Those of
Albertus Magnus, whether really written by him or only attributed to him,
had an immense circulation. The encyclopedic compilation of Bartholomew
Glanvil, "De Proprietatibus Rerum," notwithstanding its deficiencies and
errors, was reprinted ten times in Latin and in French, while it was being
translated into English, Spanish, and Dutch, to appear almost simultaneously
at London, Tolosa, and Haarlem.  The excellent work of Peter Crescenzi
(" Ruralium Commodorum Libri XII."), which obtained the honour of passing
through fifteen or twenty editions before the close of the fifteenth century,
was also translated into several languages.  These large folios did not, of
T —lt-c      ltte Dmer eft   betteen l mer qui a nour mon
|     I  pttnemet tttatet reteuneruaigeeni lametOinmelig,L.Ap oitn i 0 et utete tomwelre beaitt
Fig. 88.-The Sea-Dog.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving in the "Dyalogue des Creatures"
(Gouda, Gerart Leeu, 1482, in folio).-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
course, reach the country-people, to whom some knowledge of natural history
was indispensable; and this knowledge, which they had acquired by practice
and tradition, was popularised by the miniatures of the calendars placed in
the frontispieces of books of devotion (Fig. 89), and by wood engravings,
which also ornamented these calendars. The same subjects were also illustrated in a quantity of almanacs, the most celebrated of which is the
"Compost et Kalendrier des Bergers."
The usefulness of plates in a book upon natural history was so generally
recognised (Fig. 90) that no book upon botany appeared without some wood
engravings, which were not always, as may well be supposed, very true to
nature. It was at this period that a Lubeck burgomaster called Arndes went




NTA TUR AL CIECES


1 21


to Palestine, takingy with him  a draftsman who was to sketch for him the
plants which grew in the Levant. But as the drawings which he brought
black were not accompanied by any text description, a Mlayence doctor, one


- i


-ANdmassom


I
t - j,
j


:i 01- --
- -- - - - — ml t,
I,            Llg.
(iAll".1                                              "l    -  I


Fig. 89.-Sheep-shearing,.-Miniature from  the "Three Ages of Mlan," unpublished Poem
attributed to Estienne Porchier.-Manuscript of the latter part of the Fi,,teenth Century.In the Library of MI. Ambroise Firmin-IDidot, Paris.
John. de Cuba, was intrusted with writing the text after the, botanical works,,of the Arabs; and in this way were perpetuated, at great cost, the ancient
it




122


NA TURAL SCIENCES.


errors which hampered the development of science. At the same time it
must be said that some very interesting books on Herbalism, enriched with
handsome wood engravings, were published at Mayence, Passau, and Louvain
-some in Latin, and others in German-before the great works of Arndes
and John de Cuba appeared at Lubeck in 1492.
At Venice, too, were being printed with marvellous rapidity the works of
the ancient Arab physicians, Avicenna, Avenzoar, Averroes, and Mesue,
who treated of natural history in its relation to medicine; and these publications only served to excite hostility against the Arabists, who had copied
Pliny with all his errors. A learned professor of Ferrara, Nicholas Leoniceno,
took this opportunity of attacking the Arabic school and its admirers, of
whom he said, "These people never saw the plants of which they speak;
they steal their descriptions from the works of preceding authors, whose
meaning they often distort: this has led to a veritable chaos of erroneous
denominations, the confusion being further increased by the inaccuracy of the
descriptions." In this literary war, which showed how very imperfect was
the knowledge of natural history at the time when Pliny's work was being so
widely disseminated by the printing-press, Leoniceno was unjust towards the
great Roman naturalist, and this he was made to comprehend by the celebrated Venetian humanist, Ermolao Barbaro, in a reply in favour of Pliny.
The latter, in correction of the faults to be found in Pliny's work, published
a book entitled  "Castigationes Plinianae," but that writer's "Natural
History" was for the time discredited in most of the schools in Italy.
Taking advantage of this discredit, which increased the demand for the
works of Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides, the Aldi, skilful Venetian
printers, brought out the original and hitherto unpublished texts of the
Greek naturalists. Aldus Manutius had himself revised, after the ancient
manuscripts, these priceless works, which were so anxiously scanned by the
lovers of antiquity. They published at about the same time other modern
works upon natural history, amongst them being several treatises of Georges
Valla upon plants, and a Botanic Lexicon after the Greek authors. The study
of botany was also in great favour amongst French savants. A Parisian
printer, Pierre Caron, published, about 1495, "L'Arbolayre," a new herbal
dictionary, illustrated with a great many wood engravings; and this work,
extracted from the medical treatises of Avicenna, Rhazes, Constantine, Isaac,
and Plateaire, was reprinted, with the title of " Grand Herbier en Francois,"




NA TURAL SCIENCES.


123


by six or eight Paris publishers. Botany seemed to hold the first place in
natural history, and the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in
1492 gave a fresh impetus to the study of the flora of that great continent.
The precious metals were at first the only articles of importation, but
it was soon found that the materia medica might be greatly increased by
the vegetable growth of the New World, and the disinterested love of science
induced several learned men to cross the ocean. Italian, German, Spanish,
and Portuguese naturalists applied themselves with zeal to examining and
9   ivrFishin     similErvin in                tinEditio   li
Fig. 90.-River Fishing.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving in a Latin Edition of Pliny
(Frankfort, 1584, in folio).
testing the numerous productions of this newly discovered land.  Other
naturalists, passing by the marvels of the American continent, devoted their
attention to Asia, which they explored to more purpose than their predecessors had done. In presence of a nature absolutely new and unknown,
the first naturalists who visited America were obliged to abandon the teaching of the past, and rely upon the results of their own direct and personal
observations. This brought about a complete revolution in science. Travels
really useful for purposes of natural history became general. Jean Leon,
surnamed the African, visited Egypt, Arabia, Armenia, and Persia, noting
with great care the various characteristics presented by the three kingdoms.




124                    N4A TURAL SCIENTCES.
Peter Martyr (Pietro Martire d'Anghiera), while on a diplomatic mission in
the East, verified upon the spot, book in hand, the statements of Aristotle,
Theophrastus, and Dioscorides; John Manardi, a doctor of Ferrara, herborised in Poland and Hungary; and Jacques Dubois, the Amiens doctor,
surnamed Sylvius, travelled all through France, Germany, and Italy in order
to study nature.
Gradually the taste for scientific travel became general, and bore its
natural fruits. Valuable collections of natural history were formed, exotic
plants were acclimatised, and animals domesticated. Horticulture became a
practical science; to kitchen and fruit gardens were added pleasure-grounds;
and it was a Metz priest, Master Francois, who invented the "herbaceous
ingraftment," the secret of which has only recently been recovered. The
culture of many new plants gave still further development to botany, which
had its special chairs in most of the leading Universities; and those of Ferrara,
Bologna, and Padua had the advantage of being filled by Ghini and
Brasavola. The best botanists were the doctors, whose main object was to
extend the domain of the materia medica, and who all published large books
written in Latin and replete with engravings: Otho Brunfels, of Mayence,
his " Herbarum Vivae Icones " (1530-36); Euricius Cordus, of Cologne, whose
son Valerino became one of the greatest botanists in Germany, his " Botanologicum" (1534); and Leonard Fuchs, a Bavarian, his "Commentarii
Insignes" (1542). It would be impossible to enumerate here all the works
on natural history, on botany more particularly, which appeared during the
first half of the sixteenth century in Germany, Holland, and Italy, and
which testify to the vigorous growth of the new science. It must, however,
be said that, out of the countless cosmopolitan travellers who went to the
West Indies in search of fortune, one only, Gonzales Fernandes of Oviedo,
brought back with him the materials for a really important work on natural
history. This work he entitled "La Historia general y natural de las Indias"
(Seville, 1535, in folio), and it contains a very accurate description of the
animals, trees, shrubs, and plants of Southern America.
France, whose artists had enriched so many liturgical and religious manuscripts (Fig. 91) with paintings of flowers, birds, butterflies, and insects,
very readily took part in the study of natural history. Charles Estienne,
anatomist and botanist, one of the most distinguished members of the family
of Parisian printers which conferred so much renown upon the name of




2NA [TURA L SCIEAYC7ES.


125


Estienne, composed several short treatises
on   agronomy, horticulture, botany, and
sylviculture, which, together with his vocabulary of natural history, were frequently reprinted.  These various treatises,
afterwards collected into one, constituted a
great work entitled "Predium Rusticum,"


which his son-in-law, Liebaut, popularised,
translating it into French, with several
additions, and calling it the "Maison Rustique."  Gardening became the fashion in
France, and every one was anxious to possess some new plant or some flower brought
from a great distance. The royal gardens
at Fontainebleau and Chambord were laid
out at great expense, and made models of
what, as it was then considered, kitchen,
fruit, and flower gardens ought to be. The
gardens of the Chateau d'Alencon, laid out
under the instructions of Marguerite, sister
of Francois I., were specially famous. More

Fig. 91.-Border of a Page in Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, "Vie de St. Jerome."-In the
Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.




126


ANA TURAL SCIENCES.


over, princes and prelates, nobles and plebeians, seemed to take an interest in
horticulture: the greater was political agitation, the greater seemed the attractions of country life. Cardinal de Chatillon had magnificent plantations at
Maillezais, of which place he was bishop; and Francois Rabelais, during
his stay at Rome, sent him various kinds of seeds and plants which were
imported into France for the first time, and became indigenous. The two
leading Statesmen of this period, Cardinal du Bellay and Cardinal de
Lortaine, also deserve mention in the history of gardening, for they
encouraged the pursuit of botany, and sought repose from   the cares of
state, the one at the Abbey of St. Maur, and the other at the Chateau de
Meudon, where they passed their time amidst the trees and flowers. At
this period there were no public botanical gardens in France, like those of
Passau in Bavaria, and of Pisa and Florence in Italy, though Jean Ruel,
Dean of the Paris Faculty and physician to Francois I., explained in his
valuable work, "De Natura Stirpium" (Paris, 1536, in folio), the necessity
of creating such a garden for the teaching of practical medicine.
The era of Transatlantic voyages, which followed the discovery of America,
was a very fruitful one, and the maritime voyages of discovery and conquest
were succeeded by scientific voyages. Distant lands, drawn closer to Europe
by the ties of commerce, were opened for the researches of science. The first
facts of -natural history, collected from beyond the seas, both from East and
West, from Mexico and Brazil as from China and Japan, were due to the
Jesuits, who have left us true and interesting accounts of the countries into
which they carried the standard of Christianity. Valuable information was
also given by the diplomatic agents in foreign countries. Busbecq, who was
the ambassador of three German emperors in Turkey, took with him the
learned naturalist of Sienna, Andrew Mattioli, to assist him in his botanical
researches. Pelicier, French ambassador at Venice, had as his secretary and
physician the learned Guillaume Rondelet; and Cardinal du Bellay, ambassador of Fran9ois I. to the Holy See, attached to his suite the great Rabelais
in a simihtr capacity, who, however, has not left us any of the works he may
'have composed during his travels in Italy. Guillaume Rondelet, on the other
'hand, published several works on Ornithology and Ichthyology. A French
nitituralist still more celebrated, Pierre Belon, who accompanied Cardinal de
Tournon in several of his diplomatic missions, was supplied by him with the
means of travelling in Palestine, Egypt, and Arabia, where he completed and




NA TURAL SCIENCES.


127


revised two monographs which he had in preparation upon birds and fishes;
and these two works he published upon his return from his travels (1551 and
1555), with illustrations which he had himself made after nature, but which
were not all of them accurate.
Two men of genius ---one a German, George Agricola, the other a Swiss,
Conrad Gesner —divided supremacy at that time in the domain of natural
history. The first occupied the position in regard to mineralogy which the
latter held in botany and zoology. George Landman Agricola, born at
Chemnitz, in Saxony, in 1494, had studied in the Universities of France and
Italy; while Gesner, born at Zurich in 1516, had been educated in the
schools of Paris and Montpellier. Agricola at first practised medicine, and
distinguished himself by his experiments in regard to what was called
chemical medicine. The study of chemistry led up to that of mineralogy, and
he devoted his whole time to the latter science, exploring the mines of
Bohemia and Saxony. It was in this way that he acquired a profound
knowledge of everything relating to the working of metals. In his works
on Mineralogy the chemical part is treated with as much precision and
learning as the docimastic part. These great works, translated into different
languages, and of which several editions were printed, earned for him more
reputation than profit, as he employed all his means in making costly
researches and experiments.  Conrad Gesner did not attempt to rival
Agricola upon the field of mineralogy, turning his attention more specially
to the study of animals and of plants. He was, in reality, the originator of
scientific botany. Classing the plants by genus and kind, he was the first to
discover the means of recognising each genus and kind by examining the organs
of fructification. In this way he discovered more than eighteen hundred new
kinds. His intention was to publish a work upon the natural history of the
whole world, and his erudition would have enabled him to complete this
immense task had his life been spared, but he only lived long enough to
write the first four books of his "History of Animals" (1551, 1554, 1555,
and 1558), which comprised the viviparous and oviparous tribes, the birds
and the fishes. His pupils, Gaspard Wolff and Joachim Camerarius, were
his executors, and they published the incomplete materials which he had left
behind him in regard to the vegetable kingdom, the serpents, and the fossils.
Gesner, who passed nearly all his life in his study at Zurich, was in permanent communication with the principal travellers of his day, such as Andre




I28


NA TURAL SCIENCES.


Thevet and Pierre Gilles; with the leading naturalists, such as Rondelet,
Belon, and Aldrovandus; with the greatest botanists, such as Dalechamp,
Maranda, Adam Lonicer, and Rainbert Dodoens, surnamed Dodonaus. The
books of Gesner may, therefore, be looked upon as the store in which were
deposited all the facts and discoveries in natural history during his day.
Gesner's works show that at this period science, notwithstanding the want
of classification which militated against an harmonious and complete conception of the work of nature, had reached a very advanced stage. All
that remained was to submit the mass of information to a philosophic and
methodical classification. Thus, in that part of his great work which Gesner
published himself, after ranging the animals alphabetically, with their Latin
names followed by those used in different languages, he describes them
minutely, indicating their origin, their varieties, their habits, their diseases,
their utility in domestic economy, industry, medicine, and arts, and quoting,
in reference to each, the different passages which he had extracted from
ancient and modern authors.    Belon, although less erudite than Gesner,
attempted to class the birds according to their instinctive habits, and in some
cases according to their external appearance; but he had no settled system,
and his most ingenious suggestions failed to bring to his knowledge the
unvarying order of natural laws in the formation of species. Rondelet went
even further than Gesner and Belon, as he attempted to ascertain by comparative anatomy the analogies and differences of species, but he did not
succeed in establishing a general and systematic plan in zoology. Botany
was much further advanced than the other branches of natural history, for
Gesner not only discovered the elements for the classification of plants, but
the conscientious researches of a number of excellent botanists advanced
further and further the frontiers of a science which embraced the whole
vegetable world. Though henceforward the method of observation was the
only one admitted in scientific matters, the books of the ancient naturalists
were translated and commentated, and Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides,
and Pliny recovered full authority.
There was, however, a man of genius who, knowing nothing of Greek or
Latin, and devoid of all regular education, discovered the fundamental bases
of nature, which were only recognised three centuries later, and who, as far
back as the sixteenth century, established the principles upon which repose
geology, physics, and natural history. This was a humble labourer in




NATURAL SCIENCES..


129


P&rigord, called Bernard Palissy, who,
at the age of five-and-twenty, left his
native village, where he had been earning a scanty living as a potter, and
started on a journey, staff in hand
and wallet on back, through France,
Germany, and Holland, practising different manual trades-at one time
glazier, at another geometer, and at
another designer. Wherever he went
he studied the topography of the district, the irregularities of the ground,
the course of the streams, the mines,
and the natural productions and specialities of the country. He questioned
the inhabitants as to the objects which
attracted his attention, and so acquired
for himself a scientific education by
the sole force of his own intelligence.
After five years of wandering, in the
course of which he learnt, to use his
own   expression, "science with the
teeth," he returned home and settled
in Saintonge. While continuing his
trade of surveyor and painter on glass,
he sought to discover the secret of
making enamelled pottery (Fig. 92),
similar to that which Italy manufactured with so much skill, and which
was much in favour at every court in
Europe. Palissy worked at this scheme
for ten or twelve years before discovering the coloured enamel which he required to cover the pottery. He thus
equalled those whom he had copied,
and he soon surpassed them by making
s


Fig. 92.-Table Ornament, from the Palace of
the Bishop of Lisieux.-Enamelled Pottery
of the Sixteenth Century.-In the Collection
of 3M. Achille Jubinal.




130


NA TURAL SCIENCES.


vases and dishes which were decorated with figures of flowers, herbs, shells,
insects, and reptiles. Palissy, whose earthenware was very highly esteemed
when it appeared at the French court, placed himself under the protection
of the Constable of Montmorency, and obtained the title of "Inventeur
des rustiques figulines du roi." (See in the volume on "Arts," chapter on
Ceramics.)
He was summoned to Paris by order of the King, and Catherine de'
Medicis gave him a workshop in the gardens of the Tuileries. It was then
that he described, in a course of public lectures, the result of his discoveries
and his theories on natural history. Referring to this, he wrote, "I disFig. 93.-Mark of Barthelemy Berton, printer at Rochelle, upon the Title-page of the "Discours
admirables," by Bernard Palissy, published at La Rochelle in 1563, small quarto.
played placards at the corners of the streets, in order to assemble the most
learned physicians and others, promising to explain to them in three lectures
all that I knew in regard to fountains, stones, metals, and other bodies. And
in order that the audience might consist only of the most learned and those
most anxious to instruct themselves, I stated in my placards that no one
would be admitted except on payment of a crown; and this I did to see what
could be advanced in opposition to my views, knowing well that if I made
any false statements they would infallibly be caught up." We do not,
unfortunately, possess any further particulars as to these conferences at which
thirty-two most honourable and learned persons took part, in addition to many




NA TURAL SCIENCES.


1'3


others not so distinguished.   Palissy, however, asserts that his statements
were not once questioned. He repeated his lectures every year, from 1575,
with increased success, and in 1580 he published his great work, which was,
no doubt, a resume of his public lectures, entitled "Admirable Discourses,"
&c. (see Fig. 93).
Fig. 94.-The Vegetable Kingdom.-Mark of Guillaume Merlin, Bookseller at Paris, in the
middle of the Sixteenth Century.-The design of this typographical mark is attributed to
Jean Cousin.
It is only since Palissy's time that geology has obtained a recognised
place in science. He stated that the " petrified fish discovered in the rock
had been born there at a time when the rocks were only water and mud,
which became petrified simultaneously with the fish;" but these views were




132


N'3A TURAL SCIENCES.


not generally recognised as true until the time of Cuvier and Brongniart.
Palissy was two or three hundred years in advance of the epoch in which he
lived, for he asserted that when the fossils were formed men and certain
kinds of animals did not exist; he distinguished between the water due to
crytallization and the water of vegetation; he laid down the laws of the
affinity of salts in the development of stones and metals; he investigated
the origin of clouds, of springs, of earthquakes, of mineral or spring waters,
and of potable waters; he started, in fact, the great questions of natural
philosophy, of organic chemistry, of mineralogy, and of agronomy. Yet
Fig. 94a.-Mark of Charles Estienne, Printer at Paris, in the First Edition of his Work entitled
"Praedium Rusticum."-(See page 125.)
Bernard Palissy exercised little influence upon the science of his day, and he
was not looked upon as more than a skilful potter.
It is true that this period of civil and religious wars was not very favourable to the silent meditations of science, but the naturalists-more especially
the botanists-careless as to what was going on in the political world, saw
nothing and heard nothing of what passed outside their studies (Fig. 94).
Towards the close of the sixteenth century there were two savants who
discovered the true principles as to the classification of plants. Matthias
Lobel, born at Lille in 1538, but who, after several long botanical expeditions,
settled in England, first of all arranged them into families-such as the
grasses, the orchids, the palm tribe, and the mosses-and compared the mint
tribe and the umbelliferous plants. Andrew Cesalpin, professor of botany at




NAA TURAL SCIENCES.


133


Pisa, compared the process of generation in animals to the seed of plants,
distinguishing male plants by their stamen, and considering the plants which
yielded seed as female. He further divided plants into fifteen classes, with
male and female genders in each. To Cesalpin, therefore, belongs the honour
of having invented the first system of botany, a branch of natural history
which was studied very eagerly, and the development and progress of which
were materially assisted by the numerous exploring expeditions all over the
globe (Fig. 94a).
How important were these conquests of science may be gathered by
examining the two thousand six hundred wood plates in the "Histoire
generale des Plantes," written in French, after the notes of Jacques Dalechamp, and the two thousand five hundred plates in the botanical treatise
of the Alsatian Jacques-Theodore Tabernasmontanus, written in German, and
published in 1588-90. At that time the rage was for bulky volumes with
abundant illustrations, especially in regard to natural history; and yet, when
Dr. Francis Hernandez was ordered by Philip II., to whom he had been
acting as physician, to collect in one volume all the animal, vegetable, and
mineral productions of Mexico, he could not find during his lifetime a
publisher who would engrave the twelve hundred figures which he had had
painted at a cost of sixty thousand ducats. The engravings and publications
on natural history which Theodore de Bry and his sons executed at Frankfort had more success when they came out in the splendid collection known
to bibliographists as the "Grands et Petits Voyages."
Fig. 95.-The Phoenix rising from his Ashes.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving in the
Latin Edition of Pliny (Frankfort, 1602, in folio).




MEDICAL SCIENCES.
Decline of Medicine after the death of Hippocrates.-The School of Galen.-The School of
Alexandria.-Talismans and Orisons against Illness.-Monastic Medicine.-Female Doctors.
-The Arab Schools.-The Schools of Naples, Monte Casino, and Salerno.-The Hospitallers.
-The School of Cordova.-Epidemics coming from the East.-The appearance of Military
Surgery.-The Schools of Montpellier and Paris.-Lanfranc as upholder of Surgery.College of St. Cosmo at Paris.-Guy de Chauliac.-Rivalry of the Surgeons and the Barbers.
-Medical Police.-The Occult Sciences in Medicine.-Rivalry of the Surgeons and the
Doctors.-The Doctors in the Sixteenth Century.-Andrew Vesalius.-Ambroise Pare.
IRISTIAI    ITY,    as  might be   expected,
exercised a great and immediate influence
upon   the practice and    the science of
medicine.   Christ healing the sick by the
laying on of hands, restoring sight to
the blind and making the lame to walk
by an appeal to God, and raising the
dead to life in the name of the Father,
|)i^^dj^,_^[ H           seemed to intimate to the world that
prayer and faith were the best remedies
against human ills.
Medicine and its indispensable accompaniment, the art of surgery, underwent, subsequently to the death of Hippocrates, transformations due to the
rival sects of dogmatism and empiricism, without making any real progress.
Men of intelligence, but too hampered by scepticism or materialism, such as
Themison of Laodicea and Soranus of Ephesus, founded a new doctrine called
Methodism, which made the science of medicine rest upon the analogous and
mutual relations of the organic affections to one another. This doctrine,
which took no account of anatomical studies, admitted only two principles or
causes of illness, strictum and laxum-that is to say, the contraction and the
relaxation of the tissues; and the invariable course of treatment was either




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


I35


to relax the tissues which were too contracted, or to contract those which
were too relaxed. The methodists had no idea of the action of the mind
upon the morbid state of the human body.
It was the philosophy of Plato, renewed and revived in the schools, which
inspired the doctrine of pneumatism, which attributed to the soul (-rvyua in
Greek) a considerable part in the diseases of the body as well as in all the acts
of human existence. Pneumatism, adopting the formulae of the peripatetics,
and based upon precise data of anatomy, in time gave birth to eclecticism,
which was professed by Athenaus of Cilicia, Agathus of Sparta, Philip of
Cesarea, Aretaeus of Cappadocia, and, lastly, by Galen, who was the greatest
of the eclecticians. Galen, born at Pergamus in the year 131 B.c., studied in
the school of Alexandria, and it was there that he learnt to argue with much
talent against the already discredited methods, from out of the elements of
which, duly sifted and selected, he created the eclectic system, founded upon
anatomy and observation. His encyclopaedic spirit, the success of his teaching,
the excellent results of his scientific journeys, the diversity and the variety
of his writings, caused him to be looked upon as nothing short of an oracle
when, upon coming to Rome, he became the physician of the Emperor
Marcus Aurelius. The sympathies of that monarch for the Christians were
undoubtedly shared by Galen, who was as well versed in the Bible as in the
books of Plato. He was an anatomist in his early career, but he specially
distinguished himself afterwards as a physiologist and psychologist. No
doctor, before him, had formed any conception as to the extent of Divine
action upon the least important of human affairs: he defined and comprehended the part of the soul beneath its corporal covering, but without pronouncing as to the question of its immortality. This ingenious definition
of the 7rvEV/ca, the part which he assigns it in the sensorial functions, the
difference which he distinctly asserts between the nerves of feeling and those
of motion, and his division of the forces of the body into three kinds-vital,
animal, and natural-are so many touches of genius, which, though but mere
glimmers of truth at first, afterwards shone out as bright lights and resplendent truths. According to Galen, the health of the body depended upon an
equal and uniform mixture of solids and liquids, and its illness from their
disproportion and inequality. Consequently, a clever physician should always
foresee illness, by judging as to its immediate or remote causes, its predisposing or accidental causes. Galen was in advance of his time; his ideas as




136


MIEDICAL SCIENCES.


to inflammations, loss of blood, intermittent fevers; his system of antipathies
and sympathies, of indications and counter-indications, appertain not less to
physiology than to pathology and therapeutics, and show how superior he
was to his contemporaries and predecessors.
Yet, after his death, the doctrines of Hippocrates again obtained prevalence, though the materialist tendencies seem to be directly opposed to the
spiritualism of the Christian faith. The latter, however, did not disown
these theories in medico-philosophic science; and the early monks, who were
physicians of the body as well as of the mind, began to transcribe the aphorisms
of Hippocrates, the principal treatises of Galen, and the vast repertory of a
Greek physician, Coelius Aurelianus, who had taken up and commentated all
the books of the methodists. In these times of trouble and uncertainty, professional teaching had no other sources of knowledge. The cities of Athens,
Rome, and Alexandria still had schools of philosophy which attracted a
motley crowd of professors and students, and any one was admitted, whether
Greek or Arab, Gaul or Roman, Christian or Jew; for the only restriction
upon complete freedom of instruction was that the laws of the state and the
prevailing religion should not be attacked by the teachers or their pupils.
To this may be traced in the philosophy of that day, as it was called, a
strange amalgamation of Eastern reveries and scriptural traditions, of pagan
superstitions and Christian legends. The most intelligent men of that time
believed that "famine, death, foul air, and epidemics are caused by evil spirits,
who, enveloped in a cloud, flit through the lower regions of the atmosphere,
to which they are attracted by the blood and the incense offered up to the
false divinities. But for the odour of the sacrifices, these spirits would not
exist. It is to them alone that are due the wonderful cures attributed to
~sculapius" (Fig. 96).
When these ideas were held by the most talented men of the time, it is
not astonishing that the common herd should have sought relief for bodily
ills in practices of magic and piety, having recourse to talismans, and placing
implicit confidence in certain words, formulae, figures, and cabalistic signs, the
effect of which was, as they believed, to exorcise the evil spirits and obtain
the assistance of the good spirits.
As the temples of AEsculapius, Hygeia, and Serapis were closed-and
these divinities were altogether neglected by the end of the fourth centuryChristianity opened its churches and its monasteries to the sick, who received




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


137


there gratuitously the best attention that charity, still very devoid of science,
but animated by the precepts of the gospel, could offer to the indigent. The
wants both of the body and the soul were ministered to. The first leperhouses, in which were treated not only leprosy, but the other skin diseases
which were so frequent at that day, were erected close to the church. The
hydropathic treatment, which was in accordance with the Christian as it had
been with the Hebrew faith, became general under the combined influence of
religious symbolism and hygienic principles.   Many mineral sources and
fountains which, though they had lost the patronage of the local divinities,
were not the less crowded at fixed epochs, were placed beneath the tutelary
Fig. 96.-Celtic Monument discovered at Paris, beneath the Choir of Notre-Dame, in 1711.
(According to several archaeologists, the bas-relief represents the Gallic AEsculapius.)
protection of various saints, to whom popular opinion attributed a special
action in the cure of diseases.
In the beginning of the fifth century the practice of medicine, like that
of surgery, which was not yet a distinct branch, continued to be free, without
any authorisation being required. There were even women who, like the
Druidesses of the Gauls, treated the sick. Charmers, unconscious, no doubt,
of the occult forces which they set at work, proceeded by means of magnetism
to cure, or at all events to relieve, neuralgic pains; country bone-setters were
very expert in remedying fractures and dislocations of the limbs; and numerous oculists, impostors of the worst kind, who had learnt while serving in the
army what little they knew about ocular diseases, made large sums of money


T




I38


MEDICAL SCIENCES.


by scouring the country with their lotions and quintessences. But at the
bottom of all this popular medicine lurked the most outrageous empiricism.
Yet the authorities of the large towns engaged municipal doctors, who, to
judge by the inscriptions on their tombs, were not devoid of ability, and
rendered considerable service. The public teaching of medicine followed the
fortunes of the Roman empire, and migrated from Rome to Byzantium in
the reign of Constantine.  Yet the barbarians, in their repeated invasions,
did not destroy the schools at Treves, Aries, Bordeaux, and Marseilles.
Alexandria and Athens more especially continued to be luminous centres of
intellectual labour, though Greek medicine, which alone was taught there,
t ---{^*trbicofrneeft Ung opreauefifptienne imoeti*ppip e
J|1 j      lod Ifopot plueq toutleG aultte8opfecau rsrelk
neteouewtiqe iaqxig1 wozteltupele8t(fe8~
(ta tecote8 fuic e tuigu ele oeufo oelercpec te ppge
Fig. 97.-The Stork its own Doctor, as testified to by Papias.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving
in the "Dyalogue des Creatures" (Gouda, Gerart Leeu, 1482, in folio).-In the Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
had embraced theories derived both from dogmatism and empiricism, which
continued to prevail throughout the Middle Ages.
Oribasius of Pergamus, physician to the Emperor Julian the Apostate,
was, at the close of the fourth century, one of the last representatives of
pagan science: his writings, in which he had summarised the labours of
many Greek physicians, were adopted by the sect of Nestorians, who cultivated
more particularly philosophy and medicine. The Nestorian school of Edessa
soon eclipsed the school of Alexandria, and shared the renown attaching to the
Athens school; but as at Edessa the propagation of Nestorianism was mixed
up with scientific teaching, the school suffered from the persecution which
the Eastern emperors, Theodosius II. and Leo the Isaurian, waged against the




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


139


heresy of Nestorius. The professors whose orthodoxy was not in conformity
with that of the Greek Church were deprived of their salaries by a decree of
Justinian, who at the same time wrought the final ruin of the Athens school.
The chairs of philosophy and medicine were not, however, altogether
untenanted in the East, for the Arab schools were still in existence, though
their teaching did not go beyond a few books of Pliny the Elder, of Dioscorides,
of Aristotle, and of Galen, very imperfectly translated from Greek or Latin
Fig. 98.-Physician, from the " Danse Macabre," Guyot Marchant edition, 1490.
into Syriac, and then retranslated into Arabic with a multiplicity of errors
(Fig. 97). The school of Alexandria had ceased to be more than a shadow of
her former self, the lessons of the masters of science were forgotten, and all
that she possessed was a few rhetoricians, who, instead of confining themselves
to a careful observation of causes and effects, commentated apocryphal and
ridiculous books, and applied themselves to the discovery of useless or insensate solutions.  Thus, for instance, they discussed why the hand has five




140


MEDICAL SCIENCES.


fingers instead of six; why such and such an intestine is of one shape more
than of another; why the human head is round, &c. In the meanwhile the
uonka s of Mount Lebanon and the ascetics of Mount Atlas, in obedience to
the rules of their order, worked incessantly at the translation and copying
-committing many blunders, unfortunately-of the early texts relating to
the theory of medicine, in order that the information possessed by the ancients
might not be lost to the Christian world.
Amidst all these obscurities of science, a few illustrious savants formed
bright exceptions. Thus Aitius, of Amida in Mesopotamia, was to the fifth
what Alexander of Tralles was to the middle of the sixth century. The
former, a Greek physician, collected, under the title of "Tetrabiblos," the
observations and doctrines of his predecessors, completing and elucidating
them with great judgment. For instance, his work contains a very plausible
theory upon fever, a detailed description of the principal diseases of the eye,
and a series of very precise descriptions of the functional disorders caused in
the organism by various morbid complaints. His therapeutics in cases of
acute disease are based upon the principles of Hippocrates, and prove that he
possessed real learning, enriched by experience and refined by excellent logic.
Amongst other things, Aetius advocates a regular diet and care in the selection of aliments; he points out the good effects of fresh air and cold water in
cases of angina and in pulmonary complaints. " May the God of Abraham
and of Jacob," he exclaimed when preparing one of his remedies, " give to
this medicine the virtues which I believe it to possess!" (Fig. 98.)
After Aetius comes Alexander of Tralles, whose medical reputation
was very great in the sixth century. No Greek doctor since the days of
Hippocrates had equalled him with regard to practical science, professional
sagacity, and literary merit. He had made himself acquainted with all the
facts which had been observed and collated before his time; but he did not
allow himself to become the slave of any scientific authority, or to be seduced
by any doctrine, recognising no other guide than his own experience. He
possessed to a supreme degree the art of diagnosis, and he laid down as a
principle that no decision should be arrived at, as to the treatment of a case,
until the specific and individual causes of the disease have been carefully
sought out and considered. His views upon melancholia and gout, his dislike
of violent aperients and the abuse of opium, his preference for laxatives in
cases of dysentery and for emetics in cases of intermittent fever, testify both




t —
Sl


Fig. 99.-View of the Cathedral of Cordova in its present state.




142


MEDICAL SCIENCES.


to the independence and accuracy of his observations, and show that he knew
how to apply with advantage the most conflicting theories. He was the first
to resort to bleeding from the jugular vein, and to use iron filings in certain
affections of the blood.
In the seventh century the Jewish doctors endeavoured to possess themselves of the teaching of medicine in the East, forming at Damascus and
Constantinople scientific assemblies, in which all real learning was lost in the
obscurities of cabalism. The East, always a land of illusions and fancies, was
only too accessible to the superstitious ideas implied in the magical and
supernatural treatment of disease.  This mixture of error and truth is
nowhere more noticeable than in the Koran, a compilation which is as much
scientific as it is religious, and to which doctors from the schools of Alexandria and Dschoudisapour (the town founded by Sapor II.) must have contributed in the name of Mahomet, for this code of Islamism contains, with
regard to physiology and hygiene, some very remarkable views and excellent
principles summarised in the shape of aphorisms which often remind one of
the language of Hippocrates. It is worth while mentioning here that, long
before Mahomet's time, the Arab doctors, who were also poets, legists, and
philosophers, had their share in the sacerdotal influences which contributed to
the civilisation of the Eastern races. Thus, when the conquests of Mahomet
had been consolidated with the sword, the native and foreign doctors residing
at Irak found greater security and protection from the Mussulmans at Bagdad
and Bassora than from the Emperors at Byzantium.
Paul of fJEgineta was, in the seventh century, the last personage of note
belonging to the expiring school of Alexandria. This Greek 'doctor, whose
pathology was based upon the principles of Galen, Aetius, and Oribasius, also
had a system of his own for the treatment of different diseases, such as
ophthalmia, gout, and leprosy, which latter was spreading with frightful
rapidity. He inclined more towards methodism and eclecticism than towards
empiricism. One of his contemporaries, named Ahrun, who was not probably
a student of the Alexandria school, though he afterwards practised medicine
in that city, where he was a Christian priest, published a judicious treatise
upon various epidemics, such as scurvy and small-pox, which latter disease
had just made its appearance and was spreading rapidly, three centuries
before the Arab doctor, Rhazes, gave a more detailed description of them.
The celebrated schools which had been founded at Bagdad, the new capital




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


143


of the Caliphs of the East, and at Cordova (Fig. 99), the new capital of the
Caliphs of Spain, were simultaneously illustrated, at long intervals, by Mesue
the elder, John Damascenus or Serapion, Leo the Philosopher, Rhazes, and
Ali, surnamed the Magician, the last mentioned of whom apparently embodied
all the medical science of the Arabs, which reached its apogee in the tenth
century by appropriating to the climate and to the customs of the country
the principles of Galen, and basing his system upon a mass of observations
which he continued up to the age of a hundred. Greek medicine had undergone a complete metamorphosis through its gradual fusion with that of the
Arabs, just as pathological questions varied in their object and character
under the influence of the new habits and requirements of modern civilisation.
In the West medical science was still very backward, though it had not
to contend, as in the East, with a religious fanaticism which forbade all
kinds of drawings, even those necessary to a scientific description of the
diseases of the human body, and which punished as a crime the dissection of
a corpse. The reason was that it had no protectors since the disappearance
of the last of the Goths in the eighth century, and it was scarcely taught at
all in the schools of Southern Gaul. The monastic orders had monopolized
the practice of medicine, and, as a natural consequence of the sacred mission
intrusted to them by their founder, they attempted to combine remedies for
the body with remedies for the mind. Prayer, holy water, the touching of
relics, and pilgrimages to holy places were the general accessories of monkish
therapeutics, which relied upon Providence for the cure of the sick, upon
whom, however, every care and attention was lavished. The monks also
possessed a number of pharmaceutical receipts which were in daily use,
though they were derived rather from tradition than from science; they were
likewise acquainted with the medicinal properties of herbs, which they used
freely for wounds and sores.
It was not till the close of the eighth century that there was a regular
course of medical instruction, and it was organized at Monte Casino and
Salerno, in the kingdom  of Naples; and the principles of the teaching
imparted there were drawn up in the shape of aphorisms, which remained
known long after the schools themselves had disappeared. At this epoch
many ecclesiastics-Italian, French, Belgian, and German-commissioned by
the Holy See as Apostolic Legates, went to England, Scotland, and Ireland,




144


'ITEDICAL SCIENCES.


and founded schools there, which in a short time contributed to the spread
of science in France, Belgium, and Germany.  (See Chapter I., Untiversities.)
Medicine continued, as before, to be one of the branches of philosophy.
When the municipal regime arose upon the ruins of the empire of
Charlemagne, when the spirit of independence and isolation gave laymen a
share with ecclesiastics in civil functions, a struggle of interest and vanity
commenced between these two distinct classes, which composed society at
that time. The monks soon saw that if they were to retain their monopoly


Fig. 100.-Cure through the Intercession of a Healing Saint.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving
attributed to Holbein, in the German Translation of the "Consolation of Philosophy," by
Boethius, Augsburg Edition, 1537, in folio.


in medicine, threatened by the laymen, they must extend their knowledge
both of medicine and of surgery; and the consequence was that as
physicians they made great progress.  The monastic rules laid down the
study of the " De Re Medica," a treatise by Celsus, who was styled the
Latin Hippocrates.  Moreover, numbers of monks and priests left their
cloisters and dioceses to wander through the land, devoting themselves to the
relief of suffering humanity. Of these were Thieddeg, doctor to Boleslas,
King of Poland; Hugh, Abbot of St. Denis; and others. The illustrious




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


i45


Gerbert d'Auvergne, who became pope under the title of Sylvester II., had
in his early life professed philosophy and practised medicine.
It is no doubt true that the clerks who had taken monastic vows, or who
had been ordained priests, abstained, as a rule, from practising surgery; but
they were often present at the serious operations effected by their lay
assistants. In such cases they confined themselves to the part of consulting
surgeons; but though they abstained from dipping their hands in blood, they
performed in certain urgent cases such simple operations as incisions and
blood-lettings; they treated dislocations and fractures of limbs, and dressed
the wounds inflicted in battle. Leper hospitals had long since been established all over Europe. There was an almshouse open in every monastery, in
every large church where canons lived in common under the conventual
regime. There is reason for believing that several monasteries in the diocese
of Metz, and especially those of Paderborn and Corbie, which were famous
for the philosophical and medical teaching imparted there to students from
all lands, furnished their pupils with the means of putting their theory into
practice in hospitals attached to the religious establishment.  Here were
trained the physicians and surgeons who travelled all over Europe without
discarding their monastic attire, to fulfil their mission of charity by
practising medicine and performing ordinary operations of surgery. It was
from conventual hospitals, too, that were recruited the men and women who
devoted themselves entirely to tending the sick.  There were also a number
of matrons and elderly women who belonged to a sort of corporation, which
was specially employed upon obstetric medicine, at that time forbidden
to men.
The renown of the medical schools of Monte Casino and Salerno continued
to increase. The Emperor Henry II. repaired to the monastery of Monte
Casino to be treated for storne.  Most of the sick who came three sought
merely to touch the relics of St. Matthew, the patron saint of the convent,
and those of other healing saints (Fig. 100); but they found there, to second
the intercessions of these saints, the material attentions of a religious
community which had made a serious study of medicine, and which possessed
a hygienic code in accordance with the teaching of experience and of common
sense. The touching of relics was, nevertheless, looked upon at this period
as one of the most effective means of cure, and it is not to be wondered
at that the Kings of England and of France, who had been anointed with the
Au




146


MEDICA L SCIENCES.


holy oil at their consecration, should have believed that they had the power
of healing, by the imposition of hands, various maladies, such as goitre,
king's evil, white tumours, &c.
The empirical method, which was current in the West during the
eleventh century, was not the same as the philosophical medical treatment
taught in the celebrated schools of the East, but in the practice of which
there were many singular contradictions.  The Arabic mode of treatment
was, so to speak, speculative. Yet the illustrious Avicenna (born at Chiraz,
in Persia, about 980), whom his contemporaries surnamed the Prince of


Fig. 101.-A Leper House.-Miniature from the "Miroir Historical" of Vincent de Beauvais.
Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century.-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.


Doctors, was educated in the school of Bagdad; and his immense reputation,
which won him access to the courts of several Asiatic sovereigns, is a proof
of the talent with which he practised his art.   Amongst the numerous
works in Arabic which he left behind him, that entitled the "Canon," a
medical encyclopaedia, which testifies to the erudition and sagacity of the
author, was translated into Latin, and served as a basis of teaching for six
or seven centuries. The followers of Avicenna spread the doctrine of their
master with great success, amongst them being Harun the Jew, who was
one of the first interpreters of the "Canon" in Europe; Mesue the younger,




ci)

*  44
vO


bD




ci)

*  44
vO


bD




MEDICAL SCIENCES.                           149
suffering. The learned have often sought to discover whether in the Middle
Ages there existed such a thing as military surgery properly so called. It
is true that no allusion is made to it in history until the fourteenth century,
but in the most ancient chronicles mention is continually being made of
some monk or clerk as accompanying the army; and it may be assumed
that he was a mire, or physician, or barber, according to the terms then used,
whose duty it was to tend the wounded and care for the sick.     It is
impossible, in fact, to suppose any warlike expedition taking place without
some one more or less skilled in surgery forming part of it; and it is easy
to understand that the first military surgeons were ecclesiastics, as the
Church had a virtual monopoly of the science of medicine. In course of time
the urban and municipal associations, which had obtained from the feudal
lord their communal rights, sought to free themselves from the vassalage
imposed by the Church. This was how the barbers were promoted to the
rank of subordinate surgeons, and in every town of any importance a certain
number of men were paid a fixed salary, and undertook, in return, to attend
the poor, and follow to the wars the man whom the commune had to furnish
at the bidding of the lord of the soil. In many foreign countries, such as
Holland, Italy, and Germany, even more than in France, the populous and
wealthy towns engaged in the public service, and at a comparatively small
cost, one or more surgeons, nearly all of whom had been educated in the
monastic schools, and who were, therefore, well fitted for what were then
called works of mercy.   Of these was Hugh of Lucca, who, appointed
physician at Parma, received but a lump sum of six hundred livres for his
services as long as he lived. This was the origin of the Stadts Physikus in
Germany, and of the salaried surgeons and physicians in France, who, after
having been for two centuries the rivals of the monks in medicine, were
at last enabled to practise without let or hindrance, and to form civil
corporations, to which the Crown granted certain privileges and statutes.
From the reign of Alexis I. (1081) the Emperors of the East accorded
their protection to the literary and scientific studies which flourished in their
empire far more than they did in the West. Though they had no particular
fondness for medical sciences, the latter were held in high esteem at Bagdad
and Constantinople; but the philosophical character of the art was disfigured
by the shameless devices of astrology and quackery. During the reign of
Manuel Comnenus, from 1143 to 1180, Conrad II., Emperor of Germany,




150


f [ED [CA L SCIENCrLS.


having been wounded in the Crusade, and not having in his army a surgeon
able to cure him, was obliged to put himself under the care of the Greek
doctors at Byzantium, and he doubtless acted under the advice of the
Emperor Manuel, who prided himself upon his knowledge of medicine and
surgery. It was the Emperor Manuel who afterwards dressed with his own
hands the wounds of Baldwin II., King of Jerusalem; and he was noted for
his adroitness in bleeding, and for his discovery of potions and ointments
which had the reputation of being very beneficial.    Unfortunately the
superstitious ideas of his time made him the blind slave of astrology.
At about the same period the schools of the Iberian peninsula produced
Fig. 104.-Counter-Seal
Fig. 103.-Seal of the Faculty of Medicine,  of the Faculty of Medicine, Paris
Paris (Fourteenth Century).           (Fourteenth Century).
From the Collection of Seals in the National Archives, Paris.
three men of genius: Ebn-Beithar, a doctor and naturalist, most of whose
works have been lost; Abenzoar, who, with no other guide than observation
and method, practised medicine, surgery, and pharmacy with the greatest
success, and whose "Taisyr," a vast compendium of contemporary science,
translated into Latin, long enjoyed a well-merited reputation; and, lastly,
the famous Averroes, who, at Cordova, publicly taught philosophy, jurisprudence, and medicine with such boldness and independence that he was
obliged to fly from Spain to Morocco, where, notwithstanding some further
proceedings, he was able to compose a remarkable commentary upon the
writings of Aristotle (1217)  The Jewish and Mahometan schools of Cordova




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


151


and Granada were so famous in the regenerated world of arts and sciences
that the neighbouring nations also created schools which attempted to rival
them.   Thus as early as the twelfth century the schools of medicine at
Montpellier and Paris (Figs. 103 and 104) acquired a certain celebrity, just
as in Italy, a little later, the schools of Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Milan,
Naples, Parma, Padua, and Pavia became famous. The quickening sap of
university teaching began to flow through the veins of every European
nation.
The Papal bulls ordering the establishment of the Faculties at Montpellier,
Salerno, and Paris settled the discipline to be observed by the students and
the hierarchy amongst the masters by the creation of new degrees and
dignities. But though to study medicine or surgery in the Universities of
Italy and Sicily it was still necessary to be a clerk-that is to say, an ecclesiastic and tonsured-this rule soon fell into disuse at the schools of Montpellier and Paris. Nevertheless, to obtain the rank of Master Physician or
Doctor at the Faculty of Montpellier, the candidate must be a clerk, and must
have undergone an examination before masters or doctors selected from the
staff of the college by the Bishop of Maguelonne; to obtain the degree of
Surgeon a similar though less difficult examination was required, but the
candidate need not be a clerk. The barbers, who did not quit the faculties of
medicine, and who merely practised minor surgery, had not to pass any
examination, except that which the masters of their corporation made them
undergo at the hands of members of their profession.
In the kingdom of Naples any one desiring to practise as a doctor had to
undergo five years of medical study and two examinations for his license and
doctorate before masters of the school of Salerno, and then to spend a year
upon trial. The surgeon, before entering upon his functions, also had to
follow a special course of study for a twelvemonth, so as to become familiar
"with the anatomy of the human body, without which it is impossible to
undertake an operation in safety, or follow up the cure of the sick person
after the instrument has been employed."
For some time the medical school of Bologna was the first in the world.
It owed its acknowledged superiority to Jacopo Bertinozzo, to Iugo and
Theodoric of Lucca, and, above all, to William Salicetti, born in 1200, not
less skilful as a surgeon than as a physician, who operated both in the camps,
the hospitals, and in many large towns, such as Bergamo, Venice, and Pavia,




IS2


5f EDICAL SCIENCES.


which latter city employed an experienced practitioner, who was paid out of
the municipal funds. The principal objection urged against Salicetti was
that for healing sores he resorted too much to cauterization and the knife,
instead of applying toxical and medicinal remedies. He was, however, the
teacher of Lanfranc, who always respectfully spoke of him as "my master of
honoured memory." Compelled to quit his country for political reasons, this
celebrated Milanese professor fled into France, and was invited to Paris by
his compatriot, Passavant, Dean of the Faculty, and by Pitard, surgeon-inchief to King Philippe le Bel. After performing several difficult operations of
surgery, which won him great renown, he opened a school, which was very
numerously attended. It may be said that his teaching brought about a
complete reform in French surgery, and his two works, " Chirurgia Magna"
and "Chirurgia Parva," became the manual of practical science; for, before
his time, this branch of the art, in the hands of ignorant barbers, both in
France, Spain, and Germany, was almost crushed beneath the yoke of
medical omnipotence. Thus all surgeons, male and female (for many women
insisted on being attended by their own sex in certain cases), were compelled
to give an undertaking that they would limit their labours to handiwork; that
they would not give any consultation or administer any internal remedy
without the advice or the permission of a physician. The surgeon was free
to operate as he pleased, but he could not give an opinion or write a prescription. Moreover, in very grave cases, important operations were not left to the
decision of the patient, or even to that of the practitioner, however eminent he
might be. The permission either of the bishop or of the feudal lord was
necessary, and the operation was invariably preceded by a solemn consultation
in presence of the friends and relatives of the patient. These exaggerated
precautions are all the more surprising, for while the civil and religious
authorities seemed to be so particular with regard to operations performed by
eminent surgeons, they scarcely interfered at all with the minor operations
performed by barbers or hospital nurses. Moreover, the leading surgeons
would have considered it beneath their dignity to perform in unimportant
cases. At the end of the thirteenth century they did not condescend to
operate themselves in cases of puncture for dropsy, of stone, of hernia, or of
cataract, and they even disregarded the study of internal diseases as unworthy
of their profession.
The genius of Lanfranc was instrumental in bringing about a better




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


I53


state of things. He says, in one of his books, " The outside public believe
it impossible for a man to be proficient both in medicine and surgery. But
a good physician must know something of surgery, and a good surgeon cannot
afford to be ignorant of medicine; it is, therefore, necessary for a medical
man to have some knowledge of both these sciences." Under the influence of


Fig. 105.-Doctor Death.-Miniature from a "Book of Hours " of the Sixteenth Century.-In the
Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
these sensible ideas, surgical science rose in the Paris Faculty to the level of the
highest literary teaching, and was as well taught as in the best medical schools
of Italy and Spain, to which French parents no longer thought it necessary to
send their children. The Faculty of Paris was considered to be equal to all
requirements, and it was only a few young surgeons who came for some
x




154


MEDICAL SCIENCES.


weeks to Bologna, where the great anatomist Mundinus and his successor,
Bertreccius, practised dissection before an attentive assemblage of practitioners
from all parts of Europe (Fig. 105).
Another set of professors belonging to the Jewish race, less brilliant and
more narrow in their teaching than those attached to the schools of Paris and
Montpellier, also enjoyed a certain celebrity in towns where the fanaticism of
the people against the Jews had been quelled by the authorities. From the
Carlovingian times, Metz, Mayence, Strasburg, Frankfort, Troyes, and
Avignon had maintained chairs, from which the rabbis, who were looked
upon by the Jews not merely as ministers of religion, but as the best advisers
on earthly matters as well, taught, after the glossology of cabalism and the
Scriptures as commentated by the Talmudists, the Hebrew language, philosophy, moral philosophy, hygiene, and medicine.
From the time that Lanfranc founded the St. Cosmo College at Paris,
surgery disencumbered itself more and more from its original barbarism.
In 1311 Philippe le Bel enacted that all surgeons in the kingdom should pass
an examination before the new surgical college, the members of which,
honoured with the confidence of the King and his ministers, caused great
umbrage to the Faculty of Medicine. This was the beginning of the long
struggle between the long-robed and the short-robed doctors (Fig. 106).
The faculty would not confer its degree of Bachelor upon students until
they swore never to practise surgery, and continued to exact from them
the oath of perpetual celibacy. The faculty also obtained from King John
(1352) a decree prohibiting any one who was not an apothecary, student, or
mendicant monk from practising medicine. These measures were taken with
a view of protecting the honours of the profession, but they proved far less
effectual than the labours of Guy de Chauliac (1363), author of the " Grande
Chirurgie," who, in his double capacity of physician and surgeon, raised the
reputation of the medical body to a very high pitch.
Upon the other hand, the affiliation of Charles V. to the brotherhood of
St. Cosmo increased the pride of the surgeons, who were so injudicious as to
exhibit towards the barbers as much intolerance and contempt as the physicians had shown towards themselves. The master barbers, "hampered in
their calling" by the surgeons, appealed to the King, who received their
appeal very favourably, and exempted them from doing duty as watchmen,
upon the ground, as the royal decree put it, that "the barbers being nearly




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


155


all of them in the habit of practising surgery, great inconvenience might
arise if they were absent from their houses when sent for during the
night."
The surgeons, who continued to encroach upon the domain of the
physicians, but who were none the less jealous of their own privileges,
subjected the barbers to so many vexations that the authorities, tired of
being continually appealed to in order to settle some dispute between the two
corporations, formally defined the respective rights of both parties. The


Fig. 106.-The Physician.-Designed and engraved in the Sixteenth Century by J. Amman.


decree of October 3rd, 1372, empowered the barbers "to apply plasters, ointments, and other appropriate medicines for bruises, apostemes, and other open
wounds, not of a character likely to cause death, because physicians are men
of great estate and very expensive, whom the poor are not able to pay."
From this period, then, there were three distinct classes of persons exercising
medicine in its different stages: the long-robed practitioners, mires or
physicians, representing the Faculty of Paris; the short-robed surgeons, who
formed a corporation under the patronage of St. Cosmo and St. Damianus;
and the barbers, entitled to carry a sword, who formed a business corporation,




156


5MEDICAL SCIENCES.


and, to use the technical expression of the time, filled the " office de barberie,
sans conteste."
This rule applied to all France, except to the provinces of Burgundy and
Lorraine, in which there were the great barbers and the little barbers. The
latter, who were mere adventurers, travelled on foot, with their small wallet
and light purse, from village to village, to sell their antidotes and drugs,
while the great barber, sworn surgeon, called upon his patients, attired in a
long robe trimmed with fur, and bestriding a hackney, the tinkling of whose
bells announced his arrival a long way off. This master surgeon, often
accompanied by an assistant and several servants, carried in his case five or
six kinds of instruments; to wit, scissors, nippers, a sort of probe called
eprouvette, razors, lances, and needles. He also had five sorts of ointment,
which were at that time looked upon as indispensable: the basilicon, which
was considered a maturative remedy; the apostles' ointment, for quickening
the vitality of bad flesh; the white ointment, for consolidating the flesh; the
yellow ointment, for stimulating the growth of proud flesh; and the dialtea
ointment, for subduing local pain. The great barbers did even more than this,
and Guy de Chauliac says, " I never went out on my visits without taking
with me several clysters and plain remedies, and I gathered herbs in the
fields, so as to treat diseases in a proper manner, winning thereby honour,
profit, and many friends."
Guy de Chauliac, who was appointed physician to three popes at Avignon,
Clement VI., Innocent VI., and Urban V., was, moreover, very particular as
to the conditions under which a surgeon should be allowed to practise. He
insisted that a surgeon should be " well educated, clever, and of good morality;
bold when he saw his way clear, prudent in doubtful cases, kind to his
patients, gracious towards his colleagues, modest in giving an opinion, chaste,
sober, pitiful, and merciful; not greedy of gain, but receiving a modest
remuneration, according to his labour, the means of the patient, the result of
the illness, and his own dignity."
It was creditable to French surgery that such honourable sentiments
should have been expressed at a time when in neighbouring countries, and
notably in England, human credulity was being so scandalously imposed
upon by the most ignorant of characters. For instance, an English surgeon
called Goddesden had two sorts of prescriptions, one for the rich and another
for the poor; he sold at a high price to the barbers a so-called panacea, which




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


'57


the latter sold again at a large profit, and this panacea was simply a mixture
of frogs pounded up in a mortar; he pompously advertised infallible and secret
remedies, in which he placed so little confidence that he took care to exact
payment for them beforehand (Fig. 107). In one of his books there is a


Fig. 107.-Interior of a Doctor's House.-Fac-simile of a Miniature from the  Epistre de Othea,"
by Christine de Pisan.-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the Burgundy Library,
Brussels.


short chapter upon disagreeable diseases, as he terms them, which work their
own cure, and, therefore, bring no grist to the doctor's mill.
Several great epidemics, the terrible effects of which are alluded to by
Guy de Chauliac and his contemporary Petrarch, had caused great consternation throughout Europe, and gave rise to the idea of establishing a medical




158


IMEDICA L SCIENCES.


c^ — ---- I --- —------
I- --- —---—  ----Y


police for all countries.  The idea was a happy one, but, carried into execution under the joint supervision of the ecclesiastical, the municipal, and the
University authorities, the scheme was imbued with the prejudices of that
time. Thus lepers continued to be kept in a state of isolation as in the
twelfth century, and the ceremonies by which they were deprived of their
rights as citizens were maintaihed. The well-known black plague, one of the
greatest scourges that ever devastated the world, and which originated in the
Asian marshes in 1348, after a long succession of earthquakes and heavy rain,
ravaged Italy and France, spreading from    thence to Germany, England,
and Holland. The country districts were depopulated and converted into
deserts. In the towns this plague raged with such intensity that Venice lost
Fig. 108.-Banner of the Apothecaries of  Fig. 109.-Banner of the Apothecaries of
St. Lo.-Symbolic Arms of the      Caen.-Symbolic Arms of the CorCorporation.                      poration.
a hundred, and Strasburg fifty thousand inhabitants. In many localities ninetenths of the population perished in a few months. The best medical advice
was powerless against an atmospheric poisoning, the effects of which often
proved fatal in the space of an hour, and the municipal authorities thought to
arrest it by large fires which were lighted at the cross roads and in the squares
of the towns. The Church, by order of Clement VI., pope at Avignon,
endeavoured, as at the period of the plague which ravaged Italy and decimated
the population of Rome in 1254, when Innocent IV. was pope (Fig. 110), to
inspire the people with courage, by means of processions, sermons, and public
prayers. The Holy See granted plenary indulgence to all those who, by tending the sick, exposed themselves to almost certain death. Few medical men




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


I59


were found to face the danger, and the priests alone ventured to approach the
dying, and offered them the last consolations of religion.
Public sanitary measures do not date, however, from this period of
general calamity, but from a somewhat later epoch, when the outbreak of
various local epidemics caused great apprehension as to the return of the
black plague. The closing of houses, streets, and even quarters in towns
where the disease had raged, the drawing of a sanitary cordon round the


Fig. 110.-Portrait of Innocent IV., elected Pope in 1243.-Fresco Painting upon Gold Ground,
in the Basilica of St. Paul, Rome.


places infected, and, what was still more important, the scientific investigation of the causes of the disease, the cleansing of the sewers and the streets,
the purifying of the drinking water, the transfer of the needy sick to some
place outside the walls, and the practice of burying the victims of epidemic
in quicklime, testify to the prudent precautions of the administration. The
paving of streets, which had been abandoned, or at all events much
neglected, since the fall of the Roman empire, was one of the logical
consequences of this system of general salubrity (Fig. 111). At this period,




160,IIMEDICAL SCIENCES.


too, the use of mineral waters again became general, and the doctors
recommended to the sick, and especially to those just recovering from an
illness, the ancient sources of Neris, Vichy, Plombieres, Aix-la-Chapelle,
&c., which would have had still more visitors if the roads had been better,
and a residence at these thermal stations more secure. Many localities,
formerly celebrated for the cure of chronic diseases, became places of
pilgrimage; and though these pilgrimages retained their religious character,
they were approved of and encouraged by the doctors.
It is mortifying to find that in the principal towns of France, Germany,
and Italy the authorities made no effort to arrest the superstitious ideas
which prevailed. From time to time the Jews, the lepers, the insane, and
the imbecile were accused of poisoning the fountains, the wells, the rivers,
and even the air, and they were seized and cast into prison, and often put
to death. Sometimes, it is true, these iniquitous acts were attributable to
the blind fury of the populace, determined to take what they believed to be
justice into their own hands; but in some cases the urban administration
took part in the massacre, and became responsible for it, as when the council
of the city of Metz ordered the punishment of several lepers, "who were
executed for their unworthiness."  Moreover, in times of epidemic, the
population invariably demanded the extermination of the lepers and the
Jews.
In the meanwhile the rivalry was going on at Paris between the surgeons
and the barbers. The former, having exhausted in vain all their efforts to
put down the pretensions of the barbers, addressed, in 1390, the following
petition to the University:-" We, your humble scholars and disciples,
appeal to your venerable authority, to the masters of the Faculty of Medicine" (Fig. 112). The physicians, appeased by this indirect act of submission, promised the surgeons to lend them their support so far as they
remained " true scholars."  But whether because the doctors of the faculty
changed their minds, or because the Crown interfered in the interests of the
public, even at the expense of a privileged body, Charles V. did not take
part with the surgeons, and by his silence confirmed the professional independence of the master barbers. The surgeons thereupon adopted a better
and more dignified way of asserting their superiority. "Henceforth," they
declared in their new statutes, " every apprentice shall be able to speak and
write good Latin; moreover, he shall be of comely appearance and free




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


from all deformity: no master shall receive an apprentice who does not
bring letters of recommendation from his former master, and the degree


Fig. 11l.-Shops in an Apothecary's Street: Barber, Furrier, and Tailor.-Miniature from the
" Regime des Princes."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-Arsenal Library, Paris.
of Bachelor, without previous examination, shall cost two gold crowns,
Y




I 62


MEDICAL SCIENCES.


instead of a franc." These precautions were evidently taken in order that
access to the professorships of St. Cosmo might be limited to students who,
by their learning and application to work, would be capable of sustaining
the aristocracy of the surgical body against the invading democracy of the
barbers. There was, moreover, very ample room for choice, as the College
of St. Cosmo comprised only ten sworn surgeons. The number of barbers,
upon the other hand, steadily increased, and from forty, in the middle of the
fourteenth century, it had risen to sixty at the close. The degree of esteem
in which each of the three classes of medical men was held may be gathered
from the characteristic fact that when the Paris Faculty appointed physicians, surgeons, and barbers to attend the plague-stricken, it allotted a
salary of two hundred pounds-Paris to the first, of one hundred and twenty
to the second, and of eighty only to the third.
By the fifteenth century the Arab school of medicine had lost ground, and
the sound doctrines of Hippocrates resumed their sway, owing to the successive checks inflicted upon the doctrines of Avicenna, Averroes, and Galen,
which fell into disfavour. These latter would have been still more discredited
if to the father of medicine had not been attributed the authorship of a mass
of works which he never wrote, and if the theosophical ravings of judicial
astrology had not taken the place of observation and method. The illustrious Marsilio Ficino of Florence, who was one of the oracles of his day,
himself retarded the progress of true science by upholding with the passionate
ardour of a Platonist the tenets of a science which was false and misleading.
It is not astonishing, therefore, that medicine should have been subordinated to the occult sciences, especially to astrology. These imaginary
sciences opened to inquisitive and restless minds horizons peopled with all
kinds of illusions; with them dreams occupied the place of facts, and each
individual was supposed to hold a special rank in the universal harmonic
system. The destiny of a country or a city, like that of an individual,
was dependent upon the motion of such and such a planet. An epidemic
was caused by the conjunction of different stars, and as the inherent
principle of every illness was in the constellation beneath which the sufferer
was born, the doctor's first duty was to seek out the constellation, so as to
get a basis for his prognosis. The constellation once discovered, the most
remarkable conjectures were drawn from its position and sidereal influences.
Hooping-cough-observed for the first time as an epidemic in 1414-and plica,




lMEDICA L SCIENCES.


163


or scurvy of the head, which extended from Poland into Bohemia and Austria,
puzzled the sagacity of the astrologers, who sought for the explanation of
terrestrial phenomena in signs from above.
While in medicine astrological imposture was invading the domain of
practical observation, Italian surgery, compromised by a mass of charlatans,
was not nearly so far advanced as French surgery (Fig. 113). Germany, not


Fig. 112.-Beadles of the Three Faculties of Theology, Jurisprudence, and Medicine at the
University of Pont-a-Mousson.-From the "Funeral of Charles III., Duke of Lorraine"
(1608), Copper Plate engraved by F. Brentel, after Claude de la Ruelle.-In the Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
less backward in medical science, manifested an equal degree of contempt for
bath-keepers, shepherds, and barbers, all of whom were prevented from forming corporations, or marrying into any family not engaged in their trade.
Surgical art was at an even lower ebb in Germany than it was in Italy, as a
proof of which it may be mentioned that Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary,
in order to be cured of an old wound, was obliged to convoke all the barbers




164


MIEDICAL SCIENCES.


of the Holy Empire, and promise them rich rewards if they would come to his
court. Hans Dockenburg, an Alsatian barber, restored him to health (1468);
but there is nothing to show that this accidental cure, effected no doubt by
empirical means, in any way increased the reputation of the German barbersurgeons (Fig. 114).
There was an equal scarcity of able practitioners and learned professors
in England, where the surgeons were merely manufacturers and vendors of
plasters and ointments. When Henry V. invaded France in 1415, the only
Fig. 113.-An Operator.-Designed and engraved in the Sixteenth Century by J. Amman.
surgeon he had in his camp was Thomas Morstede, who was with difficulty
induced to accompany the army, bringing with him twelve assistants. In a
second expedition, undertaken by the same prince, the corporation of London
surgeons could not supply as many even as twelve volunteers, and the King
was compelled to authorise Thomas Morstede to press into his service as many
surgeons as the army required, and as many artisans as would be necessary
for making and repairing surgical instruments. The best operators were to
be found in France, and the celebrated Balescone of Florence professed and
practised surgery at the school of Montpellier.




MIEDICAL SCIENCES.


After thirty years of apparent concord between the surgeons and barbers
of Paris, the quarrel broke out afresh. Upon the 14th of May, 1423, the
surgeons obtained from the provost of the city an order " forbidding generally
all persons, of whatsoever estate or condition, who are not surgeons, even of
barbers, from exercising or practising surgery." This order was proclaimed,
to the sound of the trumpet, at all the street-corners; but the barbers appealed
to the provost, who, upon the 4th of November, 1424, withdrew his own
decree. The surgeons, having appealed, but in vain, to the Parliament,
resolved not to visit any patient who had been attended by a barber. But


Fig. 114.-A German Surgeon.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving, attributed to Holbein, and
taken from the German Translation of the "Consolation of Philosophy," by Boethius,
Augsburg Edition, 1637, in folio.


the barbers shortly after this obtained formal recognition of the rights which
they had been so long insisting upon, for Colonet Candillon, first barber and
valet of the chamber to a regent and two kings of France, was invested with
the title of maistre et garde du mestier, with the right of delegating his
authority in the principal towns of the kingdom to lieutenants, who were to
have the exclusive right of inspection over all the barbers. The latter formed
at this period a numerous association, to become a master of which it was
necessary to pass an examination before a jury appointed by one of the




166


MEDICAL SCIENCES.


lieutenants of the chief barber. Each new master barber obtained "a letter
sealed with seals " from the chief of the corporation, in exchange for a sum
of five sous, and he also paid two sous six deniers for a copy of the annual
almanac, in which were recorded the days of the year favourable for bleeding
or the reverse.
The St. Cosmo surgeons, not caring to carry on the struggle against the
barbers, especially after one of them, Oliver le Daim, had become the favourite
of Louis XI., sought to obtain the title of students of the University of Paris,
together with the privileges, franchises, liberties, and exemptions attaching
thereto.  The University granted their request, but upon condition of their
following the lectures of the doctor-regents of the Faculty of Medicine.
Thus the surgeons were once more placed beneath the sway of the physicians,
while the barbers, unrestricted in the exercise of their profession, obtained
one of the sixty banners distributed by Louis XI. to the corporations of arts
and trades of the capital (Figs. 115 to 120). Nor was this all. The surgeons,
forgetting that the speciality of their art was manual work, abandoned to the
barbers cases of incision, dislocation, and fracture, confining themselves to
writing prescriptions or recipes, which, according to the University statutes,
appertained to the masters of the faculty, and not to the surgeons.
This constituted the final triumph of the plebeian over the aristocratic
surgeons, and henceforth the barbers formed the most active and useful
section of the surgical body. They were to be met with, the lance or bistouri
in their hands, not only, in times of peace, in towns and villages, but, in time
of war, in the wake of armies and with expeditions to distant lands. But for
them there would have been no such thing as military surgery. The intestine quarrels of the doctors did not get beyond the faculties, and, notwithstanding their irreconcilable differences of opinions and systems, the science
of medicine was implicitly confided in by the public both in France and Italy.
Most of the doctors continued to be in the fifteenth, as they had been in the
fourteenth century, superstitious worshippers of the Arabic astrology, and
blind imitators of their ignorant and empirical predecessors. They attributed
to the seasons, to the lunar periods, and to the hours of the day and the
night a direct action upon the humours of the human body. The general
belief was that the blood rose, during the daytime, towards the sun, and
descended into the lower extremities at night; that at the third hour the
bile subsided, so that its acrid qualities might not be mixed with the course




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


167


Fig. 115.-Banner of the Corporation
of Physicans at Amiens.


Fig. 116.-Banner of the Corporation
of Physicians at Yire.


j
Fi.     1  1.-Bne ofteCrprto
of~~~ Phscin ineMyne


Fig. 118.-Banner of the Corporation
of Surgeons at Caen.


Fig. 119.-Banner of the Corporation
of Surgeons at Le Mans.


Fig. 120.-Banner of the Corporation
of Surgeons at Saintes.


of the blood, and that at the second hour the atrabilis, and, in the evening, the
phlegm, subsided. Proficiency in astrology implied proficiency in medicine




i68


MEDICAL SCIENCES.


at a time when Tarenta the Portuguese, Jacques de Forli, Cernisone of
Parma, Mengo Biancheli of Faenza, and Bencio of Sienna, were still teaching Arabic scholasticism in the chairs of Montpellier, Pisa, Padua, Pavia, and
Bologna. It was at Padua that the Professors Guainer, Bartholomew Montagnana, and Michael Savonarola were the first to denounce the prejudices
and ravings of astrological and cabalistic medicine.
The mere list of medical works published from the discovery of printing
to the close of the fifteenth century is sufficient proof that medical teaching
was exclusively Arabic throughout Europe.   The Latin translation of
Avicenna was printed at Milan in 1473, at Padua in 1476, and at Strasburg
somewhat earlier. The translation of Mesue had appeared at Venice in 1471,
and was reprinted almost simultaneously in five or six other cities. But the
works of Hippocrates did not see the light until 1526, and the original text
of Dioscorides and Galen was not printed in France or Italy till the beginning of the sixteenth century. The treatise of Celsus alone met with any
favour from the antagonists of Greek and Roman medicine. Upon the other
hand, the leading professors resorted freely to the printing-press as a means
of diffusing their own writings.
The illustrious Antonio Benivieni, at the close of the sixteenth century,
succeeded in substituting for the fanciful dreamings of the Arab school the
pure doctrine of Hippocrates; he commentated the books of the early
authors, basing his themes upon the investigations of anatomy-and even
of pathological anatomy-which he proclaimed to be the only rule of medical
art; and his labours were continued by his pupils, John of Vigo and
Berengario of Carpi.  The former published a work entitled "Practica in
Arte Chirurgica Copiosa " (Rome, 1514, in folio), which went through twenty
editions in thirty years, and was translated into French.  His precepts
were everywhere treated as oracular, but he comes down to posterity, unfortunately for his reputation, as the originator of the system of cauterizing
wounds inflicted by firearms with boiling oil-a barbarous practice which,
believed to be effective for destroying the venom of the wounds, inflicted
infinite torture upon thousands of patients for more than a century.
Berengario raised the Bologna school from the discredit into which it had
fallen, and his excellent treatise upon Fractures of the Skull entitled him to
the esteem of his learned successors.
Germany was throughout the Middle Ages an easy prey to astrologers,




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


j69


wandering Jews, raw apothecaries, and all the other satellites of ignorance
and superstition (Fig. 121). There were, however, several eminent men in
some of the imperial towns, such as Strasburg, Frankfort, and Hamburg,


Fig. 121.-A Charlatan performing an Operation.-Fac-simile of an Engraving by Wael
(Seventeenth Century).


and in the studious cities of Switzerland. The plain barbers, in many cases,
became very proficient, owing to the great experience they acquired. At
the same time, Jerome Brunswich, Jean Gersdorf, and Roeselin obtained a
z




170


MIEDICAL SCIENCES.


great reputation at Strasburg by their practical skill, and by their books,
which latter were translated into Dutch and Italian.
Up to the sixteenth century the medical science of the Middle Ages,
dominated or absorbed by the Arabic school, was opposed to the renovating
tendencies of the teaching body. Tradition, routine, and prejudice were too
strong for them; and a love of the supernatural, and vague aspirations after


Fig. 122.-Portrait of Claude of France, Daughter of Louis XII., Painted by Clouet (Sixteenth
Century).-In the Collection of M. Double, Paris.


the unknown, retarded the general revolution, which advanced slowly but
inevitably. At the dawn of the sixteenth century nothing was ready for a great
scientific reform; the medical art only subsisted, so to speak, amidst ruins,
surrounded by scattered fragments and materials which had no architect,
while the masons who were to be employed in erecting a new edifice had no
sheds to work in.   Everywhere doubt and credulity were paramount.
Rabelais, with his sceptical laugh, was a living satire upon the degenerate




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


171


and corrupted art in a society which was aspiring after a complete and
thorough transformation.  Sceptics of another kind were to be found in
Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, who, while contending against
certain philosophical errors, sought to substitute for them theurgy and
magic; or in Paracelsus, who, notwithstanding his splendid intellect, conceived it possible that a hybrid alliance might be formed between cabalistic
mysticism upon the one hand, and medicine and occult sciences upon the
other. The scientific faith by which his genius was inflamed was not shared
by his contemporaries, Argentier, Rondelet, and Joubert, who were powerful
to attack ancient theories, but feeble to raise new ones upon their ruins.
Each man erected a system of his own, which, after exciting momentary
attention, collapsed, and left not a vestige behind it. A few, however, had
the good sense to content themselves with philological labours, with translating, revising, and commentating the works of Hippocrates, Galen, and
the masters of Greek and Roman medicine; and amongst this select band
may be mentioned Thomas Leonicenus, Gonthier d'Andernach, Fuchs,
Jacques Houlier, and Louis Duret.
The great doctors of that period, those who devoted themselves to their
work from pure love of science, remained poor, and with difficulty made a
living out of their profession. They did not practise medicine so much as
study the malady and the patient. Moreover, as there was no tariff of
doctor's fees, they sometimes received the most inadequate recompense for
their labours. Paracelsus sued a canon of Bale, whom he had cured, for the
stipulated fee of one hundred florins; but the judge awarded him only six
florins. When the patient was of a generous disposition, the doctor came off
better; and the best paid of all were those who attended upon the sovereign
and the court. Honorat Picquet, physician to Louis XII., attended his
daughter, Claude of France (Fig. 122), during a severe illness, which he
was fortunate enough to cure, and Queen Anne of Brittany, her mother,
rewarded him with a fee of three hundred crowns in gold. Francois I., who
afterwards became the husband of the Princess Claude, did not forget this
almost miraculous cure, and when he founded the Royal College he created
a chair of medicine, which was almost always filled by a Frenchman.
Switzerland produced a whole series of learned physicians, who added
numerous treatises to the long list of works on medicine. Conrad Gessner,
Jacques Ruff, and Guillaume Fabrice conferred renown upon the schools of




17Z


IMEDICAL SCIENCES.


Lausanne and Berne, while the Universities of Leipsic, Ingolstadt, and
Wittemberg, awakening from their long slumbers, and taking the Italian
schools as their models, recovered their ancient renown with anatomists and
doctors such as Cannani, Cesalpino, Fallopio, and Eustachi.  Wherever
there were several doctors, they formed a homogeneous and compact body,
solidly constituted, and jealous of their rights and privileges; for though the


Fig. 123.-Andrew Vesalius.-Wood Engraving, after the Design of J. de Calcar, Pupil of Titian.
In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
doctors quarrelled amongst themselves, they would not allow any one else to
interfere with their prerogatives.
While the Universities of Salamanca, Alcala, Henarez, Toledo, Valencia,
and Coimbra regained, so to speak, the success which the Arabs and the Jews
had accomplished during the Middle Ages, there arrived upon the medical
stage of France, which is always in the van of progress as of revolution,
the famous founder of anatomical science, Andrew Vesalius (Fig. 123), born
at Brussels in   1514, Brissot, Fernel, Sylvius, and Ranchin.     But the




MEDICAL SCIENCES.


I73


barber's art was almost simultaneously illustrated by Ambroise Pare, born at
Laval in the beginning of the sixteenth century, who, occupying the most
humble position upon his arrival in Paris, soon exchanged his rough barber's
stall upon the Place St. Michel for the Louvre, and who, Huguenot as he was,
was enabled, through the favour of several kings, to reform, or rather to
create afresh, the art of surgery by associating it with medicine.
Fig. 124.-Banner of the Corporation of Apothecaries in the Mayenne.




CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.
Diocletian burns the Books of Chemistry.-flaroun Al-Raschid protects the Sacred Art.-Geber,
one of the first Chemists.-lihazes.-Chemistry in honour amongst the Saracens.-Avicenna,
Serapion, Mesu&-Albucasis and Averroes.-Mvorienus the Solitary.-Albertus Magnus and
Gerbert.-Yincent of Beauvais.-Raymond Lulli.-The Lullists, or Dreamers.-Arnauld de
Villeneuve.-Roger Bacon.-Inrvention of Spectacles.-Alchemy in the Fifteenth Century.J. B. Porta, the Italian.-Origin of the Rosicrucians.-Paracelsus.-George Agricola.Conrad Gessner.-Cornelius Agrippa.-The Story of Nicholas Flamel.-Aichemy engenders
Metallurgy.
4            ~~~HEMISThY, which in the first centuries
of the Christian era had no practical
V                    ~~~~~~application, consisted merely of a few
0vague and entirely speculative theories,
0       ~~and was confounded with physics, under
the appellations of dicine art, sacred art,
and sacred scejece, in the incoherent mass
of transcendental prop, citions which
made up high philosophy. The word
N  ~ ~ ~~        chemistry (from the Greek XqE      chymia
in Latin), used for the first time by
Suidas, a lexicographer of the tenth
century, at first meant an alloy of gold and silver. Suidas mentions, in this
connection,, that the Emperor M~ocletian, irritated by a revolt of the
Egyptians against the laws of the empire, had all their books of chemistry
committed to the flames, so as to punish them for their rebellion by preventing them from carrying on the lucrative business arising out of the
melting and working of precious metals (Fig. 125). In another part of his
Lexicon he states that the Golden Fleece, which the Argonauts went in search
of, was but the ancient papyrus in which was contained the secret for making
gold.


Without attaching overmuch importance to these dim traditions, they




CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


I75


are worth recording, because they seem to be the starting-point of chemistry
in ancient times. It may be added that a manuscript work of Zosimus, a
Greek historian of the fifth century, mentions the Xrja, an apocryphal work,
in which the giants, sons of the children of God (the descendants of Seth),
who are represented in the Book of Genesis as intermarrying with daughters
of the race of Cain, registered their discoveries in the arts and the extent of


Fig. 125.-The Gallic Vulcan.-After a Celtic Monument discovered beneath the Choir of NotreDame, Paris, in 1711, and now preserved in the Cluny Museum.


their scientific knowledge. According to Scaliger, it was from the " Chema"
that the mother science derived its name of chemistry.
It is misleading, however, to quote, as has been done, the evidence of a
Greek romance, the "History of Theagenes," composed in the sixteenth century,
though it has been ascribed to Athenagoras, who is said to have written it
about 176 A.D. The chemical operations described in this apocryphal novel
merely serve to show that, in the first century of the Christian era, the




176                CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.
Greeks were acquainted with the hermetic science, the origin of which has
been traced back to the mythical Hermes (Fig. 126), and which was afterwards termed alchemy (by the adjunction of the Arabic article al to the Greek
word X/wEta), when the sacred art, the art of the philosophers of the school
of Alexandria, transformed under the influence of Mahometan civilisation,
began to spread throughout the ancient world.
The Bagdad academy, founded by the Caliph Al-Mansour, rivalled in
lustre with the Christian school of Dschindisabour. The Caliphs Haroun AlRaschid, Al-Mamoun, and Motawakkel gave a great impetus during the ninth
HEKM\4ES.
Fig. 126.-The Alchemist Hermes.-After an Engraving by Vriese.
century to the sciences of observation, to the experimental methods, and consequently to physics and chemistry. In a few instances men of superior
intelligence shook themselves free of the purely theosophical views which had
too long influenced, to the exclusion of all others, the Eastern philosophers,
and sought in chemistry for something higher than the chimerical transmutation of metals.
Two men of great scientific repute appeared in the East early in the
eighth century: these were Al-Chindus, who, by a series of ingenious
experiments, was one of the first to discover the secrets of 'nature, and the




CHEMAISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


177


celebrated Geber (Fig. 127), or Yeber, a native of Mesopotamia, who discovered and analyzed red oxide and the deutochlorure of mercury (corrosive
sublimate), nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitrate of silver, &c.  Al-Chindus
gave special attention to the arts of magic; but Geber, whose works,
translated into Latin, are still extant, notably the "Summa Perfectionis" and
the "Liber Philosophorum," laid down the true principles of chemistry, inl
his researches on the fusion, the purifying, and the malleability of metals.
After this great chemist, whom Roger Bacon calls the Master of lIaster s, and
who deserved to be the oracle of chemists in the Middle Ages, we must
come down to the beginning of the ninth century for the next work of
importance on chemistry, which was the book of the great Arab doctor,
Razi, or Rhazes. This encyclopedia mentions for the first time, as belonging
to the materia medica, orpiment, realgar (a compound of arsenic and
sulphur), borax, and certain mixtures of sulphur with iron and copper, of
mercury with acids, and of arsenic with various substances hitherto unknown,
or at all events not used.  It is with no little surprise that we read of
Rhazes recommending to doctors the use of various alcoholic preparations and
animal oils, such as oil of ants, which modern chemists claim as remedies of
their own invention.  "The secret art of chemistry," says Rhazes, who
wrote a treatise on this science which has become extinct, "is nearer possible
than impossible; the mysteries do not reveal themselves except by force of
labour and perseverance. But what a triumph it is when man can raise a
corner of the veil which conceals the works of God!"
The learned M. Emile Begin, whose writings on chemistry furnish us
with material for this chapter, states that, from the Middle Ages downwards,
the science of chemistry has been guided by experimental analysis.  He says,
"From Schal, the model experimentalist, to Galen, how many important
discoveries, original and fertile ideas, and valuable applications have issued
from the chemist's crucible! How many lives have been spent over it!
How many laborious minds have investigated the mysterious relations
established between organic and organized matter, and the internal combinations of matter with itself! The truth, it must be added, has been blurred
with many superstitious beliefs and wild fancies." At this remote epoch
nearly every savant was more or less of a dreamer. Almost as a matter of
course, Rhazes's great work, translated into Latin, with the title of "El IHhawi,"
a vast pharmaceutical repertory completed by a man of genius who looked at
A A




178
Il


CHEMIISTRY AND ALCHEMYF.


science from the healing point of view, was not, from its very character,
calculated to give us a complete idea of the chemical knowledge appertaining
to the epoch at which he wrote it. We can merely guess that this knowledge
was in a pretty advanced stage; but the applications of chemistry to
metallurgy, to docimacy, to the arts of luxury, and to various kinds of
industries, such as the melting of metals, the fabric of warlike weapons,
the decoration of edifices and furniture, &c., all are buried in the tomb of
so many generations of artists who have left no other trace of their existence
than a few of their productions. We can learn less from history in this
respect than from an attentive study of the museums of Spain and Sicily, in
Fig. 127.-The Alchemist Geber.-After an Engraving by Vriese.
which are preserved many art monuments which testify to the marvellous
skill of the Saracens and the Moors.
The " Canon" by Avicenna, the works of Serapion the younger, and of Mesue
(see the chapter on Medical Sciences), contain, however, some interesting
details as to chemical operations, which show that there was gradual progress,
and every now and then a discovery of importance. Mesue says that in the
middle of the ninth century certain principles had been recognised as to the
analytical classification of the bodies which compose organic matter.
Albucasis, a savant of the eleventh century, and a student in the Arab school
at Cordova, who, after rising to the highest rank as physician and surveyor,




CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


179


was not above preparing his own remedies and instruments, heralded, by the
independence of his ideas and their practical applicability, a new era for
science, amidst the misty subtleties of Islamism.  Avenzoar and Averroes
were the principal apostles of this luminous doctrine, which seemed destined
to illuminate in a short time the whole scientific world.  Unfortunately the
human intellect was easily dragged out of its depth in the Middle Ages.
The investigators and inventors, such as the learned Morienus, who fled from
Rome into the deserts of Egypt (Fig. 149), had great difficulty in steering
clear of the shoals of experimental science in a century when the operations
of what was called the art of fire were confounded with magic.   Their
labours in chemistry and metallurgy might have caused them to be condemned as sorcerers.
The Court of Rome deserves praise for its good sense in that, disregarding
popular superstitions, it summoned from his cell a humble Dominican monk,
afterwards Albertus Magnus, to make him master of the Sacred Palace, and
subsequently Bishop of Ratisbon (1260). But, as we have already said (see the
chapter on Philosophical Sciences), this philosopher monk, after he had been
made bishop, wearying of earthly greatness and pomp, abandoned them without
a sigh for the exclusion of the cloister, in order to pursue in silence his
favourite scientific researches. This was why he was believed to be in communication with the powers of darkness, and it was said that he was guilty
of magic, and that he made gold. People came from all parts to see him and
question him as to the abstract arts of chemistry. His recipes were in great
request, his manuscripts were copied by the thousand, and posterity, which
has forgotten all about the monk and bishop, and which does not read his
numerous philosophical works, still repeats with honour the name of the
Great Albert.
It must not be imagined that the princes and sovereigns of the Middle
Ages looked at the interests of science from as lofty a point of view as many
of the popes. Nevertheless, a French king, whose venerated memory was
mercilessly aspersed by the philosophers of the last century, Louis IX.,
employed as tutor for his children a Dominican monk, the Pliny, the Varro of
the Middle Ages. This was Vincent of Beauvais, the wonderful encyclopaedist,
who lived, so to speak, amongst the ancients at a time when their most splendid works were despised and reviled. Vincent of Beauvais was accused of
sorcery because he avoided the idle discussions of the schools, in order to




I80


CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


work in his laboratory in the St. Chapelle yard. The high intelligence of
the King, and the piety of his mother, Queen Blanche, were scarcely enough
to shield their learned protege from  the most absurd accusations. At
midnight people often used to creep along the quays of the Seine to see
whether they could get a glimpse, reflected in the river, of the magic
furnaces in which Master Vincent was supposed to evoke his familiar spirit.
At about the same period there was much talk of another monk, the
alchemist Raymond Lulli (born at Palma, in the island of Majorca), who,
after a long and eventful life of wanderings and adventures, came to a tragic
R,TLVLL 
Fig. 128.-The Alchemist Raymond Lulli.-After an Engraving by Vriese.
end, being stoned by the populace of Tunis in 1315.  A recent attempt
has been made to prove that amongst his numerous works on philosophy and
theology, those which treat of alchemy should be ascribed to another savant
almost his contemporary, and bearer of the same name. But it was precisely
these works which had made the reputation of the theologian of Majorca. A
thousand absurd stories were related of this singular man, and it was said
that he would have been prosecuted as a sorcerer by the Inquisition, unless he
had succeeded, by the help of Edward I. of England, in coining six millions
of false money, with which the English monarch promised to undertake




CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


81I


a fresh crusade against the infidels. Raymond Lulli (Fig. 128) left behind
him numerous disciples, who were termed Lullists or dreamers, and who made
a cunning use of the sad end of their leader, just as the Court of Rome
seemed inclined to accord him the honours of beatification.  Concealing
beneath the prestige of black magic their attempts at chemical experimentalising, the Lullists propagated a report that the soul of the blessed martyr
appeared at certain hours of the night, and confided to his neophytes the
secrets of heaven, especially touching the divine art of transforming into fine
gold the commonest of metals. The Lullists enjoyed considerable credit all
over Europe, and although it might have been supposed that this sect, owing
to its occult and mysterious practices, would have incurred the rigour of the
ecclesiastical and civil laws, the clergy and the magistrates exhibited no
little tolerance towards the eminent men belonging to it.  The mysterious
meetings of the Lullists were surrounded, especially in Germany, with much
solemn formality, being held at night, in wild and uninhabited regions,
and, if possible, near iron or copper mines (Fig. 129), where the ruggedness
of the soil and the bareness of the landscape were in harmony with the
arcana of the great work. It is believed that the Brothers of the Rosy
Cross, who derived their name from a German gentleman called Rosenkrutz,
succeeded the Lullists in the fifteenth century.
A contemporary of Raymond Lulli, and versed, as he was, in Eastern
languages, mathematics, philosophy, and medicine, Arnauld de Villeneuve, a
native of Languedoc, also interrogated nature by the analysis of bodies and
of substances. He investigated more particularly the mysteries of chemical
science as bearing upon medicine, and in this way he discovered the various
acids since named sulphuric, nitric, and muriatic. It is said that he was the
first person to make alcohol and spirits of wine. Arnauld de Villeneuve was,
together with Albertus Magnus, one of the most eminent exponents in the
Middle Ages of the experimental art, which, still in a state of confusion, was
exposed to the suspicions of the ignorant, and could only be practised under
the protection of kings, or in the solitude of the cloister. It is a matter for
regret, however, that men of such rare intelligence as Arnauld de Villeneuve
and Raymond Lulli should have embraced the opinion and systems of
theosophy, which was a source of false and absurd theories that often interfered
with the application of the most remarkable discoveries in science.
At the same epoch England had the honour of giving birth to Roger




I82


CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


Bacon (Fig. 130), called the Admirable Doctor, who had a narrow escape of
paying with his life the crime of being in advance of his age. He passed
part of his life in prison. Salvino degli Armati had just invented a new
process for making glass of a lenticular shape, and Bacon took up this
invention, and, having perfected it, made achromatic glasses and the
telescope, thus opening the immensities of the sky to future astronomers.
He discovered a combustible substance similar to phosphorus, and with
saltpetre, which had hitherto only been used medicinally, he composed
Fig. 129.-The Miner.-Designed and engraved in the Sixteenth Century by J. Amman.
gunpowder. There is no truth in the story of his having been the first
victim of his own discovery; for, though he did not foresee the tremendous
consequences arising out of the manufacture of this inflammable mixture,
he had assumed that it would bring about a revolution in the art of
war. The melting of bells, practised as early as the thirteenth century,
suggested the idea of casting cannon (Fig. 131).     Roger Bacon had
investigated all the sciences, and yet, upon his death-bed, he bitterly
exclaimed, "I repent of having laboured so much in the interest of science."
Thus from the beginning of the fourteenth century, France, Germany,




CHEMISTRY AND AL CHEMY.


I83


and England each produced almost simultaneously one of the most illustrious
representatives of what was called, in the language of the day, the great art;
that is to say, the knowledge of the secrets of nature. Of these three
learned philosophers, Bacon possessed the highest abilities and the largest
powers of conception, and all three of them attracted numerous audiences to
their lectures, for they contrived to invest even the most common subject
with interest by their way of treating it. When Bacon described the motion
of the celestial sphere and the regular march of the planets; when he expounded
his theory of the physical world, and set forth the laws which regulate the
matter and cause the transformation of substances, he was listened to with
I Roc: B       C. 
Fig. 130.-The Alchemist Roger Bacon.-After an Engraving by Vriese.
admiration and in complete silence, for he was himself convinced by the
proofs which he had obtained, and by the great problems which he believed
that he had settled, and he communicated his own convictions to his audience.
But, upon the other hand, experimental science often borrowed its proofs
from the most impudent imposture. Thus Arnauld de Villeneuve showed the
Parisians copper plates which he declared that he had just converted into
silver, and silver foil which he alleged he could convert into fine gold. The
people who witnessed these tricks looked upon them as so many miracles, little
knowing that a little nitric acid mixed with water would have destroyed the
illusion.




184


C h~HEMIISTRY AND AL CHEMY.


The Inquisition burnt the books on alchemy and magic written by
Arnauld de Villeneuve; but, through the intermediacy of Pope Clement V.,
two of his works, the " Rosarium Philosophorum " and the "Flos Florum,"
were spared, though modern science has not been able to extract much that
is useful from  these obscure and diffuse compilations.  The encyclopedic
writings of Albertus Magnus, piously preserved at Cologne, were not in any
danger of ecclesiastical censure, and, as soon as printing was discovered, they
were published in several towns of the Rhine provinces. The "Opus Majus"
Fig. 131.-Casting of a Bell, in presence of a Bishop who gives it his benediction.-After the
"Rationale Divinorum Officiorum," by William Durand.-Manuscript of the Fourteenth
Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
of Roger Bacon found in the library of the Vatican the hospitality which it
deserved, and it may be said that this.book, dedicated to Pope Clement IV.,
was a deposit for all the science of the Middle Ages.
Most of the disciples of Roger Bacon, Arnauld de Villeneuve, and Albertus
Magnus abandoned the chimerical attempt to effect the transmutation of
metals, and devoted little time to operations in the laboratory, and those who
continued to practise the experimental method derived scarcely any benefit
from the discoveries which they really did make, on account of their absurd
efforts to discover the philosopher's stone (Fig. 132).




CHEMISTRY A~ND ALCHEAMY.


185


The first who looked upon the practical side of chemistry properly so
called was Gentile Gentili de Foligno, whose treatise upon doses and proportions of medicine may be looked upon as a summary of medical chemistry,
which was very complete for the time at which it was composed. Next to
him come Antonio Quainer of Pavia, who manufactured artificial mineral
waters; Saladin of Ascoli, and Arduino of Pesaro, whose works enumerate
the substances having a mineral base which have been discovered by the
alchemists. 
It is to be regretted that nothing of what related to the labours of the


- KM'ik 
Fig. 132.-The German Alchemist.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving attributed to Holbein, and
taken from the German Translation of the " Consolation of Philosophy" by Boethius,
Augsburg, 1537, in folio.


industrial arts at this epoch, as in the preceding ones, has been recorded in
special treatises, for by this neglect we have lost many ingenious processes,
whilst others, which might have been ready to hand, have only since been
discovered quite accidentally, and after long and laborious research. More
profit would have been derived from consulting the daily note-book of
an artisan of that period than the farrago of those who were engaged in the
great work; i.e. the search for the philosopher's stone.
B B




186


CHE3MISTRY AND ALCTHElfI.


Moreover, the alchemists went to work in an unmethodical way, and
without any scientific theory.  Their systems as to the moral value of metals,
as to the existence of an exceptional and indecomposable body, and as to the
search for a universal panacea could not lead to any result.  They took one
by one the substances belonging to the three kingdoms of nature, and treated
them by fire and by water; they combined them together, noting carefully
the isolated phenomena produced by the chemical operation; and they next
endeavoured to connect as far as possible these phenomena with the most
extraordinary ideas, and then to give to the products obtained a use in
conformity with their external characteristics. If some unexpected revelations issued from the rows of retorts and matrasses which the alchemist was
at work upon, they were attributed to chance, which sometimes led to some
Fig. 133.-A Mint of the Fifteenth Century.-Reduced Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving at the
base of a Monetary Slip, printed at Louvain in 1487.-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
fortunate results in these absurd processes of experimental chemistry. In
the fifteenth century the alchemists had, unconsciously in most cases, been
the means of disclosing to science, apart from several substances comprised in
the materia medica, the existence of bismuth, liver of sulphur, regulus of
antimony, and volatile fluorine of alkali.  They were expert in distilling
alcohol, in volatilising mercury, and in obtaining sulphuric acid by the
sublimation of sulphur; in preparing aqua regia and various kinds of ether,
and in purifying the alkalis.  They also had a scarlet dye for cloth superior
to anything of the present day.  Several processes in glass-staining-which,
though said to be lost, were merely abandoned or forgotten-were invented
by glass-blowers and enamellers. In all probability the effects of hydrogen,
employed as a light-giving medium, revealed themselves to the alchemists




CHEMISTRY AD ALCHED AI1Y.


'87




spontaneously; and we know that a German alchemist, Eck of Sulzbach,
had ascertained the existence of oxygen, which was not demonstrated by
Priestley until three hundred years afterwards.
Alchemy was at the apogee of its celebrity in the beginning of the
fifteenth century, notwithstanding the royal edicts against it and the suspicions of imposture entertained concerning its adherents. Not only did
sovereigns ask them to supply gold for the mints (Figs. 133 and 134), but
the outside public, who put faith in the wonders of potable gold, purchased
Fig. 134.-The Officer of the Mint.-Designed and engraved in the Sixteenth Century
by J. Amman.
from them, at an extravagant price, certain metallic mixtures combined with
ointments and vegetable juices which were warranted to cure diseases,
preserve the appearance of youth, render men invulnerable, produce pleasant
dreams, prolong human life, and so forth.
It was at this period that were composed most of the treatises upon
alchemy, which were a crude mass of incoherent propositions and wild
assertions, a mixture of poesy and insanity, in which all logical ideas were
lost amidst a mass of stilted phraseology, but through which breathed a blind
but evidently fervent faith.  Amidst this chaotic collection of absurdities




,     al Coine,;                          r of the Senio
-pta1T]~teiecesBi io f Pjtb t  jt.e of the origih
Fig 135' —The Extraction of precios  the Ceralsefli C olaro the f  ni
]~ember of the Goldsmiths at thetiftnth entur




1-1    EE~~~~~~cEE -


7{L         /                 ftU'    


^^^o-g —   ^5>06a- '   Miiii.r-rr~e~p-^n^^881te C o   cl  Of theSenior Member
Fig.  6.-The Foundry of Precious  etals.iees in the Ceremonial Collar  the or
of the Goldsmiths at Ghent.-Fifteeath-Century Chased Silver, size of the original.




190o


CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEM:IY.


everything grand or mysterious was attributed by the alchemists to the
demons which people the air, fire, and water, to the stars which are superior
to the human and to the Divine will, to mysterious sympathies existing
between the Creator and his creatures, and to the hybrid combinations
of mineral and vegetable substances. The fifteenth century followed, in
regard to the arts and sciences, the errors of the preceding age, which was
full of grand manifestations, which are to be traced in those wonderful
Gothic monuments in which the statuary has represented a mass of figures,
sacred and profane, real and imaginary, and which give one the impression
of being a book of alchemy, written with a chisel upon stone. And yet,
amidst this passion for the strange and the supernatural, there were a
few patient and laborious scholars who only devoted themselves to the
operations of the laboratory in order to increase the progress of chemistry by
logical experiment. Such was the Italian John Baptist Porta, who was the
first to allude to the tree of Diana and the flowers of tin, and who discovered
the means of reducing the metallic oxides and of colouring silver; or, again,
Isaac and Jean Hollandus, makers of enamel and of artificial gems, who have
described their process of work with great minuteness and precision; or,
again, Sidonius and Sendivogius, who put into execution several new
processes for dyeing stuffs.
In 1488 the Venetian Government, following the example of Henry VII.
of England and several other monarchs of the time, issued a severe interdict
against alchemist practices, but the men who pretended to make gold
continued their so-called transmutations. At this epoch it was that the
Rosicrucians formed, under the name of Voarchodumia, a secret association,
the principal object of which was the discovery of gold and silver mines,
and, above all, that of the great work (Figs. 135 and 136).  In the sixteenth century science began to free itself from the ancient routine of the
Middle Ages, and to seek a road in which she might use reason as a staff,
and observation as a lantern to her path. And, strange to say, it was
alchemy which took the initiative of this scientific reform. Paracelsus (born
at Einsiedlen, in Switzerland, in 1493), to whom frequent allusion was made
in a previous chapter (Medical and Occult Sciences), may be considered the
most characteristic type of contemporary alchemists. He represented, so to
speak, two men combined in one: upon the one hand, there was the daring
reformer who upset all the received ideas of medicine since the days of




CHEMISTRY AND ALCIIHEMVY.


191


Hippocrates, and who, by his incessant experiments, made many additions to
the arts; upon the other, the theosophist-we may even say, the impostorwho pretended that he was one of those privileged beings who receive their
knowledge direct from God by mere Divine emanation. This deifying of the
illustrious savant contributed to the success of his doctrines; but he ought, in
his own interests, to have held more aloof from men, and lived in a sort of
mysterious solitude (Fig. 137). After an adventurous career as a youth,
Paracelsus had acquired, at the age of thirty-two, an immense reputation,
and his pupils at the University of Bale, where he filled the chair of
PAR2ACELS9.
Fig. 137.-The Alchemist Paracelsus.-After an Engraving by Vriese.
medicine, were to be counted by the thousand. The enthusiasm was so great
that princes and nobles swelled his cortege, and the people kissed the skirts
of his robes and the buckles of his shoes. He had cured eighteen notable
personages who were believed to be suffering from incurable diseases, and
there was a regular scramble to obtain the elixir supposed to insure indefinite
prolongation of human life.
Paracelsus, having probably promised more than he was able to perform,
became so unpopular that he was obliged to leave Bale, and, accompanied by
a few faithful followers, to resume his wanderings, the result being that he
died in misery in a hospital. Before his time, Henry Cornelius Agrippa of




i92


CHEMiISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


Nettesheim, philosopher, physician, and alchemist, underwent the same fate
at Grenoble (1535), after having been imprisoned at Brussels as a magician.
We will not attempt to justify the strange theory which has been called the
pantheism of Paracelsus, a theory in which he only pretended to believe
to suit his own purposes and strike the imaginations of those who would
not, perhaps, have paid any heed to more sober ideas.  But it must be
pointed out that in his chemical operations Paracelsus had constantly in view
the simplification of the processes resorted to, and the discovery of the
elementary principles and of the truly active mediums of nature.   His
celebrated arcazna amount to this, and he says, "The true object of alchemy
is to prepare arcana, not to make gold." Starting from this principle,
he denounced the tavern-keepers and cooks, who drown the virtue of the
best arcana in soups; the apothecaries, who can only compose insipid syrups
and repulsive decoctions, when they have ready to hand, at the bottom of
their stills (Figs. 138 to 147), extracts and dyes derived from the best
vegetables and minerals. Paracelsus was equally indignant with the doctors,
whose barbarous prescriptions embodied a mass of substances which
neutralised each other.  He was very much opposed to the use of correctives
added to certain pharmaceutical preparations, especially when these correctives had no natural relation with the preparations used. He argued that
it was necessary to discover the quintessence of plants-the ether of Aristotleand the active principles of organized bodies, isolating them with great care,
and using them to avert the different functional disorders of the animal
machine. Bones of the hare, coral, mother-of-pearl, and other analogous
bodies, from which he claimed to extract, by chemical process, the arcana,
were doubtless used by him for the sole purpose of misleading the inquisitive;
and when he wished to render these mixtures efficacious, he added to them
certain potent substances of which he had previously ascertained the
influence.
In any event, it may safely be said that, owing to the labours of
Paracelsus, alchemy exchanged its speculative for a practical character; and
this is so true that George Agricola (born at Misnia in 1494), who proceeded
with greater caution than Paracelsus, effected, without any disturbance or
noisy discussion, the auspicious revolution in metallurgy which his ardent
contemporary was unable to achieve without a fierce struggle in medicine and
the pharmacopoeia. Agricola resided at Bale, and his sedate temperament was




CHEMIISTRY AND ALCHIEJMY.


193


in keeping with the manners of the inhabitants of that business city, while his
scientific discoveries could not but please and interest them, when they found
it possible to give them an immediate and useful application to arts and
industry.  From   about 1530-at which       period  Paracelsus had    already
quitted Bale —to 1560-that is to say, five years after the death of Agricola
Figs. 138 to 141.-Furnace, Retorts, Stills, and Distilling Apparatus, as used by Chemists and
Alchemists of the Sixteenth Century.-After an Engraving by Yriese.
-the printing-presses of Westhmer and Froben were incessantly publishing
Latin works, most of them illustrated with wood engravings, in which the
father of metallurgic science expounded the results of his long series of
investigations.
Henceforth, chimiastrie, or the art of transforming bodies and substances
c




I94


CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEiMIY.


from a medical point of view, and metallurgy, or the art of extracting and
purifying metals for the use of industry-two sciences having many points
of contact and of difference-advanced in parallel lines upon the road of
progress. Alchemy, ceasing to be experimental and becoming merely
psychological, was abandoned to the study of a few fanatical adherents, and
finally disappeared altogether from the enlarged domain of positive science.
A history of the conflict between the psychological alchemists and the
chimiastres (or new chemists) would be a very interesting one, especially if it
related how the genius of the Middle Ages gradually lost the ground which
it had held for so many centuries; but the place for such a history is not
Figs. 142 and 143.-Furnaces, as used by the Chemists and Alchemists of the Middle Ages.
After an Engraving by Vriese.
here.  We can    only summarise the salient facts, deducing from   them
afterwards the principal consequences. The conflict was fiercest upon the
banks of the Rhine.    While Graterole, Bracheschus, and Alexander of
Suchten sided with the alchemists, and upheld the speculative theories of
Avicenna, Gerber, and Raymond Lulli, Conrad Gesner, Thomas Mufetus,
and Nicholas Guibert examined the science by the light of the ideas which
had inaugurated the new period.
In the meanwhile, Cornelius Agrippa, the sceptic, who from his
childhood had been familiar with the mysteries of alchemy, and even of
necromancy, was tracing the line which separated science from speculation,




CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


I95


and the art from  the mere trade made out of it.    This was the art
" concerning which he could say a good deal more, had he not taken an oath of
secrecy when he was initiated into its mysteries," which means, no doubt, that
he could disclose a good deal of roguery and imposture. He says, "I could
show the alchemist fabricating azure, cinnabar, ore, vermilion, musical gold,
and other admixtures of colours; I could show the same man committing a
regular fraud, forging a Bennet philosopher's stone, by contact with which all


Figs. 144 to 147.-Furnaces and various Apparatus, as used by the Chemists and Alchemists of
the Middle Ages.-After an Engraving by Vriese.
other stones are converted into gold or silver, according to the desire of
Midas.   I would drive such a man out of the country, and confiscate his
goods; I would inflict upon him bodily chastisement, for he offends God, the
Christian religion, and society." Agrippa, after having promised to keep
silence, continues, carried away by his indignation, " It would take too much
time to recount all the follies, the idle secrets, and the enigmas of this trade:
of the green lion, the fugitive stag, the flying eagle, the inflated toad, of the




196


CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


crow's head, of the black blacker than the black, of the seal of Mercury, of
the mud of wisdom, and other countless absurdities of a like kind. As to
the science itself, in which I am well versed, and which must not be
confounded with the trade made out of it, I believe it to be worthy of the
honour which Thucydides says should be paid to an honest woman: that of
talking about her as little as possible." Agrippa has also left a very graphic
description of the sad condition to which the alchemists of the lower ranks
were then reduced, "travelling from fair to fair, in order to make a little
money by sale of white-lead, vermilion, antimony, and other drugs used by
women for painting the face, drugs which the Scripture calls ointments of
lust." These bastards of science stole when they could not earn money, and
finally resorted to the coining of false money (Fig. 148). They were, as
Agrippa called them, " gaol-birds." Such were the surviving alchemists in
France in the reign of Frangois I., and they were far more calculated to
discredit the spirit of experimentalising than to bring it into favour amongst
the upper classes. The famous Nicholas Flamel had adopted very different
means from these, a hundred and fifty years before, to make himself popular
amongst the people of Paris. A sworn professor of the University, a
philosopher, a naturalist, and doubtless also an alchemist, Flamel enjoyed
a reputation for probity which had probably not less to do with his wealth
than the cause of the holy stone, so long held in bad repute. People did not
stop to inquire whether fortunate speculations or sums of money deposited
with him by proscribed Jews who died without heirs and beyond the frontiers
of France had increased a hundred-fold the modest savings of the scribe
of the parish, St. Jacques de la Boucherie; the common people, always ready
to believe in the supernatural, attributed his large fortune exclusively to
alchemy, and long after his death no citizisoof -,aris would have dared to
pass the house of Flainel and Pernelle, his w'ie, a night without signing
himself, so as to keep off the evil spirits which were believed to haunt the
abode in which. the alchemist concealed his treasure. Yet Flamel, at his
death, founded masses for the repose of his soul in all the churches of Paris,
and bequeathed his goods-to the poor.
The great good fortune of Nicholas Flamel no doubt helped to advance
experimental science, but it led thousands of enthusiasts astray, and the
search for the philosopher's stone became the mania of the fifteenth century.
An ancient author, who did not at all favour the alchemists, says of them,




CHEMISTRY AND ALCHJEMIY.


197


"Bad coal, sulphur, excrement, poisons, and all kinds of hard work are
sweeter than honey to them, until, having consumed patrimony, heritage, and
1.
i.3
their days il rags and misery."
/~iii~iiiii  H                     0
Niii~iiii::":  0ii.=q
K                          jiii~io
4i      0o
i.
furniture, all of which disappear in smoke and ashes, the poor wretches end
their days in rags and misery."




I98


CH~EMISTRY AN~D ALCHLEMI


Flamel, who died in 1415, carried to the tomb the secret of the great
work which he declared that he had in possession, and more than a century
and a half elapsed before the doctrine of the Paracelsists obtained a place in
the University of Paris. It was only in the reign of Henry IV. that Baillif
de la Riviere and Joseph Duchesne, both physicians to the King, and George
Penot, a pupil, like them, of the Bale school, succeeded in attracting attention
to the name and the doctrines of the great Swiss alchemist.
This reaction in favour of the chemical system of Paracelsus, though
slow and undecisive, was not the less significant. The war broke out afresh
between the eclectic chemists and the Paracelsists, and it was amidst this conflict
| MORIEN\.
Fig. 149.-The Alchemist Morienus.-After an Engraving by Vriese.
of the two schools that chimiastrie, against which was ranged the insane
spiritualism of the Rosicrucians, those sectaries of mystic alchemy, was able
to make its way upon the as yet vaguely defined ground of general chemistry.
The two other branches of the science, metallurgy and technical chemistry,
owing to the nature of their customary application, did not encounter so
many obstacles, and in course of time were protected and encouraged by the
governments and local administrations. Venice, which had so long been
hostile to the psychological chemists, showed favour to the practical and
working chemists, and the same was the case in all the cities and states
where commerce throve. The metallurgists demonstrated to the public that




CHEMISTRY AND ALCHEMY.


199


they would consult their interests-always the main motive of human
progress-by allowing them to construct blast-furnaces, foundries, and
manufactories, and in this way they transformed in a few years the whole
social system. The savants devoted their attention to metallurgic chemistry,
which did in reality make gold in the sense that it extracted mineral matter
from all kinds of metals, and submitted the metals themselves to all
the changes which they underwent in manufacture. In Germany, for
instance, the learned Pole, Tycho Brahe, so famous as an astronomer, spent
nearly his whole time in a laboratory with the Emperor Rudolph II., who
expended large sums in scientific experiments, but who paid no heed to the
philosopher's stone. So, too, in England, Roger Bacon, who has deservedly
been called the father of experimental physics, did not think it beneath him
to engage in chemical researches; while in France Bernard Palissy, whose
labours have already been referred to, did much for technical chemistry.




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.
The Origin of Magic.-The Savants and Philosophers reputed to be Magicians.-Different Forms
of Occult Sciences.-Oneiromancy.-Oneirocritics and Diviners.-Necromancy.-Practices of
the Necromancers.-Astrology. —Celebrated Astrologers.-Chiromancy.-A eromancy and
other kinds of Divination.-The Angelic Art and the Notorious Art.-The Spells of the
Saints.-Magic.-The Evocation of Good and Evil Genii.-Pacts with Demons.-Celebrated
Magicians.-Formulae and Circles.-Incense and Perfumes.-Talismans and Images.-The
tormenting of Wax Images.-The Sagittarii.-The Evil Eye.-Magic Alchemy.-Cabalism.
-The Fairies, Elfs, and Spirits.-The Were-wolves.-The Sabbath.-A Trial for Sorcery.
TsVERY   illusion  contains   a  principle,
tiveS        1"~  s, l c tevery false  science has its history,"
says AI. Ferdinand Denis, in a work
of which we propose to give an analysis.
'   To understand as a whole the different branches of occult philosophy,! as it was understood        in the Middle
sciences, ad            Ages, it is necessary to    say a few
words about magic as practised by the
X - -,ancients."
To study this vast subject in its primitive sources, it would be necessary to explain the magic formulae of the Vedas
in India, as handed down to us in the religion of the IIindoos, and to penetrate the systems of Hebraic cabalism.   But we need not go back further
than Diodorus of Sicily, who in the time of Julius Caesar visited the most
distant countries of Asia and Africa, and who tells us of a Chaldean tribe
which composed a sacred caste, devoted exclusively to the study of the occult
sciences, and incessantly seeking to discover, by means of astrology and magic,
the secrets of the future. The same historian tells us that the Assyrians had
their diviners and augurs, to watch the flight of the birds and to offer up
sacrifices to the unknown gods, many centuries before these superstitious




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


201


practices had been introduced into use amongst the Romans. Pliny, in his
turn, borrowed from tradition a curious chapter upon magic in the time of
Homer; and other Latin writers have given us some information as to the
practice of magic amongst the Etruscans.  This is enough to show that
ancient magic, and more especially Eastern magic, was the cradle of the
occult sciences in the Middle Ages.
The occult sciences existed, moreover, amongst the ancients, though they
were not called by this generic name, which comprises all the forms of the
art of divination, notably Astrology and Oneiromancy; all the modes of
evoking good or evil spirits, notably Theurgy and Goety; all the material
and spiritual communications between the dead and living-that is to say,
Necromancy; and all the means of exercising a supernatural and mysterious
power by the influence of dreams-that is to say, Sorcery. But when the
advent of Christianity changed the face of the world, the first heresiarchs,
who had only embraced the new faith in the hope of dragging it down into
the chaos of pagan religions, appear to have been the faithful guardians of
the dogmas and precepts of ancient magic: these were the Gnostics and the
followers of Valentine, Harpocrates, and Basilides, who declared that they
were the depositaries of the wisdom of the Eastern theosophists, and who
disfigured the Christian worship by mysteries either obscure, obscene, or
ridiculous. Thus they added to the ceremonies of the Greek Church a mass
of recent practices invented by priests of Buddha or Zoroaster, and which
were not devoid of grandeur and solemnity.
It was at the epoch (the third century) when Gnosticism, the sovereign
science, flourished in the school of Alexandria, that there appeared two
illustrious philosophers-Plotinus, born at Lycopolis in Egypt, and his
disciple Porphyrus, born at Constantinople-who in a manner founded the
new magical science, and who may be looked upon as the first demonographers of the Middle Ages. Plotinus, a thorough Platonist, had studied
the philosophy of the Orientalists in Persia and India, before coming to teach
mysticism and pantheism at Rome. He embodied in a work entitled the
" Enneades"-that is to say, collection of nine books-a whole set of doctrines
which Porphyrus completed and commentated, and which contains a selection
of the marvellous traditions of the sacred art in the East.  After them,
Jamblichus, born at Tyre in Phoenicia, who also had been educated in the
school of Alexandria, discovered a systematic formula for uniting theurgy to
D D




202


THE' OCCULT SCIENCES.


magic. Ennapius, Eustathius, and the Emperor Julian himself, accepted the
system of Jamblichus, who, in evoking the religious mysteries of ancient
Egypt, wrote a sort of gospel for the thaumaturgists and the magicians.
Jamblichus may be said to have expounded the physics of the reign of
demons, and Proclus the metaphysics.
The revolution which then took place in the neo-pagan philosophy caused


Fig. 150.-Druid carrying the Crescent of the Sixth Day of the Moon, and the Druid Sacrificer.
After a Roman Monument of the Second Century.
the aspirations and tendencies of the ardent and inquiring minds, which, after
endeavouring to discover the secrets of creation and of terrestrial existence,
sought outside of material nature a source of ideal satisfactions which they
could not find in the real world, to converge upon the same end. The eyes of
the mind were opened, and human intelligence became enamoured of the
occult sciences which brought it into communication with the superior
intellects of the invisible world. Thus, upon the one hand, there was a




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


203


scientific movement resulting from the daring speculations of a few savants
who endeavoured to fathom the arcana of philosophy; upon the other hand,
there arose and extended amongst the ignorant and credulous populations of
Europe an instinctive love for the wonderful, arising out of local legends, a
vague desire to march towards the unknown, a feverish impatience to witness
terrible evocations of spirits, and a criminal hope of obtaining the intervention of demons, who were credited with the possession of a terrible power,
and who became the docile agents of a popular magic more active and
dangerous than that of the philosophers of the Alexandrian school. This
new magic had its origin not only in the superstitions of Celtic races, but
also in the sombre mysteries of Northern mythologies. It was a sort of dark
and savage religion, which the people of the North and certain Asiatic hordes
had imported into Germany and Gaul (Fig. 150), with their barbarous
worship and their hideous gods, scattering terror by their sanguinary rites
and magic incantations amongst the primitive inhabitants of these countries,
which were still full of the winsome and poetical souvenirs of paganism.
It has been said with truth, of one of the most ancient monuments of the
Scandinavian language, called the Hama-nal, that it contained the germ of
most of the superstitious ideas which, by their admixture with the magic
theories of the East and of antiquity, brought about the creation of the
sorcery of the Middle Ages.
The occult sciences long remained in the shade, and were worked out in
silence far from the supervision of the ecclesiastical schools, but under the
influence of popular traditions which had preserved the mystic and divinatory
formulae in use amongst the Chaldeans, the Greeks, and the Romans, and
which combined with the lugubrious reminiscences of the Valhalla of Odin
the graceful fancies of the bards of Brittany. The Middle Ages employed
all the elements of the sacred art and of magic sciences borrowed from many
different times and lands, linking them with the Mahometan creeds which the
Arabs had imported into Spain. As early as the eleventh century there were
Saracen schools in the Iberian peninsula, where the occult sciences, which
served to unveil the wonders of the supernatural world, were publicly
expounded. It was long supposed by the demonographers that the illustrious
Gerbert, born at Aurillac in Auvergne, who had completed his studies amongst
the Spanish Arabs at the school of Cordova before being elected pope, only
owed his election to a mysterious pact which he had made with the demons.




204


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


It would be superfluous to refute such a folly, but it may be remarked that
two centuries later the Arabic was, so to speak, the key and the first instrument of study for penetrating the mysterious sanctuary of hidden sciences.
This was, perhaps, what brought about the secret introduction into the
Christian, and even into the monastic schools, of this language which was so
little diffused throughout Europe. Most of the savants who dabbled in these
mysterious sciences, which were proscribed and condemned by the Church,
learnt Arabic as well as Hebrew and Syriac, a knowledge of which was
necessary to become initiated into the mysteries of cabalism. This was why
any one who knew Arabic or Hebrew was suspected of magic, and even of
Fig. 151.-" How Alexander engaged in Combat with Men having Horses' Heads and vomiting
Smoke from their Mouths."-Miniature of a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, No. 11,040.
-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
sorcery. From the time of Plotinus and Porphyrus to that of Cardan and
Paracelsus, no man of eminence could assist the progress of science or make
any great scientific discovery without being reputed a magician, or stigmatized as a sorcerer-a fatal appellation which, attached to the name of a noble
victim of his love for science, disturbed his repose, often interrupted his
labours, and sometimes put his liberty and life in peril. Raymond Lulli,
Albertus Magnus, Roger Bacon, Vincent of Beauvais, and many others, after
having composed a great number of remarkable works upon scholastic
philosophy, could not escape these unjust suspicions and persecutions. The
Florentine encyclopaedist, Cecco d'Ascoli, whose cabalistic studies had excited




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


205


the suspicions of the Inquisition, was accused of being in communication with
the devil, and burnt at the stake in Rome in 1327.
The occult sciences had spread very rapidly at the epoch when the thirst
for knowledge gave an impetus to all the intellectual forces of the Middle
Ages. This was the period of the great encyclopedias, which were compiled
simultaneously in all countries where the Renaissance of letters was ushered
in with more enthusiasm than discretion. These encyclopaedias comprised,
amidst the vast mass of divine and human sciences, hermetic philosophy,
judicial astrology, theurgy, and the other branches of magic; but, notwithstanding this, the occult sciences were not taught ex cathedrd; that is to say,
from the chairs of the Universities, over which the religious authorities always
exercised an unlimited power of control and suppression. The invention of
printing, in the middle of the fifteenth century, all at once conferred upon
teaching from books a degree of liberty which oral instruction had never
possessed. The occult sciences profited thereby, and, without taking into
account the prohibitions and condemnations of the Church, printing brought
into full light the doctrines and experimental knowledge belonging to each
kind of magic, which had hitherto remained hidden. In most cases these
publications did not render the authors or printers liable to any danger, for
the Catholic Church was at this period more engaged in pulling down the
militant heresies which attacked the dogma and the very essence of religion.
Cardan, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, Jean Reuchlin, and many other psychologists, though they were more or less astrologers, demonologists, and magicians, were not interfered with for their writings, which, going through several
editions, were very widely circulated; but in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, certain inquisitors, amongst others Henry Institor and Springer in
their " Malleus Maleficorum," denounced the formidable invasion of sorcery,
and invoked against its adepts the penal laws decreed by the ecclesiastical
authorities. It was only about the middle of this century that the civil
power began to proceed against the sorcerers; and it was encouraged, seconded,
and urged by the jurisconsults, who seemed fully agreed to punish the instigators and proselytes of an illusory science, reputed criminal because it
participated in the works of the demons. One of these stern magistrates,
Pierre de Lancre, President of the Bordeaux Parliament, boasted in his
"Treatise on the Inconstancy of Evil Spirits and Demons" (1610), that
he had been more severe on the sorcerers than the Inquisition itself; and his




206


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


contemporary, the political philosopher Jean Bodin, calmly enumerated in
his "Demonomania" (1580) the list of persons who had been handed over to
the secular arm as demonomaniacs or sorcerers during the reign of the
Valois kings. The magic art was destined to disappear and vanish in smoke
when, to use the picturesque expression of Vico, "Curiosity, the mother of
Ignorance, gave birth to true Science."
We may now examine in succession the principal theoretical and practical
divisions of occult philosophy.
Oneirocricy (that is to say, the explanation of dreams, from the two Greek
words, ovcpos, a dream, and KptaLS, judgment), or Oneiromancy (the divining of
dreams, from the two Greek words, Oivpos, a dream, and /aiVTela, prediction)
is of very ancient origin. The Egyptians, the Jews, and the Greeks had
reduced the art of interpreting dreams into a regular doctrine. The mystic
traditions of this art, which was implanted in all the pagan religions, were all
the more readily revived in the Middle Ages, because the Holy Scriptures
supplied many instances of prophetic dreams, explained and afterwards
fulfilled, which the Church of Jesus Christ naturally accepted as indisputable
facts in the history of the people of God.  The explanation of dreams did
not seem contrary to the Catholic faith, inasmuch as Synesius, who was
Bishop of Ptolemais in the fourth century, composed a treatise upon Dreams,
in which he endeavoured to sanctify by Christian reflections the belief of the
ancients, by making of oneirocricy a science of individual observation, which
enabled distinctions to be made between natural dreams, Divine dreams, and
dreams caused by the evil one.   This triple distinction of the nature of
dreams was admitted as a fundamental rule in the oneirocricy of the Middle
Ages. However, another father of the Church, Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa,
who possessed a surer judgment than his contemporary Synesius, refused to
see in dreams more than a momentary derangement of the mind, caused by
the recent emotions which it might have experienced. He poetically compared the brain of man during sleep to the string of a harp, which, after
emitting its sound, still vibrates after the sound has died away.
Great as were the repugnances of the Church to the systematic interpretation of dreams, the oneiroscopists by profession-those who made of this
interpretation, which had been condemned by the popes and the councils, a
sacred or diabolic art-exercised their mischievous trade with impunity in the
palaces of kings as well as in the towns and in the country. They' had




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


207


nothing to fear from the civil authorities, and they defied those of the
Church.   However, Pope Gregory II., in the eighth century, denounced as
detestable the practice of divination which consisted in seeking auguries in the
visions of the night. The sixth Council of Paris, held in 829, condemned the
art of oneiromancy, as entailing pernicious consequences, and assimilated it
with the darkest superstitions of paganism. These canonical condemnations
did not prevent the art of divining by dreams from being generally practised
in the Middle Ages, either for forecasting the future or for discovering
hidden treasure. The first special treatise on this subject was written by
Arnauld de Villeneuve in the thirteenth century, and was not very widely
Fig. 152.-" How Alexander engaged in Combat with Pigs having large teeth a cubit long, and
with Men and Women having Six Hands."-Miniature of a Manuscript of the Thirteenth
Century, No. 11,040.-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
circulated, for the adepts in oneiromancy did not care to spread abroad the
technical elements of an art which they practised as a means of making
money. It was not until the sixteenth century that this process of divination
became general and popular, when the Venice printing-press had published
the "Oneirocriticon," written in Greek, and ascribed to a philosopher of
Ephesus called Artemidorus, who is said to have composed it in the reign of
the Emperor Antoninus. This book, translated into several languages, and
reprinted many times, became the manual and code of the oneiromancers,
though his system did not repose upon any scientific or rational basis. For
instance, according to this system, whoever dreamt that his hair was thick




208


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


and carefully curled might anticipate an accession of wealth; upon the other
hand, anything wrong with the hair foreshadowed something unfavourable.
It was a bad sign to wear a wreath of flowers not in season. In this theory
of dreams-borrowed, no doubt, from the East-" the eyes relate to children,
as the head does to the father of the family, the arms to the brothers, the
feet to the servants; the right hand to the mother, to the sons, and to
friends; the left hand to the wife and the daughter." The learned Jerome
Cardan, who did not choose to accept these vague and incoherent indications,
attempted to establish new laws of oneirocricy, and arranged the dreams in
Fig. 153.-The Vision of Charlemagne.-After a Miniature in the " Chroniques de Saint-Denis."
Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.
categories corresponding with the seasons, the months, and the hours during
which they occurred. But the common people, little doubting that he was
unconsciously reproducing the simpler but more logical system of Pliny in
his "Natural History," merely explained the dreams by taking them in their
opposite sense, and this was the foundation of a small popular work, which
has been frequently revised and renewed since the sixteenth century, " The
Key to Dreams."
Oneirocricy might have been to a certain extent harmless, in spite of its
superstitious absurdities; but such was not the case with necromancy (derived
from  the two Greek words vEKpOs, death, and uarrela, divination, or the




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.20


209


art of foretelling the future by evoking the dead), a terrible and imaginary
science which had earned for its adepts the name of necroniancers. This


Fig. 154. —The I'mage of Dame Astrology, with the Three Fates.-After a M1iniature inl the " Trait6
de la Cabale Chre'tienne," in Prose, by Jean Th'naud, a Cordelier of Angoul'me, a Work
dedicated to Fran~ois 1.-Mlanuscr-ipt of the Sixteenith Century. -In the Arsenial Library, Paris.


science was' all the more believed in during the Mliddle Ages because it
a,1)peared, in the eyes of a superficial observer, to be based upon the authority
E E




210


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


of Scripture, through the Witch of Endor whom Saul asked to evoke the
spirit of Samuel. The practices of this art were not in all cases of a solemn
and striking character; for the evocation of the dead consisted sometimes in
merely pronouncing certain phrases, half grotesque and unintelligible, at
night, either in a cemetery or a cellar, by the light of a black taper. In other
cases, it is true, this evocation was surrounded by the most horrible mysteries,
and the necromancer accompanied them by the effusion of blood. A child
was put to death, and its head, placed upon a dish, surrounded by lighted
tapers, was supposed to open its mouth at a given moment, and speak as from
the tomb. Sometimes the necromancer merely summoned up a mute phantom,
which by a gesture or a look replied to the question put to it. It was in
this way that Albertus Grotus, at the request of the Emperor Frederick
Barbarossa, evoked the spirit of his wife, who appeared before him, gloomy
and sorrowful, but still recognisable, and wearing her imperial robes. Necromancy, which must have had its origin in the hypogea of ancient Egypt,
and which has furnished so many terrible stories to the credulity of the
Middle Ages, eventually became fused in sorcery.
Another branch of the art of divination, which flourished in Europe from
the beginning of the Middle Ages to the sixteenth century, was astrology, that
mysterious science which was intimately connected with astronomy, and which
addressed itself to the eyes as well as to the mind, so that the masters of
science consulted the celestial vault as they would an immense book, in which
each star, having received the name and meaning of one of the letters in
the Hebrew alphabet, recorded in indelible characters the destiny of empires
and sovereigns as well as that of the whole human race, which was supposed
to be subject, each man at his birth, to the influence of the planets (Fig.
154).  Astrology was the oldest of the occult sciences, for it came from
Chaldea, and was rocked, according to the Hebrew works, in the cradle of the
world. The Jewish nation, which was the natural heiress of this primitive
science, piously preserved the deposit confided to its doctors. One of them,
Simeon Ben-Jochai, to whom is ascribed the celebrated book of the " Zohar,"
succeeded, according to the tradition of the Talmud, in attaining to such a
degree of familiarity with the celestial mysteries relating to the position of
the stars, that he was able to read the laws of Jehovah in the sky before they
were imposed upon the earth by their Divine Author. It is easy to understand that under the empire of such ideas, higher intellects, deeply interested




le




a,




THE SIBYL OF TIBURTIS ANNOUNCING                TO AUGUSTUS THE COMING OF JESIUS-CIIR                 T
Miniature from the Hitstoriai;oqMa eLetce)rpt; e x libris Pauli (Orosii; It:tlian M.S. Sexecuted in the xvlt" century and
attributed to Giulio Clovio; 11 71 H. L. Arsenal Librar, Paris.,




t 
I 
I..1    I.      1




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


211


in astronomical science, must have modified at their will the science of which
they were the boldest interpreters. Hence, no doubt, arose the fondness of
the Jews for astronomy, which they resorted to principally for drawing
horoscopes and predicting the future. This was why the Jewish astrologers
were in such good odour during the Middle Ages.    They were admitted
into the presence of kings and princes, who loaded them with honours and
riches, while the Israelitish race generally was being treated with such great
contumely.
The famous Arab geographer Edrisi, who was the favourite of Roger II.,
King of Sicily, at the close of the eleventh century, owed rather to astrology
than to geography the favour in which he was held by that prince, and it has
been asserted that the two circular tables of silver which he engraved with
great skill for the King were not meant for a terrestrial globe, but for a
celestial sphere which reproduced the motions of the stars and their
conjunctions from an astrological point of view. It is well known how
eagerly, in the thirteenth century, Alfonso X., King of Castile, surnamed the
Learned, took counsel with the rabbis in his investigations of astronomy and
astrology. Two centuries later, John II., King of Portugal, whom Queen
Isabella of Castile called the man par excellence, had in his suite a Jew, Master
Rorigo, who perfected the astrolabe (Jacob's staff), and who, doubtless, took
part in the plans for the great maritime expeditions to the East Indies which
his Royal Highness dispatched at about the same time as Christopher
Columbus, by the aid of his own knowledge of astronomy, discovered the
fourth quarter of the world.
The history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries records the doing of a
great number of astrologers, who were as famous during their lifetime as
they are now unknown, though they composed many curious and some
remarkable books. Without recalling the numerous compilers of almanacs
and predictions who lived during the sixteenth century, but amongst whom
may be mentioned Frangois Rabelais, who had but little faith in astrology,
we may cite the names of Luke Gauric, the learned Neapolitan prelate (born
in 1476), who drew the horoscope of the cities, popes, and kings of his day;
Simon Phares, the astrologer-in-ordinary to King Charles VIII., a converted
Jew, who has left a manuscript history of the most famous astrologers;
Thiebault, the physician-in-ordinary and astrologer to Fran9ois I.; Cosmo
Ruggieri, the Florentine astrologer, the confidant of Catherine de' Medicis;




212


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


and the most famous of them      all, Michel de Nostredame, otherwise
Nostradamus, physician-in-ordiniary and astrologer to Charles IX., who was
born at Salon, in France, in 1503, and who died there in 1566. He is the
only astrologer whose name has remained popular, and this through his
"collection of perpetual predictions," compiled in enigmatic verses, and
published under the title of " Quatrains Astronomiques," and which have
been reprinted several times under the title of "Propheties."
Judicial astrology, so called to distinguish it from alchemical astrology
and magical astrology, had no fixed rules until the thirteenth century; it
had long followed in the wake of astronomy properly so called, but from this
time it started upon a path of its own, and adopted many imaginary theories,
repeatedly borrowing from the occult sciences certain mysterious and fanciful
procedures.
According to the pure theory of the art, the seven planets then discovered,
including the sun, formed, with the twelve figures of the zodiac, the totality
of the astrological system. Each of these stars or constellations was supposed
to govern, by its special influence, either a limb of the human body, or the
whole body, or a whole nation, and this bounden relation of the celestial
bodies to earthly things extended to all the beings and all the products in
creation. "The flowers are to the earth as the stars to the sky," the pseudoTrismegistus is made to say in the old French translation; " there is not one
flower amongst them which some star has not bidden to grow." Albertus
Magnus, or rather the anonymous author of the book of " Wonderful Secrets"
published with his name to it, tells us that the planet of Saturn presides over
life, sciences, and buildings; that wishes, honours, riches, and the cleanliness of
the garments are dependent upon Jupiter; that Mars exercises his influence
over wars, persons, marriages, and feuds; that hope, happiness, and gain
came from the Sun; that love and friendship are under the influence of
Venus; that disease, debts, and fear are beneath the influence of Mercury,
who is also the planet of commerce; while the Moon causes wounds, robberies,
and dreams.
As to the intrinsic qualities of the planetary influences, they were
denoted by the planets themselves. The Sun was favourable; Saturn, cold
and cheerless; Jupiter, temperate; Mars ardent; Venus, fruitful; Mercury,
inconstant; the Moon, melancholy. The days, the colours, and the metals
were also subject to the influence of the planets and of the constellations.




r7-7 T V     /'- /-YT 7  rPT  Cl /7- r T A 7-' 7 7 C


J1IL u1 ^  uL,, o~LJVL2o.                   213
But, to draw any kind of horoscope, the first step was to observe with great
care what planets or constellations were dominant in the sky at the precise
hour when the operation began. The next step was to examine, with the
guidance of very complicated calculations, the consequences to be deduced
from the positions and conjunctions of the stars (Fig. 155).  The most
difficult part of the science consisted in determining the houses of the Suns and
their respective properties. The day was divided into four equal parts: the
ascendant of the sun, the middle of the sky, the descending of the sun, and
the lower part of the sky. " These four parts of the day were subdivided
into twelve distinct parts, which were called the twelve houses.  Great
importance was therefore attached, in drawing a horoscope, to ascertaining in
o   Aprili        \
the day or night. Thi s is why two horoso pes, drawn by two different
7I siP.M. 
9       J18 1 4  1ozoolod;  \
Fig. 15.-Specimen of a Genethliese, or Astrological Horoscope, composed in the Sixteenth
sentury.
which house the stars appeared, especially as these honses of the sun varied
astronomically, according to the countries, the time of year, and the hour of
the day or night. This iswhy two horoscopes, drawn by two different
astrologers at different places, but at the same moment, would be utterly
opposed to one another. But these facts were not taken into account, and the
errors and inconsistencies which were always occurring were imputed to the
astrologers, and not to astrology, which was never suspected until, disencumbered of all these snperstitious follies, it entered the domain of the exact
sciences through its fusion with astronomy.
If men sought to interpret the future by means of the sky, just as they
had sought to forecast their individual destiny by means of their own dreams,




214


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


it is not surprising that they should have interrogated their own bodies
with a like expectation.  From the earliest times the peoples of the East
had believed that the broken and multiple lines which radiate from the
sutures of the skull are, in fact, the strokes of a mysterious handwriting
which contained the secret of each man's individual fate.
The Middle Ages were therefore quite prepared to recognise a symbolical
writing of a similar kind in the countless lines, more or less distinct, which
correspond with the inflections of the skin of our hand. This speculative
science, called chiromancy (from the Greek words XELp, hand, and  avnreta,
divination), had more adepts than all the other sciences of divination, and
was eventually merged in astrology, giving rise to a number of systems
which have been upheld by savants of unquestionable merit.
The chiromancers cunningly founded their doctrine upon the following
passage in the Exodus, which is repeated almost word for word in the
Book of Job: —"This shall be as a sign in his hand, and as an instrument before his eyes" (xiii. 9).  But the Church would not admit of
this futile interpretation of the holy text, and chiromancy was one of the
superstitions which she most uncompromisingly opposed.   It was not,
however, until the beginning of the fifteenth century that this superstition
spread from the East into Europe. At this epoch, the Bohemians, who had
arrived from the remote regions of Asia (see the volume on " Manners and
Customs," chapter on Bohemians), brought with them the ancient traditions
of chiromancy, and propagated them rapidly in all countries which they
traversed. Inquiring minds set themselves to study this new science of
divination as soon as it made its appearance. Some of them reproduced, in
special treatises with designs and illustrations appended, the types of hands
scored with lines or signs favourable or the reverse; others investigated the
direct relation between the various parts of the human hand and the celestial
constellations. Both had discovered and defined various types of hands:
Rumphilius declared there were six types, Compotus eight, and Indaginus
thirty-seven, while Corvaeus placed the number of different types at a
hundred and fifty; but Jean Belot, the cure of Milmonts, afterwards reduced
the total to four. There was a long discussion as to whether the right or the
left hand was the one from which the horoscope should be drawn. There
was an equal difference of opinion as to the meaning of the lines and
irregularities of the hand, though it had been subjected to the astrological




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


215


divisions and subdivisions into which entered the virtues and influences of
the planets (Fig 156). Even the colour of the nails and the white spots
which are often seen upon them were assigned a special meaning by the
exponents of chiromancy, which thus became a very complicated and almost
a mathematical science.
In addition to chiromancy, the Middle Ages witnessed the adoption of
several modes of divination in use amongst the ancients, and of the revival,
in a new shape, of others which were referred to in the books of Greek and
Roman antiquity. As in ancient times, there was Airomancy (the art of divining by the phenomena of the air), Hydromancy, Pyromancy, and Geomancy
to 160).  These were looked upon     as sinister or favourable presages,
(^^VS  ---- Uri lnea
Fig. 156.-Specimen of the Left Hand, with the Lines and their Horoscopic Denominations.
(divining by means of water, fire, and earth). History has often alluded to the
fantastic images which the credulity of our ancestors fancied they could see
in the heavens when a meteor or the northern light was visible (Figs. 157
to 160).  These were looked upon as sinister or favourable presages,
according to their character. They also used pitchers filled with water, into
which were plunged metallic blades marked with certain tokens, and which,
as the water boiled, emitted sounds that the operator comprehended and
explained to his listeners. Dactylomancy (from the Greek word SaKTVXOS,
finger) was practised by means of a ring, in many cases made under the
influence of a certain constellation. This ring was suspended by a thread




2I6


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


in the centre of an earthenware or metal pitcher, against the sides of which,
swinging to and fro, it struck, emitting a number of sounds which were
taken to be predictions and oracles. Pyromancy, or the art of divination by
fire, varied according to the substances consumed, the smoke of which
announced, by its density and colour, what was to be expected of the future.
Thus, when a donkey's head was roasted upon live coal, the rotary movement of the fetid vapours emanating from it had a prophetic signification.
Geomancy, which served to establish a correspondence between material
beings and the elementary spirits, was connected with the sternest combinations of cabalism.
Other processes, which seemed to have a religious character, but which
the Church none the less condemned as dangerous superstitions, were also
resorted to in the Middle Ages in order to forecast the future. The Angelic
Art, which consisted in an invocation of the guardian angel, and the
Notorious Art, which addressed itself directly to God, in order to obtain
immediate information as to the future, did not consist of a body of
doctrines, but merely of a few prayers and secret ceremonies, by virtue of
which the operator believed that he could obtain the Divine Presence.  To
St. Jerome was actually attributed the authorship of two books in which were
indicated the practices of the Notorious Art and of the Angelic Art. Other
prophetic books, to which a not less marked importance was attributed, became
popular, so generally were they read, towards the close of the fifteenth century.
One, entitled "Enchiridion Leonis Papae" ("The Manual of Pope Leo"), the
other, "Mirabilis Liber," attributed to St. Casarius, contained nothing to
justify these singular pretensions. Moreover, to obtain what were called the
spells of the saints, a text was taken from the Holy Scriptures and printed in the
frontispiece of the book. Gregory of Tours, in his "History of the Franks,"
relates that he himself practised this kind of divination. In 577, Merovee,
son of Chilperic, having taken refuge within the basilica of St. Martin at
Tours, to escape the pursuit of his father and the vengeance of his stepmother, Fredegonde, entreated the holy bishop to tell him what he had
to hope or to apprehend. The Bishop opened the Book of Solomon, and read
this verse: "Let the eye which looks at its father be pecked out by the
crow."   This was a sinister omen.  Merovee did not understand it, and
was anxious to interrogate for himself the spells of the saints. tie placed
upon the tomb of St. Martin the Books of Psalms, of Kings, and the




TILE0 OCCULT SCIENCES.


217


Gospels, and passed the night upon his knees before the tomb. After three
days of fasting and prayer, he opened the holy books, and lighted only upon...,...7
/ on   /     
A.~~~~~~~~~ 


Figs. 157 to 160. —Fantastic Forms and Figures seen in the Sky in the Sixteenth Century.
Fac simile of Ancient Desigrs.
passages which foreboded evil.      lie left the basilica in despair, and soon
afterwards perished miserably.
The origin of magic had been religious fervour carried to excess, for
F F




THEJ OCCULT SCIENlf';CE~S.


King Solomon was always looked upon by the adepts as the greatest of
magicians.  Hence came the name of Theurgy (from     oEo, God), which,
however, was in many cases much the same as Goety (yos, enchanter), this
latter having for its object the invocation of invisible powers, amongst them
being several evil genii (Figs. 161 and 162). Henry Cornelius Agrippa,
magician as he was, or believed himself to be, defined the principle of
theurgy as follows:-" Our soul, purified and made divine, inflamed by the
love of God, ennobled by hope, guided by faith, raised to the summit of
human intelligence, attracts to itself the truth; and in Divine truth, in the
mirror of eternity, it beholds the condition of things natural, supernatural,
and heavenly, their essence, their causes, and the plenitude of sciences,
understanding them all in an instant. Thus, when we are in this state of
purity and elevation, we know the things which are above nature, and we
understand everything that appertains to this lower world; we know not
only things present and past, but we also receive continually the oracles of
what will happen in the near and in the far future. This is how men
devoted to God, and who practise the three theological virtues, are masters
of the elements, ward off tempests, raise the winds, cause the clouds to drop
rain, heal the sick, raise up the dead." So, according to this Prince of
Magicians, as Cornelius Agrippa was surnamed, a magician ought, above all
things, to have an ardent and unswerving belief in the assistance of God,
in whose name he exercised his celestial or infernal art.
Jesus Christ has said, "ItHave faith, and ye shall remove mountains."
But magic was much earlier than the Christian era, for it is said to have
originated with the magi of Chaldea, and to have received the name from
them.   The demonographers of the sixteenth century asserted that magic
had never had any other object than the invocation of demons, and they
ascribed the origin of it to Mercury or to Zabulon, who is supposed to be
no other than Satan himself. This sinister science was said to have been
inculcated and propagated during the life of Christ by one Barnabe Cypriot,
who asserted that he drew his doctrines from books of magic, the authorship of
which he ascribed to Adam, Abel, Enoch, and Abraham. These wonderful books,
which the angel Raziel, the counsellor of Adam, and the angel Raphael,
the guide of Tobias, had communicated to men, were said to be in existence
in Abyssinia, in the monastery of the Holy Cross, which was founded
by Queen Sheba on her return from the visit which she paid to Solomon.




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


219


It must not be supposed that the number of adepts to magic has ever
been very great; the majority were never more than mere theorists; that
is to say, purely speculative savants, who studied in books the mysterious
theory of the art of magic. Those who asserted that they put the art of
magic into practice alone merited the name of magicians. But the common


Fjig. 161.-The Prince of Darkness.-After a Miniature of the "Holy Grail.' -Alanuscript of
the Fifteenth Century.-National Library, Paris.
people, always ready to discover the marvellous side of natural things
(Fig. 162), and to place credence in the most mendacious illusions, invariably
accused of magic the eminent men who had illustrated themselves by great
scientific discoveries.  Moreover, any alchemist who was supposed to be in
possession of the great work was looked upon as a magician. Thus the




220


THE7lT OCCULT SCI('JIE5CES.


famous Arab alchemist Geber, to whom the hermetic philosophers assigned
the title of King, was believed to have obtained by magic the power of
creating gold; and his numerous works upon occult philosophy, translated
into Latin, are said to have been studied by the monk Gerbert, who became
pope, with the title of Sylvester II., in 999.  Gerbert was a man of vast
general learning and a genius, yet he was looked upon as no better than a
magician, and even a sorcerer. It was said in the twelfth century that he
had possessed a book of black magic, which gave him full power over the
hierarchy of demons, and a brass idol which uttered oracles for him; and
that this was how he was able to discover treasures even if they were buried
in the centre of the earth. Upon the day of his death (April 12th, 1003),
however, Satan (Fig. 161) is supposed to have come to claim the debt which
the Pontiff had contracted, and the tradition ran that ever after, when a
pope was at the point of death, the bones of Sylvester II. were heard to
rattle in his tomb.
The accusation of magic, from which even the illustrious Gerbert did
not escape, was also levelled during the thirteenth century at the two
greatest men upon whom   science has set the seal of genius, Albert of
Bollstadt, called Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon. Both were suspected
of holding communication with the demons, and the former, who had
endeavoured to expound the Revelation of St. John (Fig. 163), was obliged
to resign the bishopric of Cologne, and to shut himself up in a monastery,
in order to impose silence upon his accusers; while the second expiated in
the dungeons of the Franciscans at Paris the daring of his experiments in
chemistry, which were set down to the score of black magic. One of their
contemporaries, the celebrated doctor, Peter of Albano, was burnt in effigy
by the Inquisition, and died in prison at the age of eighty. Gabriel Naude
says of him, " Ie had acquired the knowledge of the seven liberal arts, by
means of the seven familiar spirits which he kept confined in a piece of
crystal;" and what was looked upon as an infallible sign of a pact with the
devil, he had the faculty of summoning back to his purse the money he had
paid out of it.
Spain, Scotland, and England also possessed about the same period
several men of science who were denounced as magicians. In Spain there
was Picatrix, whose wonderful feats are attested by the evidence of Alfonso,
King of Castile; while Scotland possessed Thomas of Hersildonne, Lord




H77rE OCCULT, SCIENCEI'S.


221


Soulis, and the philosopher, Michael Scott, who finds his place in Dante's
"Divine Comedy."    Amongst the English must be mentioned the terrible
James Jodoc, who succeeded in "setting" the demon in a magic ring; while
all other German magicians are eclipsed by the legendary John Faust, who
made a pact with the devil for twenty-four years, and who, at the end of
that period, was carried down to hell by the demon Mephistophiles, whom he
had taken into his service.
But most of these so-called magicians were men of true learning, who,
after exploring the vast domain of science, lapsed into the study of the
occult arts. They must not, therefore, be confounded with the sorcerers or
enchanters, who paid dearly for their sinister celebrity, and who were
Fig. 162.-Dragons.-After Miniatures in the Book of the Marvels of the World."-Manuscript
of the Fourteenth Century.-National Library, Paris.
punished with death for their misdeeds. Amongst the latter were Jacques
Dulot, who during the reign of Philippe le Bel killed himself in prison,
after his wife had been burnt alive; Paviot, surnamed the Butcher, who
perished at the stake, while his accomplice, Enguerrand de Marigny, was
hung in chains at Montfaucon; Jean de Bar, also condemned to the stake
as a necromancer and an invoker of the devil, at the end of the fourteenth
century; and, most notable of all, the prototype of the legendary Bluebeard,
the execrable Gilles de Laval, called Marshal de Raiz (or Retz), who, in
concert with a Florentine sorcerer named Prelati, dabbled in necromancy
and magic during his horrible debauches at his castles of Machecoul and
Chantoce, in Brittany.




222


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


The occult sciences had maintained their prestige up to the dawn of the
Renaissance; but they were cultivated at that period by men of genius,
whose only aim was the love of science, and all of whom came to a miserable
end, though they were vain enough to believe that they were in direct
communication with spirits and demons. Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim,
who was generally looked upon as an emissary of Satan, and who was merely
a learned expounder of the doctrine of the ancient Gnostics, was always


Fig. 163.-The Angel, holding the Keys of Hell, enchains the Devil, in the shape of a Dragon, in
the Pit.-Miniature from a Commentary on the Apocalypse.-Manuscript of the Twelfth
Century.-In the Library of MI. Ambrose Firmin-Didot, Paris.
accompanied, it was said, by two evil spirits in the shape of two black dogs.
Paracelsus, who was believed to have imprisoned his familiar spirit in the
pommel of his sword, boasted that he could create dwarfs, whom he animated
with his archeus (or principle of heat) as a substitute for the soul, and yet
he ended his days in a hospital. Cardan himself, that wonderful philosopher
who had studied and dived deep into all branches of sciences, also claimed




77IE OCCUI~T SCIEN'CES.                        223
to possess a supernatural and invisible counsellor, whom he had brought from
the planets of Venus and of Mercury, and whom he employed in his operations of astrology and magic. When this mysterious accomplice suddenly
deserted him he died of hunger. These great worshippers of science were
given to dabbling in sorcery and magic, but they did not turn their supposed
intercourse with the beings of the invisible world to an evil purpose.
All the demonographers are agreed upon this point-that to obtain the
intervention of Satan in human affairs it was necessary to form a pact with
him (Fig. 164). " The pact which the magicians make with the demon," says
Martin del Rio in his "Disquisitiones Magice," "is the only base upon
which all operations of magic stand, so that whenever the magician wishes to
do something appertaining to his art, he is expressly, or at all events impliFig. 164.-The Devil, attempting to seize a Magician who had formed a pact with him, is prevented
by a Lay Brother.-Fac-simile of a Miniature in the Chroniques de Saint-Denis."-Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.
citly, compelled to invoke the assistance of the demon." The pact was formed
in three different ways: the first involved the performance of various solemnities or ceremonies, in the midst of which the demon appeared in bodily shape
to receive the homage of the contracting party; the second consisted in a
simple request written and signed by the person who bound himself to the
demon; the third, reserved for those who feared to face the demon, was
accomplished by the intervention of a lieutenant or vicar, and was termed the
tacit pact.  All engagements entered into with the demon were based upon
impious or wicked promises, which the contracting party had to fulfil under
pain of immediate and violent death: these were denial of the Christian faith,
contempt for the exercises of religion, ilsolvency and bankruptcy to God's com



224


THEE OCCULT SCIENCES.


mands, repudiation of all saintly personages, change of baptismal name,
horrible blasphemies, bloody sacrifices, &c.
The oath of fidelity, which it was necessary to take to the demon, was
always pronounced in the midst of a circle traced upon the ground, accompanied by the offer of some pledge, such, for instance, as a piece of the


Fig. 165.-From the smoke ascending out of the abyss are born scorpions which scourge men.
Miniature from a Commentary upon the Apocalypse.-Manuscript of the Twelfth Century.
In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin.Didot.
garments worn by the person taking it.      These circles held an important
place in all operations of magic, especially in evocations: there were generally
three of them, and they were supposed to establish between the evoker and
the spirits evoked by him a line of demarcation which the demon could not
cross.   Vervain, too, together with incense and lighted tapers, was almost
always employed.    In addition to incense, the magicians and sorcerers also




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


225


employed a quantity of vegetable, mineral, and animal substances to create
smoke, which was believed to act upon the demons, and even upon the
influences of the stars (Fig. 165). It is evident that these fumigations, in
which belladonna, opiates, &c., were employed, and which produced either
giddiness or drowsiness, helped the magicians very much.
The art of magic had regulated the use of perfumes for its professional ceremonies, in accordance with the opinion which held the smoke of odoriferous
substances to be a mystic link between the earth and the stars. Thus every kind
of smoke was addressed to some particular planet (Fig. 165).  To the Sun
was dedicated a mixture of saffron, amber, musk, clove, and incense, to which
were added the brain of an eagle and the blood of a cock. The Moon received,
by preference, the vapour of white poppy and camphor, burnt in the head of
a frog, together with the eyes of a bull and the blood of a goose. To Mars
was burnt sulphur, mixed with various magic plants, such as hellebore and
euphorbium, to which were added the blood of a black cat and the brain of a
crow. It may easily be imagined how nauseous was the odour of these
horrible mixtures, which ascended in a spiral column of smoke varying in
hue, and athwart which the lookers-on believed they could see fantastic
shapes.  Moreover, the most singular properties were attributed to various
substances which were thrown upon live coals.  In order to produce thunder
and rain, all that was necessary was to burn the liver of a chameleon.  This
species of witchcraft was practised by a special class of sorcerers called
tempest-raisers. As late as the sixteenth century James VI. of Scotland had
Dr. Fian tortured in his presence, upon the accusation of having raised a
storm in which that sovereign nearly lost his life.  While the chameleon's
liver raised a high sea, the gall of cuttle-fish, burnt with roses and aloewood, produced earthquakes. A legion of demons and phantoms might be
raised by burning together coriander, parsley, and hemlock, adding to them a
liquor extracted from black poppy, giant fennel, red sandal-wood, henbane,
and other obnoxious plants. But with all these mixtures it was necessary to
observe the laws of sympathy and antipathy which prevail amongst the perfumes, as amongst the celestial bodies, in order to insure the success of the
incantations.
The same laws of sympathy and antipathy were to be carefully observed
in the preparation of philters, administered for the purpose of inspiring
hatred or affection (Fig. 166).  These philters, which in ancient times were
G G




226


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


believed to have an irresistible effect, were generally composed of heterogeneous substances, which the magicians pretended to be able to reduce to
powder by means of various unholy incantations. The sorcerers sometimes
went so far as to use the host, consecrated or not, upon which they traced
letters written in blood.  But they more generally employed substances
derived from the three domains of nature, the entrails of animals, the feathers
of birds, scales of fishes, and vegetable and mineral substances. Pulverized
loadstone, the parings of nails, and the human blood served to compose their


Fig. 166.-Marriage of a Young Man and an Old Woman.-Fac-simile of an Engraving in the
German Edition of the " Officia Ciceronis," 1542.-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.


powders, which were mixed with the food or the drink of persons upon whom
these philters were desired to take effect. Some magicians still had recourse
to hippomanes, which was much in favour with the Greek and Roman
enchanters, and which was nothing more than the lump of flesh found on
the head of colts when first foaled. The mandragora, which ancient naturalists
have described as a very wonderful plant, was in still greater renown in
the Middle Ages, and it was made to appear in all the most sinister operations of the magicians. This plant, which grows in the shape of a human




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


227


body, and belongs to the Solaneae tribe, was said to have miraculous and
Satanic properties, its origin being ascribed to a gruesome device of the
demon.
Philters must not be confounded with the talismans which were in such
great vogue during the Middle Ages, and which continued to be in repute
until the end of the Renaissance.  These talismans consisted of stones or
metal plates, bearing astrological figures, and Arabic or Persian inscriptions;
they came, in most cases, from the Gnostics of the East, and were intended
to place beneath the protection of the celestial powers the persons possessing
them. Most of these talismans had been brought into Europe at the time of
the Crusades. The sixteenth century witnessed the increase of astrological
forms, attention to which would insure the accomplishment of all human
desires. Thus, for instance, to those who wished to earn honours and to
become great, it was enjoined, "Engrave the image of Jupiter, who is a
man with a ram's head, upon tin or upon a white stone, at the day and hour
of Jupiter, when he is at home, as in Sagittarius, or in the Pisces, or in his
exaltation, as in Cancer, and let him be free from all obstruction, principally
from the evil looks of Saturn or of Mars; let him be rapid, and not burnt
by the sun; in a word, wholly auspicious. Carry this image upon you,
made as above, and according to all the above-mentioned conditions, and you
will see things which will surpass your belief." These comparatively harmless superstitions were covered by judicial astrology with the mantle of
science.
The magicians resorted to written incantations of a more mysterious
character as an accompaniment to the gemahez, or quaint stones upon which
nature had put some distinctive mark; to the magic phials containing the
blood of owls and of bats; to the hand of glory, which was no other than
the withered hand of a man who had been hung, for discovering hidden
treasure; to the magic mirrors, in which were reflected the images of the
dead and of the absent; and to the well-known shirt of necessity, made of
flax spun by the hands of a virgin, sown during a night in Christmas week,
and representing upon the front the heads of two bearded men with the
crown of Beelzebub. This shirt was said to render the wearer invulnerable.
One of the most dreaded processes of magic was that of bewitching, the
object of which was to compass the death by slow degrees of a person who
could not be murdered outright. The first step in this process was to model




228


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


in clay or in virgin wax an effigy of the intended victim, and the next to
kill a swallow, the heart of which was placed under the right arm of the
effigy, and the liver under the left. Then the sacrilegious operation began;
the body and limbs of the wax or clay figure were pricked with new needles,
to the accompaniment of the most horrible imprecations. During the trial
of the ill-fated Enguerrand de Marigny, Prime Minister of Philippe le Bel, a
magician was brought before the tribunal to declare that he had, at the
minister's request, bewitched the King by pricking the magic image which
represented him  with a needle.  The bewitchers had recourse to other
processes. In some cases the figure was of bronze, and more or less deformed;
it was concealed in a tomb, and left to rust, the rust coinciding with the
leprosy which attacked the person bewitched. In other cases the figure was
of wax, and was made to melt before a fire of wood and vervain, the progress
of the bewitched person to death keeping pace with the melting of his
image. In other cases, again, the effigy was made out of earth taken from
a graveyard and mixed with dead bones: an inscription in mystic characters
completed the bewitchment, and caused the death of the victim within a
short time.
Amongst the numerous trials which revealed details of this crime, the
most celebrated was that of the Duchess of Gloucester, who was accused of
having bewitched King Henry VI. She had instructed a necromancer, a
priest named Bolingbroke, with the execution of this act of magic, in
concert with a well-known sorceress, one Marie Gardemain, Satan being
invoked under the name of lill'ouvrier. The wax figure of the King was
found half melted in front of a fire of dry plants which had been gathered
in a cemetery by moonlight. The crime being proved, the necromancer was
hung, the sorceress burnt, and the Duchess of Gloucester condemned to
imprisonment for life.  The most notorious bewitchers of the fourteenth
century were Paviot and Robert.    In the sixteenth century the Italian
astrologer, Cosmo Ruggieri, would have been compromised in many such
cases but for the protection of Catherine de' Medicis; and it was always
believed by the public that the illness to which Charles IX. succumbed eight
months after the massacre of St. Bartholomew was caused by bewitchment.
Another piece of withcraft, not less formidable, and very easy to practise,
was that of chevilletente (peg or nail driving), which was also supposed to
have a fatal influence upon the person whose death it was sought to compass.




THE OCCULT SCIENCES.                        229
A nail or a wooden peg was driven into a wall, the name of the intended
victim being pronounced at each blow of the hammer.  The sorcerers of


Fig. 167.-The Alchemist.-After an Engraving by Vriese.-In the Cabinet of Designs,
National Library, Paris.


the Middle Ages had other devices for killing people from     a distance.
Thus, for instance, the archers, or sagittarii, launched into the air a sharp



230


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


pointed arrow1 which the demon directed towards a given goal, and rendered
invisible. This arrow pierced the heart of the victim at a distance of even
seven or eight hundred miles. In the fifteenth century one of these sagittarii,
named Pumbert, shot three of these arrows every day, never failing to hit
his mark; and his sole object was to make himself agreeable to the devil,
who indicated to him the various victims. The inhabitants of Lauterburg,
in Prussia, stirred to indignation by his proceedings, eventually fell upon
him and murdered him. The device of the sagittarii came from the North,
where the inhabitants of Finland and Lapland got rid of their enemies by
means of little leaden arrows, which they drew    at a venture, to the
accompaniment of magic phrases. These arrows went straight to the mark,
and left an invisible wound, which invariably proved fatal at the end of
three days.
The Middle Ages also recognised the existence of certain magical agents,
corporeal and incorporeal, due to the influence of the demon or of familiar
spirits. Such was the evil eye, a device known from the earliest ages, but
inaccurately defined by the demonographers, who do not in all cases attribute
its origin to the action of the infernal powers.  Nor were the hermetic
philosophers agreed as to the nature of the archeus, the architect spirit which
labours without ceasing in the cavities of the human body, and which
Paracelsus looked upon as one of the active forces of the mind. The most
learned men of science, such as David of Planis-Campi and Ambroise Pare,
were also believers in the constellated ascendant, which participated in all the
combinations of the occult sciences, and which manifested itself sometimes as
a demon, sometimes as a good angel. According to the learned Ambroise
Pare, the astral influence was that which presided at the birth of each
individual. These incorporeal agents were therefore supposed to take part
in all the acts of the occult sciences, and especially in alchemy, in the
practice of which its adepts were incessantly calling to their aid the
elementary spirits of the metals, and the evil genii which were invoked
in nearly all of the incantations (Fig. 167). These genii and spirits, whether
good or evil, are mentioned by name in many of the curious formulae used in
the making of seals (sigilla) or magic rings which had a power over demons,
preserving the wearers from sudden death, protecting them from illness, and
from danger by land or sea, and procuring for them as much money as they
required. The Sieur de Villamont relates, in his "Voyages en Orient," that




THE OCCULT SCIENCE1S.


23 I


he met at Venice, in 1570, a Cypriot gentleman named Antoine Bragadin,
who kept up a princely establishment, and who, by means of his diabolic art,
was able to supply the Venetian Senate with five hundred thousand crowns
which he had manufactured. This same Bragadin unfortunately went to
Bavaria, where he was condemned to the stake; he obtained, however, by
payment of a large sum and by confessing his crimes, the privilege of being
beheaded upon a scaffold hung with black, and surmounted by a gibbet
covered with copper plates, "which," says a writer of that period, "were
typical of the deceptions practised by this coiner of gold."


#r    k


Fig. 168.-Old-maid Witch.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving attributed to Holbein, taken from
the German Translation of Bocthius's " Consolations of Philosophy," Augsburg Edition, 1537,
in folio.


Most of the hermetic philosophers, whether magicians or not, claimed to
be in possession of the secrets of the Cabal, which was not, however, identical
with the great Jewish Cabal communicated to Adam, according to the rabbis,
by the angels after his expulsion from Paradise, and appropriated by the
Eastern philosophers in the early ages of Christianity. It was at first a
wholly speculative science, which assumed to fathom the secrets of the creation and of the Divine Nature, while the hermetists and magicians merely
recognised in the Cabal, as understood by them, the art of causing certain




232


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


higher powers to act upon the lower world, and so to produce supernatural
effects. The main point, therefore, was to discover the names of these
superior powers, and reduce them by evocations to a state of passive obedience.
This magic Cabal consisted in evocations destined to place man in communication with the invisible intelligences of heaven and earth. According to the
belief of the cabalists of the Middle Ages, Ariel, the genius of the sublunary
world, had beneath his orders the Princes Damalech, Taynor, and Sayanon;
the latter commanded the secondary spirits, the most powerful of whom were
Guabarel, Torquaret, and Rabianica. Nanael was the genius of the divine,
Jerathel of the terrestrial, and Mikael of the political sciences, while Jeliel
presided over the animal kingdom. The other genii, each one of whom had
its attributions in the mysterious government of earthly things, formed an
innumerable hierarchy of invisible beings, whom the cabalists of the sixteenth
century did not scruple to pass in review, designating each by its name as
well as by its distinctive quality. Cornelius Agrippa, for instance, boasted
that he had registered in his catalogue the names of six thousand intelligences,
genii, or spirits, belonging to a great number of categories, and all of which
might be evoked by the adepts of the divine art.
The occult sciences had in this way brought within their domain most of
the fantastic beings who had been known to popular superstition from the
earliest periods under so many names, and as possessing so many different
attributions. The fairies were long supreme in the country districts, where
they were said often to appear to men without being compelled by magic to
emerge from their normal and invisible existence. They were called favas
in the South of France, korrigans in Brittany, filandieres and bonnes dames in
the Saintonge and Picardy, banshees in Ireland and Scotland, nornas in the
Northern countries.  They were a mixture of human and of divine nature;
they were enchantresses or magicians, presiding over the destiny of mortals,
sometimes old, sometimes young, beautiful or ugly; they inhabited solitary
caves or the snowy peaks of the mountains, or limpid sources or aerial
spheres. They were not in much request amongst magicians, who left them
to the fancies of poets and novelists. The mysterious beings whom magicians
more readily called to their aid were the intermediary spirits who belonged
rather to the great family of demons. Amongst these may be mentioned the
estries, or demons of darkness, who hugged to suffocation the people whom
they met at night; the goblins, who made their presence felt by harmless




EI77T OCCULT SCIENCES.


233


antics; the follets, who led the traveller astray by false lights; the luitons, or
lutins; and the metallic spirits, in whom it is easy to recognise the emanations of inflammable gas which produce so many sudden explosions in the
mines, and which are known as fire-damnp.
Demons, too, were the men-wolves and men-dogs, which were very
similar to the ogres, or ouigours, which really existed in the Mongolian hordes,
and whose terrible aspect caused them to be the terror of the populations.
The loups-garos (Fig. 169), men whom a pact with the devil compelled
to assume the face of a wolf once a year, scoured the woods and fields,
Fig. 169.-The Man-dog, the Man-wolf, the Man-bull, and the Man-pig.-After the Miniatures
in the "Livre des Merveilles du Monde."-Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.-In the
National Library, Paris.
devouring the young children: like the vampires in Poland, the broucolaques
in Greece, and the white men in Provence, they thirsted after human blood.
Occult philosophy recognised, in addition, the existence of many other spirits
of a more inoffensive kind, whom it comprised under the generic name of
elementary spirits, because they inhabited the four elements: sylphs, in the
air; salamanders, in the fire; gnomes, in the earth; ondins, in the waters.
All the beings of the invisible world were subject to the influence or
domination of magic, which always proceeded, though in different degrees,
from the works of the demon; but in the Middle Ages there were various
sectaries of this infernal art.  The enchanters, the charmers (male or female),
H H




234


THE OCCULT' SCIENCES.


merely made use of magic words or verses for their charms or enchantments; the necromancers and magicians added to their incantations a whole
ritual of dark and sinister ceremonies; the sorcerers and the sorceresses, stryges
and fafitrie'res, did not hesitate to resort to the most abominable practices
in order to get into direct communication with Satan. The characteristic
difference between the acts of magic and of sorcery is precisely stated in
the following passage from a theological work by Cardinal de Richelieu:"Magic is an art of producing effects by the power of the devil; there is
this difference between magic and sorcery, that the principal aim of magic
is ostentation, and that of sorcery mischief."  This definition will explain
how it was that the sorcerers and sorceresses were proceeded against and
punished in the sixteenth century with more severity than the necromancers and magicians had been in the Middle Ages.       The enchanters
and charmers were only proceeded against for any specific injuries they
might have caused, and the astrologers who confined themselves to the
astrological art had nothing to fear in the shape of legal repression,
though they were liable to the censures and anathemas of the ecclesiastical
authority.
It was not until the fifteenth century that sorcerers and sorceresses began
to attend the Sabbath, which henceforward became the council of sorcery
and the supreme court of the demon.   There is a difference of opinion as to
the true origin of the name and of the thing itself. There were nocturnal
meetings of the sorceresses among all the early peoples, but these were not
the Sabbath, which, when first instituted, was essentially of an obscene and
impious character, obnoxious alike to human and Divine laws. The startingpoint of the Sabbath was, perhaps, what was termed, in the twelfth century,
the nesse des Vaudois, a denomination afterwards transformed into mezcle des
Vaudois. This nmesse was originally a secret meeting of the Vaudois proselytes
of the heretic Pierre Valdo in the mountains of Dauphiny.  It was said that
the Vaudois met in this way to assist at magic ceremonies, the object of
which was to destroy the crops and disturb the elements, and that they were
accompanied by devilish feasts and infernal dances, with unintelligible incantations, resembling those of the Jews at their synagogue meetings on the day
of the Sabbath. These mysterious assemblies continued to be held in the
dark, but their aspect and purpose changed when vaulderie became synonymous with sorcery, and the heretics had made way for the sorcerers. Hence



Fig. 170O.-The Sabbath: St. James the Elder combating the diabolical Enchantments of a Magician.-Composed by Breughel the Elder.
Engraved by Cock (Sixteenth Century).




236


THE OCCULT SCIENCES.


forward the Sabbath was merely the trysting-place of sorcerers and sorceresses
who assembled from all quarters, traversing space with the rapidity of
lightning, some mounted upon animals of fantastic shape, or hoisted upon
the shoulders of demons, others bestriding the magic broomstick (Fig. 170).
It was here that Satan held his assizes, and received the impure homage of
his subjects, distributing to novices the mark and sign of the infernal
initiation.  De Lancre, in his "Treatise upon the Inconstancy of the
Demons," says, " The devil, at the Sabbath, is seated in a black chair, with
a crown of black horns, two horns in his neck, and one in the forehead, which
sheds light upon the assembly, the hair bristling, the face pale and exhibiting
signs of uneasiness, the eyes round, large, fully opened, inflamed, and hideous,
with a goat's beard, the neck and the rest of the body deformed, the body of
the shape of a man and a goat, the hands and the feet of a human being."
The horrors and sacrileges committed at the Sabbath were no merely
imaginary crimes; the sorcerers could not impute their misdeeds to credulity
or ignorance, and M. Ferdinand Denis says, " All that the wildest imagination can conceive, mythological recollections, fantastic traditions, terrible
traditions, form  the compound of the court of Satan.   Diseased minds
invent new crimes, and the strident laugh of the devil encourages the
commission of a thousand nameless sins. Beelzebub himself ceases to put
on the image of a foul goat." Thus the faggots of the stake burnt throughout the whole of the sixteenth century, and all kinds of torture were
applied, without distinction of age or sex, to persons accused of having
assisted at the Sabbath and given themselves up to Satan.




POPULAR BELIEFS.
Superstitions derived from Paganism.-Saturnalia of the Ancients.-Festival of the Barbatorii.Ft stival of the Deacons.-The Liberty of December, or the Fools' Feast.-Festival of the Ass.
-The Sens Ritual.-Feast of the Innocents.-The Moneys of the Innocents and the Fools.Brotherhood of the Mere Sotte.-The Mere Folle of Dijon.-The Seipent, or the Devil.Purgatory of St. Patrick.-The Wandering Jew.-The Antichrist and the End of the World.
-The Prophecies of the Sibyls, of Merlin, and of Nostradamus.-Dreams and Visions.Spectres and Apparitions.-Prodigies.-Talismans.:::' ~| ^        ACTANTIUS,      in   his book    upon   the  "Divine. '- -jk _       Institution," says, "Religion is the worship
of what is true, superstition of what is false."
/ -  s1! i i        ",All superstition is a great punishment and
a very dangerous infamy for men," added
St. Augustine.  The Council of Paris, held in
829, pronounced    very energetically against...........       "most pernicious evils, which are assuredly
remnants of paganism, such as magic, judicial
astrology, witchcraft, sorcery or poisoning, divination, charms, and
the  conjectures drawn    from  dreams."   The Provincial Council,
in 1466, admitted with St. Thomas that superstition is an idolatry.     The
illustrious John Gerson had already declared that "superstition is a vice
opposed in the extreme to worship and religion." At all periods the Church,
by the organ of her doctors and her councils, waged war upon superstition,
as the good labourer roots up the tares which threaten to choke the wheat.
In some cases superstitious beliefs took the form of an exaggeration of faith
and an excess of devotion, in which event there was something touching
and respectable about them; in others they were due to demonomania, and
were the expression of a culpable or absurd credulity.      In other cases,
gain, they had their root in an erroneous or distorted tradition; some



238


POPULAR BELIEFS.


times, also, they were of a futile and uncertain character, or became a heresy
against the Church. In fact, everything in the physical world was made
the pretext for superstition.
The Middle Ages teemed with recollections of ancient mythology, and
those who may be surprised that such should have been the case, considering
the horror in which the religion of the Gospel held everything relating to
the errors of paganism, may be reminded that the pagan religions, when
they disappeared from off the face of the globe, left behind them a mass of
popular prejudices profoundly rooted in men's minds. We may cite, for
instance, the address of St. Eloi, minister of King Dagobert, and Bishop of
Noyon, to his clergy:-" Above all, I beseech of you, do not observe any
of the sacrilegious customs of the pagans; do not consult the engravers of
talismans, or the diviners, or the sorcerers, or the enchanters, for any cause,
even for illness; pay no heed to omens or to sneezing; do not be influenced
by the singing of birds when you hear them in your journeys..... Let
no Christian pay heed to the day he leaves a house, or that upon which
he returns to it..... Let not any one at the Feast of St. John celebrate
the solstices by dances or diabolic incantations. Let no one seek to invoke
the demons, such as Neptune, Pluto, Diana, Minerva, or the Evil Genius..... Let no one observe the day of Jupiter (Thursday) as a day of rest.
Let no Christian make vows in the temples, or by the side of fountains, or
gardens, or stones, or trees..... Let no one perform    lustrations, or
enchantments upon herbs, or drive his flock through the hollow in a tree, or
through a hole dug in the ground..... Let no one utter loud cries when
the moon wanes..... Let no man call the sun or moon his master."
Thus spoke, in the seventh century, a pious prelate, who boldly attacked the
superstitions of his time; and this episcopal exhortation readily explains,
and even excuses, a number of strange or monstrous facts which, though of
much more recent date, seem to form part of the annals of the grossest
idolatry.
The Feasts of the Ass, of the Deacons, of the Kings, of the Buffoons, and
of the Innocents, characteristic as they were of the Middle Ages, and very
popular with the people at large, especially with the lower clergy, the
students, the lawyers' clerks, and the youth of the period, deserve notice,
not only because the recollection of them still survives in the local history
of certain districts, but because they were the origin of French dramatic art.




POPULAR BELIEFS.


239


When Herodian, Macrobius, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus describe the
Saturnalia and the Lupercalia of ancient Rome, they might have been
describing these singular festivals of the Middle Ages,-which Christianity was
compelled to tolerate for a long time, as an inheritance which, though
declining to accept, could not be shaken off in a moment. This is how it
was that so late as the fifteenth century the feasts of Saturn, Pan, and
other pagan divinities were, in spite of ecclesiastical censure, celebrated


I-L


Fig. 171.-The Procession of the Boelif Gras.-Stained Glass of the Sixteenth Century, in the
Church of Bar sur-Seine (Aube).
under denominations which only served to disguise the persistence of the
idolatry.
With the Romans the Feast of the Kalends, or of the Saturnalia, began
in the middle of December, and continued until the third or the fifth day of
January. As long as it lasted public and private business was suspended,
and the whole time was spent in banquets, concerts, and masquerades.
People exchanged presents very freely, and at the banquets slaves were




240


POPULAR BELIEFS.


proclaimed kings of the festival instead of their masters. This period of
license was thought to be a reproduction of the reign of Saturn and of the
Golden Age. Christianity, whose first followers were selected from the lower
classes of society, was unwilling at first to deprive them of a popular festival
which no longer possessed a religious significance, and the only change made
was to divide the festival into several shorter ones of a day each.  Hence
arose certain pagan idolatries and reminiscences, to which the festivals of
Christmas, of St. Stephen, of St. John the Evangelist, of the Innocents (from
December 25th to 28th), of the Circumcision, and of the Epiphany, or of
the Kings, gave rise. The Lupercalia, or the feasts of Pan, the god of the
country, which the ancients celebrated in February, were also divided by the
Christians into two series, the feasts of the Carnival (Fig. 171) and
those of the month of May, which were generally restricted to the three
Rogation days. The Church was at first indulgent towards these remnants
of paganism, merely blaming the abuses which they engendered.       The
councils and doctors were more severe, but the bishops in their dioceses, the
priests in their parishes, and the abbots in their monasteries seemed afraid
to oppose these superstitious habits, which still held such great sway.
At first the Feast of the Kalends was called the Feast of the Barbatorii, the
reason no doubt being that the actors in these saturnalia covered their faces
with hideous beards, which in the language of the thirteenth century were
called barboires. We do not possess any very accurate information concerning
this festival earlier than the twelfth century; but it was known to have been
observed not only in cathedrals and parish churches, but in many monasteries
and convents. It was invariably the cause of, and the excuse for, the most
disgraceful excesses.
The first liturgical work which, under the name of "Liberty of December," describes the strange and indecent proceedings at the Feast of the
Buffoons, bears date 1182, and shows that one of the main features in it
was an inversion of the duties and rank of the clergy.    As a proof of
how thoroughly this profane usage had passed into custom, it may be
mentioned that though the practice had been several times anathematized
by the councils, and though several prelates and sovereigns had laboured
hard to extirpate what a French king called "a detestable remnant of pagan
idolatry, and of the worship of the infamous Janus," upon the day of the
circumcision in 1444 the priests officiated in the churches, some dressed as




POPULAR BELIEFS.


241


women, some as buffoons (see Figs. 172 and 173), some as stage-players,
others with their capes and chasubles turned inside out.  They elected a
bishop or archbishop of buffoons, attired him in the pontifical robes, and
received his benediction, chanting an indecent parody of the matins.  They
danced in the choir, singing ribald songs, ate and drank upon the altar,


172.-Buffoon playing the Bagpipe.From the " Atlas des Monuments
de la France," by Alex. Lenoir.


Fig. 173.-Buffoon holding the Bauble beneath his
Arm.-After a Miniature in a Manuscript of the
Fifteenth Century.-National Library, Paris.


played dice on the pavement, burnt old leather and other foul matter in the
censer, and incensed the celebrating priest with it, and after this mock mass
they promenaded the streets mounted upon chariots, and vying with one
another in grimaces and in insolent and impious remarks.
The ecclesiastical censures and the royal prohibitions naturally remained
dead letters at a time when, as Gerson tells us, there were preachers who
I I




242


POPULA R BELIEFS.


declared from the pulpit that this festival was "welcome in the sight of
God," and when the clergy of Troyes met the remonstrances of King
Charles VII. by saying that their bishop, Jean Leguise, had ordered them
to celebrate the Feast of the Buffoons, which was also kept at Sens.
This festival, which the Troyes clergy set great store by, was the same as
the famous Mass of the Ass which existed, in different forms, in various towns
of France, but the special ceremonial of which, drawn up expressly for the
Church of Sens, is still to be read in a manuscript of the thirteenth century
preserved in the library of that town.  The rublics, inserted in the text of
the order of service, enable us to follow the whole proceedings of this
mass, which was not celebrated, as has been alleged, in honour of Balaam's
ass, but of the ass which was in the stable in which our Lord was born,
or of that which He rode when He entered Jerusalem upon Palm Sunday.
This singular festival did not, it may be added, cause any greater
disorder than that of St. Hubert, when dogs and falcons were brought
into the church to receive the priest's benediction, to the sound of horn
and trumpet; but there was no idea of profanity on the part of those who
did this.
The festival of the Ass was conducted in this wise. A comely animal
having been selected, it was conducted in procession through the streets,
which were strewn with carpets, and was met by the clergy, chanting, who
accompanied it to the door of the church.   Here they announced to the
people, in Latin verse, " This is the day of gladness.  Let those who are of
doleful countenance get away from here. Away with envy and haughtiness!
Those who celebrate the Feast of the Ass desire to be joyful." The ass was led
up to the altar, and then was sung that "Prose of the Ass" which, according
to the evidence of a contemporary, given in verse at the commencement of
the ritual, brought into relief the talents of the first chorister, and which,
far from being a sacrilegious mockery, as the philosophers of the eighteenth
century have insinuated, was a simple and pathetic manifestation of the faith
and piety of our forefathers. Two of the Latin strophes, with the French
chorus, run:
"Orientibus partibus,
Adventavit Asinus,
Pulcher et fortissimug,
Sarcinis aptissimus,
Ht', sire Ane, he!




POPULAR BELIEFS.


243


Hic in collibus Sicllen,
Enutritus sub Ruben,
Transiit per Jordarlem,
Saliit in Bethleem.
He, sire Ane, lid!"
According to an old tradition, preserved at Sens, after the Hallelujah,
which was sung several times during the service, all the congregation brayed
in chorus in imitation of an ass.  Then the choristers, from behind the altar,
chanted two Leonine lines, proclaiming that this "is the most illustrious of
all illustrious days, the greatest of all the festivals." Lastly, the chief precentor, who had used his voice to the utmost in chanting the "Prose of the
Ass," was conducted in pomp to a well-spread table, where he and his
acolytes were supplied with a bountiful meal.
The Feast of the Ass, as stated above, was celebrated in several towns of
France. Thus we learn by the registers of the Cathedral of Autun that from
1411 to 1416, in the Feast of the Buffoons, an ass was led in procession, with a
chasuble thrown over him, and to the usual chorus of, "He, sire ane, he!"
sung by lay clerks in masquerade costume. The ceremonial at Beauvais was
very similar to that at Sens, and it is clear that the refrain quoted in the
preceding sentence was taken by the spectators as an invitation to bray in all
tones.  At the Feast of the Ass, as celebrated at Rouen, Balaam's ass was
introduced into a show or review of personages taken from  the Old and the
New Testament, and composing a sort of mystery-play, interlarded with
dialogues in doggerel Latin.
Eudes de Sully, Bishop of Paris, towards the end of the twelfth century,
was one of the prelates who tried the hardest to put down these saturnalia,
and if his efforts were not crowned with immediate success, he set an example
to other ecclesiastics to use their influence in the same direction. The ritual of
the Feast of Buffoons, properly so called, has not come down to our own day,
but we know that from the beginning of the fifteenth century it was only under
the porch, in the churchyard, or upon the open space beyond-that is to say,
outside the church itself-that these masquerades took place, and soon afterwards the festival was suppressed altogether.   The clerks regarded this
ancient tradition as one of their most cherished privileges, and were not
easily induced to renounce it; but while the laity, inheriting, so to speak,
the Feast of the Buffoons, formed associations for getting up the mystery



244


POPULAR BELIEFS.,~, ~ 41,I_
t.niu fAiuantfciparLimttucl  Ciramie ^e?*  temcout))
^ IT O    ^ >^^7,..4T
(CmnlC  wttcd~up~lntiitfi t ran^  ilinew^
^^^        -^_______          -
fJn         4X"mn 4          444tasbruI~a  azawx
C -,4 -.. 4... -'  4 4
i.?a _,.    a*'  t  C,   ~..
4              4
UIM   Proseo A s,.nA4.......i o e f....tn  l  t t   ul
"Coi of th Tre.v "Li-rary
~It f(ActleltArlflimi )t i^A adUc  wtt;U.U.   * -4  A  +, -      1 T -
-"          - ",,:... 
r/,---,               *~ -   i -. ~;  -
t" rf 5 w u &~  iewmwmnr& >a na rmen ra.
Fig. 174.-" Prose of the Ass," plain.-Fac-simile of the Page of the Ritual of Pierre de
Corbeil.-Manusc ipt of the Thirteenth Century.-Sens Library.




POPULAR BELIEFS.            245


ORIENTIS PARTIBUS
PREMIERE STROPHE
0-ri-en-tispar-ti-bus Ad-ven-ta-vit A-si-nus Pulcheretfor-tis-si-mus Sar-ci-nisap-tis-simus Hezsiras-ne hez
c-e..                                                                                     f- --- -  -  1_  _
C=         -    e  2-f       =   <   = Z- -* ---              *GR- l9-yl  I ___  6     — z-I — ~    -
0 - ri-en-tispar-ti-bu;s Ad-ven-ta-vit A-si-nus Pulcheretfor-tis-si-mus Sar-ci-nis ap-tis-simus Hezsiras-ne hez
O - ri-en-tis par-ti-bus Ad-ven-ta-vit A-si-nus Pulcheret for-tis-si-mus Sar-ci-nis ap-ti-ssimus Hilez siras-ne het
o                                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_~-~
- X 6y -a-<:,-6#-61- t —.ir 


_,_/   _ _. I  0  -   _ _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _  _ - v
-o... _         -'-~ - -- 6-:6'
DEUX1EME STROPHE
ft       V   -,. _  -- ---  -, R 


I


I


Ilic in col-li-busSichen  E-nu-tri-tussubRu-ben Tran-si-it perlorda-nem  Sa- li-it in Bethle-em  Hez siras-ne hez
-At --         I,- ----------..- -— [....                             -n


11 A                      -f -- l:= —I-  V  -EU  a


1i, I


_     I       N _ h 1


I- I-1  -'  I —13zLA  -  a. -   -  C ~- LY F  '


I




il


I -


-' ---O v-O --- —-   - --—. ---- t —       ziP: 7 ---  -      -. —.
Hie in col-li-bus Sichen E-nu-tri-tus sub Ru-ben Tran-si-it perJorda-nem Sa- li-it in Bethle-em Hezsir as-ne hez
— _-__ 70- II:4 J'I — r ----, --                        -
1 9_ 1d)- -<i_ t-~-Q                              -D- tt -4-,   _,_.1_o _iI 


Hie in col-li-bus Sichen E-nu-tri-tus sub Ruben Tran-si-it perJorda-nem Sa - li-it in Bethle-em Hez sir as-ne bez


Fig. 175.-" Prose of the Ass," set to Music with Organ Accompaniment by M. Felix Clement.




246


POPULAR BELIEFS.


plays, the Church gradually withdrew its protection and tolerance of the
excesses arising from the "Liberty of December."
It is certain, however, that the election of a Pope of the Buffoons was
discontinued before the suppression of the Feast of the Innocents, as the
former was considered an insult to the Papacy previously to the election of a
Bishop of the Innocents being looked upon as offensive to the episcopacy.
It is also worthy of remark that these parodies of elections lasted longer and
were more celebrated in the North than in the South. At Amiens, for
instance, as late as 1548 there was not only a Pope of the Buffoons, but
several Cardinals as well. This pope, elected by the subdeacons, received as the
insignia of his dignity a gold ring, a silver tiara, and a seal. His enthronement took place at a banquet paid for by the canons of the cathedral, upon
the condition that the servitors of the mock pontiff should abstain from
removing the bells from the tower and committing other such pleasantries.
The Bishops of the Innocents, elected, consecrated, and acclaimed by the precentors and subordinate officials of the Church, had the right to wear the
mitre, staff, and gloves at the ceremonies of the Buffoons; they issued decrees
and ordinances sealed with their seal, and also coined lead and even copper
money bearing their name and motto.
The learned hold that these pieces of money, which had much analogy
with the sigilla, or seals, which the Romans offered as presents at the
Saturnalia, were used as counters at games of chance, and so became sorts of
passes or countermarks to be used at the processions, shows, and theatrical
representations which the Bishop of the Innocents had the right to organize
and have performed by his adherents.  These moneys, great quantities of
which have been discovered, especially in Picardy, which seems to have been
the mother country of the Innocents, are in many cases similar, with regard
to the effigy and inscriptions, to the royal and baronial coinage of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  In addition to the Latin inscription, Sit
nomen Domini benedictunm, they often bear various French inscriptions, such as,
Monnoie de l'evesqule Innocent, or nondescript mottoes, such as, Vous voyez le
temps qu'il est! Guerre cause maintz helas (griefs)-Bene vivere et Icetari, &c.
The popes and patriarchs of the Buffoons also coined money, but all the
pieces which have been preserved are distinguished by two principal characteristics. One of them represents a double head of a cardinal and a buffoon,
with the inscription, Stulti aliquando sapientes.




POPULAR BELIEFS.


247


We cannot attempt to give even a summary description of the extravagances to which the celebration of the festival of the Buffoons, or of the Innocents,
gave rise in the various localities where they were carried on.  At Noyon,
Senlis, Corbie, Rheims, Toul, Bayeux, Rouen, Vienne in Dauphiny, Viviers
in Provence, &c., the reign of Folly was annually proclaimed, and lasted a
more or less considerable period.   The processions, the cavalcades, the
mummeries, the parodies of the most solemn actions, and of the most staid
personages, made up this popular festival, which, when it had been excluded


Fig. 176.-Chariot of the Miere Solle, which figured at Dijon in 1610.-Fac-simile of a Design
communicated by M. Ruggieri.


from the sanctuary, was kept up amidst debauchery and riot in the highways.
At that period each town had its own special procession or show: that of the
Spinet at Lille; of the 3Iere Folk at Dijon; of the Prince of Love at
Tournay; of the Prince of Youth at Soissons; of the Caritats at Beziers;
and they were all imitations of the Feast of Buffoons, foreshadowing, so to
speak, the coming of the theatre, for these processions were accompanied
by scenes enacted in dumb-show, or with the accompaniment of dialogue,




248


POPULAR BELIEFS.


comic and serious, which became mysteries and farces when they had been set
to rhyme by a poet. (See below, chapter on the Theatre.)
There was a general effort made, moreover, to form private societies for
preserving and perpetuating the traditions of the Feast of Buffoons. The
brothers of the Passion, whom Charles VI. allowed to settle in Paris (1402),
and to represent the mysteries in a room at the Trinity Hospital, were, in the
origin, members of the Church and pious persons who were desirous of letting
religion benefit by the unbridled passion for spectacles and masquerades
which the Feast of the Buffoons had spread amongst the clergy and the
population. At first the ecclesiastical authorities encouraged these plays, as
being more edifying than those of the Pope of the Buffoons and the Bishop of
the Innocents. The lawyers, advocates, procureurs, and clerks of the Basoche,
who remembered the good times of the "Liberty of December," resolved to
offer an asylum to the Folie, when it was condemned by and banished from
the Church. They created the kingdom of Sots and the empire of Fools,
electing a prince, whom they crowned with a green cap with donkey's ears,
under the name of the Mere Sotte.  The principal object of this new institution was the representation of farces or satires upon the people in authority.
Amongst the provincial societies which carried on the traditions of the
Feast of the Buffoons must be mentioned, first of all, that of the lMre Folle de
Dijon (see Fig. 176), which Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, himself
founded in 1454, for the sole purpose of putting an end to the scandalous
orgies which took place in the churches at the festivals of Christmas,
Epiphany, and Rogation Sundays. This society, the practices of which were
in complete harmony with the customs of that wine-growing country, consisted of more than five hundred persons of all ranks, and they were divided
into two parties, one of infantry (see Fig. 177), the other of cavalry, all of
whom wore the fool's cap and liveries; that is to say, costumes which were a
motley mixture of yellow, red, or green. The leader of the band, named
Mere Folle, passed reviews of his army, presided over a mock tribunal, and
pronounced mock judgments, which his procurator-fiscal green undertook to put
into execution. These trials and pleadings, cavalcades and solemn assemblies,
brought into relief all the types and attributes of Folly, which have disappeared without leaving the world any wiser; but the ancient Feast of the
Buffoons, when driven from under the vaulted roof of the temple, continued
to inspire songs and farces which betokened the birth of some comedy,




POPULAR BELIEFS.


249


while the clergy inaugurated the serious drama by histories taken from the
sacred books and the legends of the saints. The mystery-plays and farces
were, therefore, so much to the credit of the Feast of Buffoons, but there is
an interval of three or four centuries between the "Prose of the Ass" and


Fig. 177.-Staff of the Dijon Infantry in 1482.-Fac-simile of a Design communicated by
M. Ruggieri.
the scenic compositions of Jean Michel, of Andre de la Vigne, and of Peter
Gringoire. (See below, chapter on the Theatre.)
Many instances might be given of popular errors which had their source
in the traditions of antiquity, and which maintained the ideas of paganism
K K




250


POPULAR BELIEFS.


amidst the most holy and solemn -t beliefs; but, at the same time, these
errors would not have been sust:tined had not the credulity of the men of
learning helped to propagate them by the creation of a world of fantastic
beings (see Fig. 178).  Thus, for instance, when Peter the Eater, called
Comestor, a famous theologian of the twelfth century, in his paraphrase of the
Scriptures, arrived at the fourth chapter of Genesis, where Moses speaks of
the giants born to the sons of God and the daughters of men, he takes care


Fig. 178.-The Serpent, or the Dragon, and the Behemoth, or the Devil.-Miniature from a
Commentary on the Apocalypse.-Manuscript of the Twelfth Century.-In the Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
to state that these giants are of the family of Enceladus and Briareus. The
deluge of Deucalion and Pyrrha was borrowed from to furnish certain
dramatic incidents in the Deluge of the Bible; the serpent Python and the
monsters bred from   the slime of the earth (Figs. 179 to 182), in the Greek
theogony, were imported into the glossology which the rabbis, those grand
masters of superstition, were continually introducing into the elastic framework of the Talnud.      The Christians were careful not to abandon the




/


POPULAR BELIEFLS.


251


emblematic representation of these monsCers, which soon became, in the eyes
of the people, the multiform personification of the spirit of evil.
There are numerous legends in which the serpent is vanquished by the
great champions of the faith. In Phoenicia we find St. George slaying the
dragon which was about to devour the daughter of the king of that country;
St. Michael and St. Germain arming themselves with the cross to drive out


Figs. 179 to 182.-Monsters born from the Deluge.-After the Wood Engravings in the
"Chronique de Nuremberg," printed in 1493, in folio.


the winged serpents which were invading the land of Parisis; St. Romain
binding with his stole the Gargouille of Rouen (see Fig. 183); St. Martha
leading with a string the terrible Tarasque which had laid waste the
neighbourhood of Tarascon. Thus the serpent took his place in emblazonry
with the unicorn, the chimaera, and other marvellous animals. He has his
place in history under the designation of MeIlusine of Lusignan; he has been




252


POPULAR BELIEFS.


the theme of the most wonderful travellers' tales, and is to be found from
one end to the other of science, poetry, and art.
It is the serpent, or, to speak more accurately, the devil, to whom is
attributed the birth of the grotesque and hideous monsters which descended
in a natural order of succession from the giants, pigmies, cyclops, satyrs,
centaurs, harpies, tritons, and sirens of mythology (Fig. 191). The fathers
of the Church did not venture to call into question the existence of these
monsters, whom Pliny and the ancient naturalists complacently admitted into
the hierarchy of living things; and the people were all the more ready to
/aC0
Fig. 183.-The Gargouille.-From the Stained-glass Window representing the "Life of
St. Romain," in the St. Romain Chapel, Rouen Cathedral.
accept them as realities, because they attributed their existence to the power
of the demon.
It is astonishing that none of those who lived in the Middle Ages, with
the exception of a few heroes of legends, claimed to have discovered the
earthly Paradise, though learned writers tried hard to define its precise
geographical position. If some one of the travellers of the twelfth or of the
thirteenth century, such as Benjamin de Tudele, Jean Plano Carpini, or
Marco Polo, had put forward such a claim, it would assuredly have been
admitted, inasmuch as many of the Christians of that period, so fertile in




POPUL AR BELIEFS.


253


wonders, did not hesitate to believe that access could be gained to purgatory,
and that Paradise could be seen from afar, without leaving the world of the
living. Sorcerers alone were believed to have the power of descending into
hell. The entrance into purgatory, whither certain persons claimed to have
made their way and to have returned from, was believed to be in Ireland,
in an island of Lake Derg. This purgatory, according to the legend, had
been discovered by St. Patrick (Fig. 184), guided by Jesus Christ himself,
who was said to have left him for a day and night in this "very obscure pit,"
on emerging from which the saint found himself "purged from all his
former sins," in gratitude for which he at once built, close to the pit, a
handsome church and a monastery of the order of St. Augustine. After his
Fig. 184.-The Purgatory of Monsignor St. Patrick.-Miniature of a Manuscript of the Fourteenth
Century (No. 6,326).-In the National Library, Paris.
death the people came there in pilgrimage: a few rash persons attempted to
enter the pit, but they never reappeared.   There was one more report
brought from  purgatory by an English knight named Owen, who, loaded
with sins, determined to try the experiment of St. Patrick (Fig. 185), and
who was fortunate enough to behold again the rays of the sun, after having
arrived at the gate of hell, and seen from afar the heavenly Jerusalem. The
story which he told of the strange and wonderful things he had seen in
the company of the devils, who refrained from harming him    because he
incessantly invoked the name of the Saviour, was implicitly believed, and
generally referred to throughout the Middle Ages.  The monks who kept




254


POPULAR BELIES.


watch over St. Patrick's gap showed the doorway of it to the pilgrims who
were attracted to Ireland by motives of piety or curiosity, but the aperture
remained impenetrably closed. Notwithstanding, and though no one ventured
to renew the experiment made by the Chevalier Owen, every nation took
care that it was represented in the stories told of visits to the purgatory of
St. Patrick, so firmly rooted was the belief in it throughout Europe.
A not less famous superstition, which dates from the same period, and
which seems to have been brought from the East after the first Crusades,
is that of the Wandering Jew, as the inhabitants of the country dubbed
every beggar with a long white beard who trudged along the roads with
eyes downcast, and without opening his lips. The story of this accursed
Fig. 185.-Owen, accompanied by Monks chanting the Litanies for the Dead, repairs to the
Aperture of the Gap, and creeps into it.-Miniature of a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century
(No. 1,588).-In the National Library, Paris.
pilgrim was told for the first time to the monks of St. Albans in 1228 by
an Armenian archbishop who had arrived from the Holy Land. Joseph
Cartaphilus wa's doorkeeper at the pratorium of Pontius Pilate when Jesus
was led away by the Jews to be crucified. As Jesus halted upon the threshold
of the praetorium, Cartaphilus struck hiam in the loins and said, " Move faster;
why do you stop here?" Jesus, turning round to him, said with a severe
look, "I go, and you will await my coming."    Cartaphilus, who was then
thirty years old, and who since then always returned to that age when he
had completed a hundred years, was always awaiting the coming of the
Lord and the end of the world. He was supposed to be a man of great
piety, of few words, often weeping, never smiling, and being content with




POPULAR BELIEFS.


255


the most frugal nourishment and the plainest garments.  Moreover, he
announced the final judgment of souls, and recommended his own to God.
This simple story was well calculated to make an impression upon persons


Fig. 186.-The Tree of Life, or the Weeping-tree, planted in the States of Prester John.
Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the Sixteenth Century.
of pious mind, and some singular additions were made to it in Germany.
Paul of Eitzen, a German bishop, declared, in a letter to a friend, that he had
met the Wandering Jew at Hamburg in 1564, and had a long conversation




256


POPULAR BELIEFS.


with him. His name was no longer Joseph or Cartaphilus, but Ahasuerus.
He appeared to be fifty years of age; his hair was long, and he went
barefoot; his dress consisted of very full breeches, a short petticoat
coming to the knee, and a cloak descending to his heel.  He was present
at the Catholic sermon, notwithstanding his creed, and prostrated himself,
with sighs and tears and beating of the breast, whenever the holy name of
Jesus was pronounced. His speech was very edifying; he could not hear
an oath without bursting into tears, and when offered money would only
accept a few sous. The story of his meeting our Lord, as related by Bishop
Paul of Eitzen, differed from the original account so far as this, that he was
standing in front of his house, with his wife and children, when he roughly
entreated Jesus, who had halted to take breath while carrying his cross to
Calvary. "I shall stop and be at rest," was the indignant reply of the King
of the Jews, "but you will be ever on foot."  After this decree he quitted
his house and family, to do penitence by wandering over the world. He did
not know what God intended to do with him, in compelling him to lead so
long this miserable life. In the sixteenth century there was not a town or
village but what claimed to have given hospitality to the unfortunate witness
of Christ's passion; and yet, whenever his appearance was announced in any
place, it was believed to foreshadow great calamities. Thus the Wandering
Jew was believed to have been seen at Beauvais, Noyon, and several towns
in Picardy when Ravaillac assassinated Henry IV.
Another superstition, not less popular than that of the Wandering Jew
in the Middle Ages, may also perhaps be attributed to the same origin;
namely, the Prester John, a sort of pontiff-king, half Jew, half Christian, who
for centuries had governed in India, or in Abyssinia, a vast empire in which
the hand of God had collected more marvels than in the paradise of Mahomet
(Fig. 186). It was an Armenian bishop, too, who brought to Europe the
first story as to the fabulous personage, and many a traveller, chronicler, and
poet capped it with still more wonderful details. In 1507 a letter (evidently
written ironically by a partisan of the Reformation) was put into circulation,
in which Prester John, who entitled himself, by the grace of God, the
Almighty King of all the Christian kings, after making an orthodox profession of
faith, invited Pope Julius II. and King Louis XII. to come and settle in his
States, which he described as the most favoured upon the face of the earth.
The descriptions which he gave of them were very tempting, and it is even




, - "\ fZ
9-\


C I —
(9I~


r1an
C\:,


C I                    I7d4
Ii    I
v \ \\
---— _~~~~~~; ---   ti\~~~~~
1'1 


I'


(fP/r'w
-— _eC


k%9


ce;


LIL 


---,,


N-. 


Fig. 187.-The Reign of Antichrist.-After an Engraving by Michael Volgemuth, in the "Liber
Chronicarum," 1493, in folio.-Cabinet of Engravings. National Library, Paris.


L L




2S8


POPULAR BELIEFS.


said that the Kings of Portugal, Emanuel and John III., went so far as to
send several expeditions to India and Abyssinia, to see whether these wonders
really existed. According to certain savants rather less credulous, the fiction
of Prester John had its origin in the actual existence of a Nestorian leader,
named Johannes Presbyter, who in the twelfth century founded a powerful
empire in Tartary.
It was by a natural transition that to the Wandering Jew and Prester John
came to be attached the personality of the Antichrist who, since the year
1000, had always been expected, and whose long-delayed appearance was to
be a prelude to the end of the world.  "At the end of a thousand years,"
said St. John, " Satan will leave his prison and seduce the peoples which are
at the four corners of the earth." Basing their arguments upon this
prophecy, which they interpreted the wrong way, several early theologians had
announced that the millennium would mark the accomplishment of the times.
When that date arrived the early Christians at once prepared to appear before
God, renouncing all their property, which they gave to the churches and
monasteries, and suspending as useless the cultivation of the land and all
industrial and commercial pursuits.  The year thousand, which was expected
to be the last of the world, was marked by many threatening signs in heaven
and earth-by eclipses, comets, famine, and overflowing of rivers. A contemporary writer has left us a terrible picture of the desolation which then
prevailed throughout the entire West. The whole talk was of terrible miracles
and unheard-of prodigies. Upon the eve of the day when the year thousand
was on the point of completion, the whole population crowded to the
churches, weeping and praying, waiting in dread expectation for the sound
of the seven trumpets and the coming of the Antichrist (Fig. 187). But the
sun rose as usual, none of the stars fell, and Nature's laws continued their
course. Nevertheless, it was believed that this was only a short respite which
God had granted to the world in order that sinners might be converted, and
the days, weeks, and months were anxiously counted. It was not until many
years afterwards that men's minds were reassured. Even after this the end
of the world was from time to time announced and expected, and the coming
of Antichrist was believed to be imminent, whenever civil or foreign warfare,
famine, epidemics, or moral disorder in society seemed to call him to the
earth. In 1600, more especially, it was rumoured that he had at length
been born; at Babylon, according to one report; near Paris, according to




POPULAR BELIEFS.


259


another.  A sorceress, put upon her trial, declared that she had held this
diabolical infant upon her knees at a Sabbath, and that he had claws instead
of feet, wore no shoes, and could speak every language.
Moreover, prophecies and presages, the ordinary;accessories of all historic
events of any importance, always had a great hold upon the popular imagination, which was invariably ready to accept mysterious interpretations of the
plainest and most trifling facts.  Since the decadence of the false gods,
the orators of the pagan temples were mute, but this was made up for by the
prophecies attributed to the Sibyls, who continued to be held in honour by


Fig. 188.-The Token of Mace Bonhomme, Printer and Bookseller at Lyons.-Taken from the
original Edition of the " Prophecies of Michael Nostradamus," 1555, octavo.


the Christians, for it was firmly believed that they had predicted the birth
of Christ.  The prophecies of Merlin the Enchanter, a bard of the fifth
century, were in special favour.
The success of the prophecies of Michael Nostradamus surpassed that of
all previous soothsayers.  Catherine de' Medicis and her son Charles IX.,
more superstitious than the least enlightened of their subjects, contributed to
their popularity by paying visits to this famous astrologer at the little town
of Salon, in Provence, to which he had withdrawn. The courtiers naturally




260


POPULAR B L IEFS.


followed their example, and were also anxious to have their horoscopes
taken. It was in the stars and the planets, in the revolutions of the sun and
the moon, that Nostradamus claimed to be able to read the destinies of men
and of nations. He composed, after his pretended astronomical observations,
an unintelligible sort of conjuring book in rhymed verse, teeming with
hybrid words and foreign names, and he made many additions to it up to the
date of his death in 1556. The form of these prophecies (Fig. 188) made it
very easy to find them applicable more or less clearly to all the events of
history, and this sustained the reputation of the astrologer of Salon long
after his death.
But Nostradamus, in his collection of Sibylline oracles, dealt only with
the fate of kings, princes, and nations, and he was succeeded by a number of
less pretentious astrologers who prepared genethliatics, or horoscopes, upon
interrogation of the stars, for all those who came to them with money. These
astrologers had for competitors the diviners, who made it their business to
interpret visions and dreams, and who could trace back the origin of their
profession to a very remote period.  With all ancient peoples, and notably
with the children of Israel, dreams were looked upon as anticipated reflections
of the future, as divine or diabolical warnings, whether in disclosing without
concealment or enigma the things which were destined to occur, or whether
concealing beneath a sombre and mysterious veil the spectre of destiny. The
Church did not, as a rule, do more than declare that dreams were two kindssometimes sent by God, sometimes wrought by the demon. Thus, according
to the writers of the period, there was no important event in the Middle Ages,
or even subsequently to the Renaissance, which was not announced by a dream.
The day before Henry II. was struck down by the blow of a lance during
the tournament, Catherine de' Medicis, his wife, dreamt that she saw him
lose one of his eyes.  Three days before he fell beneath the knife of
Jacques Clement, Henry III. dreamt that he saw      the royal insignia
stained with blood and trodden under foot by monks and people of the
lower classes. A few days before he was murdered by Ravaillae, Henry IV.
heard during the night his wife, Marie de' Medicis, say to herself, as she
awoke, "Dreams are but falsehoods!" and when he asked her what she had
dreamt, she replied, " That you were stabbed upon the steps of the Little
Louvre!"  "Thank God it is but a dream," rejoined the King.
The death of Henry IV., like that of Julius Caesar, was, moreover, pre



POPULAR BELIETFS.


26i


ceded and accompanied by presages of many kinds. From one end of France
to the other, there were so many precursory signs of a great event that the
people believed that the end of the world was at hand. At Paris the Maypole, planted in the courtyard of the Louvre, fell to the ground without being
touched; in the abbey church of St. Denis the stone which sealed the funeral
vault of the Valois lifted itself from its place, and the statues upon the royal
tombs shed tears. Henry IV. himself had gloomy presentiments, which
doubtless arose from the great number of official warnings addressed to him
on this subject.  "You do not understand me," he said to the Due de Guise
on the very morning of his death; "when you have lost me, you will learn
00
Fig. 189.-Dream of Childeric.-After a Miniature in the " Chronicles of St. Denis."-Manuscript
of the Fourteenth Century. -In the National Library, Paris.
to appreciate me, and that will not be long first." He often remarked that it
had been predicted for him that he would die in a carriage and in his fiftieth
year. After the murder numerous visions, evidently bearing upon this tragic
event, were mentioned: at Douai, a priest, who was dying at the very hour
the crime was committed, had three convulsions, and expired saying, " The
greatest monarch in the world is being slain." In an abbey in Picardy a
nun who was sick exclaimed at the moment of the assassination, " Pray God
for the King, for he is being killed."
Visions, which have often been confounded with dreams, do not occupy




262


POFOPULAR BELIEFS.


less place in history than the latter.  They were so frequent in the Middle
Ages that the gravest historians mention instances of them without making
the slightest reservation.  It is difficult to make a choice amongst so many
visions combining the elements of terror and mystery, but two may be mentioned which occurred in the first centuries of the French monarchy, and
which are very celebrated. First that of King Childeric, who, the first night
of his marriage, saw, under the form of various ferocious animals, the whole
future of his race; and secondly, that of a hermit in the island of Lipari, who,
at the very hour of King Dagobert's death, witnessed in his sleep a deadly
combat between the demon and various saints who were fighting for the possession of his soul "over one of the gratings of hell."  The demons were
vanquished, and the victors carried his soul up to heaven.
In every page of the ancient chronicles are to be found visions and
prodigies of a similar kind. There is no lack of phantoms and apparitions
wherever the marvellous can be brought in; and there is no fact, futile as
it may seem, that is not thought to deserve some supernatural manifestation.
As a general rule, a vision was looked upon as unlucky, and this, no doubt,
is the origin of the tradition, according to which a spectre always appears
to announce the death of the head or of some member of certain illustrious
families.  There is the legend of the fay Melusine (Fig. 190), which
appeared, uttering loud cries, upon the donjon of the Chateau de Lusignan,
in Poitou, whenever a Lusignan was about to die. But this legend is less
terrible than that of the canons of Mersburg, in Saxony, for it was said that
three weeks before the death of a canon a strange tumult arose at midnight
in the choir of the cathedral, and a grim hand appeared, which struck with
great force the stall of the canon who was condemned to die. The guardians
of the church marked this stall with a piece of chalk, and the next day the
canon, warned of his approaching end, prepared for death, while the chapter
made every preparation for his obsequies.
Visions were very often of a public character, and caused consternation
throughout a whole town or kingdom.      Pierre Boaistuau, Francois de
Belleforest, and other simple-minded compilers of the sixteenth century, have
collected in one volume these "Histoires Prodigieuses," and still they are
far from having exhausted the subject. Thus, to cite but one instance, after
having predicted the numerous prodigies which announced the calamities
of civil war, such as apparitions in the heavens of fiery dragons, of gigantic




POPULAR BELIEFS.


263


bulls, of pigs bearing royal crowns, of bloody stars, of multiform rainbows,
accompanied by several moons and suns, they do not refer to the strange
noise which was heard in the air, about the precincts of the Louvre, during
the seven nights which followed the massacre of St. Bartholomew, a concert
of cries, groans, and screams, mingled with furious imprecations and blasphemies, as if the horror of the massacre was being renewed in the invisible


Fig. 190.-The Fay Melusine, from whose Flanks springs the Genealogical Tree of the House of
Lusignan.-After a Wood Engraving of the "Romance of M6lusine," Augsburg, 1480, in
quarto.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
world. It may be added that these visions were in many instances facts
witnessed by thousands of people, such as the showers of blood, of stones,
of wheat, and of frogs, ordinary and simple phenomena which were not at
the time understood, and the natural origin of which, not having been
ascertained by the learned, did not, of course, occur to the public.




264


POPULAR BELIEFS.


We have said nothing as to many other popular superstitions, traces of
which still exist, such as the use of magic talismans, amulets, rings, herbs,
stones, and the hair of animals (see chapter on Occult Sciences), for an
enumeration of them would merely serve to display the ignorance of our
ancestors, over which it is better that we should draw a veil.


Fig. 191.-The Siren. —Token of Gerard Morrhy, Printer at Paris in 1551.




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.
Latin and Greek Geographers.-Measurement of the Roman World.-Voyages of Hippalus and
Diogenes. - Marinus of Tyre, Pomponius, Mela, and Ptolemy. - Coloured and Figuratve
Itineraries.-Barbarian Invasions.-Stephen of Byzantium.-Geographical Ignorance from
the Sixth to the Tenth Century.-Charlemagne and Albertus Magnus.-Dicuil.-Geography
amongst the Arabs.-Master Peter and Roger Bacon.-Vincent of Beauvais.-Asiatic
Travellers in the Thirteenth Century.-Portuguese Navigation.-The Planisphere of Fra
Mauro.-First Editions of Ptolemy.-Maritime Expeditions in the Fifteenth Century.Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci.-Spanish, Dutch, and French Travellers, &c.,
in the Sixteenth Century.
-... BREAT as was the progress of geographical
knowledge after the establishment of the
Roman empire, still greater, in contrast,
were its decadence and disfavour in the
tae -great wrearly part of the Middle Ages; that is to
Er atos-say, in the beginning of the fifth century.
Geography, in fact, was one of the most
useful auxiliaries of the aggressive policy
of Rome, directing the march of her exoetsI s a g vspeditions all over the world, and enabling
her to acquire useful knowledge concerning the countries which she had conquered. It may, therefore, be said that
the science of geography was in general practice during      the reign of
Augustus. A perusal of the principal writers of that period is sufficient to
show how widely spread were the general notions of geography in a society
which, being well versed in letters and highly educated, was acquainted with
the great works of the ancient Greek     geographers, especially those of
Eratosthenes (276 —194 B.c.) and Polybius (204 —121 B.c.), and which used
Strabo's Greek Geography as a manual for reading the Latin historians and
poets, and as a guide-book for the most distant provinces of the empire.
Poets such as Virgil, Ovid, Manilius, and Lucan, and historians such as


M M




266


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


Livy and Julius Casar, were also geographers; and Pliny the Elder summed
up, in his four books of "Natural History," all the results obtained by
geographical research, and set forth in a number of works no longer extant.
Pliny often mentioned in his "Natural History" the geodesical operation
attributed to Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, prime minister and son-in-law of
Augustus. It was Julius Caesar who, during his consulship (according to
the positive assertion of Ethicus, a geographer of the fourth century),
"ordered by a senatus-consultumt that the whole Roman world should be
measured by men of the greatest ability and endowed with all sorts of
knowledge."  This vast enterprise, intrusted to four Greek mathematicians
and geographers, Zenodoxus, Theodotus, Polyclitus, and Didymus, who had
under their orders a staff of geodesical measurers and land surveyors, was
completed in twenty-five years. It would appear that Agrippa took the
matter in hand, and when it was completed he proposed to construct at
Rome a gigantic portico, beneath which he intended to "unfold the map
of the world before the eyes of the universe," as Pliny expressed it. The
premature death of this illustrious general prevented the execution of this
grand project, but the map of the Roman world, with the roads and distances
indicated, was deposited in the archives of the Senate (Fig. 192).
Nor was the progress of geography assisted by the victorious armies
alone, for the travellers, and still more the merchants, whose vessels, even at
that period, conveyed them to the most distant parts and brought back cargoes
from the ports of India, did much towards the same end. Under the reign of
Nero, two centurions were sent by the Emperor to Ethiopia in search of the
sources of the Nile, and this expedition is alluded to by Seneca and Pliny.
Previously to this, during the reign of Claudius, a Greek philosopher of Egypt,
one Hippalus, had struck out with his vessel from the coast, and ventured
across the high seas, starting from the Gulf of Adulis (Aden), and arriving
upon the coast of India. Another traveller, named Diogenes, was driven by
north winds as far as a large island called Menuthias, otherwise Zanzibar.
From this time forward all the coast-line was marked upon the marine maps,
but the Erythrean Sea (as the Indian Ocean was then called) was believed to
be impassable and full of terrible dangers, though more than one Egyptian
or Phoenician sailor had endeavoured to sail across it.
One of these experienced pilots, Marinus of Tyre, carefully collected all
the geographical information which he could gather from the maritime com



GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


267


merce of Phoenicia and Egypt, and he used it to prepare more detailed and
correct maps than were at that time in use, and to compose a book of
geography, which, though no longer in existence, is copied from by Ptolemy.
That writer says of him, " Marinus of Tyre, the latest of our contemporaries
who has cultivated geography, seems to have done it to some purpose, for
it is evident that he has made several additions to the former knowledge


Fig. 192.-Map of the Roman World.-Taken from the "Liber Guidonis."-Manuscript dated
1119 (No. 3,898).-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
of this subject, and that he has corrected earlier writings which contained
errors that had at first misled him   as well as others.    This is seen very
clearly in his corrections of the Geographical Table."  Previously to Marinus
of Tyre, a Roman citizen, Pomponius Mela, had written a useful treatise on
geography, entitled, " De Situ Orbis," in which he described the countries of
the known world, following the circumference of the seas, and beginning with




268


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


the Mediterranean; and his treatise, which formed a luminous and rapid summary, was one of the handbooks of geographical study in the Middle Ages.
A Greek geometer, named Claudius Ptolemasus, born at Pelusa, in Lower
Egypt, who was at the famous school of Alexandria in the middle of the
second century, formed an idea of writing a general treatise upon Mathematical Geography after the plan traced by Hipparchus in the year 125 B.C.
He had prepared himself for this task by a long series of astronomical
observations and calculations.  In the second book of his " Almagest " he
wrote, " I intend to mark the longitude and latitude of the principal towns
of each country, to facilitate the calculation of the celestial phenomena
which occur there. I shall mark by how many degrees, counting from the
meridian, each of these towns is distant from the equator, and I shall
also compute, in degrees counted from the equator, the eastern and western
distance of each meridian compared with that which passes at Alexandria, for
it is after the meridian of that city that I intend to reckon those of the
other places on the earth's surface." Ptolemseus was more of an astronomer
and a geometer than a geographer; he had not travelled at all, and had,
therefore, no personal experience, while, excepting the astronomical part of
his book, he merely borrowed from his predecessors and contemporaries cosmographic materials which he loosely arranged without sequence or comment.
The best features in his work are what he borrowed from the treatise of
Marinus of Tyre, and he says, "I resolved to preserve so much of his book as
does not require correction, and to throw light, by means of the most recent
information, and by a better arrangement of the places on the maps, upon
the obscure points of his treatise." Ptolemmsus unfortunately, while preparing
his list of all the places in the known world, making eight thousand names,
committed the most glaring errors, owing to his having sought to fix the
latitude and longitude of the localities by means of astronomical observations.
The Geography of Ptolemaeus, written in Greek (Fig. 193), and doubtless
translated simultaneously into Latin for the use of persons travelling through
the Roman empire, was, in spite of his faults of omission and commission,
consulted as being the most useful guide-book during a long journey. The
coloured maps appended to it were, perhaps, rectified soon afterwards, upon
new itinerary measurements being taken; for, previously to Ptolemaeus, there
existed not only road maps, to which Vegetius refers in his treatise on the
Art of War, under the name of itinera picta (coloured itineraries), but




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


269


itinera adnotata (annotated itineraries), upon which were marked the day's
marches. It was one of these figurative itineraries that the learned Conrad


Fig. 193.-Map of the Island of Sardinia.-Reduced Fac-simile of a Map of the Geography of
Ptolemaeus.-Greek Manuscript of the Twelfth Century, preserved in the Monastery of
Vatopedi, Mount Athos.
Celtes discovered in a monastery of Germany, at the end of the fifteenth
century, and which his friend Pentinger of Augsburg presented to the




270


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


Imperial Library at Vienna (Fig. 194). This precious document, consisting
of twelve maps representing the world as it was known in the third century,
forms, so to speak, the explanatory complement of the tract chart of the
provinces of the Roman empire, which has been handed down to us under
the title of "Antonini Augusti Itinerarium," and which appears to have
been drawn by the geographer Ethicus in the fourth century.
These itineraries and maps, which were sold at Rome and in the principal
cities of the empire, and which must have often been copied as they passed
from hand to hand, were not, in all probability, foreign to the continuous
migration of the barbarian hordes which gradually moved upon Italy
from the different parts of the world, and systematically followed the same
method in order to reach Rome. These invaders, whether coming from the
North like the Lombards, the Suevi, the Vandals, and the Goths; from the
heart of Asia, like the Huns; or from the steppes of Caucacus, like the Alani
or the Heruli, had long been kept in awe by the Roman legions; but, when
once they began to burst the barriers and to advance with sagacious caution
through the Roman provinces which they ravaged (Fig. 195), it was easy to
see that they had selected beforehand the territory which they intended to
occupy, by the way in which they created frontiers and military stations
with not less intelligence than boldness.  They did not swerve from the
route which they had traced out, and paid implicit obedience to chiefs who
had been formed in the schools of Athens or Alexandria.
Thus the study of geography was apparently fatal to the empire, because
it demonstrated to its enemies and rivals how vulnerable its very vastness made it, and what facilities were afforded for an invasion by those
splendid military roads which enabled countless hosts to arrive by easy stages
under the very walls of Rome. The Emperors, it is true, endeavoured for
more than a century to stem the tide of invasion, and it is not unreasonable
to suppose that they had all the maps and itineraries which facilitated the
progress of the invasion destroyed. The teaching of geography was not,
however, neglected in the schools, for the historians of the fourth century,
Claudianus, Nemesianus, and Ausonius, the Emperor Julian, Ammianus
Marcellinus, and Macrobius, display very profound geographical knowledge,
which they must have acquired by travel and study. But the special treatises
on geography were very rare at this period, and the only works which are
known to have escaped a destruction which we may assume to have been a




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


27I


planned one are the Latin "Cosmography" of Ethicus and a few peripli
(books of circumnavigation) written in Greek.
As soon as the invading nations had formed themselves into kingdoms
c   F1        Fq             A 
> - t4in.  taL(r.-%-Act,..    0         lN 
annabo,,~b                                 n a.        aadruipfi. laWfS ----''*-un
Thus at the cout ofThodr the  ra        'e
a     Cr. %'  a*                               W
a -7 a r
upontheRomn si, an ligdsa'  therfo's  MAIf Kme     C r int
G'c3na  "'     t. -9
art'.  Vaaf~f ~.        u     Ws *  A.
Fig. 194.-Fragment of the M1ap, of Gaul.-Reduced Fac-simile of Pentinger's 3Map.-Manuscript
in power, geography resumed its position and reasserted its usefulness.
Thus at the court of Theodore the Great, Boethius and Cassiodorus, one




272


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


born at Rome and the other in Calabria, both of whom rose to the highest
dignities in the new kingdom of the Ostrogoths, combined with learning of a
very varied kind an extensive and thorough knowledge of geography, which
made their services exceedingly valuable. Cassiodorus has disseminated in his
"Letters" a mass of valuable information and of interesting remarks concerning
places, men, and customs. Boethius himself translated into Latin the books of
Ptolemy, so as to put them within the reach of those who did not speak Greek.
In the pagan schools which remained open at Constantinople and throughout the empire of the East, until closed by Justinian in 529, were taught,
after the writings of Eratosthenes and Hipparchus, of Strabo and Ptolemy,
both cosmography and geography, in addition to simple astronomy-this latter
as a guide to the forecast of weather, the variations of the atmosphere, and
navigation. Stephen of Byzantium, who lived in the sixth century, composed
a large Dictionary of Geography, of which all that remains extant is a dry
and useless abridgment. But it may be learnt from the works of the Greek
historians of this epoch, especially of Procopius, that geography was considered to be inseparable from history. Thus Procopius and his successor,
Agathias, are true geographers. We meet but one Latin geographer in the
sixth century, viz. Vibius Sequester, who, in a work dedicated to the nomenclature of rivers, springs, and lakes, seems to have learnt from the poets
what little he knew upon the subject. The Christians of Africa still
read Syriac translations of the Latin and Greek works on geography by
Aristotle, Ptolemy, Pliny, Pomponius Mela, &c., which had been studied
after the original texts in the schools of Athens and Alexandria, and these
Syriac translations were afterwards retranslated into Arabic, when the
Caliphs, successors of Mahomet, had founded Mussulman schools in the
countries which they occupied and conquered. Yery naturally geography
must have had a special attraction for a warlike people which aspired to
conquer the world, and to propagate throughout it the religion of the Koran.
The schools of Cordova and Toledo in Spain, as well as those of Bagdad
and of Dschindesabour in Asia Minor, accordingly remained open for
geographical instruction at a period when geography was no longer taught
throughout the West, which was at that time plunged in barbarian darkness.
From the sixth to the tenth century there were but few manuscripts
which escaped destruction; all the coloured maps and traced itineraries were,
like the images, ruthlessly destroyed by the iconoclasts. The only remaining




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


273


Fig. 195.-Arrival at Cologne of the Fleet of the Tyrant Maximus, who revolted against the
Roman Emperor Gratian. Some of the Vessels conveyed St. Ursula and her Companions to
the number of eleven thousand, who were put to death by the Barbarians whom the Emperor
Gratian had dispatched against the hostile Fleet.-Fragment of the " Legend of St. Ursula,"
painted upon the Reliquary of that Saint, at Bruges, by J. Memling (Fifteenth Century).
notions of cosmography and geography dating from            that period are to be
N N




274


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


found hidden in scholastic encyclopaedias, which, like the ark in the Deluge,
float here and there amidst the abysses of ignorance. In addition to the
encyclopedic compilations of Martianus Capella (470) and Isidore of Seville,
there were a few historians who took some interest in geography: the historian
of the Franks, Gregory of Tours (about 590), the historian designated as the
"Anonymous of Ravenna," and the historian of the Lombards, Paul Warnefrid (780). There can be no doubt, moreover, that Charlemagne had contemplated the encouragement of the teaching of geography, when this science,
not then regarded as a handmaid of politics, resumed its rank at the Palatine
School directed by Alcuin, who included it, with dialectics, philosophy,
astronomy, and arithmetic, in his course of lessons. Yet it was only a very
Fig. 196.-Brunehaut superintending the making of the Seven Roads which led from the City of
Bavay.-After a Miniature in the "Chroniques de Hainaut."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth
Century.-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
imperfect and elementary science, for it was confined to the theories of
Aristotle, who described the terrestrial globe as being 9,000 leagues in
circumference and 2,803 leagues in diameter, while he estimated the sea to
be ten times greater than the earthy and asserted that the latter was 1,400
leagues deep from the surface to the central axis, and had an area of
5,000,713 square leagues. Based upon these data, mathematical and astronomical geography could not be other than a chaos of erroneous ideas and
misleading traditions.
The genius of Charlemagne, however, extracted therefrom the clever
invention of the cadastral measurement, the germ of which is to be seen in




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE7.


z75


the Capitulary Laws of the great Emperor, and which eventually, under the
feudal regime, gave the geometrical measure of the area of the soil, while
carefully preserving the ancient names of the different localities. By means
of this descriptive definition of the limits of fiefs, historical geography
recovered, after the lapse of centuries, all the topographical details of the
territory of the Gauls during the lifetime of Charlemagne and of his successors.
The historians and the poets of this period, of whom but a few are known to
us, do not give much information as to the state of geographical knowledge,
which, notwithstanding the schools founded by Alcuin, seems to have been


Fig. 197.-Seal of the Town of Dunwich (Thirteenth Century).


very scanty. But it is probable that the knowledge of geography was much
more advanced in Great Britain and Ireland, for Alcuin was educated in the
monasteries of those countries, as also were St. Columba, St. Gall, Theodore,
Archbishop of Canterbury, Scotus Erigena, and other savants who came to
France, where they founded monasteries and established chairs for teaching
the sciences, and geography was always given a place in their programmes.
There was the more need for its cultivation in England, as it was very useful
to the traders and fishermen of the ancient port of Dunwich (Fig. 197), in the
North Sea.




276
7. 


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo-Saxons (849-901), who, like
Charlemagne, was a sovereign of great organizing powers, took a special
interest in these studies, and set an example to his subjects by making himself acquainted, with a view to developing the fisheries and trade, with the
islands and coasts washed by the Baltic and the North Seas. Two travelling
traders, one a Dane named Wolfstan, the other a Norwegian named Other,
wrote an account of their maritime explorations. Wolfstan had explored the
Baltic coast, and Other had navigated to the polar seas by way of the coasts of
Norway and of Lapland. Alfred the Great, who translated into Saxon the
"Universal History " by Orosius, written in the fifth century, added to it, from
the accounts given by Wolfstan and Other, the description of an immense
extent of country which the Romans had but caught a glimpse of athwart
the miraculous stories of a few sailors who had sought to reach the mysterious
island of Thule (Iceland), which was looked upon as the extreme limit of the
habitable globe. It was owing to him that there were prepared pilots' charts,
to enable fishermen to exercise their industry in the remote regions of the
Norwegian continent (Figs. 198 and 199), and to establish a carrying trade
with all the ports of the Baltic. Geography, in England as in Germany,
consisted at that time of a few rudimentary but practical notions. Thus a
canon of Bremen composed, in 1067, a brief description of Denmark, under
the pretentious title of "Geographia Scandinavia;" while, two hundred years
before, an Irish monk, Dicuil, wrote a regular treatise on general geography
entitled, "De Mensura Orbis" (Concerning the Extent of the Universe)
borrowed from the Latin writers, Pliny, Solinus, Orosius, and Priscian,
supplement d by some novel remarks upon the northern countries. But this
treatise, though it contains an account as to the discovery of Iceland and
other interesting facts in contemporary history which the monks had
imparted to the author, also contained several errors, but little in the way of
commentary.    For instance, Dicuil divides the world into three parts,
Europe, Asia, and Libya, in which latter he places the source of the Nile, not
far from the Atlantic, in the mountains of Mauritania.
There are doubtless but few geographical works during the tenth and
eleventh centuries which place the theory of the science in a reliable form,
but it may be taken as certain that geography itself was taught wherever
education existed.  The Greek schools in the empire of the East could not
afford to neglect a study which was inseparable from that of history and of




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


277


philosophy, and geography even became an essential part of politics, as is to
be learnt from the treatise composed by the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenetes for the education of his son, and which bore the title of "IDe
Administratione Imperii."    This book, written in the middle of the tenth
century, is, in reality, a geographical work, containing a very complete
description of Eastern Europe and of a part of Asia.   Many cosmographical
books, descriptions of travels or of embassies, were written in Greek during
the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, but they have not been published.
The numerous writers of the history of Byzantium describe the peoples and
Figs. 198 and 199.-Navigators who have mistaken a Whale's Back for an Island seating themselves upon it to cook their food. The Whale, feeling the fire, plunges to the bottom, and the
Vessel narrowly escapes being wrecked.-Miniature from the "Bestiaire d'Amour," by Richard
Furmival.-Manuscript of the Tenth Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot,
Paris.
states in other parts of Europe with a degree of accuracy and detail which
testifies to their being well versed in geography.
It was in Islam that the best geographers of that time were to be found.
The Mahometan mind had from the first taken to the study of geography,
which made immense progress after the eighth century in all the Arab schools.
The Caliph Al-Mamoun, son of Haroun Al-Raschid, was noted for his predilection in favour of this science, and he translated into Arabic the Geography of Ptolemeeus, adding to it illuminated maps, which latter fact showed
that Ptolemaeus's original maps had either been lost or were not reproduced




278


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIEVCE.


in the Syriac translation.  From the reign of Al-Mamoun the Arabs measured
an arc of the meridian in order to calculate the size of the earth, and to rectify
the calculations of Ptolemeus as to the measure of the degree of each of the
large circles which were supposed to intersect the earth at intervals of 66~
miles. The conquests of the Arabs, their trade by land and sea, and, above
all, their religious pilgrimages to Mecca, served at once to enrich their store
of knowledge both as to astronomical, physical, and political geography.
They brought from China the compass, with which the Chinese had been
acquainted from time immemorial, and the use of it at sea unquestionably
led to a total and almost immediate revolution in the science of geography.
The Arabs possessed in the tenth century two learned geographers, IbnI                                 _lI  o
Fig. 200.-" How Alexander did battle with the Beast which is very formidable and has three
Horns."-Miniature from a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century (No. 11,040).-In th3
Burgundy Library, Brussels.
Haukal and Masoudi, both natives of Bagdad. The first wrote a geographical,
political, and statistical description of the Empire of the Caliphs, in the preface to which he said, "I have collected all the information which has made
of geography a science interesting to men of all degree."    Masoudi introduced into a large encyclopedic work entitled "Akhbar al Zeman" (the
News of the Time) all the documents which he had collected during twentyfive years' travels through Asia and Africa; but it would appear that this
work has been lost, and all that remains is an abridgment made by the
author himself under the title of "Golden Prairies," and which itself fills




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


279


eight volumes.  Masoudi deserves to be surnamed the Pliny of the East.  A
great number of works on geography in the Arab literature of the Middle
Ages might be cited, the best known of which is that by Edrisi, a Spanish
Arab, who wrote his book at the court of Roger, King of Sicily, in 1154. It
was for this prince, a friend of letters and sciences, that Edrisi constructed an
armillary sphere and a terrestial planisphere in silver.  (See the chapter on
Occult Sciences.)
The example of the Arabs was not without its influence upon the renaissance of geographical science in Europe, when the Crusades made a knowledge
of geography indispensable.   First of all, it was necessary to study all the
routes leading to Jerusalem, to prepare itineraries and tract charts for the
Fig. 201.-"How Alexander did battle with White Lions big as Bulls."-Miniature from a
Manuscript of the Thirteenlh Century (No. 11,040).-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
crusaders; and in these new and unknown lands, into which eager multitudes
were about to penetrate, there was nothing to guide them save the untrustworthy descriptions of the ignorant pilgrims who from the fifth century
had undertaken the laborious task of visiting the holy places. This led to an
improved study of geography in the schools of the West; and in the monasteries, each of which had its library, the monks set to work at copying the
writings of the early geographers, such as Strabo, Pausanias, and Polybius,
Pliny, Pomponius Mela, Solinus, and Ethicus. These authors were expounded,
commentated, and compared with the less ancient and almost contemporary
writers. The famous Abbey of Monte Casino, in the kingdom of Naples, was at
that time one of the principal centres of geographical lore. Numerous pilgrims




280


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


who went to or returned from Palestine halted for a day at this abbey,
where they were received with the greatest hospitality, and told the story of
their travels and adventures (Figs. 200 and 201) to their learned hosts.  It
was here that Constantine the African, one of the lights of the school of
Salerno, retired, after having, when he left the schools of Alexandria and
Bagdad, travelled through Egypt and Asia for twenty-nine years.  His
wonderful lore earned him the reputation of a sorcerer, but the Duc de
Pouille, Robert Guiscard, whose secretary he was, protected him, and he was
able to continue undisturbed his medical and geographical works in a retreat
where his curious descriptions of the countries beyond the sea lighted up the
hours of repose and recreation which the monks of St. Benedict were allowed
to snatch from their labours and prayers.
The University of Paris was not yet founded, but the ecclesiastical
schools already flourished in the capital as well as in all the important
cities which had their bishop. The teaching of geography was limited
at that time to a few rudiments, all more or less erroneous, and it was in
the Latin classic poets, such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, that students got
some idea of the facts relating to descriptive geography. Nothing can prove
more clearly the ignorance which then prevailed as to the shape of the globe
than the rough designs which are to be met with in a few manuscripts of the
eleventh century, the authors of which could never have seen Ptolemy's
Geography.   The geographical descriptions which occur in some of the
poetry of the time were much nearer the truth, for the poets of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, such as Ausonius and Venantius Fortunatus, wrote
of countries and places which they had seen.  It was in this way that
Marbodius, Bishop of Rennes, who died in 1123, sketched in his didactic
poetry the geography of Brittany, giving it a picturesque character quite
in harmony with nature.
There were, however, some few men of genius to whom the general study
of science had, even at that period, opened the arcana of astronomical and
philosophical geography. Such was the master of Roger Bacon, that man of
learning whose real name is not written in the works of his illustrious pupil,
and who appears to have been one Mehairicourt, a native of Picardy. Roger
Bacon always speaks of him as Master Peter. Philosopher, mathematician,
and geographer, he had travelled in Europe and Asia before coming to Paris,
where he taught Roger Bacon, about 1230, that which no other teacher had




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


281


the power to impart to him. lie had constructed a sphere which imitated
themoton f te havesand it was through the intermediary of astronomy


I


0
C,
P4
40
P4)
0
064


and mathematics that he grappled with the most arduous questions of
geography..Roger Bacon, in the fourth part of his " Opus Majus," devoted
0 0




282


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


almost entirely to the description of the earth, doubtless transcribed without
change the lessons which he had received from Master Peter; but he notes
the errors of the ancient geographers, refutes the opinions of Pliny and
Ptolemy, and brings forward a host of fresh problems which science did not
solve till long after his time. Not only did he describe very accurately
regions not yet known and scarcely hinted at, but he further maintained
that Africa extended very far south, that it had inhabitants the other side of
the equator, that the temperature of the pole vas endurable, that the Indian
Ocean washed the southern coasts of the Asiatic continent, and that the earth
was ten times more thickly peopled than was believed to be the case.
At the time Bacon committed to paper, under Master Peter's dictation,
these ingenious theories which changed the face of geographical knowledge,
Albertus Magnus was propounding to attentive audiences numbered by the
thousand, from his chair in the University of Paris, a system of geography
stripped of all commentaries, and teeming with errors which he did not erase
when he embodied his public lessons in a treatise entitled "De Natura Locorum."
Roger Bacon appreciated in the following terms the utility and main
object of a science which was still groping its way in the dark:-" Geography,
like astronomy and chronology, has its roots in mathematics, inasmuch as it
must repose upon the measurement and shape of the inhabited globe, and on
the precise determination of latitudes and longitudes. But the carelessness
of the Christian peoples iF Ach that they do not know one-half of the globe
which they inhabit.  Yet the first important points to be settled are the
measurement of the earth, the determining of the position of towns (Fig.
202) and of countries, and the adoption of a f:ed degree for the longitudes,
starting from the western extremity of Spain to the eastern extremity of
India. This immense work can only be accomplished under the auspices of
the Holy Apostolic See, or of a monarch who would undertake all the costs
of the enterprise, by remunerating the savants employed upon it. Moreover,
it is impossible to form an opinion of men unless one knows what climate
they inhabit, for if the products of the animal and vegetable kingdoms are
dependent upon the climate, how much more must this be the case with the
manners, the character, and the cotstitutions of peoples!" Thus we see that
Roger Bacon's sagacity and spirit of intuition enabled him to anticipate by
five centuries the philosophical results of modern science.
The thirteenth century could not but restore geography to its place of




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


283


honour, when the Crusades were taking so many people to the East, and when
the development of classical study, favoured by the ardour of the students
who flocked to the schools of the Paris University, fostered a taste for
encyclopadias edited upon the same plan as Pliny's "Natural History."
Geography was destined to occupy a permanent place in these vast compilations, and Vincent of Beauvais, who, by order of St. Louis, had intended to
present, in a voluminous compilation entitled "Speculum Majus," the compendium of the scientific, historical, and philosophical information of his
time, instead of merely putting together all the documents and systems which
antiquity furnished him with concerning the history of geography and the
description of the universe, sought out the travellers who had visited the
countries which he intended to describe, and so obtained fresh information,
which, unfortunately, he failed to get revised by a competent critic. Nevertheless, his book is a valuable one, and he deserves great praise for his
"Speculum Naturale," in which he treats of the position of the skies, of
cosmography and geography, citing not more than a dozen Latin authors.
From this period the accounts of travellers in Upper Asia enabled the
inhabitants of Europe to form more accurate and extensive notions concerning this part of the world.  The story of Prester John, alluded to
in the previous chapter, was the principal cause of these travels, and Pope
Innocent IV. and Louis IX. both determined to ascertain what truth there
was in these travellers' tales. The Pope accord1ingly sent two missions into
Asia; one confided to monks of the Franciscan order, the other to
Dominicans.  The first proceeded to Mongolia, and the second to Persia
and Armenia. The story of the first mission was written by Brother John
de Plano Carpini, who arrivel with his companions upon the banks of the
Volga.  The embassy sent to the Great Khan of Tartary by St. Louis a
few years later was of greater service to geographical science, and the
Flemish Franciscan monk, Ruysbroeck, generally called Rubruquis, gave
many interesting details in the account which he wrote as to distant countries
of which he could not ascertain even the name. Yet for another two
centuries the existence of Prester John was generally believed in.
Another traveller, Marco Polo the V snetian, who, soon after Rubruquis
and John de Plano Carpini, went to seek his fortune in Tartary, and who
for twenty years held a high post at the court of the Great Khan, availed
himself of his residence and of his excursions in Asia to collect a mass of




284


(GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


valuable notes about the geography of the countries which he inhabited for
such a long time. Upon his return to his country in 1298, he dictated an
account of his journeys to a romance-writer, one Rustician of Pisa, who took
them down in French eight years before Marco Polo had them written in
Italian.  This account, valuable and truthful notwithstanding the great
credulity of the author, contained the fullest and best description which then
existed of Tartary, Mongolia, Cathay or China, and other parts of Central
Asia, and was, so to speak, the first effort of picturesque geography. Marco
Polo found many imitators, but none of them equalled him. Travellers in
Asia up to the fifteenth century consisted almost entirely of Franciscan or
Dominican monks, amongst whom may be mentioned Ricoldi of Monte
Croce, John of Monte Corvino, Oderic of Frioul, and John of Marignola; but
the most famous of all was an Englishman, John de Mandeville, who, from
1322 to 1356, explored nearly the whole of the known world for the mere
pleasure of travelling, and who, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land
(Fig. 203), explored part of Africa and nearly the whole of Asia. The
story of his travels, written in English, teems with stories which do not
say much for his judgment or powers of discrimination. Several travellers,
who had seen fewer countries, displayed better powers of observation and
more knowledge of geography, amongst them being Bertrandon de la
Brocquiere, a Burgundian gentleman, who was one of the last to start with
the pilgrim's staff for Jerusalem.
The caravan travellers seem to have stimulated the energies of travellers
by sea., and hydrography took its place beside geography.  The first navigators who explored the western coasts of Africa were Portuguese.  In the
beginning of the fourteenth century (in 1315), Alonzo Gonzales Baldaya
advanced as far as Cape Bojador, almost within sight of the Canary Islands.
The island of Madeira, which an Englishman, Masham, caught sight of in
1344, was not positively discovered till 1417 by Gonzales Zarco, who took
possession of it on behalf of his master, John I., King of Portugal.  That
king's son, Prince Henry, surnamed the Navigator, was passionately fond of
maritime exploration, and devoted forty-eight years of his life to it.  The
object of his expeditions was not merely to discover new countries rich in
gold, and offering fresh opportunities for commerce; but, in trying to reach
the equator, this enlightened prince had mainly in view the increase of
geographical knowledge. The Canary Islands were already known, and the




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


285


King of Castile's flag had floated there since 1345, but the Portuguese
expeditions advanced as far as the mouth of Rio Grande, and founded
establishments at the islands off Cape Verde. In these successive explorations, which lasted half a century, under the leadership of Gil Eanes (1442),
of Nuno Tristam (1443), of Alvaro Fernandez (1448), and of Cadamosto
(1454-56), hydrographic surveys had been made of about a third of the


Fig. 203.-John de Mandeville, a celebrated English Traveller, taking leave of King Edward III.,
before his Departure for "beyond the Seas."-Miniature from the " Merveilles du Monde."
-Manuscript of the early part of the Fifteenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.


African coast, as far as the great South Cape.  After the death of Prince
Henry, Joao de Santarem and Pedro de Escalona, who had explored the
Guinea coast in 1471, crossed the line and opened up the navigation of the
southern hemisphere.  In 1484 Diego Cam reached the sixth degree of
southern latitude at the mouth of the Zaire, and two years later Bartholomew




286


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


Diaz, who had ventured out into the ocean, which was still called the
Impenetrable Sea and the Dark Sea, perceived the Cape of Good Hope, or
Stormy Cape, at the extreme end of Africa.
These African islands and coasts had already been frequented, for in 1471,
when the Portuguese landed in Guinea, they were much surprised to find
there a French trading dep6t called Le Petit Dieppe, which sailors from
Dieppe had founded a century before.  These were the same men who knew
of the existence of North America a century before Christopher Columbus
discovered the Antilles.  Moreover, in 1395, the fleet of the brothers Zeno,
freighted at Venice by the traders, had crossed the Atlantic under the
guidance of a Dieppe pilot, who pointed out to it the northern coast of
America; but all these discoveries, due to commercial enterprise and the love
of gain, and achieved by daring adventurers, were in no way useful to science,
for they were kept secret when they were likely to be beneficial to some
branch of maritime commerce, while no importance was attached to them
when they resulted in no material gain.   It was not until the fifteenth
century that navigators began to write an account of their voyages, or to have
them recorded by the cosmographers who were generally to be found on
board. But these records were either kept secret or were shown to only a
very few people, as the navigators looked upon them as property over which
it was necessary to keep close watch. Thus the curious voyage of Cadamosto,
"Prima Navigatione alle Terre de' Negri" (First Navigation to the Land of
Negroes), did not appear until 1507.
These travels were more useful to map-makers than to geographers, for
every traveller and navigator found a map indispensable, and after making
one for himself, he added to it the result of his own discoveries. Previously
to the fourteenth century maps were very scarce, and those which did exist
were faulty and incomplete. The oldest general map of the world dating
from the Middle Ages is that which Marino of Venice presented to Pope
John XXII. in 1321. This map, which appears to be an imitation of the Arab
maps, is nothing more than a picture in which the relative position of places and
countries is given almost hap-hazard, without any sign of parallels or meridians.
A hundred and forty years later, a Camaldulan monk, Fra Mauro, painted upon
the wall of one of the rooms in his monastery, in the isle of Murano, near
Venice, an immense planisphere, in which he grouped all the known geographical
facts of his time.  The first marine maps, drawn by Italian, Portuguese, or




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


287


Spanish pilots, are not of an earlier date than Marino's map of the world,
but they were very numerous in the following century. These charts, which
are as a rule remarkable for the excellence of their drawing, are wonderfully
accurate, and often contain allusions to celebrated sea voyages, together with


Fig. 204.-Map of the Island of Taprobana.-Reduced Fac-simile of a Map in Ptolemy's
Geography, in the Latin Edition of 1492 (Ulmse, per Leonardum Hol), offered by Nicholas
Germain to Pope Paul II.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.


references which enable the reader to follow the phases of these voyages in
chronological order, and to ascertain their results. It may safely be said that
every pilot was capable of drawing for himself a very minute coast chart of
all the seas in which he navigated.




288


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


This abundance of charts and maps, especially in countries which
possessed a navy, explains how it was that copper engraved maps were almost
contemporaneous with printing in movable type, which was invented in 1440,
but kept a secret by the town of Mayenne until 1466.  The first edition
of Ptolemy's Cosmography was printed in folio at Vicenza, by Hermann
Levilapis of Cologne, in 1462; but this edition had no maps. Nicholas
Denis the Benedictine had, however, composed for Ptolemy's book maps
which were engraved on copper by Andrea Benincasa. But in the meanwhile a new set of maps, also intended for Ptolemy's book, was admirably
drawn by the printer, Conrad Sweynheym, the associate of Pannartz, who
had removed his presses to Rome; and these maps, numbering twenty-seven,
in which the letters were stamped with jewellers' punches and hammered,
were completed by the Alsacian Arnold Buckinck, to illustrate the edition of
Ptolemy which was printed at Rome under the superintendence, so far as
the letterpress was concerned, of l)omitius Calderini, and which appeared
in 1478. Other editions, with maps engraved on wood and coloured with the
paint-brush, appeared in succession in Italy and Germany (Fig. 204). The
Greek text of Ptolemy was carefully revised by the geographers, who sought
to amend and interpret it, in order to improve the Latin translation, which
was continually being reprinted by the thousand; for the Greek text was not
printed until 1533.
The publication of the Latin translation of Ptolemy was followed by that
of several ancient geographers, and these primitive editions testified to the
sympathy of the lettered public for geographical science. The Popes Paul II.
and Sixtus IV. gladly accepted the dedication of the editions which Conrad
Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz printed at Rome. Strabo, translated into
Latin, appeared in 1469; Pliny in 1473; Solinus, at Milan, in 1471, and at
Paris in 1473. These works were also reprinted at Venice, where they were
eagerly bought up. The study of geography at this period held a large place
in the system of public education, and what proves it even more clearly than
contemporary evidence is the quantity of small editions of Pomponius Mela
which were printed for use in the universities throughout Europe.
There can be no doubt that this profusion of maps and books on geography
gave a general impulse to sea voyages and expeditions. The Portuguese,
after spending a whole century in their discovery of the western coasts of
Africa, prepared to push forward into the Indian Ocean by way of the Cape




GEOGRA PHIICAL SCIENCE.


289


of Good Hope, so as to extend their commercial, military, and naval power to
Asia as well as to Africa. Diego d'Azambuza created in 1481 the first
European establishment in Guinea, which had been explored twenty years
beforehand by 'his compatriot Cintra; and Joan Cano discovered Congo
in 1484. But the boldest mariners, notwithstanding their possession of the
compass, which had been discovered in the twelfth century, would not
Fig. 205.-Discovery of San Domingo (Insula Hyspana) by Christopher Columbus.-After a Sketch
which is attributed to him, and in which he is himself made to appear.-Fac-simile of a Wood
Engraving of the "Epistola Christoferi Colom," undated Edition (1492?), in quarto.-In
the Milan Library.
venture across the Atlantic, which was believed to be boundless and full of
perils. The pilots, however, discussed amongst each other whether or not a
vessel, by steering continually westward, would reach the most easterly
islands of the Indian Ocean.  This was the idea formed by the Genoese pilot,
P P




290


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


Christopher Columbus, born in 1446, and accustomed to the sea from his
childhood. He says in one of his letters, "God imparted to me great knowledge of maritime matters, and some knowledge of the stars, of geometry,
and of arithmetic. Moreover, He granted me the power to delineate globes,
and to indicate the proper position of towns, rivers, and mountains." He
was, therefore, a geographer, and still more a chart-maker.
A Florentine astronomer, Toscanelli, showed him a map upon which he
had indicated the route to follow in the Atlantic in order to reach the Indian
isles, for it was not supposed that there was any land between Europe and
Asia. Columbus, as he himself states, only intended at first to " seek for the
East by way of the West." The advice of Toscanelli induced him to follow
this new route, but it was in vain that he applied to the Republic of Genoa
and the King of Portugal for funds to equip his vessels. After eight years
of fruitless efforts he obtained from Ferdinand, the Catholic King of Arragon,
and Queen Isabella of Castile, three small vessels, with which he started from
the port of Palos, in Andalusia, on the 3rd of August, 1492. In March, 1493,
he returned to Spain, after having discovered the islands of San Salvador,
Cuba, and San Domingo (Fig. 205). Appointed Viceroy of the new lands which
he had acquired for Spain, he returned there in the following year, but it was
not until his third voyage in 1498 that he discovered the continent and
explored the coast of South America (Fig. 206).
The discoveries of Christopher Columbus, whose name did not apparently
obtain the notoriety which it deserved in after ages, produced a great effect
throughout Europe. The first indications, vague and incomplete as they
were, were received with enthusiasm, and the detailed information by which
they were followed left no doubt as to the existence of these vast unknown
lands. They led to the fitting out of a great number of maritime expeditions,
in which science had no part, and the object of which was to take people to
what was called the gold country.  A great impulse, however, was given to
geography, and throughout Italy and Spain the principal families devoted
large sums to the formation in their palaces of collections of books, maps,
and instruments bearing upon nautical astronomy, hydrography, and all
the branches of ancient and modern geography. These families, animated by
generous motives, spent vast sums in promoting voyages of exploration and
discovery to the new parts of the world.
An adroit Florentine adventurer, named Amerigo Vespucci, was enabled,




I~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




i |
d I
r
N g


m^


f/y


A iap 
call fd


ie
\ r


JJ.                        ~ L\


i,
I'll


It"?-~^ ^"  ^*'


^J/l/^m

/l


%s I


\X   I  I\ A-i"..^ —*-9^~I A


^


Im:


i'


x\


"I/
\ V7


/.if   I n


—.


^ff '


— IToI


ZO


JL,


GCaulard, 'lth


NAP I(.-) F AMERAl fr1 RI (: IA


Reducted fac-sim-ile of a mapi f(rom the Spaaish atlas excutied at Messina ain 158 hey oa;n- Mar*lies Aini l5ibi a. t aiit.


I




I
~1 III
r (ilr
1 t t
lit r
t




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


291


by the munificence of one of these Italian families, to equip a small flotilla,
and make several voyages in the seas explored by Christopher Columbus.
These voyages were probably undertaken for commercial purposes; but
Vespucci gave them the appearance of having been made in the cause of
geography by publishing, in the form of a letter, the description of new lands
which he claimed to have discovered before Christopher Columbus, to whom
he made no allusion. This letter, written in Italian and of which a great
many copies were printed, was widely circulated throughout Italy, the
L AtS\.                       2..
t FRrR EX
Fig. 206.- Signature at the foot of an Autograph Letter of Christopher Columbus, addressed from
Seville to the noble Lords of the Office of St. George, and dated "A dos dias de Abril 1502."
-Preserved in the Municipal Archives at Genoa.
inhabitants of which were much pleased at the success of one of their countrymen, and at once gave to the New World the name of America in his honour.
The latter, after the death of Columbus in 1506, continued his voyages along
the American coast, and stoutly maintained that if Columbus had discovered
the islands of that continent, he was the first to have found the continent
itself. His statements were believed, and the name of America was finally
given to a continent which he had merely explored in company with several
given to a continent which he had merely explored in compzany with several




292


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


Spanish, French, and Portuguese navigators, such as Hojeda, Pinzon, and
Cabral.
The Portuguese seemed for a time to abandon their expeditions to the
New World, being so much engaged in establishing their trading stations
upon the west coast as they had already done upon the east coast of Africa.
Albuquerque and Vasco de Gama had won for them the islands of Goa and
Ceylon, and their possessions upon the Asiatic shores increased rapidly. But
their navigators could not long remain indifferent to the commercial current
which was drawing all the navies of Europe into American waters, and they
entertained the hope of discovering in the new land a passage into the Indian
Ocean (Fig. 207).  Thus their voyages had a certain scientific tendency, and
were calculated to serve the progress of geography. Gaspar Cortereal sought
in vain northward this passage communicating with Asia.  He entered the
Gulf of Labrador, and ascended the St. Lawrence in 1500, where he was
stopped by the ice.  Three years previously a Venetian trader named
Cabotto, settled at Bristol, had attempted to discover in this direction a
passage to India, but the only result of his explorations was the discovery of
Newfoundland. The intrepid Magellan was more fortunate in his researches
along the east coast of South America, and he discovered in southern latitudes
the straits which still bear his name,,"id which opened up an entrance into
the South Sea, across which he pursued his voyage to the countless islands of
Polynesia (1521).  Magellan, though a Portuguese, was in the service of
Spain when he undertook this long and perilous expedition, which had
such brilliant results for geographical science.
The object of the expeditions of the Spaniards into America, which
followed one another in rapid succession, was to take possession of the
country in the name of the King of Spain, and to enrich a few adventurers
of various nationalities. Diaz de Solis and Pinto discovered Yucatan in 1507,
having disembarked at Rio Janeiro; Pontius de Leon discovered Florida by
chance in 1512; Vasco Nufies saw Peru in 1513, and Pizarro conquered it
in 1526. These conquests and discoveries were not of any immediate service
to geography, for the navigators thought less of studying the country than of
working the gold and silver mines; but when naturalists and men of letters,
such as Oviedo y Valdes, J. Varezzani, Ramnusio, and other savants went to
the country, its geographical features became better known.
King Francis I., who would have liked France to have had a share




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


293


in the new continent, gave a very conspicuous place to geographical study in
the Royal College founded by him. He encouraged most of the voyages
undertaken during his reign, amongst which must be mentioned that of
Jacques Cartier, who discovered Canada in 1533. Other French travellers


Fig. 207.-Galley of the Sixteenth Century.-After an Engraving by Raphael.-In the Collection
of the Fine Arts Academy, Venice.
not less devoted to the cause of science explored both hemispheres, and
collected, during their distant pilgrimages, very useful information of a
geographical kind; amongst them being Pierre Gilles, Andre Thevet, and




294


GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


Pierre Belon, who published excellent Cosmographies on the East; Jean
Parmentier and Francois Nicolay, who visited the two Indies, and brought
back much interesting information. Amongst the most indefatigable of


Fig. 208.-Vow of the first Companions of St. Ignatius in the Church of Montmartre, upon the
Day of the Assumption (1534).-Father Pierre Lefevre, the only priest in the whole Company,
is saying Mass.-Pic'ure of the School of Simon Vouet (Seventeenth Century), in the School
of St. Genevieve, Paris.
travellers were the companions of St. Ignatius and of Francois Xavier, who
commenced about this time to write the history of their missions in the




GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE.


295


hitherto idolatrous lands whither they went to preach the gospel (Fig. 208).
Geographical publications were in such demand throughout France at this
period that the Paris booksellers ventured the simultaneous publication,
during the reign of Charles IX., of two enormous compilations taken from
the celebrated "Geographia" of Sebastian Munster, and bearing the title of
"Cosmographie Universelle," the one by Francois de Belleforest, and the
other by Andre Thevet, and both illustrated with maps and engravings.
The English and the Dutch did not hold aloof from this passion for
discovery and exploration in Africa and America. The Dutch had also
sought in a northerly direction for a direct route to the Indian Ocean, but
they were driven back by the ice at the North Pole. England, while at war
with Spain, sent two fleets, commanded by Drake and Cavendish, to the coast
of North America to destroy the Spanish settlements; and Drake, after he
had accomplished this task, sailed to Cape Horn, and round it as far as
Vancouver's Land, while John Davis had been extending his Antarctic
explorations far into the frozen waters of Greenland.
The savants of the Netherlands seem to have acquired the monopoly of
the works illustrating the progress in geographical knowledge effected by
such expeditions. Abraham Oertel, a Fleming of Antwerp, published in
1570 the first Atlas of modern geography, under the Latin title of " Theatrum
Orbis Terrarum" (Theatre of the Terrestrial Globe). Gerhard Kauffman,
surnamed Mercator, a native of Rupelmonde, also published in 1594 a large
Atlas executed with the utmost precision and elegance, and very remarkable
from a mathematical point of view. These two magnificent works soon
obtained a great reputation, and the learned Vossius was justified in his
declaration that "geography and chronology have become the two eyes of
history."




HERALDIC SCIENCE.
The fab'ed Origin of Armorial Bearings.-Heraldic Science during the Feudal Period.-The First
Armorial Bearings in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries.-The Meaning of the Colours and
Divisions on the Shield.-Kings of Arms and Heralds.-Heraldic Figures.-Quadrupeds,
Birds, Fishes.-Plants, Flowers, Fruits.-The Legend of the Fleur-de-lis.-Emblematic Arms.
-Prevalence of Armorial Bearings in the Thirteenth Century.-Helmets and Crests.Mottoes and Emblems.-Traders' Sign-boards.-Usurpers of Armorial Bearings.-Decadence
of the Science of Heraldry.
OME have endeavoured to trace back the
use of armorial bearings to almost the
very commencement of human society.
A writer on heraldry has not scrupled to
affirm that the posterity of Seth borrowed
their armorial bearings from the animal
and vegetable kingdoms, and that the
children  of Cain painted    upon   their
bucklers implements of husbandry. Another person attributes their invention to
Noah when he came out of the ark, and
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was constantly being asserted that
ancient documents had disclosed the arms of Adam, of the first patriarchs, of
the prophets, of the Kings of Jerusalem, of the Virgin Mary, and of Christ
himself.
As M. E. de la BWdolliere, in a very luminous treatise upon the origin of
heraldry, remarks, such blunders are not worth refuting. So far from being
contemporaneous with the earliest ages, armorial bearings were not even
known to the ancients. They had their national and hereditary symbols,
such as the Lion of Judah, the Golden Eagle of the Medes, the Owl of




HERALDIC SCIENCE.29


297




Fig. 209.- Or.


Fig. 21O.-Argent.


Fig. 211.-Gules.


Fig. 212.-Azure.


Fig. 213.-Sinople, or Vert.


Fig. 214.-Sable.


Fig. 215.-Purpure.


Fig. 216.-Tenne range.


Fig. 217.-Ermine.


Fig. 218.-Ermaines.            Fig. 219.-Yair.            Fig. 220. Counter-vair.
Metals, Colours,,and Furs interpreted by the Engravers of the Middle Ages by means of Marks
and Conventional Signs.


Q Q




298


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


Athens, the Crocodile of Egypt, and the Dove of Assyria, but the devices
with which their bucklers were covered were not transmissible from father
to son. These figures, which the celebrated warriors of Rome represented
upon their arms as the insignia of their warlike achievements, were selected
at the bidding of fancy. We may, however, cite, as a unique instance of
a patrimonial emblem, the crow which was worn on the crests of their helmets
by the descendants of Valerius Corvinus, to whom tradition attributed a
singular victory achieved by the intervention of one of these birds of evil
omen.
When the age of feudalism set in, it became the custom to distinguish
by means of various signs, bright colours being as a rule used, the military
shields and insignia, so as to provide rallying-points for the troops during the
thick of the fight. These decorative paintings, in which may be discerned
the germ of armorial bearings, were at first styled cognisances, or entre-sains,
and they were all the more necessary as the vantailles, or eyelets, of the armet
(closed helmet) quite hid the face of the wearer.
Here and there, in the chronicles of the Middle Ages, are to be found
traces of the cognisances, but at the epoch when they first appear in history
these different signs, all of a very simple kind, were not used to form the
special combinations which afterwards became the exclusive appanage of such
and such a family, and which fixed the principles of heraldic science. They
were, so to speak, public property, and any one who chose could appropriate
them. Master Jean de Garlande, who wrote in 1080 a very curious description of Paris, relates that the "dealers in bucklers, who supplied their goods
to all the towns of France, sold to the chevaliers shields covered with cloth,
leather, and pinchbeck, upon which were painted lions and fleurs-de-lis."
Thus, as late as the close of the eleventh century, the Kings of France had
no regular coat-of-arms, and the shields, embellished with lions and the fleurde-lis, belonged by right of purchase to any one who chose to buy them, upon
his showing that as a chevalier he had the right to use them.
If the coat-of-arms existed as one of the attributes of nobility, it may be
affirmed that the practice had not any fixed and general basis. Heraldic
science was in its infancy, and had not even settled the way in which
armorial bearings were to be composed, by the use of enamels-that is to say,
the metals and the colours-and of the plush, or fur, to form the ground of
the shield, in such a way as not to confound them, or place one upon the




HERALDIC SCIENCE.


299


other. The metals, the or and the argent, were probably no more than colours
of yellow and white. The colours properly so called-blue, red, green, black,
and violet-had not received the names of azure, gules, sinople, sable, and
purpure, which were assigned them when emblazonry became an art or a
science (Figs. 209 to 220). The images or enigmatic figures which were
placed on the coloured or metallic ground of the escutcheon presented little
variety, and every one considered himself free to alter their colour and shape
as suited his fancy.  In any event, the unvarying principle which consists
in never placing colour upon colour, or metal upon metal, in a coat-of-arms,
was not established during the feudal period. At about this epoch, however,
a few coats-of-arms, which at first were mere cognisances, began to become
hereditary, amongst them   being the cross voided, cheque, and pannetee,
which Raymond de St. Gilles affixed, together with his seal, to a deed dated
1088, and which remained part of the armorial bearings of the Counts of
Toulouse; the two bars placed back to back which appear in the seal of
Thierry II., Count of Montbeliard and of Bar-le-Duc, and which were handed
down to his successors; and the young lions which the Plantagenets had upon
their coat-of-arms in 1127, and which, under the name of leopards, are still
preserved in the royal arms of Great Britain.
It was in the course of the twelfth century that the armorial bearings
increased in number, and this was no doubt attributable to the first Crusade, as
may be inferred from the choice of enamels used in them. The azure blue, or
lapis-lazuli, had just been imported from the East, and its name of ultramarine
is a reminiscence of the voyage to Palestine.  Red got its name of gules
from the fur trimmings which the crusaders wore round the neck and the
wrists, and which were dyed red and purple (" murium rubrioatas pelliculas quas
gulas vocant," says St. Bernard, the apostle of the second Crusade). The
enamel sinople also received its name from the dye which the crusaders
brought from Sinople, a town in Asia Minor.
Several divisions in the shield also recall the time when the chevaliers
were fighting "in the miscreant lands:" the martlet, a species of bird which
emigrates every autumn to warm climates, naturally recalled Jerusalem; the
shell (coquille) appertains specially to the pilgrims; the bezant d'or (a Saracenic
or Arab coin) was the ransom paid to the Infidels; while the cross, which in
every conceivable diversity of shape appears in all the oldest coats-of-arms,
announced a participation in the Holy War.




300


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


In the thirteenth century the cognisances became in universal use, and
henceforward not only the nobles, but towns, villages, and abbeys also,
assumed armorial bearings.   The cognisances then received the name of
blazon, the etymology of which gave rise to much debate among the learned,
though this debate might have been spared had they noticed that in early
French the word blazer (to shine, to blaze), of Celtic origin, is often used
instead of shield or buckler. Thus the author of the romance " William-theShort-Nosed," describing a battle in the twelfth century, writes that the
assailants crushed the helmets and broke the blasons in pieces; and in the not
less ancient romance of " Garin le Loherain," which is referred to in another
part of this volume, the hero is overthrown by a terrible blow dealt at his
blason by Chevalier Ivait: in another place, King Amadus, attacking a
Gascon, strikes the buckle, or central part, of his adversary's blason. Blason,
then, simply means the buckler, the shield, upon which the coat-of-arms was
at first displayed. The science of blazonry, begotten of the necessity for having
some means of distinguishing between so many different signs and emblems,
was but the result of studying the various manners in which were arranged
the enamels and divisions which appeared in the coats-of-arms. It was also
called heraldic science, because it was the special study of the heralds, whose
functions became of considerable importance in the feudal organization of the
Middle Ages.   The duties of the heralds are alluded to in the volume on
"Manners and Customs" (chapter on Chivalry), but it may be added here
that these officers of the household, who only obtained their diploma, or commission, after an apprenticeship of seven or eight years in the service of their
feudal lord, had over them the kings of arms (Fig. 221), appointed by the
sovereign to draw up a list of the nobles and gentry of each province, with
their different armorial bearings, for the compilation of a general peerage,
which was placed in the custody of the premier King of Arms of France.
Figuring in their capacity of public officials at certain ceremonies, where
they received, in accordance with the established custom, many valuable
presents, the heralds of arms were, as a rule, men of considerable erudition,
incessantly engaged in verifying the titles of nobility and the genealogies, in
deciphering the blazons, and in establishing generally the true principles of
heraldic science. It was they who laid down the laws with regard to the
mass of distinctive decorations, the original selection of which had often been
guided by ignorance or capriciousness.




I




I8




w w


THE KING AT ARMS SHOWS THE DUG DE BOURBON THE ARMORIAL BEARINGS"
OF THE CHEVALIERS WHO ARE TO TAKE PART IN THE TOURNAMENT.
Miniature from the Tournois du roy Rene'. M. S. of the XV~h century, executed after King Ren6's designs.
Arsenal Library, Paris.




4 I
I II




HERALDIC SCIENCE.


o301


They, in the first place, settled the shape of the shield. That of the French
barons, which was first of all triangular and somewhat slanting, was replaced
by a quadrilateral shield, rounded at the two lower corners, and terminating
in a point at the centre of its base. The Germanic shield was remarkable for
its rounded basis, and for a lateral indentation, which was used for supporting


Fig. 221.-" Fashion and Manner in which the King of Arms displays to the Four Judges the
Plaintiff and Defendant, and presents to them the Letters of the said Plaintiff and Defendant,
wearing upon his shoulder the Cloth of Gold and the Painted Parchment of the same."Miniature from the " Tournois du roy Rene."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the
National Library, Paris.


the lance when the man-at-arms, mounted upon his charger, held this lance
at rest, covering his breast with his buckler.
Leaving to special heraldic treatises the theoretic description of the
different partitions of the shield-that is to say, the lines which divide it into
horizontal, diagonal, and perpendicular sections or parts-we proceed to give




302


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


a summary explanation of the figures which, once so familiar, have become
very enigmas to most persons in the present day, which constitute the blazon
(Figs. 222 to 239).




I


Fig. 223.-Party per Fess.   Fig. 224.-Party per Bend.


Fig. 222.-Party per Pale.


I


I


Fig. 
Fig. 226.-Tierce per Pale.


Fig. 227.-Tierce per Fess.


Fig. 225.-Party per Bend
Sinister.


Fig. 228.-Quarterly.


_JZ




Fig. 229.-Quarterly per Saltier. Fig. 230.-Gyrony of Eight.


Terms of Heraldry. Partitions of the Shield.
To the colours and metals already mentioned, and which seem to have been
selected solely in order that they might harmonize with the variegated costume
of the chivalry of the Middle Ages, must be added the plush, orfur-that is to




HERALDIC SCIENCE.30


303


say, the ermine and the vair-the valuable furs used in France by the nobles of
the ninth century; for we read in the "1Life of St. Ge'raud," written at this
period, that the grandees of the Carlovingian court trimmed their fur mantles


Fig. 231.-Ecartele' controcartele'.


I


I


Fig. 2 32.- Parti d'un trait et
couped do 2 (6 qvartiers).


Fig. 233.-Parti do 3 traits
et coupd d'uri (8 quartiers).


I-I'-I- 


Iiii




Fig. 234.-Parti de 4 traits ot
couped d'un (10 quartiers).


Fig. 236.-Parti de 3 traits,
couped do 2 (12 quartiers).


Fig. 236.-Parti do 3 traits,
coupe6 do 3 (16 quiartiers).




Fig. 237.-Parti do 4 traits,
coup4 do 3 (20 quartiors).


Fig. 238.-Parti do 7 traits,
couped do 3 (32 quartiers).


Fig. 239.-rcartele', avec un
6&u sur lo tout et sur Jo
tout dui tout.


Terms of Horaldry. Partitions of the Shiold.


wvith the fur of the ermine, or Armenian rat, and that they used lozenge



30+


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


shaped strips of ermine or foumart to form the vair (variegated fur). The
enamel, or sable, which represents black in the language of heraldry, was
the fur of the sable, or fisher-weasel, as it is called by several poets of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Amongst the panels in the coats-of-arms are to be found several other
devices borrowed from the dress of the nobility of that period, such as the
labels, or gold fringe of sashes; the orles, or trimmings of tunics; the bands,
or bars, which represented scarfs; the lambrequins (mantles), or plumes made
of silk or velvet, which were affixed to the extremity of the helmet; the
housseaux, or top-boots with thick soles, which were only worn by men when
they went out on foot in wet weather; the pairle, which, having the shape of
the letter Y, resembled the bishop's pallium, and constituted, according to the
heralds of the sixteenth century, the emblem of the great devotions of the
chevalier: "His God, his Lady, and his King."
In addition to the hieroglyphics derived from the dress of the nobility,
there were other heroic symbols: the vals, or marks of jurisdiction; the
frettiaux, or frettes, the barriers which fenced in the lists; the portcullis, the
towers, the chains, the arrows, and the battering-rams, emblems which carry
their own explanation with them; and also the keys, which were a souvenir of
the capitulation of a castle or of a city.
Fire, water, clouds, and even the stars (Figs. 240 to 244) also entered into
the composition of the shield. The Chalus family has azure with three
crescents argent, and that of Cernon azure, with six comets or, three in chief,
and three in point, with the crescent en abisme (in the centre of the shield).
The whole of the human body is not so often used in the blazon as the
separate parts of the body-head, hands, eyes, legs, &c.-which are sometimes
represented, as also are animals, plants, and various objects, with their
natural colour, called in heraldry carnation.
The animals, quadrupeds especially, which, as a general rule, imply allegorical ideas, are very common in the blazon, though they are always represented after a type more or less untrue to nature: the lion (generosity), the
elephant (courtesy), the squirrel (foresight, because that animal is careful to
close the apertures of his nest), and the lamb (gentleness). For instance, the
Montalembert arms are or, with three wolves' heads, sable; the Portal arms,
azure, with ox or, accompanied in chief by six fleurs-de-lis, the same; the
Coignieux arms, azure, porcupine passant sable.




HERALDIC SCIENCE.


305


As a general rule, birds express change of residence, of nationality, and of


Fig. 240.-The Piccolominii, a
Family belonging to Rome,
and established at Sienna
about the Eighth Century.
-A Crescent, with the
Motto, " Sine macula."


Fig. 241.-John II., King of
France (1350-1364).-A radiating Star, with the Motto,
"Monstrant regibus   astra
viam," in allusion to the star
which guided the Magi to
Bethlehem.


Fig. 242.-Richard Coeurde-Lion, King of England (1189-1199).A Star, probably that
of Bethlehem, issuing
from out of the Horns
of the Crescent.


condition, irrespectively of the particular meaning applicable to each (Figs. 246


Fig. 243.-Martin, I., King of Arragon (1395 -1410).-Faith triumphant, erect upon the
Terrestrial Globe, with the Motto, "Non
in tenebris."


Fig. 244.-Emanuel, King of Portugal (1495 -1521).-The Terrestrial Globe, surrounded
by the Ocean, across which are sailing
several  Portuguese  Vessels.   Motto,
"Primus circumdedisti me."


and 247). Thus dominion is represented by the eagle; vigilance by the cock,




306


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


the heron, or the stork; conjugal affection by the dove; eloquence by the
parrot; long and laborious old age by the swan; and self-devotion by the
pelican, which was believed by the ancients to nourish its young with the


Fig. 245.-Alfonso X., King of Castile (1252-1284).-A Pelican opening its side to nourish the
Young. Motto, " Pro lege et grege."
flesh of its own breast, and which is represented (see Fig. 245) upon its nest,
with extended wings, tearing its breast and brooding over its young. In the
language of heraldry the drops of blood which the pelican draws from its


Fig. 246.-Robert of Anjou, King of Naples
(1309-1343).-A Swallow bringing Food
to its Young. Motto, " Concordia regni."


Fig. 247.-William, Prince of Orange (1572 -1584).-A Halcyon placing its Nest in the
Sea, and above it the Monogram of Christ.
Motto, "Saevis tranquillus in undis."


breast are called piety, when they are of a different enamel from the bird.
Thus the house of Lecamus has gules (shield on a red ground), with pelican
argent, vulning itself gules, in its eyrie; the chief seamed azure, charged with a




rtT    A;f rT  r T  'r T r  Ar r'/


71njLLZ\1iLlJ L  o) LjCi V VLj3. 307
fleur-de-lis or. The ancient family of Vienne, which had given two admirals
and a marshal to France, has gules, with eagle or. The house of Savoy, in
Dauphiny, has azure, with three doves or; Montmorency, or, cross gules,
cantoned by sixteen spread-eagles, azure. These spread-eagles, which, as a
rule, represent eagles without beak or claws, and which indicate a victory
over some foreign foe (Fig. 248), have a special meaning in the arms of the
house of Lorraine. It is said that during a festival given in honour of King
Pepin, a quarrel having arisen between the Franks and the Lorrainers, the
Duke Begon, who held the post of seneschal, placed himself at the head of
I'
Fig. 248.-Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, King of Jerusalem (1099). —An Arrow transfixing three Spread-Eagles. The Motto, taken from Virgil, is, " Dedebitne viam casusve
deusve? " The Spread Eagle still forms part of the Arms o, the House of Hapsburg-Lorraine.
the kitchen servants, armed them with spoons, pokers, and fire-dogs, and,
seizing for himself a spit upon which several plovers were being roasted,
committed a frightful carnage amongst the Franks. It was in memory of
this exploit that the plovers, converted into spread-eagles to make it clear
that they were upon the spit, took their place in the arms of Lorraine, which
looked back with pride upon the fact of the Duke Begon having been one of
its early rulers.
Fish generally represent sea voyages and naval victories. One of the fish
oftenest used in the shield is the dolphin (Fig. 249), which even, by means




308


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


of heraldry, gave its name to Dauphiny, one of the greatest fiefs of the
French crown.
Shell-fish, serpents, and insects also form part of the figures used in
heraldry, but it is difficult to say what was the special signification attached
to them. Lowan Geliot, however, in his "Armorial Index," published in
1650, states that the cricket represents all the domestic virtues, because this
insect "only frequents the hearth of honest people."
According to the same author, whose imagination gets the better of him,
as is the case with all the old heralds of arms, plants, flowers, and fruits had
all a fixed symbolism: the oak, for instance, meant power; the olive-tree,
peace; the vine, gladness; the apple-tree, love; the cypress, sadness; the
Fig. 249.-Pope Paul III. (1534-1549).-A Chameleon carrying a Dolphin.
Motto, "Mature."
pomegranate (Fig. 250), by an ingenious idea, was held to represent "the
alliance of nations and men united under one religion."  Trifolium, columbine,
tierce-fenilles, quatre-feuilles, and quinte-feuilles represented hope, because their
appearance in the spring presaged the summer and autumn crops; the rose
naturally typified grace and beauty.  The fleur-de-lis (which in France, at all
events, may be called the queen of heraldic flowers) has a complex meaning,
which justifies its selection by French kings to variegate the azure field of
their banner bespangled with innumerable fleurs-de-lis or, before the heralds
reduced the number of flowers to three (Fig. 276).
Various experts have argued that this so-called fleur-de-lis did not in




HERALDIC SCIENCE.


309


reality belong to the vegetable kingdom. According to them the flowershaped charges which Louis VI. first placed upon his seal, and which
Philip of Valois, in the fourteenth century, reduced to three, were the iron
tips of the three-headed javelins in use amongst the Merovingian Franks.
Other dabblers in heraldry have described the shield of the early Kings of
France as "sable, three toads or."  The best contradiction to these ridiculous
statements is to be found in the "Annals " of William of Nangis, and that
ancient chronicler says, "The Kings of France had in their arms the fleurde-lis painted in three leaves, as much as to say, 'Faith, wisdom, and chivalry
are, by the grace of God, more abundant in our kingdom than anywhere else.'
The two leaves of the fleur-de-lis which are bent signify wisdom and chivalry,
which guard and protect the third leaf placed between them, and the
Fig. 250.-Catherine of Arragon, first Wife of Henry VIII. (1501).-A Pomegranate bearing a
Red Rose and a White, in allusion to the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster,
uniting the Rights of the two Families to the English Crown.
greater length of which signifies faith, which must be governed by wisdom
and protected by chivalry."
It is, therefore, beyond doubt, according to the evidence of this historian
of the thirteenth century, that in the arms of the King of France the central
petal of the fleur-de-lis represented religion, and that the wings or side-leaves
represented the moral and material force which was intended to support it.
Moreover, the fleur-de-lis was used in the arms of many noble families, both
French and foreign, which were in no way connected with the kings of the
third French race. It was only some of these families which had obtained
the privilege of placing the fleur-de-lis upon their escutcheon, as a recompense
for services rendered to the Crown. Thus Charles VII., when he ennobled




10


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


the brothers of Joan of Arc, gave them not only the new name of Du Lys,
which they assumed after their sister, but also an azure escutcheon, charged
with a pointed sword, with two fleurs-de-lis or, dexter and sinister (Fig. 251).
After having made use of the principal emblems furnished by nature in
the composition of armorial bearings, heraldic science borrowed from the
work of human hands, or from the fanciful conceptions of the human mind.
Thus certain families took for their escutcheon instruments of music, such as
harps, guitars, or hunting-horns, and the ordinary utensils of domestic life,
such as pots, drinking-glasses, knives, mill-stones, candlesticks, &c.  Other
Fig. 251.-Family of Joan of Arc, alias Du Lye.-A Sword argent in pale, the point suppoiting a
Crown or, and being flanked with two Fleurs-de-lis, with the Motto, "Consilio firmatei Dei."
This Coat-of-arms was composed by Charles VII. himself, in 1429.
families, having more ambitious ideas, placed in their arms imaginary
animals, such as the phoenix, the unicorn, harpies, and so forth.
It is worthy of remark that many arms were emblematic; that is to say,
people charged them with certain common objects which happened to present
an analogy with their family name (Fig. 252).   For instance, the Bouesseaux
had three bushels (boisseaux) azure; the Chabots, three chabots (a riverfish); the Maillys, three maillets (malets) sinople; the Du Palmiers, three
palms or; the Rethels, three rateaux (ratres) or; the Crequys, a crequier
(cherry-tree) gules; the Begassoux, three heads of the becasse (woodcock) or;
the Auchats, a chat (cat) startled, argent; the Herices, three herissons (hedge



HERALDIC SCIENCE.


3I 


hogs) sable; the Gourdins, three gourds, or calabaslhes, or; the Guitons, a
guitar or. Upon the same principle, the city of Rheims, then written
Rains, took in its arms two rainseaux, or rains, intertwined branches, &c.
The close of the thirteenth and the whole of the fourteenth century were
the most brilliant in the history of heraldry. It was a metaphorical language
which at that time every one spoke and understood, from the highest to the
lowest.  Armorial bearings were placed everywhere, with the dead as with
the living, for they were used to decorate tombs and epitaphs. They were to
be seen sculptured, engraved, or in relief, designed or painted, in the great
castles and in the modest manors, upon the lintels of doors, upon the locks,
upon the weather-cocks, upon the brick pavements, upon the window-glass,
=
Fig. 252.-The Orsini (Roman) Family (Fourteenth Century). —A Bear crouched (the meaning of
the name), holding a Sand-glass. Motto, " Tempus et hora."
upon the chimneys, upon the tapestry, and upon all the pieces of furniture
(Fig. 253). They were even reproduced, in many different ways, upon the
dress of the nobles and of their wives and families, as well as upon their
servants' liveries, upon the trappings of their horses (Fig. 254), upon their
dog-collars, and upon the hoods of their falcons and hawks.
Towards the fifteenth century the blazons were made more complex by
the addition of the helmet or distinctive sign; that is to say, above the shield
there was placed the heaume (chevalier's helmet), either full-face, threeparts face, or in profile; and according to its shape and the way in which it
was made, it indicated exactly, and at a single glance, the condition and title




3tZ


HERALDIC SCIENACE.


of the person. Thus the kings had the helmet or, full-face, the visor completely open and without bars, to signify that a sovereign ought to know and


Fig. 253.-The Lords and Barons "make windows of their blazons;" that is to say, exhibit their
nobility by displaying their Banners and Coats-of-arms fiom the windows of the Heralds'
Lodge.-After a Miniature in the " Tournois du Roy Rene."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth
Century.-In the National Library, Paris.


to see everything.  The helmet of counts and viscounts was argezt three-parts




HERALDIC SCIENCE.                          313
profile, the visor drawn down, and having nine bars or. That of a baron had
only seven bars to the visor.  That of the gentry untitled was of polished
steel, placed in profile, with five bars argent. When the King conferred or
sold a title, he invented as the crest of the blazon, for the person ennobled,


Fig. 254.-The Duc de Bourbon, armed cap-a-pie for the Tournament.-After a Miniature in the
"Tournois du Roy Rene."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the National Library,
Paris.
an iron helmet in profile, with the rantaille and nose piece half open.   The
helmets further had pieces of cloth called lanmbrequins, which the wearers
attached to the crests of their helmets, the size of which gradually attained
enormous proportions. These crests themselves became an essential ornament,
s




314


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


and represented lions, horns, chimaras, and human arms bearing some
weapon.   Gradually, however, it became the custom to replace these accessories by plain coronets enriched with gems and pearls, the shape and number
of which varied according to the rank of the wearer.
About the middle of the fifteenth century it became customary for families
which had enrolled troops, and led them to join the ost (army) of the sovereign under their own banners, to place above the crests a listel, or scroll,
bearing upon it their battle-cry. Gradually this right was claimed by every
chevalier banneret who had the means of assembling under his pennon, or
gonfalon (a standard with the arms or colours of a noble), four or five gentlemen
and twelve or fifteen men-at-arms equipped at his expense.
Moreover, the battle-cry is of very much earlier date than the fifteenth
century, for even the Barbarians were accustomed to nerve themselves for
the fight by cries which were also used as signals. The usage of rallying
the soldiers upon a field of battle by means of some shout uttered by the
whole army in chorus is to be discovered in the Bible, for Gideon, when he
was about to take the camp of the Midianites by surprise at night, ordered
his own men to shout when they attacked the enemy whom the Lord
had delivered into their hands, " For the Lord and for Gideon!"
In the Middle Ages battle-cries were universal.  Most of them were
nothing more than the names of the different nobles and chevaliers, supplemented by some flattering epithet or pious invocation, such as Mlailly!-La
Tremoille!-Bourbon, Bourbon, Notre Dame!-Coucy, d la lMarveille!  The
great barons used as a battle-cry the name of a province, of a lordship, or of
an important town upon their domains, and these did not change even when
the town or lordship changed owners. Under the Dukes of Burgundy the
Hennuyers still cried, Hainaut au noble due! The men of Gascony, Navarre,
and Arragon shouted, Bigorre! Bigorre! as under the Kings of Navarre and
of Arragon. The men of Beauvais, when they went out to do battle, invoked
Beauvais la jolie! while those of Louvain shouted, Louvain au, riche duc!
The battle-cries of certain families contained allusions to the charges upon
their coat-of-arms, and Flandre au lion was the cry of the Counts of Flanders,
and Au peigne d'or (the golden comb) that of the lords of Callant. Another
family used as its battle-cry a sort of exhortation to the valiant, or of menace
to the vanquished, without any special or generic characteristic. The Counts
of Champagne cried, Passavant les meillors! the Chevaliers of Bar, Au feu!




a~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
L~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
t~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




THlE ARMS AND EMBLEMATIC DEVICE OF MARGUERITE OF NAVARRE.
Miniature from the Initiatoire in'structive en la religion chrestienn, M. S. executed in the xvitb century
for Marguerite of Navarre, and ge.nerally attributed to Geoffroy Tory; Arsenal Library, Paris.




t, ~ ~ C 
&t,. 
t 
I  r




HERALDIC SCIENCE.


31 5


au feu! those of Brie, Cans d'oiseaux!   The meaning of some battle-cries
was evidently to implore the intercession of God, of the Virgin, and of the
saints during the fight.   The Dukes of Brittany exclaimed, St. Yves! St.
Malo! the Dukes of Anjou, St. Maurice! the Montmorencys, Dieu ayde
au premier   baron  chrestien! and the Chastel-Montforts, St. Marie, aie!
(aid us!)
It is to this latter category of war-cries that assuredly belonged that of
the Kings of France, Montjoie St Denis! the origin of which has given rise
Fig. 255.-Mary Tudor, Queen of England (1553-1658). A Double Rose intersected down the
middle, with a Bundle of Arrows, surrounded with Rays, and surmounted by a royal Crown.
The Double Rose is an allusion to the Houses of York and Lancaster, while the Arrows represent the House of Arragon.
to so many conflicting and misleading statements. One theory is that Clovis,
giving battle in the valley of Conflans, drove back the enemy to the foot of a
tower called Montjoie, and that he perpetuated the memory of his triumph
by taking Montjoie as his battle-cry. Another theory is that Clovis, having
invoked the aid of St. Denis at the battle of Tolbiac, called him, in French,
mon Jupiter, mon Job! which was corrupted into Montjoie.     But, as a matter
of fact, Montjoie St. Denis merely means, "Follow the banner of St. Denis,"
for this banner during battle was hoisted upon a gilt chariot, as upon a




3 i 6


316         ~~HERALDIC SCIENCE.


Fig. 256. - Device of
Henry 'VII., King
of England (1485
-1509). —A Hawthorn-treein flower,
between the letters
HI. iR. ("1 Henricus.
Rex ").


Fig.- 25 7.-Device of Pope Leo X.
(1513-15211). —AYoke,with
the Motto, "1Suave."


Fig. 258. - Device of
Charles IX., King of
France (1660-1574).
-Two Columns interlaced, the emblem
of Piety and Justice
("1Pietate et justicia ").


mion~obie (an eminence or hillock), that it might be -visible from afar while the


Fig. 269.-Device of Henry III., King of     Fig. 260.-Device of the Emperor Charles V.
France (l5'74-1589).-Three Crowns, re-      -While yet King of Spain (1518) he
presenting those of France and Poland,      adopted as his emblem a Sun rising above
and that which he hoped to obtain:          a Zodiac, and as his Motto, "1Nondum in
" Manet ultima oelo."                       auge " (Not yet at its zenith).


combat was going on. The Kings of France were entitled to the banner of




I-Tid A T ) Tf r  C'e' T7;i A TOr rL


ll.1l11t~iiJl, O rl.iV\Ei.                   317
St. Denis in their quality of avoues (lawyers) of the abbey of that name, and
Counts of the Vexin. Louis VI. was the first to go and take the oriflamme,
which was no other than this banner, in the basilica of St. Denis, upon the
altar of the holy martyrs (which was called the montjoie), and his successors
continued to come and ask for it from the monks of the royal abbey whenever
they were about to start upon an expedition, "because," says Suger, "the
blessed St. Denis was the special patron and protector of the kingdom."
This same word was to be discovered in several other battle-cries, such as
Montjoie St. Andrieux! Montjoie Anjou! and others.
War-cries ceased to be used during battle when Charles VII., having
founded the ordinance companies, dispensed the bannerets from the duty of
Fig. 261.-Device of Catherine de' Medicis, Queen of France, during her Widowhood.
leading their vassals to the fight. It was then that these cries were inscribed
upon the scroll placed above the crest, while underneath, upon another scroll,
appeared, in letters of gold or of silver, the patrimonial motto of the house.
There was, moreover, this difference between the battle-cry and the mottothat the latter was not always hereditary, for in some cases it changed at
each generation even in the same family.  For instance, the ordinary motto
of the house of Sales, in Savoy, was originally, "Ni plus, ni moins," but
several members of this family adopted other mottoes. That of Francis de
Sales, Lord of Roisy, was, "En bonne foy;" that of John de Sales, "Adieu,
biens mondains!" that of Galois de Sales, "In paucis quies;" that of St.
Francis de Sales, "Numquam    excedet," signifying, with the word Charitas
understood, Charity never dies out.




3X8


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


In many cases mottoes, like the charges on the shield, are allusive, and
reproduce the family name with a sort of play upon the words.        Such are
Achay, in the Franche-Comte, " Jamais las d'Acher;" Vaudray, "J'ai valu,
vaux et vaudray;" Grandson, "A        petite cloche, grand son;" Lauras, in
Dauphiny, "Un jour l'auras;" Disemieux, "I1 est nul qui dise mieux."
Several mottoes, also, contain allusions to the figures in the coats-ofarms.   Thus the Simian family, whose arms are or, seme with fleurs-delis and turrets azure, has for motto, "Sustentant lilia turres" (The lilies
support the turrets). There are mottoes, too, which evoke the recollection
of a battle or of a proverb, or which enounce some indefinite and mysFig. 262.-The Arms of Anne of Brittany, Queen of France.-An Ermine, pure and spotless,
attached to the Order of the Cordeliere, founded by the Queen for Ladies, with the Motto,
"A ma vie." The royal Shield is supported by an Angel, with the Motto, " Rogo pro te
Anna " (Anne, I pray for thee), and upon the other side a Lion rampant, with these words, in
allusion to the ermine of Brittany: " Libera earn de ore leonis " (Deliver it from the jaws
of the lion).-Miniature from the "Funerailles d'Anne de Bretagne."-Manuscript of the
Sixteenth Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
terious allusion.  For instance, Antoine de Croy, "Souvenance;" Jean de
la  Tremoille, "Ne    m'oubliez!"    Johann   Schenk, in Germany, "Plutot
rompre que flechir;" Philip of Burgundy, after his marriage with
Isabella of Portugal, "Autre n'auray," an alteration of the amorous
motto, " Autre n'auray dame Isabeau, tant que vivray." The proud mottoes
of the Rohans and the Coucys are very well known: "Roi ne puis, duc ne
daigne, Rohan suis; " " Je ne suis roy, ne due, ne comte aussi, je suis le sire de
Coucy." Sometimes the mottoes were merely represented by mute emblems,
such as the White Rose of the house of York, the Red Rose of Lancaster




M P A) A T I-) 7-1"I  C/"V 7 X-1 7% 7/-T


5   l   ' I r   ilJl!
Fig. 263.-Jean Le Feron, a learned Fi ench heraldic Scholar (1504-1.570), presents one of his
Works to King Henry 11.-Miniature from the " Blason d'Amoiries," by Jehan Le Feron.
-Maniscript of the Sixteenth Gentury, No. 795.JIn tlhe Arsenal Library, Paris.
(Fig. 255), the Thistle of Bourbon, and the Musket of Burgundy; and
"Sometimes they comprised both emblems and inscriptions, as in Italy, where




32-0                       HERALDIC SCIENCE.
Camillo Pallavicini, member of an ancient Milanese family, bore a flower, the
stemn of which was being nibbled by a turtle, with the Italian inscription, "Ogni
Fig. 264.-Banner of the Calais Innkeepers.  Fig. 265.-Banner of the Armens Butchers.
Fig. 266.-Banuner of the Bethune Tailors.  Fig. 267.-Banner of the St. Omer Cobblers.
Fig. 268.-Banner of the St. Lo D3yers.  Fig. 209.-Banner of the Bordeaux Upholsterers.
belleza ha fine " (All beauty is perishable). Another Italian, Paolo Sfortitid,




HERALDIC SCIENCE.


321


had painted at the side of his blazon an arrow strung upon the bow, and
pointing heavenwards, with the words, " Sic itur ad astra " (Figs. 256 to 260).


Fig. 270.-Banner of the St. LO Blacksmiths.  Fig. 271.-Banner of the Tours Slaters.


_m


Fig. 272.-Banner of the Paris Founders.


Fig. 273.-Banner of the Lyons Tinmen.




I...
i 1'
1 '


Fig. 274.-Banner of the Douai Shoemakers.


Fiog. 275. —Banner of the Pin and Needle Makers.
I'd
a a_;o.b.;
Fig.r 276. —Banner of the Pin and Needle Makers.


The mottoes forming riddles, more or less difficult to solve, came into
T T




322


HERALDIC SCIENCE.


fashion during the sixteenth century. The house of Medicis had in its arms
a diamond and three ostrich feathers, with the motto forming a Latin pun,
" Super adamas in pennis " (Above the diamond, in the wing feathers), and this
strange device is only to be understood by translating it thus: Always
invincible in trouble.
The art of devices-for it had become an art, as heraldry had become a
science-was often used for the composition of enigmas which defied the
sagacity of the solvers of riddles (Fig. 276).  Pierre de Morvilliers, first
President of the Paris Parliament, had as his device a portcullis connected
with a Y, and his name was expressed by this figure (Mort Y lies), because
the portcullis is the emblem of death, which makes all things equal.
Several hereditary devices perpetuated the memory of some historic event.
Charles VIII., during the battle of Fornova (July 15th, 1495), when surrounded
by a mass of the enemy, was saved by the Seigneur de Montoison, whose
heroic valour soon changed the fate of the battle, and the King, after it was
over, recompensed his deliverer by giving him as his motto the words which
he had uttered in calling him to his assistance, "A la rescousse, Montoison!"
Catherine de' Medicis, after the death of Henry II., who was killed by the
thrust of a lance at a tournament (1559), changed her device and took a
broken lance, with the motto, " Hine dolor, hinc lacrimpe" (Hence my woe,
hence my tears). Christopher Columbus, who discovered America, left to his
descendants the noble Spanish motto" Por Castille et por Leon
Nuevo mundo hallo Colomb."
(For Castile and Leon, Columbus discovers a new world.)
At about the time that devices of all kinds were becoming numerous, the
custom was introduced of adding to coats-of-arms supporters, or tenants (Fig.
262). The first of these names was given to the animals which supported the
shield; the second to the men of human form who held it up-the angels,
chevaliers, heralds, moors, savages, &c. This was the most brilliant period
of heraldry, but it was also the most confused and the most fatal to this
ancient institution, which had done so much for the chivalry and the nobility,
as the excessive exaggeration of heraldic signs was, as a matter of course,
favourable to fraud and usurpation of armorial bearings (Fig. 263).  This




HERALDIC SCIENCE.


323


usurpation, which was generally a prelude to the usurpation of titles of
nobility, did not involve any other punishment than a fine-a fact which is
mentioned in an ordinance of Charles IX. addressed to the States of Orleans
in 1560, and framed as follows:-" Those who shall falsely usurp the name
and title of nobility, take or use crested arms, will be fined by our judges,
and the most rigorous measures will be used to make them pay these fines."
But, in spite of the numerous and severe decrees of the Crown against the
assumption of titles, the evil increased, and by the end of the fifteenth century
the merchants and the working mechanics, as well as the bourgeoisie, took
for themselves arms and devices without any opposition upon the part of the
Fig. 276.-The Arms of France in the Fifteenth Century.-After a Miniature in the Missal of
Charles VI.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
judges of arms, who exercised an official supervision over all the matters
relating to the nobility and their privileges. It may be supposed, therefore,
that this assumption of armorial bearings by the middle classes was only
tolerated in return for the payment of a tribute to the King as the supreme
dispenser of all nobiliary privileges. The Crown had, moreover, recognised
a sort of nobility of trade, by the grant of statutes to the workmen's corporations, which showed themselves as jealous as the nobility of their honorary
distinctions, and of the arms which they had painted, engraved, or
embroidered upon their insignia (see Figs. 264 to 275), at a time when
Montaigne declared in his " Essays " that if " nobility is a good and reasonable




324                    HERALDIC SCIENCE.
institution, it is to be esteemed far below virtue," inasmuch as " it is a virtue,
if it be one, of an artificial and visible kind, dependent upon time and fortune;
diverse in form, according to the country...."  The ancient custom of
solemnly interring the arms of an extinct family in the grave of its last
representative had been abandoned for centuries.  Even if noble families
became extinct, they were resuscitated with their armorial bearings, and
formed new branches by substitution of name, by alliance, or by usurpation. This was the cause of the different verifications and reforms of the
nobility which took place in the fifteenth century, and which added a large
sum in the way of fines and royalties to the King's treasury.
Heraldic science has, however, survived the noble institutions which first
brought it into existence, and though it has lost a part of its primitive
importance, it still remains almost intact as a picturesque monument of the
past, and as a tradition of medieval history.




PROVERBS.
Antiquity of Proverbs amongst all Nations.-Proverbs in the Middle Ages.-Solomon and Marcoul.
-The Philosophers' Proverbs.-Rural and Vulgar Proverbs.-Guillaume de Tignonville.Proverbs of the Villeins. —" Dit de l'Apostoile."-Historical Proverbs.-Proverbs in Works
of Prose and Verse.-French Proverbs in the Sixteenth Century.-Foreign Proverbs.-The
Use of Proverbs.-Constable de Bourbon's Collection of Proverbs.
HE   popular sayings which compose what
thati of th pairhas been called the "ancient wisdom             of
nations  are of all times and of all lands,
for proverbs are to be found in the early
language of all nations; but they belong
alil clase         especially to the Middle Ages, which had
collected and preserved them as a precious
legacy of the early ages and peoples in the
world's history.
Every nation   gives its own    special
impress, so to speak, to its familiar proverbs.
The Italian proverb is witty and subtle;
that of the Spaniards haughty and bold. The French proverb is incisive
and satirical: originating in the lower classes, it very often attacks the rich and
the powerful, and not unfrequently is expressed in language the liberty of which
has developed into license. In England, Germany, and in all Northern nations
the proverbs are severe, cold, formal, and pedantic.  The proverb is used by
all classes of society to characterize an individual act, or some general or specific
occurrence, as occasion requires. It is never explained, but always understood.
Proverbs passed, as by a natural transition, from speech into writing, and
they are very abundant in the first works written in French, though the
worb proverb itself does not appear to be of earlier date than the thirteenth
century.  Before this period, the word proverbium, though used by all authors




326                           PROVERBS.
who wrote good Latin, had no better equivalent in French than respit or
reprovier.  In the oldest version of the Bible, in the twelfth century, the
passage in the First Book of Kings (chap. xix.), "UTnde et exivit proverbium," the word proverlbitm is translated respit.
The Bible was then The Book, which was read and learnt by heart before
any other, and which served as a type for various literary compositions.  It
is only natural, therefore, that King Solomon, who may be said to have given
the model for this kind of literature in his Book of Proverbs, should have
been regarded as an oracle to be consulted with respect in the Middle Ages.
Besides, the Jewish legend which represented Solomon as the King of Magic,
and which made him supreme over the whole of nature, had become an article
of faith with the Christians as well as with the Jews. According to this legend,
the Queen of the Ants settled one day upon the hand of the King of Israel,
and revealed to him the secrets of eternal truth.  One of the first collections of French proverbs, published in the Middle Ages, was dedicated to
Solomon, who is represented in it as the type of Divine wisdom, opposite
to a man named Marcol, or MCarcoul, who is the representative of human reason
(Fig. 277). There is a dialogue in rhyme between the two. The Israelitish
King utters some weighty saying, and Marcol answers him with an analogous
axiom embodying the rough common sense of the people, and generally
expressed in homely language. The " Dictz (sayings) de Salomon et Marcol,"
originally composed in Latin, were translated into all languages during the
Middle Ages, and the French version probably dates from the twelfth century.
One verse of it runs"' Qui sages hom sera
Ici trop ne parlera.'
Ce dist Salomon.
Qui ja mot ne dira
Grand noise (dispute) ne fera.'
Marcol lui respont."
The popularity of these rhymed proverbs, which were continually being
revised, added to, and modified, is proved by the multitude of editions which
appeared at the close of the fifteenth century. It is probable that the original
Latin was written, in the tenth or eleventh century, by a student in the
ecclesiastical schools of Paris, which undertook to vulgarise in this way the




PRO VERB S.                           3277
Book of Proverbs and the Book of Wisdom, which latter was also attribute4
to Solomon.


Fig.277-Solmof andMaroulFac-simile of a Wood Engraving in the "'Dczd Salomon
et Mlarcoul."-Editionl of the Fifteenth Century.-Inl the National Library, Paris.
It is very- probable, also, that this name of Marcol, or Mlarcoul, or Marcon,




328


PRO VERBS.


given to the second person in the dialogue, was no other than Marcus, a celebrated philosopher of the Middle Ages, who was believed to be Marcus
Porcius Cato, called the Censor, or Marcus Cato, his son, who were considered
to be the joint authors of the " Moral Distiches " (" Disticha de Moribus ")
which had since the seventh century been employed as works of education,
but which should rather be attributed to a monk named Valerius or Dionysius, and surnamed Cato.  The celebrity of these distiches, which were read
and expounded in the schools, remained as great as ever all through the
Middle Ages. They were more than once translated, paraphrased, or imitated
in French verse during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and they were
frequently reprinted in verse during the fifteenth century under the title of
the " Grand Chaton," and again at the beginning of the sixteenth, by Peter
Grosnet, under the title of "Motz dores du grand et saige Caton."
There was also in the twelfth century another collection of proverbs, or of
proverbial philosophy, which long had a great reputation in the schools, and
which was several times translated into French for the use of the upper as of
the lower classes, neither of which had much knowledge of Latin.  This
collection, known as the "Philosophers' Proverbs," contained a selection of
sayings (sentences) in verse, most of which were apocryphal, attributed to the
most noted personages of ancient times, and in particular to various Greek
and Latin authors who were comprised in the category of philosophers. Thus
Virgil, Ovid, and Horace appeared in this compilation between Moses and
Solomon upon the one hand, and Homer and JEsop upon the other (Fig. 278).
Afterwards these moral sayings were translated into French with the title of
"Dits des Philosophes," but though they doubtless had some resemblance
to certain passages of the authors to whom they were attributed, they had
more in common, when moulded into verse, with the dialogue of Solomon and
Marcoul, as the following lines, which claim to be an imitation of Juvenal,
will show:
"Tant vaut amour comme argent dure:
Quant argent fault (manque), amour est nule.
Qui despent le sien follement,
Si n'est ames (aime) de nule gent."
In the fifteenth century, Guillaume de Tignonville, Provost of Paris, in
the reign of Charles VI. found time, amidst his other numerous occupations,




PRO VERBS.


329


to make a fresh translation of the "Dits des Philosophes" in verse, with
numerous additions, to which he appended biographical notices in prose
of the philosophers, amongst whom he included not only warriors like
Alexander the Great and Ptolemy, King of Egypt, but imaginary personages, such as Simicratis, Fonydes, Archasan, and Longinon. His book
was a great success, for, in addition to the many manuscripts with
miniatures, the printers of the fifteenth century published several editions
of it.
These different collections of proverbs, attributed to such famous men as


Fig. 278.-The Wolf cheating the Donkey.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving from the
"Dyalogue des Creatures" (Gouda, Gerart Leeu, 1482, in folio).-In the Library of M. Ambroise
Firmin-Didot, Paris.
Solomon, Cato, and the ancient Greek and Latin philosophers, may be looked
upon as the fruits of scholastic erudition and literary invention, while other
collections, which had an equally great success at the same period, seem to
emanate more directly from the homely good sense and native wit of the
people, with all their facetious and picturesque qualities. It is not necessary
to mention more than three or four of these collections, which, in spite of




330


PRO VERBS.


their immense popularity at the time, were not, with one exception, reproduced
by the printers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They are, however,
original proverbs, which owe nothing to the writers of Greece or of Rome, and
which bear the Gallic stamp of our ancestors. The oldest of these collections
is entitled, "Vulgar and Moral Proverbs." It is satisfactory to find that
the six hundred proverbs which an unknown hand put together five or six
centuries ago still display, notwithstanding the change which has taken place
in manners, ideas, and even in language, a clear and plain text which, with
the exception of a few differences in spelling, might be understood by the
general body of modern readers. Some of these proverbs are: "Mieux vaut
un tien que deux tu l'auras " (A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush);
"Ki donne tost il donne deux fois" (Bis dat, qui cito dat); "Ki plus a plus
convoite " (The more one has the more one wants); " Qui petit a petit perd "
(He who possesses little can lose little); "II fait mal esveiller le chien qui
dort" (It is well to let a sleeping dog lie); "On oblie plus tost le mal que le
bien" (An evil action is remembered longer than a good one).
The second selection, which must have been contemporary with the above,
seems to have contained more homely proverbs, expressed in blunter terms.
This piece, entitled "Proverbes aux Vilains," is divided into unequal stanzas
of six, eight, or nine lines of rhyme, and some stanzas comprise several proverbs, others only one. This collection forms a pell-mell of old saws which
the people were very fond of repeating, and which enlivened them amidst
their sorrows and labours. In order fully to understand the meaning of these
proverbs, the tone of which is a mixture of grave and gay, it is necessary
first to understand the proper meaning of the word villein, which was, as a
rule, taken in bad part, as synonymous with coward, poltroon, full of envy,
do-nothing, &c. The villein was the man of the people in the worst acceptation
of the term, as the subjoined proverb will show:"Oignez villain, il vous poindra.
Poignez villain, il vous oindra...
Villain affame dery enrage...
Villain enrichy ne connoist pas d'amis."
The third collection does not date so far back as the two previous ones,
though it consists of ancient proverbs in prose, with the title, " Common
Proverbs," of which there are about seven hundred and fifty, arranged ill




PRO VE RBS.


331


alphabetical order by J. de la Veprie, prior of Clairvaux. The name of the
compiler is a guarantee for the decency of these proverbs, and this perhaps
was one of the causes of the success of this little collection, of which several
Gothic editions appeared at the close of the fifteenth century.


Fig. 279.-A Court Jester.-Miniature from a French Bible.-Manuscript of the Fifteenth
Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
The "Dit de l'Apostoile," which must be mentioned, though it is in
reality a collection of popular sayings rather than of proverbs, is of much less
ancient date, belonging as it probably does to the thirteenth century.      The




332


PRO VERBS.


"Apostoile" (apostle) is the name vulgarly given to the Pope, and it is
the Pope who, in this piece of verse, decides as to the titles and epithets


Fig. 280.-Device of Louis XII., King of
France (1498-1515). A Porcupine;
with the Motto, " Cominus et eminus "
(From far and near). This was the device of his grandfather, who, in 1397,
instituted the Order of the Porcupine.


Fig. 281.-Francois I., King of France (1515 -1547).-A  Salamander amidst the Flames,
with the Motto, "Nutrisco et extinguo" (I
feed on it and extinguish it). It was the
popular belief that this salamander lived in
the fire, and could extinguish it.


which are suitable to the principal
countries of Europe. These epithets


towns of France and the different
accord with the origin, the customs,


Fig. 282.-Device of the Flemish Gueux (1566). —A Wallet held by two Hands clasped,
with the Motto, "Jusques ' porter la besace."
the physical position, the moral state, and the special characteristics of
the town or country.     The veritable physiognomy of persons and things is




PRO VERBS.


333


expressed by proverbial sayings, and this feudal society is faithfully represented in this simple enumeration: " Concile d'Apostoile," " Parliaments of
the King," "Assembly of Chevaliers," "Company of Clerks," "Beuverie
de Bourgeois," " Crowd of Villeins," &c. We see that at that time proverbs
were couched in a very few words, but those few expressing a great deal.
The transition from these plain proverbs, which express some moral truth
or ordinary idea, to the historical proverb (Figs. 280 and 281), which mentions
some remarkable event to celebrate the name of any remarkable person, or
contains an allusion to the special characteristics of a country, a province, or
a town, is a very natural one. One might imagine that the people were bent
upon writing in this concrete and striking shape the history of the facts
which seemed worth remembering.
The ancient proverbs relating to France are numerous, for there is
not a town or a village which has not one referring to it. In the " Dit de
l'Apostoile " are to be found six concerning the Flemish (Fig. 282), five about
the Gascons, eighteen about the Normans, twelve about Orleans, thirty
about Paris, and so forth.   Each of these proverbs would afford matter
for an interesting dissertation from the double point of view of history and
philosophy.
We have already (see chapter on the Science of Heraldry) spoken of the
heraldic devices and mottoes, but there are also a certain number of popular
sayings which relate to the nobility of the ancient provinces of France. For
Burgundy:Riche de Chalons,
Noble de Vienne,
Preux de Vergy,
Fin de Neuchatel,
Et la maison de Beaufremont
D'ott sont sortis les bons barons."
For Brittany:"AntiquitO de Penhoet,
Vaillatce de Chastel,
Richesse de Kerman,
Chevalerie de Kergournadec."
These are allusions to the qualities of the different places and families
mentioned.
The proverbs relating to the names of men of ancient or modern times




334


PRO VERBS.


have, as a rule, some satirical meaning:-" Old as Herod;" "Homer sometimes
nods;" " Hippocrates says yes, and Galen says no."
But a better idea can be formed of the tendency of the French proverbs
which were current in the Middle Ages, and which held their own almost
intact until the middle of the sixteenth century, by quoting a few of them
which, with slight alterations in spelling, are still in use:' A beau parleur closes oreilles.
A chacun oiseau son nid lui est beau.
A dur ane dur aguillon.
Aide-toi, Dieu te aidera (God helps those who help themselves).
Amis valent mieux que argent.
A Dieu, a pere et a maitre, nul ne peut rendre equivalent.
Au besoin voit-on l'ami (A friend in need is a friend indeed).
Besoin fait vieille trotter.
Bon coeur ne peut mentir.
Bienfaict n'est jamais perdu.
Bonne vie embellit.
Borgne est roy entre aveugles (Amongst the blind the one-eyed man is king).
Gain de cordonnier entre par l'huis et ist (sort) par le fumier.
Ce n'est pas or tout ce qui luit (All is not gold that glitters).
Celuy sqait assez qui vit bien.
De brebis comptees mange bien le loup.
De nouveau tout est beau.
Diligence passe science.
La faim chasse le loup hors bois.
La nuit porte conseil.
La plus mechante roue du char crie toujours.
Les petits sont sujets aux lois, les grands en font a leur guise.
L'eau dormant vault pis que l'eau courant (Still waters run deep).
Tout vray n'est pas bon a dire (The truth is not always welcome).
Trop parler nuit, trop grater cuit.
Vin vieux, ami vieux et or vieux sont aimes en tous lieux (Old wine, old friends, and old gold
are always appreciated)."
There can be no doubt that proverbs were at one time much used in
common parlance, and this must have lent an originality and a piquancy to
conversation. The proverb, which represented, so to speak, general opinion,
was perpetually recurring in conversation, which was animated by being thus
impregnated with the personal thought of the speaker. Most of the proverbs
originated with the people, but they were used by the nobles and the bourgeois,
and they soon passed from conversation into writing, and were quoted by the
greatest authors.
Thus in the thirteenth century many sermons and many pieces of poetry




PRO VERBS.


335


began with a proverb, or even by several proverbs. The Trouvere, Chrestien
de Troyes, commences his description of the Quest of the Holy Grail, in the
romance entitled "Perceval," with the following proverbs:
" Qui petit seme petit cuelt,
Et qui onques recoillir voelt,
En tel lieu sa semance espande
Que fruit a cent dobles li rande:
Car en terre qui rien ne vault,
Bonne semance i seche et fault."
The same author also commences his romance of "Erie et Enide" with the
proverb"Li villains dist, en son respit,
Que tel chose a l'en en despit,
Qui mult valt mielx que l'on no cuide."
The example of the celebrated Chrestien de Troyes was naturally followed
by his contemporaries, and the author of the well-known romance, " Baudoin
de Sebourc, third King of Jerusalem," terminates each stanza of his long
poem with a proverb.   He in his turn was imitated by several writers, and
there are many pieces of poetry, dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, in which the proverb recurs at the end of each stanza; amongst
others, in the "Complainte" of twenty-two couplets, which the Paris students
composed, in 1381, against Hugh Aubriot, Provost of Paris, out of spite
for his severity towards them, and also in the ballad against the English,
which was written in verse by Alain Chartier (1449), after the capture of
Fougeres.
Another proof of the large place given to proverbs in the very best books
is to be found in the old "Chronique de Rains," the author of which is not
known to us, though of all the historic writings of the thirteenth century his
are at once the most remarkable for their veracity and dramatic style.  The
author could not have witnessed the events in the reign of Philip Augustus
and of St. Louis which he describes, yet he reproduces the true characteristics of the period when he typifies the principal occurrences by means
of plain proverbs. After pointing out the imprudence of the King of
Spain, who attacked the doughty Richard Coeur-de-Lion, King of England,
he comes to the conclusion that "tant grate chievre, que mal gist;" and in




336


PRO VERBS.


another part, when he represents Philip Augustus as having set out with a
small escort, thinking that Richard had not yet disembarked in France,
he borrows from the "Dit des Villains" a proverb afterwards put in the
mouth of Sancho Panza: "En un muis de quidance, n'a pas plein pot de
sapience."
Proverbs were applied to history (see Figs. 283 and 284), and they also
had a large place in the comic theatre of the fifteenth century. The farce of
Maitre Pathelin, attributed alternately to Pierre Blanchet and to Francois
Villon, abounds in vulgar proverbs, which add great zest to the dialogue.
The lawyer Pathelin goes off with a piece of cloth, which the shopkeeper


Fig. 283.-Device of Louis, Duke of Orleans
(1406).-A knotted Stick, with the Motto,
"Je l'envy," a term used in the game of
dice, signifying, "I utter defiance."  This
was meant as a defiance to Jean sans Peur.


Fig. 284.-Device of Jean sans Peur, Duke of
Burgundy (1406).-A Plane, with the
Motto, in Flemish, "Hic houd" (I have
him), which was a reply to the challenge
of the Duke of Orleans.


Guillaume is induced, by his specious talk, to sell him on credit; but though
he succeeds in satisfying even the judge that he had not cheated the shopkeeper, he is in turn made the dupe of a humble shepherd, whom he had
taught how to hoodwink the judge, and obtain an acquittal for a robbery even
more impudent than his own. The moral of the comedy is comprised in the
proverb" Or n'es'-il si fort entendeur
Qui ne trouve plus fort vendeur."




PRO VERBS.


337


It may be said of this farce, which was in great favour when first written,
that each line is redolent of Gallic proverbs, and that for more than three
centuries the people of Paris adopted the proverbial sayings which it contains.
Moreover, most of the farces played by the Pont-Alais troupe, by the clerks
of the Basoche, by the brotherhood of the Mere Sotte, and by other strolling
bands, were full of common and vulgar proverbs which excited the hearty
laughter of the audience.
The proverb also prevailed in all kinds of poetry, and especially in
that which   addressed itself to the people.   Francois Villon, himself
a true Parisian, bore this in mind when he inserted in his two "Testaments" a number of popular sayings and adages which        had become,
or were fitted to become, proverbs. Indeed, his ballads are, in reality,
an ingenious paraphrase of the rhymed proverb which forms the refrain,
as in the ballad "Dames du temps jadis," which contains the oft-quoted
lineMais oi sont les neiges d'antan?"
(Where are last year's snows?)
It is not surprising that Pierre Gringoire, who had long been at the head
of the dramatic association of the Mere Sotte, before becoming herald of arms
at the court of Lorraine, gave a large place to proverbs in all his works.
Mlany of his poetical compositions are merely collections of rhymed proverbs;
amongst others, the "Menus Propos," the "Abus du Monde," and especially
the "Fantaisies de Mere Sotte."  This last collection, the best known of all
terminates thus:
"Femme est l'ennemy de l'amy,
Femme est peche inevitable,
Femme est familier ennemy,
Femme d6,oit plus que le diable...
Femme est tempeste de maison...
Femme est le serpent des serpen."...
Prince Charles of Orleans, who was a court poet, and who composed
nothing but ballads and roundelays for the young nobles and young dames of
France and England, did not think it undignified to embody in them several
popular proverbs, which were pearls picked up from the dungheap. Amongst
others, he quoted the proverbx x




7-n Try TZ  t 7 -17>7- 


338                            FI   UVLYB'5.
"    Jeu qi trop dure ne vaut rien..
I1 convient que trop parler nuise..
Chose qui plaist est a moitie vendue.".. 
When in the fifteenth century French literature began to abound with
tales, stories, joyettx deris, nmenus propos, paradoxes, and other works known
under the general title of faceties, proverbs naturally took their place in the
list as being quite in harmony with the genius and tendencies of the people:
so much so, that skilful prose-writers became rather too fond of embodying
proverbs in their works, and many of these adages are enshrined in Antoine
de la Sale's novel, "Jehan de Saintre," and in the "Cent Nouvelles nouvelles,"
Fig. 2S5.-Shoemaker fitting a Shoe.-Copied after one of the Stalls called Misericordes in the
Choir of Rouen Cathedral (Fifteenth Century).
by King Louis XI.     In tle taste for proverbs the sixteenth century was not
behind its predecessors, and poets such as Clement Marot and Antoine de
Baif, narrators such as Rabelais and Noel Dufail, polemical writers such as
Henry Estienne, and satirists like the author of the " Satyre Menippee," were
very well versed in this science.    The proverb, in fact, may be termed the
passport of all true ideas, which, expressed as a proverb, assumed, as it was
thought, a more striking and vivid shape, and became better impressed upon
the memory.




PRO VERBS.


339


Looking to what took place in other parts of Europe, we find that proverbial literature was alike fruitful, though in each case the produce was of
native growth, Spain and Italy being the countries whose proverbs have the
greatest similarity to those of France. England had not so many proverbs,
but those of English origin are specially remarkable for that Britannic
humour which is not to be met with elsewhere, and which lends great originality to her proverbs.  Such are: "If one knew what prices were going
to rise, one would not need to be in trade more than a year;" " Exchange
is no robbery;" "God sent us meat, and the devil sent the cooks;" "The
devil makes his Christmas pudding with attorneys' fingers and lawyers'
tongues."
Fig. 286.-The Shoemaker and his Customer.-Copied after one of the Stalls called Misericordes
in the Choir of Rouen Cathedral (Fifteenth Century).
In painting, sculpture (Figs. 285 and 286), and in nearly all other
branches of art were reproduced the figurative expressions implied by proverbs. Pictures, drawings, engravings, and tapestry were all employed in the
interpretation of these proverbs, which were also to be found engraved upon
the blades of swords and of daggers, and upon the helmets and breast-plates.
Medals and counters were coined with proverbs on them, and they were also
worn in the shape of embroidered sashes and scarfs by persons of both




340


PRO VERBS.


sexes. They were inserted, also, in the stained-glass windows, and upon the
carved furniture (Fig. 287), as also upon drinking-glasses and other articles of
daily use. One of the rooms in Agnes Sorel's Chateau de Beaute was paved
with squares of painted delf, upon which were inscribed witty proverbs. Many
shopkeepers' sign-boards displayed proverbs suitable to their trade, and it was
the custom of booksellers and printers to add a proverb to the tokens which


Fig. 287.-A Comb, made of Carved Wood, of the Fifteenth Century. Upon one side are the words
"Prenes en gie," and upon the other, " Ce petit doun."-In the Collection of M. Achille
Jubinal.-In the centre of the inscription is a puzzle, relresenting a flower, a flaming heart,
and an arm holding a dart, with the two 1~ tters M. P. It was colloquially said of a passionate
man that he wou'd kill a mercer for a comb.
they placed upon the title-page of their books (Figs. 288, 289, and 293).
Some of these proverbs were facetious, but most of them         were of a graver
kind
There are to be found in several public libraries various collections of pro



PR0 VERBS.


341


Beneath this riddle is the following explanation -
"Let us salute Mary praying for Jesus on the cross;
Let us hope for his peace in our hearts.
I have given my heart to God.
I hope to gain Paradise,
Praise be to God."
Fig. 288.-Riddle taken from the " Heures de Nostredame," printed by Guillaume Godait,
Bookseller at Paris, in 1513.
verbs, represented      by  miniatures or drawings executed            with   the pen, and
doing great honour to the talents of their unknown authors; but we will only
mention out of all these a curious collection of water-colour drawings
Fig. 289.-Token of Jehan de Brie, in the "Heures a l'usaige de Paris," printed by Jehan
Bignon in 1512.-This strange riddle is to be translated, "In vico sancti Jacobi, a la
Limace. Cy me vend et ach6te."




34-7 -

3{2             ~~~~~PRO0 VERBS.


Fig. 290.-Drawings of Proverbs, Adages, &c.-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (No. 4,316,Fonds La Valli're, 44).-In the National Library, Paris.


executed by the Constable de Bourbon, at the beginning of Francis I.'s
reign, and now preserved in the Paris National Library (Fonds La Vallie~re,
Department of Manuscripts). This handsome book contains sixty-one


F111 --I --- — l    )       '- -
, I-)4
1. \t"
-, ---- i


SPH


1411, -i9k,  \
1
"I I -,


"ThDeu veult soumentesfois penynettre          Quoy qu'il en pent advenir, mettre
L'hommne ptlrir, qui dist: Je venIx,        La charette devant les boeufs.'"
Pig. 291.-Drawings of Proverbs, Adages, &c.-Mannscript of the Fifteenth Centnry (No. 4,316,
Fonds La l7alhi~re, 44).-In the National Library, Paris.




PRO0 VERBS.33


34-3


proverbs illustrated with great ingenuity.      He whom     the artist has surnamed " Margaritas ante poreos " (a proverb taken f rom the Old Testament), is
represented by a herd of pigs upsetting a basket of flowers (Fig. 290), with
the French distich-.1Belles rai-ons qid sont mal entendues
Ressemblent fleurs 'a pourceaux estendues."


" Je suis Fauveau qui d~sire h teute heure
Estre estrill6 et devant et darrike.
De m.'estriller qui ne scet ii maniZ're
A coup pert temps et trop en vain labeure."


Fig. 292.-Drawings of Proverbs, Adages, &c.-M1anuseript of the Fifteenth Century (No. 4,316,
Fends La Vallie're, 44).-In the National Library, Paris.




344


PR O VERBS.


Amongst the other striking compositions in this collection are those which
relate to the following proverbs (Fig. 291):-" Tant va le pot a l'eau, qu'il
brise" (The pitcher may go to the well once too often); " Mal sur mal n'est
pas sante  (Two wrongs do not make a right); "En forgeant on devient
forgeron;" "A petit mercier petit panier."  Each proverb in this collection
has a rhymed quatrain explaining the drawing. The inscription in verse
which is placed at the foot of Constable Bourbon's portrait informs us that
this collection, commenced during his lifetime, was not completed until after
his death, so that it is a sort of monument raised by the poet and the artist to
his memory.
o F


F-4(


Fig. 293.-Token of Michel Fezandat, Printer at Paris (1552), with a Proverbial Device
attributed to Rabelais.




LANGUAGES.
The Origin of Languages.-Decadence of the Latin Language.-The Celtic and Teutonic
Languages.-The Rustic Language.-Common Neo-Latin Dialects.-First Evidences of
the French Language.-The Oath of Louis the German in 842.-Laws of William the
Conqueror.-The Oc and Oil Languages.-Poem of Boethius.-The "Chanson de Roland."Fabliaux.-The "Romance of the Rose."-Villehardouin.-The Sire de Joinville.-Froissart
-Influence of Flemish Writers.-Antoine de la Sale.-The "Cent Nouvelles nouvelles" and
Villon. —lellenism and Italianism.-Clement Marot and Rabelais.-Ronsard, Montaigne
and Malherbe.
O soon as a language has reached the stage
of making the task    of understanding
it a difficult one, the dissolution of the
social elements is not far off.... Babel
is symbolic of the destiny of languages."
We take this remark from     the work of
M. Francis Wey on the "Variations of the
French Language," in which he points out
that idioms, like everything else mortal,
_ Q     |_          have their periods of rise and fall, and that
a time arrives when they are rendered
diffuse by neologism, or decomposed by the influence of equivocation.
6  The history of the confusion of tongues, as described by Moses in the
Book of Genesis, might be looked upon as typical of what happened in Europe
when the Roman people endeavoured to establish their dominion over all the
lands which they had conquered by means of their language, which was to
be the social cement of the whole nationality. "And the whole earth was of
one language and of one speech..... And the Lord came down to see the
city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said,
Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they
begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they
have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their
y Y




346


LA NGUA GES.


language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord
scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they
left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because
the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth" (Fig. 294).
In the beginning of the fifth century the empire of the Cesars had
become, like Babel, a vast ruin; the Latin tongue, which since the Roman
conquest and occupation had been the legal, religious, civil, and administrative
language of nearly all Europe, was invaded by the barbarian tongues, as the
soil was by the savage hordes which, from the heart of Asia, the extremities
of Germany, and the unknown regions of the North, poured in upon the
Roman world. From this epoch dates the origin of the languages of modern
Europe (Fig. 295), which were formed out of a mixture of the idiom of the
invader with the Iatin tongue, which latter had become too deeply rooted in the
usages of ordinary life to be extirpated altogether. It is true that the classic
language of Livy, Cicero, and Sallust was only spoken and understood by the
upper classes of society, but the other classes used a rustic language which
varied with the district and population, but which was derived from the true
Latin tongue.  This rustic language (lingua Romana) consisted of an infinity
of dialects proceeding from one and another, and differing, some more, some
less, from the mother tongue.
The Celtic language also comprised a certain number of dialects, which
existed amongst the Gauls at the epoch of the expeditions of Caesar, and which
were, as he says in his "Commentaries," merely variations of the same
language.  Strabo also says that the Gauls everywhere used a single native
language, merely modified by differences of dialect.  Moreover, the Celtic
language simply underwent certain modifications, under the influence of the
Latin language, when the latter became exclusively the political or official
language of the Roman colony. The Emperors established in the principal
cities of Gaul, notably at Lyons, Autun, and Besancon, schools in which the
Latin language was taught, and the most earnest efforts were made to propagate it not only in the aristocratic classes, but amongst the people, who
were more stubborn in the retention of their national idiom.  This policy of
the Romans was very successful.  Not only did the Gallo-Romans rush into
servitude, as Tacitus expresses it, but they took willingly to the language of
their conquerors, with the exception of a few unavoidable errors of pronunciation and the introduction of a few Celtic words into the Latin




1LA NG UA GES.


347


vocabulary. In short, when the Barbarians established themselves in
Gaul, all the inhabitants, except a few
country-people, had for centuries used
a bastard lingua Romana. These Barbarians imported new idiomatic elements into this hybrid language, as
modified by the Gauls, but they could
not destroy it, and Latin remained the
foundation or root of French.
Moreover, the Gauls had no written
history or literature, with the exception of a few war songs and religious
hymns, which stood then in room of
national archives, and which were preserved in the memory of the Druids
and the heads of families. The Celtic
language, not having received the
consecration of literary works which
would have insured its perpetuation,
tended inevitably to dissolution and
disuse.  This law of dissolution had


Fig. 294.-Construction of the Tower of
Babel, in the Valley of Senaar, by
the Descendants of Noah.-Miniature
from a Manuscript of the Fiiteenth
Century.-National Library, Paris.


probably taken effect by the time that the Franks, after their repeated




3+8


LANGUA GES.


invasions of Gaul, had at length established themselves in the territory which
they had conquered. The men of letters, the ecclesiastics, and the patricians
still spoke Latin, but of a very mongrel and sometimes unintelligible kind.
Only those who had studied in the academies of Lyons, Vienne, Narbonne,
and Aquitaine were familiar with the principles of the language, and were
able to write it without making any gross faults of grammar (Fig. 296).


Fig. 295.-The Institution of Languages.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the " Margarita
Philosophica Nova," Argcntoratum, J. Gruninger, 1512, in quarto.-In the Arsenal Library,
Paris.
But the general language used was the lingua Romana, and in this vulgar
tongue were written works of prose-probably works of poetry as well-which
have not survived to our day.
The Franks had such a great respect for the Roman institutions that, far




LAAG UA GES.


349


from attempting to destroy them, they generally left undisturbed the political
and administrative organization of the Gauls. This is why the Latin tongue
continued to be under Frankish dominion the general language of the people
(tpluralittr         o oamrmut timL           ml n o,
rrantur. fittrwo         a ottoft mt     ont      LX. rtplfnralttrr orranutmornmnao
zoontuz. ~ptatmn               r mobts trmpot
roorrri       ar ufrit'l titorrrrte tiormO
tur      utrtrn~ttirn antlr Zomrruu
mt ~rpltOr      alirrvanar. l.ourrut rr
orrilitl          o rr nf.itStrr    i   to pjrft  r
m atpltl rztrfrmt untlam bn ai r
Dm urlfinilnn fItie u flfiuvffc rf1t u
fitilrct.~tpttraltr utnan o(min ef
tlu    udfatisnn~t r"antta ul fiU laftt
reflitnuelfui fient4i.futur       o utinamo nr
arloreanr u el ocreare lo at. EtplW
UrnnmtuOwanwmutw' rnamuttr stan~i
Conflunmuo tnotoo             tmpott pMrIrnt
Fig. 296.-Specitlen of a page of the " Grammaire Latine," by 1lius Donatus, a grammarian of
the Fourth Century.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving for the Xylographical Edition,
published at Mayence, by Gutenberg.-This Wood Engraving was preserved in the Library
of the Due de la VYlliere.
(Fig. 296), and it was a more refined and learned language as spoken by the
public officials, the clergy, and the magistracy. The Franks used the Teutonic
language amongst themselves until they were converted to Christianity after
the example of their king (Clovis). Thenceforward their regular intercourse




350


LANGUA GES.


with the ecclesiastics who instructed them in their new religion led to their
learning the Latin language, and speaking it more or less correctly. Being
endowed with a lively intelligence and ready wit, they were not long in
acquiring a knowledge of a new language which recommended itself to them
as having about it the halo of Roman greatness.
In fine, the French language is composed of three perfectly distinct
elements-Celtic, Germanic, and Latin; the last, however, being by far the
most predominant.  There are not more than a thousand words of Germanic
origin in the French language, and far fewer of Celtic origin. Nearly all
the rest are Latin, and it has been said with perfect truth that " French is
merely a patois of Latin."
From the time of Clovis the progress made by Latin was very rapid. The
laws of the Franks, as of the other barbarian people who invaded the Roman
empire, were written in Latin; not, it is true, in scholarly Latin, but in what
was called the setrmo quotidianeus, or every-day language, so termed because
everybody understood and spoke it.  It is true that the Teutonic language
continued to be spoken by the Frankish tribes which occupied the banks of the
Rhine and the provinces of Germania; but the Franks under Clovis and the
other kings or chiefs who had established themselves at Orleans, Paris, and
Soissons, soon adopted the vulgar Latin as their language.
The leudes, or great vassals, either out of indolence or pride, adhered for a
longer period to their national language, and it was probably in use amongst
the upper classes as late as Charlemagne's reign. The kings of the first race,
in order to gain the sympathies of the Gallo-Roman population, nevertheless
assumed to feel an interest in the progress of the Latin vulgar tongue. Thus
two centuries earlier, the Gauls, who still spoke Celtic, endeavoured, according
to the expression of Sidonius Apollinaris, "to rid themselves of the rust of this
ancient language, in order to make themselves familiar with the graces of the
beautiful Latin language." Chilperic I., King of Soissons, in the middle of the
sixth century, plumed himself upon imitating in his speeches the rhetoric of
the most learned Romans. He endeavoured to develop the study of the Latin
tongue in his dominions, and as his subjects could not manage to reproduce
the sounds of the Teutonic idiom with the letters of the Roman alphabet, he
suggested the use of certain Greek and Hebrew letters which lent themselves
better to the intonations of the Frankish tongue. Contemporary with him,
Caribert, King of Paris, set up the pretension of being learned in jurispru



LANGUA GES.


35'


dence, and of expressing himself in the language of Cicero with the eloquence
of a true Roman. Bishop Fortunatus addressed him some Latin verses complimenting him on speaking Latin as if he had been a Roman born, instead
of being of Sicambric origin.  The poet added, "What must be your
eloquence when you speak your mother tongue, you who are more eloquent
than we ourselves in ours! "
But, for all these fulsome eulogies, there was scarcely, perhaps, a single
person capable of writing and speaking classical Latin correctly in the GalloRoman provinces of which the Franks were wasters, though the Teutonic
language had been almost universally succeeded by the rustic or vulgar
tongue.
Gregory of Tours, whose " History of the Franks" throws so much light
upon this remote epoch, confesses in one of his works ("De Gloria Confessorum ") that he was almost completely ignorant of the rules of Latin, and
he admits to having frequently confused genders and cases, used the feminine
for the masculine or neuter, and the ablative for the accusative, and neglected
the rules as to prepositions.  The text of his valuable chronicle, written
between the years 573 and 593, is, as a matter of fact, full of inaccuracies,
though the early copyists corrected some of the most glaring blunders out of
respect for the memory of the illustrious Bishop of Tours.
From the time of Chilperic to that of Charlemagne the true Latin
language gradually degenerated amongst the Franks, notwithstanding the
praiseworthy efforts of the monks to preserve it, as if it were a sacred ark,
in their monasteries. Upon the other hand, the vulgar tongue, consisting of
mongrel Latin and Latinised Teutonic, continued to spread amongst the
population.  Charlemagne, who spoke this language before he learned
grammatical Latin, was much vexed at this decadence. What pained him
the most was to find that bishops and other dignitaries of the Church were
incapable of reading the Bible in the Vulgate. He accordingly instituted the
Palatine School, under the direction of Alcuin, with the view of purifying
ecclesiastical Latin. His peers and his barons, his leudes and his military
officers, retained their Teutonic language, but his personal influence was none
the less favourable to the preservation of the Latin tongue, which became the
language of the Church, and which profited by the written works of sacred
literature.
In addition to the literary Latin which was not used in conversation, but




352


I A VG UA GES.


in books and public documents, there were only two general languages
throughout the whole of Charlemagne's vast empire-Romance and Teutonic.
The most ancient monument which we possess in the middle of the ninth
century is the double oath which Charles the Bald, King of France, and
Louis the German, leagued against their brother, the Emperor Lothair, took
in presence of their armies upon the 14th of February, 842. It will be
sufficient for present purposes to cite the oath taken by Louis the German in
Romance, in order to be heard and understood by the army of Charles,
which was composed of Franks and Gallo-Romans from Neustria, Aquitaine,
and other Southern regions: —"Pro Deo amur et pro Christian poblo, et
nostro commun salvament, d'ist di en avant, in quant Deus savir ct podir me
dunat, si salvarai eo cist meon fradre Carle, et in adjudha, et in cadhuna
nosa, si cum om per dreit son fradre salvar dist, in o quid il mi altresi fazet.
Et ab Ludher nul plaid numquam prindrai, qui, meon vol, cist meon fradre
Karle in damno sit."
This was the vulgar tongue as spoken in the greater part of France at
this period, and it is worthy of remark that nearly all the words in the above
document are taken, disfigured in pronunciation or spelling, from the Latin.
Thus the common language was rustic Latin; the Romance formed from a
fusion of Celtic, German, and Latin. This was the language of France, and
the Germans called France "Latin" (Fr4ancia Latina), because this language,
which was only a hybrid product of the Latin tongue, was spoken there.
According to Luitprand, an historian of the tenth century, Gaul was always
named Francia Romana, and a later writer says that this denomination was
not given to France on account of Rome, but because of the Romance
language spoken there ("sic dicta, non a Roma, sed a lingua Romana").
And this is how the Franks of Gaul came to be called Francs Latin (Latin
Franks).
Still the Gallic nobles, as the great lords of the soil called themselves,
protested against this general invasion of the Latin vulgar tongue. The
Emperor Lothair, son of Louis the Mild, had steadfastly refused to learn
Latin, even the vulgar tongue, and his father had endeavoured to preserve
the use of the Teutonic language in his states by means of a decree to the
effect that the Bible should be translated into this language, which had few
representatives out of Germany itself. At the Council of Tours (813) the
bishops furthered the intentions of Charlemagne's successor by expressing




LANG UA GES.


353


their desire that the homilies of the Church should be translated simultaneously both into Teutonic and Romance (Fig. 297).
The Teutonic language none the less disappeared at the end of the tenth
century, for Duke Hugh Capet, before he became the first king of the third
race, during an interview with the Emperor Otho II., who spoke in pure
Latin so as to make himself understood by the bishops, could only reply to
him in Romance; and the historian Richer, who was present at the interview,
relates that Arnulf, Bishop of Orleans, was obliged to translate what Otho


Fig. 297.-King Robert, Son of Hugh Capet, composing Sequences and Responses in Latin.Miniature from the "Chroniques de France."- Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, No. 3.
-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
said into the vulgar tongue in order that Duke Hugh might understand it.
A little later, however, when Duke Hugh was upon the throne, the Bishop of
Verdun was appointed to speak at the Synod of Mouzon because he knew
Teutonic. The Romance or vulgar tongue had none the less continued to
make its way throughout the western provinces which formed the kingdom
of France, and it was the language both of the nobles and of the people.
z




354


LANGUA GES.


William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, introduced it into England, just
as Robert Guiscard, his contemporary, did into Sicily and Naples. William
decreed that the laws of England should be written in French-that is to say,
in Norman, which was merely a dialect of the Romance language-and that
French should be taught in the schools before Latin. At Naples, according
to an historian of the time, whoever was ignorant of French was held in very
poor esteem at this essentially French court. One of the articles (No. 38) in
the Laws of William the Conqueror shows what progress had been made by
the Romance language at the end of the eleventh century to arrive at being
transformed into the Langue d'Oil: "Si home enpuisuned altre, seit occis, u
permanablement essille. Jo jettai vos choses por cause de mort, et de co ne
me poez emplaider: car leist a faire damage a altres par pour de mort, quant
par el ne pot eschaper."
The Romance, otherwise the Neo-Latin, languages are French, Provencal,
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Roumanic. They were formed at the same
time, but under different influences with regard to pronunciation, and they
are, in truth, all of them Latin issuing from different throats and looked at
in different lights. It was poetry which, when emerging from the cradle of
chivalry, inaugurated the creation of modern languages, for grammarians and
rhetoricians do not make languages; all they can do is to superintend the
best use of its wealth when a language has been enriched by the efforts of its
poets and writers who employ it.  Moreover, the two currents which carried
the national idiom, without resistance and without admixture, into its two
principal beds, the Oc language and the Oil language, had long been manifest.
The one was the language of the poets, the other that of the troubadours and
the trouveres, and the two languages, or rather the two dialects, both acquired
simultaneously their relative perfection.  The first literary records of the
Provencal language are the poem of Boethius, "The Mystery of the Wise
and of the Foolish Virgins," and several other poems anterior to William IX.,
Duke of Aquitaine (1071-1127), who has often been cited as the earliest of
the troubadours. The first memorials of the French language, after the oath
of 842 quoted above, are the Cantilena of St. Eulalie, the two poems in the
library of Clermont dedicated to St. Leger and to the Passion, and the "Life
of St. Alexis," which was composed about 1050.  Next come the warlike
epodes, called chansons de geste or ronans de chevalerie, and it was in this way
that the Homeric epode was one of the first inspirations of the Greek language.




L AG UA GES.


355


In these vigorous pictures of heroic life the qualities of invention, imagination,
and national genius are most conspicuous, and there are signs of brilliant and
sparkling style before the regular formation of the language.
It is in the famous "Chanson de Roland" that is to be found the
oldest type of the language, which, as M. Francis Wey has remarked, was
still in its infancy.   But this beautiful poem, attributed without sufficient
proof to a trouvere named Turold, none the less contains many passages
worthy to be compared with the Iliad.         The following is the description
which he gives of the death of Oliver, one of Charlemagne's twelve peers, in
the Pass of Roncevaux, where Roland and his companions sustained the attack
of the Saracen army:"Oliviers sent que la mort mult l'anguisset:
Ambdui li oil en la teste li turnent,
L'oie pert e la veiie tute;
Descent a pied, a la tere se culchet,
Forment en halt si recleimet sa culpe,
Cuntre le ciel ambesdous ses mains juintes,
Si preiet Dieu que pareis li dunget,
E beneiet Carlun e France dulce,
Sun cumpagnun Rollant desur tuz humes.
Falt li le coer, li helmes li embrunchet;
Trestut le cors a la tore li justet.
Morz est li quens que plus ne se demuret.
Rollanz li her le pluret, si l'duluset.
Jamais en tere n'orrez plus dolent hume." *...
Henceforward the French language is an accomplished fact.            It is the
Oil language.   It still clings close to Latin, from which it borrows some of its
most ingenious and narrowly defined rules; amongst others, the declension of
words and adjectives, represented in French by the adjunction or suppression
of the final s.   This rule was not, however, generally adopted by French
writers, but it is easy to see that it was pointed out and followed by some of
* The literal translation of these lines is, "Oliver feels the agony of death creep over him. His
eyes turn in his head. He loses hearing and sight. Dismounts and throws himself upon the
ground. Recites his mea culpa aloud. Joins his two hands and raises them heavenward. Prays
God to let him enter Paradise. Blesses Charlemagne and gentle France, and, above all, his
companion Roland. His heart fails him, his head droops. He falls at full length upon the ground.
'Tis done, the Count is dead; and Baron Roland bewails him and weeps for him. Never on
earth will you see a man more afflicted."




356


LANGUA GES.


them.   It must, however, be said that as yet there was no such a thing as
grammar; every one spoke and wrote at his fancy, according to his instinct
or tendencies, and the language was clear or obscure, heavy or light, according to the person that employed it. Even the spelling of words varied almost
ad infinitum, and it did not occur to anybody to establish a regular system of
orthography.
The great romances of chivalry imported to the Oil language a sort of
nobility, grandeur, and force very suitable to the epic style.  But other
trouveres, of humble origin no doubt, and, as such, more satiric and facetious
than the poets who wrote the chansons de geste, invented the FFabliau, the Conte,. i........8d4i..in, S3i,' ':...ll'si:
Fig. 298. —Conflagration of the Bel-Accueil Prison.  Fig. 299.-Narcissus at the Fountain.
Miniatures from the Romance of the Rose."-Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.
In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
and the Dit, which abounded in comedy and sarcasm. The vices, the defects,
the passions, and the foibles of society, from the villein to the king, were hit
off in popular poetry, much to the amusement of the persons portrayed. The
language must have become richer and more supple for it to have been made
the medium of such satire as this, which was couched in the familiar and
even trite expressions in use amongst the common people both of town and
country. As time went on it became more vivid, more pointed, more incisive,
and more sprightly. Its best types are the various fabliaux, and also the
"Romance of the Rose" (Figs. 298 and 299), begun by William de Lorris


I




LANG UA GES.


357


about 1220, and completed fifty years later by Jean de Meung, surnamed
Clopinel.
The "Romance of the Rose" was beyond all doubt a reminiscence of
Provencal poetry, which for two centuries had charmed the populations of the
South by the soft and gracious imagery with which it expressed the sentiments of the heart. The Romance language of the South, the Oc language
purified, perfected, and developed, might have become, from the twelfth
century, the rival of the Latin, Italian, and Spanish languages; but the
troubadours, who were dreamy and pensive poets, were too addicted to
singing of love, of women, of flowers, and the enervating pleasures of earthly
life. Their chansons, their tensons, their planets, &c., which were recited to the
accompaniment of some stringed instrument, were imitated by the Northern
trouveres, but with less monotony and more force. William de Lorris and
his successor added to the complimentary allegories and subtleties of the
"Romance of the Rose" the satirical and sarcastic element, which was, perhaps,
the outcome of the Gallic spirit. In short, the French language may be said,
in this work of the thirteenth century, to have already acquired all its original
qualities. The following description of spring may be quoted as a proof
thereof:"En mai estoie, ce songoie,
El tems amoreus plain de joie,
El tems oh tote riens s'esgaie,
Que l'en ne voit boisson ne haie
Qai en mai parer ne se voille
Et covrir de novele foille.
Li bois recovrent lor verdure,
Qui sunt sec tant corn yver dure;
La terre meismes s'orgoille
Par la rosee qui la moille
Et oblie la poverte
Ou elle a tot l'yver este.
Lors devient la terre si gobe
Qu'el volt avoir novele robe," &c.
William de Lorris belonged rather to the troubadour school, while Jean de
Meung had more in common with the trouveres of the Artois, Picardy, and
Champagne provinces, though the style of both, correct and full of elegance,
was thoroughly representative of the Oil language, which at that time was
almost in as much favour as Latin, though the latter still survived as a spoken




358


358          ~~~~L A NG UJA GES.


language in the Universities. The Oil language had become so famous
throughout Europe that Brunetto Latini, who was th e tutor of Dante,
wrote in French the encyclopadia published by him under the title of " The
Treasure." Dante Alighieri, to whom Brunetto Latini had taught the Oil
language, came to Paris in order to complete his linguistic and scholastic
studies (Fig. 300).
Poetry had served to stimulate the progress of French, as it had -'done of
all other languages, but, froni the beginning of the thirteenth century, good
114  con   mt jmicuoh         cu)14&TPa
qu        I&jdntw u  dy.Ittal "A
-p     f rnUo~jf, 4    juel4 30' 4r f4Fl~'
b4t&fectw!aafm idada
f~~bd~~t~is rllv.IMP
b~e a~trn 14. jcritcr M
Fig. 300.-Fragment of Dante's "1Divina Commedia."-Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.
In the National Library, Paris.
prose made its appearance in France, with Geoffroi do Villehardouin's book
on the Conquest of Constantinople. This writer, a man of little education,
who wrote with great facility and precision, and who used the true historic,
language, was a noble and a warrior, and he was the first to bring, out the
real qualities of the French language in his description of what took place
during the Crusade of 1202, at which he was present. This crusader, a native
of Champagne, attained perfection almost at a bound; and the Sire do Joinville,




LANGUA GES.


359


who half a century later narrated the Crusades of St. Louis, did not, perhaps,
equal him, though he could command the use of a vocabulary much richer
and more supple. The reign of Louis saw the formation of a polite society,
in which the language, while becoming more variegated, more incisive, and
more abundant, preserved its early simplicity and grace. The Sire de Joinville's sly good-humour makes him the pleasantest and most attractive taleteller of the Middle Ages.
The French language, which was spoken all over Europe, and even in the
East, during the thirteenth century, but which was more especially the


Fig. 301.-The Three Virtues (Reason, Uprightness, and Justice) urge Christina de Pisan to write
a Book of Ethics for the Instruction of Ladies.-Miniature from the "Livre des Vertus,"
unpublished Manuscript, dating from 1405.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot,
Paris.


privileged language of the courts, could not avoid declining in the following
century, even though that century possessed such a distinguished writer as
Jean Froissart. This chronicler, in the opinion of M. Francis Wey, who is,
perhaps, a little severe upon him, was endowed with the instinct of his art,
was clever without elevation of thought and without discernment, seeking for
effect rather than to excite emotion, narrating trifles with tedious prolixity,




360


LANGUA GES.


and not imposing any check upon his style, which is often heavy and diffuse.
The tendency of the language was to become turgid and monotonous.
The usurpation of the Flemish writers into all branches of French literature was not favourable to the latter, which, becoming affected and involved,
finally lapsed into pedantic and fallacious verbosity.  Christina de Pisan
(Fig. 301), the historiographer of Charles V., set the example of this fictitious
pathos, but she was very soon outdone by the historians of the court of
Burgundy, George Chastelain, Olivier de la Marche, and Molinet.  Jean
d'Auton, the chronicler of Louis XII., appears to have been more than any
other writer responsible for the involved style which formed the Gordian
knot of the French language.
Antoine de la Sale, a pleasant chronicler of the court of Burgundy, did
not in any way contribute to tighten this knot, though he did not cut it; and
his romance, "Petit Jehan de Saintre," must have been a welcome change to
the reader after he had perused so many compilations written in a style at
once pretentious and involved. Antoine de la Sale wrote French, and this
remark applies with even greater truth to the authors of the " Cent Nouvelles
nouvelles," who seemed to descend in a direct line from the ancient trouveres
who had set to rhyme so many joyous fabliaux. The French language, spoilt
by too much erudition, once more recovered its original force, when put in
the mouth of the people at large by a poet who drew from his own inspiration, without the aid of Latin words or of declamation, eloquence of a simple
and natural kind. This was Francois Villon, who writes the language of the
"Romance of the Rose," only with greater force and boldness. While he
was restoring to its place of honour the language of Paris, a statesman and a
courtier, Philippe de Comines, was preparing Memoirs which are a perfect
model of the grave, sustained, and philosophical language of history. As
M. Francis Wey remarks, "The Seigneur of Argenton writes in a style
which is flexible, precise, ample, and nervous; his language seems entirely
modern, and, excepting a few differences in spelling and a few obsolete words,
separated by only a few years from the reign of Henry IV." Yet there was
nearly a century between Philippe de Comines and the King of Navarre.
During the reign of Francois I. there was a tendency to imitate the
Italian, and for a hundred years this tendency prevailed, but at the same time
the language was fortified by its continuous contact with Greek and Latin.
Rabelais satirizes in "Pantagruel" this abuse of Latinism, which Geoffroy




LAXGUA GES.


36I


Tory had previously condemned by his denunciation of the "skimmers of
Latin" in the preface to "Champfleury," which contains an "exhortation to
set the French language in good order, so as to speak with elegance in good
and wholesome French" (Fig. 302).   Rabelais, while very justly ridiculing
the jargon of the French students, was not himself sufficiently on his guard
against erudition of style, but he none the less raised to the highest degree of
perfection the language of the sixteenth century.  Clement MIarot and like
poets of his school, Bonaventure des Periers and others, sought their models,
as Francois Villon had done, in the authors of the thirteenth century, and
they were the custodians of the real French language, clear and transparent,
precise and correct, elegant and witty. Calvin and several Protestant writers
belong to this school, but their style was harder, colder, and somewhat
colourless.
The sixteenth century teems with chefs-d'mouvre of every kind, but the
finest productions of French genius are tainted with Neologism, Hellenism,
and Latinism, and the courtier-like and Italianised language, as Henri Estienne
termed it in his treatise upon this subject, permeated from the court of the
Valois into the spoken rather than into the written language. For the most
part it was the poets-and the best of them into the bargain-who, owing to
their affection for Greek, Latin, and Italian, became the demolishers and
ravagers of the French language. Ronsard and the Pleiade were the main
promoters of this deplorable change. (See below, chapter on National Poetry.)
The prose-writers, on the other hand, set themselves against this sacrilege,
and resolutely remained French. Historians such as Blaise de Montluc,
humanists like Amyot, polemists like Henri Estienne, narrators like Bonaventure des Periers and Noel du Fail, and moralists like Mlontaigne, show
that the French language was still known in France.
But the worst enemies of the French language were the reformers of
grammar and spelling, Jacques Pelletier, Louis Meigret, and Pierre Ramus.
These extravagant philosophers, who wanted to change the whole system of
language, were far more absurd than the Limoges student of Geoffroy Tory
and of Rabelais, and the good sense of the general public prevented them
from making many proselytes.    What little success they did obtain was
neutralised soon afterwards by Montaigne and Malherbe. Of the former M.
Francis Wey says, "His was a wit at once unrestrained, undulating, and
various; his genius was supple, disdained imperious doctrines, and was pro3A




362                         LANGUAGES.
foundly imbued with Roman thought, a subtle and tempered savour of which
pervaded his style.  His erudition as a philosopher invigorated his genius
and his style; his independence, unfettered and yet flexible in its course of
action, preserved him from imitative servility; a painter of the human mind,
he knew no model but nature, and could only speak the language which
corresponded with his thoughts. He expressed that language without translating it."  Montaigne is, in fact, the writer who, before Pascal's time, made
the best and most remarkable use of the French language.
Malherbe seems to have made it his task to free the language from the
servitude of Italianism and Hellenism.  He did his work with unbending
sternness, and he restored to poetry its national characteristics, while maintaining it in the regions of the most majestic lyrism. To him we owe French
verse which possessed the primordial features of the French language-purity,
clearness, and truth. But Henry IV. did more than any one else to renovate
the old French language and French wit; for that king, who hated affectation and despised Greek and Latin pathos, was the personification of common
sense. He thought like a philosopher, spoke like a soldier, and wrote at once
like Brantome and Amyot. The French language, which tended to become
Italian under the Valois, was being made Spanish during the League; but it
once more became essentially French under Henry IV.
Fig. 302.-The Broken Jar.-Token of Geoffroy Tory, Bookseller, at Paris, in the first Edition
of his "Champfleury," 1529, small folio.




ROMANCES.
Origin of the Name Romance.-Greek and Latin Romances.-The Discussion of the Savants as to
the first French Romances.-These Romances were the Emanation of Popular Songs and
Latin Chronicles.-Ancient Romances in Prose and RIhyme.-The Three Materes (Metres) of
the Chansons de Geste.-Their Classification.-Manuscripts of the Jugglers.-Assemblies and
Trouveurs.-The "Chanson de Roland." —Progress of Ronzancerie (Ballad Songs) during the
Crusades. - Breton Romances. - Tristan. - Lancelot. - Merlin. - The Holy Grail.Decadence of Romances in the Fourteenth Century.-Remodelling of the Early Romances. —
The Short Romances of the Fifteenth Century.-Romance Abroad.-The " Amadis."
OVELS and romances, or works of imagination
we  meelyeal 1      of a similar character, were in great demand
in Greece and Rome, especially among those
who had no business occupation, and who
litrtr o te te         read for amusement rather than for instruction.  The name romankce (which meant a
work written in the Romance tongue) was
not used until the eleventh or twelfth century, and with a very different meaning
from that which now attaches to it.
The ancient Latin and Greek romances
I were merely recitals of imaginary occurrences. The "Satire " of Petronius and
the " Golden Ass" of Apuleius were doubtless imitated very frequently in the
Roman literature of the time of the Caesars, but it is in the literature of Greece
that we must look for the progress of a literary school which long held its sway
at Constantinople, and throughout the empire of the East. Achilles Tatius
of Alexandria set up the model for this kind of book when he composed the
"Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe " in the third century, and he was succeeded by Heliodorus, Bishop of Tricca, in Thessaly, who wrote the " Loves of
Theagenes and of Chariclea," and Longus, who wrote the " Loves of Daphnis
and Chloe." The last named was unequalled for its simplicity and grace, and




364


R OMTA NC ECS.


stood far above the love romances published by Theodore Prodromos, Nicetas
Eugenianus, and a number of other writers in the twelfth century.
The Middle Ages, however, cared little for stories of profane love and
works of pagan origin, but in the eighth century St. John Damascenus
composed in Greek a sort of romance of mystic love concerning the legend
of St. Barlaam and Josaphat, King of India, and this fabulous story was so
warmly welcome that it was translated into every language. We must then
come down to the twelfth century to find any fabulous stories written in Latin
which can be connected with the literature of romance; as, for instance, the
"Romance of the Seven Sages" (Septemr Sapientes), translated or imitated
from the Hebrew by a monk of the Abbey of Haute-Selve, and the celebrated
compilation entitled "Gesta Romanorum." When these two works appeared,
the name of romance was already given to the chansons de geste and other
stories of chivalry, of wonderland, or of religion, which were written in
"Romance" verse or in " Romance" prose.
For nearly half a century the most gifted scholars of France, Germany,
and Belgium have been endeavouring to trace the origin of the old French
romances, and M. Paulin Paris, more especially, has elucidated this question
better than any one else by being the first to publish the early text of some of
these romances. His system, which appears to us the most logical and the
most satisfactory, has been discussed and opposed by such men as Michelet,
Edgar Quinet, and Leon Gautier; yet the last named, great as is his experience on such a subject, could only retard the solution of the literary and
historic problem which his predecessor, M. Paulin Paris, had all but solved.
We propose, therefore, to sum up the opinions given by so many learned
disputants, and to endeavour to draw from them some logical conclusion.
According to M. Gautier's system, which is based upon great erudition,
the chansons de geste and the romances of chivalry, invented and set to verse
by the jugglers in the twelfth century, had their origin in the popular songs
and Teutonic cantilenac. But M. Gautier could not discover these cantilenae,
or original songs, in the Germanic language. He cites only one, which he
calls the Cantilena of Hildebrand, and which has nothing in common with the
chansons de geste, inasmuch as it makes mention of Odoacer, King of the
Heruli, at the end of the fifth century.  He also mentions a popular song of
the seventh century, which the Bishop of Meaux, Hildegaire, has collated
and translated into Latin in his " Life of St. Faron," and which is supposed




ROMANCES.


365


to have been composed in Romance to celebrate the victory of Clotaire II.
over the Saxons. Finally, he mentions a very beautiful Teutonic song about
the battle which Louis III., son of Louis the Stammerer, fought against the
Normans at Saucourt in 881. But M. Gautier is obliged to confess that these
Teutonic cantilenam, which were believed to be the germ of the chansons de geste
of the twelfth century, are no longer in existence, confining himself to the
supposition that they did at one time exist, because Eginhard relates in his
Chronicles that Charlemagne gave strict orders that the old songs (antiquissima
carmina), in which were celebrated the mighty deeds and wars of ancient
times, should be collected and transcribed.
The existence of these old popular songs is beyond all question, but those
which Charlemagne had collected were only preserved in the memory of the
inhabitants of Gaul by being translated into the rustic or Romance tongue.
Thus the Anglo-Norman poet, Robert Wace, in his " Roman du Rou," recalls
in the following lines the primitive chansons de geste which were sung, previously to the battle of Hastings, in the presence of the army of William the
Conqueror:"Taillefer qui mult bien cantoit
Sur un cheval qui test aloit
Devant eus s'en alloit cantant
De Callemaine et de Rollant
Et d'Olivier et des vassaux
Qui morurent a Rainschevaux."
Here was the veritable origin of the " Chanson de Roland," which is rightly
regarded as the oldest of the chansons de geste which were composed into
Romance. That it is formed of an aggregation of various popular songs which
had already been romanced-that is to say, written in the vulgar or Romance
tongue-is very probable; but it is impossible to believe that the chansons de
geste relating to the reign of Charlemagne and his successors, excepting,
perhaps, the famous "Garin le Loherain," were composed by French jugglers
after Teutonic cantilenae. It was undoubtedly the popular songs in the
Romance language which were the preludes of the chansons de geste and the
great romances cf chivalry. But, as M. Paulin Paris has proved to demonstration, these popular songs had first given birth to histories and chronicles
written in Latin, which were the principal source of the rhymed romances.
It may be affirmed, for instance, that the Latin Chronicle of Nennius, the




366


ROMA NCES.


"history of the Bretons," and the "Life of Merlin," written in Latin by
Geoffrey of Monmouth, were the materials used by Wace in his romances of
the " Rou" and of the "Brut," as also by Robert de Borron in his romance,
" Joseph of Arimathea," and by the anonymous author of the "St. Graal."
Then, too, there is the Latin Chronicle attributed to Archbishop Turpin of
Rheims.   This spurious Chronicle is in two parts: the first, consisting of five
chapters, was written by a monk of Compostello in the middle of the eleventh
century; the second, beginning at Chapter VI., is the work of a monk of
St. Andrew of Vienna, who wrote between the years 1109 and 1119. Such, at
Fig. 303.-Joshua, King David, and Judas Maccaboeus.-From a Series of Ancient Engravings,
representing the Nine Heroes of Sacred, Ancient, and Modern History, who figure in the
Romance, "Le Triomphe des Neuf Preux." These Coloured Drawings, apparently of the
Fifteenth Century, form the Frontispiece of a Manuscript in the Colbert Room, National
Library, Paris.
least, are the conclusions arrived at by M. Gaston Paris.    This Chronicle at
once acquired such celebrity that five or six prose translations were made,
and this was the source from which the jugglers obtained much of their lore.
Chrestien de Troyes, the beginning of whose romances is here appended,
intimates that he has merely put into verse a rose romance:" Chrestiens qui entent et paine
A rimoier le meillor conte
Par le commandement le Comte




ROMANCES.


367


Qu'il soit contez en cort royal:
Ce est li contes de Graal
Dent li quens li bailla le livre," &c.
Claude Fauchet, in his " Recueil de l'Origine de la Langue et Poesie francoise," from which these lines are taken, adds, "This shows that some of the
romances were written in prose before being rhymed."       M. Gautier, therefore, is in error when he asserts that the romances in prose date only from the
fifteenth century; on the contrary, it is certain that the prose versions were
contemporary with those in rhyme. Claude Fauchet was of opinion that the


Fig. 304.-Imaginary Election of St. Peter as Pope. " St. Pol kissed the body of St. Peter in the
prison at Antioch, and, at the request of the two Apostles, Our Lord restored to life the son of
a King who had been dead more than fifteen years; and henceforward St. Peter was seated
in the chair as Pope and true Lieutenant of God upon earth, and held the seat as Pope for
the term of eight years holily." In the division to the left is seen St. Peter being tonsured
by the " tirans," and this is erroneously said to be the origin of the ecclesiastical tonsure.Miniature of the " Sainte Escripture."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the
Burgundy Library, Brussels.
printed romances of his day, such as "Lancelot d(     Lac," "Tristan," and others,
were rewritten after the old prose and verse editions.          We know    that the
romances in rhyme were sung, or rather recited, to the sounds of some instru



368


ROMANCES.


ment, while the prose romances were merely read or narrated without a
musical accompaniment of any kind, and rhyme must naturally have been
better adapted than prose to the chansons de geste during the most flourishing
period of romances; that is to say, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
MI. Paulin Paris has set forth very clearly the reasons why the name of
romance (roman) was given in France to the narratives of chivalry before it
became the special name for a whole branch of literature. For some time it
had been the custom throughout France to talk Romance, but it was not until
the close of the eleventh century that any attempt was made to write in
Romance: whatever was thus written in the vulgar tongue was Romance.
M. Paulin Paris adds, "In this way the same generic name was retained for
all these writings. There were romances of the Bible (Fig. 303), romances
of the Crusades, romances of King Arthur, romances of the Virgin, romances
of the Saints (Fig. 304), of the Passion, of the Image of the World, of
Sallust," &c. They were for the most part narratives of warlike and wonderful adventures, which the French trouveurs and jugglers had told during the
Crusades to all the foreigners who composed the armies from beyond the seas,
and these foreigners in course of time gave the unique name of romance to all
works of imagination written in prose.  Dante, who could write and speak
French, has himself fixed the meaning of the word at the end of the
thirteenth century in the line"Versi d'amore, prose di romanzi."
Thus the romances in prose were as numerous as those in verse when Dante
came to Paris to study the language of Oil.
The jugglers had, from the thirteenth century, divided romances into
three categories, which proceeded from three distinct sources: the romances
of Charlemagne, the romances of the Round Table, and the romances of
Greek and Roman antiquity. These three categories of romances are thus
designated in the " Song of the Saxons:" —
"Ne sont que trois materes a tout home entendant:
De France, de Bretagne et de Rome la Grant,
Et de ces trois materes n'i a nule semblant.
Li conte de Bretagne sont et vaiu et plaisant,
Cil de Rome sont sage et de sens apparent,
Cil de France sont voir (vrais)."...






ROMIA NC ES.                            369
But each of these matters comprised a number of different subjects, which
corresponded with one another by a succession of homogeneous and analogous
facts. They were so many cycles forming one vast whole, in which were
grouped personages of the same race and of the same character.  The three
principal cycles of the Geste in France, for instance, were those which had
m i
Fig. 305.-A Compiler.-Miniature from a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.
In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
for their central figures Charlemagne, William of Orange, and Renaud de
Montauban, as is indicated by the following line from     the romance of
"Girars de Viane: " —" N'ot que trois Gcstes en France la garnie."  A geste
3 B




37~


R ROLMANVCES.


may be compared to a tree of ancient growth, the branches of which spread
out in all directions from the mother trunk; and each of these branches,
grafted thereupon, gave birth to new branches.
M. Gautier has classed in systematic order all the romances in rhyme still
extant which belong to the three great cycles of France, and the mere
mention of them shows how rich French literature is in works of this kind.
The "Geste du Roi," or of " Charlemagne," is divided into six parts:-lst,
Berte aux Grans Pies, Enfances Charlemagne, Enfances Roland. 2nd, Aspremont, Fierabras, Otinel, Gui de Bourgogne, Entry into Spain, the Capture of
Pampelona, la Chanson de Roland, Gaidon, Anseis de Carthage. 3rd, Acquin,
or the Conquest of Little Brittany; Jehan de Lanson; Simon de Pouille;
Galien; Voyage to Jerusalem. 4th, Song of the Saxons.    5th, Macaire,
Huon de Bordeaux. 6th, Charlemagne, by Girart of Amiens. The " Geste of
Garin de Montglane," or of "William of Orange," comprises no less than
twenty-three or twenty-four romances, which, chronologically arranged, are as
follows:-Les Enfances Garin de Montglane, Garin de Montglane, Girars
de Viane, Hernaut de Beaulande, Renier de Gennes, Aimeri de Narbonne,
les Enfances Guillaume, le Departement des Enfans Aimeri, le Siege de
Narbonne, le Couronnement Looys, le Charroi de Nismes, la Prise d'Orange,
le Siege de Barbastre (Beuves de Comarchis, as revised), Guibert d'Andrenas,
IMort d'Aimeri de Narbonne, Enfances Vivien, Chevalerie Vivien, Aliscanps,
Rainoart, Moniage Guillaume, Bataille Loquifer, Moniage Rainoart, Renier,
la Prise de Cordres, Foulques de Candle. There are but ten or eleven
romances in the " Geste of Renaud de Montauban," or " Doon de Mayence,"
viz.: —Doon de Mayence, Gaufrey, les Enfances Ogier, la Chevalerie Ogier, Aye
d'Avignon, Gui de Nanteuil, Tristan de Nanteuil, Parise la Duchesse, Maugis
d'Aigremont, Vivien l'Amachour de Monbranc, and les Quatre Fils Aimon,
or Renaut de Montauban. The other cycles are composed of the following
elements:-Cycle of the Crusade: Helias, les Enfances Godefroi, les Chetifs,
Antioch, Jerusalem, Baudouin de Sebourc, and le Bastart de Bouillon. The
"Geste des Lorrains: "-Hervis de Metz; Carin de Loherain; Girbert de Metz;
Anseis, son of Gierbert; and Yon. The "Geste du Nord: "-Raoul de Cambrai,
Gormond and Isembart. "Burgundian Geste:"-Girart de Roussillon and
Aubri le Bourgoing. "Petite Geste de Blaives:"-Amis et Amiles, and
Jourdain de Blaives. "Petite Geste de St. Gilles:"-Aiol and Elie de
St. Gilles.  "English Geste:"-Horn and Beuves d'Hanstonne. Various




,ROMANCES.37


37 1


Geste~s:-Siperis de Yignevaux, Floovant, Charles the Bald, Hugh Capet,
IDoon de la IRoche, Lion de Bourges, Florent and Octavian, &e.


Fig. 306.-The St. Mark Library, Venice, founded in the Fifteenth Century by
Cardinal Bessarion..A -)erusal of the titles of these chlansous (le geste and romances, some of




372


ROMANCES.


which have not yet been published, and most of which contain from six to
eight thousand lines, will give an idea of the extent to which the romance
literature flourished from the twelfth to the thirteenth century. There are,
in addition to the above, some twenty romances which belong to the Brittany
cycle, and four or five very long ones which should be included in the cycle
of Rome or of antiquity: amongst others, the " Romance of the Seven Sages"
and the well-known "Romance of Alexander," begun in the twelfth century
by Lambert " li Tors," and continued by Alexandre de Bernay. Most of the
romances which are given above are in ten-syllable verse, arranged in
couplets, or laisses, with assonances, which were not replaced by rhymes until
the second age of romances. Many others, less ancient, are in lines of twelve
syllables, called Alexandrines, because the first attempt to write lines with
this metre was made in the "Romance of Alexander."   There are a few in
lines of eight syllables, rhymed in couplets, and this system of versification
seems to have been applied, in the first instance, to romances of a more homely
kind, which, like the well-known "Roman de Renard," have the vivacity and
sprightliness of the fabliau, and appeal more to the wit than to the imagination of the readers, or, it should rather be said, of the listeners.
The jugglers were very loath to part with the manuscripts of their chansons
de geste and romances, and it was not for some time that these manuscripts
were to be found in the libraries of monasteries and castles. Many of these
manuscripts, as one can see, have been copied from the original at the cost of
some wealthy noble. The jugglers themselves were always eager to procure
good romances, which they learnt by heart and sang in public, to the accompaniment of the violin or the rote. Those who had the best repertory were
certain of meeting with the most numerous audiences during their peregrinations through the country. These jugglers, although in the Middle Ages
they formed one vast association, had many points of difference the one with
the other, and preserved the distinctions of rank, which were dependent in the
main upon their talent and fortune. Some of them would not sing other than
national songs, and only condescended to appear in the houses of the great
nobles. They travelled about on horseback, accompanied by their servants,
received a warm welcome at the castles and abbeys which they visited, and
were handsomely paid. Others, again, excited suspicion by their mean and
hungry appearance, and were often ordered away from the door of the houses
before which they halted to sing for their supper. It may be taken for




,ROMANCES.                                   373
granted, t oo, that their stock of songs was limited, and that they were as
little versed in the art of music as of tale-tellers.
Amongst the jugglers were a great many as83embleitrs and troutveutrs. The


Fig. 307. ---Coronation of Charlemagne in the City of Jerusalem.-Miniatures from the 11Cbroniques
(le Charlemegno," taken from Manuscript No. 9,066, in the Burgundy Library, Brussels
(Fifteenth Century).
fi ttcr comipo'ed. roman111ces inl prose and in'rhyme. The assembleiors (Fig. 805),
though capable, of Writing inI prose or iii verse, mor(e genleratlly confined them



374


ROMANCES.


selves to compiling the various episodes of a romance or of several romances,
so as to vary the impressions produced on the audience. These assembleurs,
like the Greek rhapsodists of Homer's time, modified the text which they
intended to narrate or to sing, and they in many instances corrected and
transformed the ancient romances when the language in which they were
couched had become obsolete, and especially when the popular taste of the
day called for the addition of some new ornaments. This is how it came to
pass that the primitive text of many romances underwent changes of dialect,
the existence of which it would otherwise be difficult to understand. Sometimes an assembleur who desired to transpose the original into another dialect,
or even into another language, simply changed the termination of the words,
and so composed a sort of grammatical balderdash utterly incomprehensible.
There still exist certain romances written in the Oil language which have
been thus travestied by the jugglers into the Limousin and Provencal dialects,
and even into Italian. The public library of St. Mark, Venice (Fig. 306),
contains some curious manuscripts of these Italianised French romances,
which are, while preserving the precise original form, neither more nor less
than gibberish.
Most of the romances belonged, as we have said, not only to the ancient
popular songs in Celtic, Teutonic, or Romance, but also to the early legends
written in Latin under the name of Gesta. These two distinct but not incongruous sources are often to be traced in the romances of the first epoch, in
which the author, in order to distinguish the two different origins, repeats
either curn dit la Geste, or si cumr dit la Chanson. The Geste soon acquired
more influence than the Chanson, and nearly all the trouveurs felt no scruple in
declaring that they had obtained their stories from some of the old monasteries,
notably from the Abbey of St. Denis. This is the case with several romances
relating to the history of France.  In the "Enfances Guillaume," a gentil
noine (a good-natured monk) is said by the author to have supplied him
with the materials for his work, "Si m'a les vers enseignes et monstres."
The author of " Berte aux Grans Pies" states even more explicitly that it
was a courteous monk (moine cortois) of St. Denis, named Savari, who
" Le livre as histoires me monstra.''


Moreover, the monks of St. Denis themselves composed fables which they




ROMA NCES.


375


declared to be original texts, and which the romance-writers, naturally
inclined to credulity, accepted blindfold when they had occasion to quote
them. Thus, exclusively of the spurious Chronicle of Turpin, which was at
that time accepted as authentic, there were two or three old Latin poems
upon the supposed conquests of Charlemagne in Spain and the East. One of


Fig. 308.-The Battle of Roncevaux and the Death of Roland.-Fragment of a Stained-glass
Window in Chartres Cathedral (Thirteenth Century).


these legends, which was composed during the eleventh century within the
walls of the Abbey of St. Denis, contained the narrative of a Crusade which
the great Emperor was supposed to have led himself to Jerusalem in order to
reseat the Patriarch of the Holy City upon his archiepiscopal throne. This




376


O IROMAN CES.


work, as well as the Chronicle of Turpin, served as a theme for several
romances, which made the princes and lords who took part in later Crusades
feel quite certain that Charlemagne had undertaken the journey to Palestine
(Fig. 307).
In any event, the authors of many of the early romances remain unknown,
and it was not until the second epoch of this period of literature that the
trouveurs appended their names either at the beginning or at the end of
their works. Moreover, there is good ground for believing that the jugglers,
who recited or sang the romances, were very chary of giving the author's
name, as they very often claimed the authorship for themselves. The first
romances preceded by only a very few years the period of the Crusades, and must
have almost coincided with the inauguration of the feudal epoch, according to
Claude Fauchet, who says, "It was at this time, I believe, that romances
began to be written, and that the jugglers, trouveurs, and singers frequented
the courts of these princes (grand feudatories of the crown of France), to
recite and sing their narratives without rhyme, their songs, and other poetic
inventions, using the rustic Romance language as well as that which was
understood by more people."   Thus we see that Claude Fauchet appears
convinced that the romances in prose were anterior to the romances in rhyme.
Ite even says in so many words, "If any of you believe that the romance was
written only in rhyme, I will tell him that there were also romances not
rhymed and in prose. For in the " Life of Charles the Great" (Chronicle of
Turpin), put into French before the year 1200 at the request of Yoland,
Comtesse de St. Paul, sister of Baudoin, Comte de Hainau, surnamed the
Bastisseur, in the fourth book the author says, " Baudoin, Comte de Hainau,
discovered at Sens in Burgundy the ' Life of Charlemagne,' and, when on his
death-bed, gave it to his sister Yoland, Comtesse de Sainct Paul, who asked
me to publish it in a prose romance, because many people who would not read
it in Latin would read it as a romance."
The rhymed romance of Charlemagne, which the translator of Turpin
declared to be spurious, was apparently the famous " Chanson de Roland,"
which is attributed to a trouveur named Turolde, and which, according to
M. Leon Gautier, was composed after popular songs of Teutonic origin and
tendencies, while M. Paulin Paris and other learned critics believe that it
belongs to the Romance or rustic language. The "Chanson de Roland" is
a true French Iliad, full of lofty, generous, and patriotic ideas, and it may be




ROMANCES.                                   377
termed the highest and most touching specimen of early French poetry. The
predominant feature in it is attachment to the Catholic faith and to gentle
France. When Roland is expiring from the effect of his wounds in the defile
of Ronceraux (Fig. 308), his last look and his last thought are for France.
Assuredly there is nothing German or Teutonic in this the oldest of the
French romances, second in order to which was, we may fairly suppose, the
original version of "Aliscans."      These romances of the first epoch often
began abruptly; as, for instance, the " Chanson de Roland," the first two lines
of which run" Carles li reis, nostre emperere magne,
Set anz tuz pleins ad ested en Espaigne."
This is a very characteristic opening for a popular song, in which it was
necessary to explain the subject matter in a very few words. It is the poet,
not the juggler, who has to make a direct appeal to the public whom           he
addresses, that speaks in these two lines.
But nothing can give so good an idea of the early chan1sons de geste as a
few quotations, and appended is the narrative of the death of Roland at
Ronceraux (Fig. 308), where the nephew of Charlemagne was slain by the
Saracens:
" Roland sent que la mort lui est proche:
Sa cervelle s'en va par les oreilles.
Le voila qui prie pour ses pairs d'abord, afin que Dieu les appelle;
Puis, il se recommande a l'ange Gabriel.
II prend l'olifant d'une main, pour n'en pas avoir de reproche,
Et de l'autre saisit Durendal, son epee.
11 savance plus loin qu'une portee d'arbalete,
Fait quelques pas sur la terre d'Espagne, entre en un champ de ble,
Monte sur un tertre. Sous deux beaux arbres,
II y a la quatre perrons de marbre.
Roland tombe a l'envers sur l'herbe verte
Et se pame: car la mort lui est proche...
A trois reprises, Roland frappe sur le rocher pour briser son epee:
Plus en abat que je ne saurais dire.
L'acier grince: il ne rompt pas:
L'epee remonte en amont vers le ciel.
Quand le comte s'aperqoit qu'il ne la peut briser,
Tout doucement il la plaint en lui-meme:
'Ma Durendal, comme tu es belle et sainte!
3 C




378


378            ~~~~ROMANTCES.


Dans ta garde dor6e il y a bien des roliqujes:
line dent de saint Pierre, du sang de saint Basile,
Des cheveux de monseigneur saint Denis,
Dn veftement de la Viergo Marie.
Non, non, ce n'est pas droit que patens to posse'dent.
Ta place est seulement entro des mains chreftiennes.
Plaise 'a Dieu que tu ne tomnbes pas entre cellos d'un liiche!
Combien de terres j'aurai par toi conquises,
Quo tient Charles 'a la barbe fleurie,
Et qui sont aujourd'hui la richesse de l'Empereur!
Et maintenant j'ai grande douleur, 'a cause do cotto epee.
Pluto't mourir que de la laisser aux Pa~e-ns:
Quo Dieu n'inflige pas cette honte 'a la France.'
Roland sent que la mort l'entreprend
Et qu'elle lui descend de la tWe sur le ecmur.
Ii court so jeter souls un pin,
Sur l'herbe verte so conuhe face contro terre,
Met sous liii son ollifant et son 46pe,
Et so tourno la tefte dii coite des paions.
Et pourqnoi le fait-ilP Ah! c'est qu'il vent
Faire dire 'a Charlemagne et 'a tonte l'artne'o des Francs,
Le noble comte, qu'il est mort en conqu6rant.
1i bat sa coulpe, il re'peite son mea culpa.
Pour s05 piche's, an ciel il tend son gant.
Roland sent quo son temps est fini.
1i ost lai au sommet d'un pic qui regarde l'Espagne;
D'uno main il frappo sa poitrine:
I Afea culpa, mon Diou, et pardon an nom, do ta puissance,'
Ponr tres p'che's, ponr los petits et pour los grands,
Pour tons ceux quo j'ai faits depuis l'heure do ma naissance
Jusqu'ii co j our otL jo suis parvenu.'
Il tend 'a Dieu le gant do sa main droite,
Et voici quo los Anges, du ciol s'abattent prbs do lni.
11 est Ia' gisant sons un pin, le comto Roland;
11 a vouln so tourner du co'td do 1'Espagno.
1l so prit alors 'a so souvenir do plusieurs choses:
Do tons los royanmes qu'il a conquis,
Et do douco France, et des gens do sa famille,
Et do Charlemagne, son soignour, qni l'a nourri;
]i1 no pout s'empe'her dWen pleurer et do sonpirer.
Mais il no veut pas so mettre lui-me'me en oubli,
Et, do nouveau, re'clanme le pardon do Dien:
' 0 notro vrai Pe'e,' dit-il, ' qni jamais no mentis,
Qui ressuscitas saint Lazare d'entre les morts,
Et deffendis Daniel contre los lions,




ROMANCES.


379


Sauve, sauve mon ame et defends-la contre tous perils,
A cause des peches que j'ai faits en ma vie.'
II a tendu a Dieu le gant de sa main droite:
Saint Gabriel l'a recu.
Alors sa tete s'est inclinee sur son bras,
Et il est alle, mains jointes, a sa fin.
Dieu lui envoie un de ses anges ch6rubins
Et saint Michel du Peril.
Saint Gabriel est venu avec eux:
Is emportent l'ame du comte au Paradis."..
"Roland" and the first romances were, as we see, essentially French
creations, in which the trouveurs had embodied in a literary and dramatic
form the scattered and uncertain traditions which were embedded in the
memory of the nobility, and vaguely retained by means of the popular songs
in the recollection of the lower classes.  There can be no doubt that their
object was to stimulate the warlike and patriotic feeling of the lords and
barons of France who listened to them with such unfeigned satisfaction.
It is thus easy to infer, by comparison of dates, that they must have come
into existence at about the time of the first Crusade in 1095, and that they
were imported into the East during the great Crusade led by Godfrey de
Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, and his brothers, Baudoin, Count of Flanders,
and Eustace, Count of Boulogne; by Hugh the Great, Count of Vermandois,
son of King Henry I.; by Raymond, Count of Toulouse; by Robert, Duke of
Normandy; and by other chiefs of the French race.    The heroic songs of the
jugglers were well calculated to lessen the dreariness of the long and perilous
voyage undertaken by the chevaliers, who remained absent for five or six
years, and did not consider their task accomplished until after they had
captured Jerusalem   (1099).   It was then that Godfrey de Bouillon, proclaimed King by his companions in arms, converted Palestine into a Christian
kingdom, introducing into it the laws, the language, and the customs of
France.   It may be said that from   this period the chansons de geste and
national romances obtained a foothold in this new France of the East, the
residents in which were ever gazing westward.
The romances, originating in France, returned thither with the crusaders,
and spread at the same time throughout Europe, where their popularity
increased from year to year. They became the fashion, and romances,


* Translation of M. Leon Gautier.




380


ROMANCES.


trouveurs, and jugglers made their appearance in all countries. The twelfth
century was the great epoch of romance and of jugglery. There were several
changes, however, in the style and fashion of the ancient romances, in proportion as the vulgar tongue underwent its successive modifications, and it would
be difficult to recognise in the present day the ancient text when comparing
it with the new. It would be not less difficult to assign a fixed date to the
beginning of each cycle, all of which started from the primitive cycle of
Charlemagne. There was an incessant competition between the jugglers,
whose audiences were always clamouring for some new thing; and it was to
satisfy this demand that the trouveurs of the Oil language put into rhyme
and prose the old Breton lays, and increased the already large domain of
French romance. This was the commencement of the long series of Breton
romances, otherwise called of the " Round Table," and which must not be
confounded with the chansons de geste.
MI. Paulin Paris, whose opinions on these matters may generally be relied
upon, holds that the chevaliers of Flanders and the Franche-Comte had
previously to this gathered from the conversation of Breton jugglers, or from
Latin books written upon the authority of ancient narratives, the traditions
of the Celts and of the fabled kings of Armorican Brittany. There were, for
instance, the stories of Tristan, son of a King of Leon, in Little Brittany, who
was in love with his uncle's wife; of King Mark, under the fatal influence of
a philter against which all remedies were powerless; of King Arthur, the
Celtic Hercules, the husband of Queen Guinivere, the most beautiful and the
most inconstant of women, and surrounded by a court of heroes such as
Launcelot, Gauvain, Perceval, Lionel, Agravain, &c. For some time already
the sham combats in which the young nobles learnt the rude art of war were
called tournaments (tournoys), because the champions turned about in a sort of
circular arena, while endeavouring to hit a certain mark, a movable figure,
or a quintain, with their lance or their sword. The authors of the Breton
romances represented King Arthur as the founder of chivalry and the creator
of tournaments, and said that this valorous king assembled at his Round
Table the twenty-four bravest chevaliers of his kingdom, who thus formed
his Supreme Court of Chivalry. These old Breton romances, in which the
fair sex was assigned a more dignified and attractive part than in the Carlovingian romances, were, so to speak, the school in which were formed the
manners of chivalry, and which favoured the development of refined polite



ROMANCES.


38I


ness. The sort of worship paid to women at this distant epoch, and the
delicate attentions lavished upon them by the opposite sex, contrasted very
strongly with the roughness and brutality of a state of society in which all
misunderstandings between people of noble birth were washed out in blood.
A succinct analysis of "Tristan" will give the reader a better idea of the
characteristics of the Breton romance, which, according to certain critics,
dates from an earlier period than the romances of the Charlemagne cycle.


rr
i,
-   - --  - -


7r
11 L-r

Fig. 309.-Tristan at the Chase.-After a Miniature from the " Romance of Tristan."-Manuscript
of the Fifteenth Century, No. 7,174.-In the National Library, Paris.
The principal action of the romance, which is the first in order of chronology
as of merit, unfolds itself clearly, and in a way to enthral the reader's attention, around three personages, whose physiognomy stands out in distinct
relief.  Mark, King of Cornwall, is a good prince and a man of great worth,
the beautiful Ysolt being his wife, and the valiant and poetic Tristan




382


ROMANCES.


(Fig. 309) his nephew. A draught which the two latter have taken without
meaning any harm deprives them of the power of obeying the voice of
honour and of reason; they fall violently in love, and the irresistible force of
the enchantment which is upon them serves to excuse their fault. King
Mark passes his whole time in watching them, in detecting them, and in
forgiving them. One day, however, his anger and jealousy are too much for
him when he discovers Tristan in the Queen's chamber playing the harp to
her. He strikes him from behind with a poisoned dart (Fig. 310), given
him by the fairy Morgana, but he is suddenly seized with terror, and retreats
in silence. Tristan, though wounded, displays great courage in bidding
good-bye to Ysolt, mounts his horse, and takes refuge with his friend Dinas,
who receives him in a dying state. The poison has made rapid progress, and
Tristan, notwithstanding the care with which he is tended, has become
almost a corpse. His friends shed tears over his sad state day and night.
The only signs of life in his motionless body are the piercing cries which he
utters. The good King Mark has repented him of his cowardly act of
vengeance, and regrets having surprised his nephew and wounded him.
Moreover, the unhappy Ysolt does not attempt to conceal her sorrow; and
when she learns that her dear Tristan is dying, she openly declares that she
will not survive him.
Tristan feels that his last hour is at hand. He sends for his uncle, to say
that he should like to see him, and that he bears him no ill-will for causing
his death. King Mark, when he receives this message, exclaims, with the
tears running down his cheeks, "Alas, alas!    Woe to me for having
stabbed my nephew, the best chevalier in the whole world!"     He then
repairs to Dinas's castle, where Tristan, whose voice was very faint, said,
" This is my last fete; the one you have so eagerly desired to see." Tristan
weeps, and the King sheds even more abundant tears, but consents to send
for Queen Ysolt at his nephew's request. Her presence, however, fails to
revive his failing forces, and she exclaims, "Alas, dear friend! is it thus you
are to die? " Whereupon he says, " Yes, my lady! Tristan must die..
Look at my arms; they are no longer those of Tristan, but of a corpse.....
And Ysolt sobs by his side, praying that she too may die.
The next day Tristan half opens his eyes, and, like a good chevalier, has
his sword drawn from its sheath that he may see it for the last time. "Alas,
good sword!" he says, "what will become of you henceforward, without




ROMANCES.


383


your trusty lord? I now take leave of chivalry, which I have honoured and
loved; but I have no longer anything in common with it. Alas, my friends!
to-day Tristan is vanquished." His tears begin to flow afresh, and he kisses
his sword, which he bequeaths to his dearest companion in arms. He then
turns to the Queen, who, since the previous day, had been weeping incessantly, and says to her, "My very dear lady, what will you do when I
die? Will vou not die with me? " To which she replies, " Gentle friend,


Fig. 310.-King Mark stabbing Tristan in the presence of Ysolt.-After a Miniature in
Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, No. 7,675.-In the National Library, Paris.


I call God to witness that nothing would afford me so much joy as to bear
you company this day. Assuredly, if ever woman could die of anguish or
sorrow, I should have died several times since I have been by your side."
" And you would like, then, to die with me?" rejoined Tristan. " God knows
that never did I desire anything so sincerely."  "Approach me, then, for I
feel death coming upon me, and I should like to breathe my last in your




384                          ROMANCES.
arms."  Ysolt leans over Tristan, who takes her into his wasted arms, and
presses her so tightly that her heart bursts, and he expires with her, thus
mingling their last sigh.
The description of the beautiful Ysolt, as Luce du Gault, author of the
prose version of the fourteenth century, makes Tristan himself trace it, will
complete this touching story, and show what was the ideal of female beauty
at this period:-" Her beautiful hair shines like golden threads; her forehead
is whiter than the lily; her eyebrows are arched like small crossbows; and a
narrow  line, milk-white, dimples her nostrils.  Her eyelids are brighter
than emeralds, shining in her forehead like two stars. Her face has the
beauty of morning, for it is both white and vermilion, each colour having
its due proportion. Her lips are a trifle thick, and ardent with bright
colour; her teeth, whiter than pearls, are regular and of good size. No
spices can be compared to the sweet breath of her mouth. The chin is
smoother than marble. From her stately shoulders sweep two thin arms,
and long hands, the flesh of which is tender and soft. The fingers are long
and straight, and her nails are beautiful. Her waist is so narrow that it can
be spanned with the two hands." There is nothing, perhaps, in the old
French language so graceful and picturesque as these two prose romances of
"Tristan " and "Launcelot of the Lake."
The romance of "Launcelot" appears to be a fresh embodiment of the
Armorican legends relating to Tristan. Launcelot, the son of the King of
Benoic (Bourges), and nephew of the King of Gannes, falls in love with
Queen Guinivere (Fig. 311), wife of King Arthur, and he deceives the latter
in as great good faith as Tristan had deceived King Mark. M. Paulin Paris
points out that there is a mixture in these two romances of the souvenirs of
ancient Greek and of Celtic traditions. Thus King Mark has many points
of resemblance with King Midas, and Tristan, in his expedition against the
Morhouet of Ireland, is no other than Theseus, who slew the Minotaur of
Crete; while, when he dies reconciled with King Mark, the black veil
attached to the vessel is also a reminiscence of the death of Theseus's father.
In the romance of " Launcelot " the giant who asks young Launcelot riddles
which he must solve under penalty of death is an imitation of the Sphinx
which (Edipus faced upon Mount Cithaeron. Launcelot at the court of the
Lady of the Lake is Achilles at the court of the King of Scyros, and
Guinivere, the wife of King Arthur, is Dejanira, who proved fatal to




R OMANCE S.35


385


Hercules. There is something very singular in this invasion of the ancient
Greek fables into the books of the IRound Table.


Fig. 31 1.-Launcelot and Gulnivere.-Affter a Miniature in Manuscript of the Eleventh Centnry,
No. 6,964.-In the National Library, Paris.


The "1Book of Merlin " and the " Book of th e Grail," though contem



386


ROMANCES.


porary with " Tristan" and " Launcelot," do not come from the same source,
and are not inspired by the same ideas. In l Merlin " the marvellous forms
by far the largest element, and the author seems to have had always in view


Fig. 312.-The Enchanter Merlin, transformed into a Student, meets in the Forest of Broceliande
the Fairy Viviana.-Fragment of the Binding of a Book in Enamelled Metal-work of Limoges.
-In the Museum of Antiquities at the Louvre.


the imitation of the Bible. The book, which none the less preserves the




ROMANCES.


387


purest traditions of the Gallo-Breton legends, opens, like the Book of Job,
with a council-meeting held in the infernal regions by the spirits of darkness.
Satan declares that he cannot hope to counterbalance upon earth the influence
of Christ, unless he can cause to be born of an immaculate virgin a mandemon. This man-demon is Merlin, who takes under his protection King
Arthur, and who, after having rendered him great services, is buried alive in


Fig. 313.-Death of Joseph of Arimathea.-After a Miniature from the "History of Saint
Grail."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.
a stone tomb by the Lady of the Lake, who has inherited some of his supernatural power (Fig. 312).
The " Book of the Grail " is an evocation of the old religious legends of
Brittany.   According to a pretended gospel, attributed      to St. Joseph of
Arimathea, the latter was said to have been the original possessor of the




388


ROMANCES.


"grail" (Fig. 313), a sacred vessel in which the blood of Jesus, when He
died upon the cross, was received by the angels. This vessel, after having
passed into the possession of Joseph's son and of his descendants, remained
concealed for several centuries, when King Arthur and his chevaliers set out
in quest of it, and the honour of its discovery fell upon Perceval, the Gaul,
who found it at the court of the King Pecheur. The author of this curious
romance, composed in the beginning of the thirteenth century, was the
trouveur, Robert de Borron, who, in the opinion of several critics, was
assisted by Gautier Map, chaplain to King Henry II. of England.
The complement to the romances of the Round Table was the book which
is known as the "Death of Arthur," as " Bret," and as the " Quest of the
Holy Grail," and it is the least felicitous of them all. It was written by
several authors, whose one object was to bring into it all the knights of the
Round Table-Perceval, Lionel, Hector, Palamede, Gauvain, Bliomberis,
Mlordrain, and others, and to represent them as engaged in unceasing battle
with wild beasts, giants, and enchanters. It was not till the fifteenth
century that the romance-writers lengthened the stories contained in the
books of the Round Table by describing the adventures and deeds of daring
of Little Tristan, of Meliadus, of Perceforest, of Constant, of Little Arthur,
of Isaiah the Doleful, &c.
The fourteenth century ushered in the decadence of the romances of
chivalry. At the end of the previous century an effort had been made to
revive the popularity of these romances, which had been more than once
revised and altered from their original composition, the cycle of Charlemagne
and even that of the Round Table being no longer in vogue. Still less
success attended the provincial cycles, as the Gestes relating thereto were only
of interest to the inhabitants of the province in which the events described
took place. Thus the graphic " Geste des Lorrains," comprising " Hervis de
Metz," "Garin le Loherain," and " Girbert et Anseis;" the "Burgundian
Geste," consisting of the two romances, "Girart de Roussillon" and "Aubri
le Bourgoing;" and other equally ancient Gestes, such as " Amis et Amiles,"
"Jourdain de Blaives," "Aiol et Mirabel," "Raoul de Cambrai," &c., no
longer excited the enthusiasm of the hearers, who were out of patience with
the jugglers, and did not care to receive them into their houses on account of
their bad reputation. This bad reputation was in a great measure due to the
misconduct of their confreres, the singers and the story-tellers, and though




ROMANC ES.                            389
most of the jugglers themselves led respectable lives, their contact with the
latter, who were nearly all thieves and drunkards, told very much against
them. This, beyond all doubt, was one of the causes which brought about the
decadence of romance as a branch of literature.
The last features of importance in this branch of literature were the cycle
of the Crusades and a few romances which appealed more especially to the
pride of certain noble families which had been made famous by the wars


Fig. 314-The Arming of a Knight after the Ceremonial instituted by King Arthur.-Fac-simile
of a Miniature from Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the Burgundy Library,
Brussels.


beyond the seas. These romances, " Helias," the "Enfances Godefroi," the
"Chetifs," and "Antioch and Jerusalem" (the latter two being merely
extracts from the same poem), were recited in all the chateaux of France; and
the jugglers, proud of having won a fresh popularity, thought they could
dispense with a musical accompaniment, and got rid of their instrument



390


ROM'AANCES.


players. The result was that the romances, being no longer sung to the
accompaniment of the harp or the violin, but recited in a monotonous tone,
became submerged in a mass of marvellous and improbable stories, and were
drawn out to a wearisome length. Not only were new compositions with
thirty or forty thousand Alexandrine lines brought out, but the ancient
romances written in ten-syllable verse were recast, and the lines lengthened.
The primitive work, thus disfigured, lost all its original qualities. The
trouveurs who were writing for the jugglers succeeded, however, in opening
a fresh cycle, which belongs at once to the history of Charlemagne's successors
and to that of the Crusades. The romances of " Charles the Bald" and of
" Hugues Capet " were not more voluminous than the ancient romances, but
" Baudouin de Sebourc " had more than thirty thousand lines, and " Tristan de
Nanteuil" twenty-four thousand. The "Lion de Bourges," which consists
of forty thousand tame and prolix lines, is a riot of the imagination in which
there is no trace of the traditions relating to Charlemagne's epoch, which
the writer professed to portray for the last time.
This was the death-blow to the jugglers, for they could not find any one to
listen to the recital of these interminable romances. Nevertheless, as many
of them turned copyists in order to gain a livelihood, the manuscripts went
on increasing, and the longest and dullest of romances still found readers.
But though the reading of romances increased rather than diminished
amongst the wealthy and noble classes, with whom the taste for tournaments, jousts, and other games and institutions appertaining to chivalry
(Fig. 314) grew very rapidly, only prose romances found any favour. The
rhymed romances were condemned as a nuisance, and the consequence was a
rapid transformation of them into prose. There was no lack of scribes in the
palaces of the kings, as in the castles of the nobility, to undertake this work,
and the anonymous author of the translation of "Aimeri de Beaulande" gives
as his reason for having undertaken the work that it suits the popular taste.
In the preface to the prose version of "Anseis de Carthage" the acteur, as he
was called, openly states that he felt great hesitation and mistrust of his own
person in transposing from rhyme into prose, "according to the tastes of the
day," the achievements of ancient chivalry.
The old romances in verse disappeared and fell into oblivion, but the prose
versions, arranged according to the tastes of the day, tricked out with sentimental and pedantic digressions, and lengthened with a mass of descriptions




ROMANCES.


391


and dialogues, were twice as prolix, but were received with great favour.
Many copies of them were brought out, and some of these copies, written in
large letters upon costly vellum (Fig. 315), were ornamented with capitals in
gold and colours, and with artistically painted miniatures. The libraries of the
great houses were made up of these manuscripts, most of them in folio, bound
Fig. 315.-Copyist writing upon a Sheet of Vellum.-Miniature from Manuscript of the Fifteenth
Century.-In the Royal Library, Brussels.
in wood, with a covering of leather or some rich material. These enormous
volumes, which could only be read from a desk, were much used by the ladies
of the family, who, undismayed by the length to which these stories of love
and chivalry extended, read from them every day. This was a very favourable period for the romances; nor was it the last, for, when printing was
discovered, fresh editions of nearly all the romances made their appearance




392


ROMANCES.


(Fig. 317). The text was much abridged in these later editions, and certain
compilers, such as Pierre Desrey de Troyes, obtained for themselves a great
reputation for this work, which exacted patience rather than genius. The
romances thus revised had a great many new readers, especially among the
middle classes, who had not before been able to see them. Chivalry, during
the reigns of Charles VIII., of Louis XII., and of Francois I., seemed to
shine with renewed brightness previously to its final extinction, and the
romances which had heralded its triumph seemed, so to speak, to reflect its
last rays.
During the reign of Charles VII., and more especially at the court of
Burgundy, writers of real merit and discernment endeavoured to create a new
kind of romantic literature, appealing to persons of more refined and elevated
tastes (Fig. 316). They wrote love-stories or satires which were not less
remarkable for the grace and interest of the narrative than for the realism of
the passions and sentiments depicted. These romances, put together in a very
plain but ingenious manner, were in as great favour as the more ambitious
compilations relating to chivalry which it took two or three months to read.
Antoine de la Sale furnished the model for works of this kind with his
" Histoire et Chronique du Petit Jehan de Saintre," which was followed by
the histories of "Parise et Vianne sa mie," of the "Chevaleureux Comte
d'Artois," of "Ferrant de Flandres," of "Baudoin d'Avesnes," of "Pierre
de Provence," of "Jean de Calais," and of "Jean de Paris."  It began to be
understood that the romance, discarding the marvellous and fantastic elements,
might possess the most varied characteristics and become didactic, like the book
of the "Sept Sages" and the "Cite des Dames;" sententious and instructive,
like the "Jouvencel," by Admiral Jean de Bueil; or satirical, like King
Rene's " Abuse en Cour." Romance became satirical and philosophical with
Rabelais, who at first, when he wrote " Gargantua," intended to satirize the
romances of chivalry, and who continued in "Pantagruel" to criticize the
customs of his own time. Nevertheless, the romances of chivalry continued
to be in vogue until the middle of the sixteenth century; but after that the
modern romance, which is now only represented by a few insipid works, such
as the " Histoire de l'Escuyer Gyrard et de Damoiselle Alyson," the "Amant
ressuscite de la Mort d'Amour," the "Amours de la belle Luce," &c., transformed itself into the Conte, or tale, after the fashion of the "Cent
Nouvelles nouvelles."  The "HIeptameron" of the Queen of Navarre gave




ROMANCES.39


393


birth to the " Recreations et Joyeux IDevis " of Bonaventure des Pe'riers; to
the " Discours d'Eutrapel; " to the "1 Matinees " and to the " Apr's-cline'es " of
Cholie~res; and, lastly, to the " Soirles," by Guillaume Bouchet.
In the meanwhile the ancient romances of chivalry, all originating in


Fig. 316.-"I How the Actor lost his way, and arrived in front of the Palace of Love, into which
Desire bid him enter, while Remembrance held him back."-AMiniature from the "1Chevalier
De'libe're," by Olivier de la Mlarche.-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, No. 173.-In the
Arsenal Library, Paris.
France and bearing upon them the impress of that origin, had been translated or adapted into every language since the thirteenth century.      Not only
in Germany, Holland, and England, but in Sweden, Denmark, and even in
3 E




394


ROMI'ANCES.


Iceland.  These translations and imitations, which preserved the generic
name of romance, were, however, fashioned to suit the taste of the nation for
which they were intended, though they still retained the characteristics of
their place of birth.  In Italy there was composed only one prose romance
after the manner of the French romances of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries; but from  this crude compilation, which was called "Reali di
Francia," there issued a great number of long poems on chivalry-" Rinaldo,"
"Morgante," "Orlando," "Guarino," &c.-upon which the Italian genius
lavished all the wealth of its poetry to disguise the extravagant and affected
sentiments which it attributed somewhat too freely to the rude paladins of
Charlemagne, and to the Christian warriors who took part in the Crusades.
Spain, whose heroic traditions were carefully preserved in the romances of
the Campeador Cid, showed little liking for the peers of Charlemagne; but
she took more kindly to the Breton romances about the Knights of the Round
Table, and from them derived her inspirations for the composition of a
romance similar in characteristics, which soon obtained a reputation equal to,
if not greater than, that of the French works.  This romance, " Amadis de
Gaule," which Portugal has always claimed the possession of from Spain,
was composed, or at all events begun, in the first years of the sixteenth century
by an anonymous author, who wrote only the first four books of it.  The
writers who took up the work where he left it, and whose names are also
unknown, added to these four books the stories of Esplandian, of Florisande,
of Catane, and of the Knight of the Burning Sword.    The success of
"Amadis" was even greater in France and Italy than it was in Spain, and
the French translation of Nicholas de Herberay, Sieur des Essars, shone like
a beacon light above all the romantic compositions of the sixteenth century,
during which the Spaniards published many romances of chivalry-" Primaleon
of Greece," " Gerileon of England," &c.-all of which were cast into the shade
by the masterpiece of Cervantes. The English and the Dutch continued to
read the translations of the old French romances, but they did not attempt
to imitate them, and the first national romance in England was Sidney's
"Arcadia," published in 1591, and continued by his sister, the Countess of
Pembroke. The Germanic nations, which had also translated a great number
of the old French romances, were even less successful than the English
in this branch of literature, and the few national and historical romances
which they published in the sixteenth century only served to manifest their




ROMA NCES.


395


inferiority. Their tendency was rather towards the invention of stories at once
supernatural and facetious, such as " Fortunatus," " Ulespiegel," and " Faust,"
or satirical allegories, such as the famous romance of " Renard," to which
France gave letters of naturalisation, borrowing from Germany the data of
this fanciful and allegorical story.


Fig. 317.-Token of Antoine Verard (1498), Printer, Wood Engraver, and Bookseller, at Paris,
who published most of the Romances of Chivalry in Prose during the reigns of Louis XII.
and Francois I.




POPULAR SONGS.
Definition and Classification of Popular 83ng.-Songs of the Germans, the Gauls, the Goths, and
the Franks.-They are collected by Order of Charlemagne.-Vestiges of the most Ancient
Songs.-The Historical Songs of France down to the Sixteenth Century.-Romanesque Songs.
-Religious Songs.-The Christmas Carols and the Canticles.-Legendary Songs.-D)omestic
Songs.-The Music of the Popular Songs.-Provincial Songs.-The Songs of Germany.-The
Minnesingers and the Meistersingers.-The Songs of England, of Scotland, and of Northern
Countries.-The Songs of Greece, of Italy, and of Spain.
Y the words Popular Song we mean a sort of
poetry born spontaneously amongst the people,
and therefore anonymous, and which, instead! Perwhcippl         of being ascribed to such and such a poet, is,
on the contrary, the work of certain unknown
authors.  We may also look upon it as the
collective and successive work of whole generations, which, by the adoption of this poetry set
to music in which is reflected the feeling of the
mass, have preserved it more or less intact as a
traditional souvenir of early ages.  Mlontaigne
characterized, with striking truth, this kind of popular poetry, which is
contemporary with the origin of nations and of languages, when he said,
"Poetry which is popular and wholly natural possesses charms of simplicity
and grace which are worthy to be compared with the highest of artificial
beauties, as may be seen by the pastoral poetry (villanelles) of Gascony and the
songs coming to us from foreign parts."
M. Eugene Fermin, the commentator of the "Burgundy Christmas
Carols" of La Monnoye, says, "'Every nation possesses its popular songs;
and as with all of them these songs must have had their origin in analogous
causes, it follows that these songs must possess a certain analogy with each
other. They were always inspired either by public occurrences, or by religious




POPULAR SONGS.


397


feeling, or by domestic joys and sorrows, whence we have the three distinct
and marked categories which comprise the historic songs, the religious songs,
and the domestic songs."


7\,kVkc-)jM                            & -V  5 TERFig. 318. —Poetry and Music.-The Nine Muses inspiring Arion, Orpheus, and Pythagoras, under
the auspices of the Personified Air, source of all Harmony.-Miniature from the "Liber
Pontificalis."-Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century.-In the Public Library, Rheims.


All nations have had their singers, and the national songs, composed of
rhymed words with which corresponded a musical melody that had not the same




398


398          ~~~POPULAR SONGS.


principles of duration, were the primitive expression of the passions, the
beliefs, and the ideas of each great human family (Fig. 318). It is easy to
understand how most of these popular songs were lost as time rolled on, and
why only a few faint echoes of them are now preserved, for the very essence
of a popular song is that it receives -no written publicity, but passes from
mouth to mouth, leaving no other trace than verbal reminiscences.           The
early peoples were not in the habit of writing.         "The Germans," says
4llegro.     -  _  _             _ _          ~_           _
Da ikmrabgwennDrouiz,o -re; Da -ik pe - tra fell d'id-de? pe-t ra ga-ninn~~ ~~ ~~a~~~4zcacZ~~~~~ft             ~4
rne d'id - de? - Kan d'in euz a eur rann, Ken a ouC-enn bre - man.
-Hieb  rann ar Red   beb-hken An- Kou, tad ann  an - ken; Ne -
tra kent ne tra ken.- Da - ik mnab gwenii Drouiz, o - re; Da - ik pe-tra
fellI d'id- de?  pe -tra ga-ninn - mne d'id -de?-Kati d'in euz a  zaou rann,
Ken a ouf-eun    bre-man.
Fig. 319.-A Song of the Druidic Epoch, Words and Music. 'Translated by Fe'tis in his
"General History of Music."
Tacitus, "Cpossessed some very ancient, poems, in which were celebrated the
warlike actions and noble deeds of their ancestors, and which were transmitted
from father to son as the only annals of their race." Among the Gauls the
Druids preserved as a sacred deposit the religious poems which dated from
the very earliest times, and which contained the mysteries of their religion
(Fig. 319), and these religious poems were in no case committed to writing.




POPULAR SONGS.                          399
At a later period, according to the testimony of Jornandes, the great Germanic
nation of the Goths possessed no other history than the ancient songs which
had been preserved as a venerable tradition in the well-stored memory of the
people (" quemadmodum et in priscis eorum carminibus pene historico ritu in
commune recolitur").  Thus Boulainvilliers remarks with truth, in his
" Essay upon the Nobility," " The history of the French is stored up in their
historical songs."
Unfortunately there does not now exist a single one of these songs, which
the Gallic bards, according to Diodorus Siculus and Ammianus Marcellinus,
were set to compose in Celtic, in order to perpetuate the memory of heroic
deeds, and which they sang themselves at their assemblies to the accompaniment of the harp or the lyre. (See the volume on " The Arts," chapter Music.)
We possess nothing of an earlier date than the Latin translation of the first
verses of a popular song composed in 622, after the victory won by King
Clotaire II. over the Saxons. This song went from mouth to mouth, because
it was in the rustic language (juxta rusticitatem), and it was repeated by the
women, who sang it while dancing and clapping their hands.  The popular
historical songs became very numerous in Gaul and in Germany, but many of
them had disappeared when Charlemagne, who held this ancient literature
of the people in high esteem, had them carefully collected in all the countries
under his dominion, and it is much to be regretted that this valuable compilation, which testified to Charlemagne's esteem for this kind of vulgar poetry,
should have been lost. Eginhard mentions in this connection that Charlemagne often sought relief from the cares of state in the songs of some Breton
bard or some Scandinavian scald. Upon one occasion he allowed a Lombard
juggler (joculator) to execute before him and his court a cantiuncula which
that minstrel had composed. There existed, no doubt, some very popular and
famous songs of the kind in honour of Charlemagne, for in the tenth century
the words were still sung in the German language to the old tune, which is
described in a manuscript at Wolfenbuttel as Modus carelmannine (Charlemagne's tune).
From the ninth to the twelfth century we can only cite eight or ten
popular songs, most of which were written in Latin, and which were, therefore, the work of clerks or men of letters, viz. a lament on the death of
Charlemagne (" Planctus Caroli "); a very beautiful song upon the battle of
Fontanet, in 841, by Angilbert the Frank; a song upon the death of Eric,




400                       POPULAR SONGS.
Duke of Frioul, in 799, by Paulin, Patriarch of Alexandria; a song to
celebrate the victory of the Emperor Otho III. over the Hungarians; a song
upon the death of Abbot Hug, the natural son of Charlemagne. But it is
doubtful how far these songs were really popular, and the "Ludwigslied" is
the only song of that period which we know to have been unmistakably
so.  This song is in German, and celebrates the great victory won by
Louis III. in 881 over the Normans, and it was sung in the North of France
as late as the twelfth century.
The songs in the Romance rustic language were the only ones generally
v#-#          a. -De          i - #
O Ma-ri - a. Deumai  -re, Deu tes e    fils e  pai - re;
Domna     pre - ia per nos       to fil - lo  glo - ri - os.
E    lo      pair ais - sa-men;    pre - ia per  to - ta


In   _  1-z   =r1-= _ 
jen,  e eel - ro    nos so-cor;    tor- na nos  es a    plor,   4
Fig. 320.-Song of the Crusaders, dating from the First Crusade (1096), and set to Modern Music
by Fetis in his " General History of Music."
current among the people at a time when the German language was only
used at the court of the Carlovingian kings and emperors, and when the
clerks used the Latin language almost exclusively in the monasteries and in
the schools. A great number of these songs were devoted to the marvellous
and historical incidents in the legend of Charlemagne, and they served for
the composition of the early chansons de geste and romances of chivalry, in
which they were gradually absorbed and lost (Fig. 320). It is, therefore,
impossible to advance any direct and certain proof as to the existence of these
primitive songs.  (See above, chapter on Romances.)
There are no traces of historical songs in the vulgar tongue of France




POPULAR SONGS.40


+01


earlier than the thirteenth century, but there may be instanced a very singular
Latin song relating to the story of Abelard, and composed by his pupil Hilaire


Fig. 321.-Puke Philip the Good, being sick, intrusts the education of his son1 Charles, Comte de
Charolois, to Georges Chastelain, the Poet and Chronicler.-M1iniature from the "Instruction
d'un jeune Prince."-IManuscript of the Fifteenth Ceutury, executed by the Painters of the
Court of Burgundy.-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.


about 1122, w~hen his illustrious master, condemned by the Council of Soissolns




402


POPULAR SONGS.


for his bold views on philosophy, finally gave up tuition. This song is divided
into rhymed verses of four lines each, with the following refrain in French:" Tort a vers nos li mestre."
Seventy-seven years later, at the death of Richard Cceur de Lion, who was
killed while besieging the Castle of Chalus, in the province of Limousin, the
French jugglers remembered that the valiant King of England had been
delivered from prison by the aid of his minstrel, Blondel of Nesles, who made
himself known by singing an air which Richard had composed himself. A
popular song, in the style of the chansons de geste, was therefore composed
about the death of Richard, and soon became popular throughout France, and
doubtless in England as well. Amongst other lines were the following:"Et 9o dont dei tos jors pleindre en plorant,
M'avient a dire en chantant et retraire
Que cil qui est de valur chief et paire
Li tres-valens Richarz, rois des Engleis, est morz....
Morz est li rois, et sunt passe mil ans
Que tant prodom ne fust ne n'est de son semblant."
The historical songs from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century recall
such events as the Crusades, the wars of the French and the English, the
death of the Constable Bertrand Duguesclin, and other popular heroes. Le
Roux de Lincy has published an interesting collection of historical and
popular French songs from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, and a
second, comprising those of the time of Charles VII. and Louis XI., and in
these two collections are to be found all that remains of these songs, most of
which have lapsed into oblivion. It is very strange that none of the numerous
ballads which the miraculous mission of Joan of Arc evoked at the time should
have been treasured up, while there is still extant in the neighbourhood of
Tournay a long ballad upon the death of Philip, the good Duke of Burgundy
(Fig. 321). Although this ballad dates from 1467, it does not differ much
from the language of the present day, as may be gathered from the extract
appended:( Le bon due, avant son trespas,
Et sentant la mort pres de luy,
Tout bellement et par compas,
Fist ses regres en grant annuy:




I
d~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1




I
I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It~
4~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




I^ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I
ISSI
*     S








POPULAR SONGS.


403


'Las! ' dit-il, 'je laisse aujourd'hui
Ma chiere espouse encor vivant.
Adieu, ma dame a qui je suy!
Pries pour moy, jo voys morant.' "
The importance of a popular song was not, moreover, always to be judged
by that of the event which gave it birth.      It often happened that great
political and national questions inspired only a few    insignificant rhymes,
which lapsed into oblivion without evoking the sympathies of the masses,
while a tournament, a plenary court, a public ceremony, or a fete at some
feudal castle sufficed to evoke the muse of the people. The inspirations of this
fanciful muse were often in striking contrast to the circumstances which had
given them   birth, for while some tragic occurrence would serve as a theme
for sarcastic or flippant songs, a matter which seemed to be a cause of
universal rejoicing would form    the subject for some doleful ballad.   The
divisions in popular opinion often found expression in their songs, and thus,
when Jacques Clement assassinated King Henry III., who had been driven
from  Paris by the League, at St. Cloud, some fanatical people sang the
murderer's praises in the following lines:"() le sainct religieux,
Jacques Clement bienheureux,
Des Jacobins l'excellence,
Qui, par sa benevolence,
Et de par le Sainct-Esprit,
A merite asseurance
La haut au Ciel oi il vist."
The Politicians, or Royalists, rejoined with the following lines:"I1 fut tue par un meschant mutin
Jacques Clement qui estoit jacobin.
Jacques Clement, si tu estois a naistre,
Las! nous aurions nostre Roy, nostre maistrc! 
It would sometimes happen that after a certain interval a song of noble
and solemn melancholy would be converted into a burlesque parody without
any apparent cause or reason. Thus the battle of Pavia (1525), at which the
flower of the French nobility perished around Francois I., who was made
prisoner, was a most appropriate subject for a popular song, and amongst




404


POPULAR SONGS.


other touching incidents was the death of Jacques de Chabannes, Lord of La
Palice, who was killed at the feet of his sovereign. The ballad, composed in
his honour, began" Monsieur de La Palice est mort,
Est mort devant Pavie."...
But within a century this national song had been travestied in such a way
that it had become impossible to recognise it, and some one made it ridiculous
by adding as a joke to the above two lines" Ielas! s'il n'estoit pas mort,
II seroit encore en vie."
Sometimes, too, there would reappear in a new shape some old song which
was scarcely remembered by the older generation, but which seemed to
acquire fresh youth when, with an altered name, it was applied to some other
subject.  Thus, after the battle of Malplaquet in 1709, the rumour of the
death of the English commander, the Duke of Marlborough, having spread
through the ranks of the French army, which had suffered so much at his
hands, the soldiers began to sing, out of revenge, a sort of comic ballad, which
was only the imitation of a popular song entitled the "Convoi du Due de
Guise," which all the Huguenot soldiers knew by heart after the assassination
of Francois de Lorraine, called Le Balafre (covered with scars), beneath the
walls of Orleans (1563). Appended are some of the couplets of this old song
which most resemble the "Chanson de Malbrough," and which was revived
two centuries later by the court of Louis XVI., when Madame Poitrine,
the nurse of the Dauphin, taught it to Marie Antoinette:" Qui veut ouir chanson?
C'est du grand due de Guise,
Doub, dan, don, dan, dou, don,
Dou, dou, dou,
Qu'est mort et enterre.
Qu'est mort et enterr6.
Aux quatre coins de sa tombe,
Doub, dan, don, &c.
Quatr'gentilhomm's y avoit.




POPULAR SONGS.


40o


Quatr'gentilhomm's y avoit,
Dont l'un portoit son casque
Doub, dan, don, &c.
L'autre ses pistolets.
L'autre ses pistolets,
Et l'autre son 6pee,
Doub, dan, don, &c.
Qui tant d'Hugu'nots a tues
La cer6monie faite,
Doub, dan, don, etc.
Chacun s'allit coucher.
Chacun s'allit coucher,
Les uns avec leurs femme,
Doub, dan, don, &c.
Et les autres tous seuls."
Several critics, Genin amongst others, have attributed a still more ancient
origin to the "Chanson de Malbrough," or at least to part of this song, in
which may be recognised the naive and sentimental cast of the popular songs
of the thirteenth century. There are many instances which might be cited of
songs coming down from century to century, gradually losing all the souvenirs
which connected them with the distant period during which they gushed
forth from the heart of the people. The children in the villages of Poitou
still sing as an anthem the following verse, half Latin, half French, which
doubtless refers to the captivity of King John, who was taken prisoner at the
battle of Poitiers (September 17th, 1356):" Christiana Francia
De laquelle le chef est pris,
Splendens regni gloria
Aux armes de la fleur de lys."
By the side of the historical songs, and in the same category with them,
must be cited the romantic songs. As has been remarked by one of those who
have studied the most deeply this poetry of the people, " the narrative in them
is abrupt and digressive, leaving secondary details in the shade, and treating
only of the salient points. The same forms of language are repeated several
times, and the dialogues are reproduced word for word as in Homer.         The




,+o6


406          ~~~POPULAR SONGS.


refrain is sometimes entirely unconnected with the subject of the narrative."
Perhaps the most beautiful of these short poems is the following, which has
taken different forms in different provinces of France, and which is known as
the "Complainte de Renaud."            The poem     forms a complete drama:
"Quand iRenaud de la guerre vint,
Sa me're, 'a la feneftre, en haut,
Dit: I'Voici venir mon fills Renaud.'
La Mm~r. iRenaud, Renaud, re'jouis-toi,
Ta femme est accouche'e cl'un roi.
Renaud. Ni de ma femme, ni de mon fills,
Mon cceur ne peut se r-joui;
Quon me fasse vite un lit blanc
Pour que je m'y couche dedans.
Et quand il fut mis dans son lit,
Pauvre IRenaud rendit l'esprit.
(Les cloches sonnant le tr~passemnent.)
La Reine. Or, dites-moi, me're, m amie,
Quest-ce que j'entends sonner ici?
La 21.bre. Ma fille, ce sent les processions
Qui sortent pour les Rogations.
(On cloue le cercueil.)
La leine. Or, dites-moi, me're m'amie,
Qu'est-ce que j'entends cogner iciF
La Mdre. Ma fille, c' sent les charpentiers
Qui raccommodent nos greniers.
(Les pr(2tres enl~event le corps.)
La Ileine. Or, dites-moi, me're m'amie,
Qu'est-ce que j'entends chanter ici F
La Me~re. Ma fille, c' sont les processions
Wuon fait autour de nos maisons.
La Ileine. Or dites-moi, me'e m'amie,
Quelle robe prendrai-je aujourd'hui?
La ihre. Quittez le rose, quittez le gris.
Prenez le noir, pour micux choisi.
La Reine. Or, dites-moi, me're m'amie,
Qu'ai-je donc 'a pleurer iciF
La Mire. Ma fille, je n' puis plus vous le cacher:
IRenaud est moert et enterre'.




POPULAR SONGS.


407


La Reine. Terre, ouvre-toi! terre, fends-toil
Que j' rejoigne Renaud, mon roi.
Terre s'ouvrit, terre fendit,
Et la belle fut engloutie."
Religious songs, which must not be confused with the liturgical songs,


Fig. 322.-The Shepherds celebrating the Birth of the Messiah with Hymns and Dancing (End
of the Fifteenth Century).-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving from a "Livre d'Heures"
printed by Antoine Verard.
had a much more extensive sphere than the historical songs, for they comprised prayers, legends, the lives of the saints, miracles, canticles, and the
songs pertaining to the ceremonies of religion and the festivals of the Church.
Of the three distinct categories referred to above, that of religious song is the




408


POPULAR SONGS.


most fruitful in ingenuous works which bear the impress of the faith and piety
of our forefathers, for in France the people have always been sincerely
attached to religion. It is true that popular religious songs were sometimes
of a slightly facetious and bantering tone, but this was merely a natural
emanation of the Gallic character and temperament.          The Church very
properly opposed the introduction of profane songs into the sanctuary,
though, as we saw in the chapter on Popular Beliefs, the "Prose of the Ass "
long held its own against the condemnations of councils and synods.        We
may believe, therefore, that in many dioceses during the Middle Ages the
religious songs in the vulgar tongue, known under the generic title of Noels
Allegretto.                                   tr.
Ai lai Na-ti - vi - tai Chanton, je  vo  su - pli - e  Levarbe am -
mail-16-taiJeusqueai nos'hu-m i - li  e, Po no dechar-b - tai Du co-don
tr.
qui no li -.
Fig. 323.-A Carol in Burgundy Patois, with the Music annotated.-After the " Noel Borguignon
de Gui Barozai," published by Bernard de La Monnoye.
(Christmas Carols), were sometimes mixed up with the sacred hymns which
celebrated the birth of Jesus in the stall at Bethlehem. These songs in the
vulgar tongue were sung during the solemn procession which was formed
during the night of Christmas, to the sound of instruments, and in the dress
of shepherds, around the crib of the infant Jesus (Fig. 323). The persons
who represented the shepherds are said to have sung, as early as the
thirteenth century, a carol which began" Seignors, or entendez a nonq.
De loin sommes venus a vous
Pour querre Noel."


Another carol of the same period, which was entirely rewritten in the




POPULAR SONGS.


409


sixteenth century, described the joy of the animals at the news of the birth
of the Holy Child, and gave an opening for musical effects, as the singers
imitated the crowing of the cock, the lowing of the ox, the bleating of the
goat, the braying of the ass, and the bellowing of a calf.  It ran as follows:"Comme les bestes autrefois
Parloient mieux latin que franqois,
Le coq, de loin voyant le faict,
S'ecria: Christus natus est (le Christ est ne);
Le boeuf, d'un air tout ebaubi,
Demande: Ubi, ubi, ubi? (0b, ot, oh?)
La chevre, se tordant le groin,
Respond que c'est a Bethleemn.
Maistre baudet, curiosus (curieux)
De l'aller voir, dit: Eanmus! (Allons!)
Et droit sur ses pattes, le veau
Beugle deux fois: Volo! volo! (je veux! je veux!)"
This was only an exception, for, as a general rule, the carol was so distinguished above all other religious songs for its pious and touching simplicity
that it might almost have passed for a canticle.     The most picturesque and
emotional carols were those of Brittany, though all over France, in town
as well as in country, the carols preserved their former characteristics as
long as religion remained supreme in men's hearts.        The whole song was
devoted to glorifying the Divine Messiah, and at most it contained a final
couplet praying God to pardon miserable sinners.         But gradually human
thoughts displaced divine and religious thoughts in this popular song, and
the carols, while still retaining their original form and pretensions, became
changed into personal appeals addressed to Jesus and the Holy Virgin in
the interests of those who sang them.
In the Beauce district, for instance, it is still the custom to sing"Honneur a la compagnie
De cette maison.
A l'entour de votre table,
Nous vous saluons.
Nous sommes v'nus de pals etrange
Dedans ces lieux:
C'est pour vous faire la demande
De la part a Dieu."
There is also a very long carol which was composed and sung during the
3G




4.10


410         ~~~POPULAR SONGS.


League, and this carol, doubly remarkable with regard to the sentiments it
contains and the way in which they are expressed, is in reality a popular song
at once political and religious, and in which staunch Catholics deplore the
evil of their time'. The three couplets subjoined will give the reader an idea
of the general tone of this pathetic lay:
"Nous to rcque'rons, a mains jointes,
Youloir ouir nos griofies plaintes,
Nous, pauvres pastoureaux;
Do toutos parts on nous saccago,
On rious de'truit, on nous ravago,
Et brobis ot agucaux.
Lo soldat, tons los jours, sans cosso,
En nos casottos nous opprosso,
Pill ot omporto tout:
Iinons, comprosso, ii nous ranyonno;
A son delpart, souvont nous donno
Encoro un mosehant coup.
Quo si bientost tu n'y pronds garde,
Noiis mottant sous ta sauivogarde,
Uedlas! c'ost fait do nous.
Osto-nous done do cOs mise'res,
Pals cossor nos civiles guorros,
To prions N gonoux! "
The Christmas carol soon assumed a different shape, and, ceasing to be
even a religious song, was made to contain allusions to the current events of
the day, allusions replete with epigrams and sarcasms.          It became in some
cases impertinent, indelicate, and blasphemous, though more generally it was
but the arch expression of popular good-humour. The appended couplet
gives a fair idea of the carol of the sixteenth century:
"Meossiro Joan Guillot,
Cure' do Saint-IDonis,
Apporto ploin un pot
Du vin, of son logis.
Prestros ot oscolliers,
Touto icolle nuicte'o,
So sont mis 'a sautor,
Chantor
Ut, r6', mi, fa, sol, la,
la la,
A gorgo desployc'e."




POPULAR SONGS.


4II


The religious canticles and ballads preserved their characteristics of singleminded devotion much longer than the carols, and, unlike the works manufactured by a professional poet, they resemble rather the prayers and orisons
set to church music.  The pilgrims, the relic showers, and the vendors of
consecrated medals chanted in slow and monotonous tones the interminable
stories of saints, male and female-" Genevieve de Brabant," "St. Roch,"
"St. Antoine," and many other masterpieces of simple faith, which have


Fig. 324.-A Ballad Singer accompanying himself upon the Violin.-Miniature from Manuscript
of the Thirteenth century, No. 6,819.-In the National Library, Paris.
come down to us in modern form, and which will, perhaps, survive centuries
after much of the modern and printed poetry has been forgotten (Fig. 320).
The following modernised song dates, beyond all doubt, from a very ancient
epoch:"C'est sainte Catherine,
La fille d'un grand roi:
Son pere etait paien,
Sa mbre ne l'etait pas.
Ave Maria, Sancta Catharina,
Dei mater, allellia.




#12


412          ~~~POPULAR SONGS.


Tin jour 'a sa prie're
Son pe're la trouva:
' Catherine, f5 ma fille,
Catherine, que fais-tu la'?',Ave Maria, &c.
'J'adore, j'adore, mon p~re,
Le hon Dieu que voilA.
C'est le Dieu de ma me're:
Votre iDien nest pas Ia'.'
Are Maria, &e."
The legends relating to the Yirgin form a class apart, and are many of
them endowed with special charms.       Several narratives of the Middle Ages
were devoted to celebrating her mercy and the influence which she possessed,
because of her motherhood, over God himself. There is a Perigord song
broug~ht to light by Count de Mellet, which in modern French runs"Tn e a'me est morte cette nuit:
Elle eat morte sans confession.
Personne ne la va voir,
Excepte' la Sainte Vierge.
Le De'mon est 'a 1'entour:
I'Tenez, tenez, Mon fils Jd'sus,
Accordez-moi le pardon de cette pauvre ame.'
'Comment voulez-vous que je lui pardonnee
Jamais ella ne m'a damande6 de pardon.'
'MIais si bien 'a roi, mon fils Jesus;
Ella m'a hien demnande' pardon.'
'Eli bien! ma me're, vous le voulez?
Pans le moment me'me je liii pardonno.'"
The popular domestic songs are infinite both in regard to numbers and
variety, and they appealed the most directly to the heart of the people.
Conjugal and maternal love inspired most of these songs, in which are
depicted with singular fidelity the joys and sorrows of home, and in which
the business of life is shown in its varying shades. These songs are a mixture
of epigram and elegy, of the open expression of the tendcrest feelings of the
human heart and of the wildest fancies, and they depict the different gradations of the social scale. These domestic songs may be subdivided into many
categories: the songs- of the soldier and of the sailor, of the shepherd and
of the labourer,, of the fisherman and of the hunter; the songs of indoor
workmen, such as the weavers, the shoemakers, the spinners, the smiiths, and




POPULAR SONGS.


413


the carpenters; the songs of the comnpagnonzages (trades unions); the songs
relating to the culture of the soil, such as seed-time, harvest, and vintage;
satirical songs; songs bearing upon the various phases of family life, such as
christening, confirmation, marriage, death, widowhood, &c.; convivial and
playful songs; roundelays and songs of childhood; and so forth. Types of all
these songs are to be found in M. Ampere's excellent treatise called the
" Instructions du Comite de la Langue, de l'Histoire et des Arts de la France."


--                                         I~~~~~~~~~


I    I  I  i   II 


Fig. 325.-The Personification of Music.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving in the "Margarita
Philosophica" (Bale Edition, 4to, 1508).
All these songs, be it remembered, which had no known authors, or which
were adopted by the great anonymous and collective poet called the People,
are in reality popular songs, and must not be confounded with the individual
productions of written poetry, many of them very indifferent in quality,




414


POPULAR SONGS.


which Montaigne contemptuously designated as being "void of honour and
of value." Some of these popular songs, for all their errors of grammar and
their incompleteness, are very remarkable works. The metre often seems
wrong, the rhyme is replaced by a mere assonance, and the meaning is badly
expressed; but these trifling compositions have a charm all their own, and
present the true type of popular poetry.  The professional poets, even the
greatest of them, did not think it beneath their dignity to borrow from this
popular poetry, which, in attempting to improve, they often spoilt. A charming couplet is that which Georges de Lalaing, a gentleman of the court of
Burgundy, who happened to remember having heard it somewhere in Brabant,
wrote in the album of Helene de Merode:Elle s'en va aux champs, la petite bergiere,
Sa quenouille filant; son troupeau suyt derriere.
Tant il la fait bon veoir, la petite bergiere,
Tant il la fait bon veoir."
In the same album is preserved a village roundelay which was sung in the
Hainault:Nous estions trois sceurs tout d'une volonte,
Nous allimes au fond du joly bois jouer....
Vray Dieu! Qu'il est heureux, qui se garde d'aimer! "
Most of these songs were set to popular airs which were familiar to
everybody, and the unknown origin of which in many cases went back for
centuries. Sometimes, however, the music had been composed at the same
time as the words, and also belonged to the music of the people, which has
always been remarkable for its exquisite grace and simplicity (Fig. 325).
Every province and town-one might almost add every village-had its
particular songs, which were preserved in the memory of the inhabitants as
safely as if they were deposited in the local archives.  These songs represented the ideas, the beliefs, the manners, and, above all, the idiom of the
district, and this idiom limited the preservation of them to the region in
which they were composed. Hence we have a mass of popular songs which
have become embedded in the various patois, and which date from every
period in history. The patois may be Flemish, Picard, Norman, Poitou,
Burgundian, Provencal, Auvergnat, or Languedoc, but in all alike one
hears the voice of the people. How ancient some of these songs are, not



POPULAR SONGS.


415


withstanding the modern dialect in which they are expressed, may be readily
understood when one hears the Berry peasants driving their oxen to an
unintelligible air interspersed with Latin words, such as I bos and Sta bos; and
so, again, in several popular songs in the Chartrain and Auvergne districts
there occurs the refrain la guillone and la guillona, which is no other than
the song of Gallic origin terminating with the words Gui l'an neu, and which
long survived the Druidic ceremonies.
The various races of men settled in Europe, and the various countries
which make up that continent, formerly possessed their own popular songs,
and they were anxious to preserve them as records of their nationality, for
Fig. 326. —Minnesingers.-Poesies des Minnesingers.-Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.
In the National Library, Paris.
these popular songs were, in fact, the native expression of the character of the
nation which produced them. An effort is now being made to collect them, for
they are the rarest and most interesting documents of the history of peoples.
In Germany, whose national songs had already been collected by Charlemagne, there appeared in the twelfth century a series of long poems,
derived from them, which made up the splendid epode known as "Niebelungen." The German poets then created a new branch of songs, which were
destined by their very characteristics to become popular, but which must not,
with a few exceptions, be looked upon as works emanating from the people
themselves. The Minnesingers (or singers of love-songs), who composed a




416


POPULAR SONGS.


great many of these lyric songs, differed but little from the troubadours of
Southern France (Fig. 326), while the Meistersingers (master singers) had
more in common with the jugglers of the tongue of Oil. The work of the
3Minnesingers did not reach, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century,
beyond the courts of the princes and the castles of the nobles, who themselves aspired to sing love-songs, and who waged unceasing war against the
ancient popular songs of Germany. The work of the Meistersingers, upon
the contrary, was intended for the middle and the lower classes (Fig. 327).
These poets and musicians, who devoted their efforts to a branch of literature
more in conformity with the German character, had quite eclipsed the
Minnesingers by the fifteenth century, and popularised a new branch of
poetry which contained within itself the germs of dramatic art. (See below,
chapter on National Poetry.)
The popular songs of Germany are especially worth studying when they
take the eminently poetic form of ballads, for there is in the German ballad,
to use the felicitous expression of M. Fertiault, something soft and pensive,
which can be felt better than it can be described-something at once vague
and touching. It embodies, as a rule, a slight drama, in which are united and
fused lyric, dramatic, and familiar elements. Pensive and mystic, it hints at
more than it actually says, and it exhales as it were a refined perfume of the
soul which kindles the deepest emotions. Germany, like France, has her
popular songs, both historical, religious, and domestic, and they are in a more
complete state of preservation.
England, too, is rich in ancient ballads equal to those of Germany. The
English ballads are, as a rule, somewhat epic in their tendencies, and many of
them are of such a length that they assume the proportions of a poem in
several cantos. But, whatever may be their length or manner of composition,
they are replete with tender and refined sentiments culled from the marvellous
fables of ancient Britain. Scotland has also a number of national ballads
reflecting the poetic majesty of her wild scenery, of her mist-enveloped lakes,
and of her pine-covered mountains. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Songs of
the Scotch," remarks that traditional tales and songs, accompanied by the
flute and the harp of the minstrel, were probably the sole sources of amusement possessed by the Highlanders during their short intervals of peace.
In them we may trace the source whence Macpherson drew the fanciful
utterances which he puts in the mouth of his Ossian. Ireland is not less




POPULAR SONGS.


417


proud of her national ballads, and Thomas Moore, who published them for
the first time, preferred them to the Scotch ballads.
In Denmark, Sweden, and Norway the popular songs were for centuries
the only history transmitted from generation to generation: all these
countries had their national poets, named Scalds, who sang upon the battlefields in order to inspirit the combatants (Fig. 328). These poets, themselves
warriors, improvised to the sound of the harp rhymed songs in which they
related, after a fashion at once simple and striking, the great military
achievements of their heroes, whom they associated with the sombre deities
Fig. 327.-German Musicians playing the Lute and the Guitar.-Engraved by J. Amman
(Sixteenth Century).
of the Odin mythology. The people drank deeply and incessantly from the
springs of this wild and warlike, yet pensive poetry, and these anonymous, and
in the true sense popular, works formed a collection known by the name of
"Kemperiser."  M. Marmier points out the resemblance of the popular songs
of Sweden to those of Scotland, Germany, Holland, and Denmark. The
Danes, as he remarks, were long enough in direct communication with
England to interchange the legends of heroism, religion, and love.
3 H




418                      POPULAR SONGS.
Russia and Poland have popular songs which, though dissimilar from one
another, date from the same epoch of the Middle Ages. In Poland the
popular songs are mainly historical and warlike, or touch upon chivalry,
while in Russia they are rather religious and domestic, and are used by the
peasants to portray their joys and sorrows.  Servia and the ]Danubian
provinces are equally rich in popular songs, which have been collated in a
work called " Danitza, many of them being of very ancient date.  They
consist, for the most part, of love and war songs, and are remarkable for their
exquisite refinement. Modern Greece has, like Servia, formed a collection of
her ancient popular songs, many of which, in the shape of a legendary ballad


Hiugy-gu  v?~r rnedh hior-vil     Hitt  lae  ir    mik jafu- au
at   Bald-urs  fol - ur  bekk - i  bdin - a  veit ek    at smul -
Urn;  Drehkmra   bjor  at  bragd-i       or   bkig - vid - nu haus -
a;       eig -i Kern    ek micdh wxdr-u  ord til 'vidr-is  hall-ar.
Fig. 328.-Song of the Sword. Original Melody of the " Krakumal," an ancient record of the
Scandinavian Scalds, published by Fe'tis in his "1History of Music," after the version of it by
MT. Legis. Each of the couplets of this melody commences with a line meaning, "1We have
fought with the sword."
of the Middle Ages, retain a perfume of antiquity. Some of these songs are
contemporaneous with the conquest of Constantinople by the French crusaders
in the twelfth century, and with the occupation of the Morea, which then
became a French principality.
Italy cannot well claim as popular songs the ectuzoni composed by her
poets, who styled themselves reciters in, rhyme and love swains, after the fashion
of the troubadours of Provence and Languedoc. These pieces of poetry, full
of concetti, metaphors, and mystic exaggerations, were doubtless considered,




POPULAR SONGS.


419


by the gallants and ladies of the court, to confer great honour upon Guido
Cavalcanti, Cino de Pistoia, Guido Orlandi, and the rest of the composers;
but they took no root amongst the people, who either did not understand
them or turned them into jest. Rhythm and song were in a measure instinctive requirements in a land where the love of poetry and music is innate. As
late as the last century the gondoliers of Venice were in the habit of singing
verses from Tasso while plying the oar (Fig. 329). But these were not


Fig. 329.-Venetian Gondola.-From the "Grand Procession of the Doge of Venice," attributed
to Jost Amman, published at Frankfort in 1597.


popular songs, to find which we must search the numerous patois, which were,
many of them, equal, if not superior, to the correct Italian language. There
was not a town or village which had not its local literature, and which could
not boast of the clever and poetical works of some one or more of its sons.
In Spain, more than in any other country of Europe, popular song had a
very marked and special physiognomy, and assumed the form, not of ballad,




420


POPULAR SONGS.


dreamy and pensive, or light and airy, but of the heroic songs, such as the
chansons de geste written in Romanic. Nothing, too, answers more closely to
the best definition which has been given of popular song. M. Damas-Hinard,
the translator of the "Cid," says, " Romances are not only the true history
of the Middle Ages in Spain, they are also its poetry. The Spanish people,
the poets of the Romances, composed with enthusiasm these songs, of which
they themselves are the subject and the heroes. For many centuries, and in
each generation, the greatest writers set themselves to improve and to embellish
them."   The most important part of the Spanish Romnancero consists of the
romances of the "Cid," which date, according to the critics, from the eleventh
or the thirteenth century, but long before this Spain possessed popular songs
which must date from the reign of King Roderick in the eighth century. A
collection of the Spanish popular songs, from the conquest of Granada, by
Gonzalvo of Cordova, in 1492, to the end of the sixteenth century, would be
a very onerous task, but if not undertaken the world will ultimately lose the
beautiful historical romances which the muleteers of Andalusia used to sing
to the accompaniment of the mandolin.
Fig. 330.-French Trouveur.-After a Drawing from the Poems of Guillaume de Machaut.
Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris,




NATIONAL POETRY.
Decadence of Latin Poetry.-Origins of Vulgar Poetry.-Troubadours, Trouveurs, and Jugglers.
-Rutebeuf.-Thibaud of Navarre and his School.-Marie de France.-" Romance of the
Renard."-The " Guyot Bible.'-The " Romance of the Rose."-The Minnesingers.-Dante.
-The " Romancero." —The Meistersingers.-Petrarch.-English Poets; Chaucer.-Eustache
Deschamps, Alain Chartier, Charles d'Orleans, Villon.-Chambers of Rhetoric.-Poets of the
Court of Burgundy.-Modern Latin Poetry.-The Poems of Chivalry in Italy.-Clement
Marot and his School.-The Epic Poems, Tasso, Camoens.-Poets of Germany and of the
Northern Countries.-Ronsard and his School.-Poetry under the Valois Kings.
i   i NCE the Barbarians established themselves
upon the ruins of the Roman empire in
m it  with  3the West," says M. Charles Nisard, in his
graphic history of poetry amongst the
proes of anX exidifferent peoples of Europe, "the downfall of eloquence and of poetry occurred
thetre lasi rS Ing      J~] inwith startling rapidity.  Boethius wrote
in his prison the treatise on the 'Consolashortly afterwards (524). This treatise,
which combines the highest of ancient
morality with the tenderest feelings of Christian resignation, is the last
protest of an expiring art; it is the voice of the swan exhaling its last
melody beneath the knife which is about to immolate it."
Boethius was, in fact, one of the last Romans who wrote Latin verses with
the true classic ring in them. Since the reign of Theodosius the Great, Latin
poetry had been gradually declining, and the Church had ceased to use it
except for her sacred hymns. This is why most of the poets from the fifth to
the seventh century-St. Paulinus, Sedulius, St. Prosper, Sidonius Apollinaris,
Juvencus, Venantius Fortunatus, &c.-wrote only upon      pious or moral
subjects. The singing of hymns was calculated, in the opinion of the




422


NATIONAL POETRY.


Church, to put an end to certain heretical or blasphemous songs which the
Barbarians or the Romans of the decadence were in the habit of repeating;
and the hopes of the Church were eventually fulfilled.
The Romanic language, which in various forms was current throughout
Europe from the sixth to the tenth century, produced no other poetical works
than the popular songs which were transmitted from generation to generation,
and which, not having been collected, as the Teutonic songs were by order of
Charlemagne, soon became effaced from the memory of the people.  (See
previous chapter, Popular Songs.) The written poetry, which was cultivated
by a few men of letters and clerks, continued to be in Latin (Fig. 331), but
it was disfigured by words of new creation. It is not until the tenth century
<       v&preficd  m            - ndalcl decufmeumC.
S unrqwuoffrrcu tco puLee               olrm   cunr
CoaUeffd- uCan, mtreqe f(rnhf                    uA        Ths
Fig. 331.-Horace's Poems.-Fragment from the "Ode to Mwecenas."-Manuscript of the Tenth
Century.-In the National Library, Paris.
that we find the first poetical samples of the Romanic language of the North
and of the Romanic language of the South of France. The oldest pieces of
French poetry are the Cantilena of St. Eulalie; the two poems of the manuscript of Clermont-Ferrand, devoted to St. Leger and to the Passion of Jesus
Christ; and, in the eleventh century, the "Chanson de St. Alexis."  In the
Provencal language we have the "Mystery of the Wise and of the Foolish
Virgins," previously to which came the " Poem of Boethius."  The latter is a
piece in verse, of about two hundred and fifty lines, upon the captivity of
Boithius, and these lines, of ten syllables each, are divided into stanzas of
unequal length, each stanza terminating with the same masculine rhyme. This
kind of poem is unquestionably anterior to the tenth century. Such are the
origins of the language of French poetry.




NATIONAL POETRY.


423


From this period vulgar poetry was founded, like Latin rhymed poetry,
upon the accent and the assonance. It may further be affirmed that this
vulgar poetry was sung, and that the jugglers, who repeated verses after a
musical mood while playing the violin, had at that time come into existence.
It is therefore certain that the first trouveurs and troubadours were contemporary with the formation of this Romanic language, which was expressed in
accented, syllabic, and consonant verse. The trouveur in the North and the
troubadour in the South were alike the poets who knew how to find (trobar)that is to say, invent-and who clothed their thoughts in literary shape. We
do not know of any troubadours before the eleventh century, and the first to
open the brilliant era of this new poetry was William IX., Count of Poitiers,
born in 1070, who, at the death of his father, became Duke of Aquitaine and
Gascony. Several pieces of his which have been published show that the
Romanic language was already in a flourishing state. After this there was a
general development of poetry, and it is necessary to subdivide the troubadours into several schools. The first, and perhaps the most important, is the
Limousin school, of which Bertrand de Born, Gaucelm Faydit, and Bernard
de Ventadour were the chiefs. To the Gascony school belong Geoffroy Rudel,
Arnauld de Marveilh, and twenty others. The school of Auvergne can claim
the sturdy satirist, Pierre Cardinal, and Pons de Capdeuil (Fig. 332).
Raymond Vidal is the hero of the Toulouse school, Guillaume Riquier of
that of Narbonne, and Raymond Gaucelm of that of Beziers. Lastly comes
the Provencal school, to which belong Raimbaud of Vaqueiras and Folquet
of Marseilles, and a hundred other writers scarcely less famous.
These troubadours were men of lively imagination and ready wit, possessed
of abundant humour, which was by turn gay, spiteful, and caustic. Their
poetry, which is a dim reflection of the works of the early Roman writers, is
essentially southern, being devoted in most cases to the multiform expression
of the most refined gallantry; it abounds in tender reveries and in descriptions of beautiful scenery. This poetry was highly appreciated by the society
of that age, and every one, from the princes and nobles to the tradesmen and
the artisans, held it a high honour to be a poet. We know of more than two
hundred troubadours who, during three centuries, wrote with success in every
branch of Romanic poetry, and who have left behind them an immense
collection of charming and polished works. These works, most of which are
still unpublished, had reached as far as Italy, inasmuch as we know that they




424                        NA TIONAL POETRY.
were highly appreciated by Dante; and the poetry of the troubadours was
specially notable for its gracefulness of invention, science of rhythm, infinite
variety of form, abundant imagery, and richness of colour.      Most of it consisted of love-songs and pastorals, but there were some religious and satirical
pieces, many of the latter being very severe, known by the name of sirventes.
When certain strolling jugglers of the South imported the poems of the
troubadours into the central and northern provinces of France in the beginning
Mouvement anima.
It>_2-                     r=-i  #       ^^r:n_ __ A
Us gays  co-nortz me fai gay - a - men far  ga- ya chan- so  gai fag
e gai    sem-blan. Gay de - zi-rier io-ios gai a - le - grar. Pergai_ ' __.__                     __
a ton - ap gai cors ben  es  -  tan.  Ab cuy tro born gai so - latz e
gai  ri - re.  Gai - ia  culh-ir. Gai de  port.  Gai  io - ven.
Gai -a  beu talz. Gaichan-tar, Gai al - bi - re.  Gaiditz pla - zen.
Galioi, Gaipretz. ai sen. I-e     soi gas, caoi eus fi - na -   men
Gai ioi, Gaipretz. Gai sen. I - eu  soi gais, car soi sieus fi - na  men.
Fig. 332.-Song of the Troubadour, Pons de Capdeuil, with the Music.-Published by Fetis, after
Manuscript in National Library, Paris.
of the thirteenth century, these provinces had long possessed a native poetry
in the vulgar tongue, and they also possessed poets who called themselves
trouveurs (Fig. 333), to distinguish them from the jugglers who had been in
the habit, for three or four centuries past, of singing popular songs while
playing upon different stringed instruments. As soon as the Romanic
language of Northern France had made sufficient progress to become a
written language, poetry was its spontaneous expression. It was to indicate




NAA TIOLAL POETRY.


425


the line of demarcation which separated the Tongue of Oil and the Romanic
language of the South that the latter 
took the name of the Tongue of Oc. But
it must be expressly mentioned that the
trouveurs, notwithstanding certain local      i{ 
imitations of the poetry of the trouba- 
dours, have nothing in common with
the latter in respect to literary invention and poetical genius.  It was thei l         l/
trouveurs who had the honour of creating  /   7:
in the eleventh century, or even earlier,  G..       /
the chansons de geste and romances of
chivalry which have been translated
into every language, and which have no 
parallel in the literature of the Tongue 
of Oc. (See previous chapter, Romances.)
The Tongue of Oil had from its very  Ik        o\
inception produced two families of poets
of utterly different characteristics, and
who represented, so to speak, epic poetry
and light poetry. The great trouveurs,
those who collected the popular songs
and the national traditions to convert
them into chansons de geste and romances
of chivalry, were, in many cases, in the
domestic service of princes and nobles;
they lived all together amongst the
warriors for whom they composed the
long national poems which they afterwards recited to the sound of the violin
at festivals and assemblies.  All that
relates to romances has been treated of
in a previous chapter. But the lesser Fig. 333.-Trouveur accompanying himself
upon the Violin.-Sculptured Work upon
trouveurs,                             those who may, perhaps, have e Portico of the Abbey of St. Denis
been subject to the influence of the   (Twelfth Century).
troubadours, and many of whom were no better than strolling players, created


3 I




4z6


A]-A 7 IO/AL,  POE'IRY'.


the gallant and joyous literature of the Tongue of Oil. They had, like the
troubadours, their servcentois, their descors, their rotruenges; they borrowed
their lays from the singers of Brittany, and were the inventors of the jeuxpartis, the /fbliatrx, and the coNltcs, all of which are thoroughly French. The
fabliau (metrical tale) is the best, but at the same time the most immoral, of
the productions of the trouveurs and jugglers who wrote in the Tongue of
Oil. These fabliaux are many of them masterpieces of wit and insinuation,
and abound in strokes of humour, while the eight-syllable lines are well
adapted to their style. In most of these works it is easy to trace the ancient
sources from which the authors borrowed their generally indecent subjects of
song. Others, however, were of their own invention, and these latter were
not the least immoral, for the trouveurs of the people were, for the most part,
men of dissolute life.
Rutebeuf is the most celebrated of these trouveurs-jugglers, and he has
left a mass of exquisite and witty compositions, nearly all of which are satires
upon the nobles, the monks, and the clergy. He is doubtless depicting his
own life of poverty when he describes how he and his companions journeyed
from castle to castle, half dead with cold and hunger, begging, often in vain,
to be allowed to give their poetry and music. Most of them were not more
exemplary in their conduct than Rutebeuf himself; and one of them, Colin
Muset, made an attack upon the King, who did not, however, condescend to
notice his violent diatribe. But these poetic excesses were not, on the whole,
favourable to the trouveurs and jugglers, who soon found themselves repulsed
with contempt wherever they went.
There was only one school of trouveurs, most of whom were themselves of
noble birth, in favour with royalty and the nobility, and it comprised such
men as Quenes or Conon of Bethune (Fig. 334), and Count Thibaud of Champagne, afterwards King of Navarre, who was the most illustrious of them all
(Fig. 335). This school, in fact, rivalled that of the troubadours. The songs
of Thibaud found their way as far as Italy, and Dante, who had got them
by heart, mentioned in his work, "De Vulgari Eloquentia," the King of
Navarre as "an excellent master in poetry."  One of the pupils and rivals of
Thibaud of Champagne was his vassal, Gace Brule. Amongst the princes and
lords of whom the gallant spirit of chivalry had made poets at this epoch
may be mentioned the Lord of Coucy, Pierre Duke of Brittany, Jean de
Brienne, Guillaume de Ferrieres, Hugues de Lusignan, and many others




NA4 TIONA L POETRY            427


4-27


who are alluded to by M. Paulin Paris ill volume xxiii. of his "ilistoire,
These trouveurs of the nobility, imitators of the troubadours, would not
probably have succeeded in rehabilitating the poetry of the Tongue of Oil, which
had been east into discredit by the trouLveurs-jugglers, but for the assistance
of true poets, who, declining to emerge from their retreats in order to scour
the country, devoted their time to the composition of serious and valuable
works. Marie de France, who was one of this number, and who was a
Norman by birth, passed part of her youth at the court of Henry MI., King
AlleIgretto.                                          1


A- hi! a   mors, corn du-re  de-par - ti     e    Mle   con-vein ra
fe - re  de la inei lour Qui onques  fust  a-iu6 e  ni6 ser - vi -  e!I  Dici
me ra-maitke    A  Ii  par sa dou-~,our.  Si voi - rernent, qui m'en pars A  doul~or.
3_ _       i    -  
Las! qudai-je dii? ja ne rn'eni pars-je mi  -      Se Ii cois va ser vir no 
sire si -ognour, Li cuersitemaint del tout  en sa bail - Ii  - e.
Fig. 334.-"I Serventois " of the Tr~ouveur, Quenes of Bethune, upon the Crusadle.-Published b~y
Fe'tis, after Manuscript in the National Library, Paris.


of England, who had asked her to put into rhyme the legends which formed
part of the traditions of Brittany. In addition to these sombre and tragic
lays, which were well suited to her brilliant imagination, she composed for
Count William de Dampierre a collection of fables, imitated after A~sop,
called " Ysopet," in which we find something of the naivete' and grace of La
F ontaine. These ingenious imitations of A~sop, which were in much favour
during the Middle Ages, were preceded by a great romantic and allegorical
composition entitled the "Romian. de Rienard " (the " Romauce of the Fox "),




428                    ATA TIOATA L POETRY.
the principal incidents in which were also borrowed from the work ascribed
to IEsop.
This "Rtoman de Renard," which comprised thirty-two branches springing
from the same trunk, but without forming a connected and homogeneous
whole, was undoubtedly composed by different authors, and at different
epochs, according to the requirements of the jugglers who recited or sang it
in the towns and villages, and who thus acquired for it a very widespreading
popularity. The middle and lower classes, more especially, took a lively
interest in the amusing and satirical adventures of the vulpeculls, personified
under the name of Master Renard, and vying in cunning and mischief with


A-mors me  fait comnen - cier U - ne chan9on no - ve - le,  E- e me
-__       _i   _ --        i ---i_ _                            I
vuet  en- sei-gnier A  a - mer la plus be - le,  Qui soit el montvi-vant,
m —~-ti___W _ _R~=,_-an —.= _...-1.....
C'est la be - leau cors gent, C'est ce - le dont je chant. Diex m'enduoiit le - le no -
ve  -   e, Qui soit A mon ta-lent, Que me-nu  et sovent, Mes cuerspor
li sau   -   te    -     le.
Fig. 335.-Song of Thibaud, Count of Champagne, with the Music.-Published by Fetis, after
Manuscript (No. 7,222) in National Library, Paris.
his uncle the Wolf, personified under the name of Ysengrin.   The only one of
the authors whose name has come down to us is Pierre de St. Cloud. Satirical
poetry was then in vogue, and the writers, who were no longer the discredited
and despised jugglers of a former time, were very severe upon all sorts and
conditions of men.
One of these general satires, which had a great success under the title of
the "Guyot Bible," was composed by an ecclesiastic, Guyot de Provins,
whose work displays much trenchant wit, but of a very truculent kind.      He




NATAIONAL POETRY.


429


may be called the Juvenal of the Middle Ages. A worthy citizen of Lille,
one Jacquemart Gelee, published a work of a similar kind under the title of
" Renart Renouvele."  This poet of the end of the thirteenth century rises
almost to eloquence in certain passages where he inveighs against the vices
which he attributes to the upper classes. Another poet of Champagne, who
preferred to remain anonymous, reproduced the original " Roman de Renard "
in a very diffuse and prolix poem, entitled "Renart le Contrefait," which,


Fig. 336.-Poetical and Musical Congress at Wartburg, in 1207. The Minnesingers, Walttler
Vogelweide, Wolfram of Eschenbach, Reinmar of Zweter, Henry called the Virtuous 'Writer,
Henry of Ofterdingen, and Klingsor of Hungary.-Miniature from the Treatise on the Minnesingers.-Mlanuscript of the Fourteenth Century, in National Library, Paris.
like its original, is a satire upon humanity, represented in the shape of
certain animals.   The "Roman de Fauvel" is also an allegorical satire upon
the luxury and ambition of the great.
The lettered public had taken such a fancy to these satirical poems that
the "Roman de la Rose " ("Romance of the Rose"), which Guillaume de Lorris
had left unfinished, was resumed and completed by Jean de Meung ill a very




430


NATIONAL POETRY.


different shape, and with a meaning diametrically opposite to that which had
inspired the author of the first part, who had merely endeavoured to imitate
Ovid's "Ars Amandi."  The poem of Guillaume de Lorris had caused quite
a new sensation at the French court, the ladies more especially being enthusiastic in its favour, and they regretted that the author did not live to finish
it. It was not till sixty years afterwards that Jean de Meung, surnamed
Clopinel, resumed the work, and though a man of erudition and a philosopher,
he did not possess the delicacy and refinement which were the distinguishing
features of Guillaume de Lorris's talent. Thus the poem, as continued, was
an entirely new piece, except that the personages had the same names as in
the first part. It was, in fact, not so much an elegant and picturesque poem
as a rhymed encyclopadia, into which Jean de Meung crammed all he knew
of philosophy, cosmography, physics, alchemy, and natural history. Jean de
MIeung was not innately bad, but he was a sceptic and a free-thinker, and
very fond of railing at the powers that be. Yet his poem, though ridiculous
in form and containing much that was heretical, was greatly admired, and
looked upon as the masterpiece of French poetry in the fourteenth century.
Jean de Meung, like most of the poets who wrote in the Tongue of Oil, was the
reverse of complimentary to the fair sex, in whose favour Guillaume de Lorris
had said so much. But he did not express the general ideas of the time,
and the "Romance of the Rose" is but the fanciful creation of a man of
letters-not the faithful portrayal of the manners of a whole epoch.
Long before this running to seed of French poetry, the national language
of France had spread throughout Europe. It was spoken and written in
England, Italy, and Germany, and as early as the twelfth century many of
the chanasons de geste and romances of chivalry were translated or imitated in
the latter country. In fact, it was beneath the double inspiration of the
poetical works of the South and of the North of France that began the golden
age of the literature of romance and of chivalry in Germany (Fig. 336). In
the latter part of the twelfth century the number of Minnesingers was more
than three hundred, most of whom composed their love-songs in the soft and
graceful dialect of Swabia. Henry of Waldeck is the oldest of these poets,
who imitated the troubadours; while the most prolific and the most sentimental was Wolfram of Eschenbach. To the same epoch belong the great
German epodes, in which are embodied the recollections of the heroic age and
the historical traditions of Germany. The " Helden-Buch"l ("Book of




NAT TIONAL POETRY.


431


Heroes") and the " Nibelungen-Lied" (" Song of the Nibelungen "), which are
still popular in Germany, were composed at the beginning of the thirteenth
century: the first, it is said, by Wolfram of Eschenbach (Fig. 337), Henry of
Ofterdingen, and Walther Vogelweide; the second by Conrad of Wartzburg,


1


y    ';~n~fiflrifpm~a  _w
er. m.e fen             &-e,
~ _____ -,^ _,.  -... - J*  _- _!I
ItiQee~    6e-,     taNii
le^. ei,*t  <  r        ti
zneQ     >   \>m - t-, t A^^^m
1vcfeignr
_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I
I
I




f


I


Fig. 337.-Fragment of a Poem by Wolfram of Eschenbach, with the Notation of the Thirteenth
Century.-Published by Fetis, after Manuscript in the Imperial Library, Vienna.
or by Nicholas Klingsor of Hungary; but this statement is not based upon
very trustworthy    evidence.   The   end of this famous school of poetry
coincides with the fall of the house of Swabia (1254).
Italy did not as yet possess a national literature or language, for in the




432


TNA TIONAL POETRY.


thirteenth century there was scarcely such a thing as Italian prose-writing.
Several poems had, however, been written in the Sicilian dialect, amongst the
first composers being the Emperor Frederick II.; his chancellor, Pierre de la
Vigne, to whom has been erroneously attributed the invention of the sonnet;
and his sons Enzo, King of Sardinia, and Manfred, King of Naples. It was
not till nearly a century later that the poets of the Italian peninsula introduced into their native language the various forms of Romanic versification,
and the characteristics of Provencal poetry, in the shape of odes (canzone), of
poetical dialogues (tensons), of ballads, of sixtines, of lays, and of tales. These
poets imitated not only the rhyme and rhythm of the troubadours, but some
of their literary qualities, though they were more successful in copying their
defects. It is easy to see that they did not derive their inspiration from the
living fountains of antiquity, though the names of Guido Ghisleri and Guido
Guinicelli, of Bologna, and of the two Florentines, Guido Cavalcanti and
Guitone of Arezzo, have come down to our own day.
Dante, the true creator of Italian poetry, was also a native of Florence,
and he was born there of patrician parents in 1265. Nature had intended
him for a poet, though at first he devoted himself to the study of various
sciences. Love of the highest and most elevated kind inspired him with his
first verses. He was not yet ten years of age when he met Beatrix Portinari,
who was the same age as himself, and to whom he addressed many tender and
pensive pieces, which he afterwards incorporated in his " Vita Nuova." When
she died in her twenty-fifth year he dedicated to her memory his immortal
"Divine Comedy," a poem at once religious and philosophical, and divided
into three parts: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. This vast trilogy, the first
part of which is in every way the best, is written in tiercets, or rhymed
triplets; it embraces every branch of human knowledge, and presents in
allegorical shape a striking picture of the history of the age, and especially
of the poet's contemporaries. Above all stands the pure and radiant image
of Beatrix. It is in this incomparable poem that Dante, by a judicious
selection of Italian dialects, and by transforming them into a unique and
regular type, succeeded in establishing upon fixed principles the literary
language of his country, which, though simple, clear, and powerful, had
hitherto been somewhat rough and inchoate. Dante remains, after the lapse
of six centuries, the great poet of Italy.
None of the other nations of Europe produced any poet to equal him. In




XA TIONAL POETRY.


433


'.-Kk-  I
K 


V       I


-,(


Fig. 338.-The Mosque of Cordova, founded by Abderam I., King of the Moors, about 692.
3K




434


NATION AL POETRY.


England, where the Anglo-Saxon tongue had in the end become merged in
the Franco-Norman dialect, an attempt was made to revive the national
songs, and all that can be cited in the way of English poetry is a translation
of the "Brut," by Wace, an imitation in verse of the Chronicle of Geoffroy
of Monmouth by Robert of Gloucester. Spain, where the Romanic language
had become naturalised since the eleventh century, at least in the provinces
not invaded by the Moors, did not even know the name of the author who
wrote that poem of the "Cid" which she pointed to with pride as the first
poetical record of her legendary history (Fig. 338). Spanish poets, amongst
whom appear Alfonso II., King of Arragon, and Alfonso XI., King of Castile,
had already celebrated in a language which, though somewhat rough and
coarse, was energetic and noble, the loftiest sentiments of the human heart,
especially warlike courage and love of country. The union of these popular
ballads and romances formed in part the celebrated collection of "Romancero."
The Minnesingers did not survive the extinction of the house of Swabia,
which had always accorded them the highest favours. When the house of
Hapsburg succeeded the HIohenstauffens the German nobility ceased to take
any interest in arts and poetry, and Germany failed for a time to produce any
poets. But towards the end of the reign of Rudolph I. (1291) the middle
classes created a demand for singers, and the Meistersingers (masters of song),
whose compositions answered the requirements of a public little versed in
literature, extended their jurisdiction to poetry which, from sprightly and
high-spirited as it was in the time of the Minnesingers, became staid and
measured, not to say tame and tedious.  The poets of this epoch are not
worth mentioning by name, and it was not until the sixteenth century that
the Meistersingers emerged from their obscurity.
Dante gave the signal for the literary renaissance in Italy, to which
Francis Petrarch, his contemporary, devoted his whole life. The latter was born
at Arezzo in 1304, and died at Arqua, near Padua, in 1374. Thanks to the
example which he set, classical study began to flourish anew, and Virgil
and Horace were read as eagerly as they had been during the reign of
Augustus. Petrarch, who had been immersed in study of the ancient poets,
attempted at first to imitate them in Latin, but after he had met Laura de
Noves at Avignon his thoughts were solely concentrated upon pleasing her,
and he wrote his "Rhymes" and his "Canzoni" in honour of her who had
inspired him with a passion as delicate and pure as that of Dante for Beatrix.




NATIONAL POETRY.                          4-35
Petrarch, in the "Canzoni," has given us the most perfect type of the Italian
ode, and while he rises at times to the height of Pindar and Horace, his
poetical outbursts are tempered by an accent of sorrow and melancholy
peculiar to himself. Ie did not lack imitators, but none of them came up to
the original; and his friend Boccaccio, who had perfected Italian prose, wrote


Fig. 339.-The Horse Pegasus. "Behold a Flying Horse, called Pegasus, and several Nobles,
some armed and some without arms, of all conditions, kings, princes, and others, which lift up
their hands to try and touch the said Horse, but are not able to do so." —Miniature from the
" Enseignement de vraye Noblesse."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (No. 11,049).-Iu
the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
but a small number of sonnets, and his first Italian epode, the "Theseide," is
far inferior to his " Decamerone."
Almost at the same period, a Scotch poet, Archdeacon of Aberdeen,
composed an epic poem       in  the Scotch   dialect upon   the achievements of
Robert Bruce, the liberator of Scotland. Previously to this the first of the




436


NATIONAL POETRY.


epic poems which appeared in Great Britain, there had been written a few
poems concerning the wars of King Edward III. against Philip of Valois and
John II. of France. But the writers are not to be compared with John
Gower and Geoffroy Chaucer, who had taken as their models the ancient French
trouveurs, and who imitated them without citing their authority. Gower, in
particular, contributed to purify the language of poetry, and Chaucer, in
spite of his imitations, which amount to plagiarism, showed that he was the
superior in point of style, if not in invention, to Marie de France, Rutebeuf,
William de Lorris, and Jean de Meung.
The literary reputation of Jean de Meung lasted for more than two
centuries after his death (1320), though French poetry had taken another
shape to suit the taste of the ladies, who, by becoming queens of the tournaments and of other f~tes of chivalry, brought about a sort of poetic revival,
not only in France, but in all countries where French was the language of the
aristocracy. The satires directed more especially against the fair sex had seen
their best day, and though Eustache Deschamps sought to revive them by
paraphrasing, in his "Miroir du Mariage," Juvenal's satire upon women,
poetry once more acquired the gallant and amorous characteristics which it
had inherited from the troubadours. The chronicler, Jean Froissart, who was
at one time clerk to Queen Philippa of Hainault, wife of King Edward III.
of England, relates that he "narrated to her interesting stories or treatises on
love." The poems of Froissart, written in the Rouchi-French dialect of
Valenciennes, often have a smack of the troubadour school and of William de
Lorris's "Romance of the Rose." These poems, which run smoothly enough,
but which are wordy and colourless, are specially interesting from an autobiographical point of view, as the author is continually alluding to himself
even in his pastorals and his nuptial songs.
The professional poets who succeeded the trouveurs attempted to revive
the literature of chansons de geste and romances of chivalry, which they
revised and adapted to modern usage; but, as they made no effort to abridge
them, these poems only became, under their treatment, heavier and more
prosy. They did better with the Chronicle in verse, which they continued to
call by the name of romance even when they were treating of contemporary
subjects, as, for instance, Cuvelier in the "Chronique de Bertrand du
Guesclin."  Moreover, the poetical romances of the fourteenth century are
remarkable for their immense length and unbroken dulness. The court




NA TIONAL POETRY.


4-37


poetry was more lively and graceful, consisting as it did of songs and ballads,
of virelays and roundelays. Eustache Deschamps, who wrote an "Art de
Dictier," in which he set forth the rules of these various kinds of fashionable
poetry, informs us-but his statement is a poetical license-that formerly no


Fig. 340.-Legend of the " Trois Morts et des Trois Vifs," Poetry of the Fourteenth Century.From a Miniature of an,' Antiphonale."-Manuscript of the Sixteenth Century, No. 5,644.In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.
one ventured to write poetry of this kind "unless he was noble " (Fig. 339).
This same Eustache Deschamps, a warrior, a traveller, and a magistrate,
whose writings extend over more than eighty years, has left behind him
nearly a hundred thousand lines of poetry, most of which was ballad. He




438


NAA TIONAL POETRY.


applied the ballad to all kinds of subjects, and with him it sometimes rises to
the height of the ode. Deschamps was an austere and serious poet, who
showed no mercy to vice and to abuses, and the patriotic spirit of his poetry
comes out in his maledictions against the English, while he shows himself a
man of fe3ling by his regretful allusions to the sufferings of the people. It
was in this mournful period that was written the popular poem of the
" Danse Macabre " (" Dance of Death"), represented in Fig. 340.  Christina de
Pisan, daughter of the astrologer of Charles V., also composed a number of
ballads and roundelays, marked with the impress of melancholy, which are of
Fig. 341.-Alain Charlier comforted by Hope.-Cameo Miniature from the "Triumph of Hope,"
Allegory on the Political Events in the Reign of Charles YII.-Unpublished Manuscript of the
Sixteenth Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot. Paris.
more merit than her long historical and moral poems. Most of them testify
to her love for France, and her sentiments are noble and elevated, though the
style is feeble and confused.
There was a steady increase in the number of French poets, and the poetry
itself, especially the court poetry, continued to improve. Alain Chartier,
whose immense reputation was made at the French court, did much to bring
about this progress.  His " Breviary of the Nobles" was a sort of gospel for
the nobility, and Jean le Masle affirms that during the reign of Francois I.




VATIONAL POETRY.


439'


the pages and young gentlemen of the court were compelled to learn verses
from it by heart, and recite them regularly every day, as the clergy do their
breviary.  In addition to the "Book of the Four Ladies," which contains
Fig. 342.-The Author of the Poem entitled Le Dbat de ]a Noire et ee 7a Tann6e."-Mhiniatre
frme~mc of ~he FifnheheeFfrom Manuscript of the Fiftcenth Century.-In the Library of N?. Ambroise Firmin-Didot,
Paris.
Paris.


some exquisite pages written in a style full of vigour and
Chartier composed a great number of ballads, love-sayings,
laments (Fig. 341). He was the favourite of kings, queens,


poesy, Alain
elegies, and
princes, and




440


NA TIO2VAL POETRY.


nobles, in spite of his deformity and ugliness. It is told how the Dauphiness
Margaret of Scotland, coming upon him one day while asleep, kissed him
upon the mouth, from which, says Etienne Pasquier, "issued so many golden
words and virtuous discourses." He died in 1458, at the age of seventy-five.
One of his pupils, Duke Charles of Orleans, who, taken prisoner at Agincourt,
remained a captive in England for the rest of his youth, consoled himself by
writing French and English verses, most of them gallant, spiritual, and
pensive, into many of which he introduced the metaphysical personages of
the "Romance of the Rose."  He had around him in London, as well as at
his Chateau de Blois in France, a sort of court of love and poetry, the
members of which vied with each other in composing ballads and roundelays.
Charles of Orleans often imitated the troubadours and the Italian poetsPetrarch amongst others. His imagination was lively and gay, he indulged
in many humorous sallies, and his soul overflowed with true and generous
feeling.
The court poetry led, by the natural effect of contradiction and strife, to
the birth of a poetry which was of truly popular origin. One of the first
essays in this new kind of poetry, which emanated from the genuine emotions
of the mind, was, however, made by a man of noble birth, Jean Regnier,
Seigneur de Guerchy, who, notwithstanding his birth and his fortune, did
not think it beneath him to declare his sentiments with pathetic
sincerity. He was at the time in prison at Beauvais, and he was
about to be tried for high treason.  His painful position made him  a
poet, and, as a preparation for death, he evoked the muse.  After he had
bemoaned his "Fortunes et Adversitez " he became resigned to his fate, and
he drew up a will in rhyme, half earnest, half jocular, which was doubtless
the type taken for his two "Testaments" by Villon, who, though he does not
imitate Regnier word for word, undoubtedly had his work before him when
he began to write his " Petit Testament " in the Chatelet prison, where he was
under confinement for his misdeeds. Villon, a student of the University of
Paris, was said to have committed a murder and several robberies, and after
being fortunate enough to escape the gibbet, he again was guilty of some
misdeed, for which he was imprisoned at Meung.  It was there that he
composed his best work, the "Grand Testament," owing to which, and to
the intervention of Duke Charles of Orleans, he obtained a commutation of
his sentence. This work is a singular compound of wild gaiety, of keen




NA TIONAL POETRY.


44i


satire, of profound sensibility, of calm judgment, and of pensive melancholy.   Villon is beyond all doubt a great poet, at once natural and
independent; he is distinguished for his lively imagination, his wit, and his
good feeling; and though the form of his poetry has become obsolete, the


IZL


iI~


Fig. 343. —The Castle of Loves.-Miniature taken from the " Champion des Dames."-Manuscrip t
of the Fifteenth Century (No. 12,476).-In the National Library, Paris.


matter itself has lost none of its freshness. It would seem as if scapegraces
were poets by nature, for two of Villon's companions, Henri Baude and
Jourdain, surnamed the Unfortunate, were his rivals in poetry as in misconduct. The former was the author of the " Debat de la Dame et de l'Fcuyer,"
3 L




442


NArA TIOXNAL POETRY.


and of numerous other clever pieces, while the latter composed the " Jardin de
Plaisance," which contained several verses written by his friends in addition
to those of his own composing.
The example set by Villon, whose popularity was greatest amongst the
students of the University of Paris, led to the publication of a host of other
satiric poems, mostly by anonymous authors, which were propagated amongst
the middle and lower classes by the newly discovered printing-press. This is
a striking proof as to the popularity of these fugitive pieces, which M.
Anatole de Montaignon and Baron James de Rothschild are endeavouring to
incorporate into one vast anthology. Amongst these are the "Complaintes,"
"Dits," "Debats" (Fig. 342), "Monologues," "Testaments," "Sermons
Joyeux," &c., in which the sharpness of French wit shines with great
brilliancy. It is certain that many of these trenchant and comic poems were
retailed from the stage by strolling players, and respectable people certainly
looked upon them as scandalous, and took care not to read them. It was
accordingly sought to counteract the bad use to which poetry was put, and in
several French towns, at Toulouse, Amiens, and Caen amongst others, there
were instituted "Floral Games," "Chambers of Rhetoric," "Puys," and
"Palinods," and poets were appealed to to devote their inspiration to the
composition of edifying and moral works. These poets set themselves more
especially to glorify the blessed Virgin and her Immaculate Conception, composing royal songs, ballads, and cantos, which were awarded, after competition,
different prizes. This was the origin of the academies and literary societies
in France.
The French poetical school united a great variety of talents in the fifteenth
century. Martin Franc, in his "Champion des Dames" (Fig. 343), made an
attempt to revive the allegorical style of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de
Meung, but at the same period Olivier Basselin, master fuller of Vire, created
the " Vau de Vire," an epicurean, convivial, and libertine song, while drinking
his Norman cider. These songs have unfortunately only reached us in a
modernised and disfigured shape.  Guillaume Coquillart, though a clerk and
ecclesiastical doctor at Rheims, gave full play to his caustic wit and free
Gallic humour in his farcical " Monologues; " Martial of Auvergne set to
rhyme the "Vigils of King Charles VII.," but his verse is rather dull and
monotonous; Jean Meschinot, of Nantes, set to poetry the "Lettres des
Princes" for the Duke of Brittany, to whose household he was attached as




II
it
i
i
L
4




t~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




THE VIRGIN, QUEEN OF HEAVEN,
presiding over an assembly of saints. Picture in the gallery at Frankfort-on-the-Main; early part of the xvth century




I I -;F 4I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
I.,
t   (,I,,  f,  ( -, I"-  I 




NA TIONAAL POETRY.


443


" ducal poet;" and Andre de la Vigne and Guillaume Cretin did the same
for the royal house of France. But the deplorable influence of the poets of
the court of Burgundy began to tell with fatal effect upon French poetry.


Fig 344.-The Vanity of Human Things.-Miniature from the Allegorical Poem, "Le Chevalier
delibere," upon the Death of Charles the Bold, by Olivier de la Marche.-Manuscript of the
Fifteenth Century, No. 173.-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.


Pierre Michault, Olivier de la Marche (Fig. 344), Georges Chastelain, and
Jean Molinet conceived the idea of creating difficulties of rhythm, metre, and
rhyme, which gave their poetry a mongrel and barbarous physiognomy.




444


NAA 7IONAL POETRY.


Guillaume Cretin and Jean d'Auton, both of whom were chroniclers of King
Louis XII., went even further in this direction, and Jean Lemaire (born at
Belges, in Hainault), to whom French prosody probably owes some beneficial
reforms, had great difficulty in avoiding these bad examples.
Poetry was not so flourishing in other parts of Europe. In Spain, where
the works of the Provencal troubadours were still imitated, this was the era of
gallant poetry, one of the favourite forms for a poem being the redondilla, in
which the writer exhausted every resource of the language to describe his
sentiments. These poems were in especial favour at the court of John II.,
King of Castile, and amongst the most gifted composers of them were the
~/            p14u6nwt^forot
Nanfonwtw/f mOMfl/
Fig. 345.-Extract from the "Cancionero" of Juan Alfonso de Baena.-Original Manuscript
(Fifteenth Century).-In the National Library, Paris.
Marquis de Villena and Juan de Mena (Fig. 345). Part of these sentimental
and lackadaisical poems, to which no less than a hundred and forty authors
contributed, were collected in 1516 into a book entitled "Cancionero General."
Portugal, like Spain, sought her models from among the troubadours, whom
it was striven to imitate, and even to translate. But these timid efforts ended
in the invention of the pastoral romance, which represented the love-passages
of the shepherds and shepherdesses. This artificial style, which, though
sometimes pleasing, was more often flat and tiresome, was destined to take its
place in the literature of all lands, and-so great is the force of habit-to retain




NATIONAL POETRY.


445


it for a long time. England, however, was an exception to the rule; and
since the death of Chaucer, her poets, or rather her versifiers, had confined
themselves to imitating the "Romance of the Rose," and to paraphrasing the
histories of mythology.
In Italy, after the death of Petrarch, poetry declined in spite of all the
efforts made by Coluccio, Burchiello, and Arispa to revive it. A few poems
on chivalry, such as "Buovo d'Antona," "La Spagna," &c., might be passed
over without notice, had they not led up to the brilliant writings of Boiardo


Fig. 346.-Portrait of Sannazar.-Fac-simile, on a reduced Scale, of an anonymous Engraving of
the Sixteenth Century, published at Rome by Ant. Salamanca.-In the Library of M. Ambroise
Firmin-Didot, Paris.
and Ariosto.    Laurenzio de' Medici, however, the      gonfalonnier of the
Florentine Republic, awoke the spirit of Italian poetry in 1469 by his
" Canti Carnavaleschi " ("Carnival Songs "), and he was seconded in his efforts
by Politien and Pulci, though the former was one of the most fanatical
partisans of the ancient classics. Latin poetry had, it may be remarked,
many staunch votaries throughout the Middle Ages, and their works, consisting of centos of Virgil, Horace, and Lucan, were in continuous and numerous




446


JNA TIONAL POETRY.


circulation throughout Europe. The renaissance of ancient literature in Italy
during the fifteenth century told much in favour of their efforts to apply the
Iatin language to modern subjects. Thus Sannazar (Fig. 346), surnamed
the Christian Virgil, excited more enthusiasm with his poems, "De Partu
Virginis" and "Lamentatio de Mtorte Christi," than with his beautiful poems
written in Italian.  In fact, there was throughout the whole of learned
Europe, from the fifteenth to the sixteenth century, a Latin poetry consisting of a mass of works of the most varied kind, which were welcomed and
praised, especially by the most highly educated.
Next we have the old romances of chivalry, appearing in the shape of
poems in ottava rima; the romance of "King Arthur of Brittany and the
Knights of the Round Table," " Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers." Her9 we
have the Italian epode, a mixture of grave and gay. Pulci writes his
"Morgante Maggiore," the hero of which is a great jester; Bello, called the
Blind Man of Ferrara, writes his " Mambriano," who pursues Renaud de
Montauban amidst a series of the most fanciful and burlesque adventures.
Boiardo also seeks for inspiration in the Chronicle of Turpin, and depicts
the court of Charlemagne in his " Orlando Innamorato," which would be a
masterpiece of the poet's style, were it not so curt and so affected. Ludovico
Ariosto, called the Ariosto (Fig. 347), born at Reggio in 1474, would not
undertake to rewrite the epic poem of Boiardo, but he continued it with the
"Orlando Furioso," one of the most remarkable productions of picturesque
poetry, and far before the " Orlando Innamorato." Ariosto's poem combines
every charm-variety of imagination, descriptive power, grace and elegance
of style, and powerful dramatic incident. Like Homer, Ariosto was surnamed
the Divine, and his poem remains the type of the Romanic epode, as the
Iliad was the masterpiece of the heroic epode.
Ariosto, in his "Capitoli Amorosi" and his many light pieces of poetry,
preserved his superiority over his numerous imitators, none of whom ventured
to compete with him in epic poetry.  Berni rewrote the "Orlando Innamorato," and he had perfected the burlesque mode of composition, and given
his name to what was called Bernesque poetry. Yet Petrarch had more than
a hundred imitators, none of whom could come up or near to their model.
Didactic poetry spent itself in pale imitations of Virgil and of Juvenal, and
the poem of the "Bees" is a literal translation of the fourth book of the
Georgics, of which Alamanni presented a mere counterfeit in the "Colti



NA TIONAL POETRY.


447


vazione." Trissino endeavoured to compose an epic poem upon the deliverance of Italy from the Goths, and he used blank verse, which was not very
well received by the fervent admirers of the ottava rima. Italian poetry
had not, therefore, any influence upon Spanish poetry, which was devoted
almost entirely to works touching upon love and gallantry. Boscan Almogaver and Garcilaso de la Vega were very successful in shaping their
inspirations into the compass of the sonnet; and while the latter was bringing
the pastoral into fashion, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza wrote epistles in imita

Fig. 347.-Portrait of Ariosto.-Reduced Fac-simile of an anonymous Engraving of the Sixteenth
Century, published at Rome by Ant. Salamanca.-In the Library of M. Ambroise FirminDidot, Paris.
tion of Horace. The pastoral was always the favourite style of poetry with
the Portuguese, and Ribeiro surpassed all his predecessors in this style.
The breath of the Italian renaissance was not felt in France till after
the reigns of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. The poetry which was then in
greatest favour at the court was still tainted with Flemish influence, and
people admired the jingle of such rhymes asfr'ateriesees, brise es, eqvouees,




44-8


NA TIONAL POETRY.


cottronnees, bateles, which Guillaume Cretin made use of with all the cunning
of a juggler. The reminiscences of the "Romance of the Rose" were revived
by Gringore's "Chateau de Labour," by Clement Marot's "Temple de
Cupidon," by the "Loups Ravissants," and by the "Espinette du Jeune
Prince conquerant le Royaume de Bonne Renommee."      Jean Marot and
Octavian de St. Gelais put into verse the diary of the expeditions of
Charles VIII. and Louis XII. The popular muse inspired only two poetsRoger de Collerie and Pierre Gringore, who in every branch of poetry
preserved the stamp of his proverbial and witty style.  The epoch of
Francois I. seemed to renew the language, if not the form, of poetry, by
imposing upon the writer who aimed at being read a frank, simple, and
sprightly style.  Clement Marot was the real restorer of this eminently
French style. He had not the genius to write great works, and he was too
buoyant and too Gallic to think of composing long poems which no one
would have read. He composed merely roundelays, epistles, elegies, chants
royal, ballads, epigrams, and madrigals, which latter were as yet called
epigrams also, as in the Greek anthology. It was in epigram that Clement
Marot was so much the superior of all other poets, and for fifteen years his
delicate, graceful, and witty style found him numberless admirers and
imitators; but when he placed his services at the disposal of the Reformed
Church, and, at the request of Calvin, translated into hymns the Psalms
of David, he lost all his merits as a poet. His school, which numbered
a few charming versifiers-Bonaventure des Periers, Victor Brodeau, and
Charles Fontaine amongst others-remained in favour with the court, thanks
to Francois I., the friend and pupil of Marot. It was that monarch who
conceived the idea of translating into French verse all the Greek and Latin
poets: Homer, by Hugues Salel; Ovid, by Clement Marot; Virgil, by Michael
of Tours and Octavian de St. Gelais; and Horace, by Francois Habert.
The poetry of MIellin de St. Gelais, who was looked upon as the only rival of
Marot, already showed signs of being imitated from the Italian, and though
the ideas were ingenious and correct, the style was a mixture of pretentious
affectation and of Italian concetti.
The Reformation, it must be said, was everywhere fatal to language and
literature, and it dealt a specially isevere blow at German poetry. Hans Sach,
the Nuremberg shoemaker, is perhaps the only poet who, trying his hand at all
branches of poetry, ventured to brave the Lutheran intolerance. In England,




NA TIONAL POETRY.


449


whither Protestantism had not yet reached, several poets of society were in
great favour: William Dunbar, with his allegorical poem of the "Golden
Buckler," and David Lindsay and Wyatt, with their satires; while Lord
Surrey had introduced blank verse into English poetry, and translated the
2Eneid. In Italy, too, which the Reformation never reached, the school of
Petrarch seemed to spring into renewed life. Bembo was the instigator of
this resurrection of amorous poetry; for though his own imitations of Petrarch
were but feeble, the Petrarchists-or Bembists, as they ought rather to be
called-responded to his appeal to the number of five or six hundred. Other
poets, though not despising the sonnets of Petrarch, endeavoured to embody
different subjects in new forms. Angelo de Costanzo and Camillo Peregrini
returned to lyric poetry, Bernardino Balbi to didactic poetry, and Bentivoglio and Pietro Aretino to satirical poetry. Torquato Tasso, the son of
Bernardino Tasso, who obtained great celebrity for his poem of chivalry upon
the "Amadis," undertook to write the great epic poem of modern times,
"Jerusalem Delivered."  This is a true epic poem, based, not like that of
Virgil, upon the fabled traditions of the siege of Troy, but upon the positive,
though almost miraculous, facts appertaining to the history of the Middle
Ages.   Tasso is not inferior to Homer: his poem is equal to the Iliad.
But his style-noble, poetical, and admirable as it is-is often spoilt by traits
of bad taste and by insipid play upon words. Yet we may say that the glory
of Tasso lighted up the sixteenth century.
After this every nation was desirous of having its epic poem. Spain, which
possessed several good cancione writers, such as Herrera, Castillejo, and Lope
de Vega, found Alonzo de Ercilla to write an epic poem called "Araucana"
upon the conquest of Chili by his fellow-countrymen; but endless digressions
and useless episodes marred the brilliant style and descriptions contained in
this work. Portugal was more fortunate; for Camoens, who chose for the
subject of his national epode the voyage of Vasco de Gama, which he connected with the general history of his country, wrote his poem of " Lusiades "
upon the very spots still redolent of his hero. The defects of Camoens in the
arrangement of his story and in his choice of the marvellous are only too
patent, but the grandeur of his ideas attracts and delights the reader, while
his abundant and harmonious style lends itself well to the dramatic character
of the scenes and the highly coloured descriptions of a work which in some
passages reaches the sublime. Camoens died in obscurity and extreme poverty.
3 M




450


0NA TIONAL POETRY.


Germany seemed to have become impenetrable to the rays of poetry, but
the Northern peoples began to feel their influence. The Danes possessed in
Peter Laland a national poet in the first years of the sixteenth century, while,
previously to this, the Swedes had had Eric Olai, who set their chronicles to
rhyme. Poland, whose national poetry does not date further back than the
fifteenth century, possessed a certain number of poets whose very names were
scarcely known to the rest of Europe; amongst others, Nicholas Rey de
Naglovice and Jean Kochanowski, called the Prince of Poets, who formed
a friendship with Ronsard while staying in Paris.   In Holland Dirk
Koornhert created national poetry, and, following upon a few translators
of the Psalms, Roemer Wisscher and Spiegel laid down the principles of
versification. It was in England that the poetical movement was the most
brilliant and the most active. Spenser invented a new kind of pastoral, in
which the shepherds spoke in the language of shepherds instead of in that
of courtiers. His allegorical poem, the "Faery Queen," had an even greater
success than the "Shepherd's Calendar."   His contemporaries, Sidney,
Raleigh, Marlowe, and Green Watson, composed light poetry full of
simplicity and grace. Robert Southwell, Samuel Daniel, and John Davies
drew their inspirations from religion and philosophy; while, at the close of
the century, there appeared two poems, " Venus and Adonis" and the " Rape
of Lucretia," the author of which was the immortal Shakspere.
The second half of the sixteenth century witnessed a complete metamorphosis of poetry in France. A few poets had remained true to the school
of Clement Marot, who died in poverty abroad.   Marguerite de Valois,
Queen of Navarre, would have been one of the most charming types of this
school, if her attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation had not clouded
her ideas and depressed her style (Fig. 348).  Two other female poets
retarded the decadence of Mlarotism, viz. two women of Lyons-Pernette du
Guillet and Louise Labe, the latter of whom was the mysterious muse of
Olivier de Magny. Etienne Forcadel composed some neat epigrams and
clever epistles; Peletier of Le Mans, who had an unfortunate mania for
constructing a new way of spelling, wrote his Poetical Works in plain and
excellent French; while Maurice Sceve, in his poem "Delie," followed the
teaching given him by his friend Clement Marot. There is no need to say
anything about such feeble poets as Artus Desire, Guillaume des Autels,
and Barthelemy Aneau, whose compositions are involved and obscure. By




NATIONAL POETRY.


45 


this time the Italian influence was everywhere apparent, and it was Joachim
du Bellay who gave the signal for the literary revolution, by advising his
youthful rivals to imitate the Greeks and the Romans, while declaring
himself a devoted partisan of the French language, which was being
sacrificed to the Italian. The poets who responded to his appeal overshot
the mark without hitting it, and were only inaccurate translators of the
ancient classics, instead of imitating it with intelligence and fidelity.
It was in a small Paris college that Joachim du Bellay formed, under the


1         XN              ;W/
 'j 1,          -kl.     l                                      l


Fig. 348.-Portrait of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, after a Pencil-Drawing of the
Time.-In the Museum of the Louvre, Paris.
eyes of his professor of humanities, Jean Daurat, the poetical association,
consisting of seven members, which was called the Pleiad.     These seven
poets were Baif, Du Bellay, Remy Belleau, J. Daurat, Jodelle, Ponthus de
Thyard, and Ronsard (Figs. 349 to 355), who was proclaimed unanimously
their supreme chief. For half a century Pierre Ronsard remained the master
of French poetry. While still a youth he had formed the project of writing
a national epic poem, to be called the "Franciade," upon the model of
Virgil's IEneid, but he only published four cantos of this epode, which




452


NA TIONAL POETRYI


was to have had twenty-four.       His Francus, son of Hector, was not, in
truth, worthy to figure by the side of JEneas, son of Priam.        Ronsard was
called the Pindar of France, though he was utterly lacking in lyrical inspiration. His odes, with their accumulation of strophes and antistrophes, were
Fig. 349.-Portrait of  Fig. 350.-Portrait of J. du Bellay.  Fig. 351.-Portrait of Remy
Ba'if.                                                 Belleau.
Fac-simile of Engravings by L6onard Gaultier, from the Series known as " Chronologie collee."
In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
but feeble counterfeits of the odes of Pindar; his language, overladen with
Greek and Latin words, is far too hyperbolic, and is obscured by the array of
mythological lore. Yet he possessed in the highest degree nobility of style
Fig. 352.-Portrait of   Fig. 353.-Portrait of Jodelle.  Fig. 354. Portrait of
J. Daurat.                                              P. Ronsard.
Fac-simile of Engravings by Leonard Gaultier, from the Series known as " Cbronologie coll6e."
In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
and harmony of rhythm, and he imitated with success both Horace and
Theocritus; but he distinguished himself the most in his imitations of
Anacreon, whose writings had        just been   exhumed    by Henri Estienne.




NA TIONAL POETRY.


453


Ronsard was, beyond all doubt, a poet; but his writings are tedious, though
here and there lighted up by some trait of vigour and brilliancy. His
reputation was a European one, and Mary Stuart, who beguiled the hours
of her captivity by reading his works, sent him a Parnassus in solid silver,
with the inscription, "A Ronsard, l'Apollo de la source des Muses."
The most distinguished poet of the Pleiad was unquestionably Joachim
du Bellay, who founded it.  "His language," remarks the critic Gerusez,
"is a perfected imitation of that of Marot, with more attention as to the
copying of Latin or Italian." Du Bellay had good taste, which was a point
Fig. 355.-Portrait of Ponthus de Thyard.-Reduced Fac-simile of the Engraving of Thomas de
Leu.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
in which Ronsard and the rest of the Pleiad were lacking; and he also
possessed sensibility and elevation of feeling, and deserved the surname of
the French Ovid. The remainder were very inferior to him: Baif was heavy,
pretentious, and pedantic; Remy Belleau, surnamed the gentil Belleau, had
nothing pedantic about him, and did not attempt to write anything but pretty
verses; Jodelle, who was one of the founders of the Theatre in France, wrote
a mixture of French and Greek; Ponthus de Thyard, who wrote more prose
than verse, got a bishopric out of the former; while Daurat composed only
a few French verses, all the rest of his works being in Greek and Latin.




454


NA TIONAL POETRI.


But around the Pleiad there were several poets superior to those who composed it: Berenger de la Tour, the best bucolic poet of the age, author
of the " Sicle d'Or" and the " Amie Rustique;" Olivier de Magny, a great
lyric poet, as may be gathered from his "Amours," (" Odes," "Soupirs," and
"Gaietes;" Amadis Jamyn, Ronsard's favourite pupil, and the writer of
several charming pieces which have more life in them than those of his
master; and Guillaume du Bartas, the creator of descriptive poetry, who, in
his poem upon the creation of the world, entitled "La Semaine," reached
almost at once the sublime and the ridiculous.
It is most wonderful that France, amidst her civil and religious wars,
and the terrible disorder which prevailed during the reigns of Charles IX.
and Henri III., should have produced such a number of poets that it is
impossible to name them all. Everybody wrote and admired poetry at the
court of the Valois-kings, princes, nobles, and ladies alike. Every kind
of poetry-ambitious and familiar, amorous and melancholy-was represented by one or more works of merit, and we can only afford space to mention
the bare names of a few writers: Marc-Claude de Buttet, a native of Savoy;
Flaminio de Birague, an Italian who had been naturalised French; Scevole
de St. Marthe, a Loudunois gentleman; Madame des Roches, of Poitiers;
Guillaume Belliard, of Blois; Jean Passerat; Etienne Pasquier, &c. A
special mention must, however, be made of Philippe Desportes, who excelled
in gallant poetry; of Jean Bertaut, distinguished in the same way; of Jean
and Jacques de la Taille, better known as dramatic poets; and lastly, of
Agrippa d'Aubigne, who may be termed the Petronius and Juvenal of the
sixteenth century.
But Malherbe, who had just been born, was destined, in the course of his
attacks upon the Ronsard school, to form the new French poetics, of which
his odes represent the most perfect model and style.




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.
First Historians of the Church.-The Last Latin and Greek Historians.-Latin Chronicles:
Marius, Cassiodorus, Jornandes.-Gregory of Tours.-Fr6edgaire.-Monastic Chronicles. —
Chronicles from the Eighth to the Eleventh Century.-Historians of the Crusades.-Historians
of Foreign Countries.-Latin Chronicles of the Abbey of St. Denis.-Chronicles in Rhyme.Early French Chronicles.-Villehardouin.-The Sire de Joinville.-Chronicles of St. Denis.
-Froissart.-Monstrelet.-Chastellain.-French Translations of the Ancient Historians.Library of Charles V.-Chroniclers of the Fifteenth Century.-Historians of the Court of
Burgundy.-Private Chronicles and Lives of Illustrious Men.-Personal Memoirs.-Histories
of France in the Sixteenth Century.
ONG before the invasions of the Barbarian: the
countless books of history written by Greek
and Latin authors concerning the annals of
the  ancient peoples had been falling       into
in t  a i     disfavour.  Even the best of them were little
read, for the Christians felt but slight interest
in these pagan narratives, and this is why
works relating to the history of antiquity
were already so scarce.
The Church, however, inspired some new
historians, who set to write its early annals. Eusebius, Bishop of C.rsarea,
during the reign of Constantine, composed in Greek an Ecclesiastical History
in ten books, from the birth of Christ to the death of Licinius (324); and
Paulus Orosius, a disciple of St. Augustine, composed in Latin, during the
early part of the fifth century, seven books of History against the Pagans
("Historiarum adversus Paganos Libri VII."), into which he introduced
many interesting popular traditions, narrating the history of the world from
the time of Adam to the year 316 A. I. A few Latin writers still strove, as
late as the fourth century, to write history after the fashion of Livy, Tacitus, and
Suetonius; and Aurelius Victor, surnamed Africanus, wrote at Rome, of which




456


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


city he was prefect, a History of the Emperors, beginning from Augustus,
and a summary treatise of the illustrious men of Rome (" De Viris Illustribus
Urbis Romae "), which has often been attributed to Pliny the younger and
Cornelius Nepos. Flavius Eutropius, who was a soldier and a statesman, compiled an Abridgment of Roman History ("Breviarium Rerum Romanarum")
in ten books, from the foundation of Rome to the reign of the Emperor Valens;
and Ammianus Marcellinus, a native of Antioch, who took part in the wars
waged by the Emperor Julian in Gaul and Germany, completed in after life
an immense History of the Roman Emperors, from the reign of Nerva to that
of Valentinianus, but the first thirteen books of which are lost. This History,
though its style is uncouth, forms a brilliant termination to the series of Latin
histories of the empire.
But in the fifth century, while the barbarian hordes were pouring in upon
the Old World by way of Spain, Gaul, and Italy, where they founded fresh
states, the empire of the East became the asylum for a new historic school,
which grew   remarkable for a number of great works emanating from
Christian thought, and intended to celebrate the triumph of the Christian
religion. Philostorgius wrote in Greek a general History of the Church,
which is only known to us by the abridgment of it made by Photius; Socrates
continued the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius from the year 306 to 439;
Sozomen, born in Palestine, compiled an excellent History of the Church,
in nine books, from the year 324 to 439; and Theodoret, Bishop of Syria,
also edited an Ecclesiastical History, in five books, of the same period. It
would appear as if the genius of history was concentrated upon the annals of
the Church, when arose quarrels and disputes as keen as those which were
formerly provoked by politics alone. This new kind of history seems better
adapted to Greek literature, though three or four of the Latin writers appear
to have preserved the best traditions of their language. The priest Rufinus,
who had been intimate with St. Jerome, and who had lived in retirement in
Sicily, where he died (410), translated the History of Eusebius into passable
Latin; Sulpicius Severus, his contemporary, a more elegant and correct
writer, although born in Aquitaine, and who never left Gaul, where he had
followed the apostleship of St. Martin, composed an Abridgment of Sacred
History from the creation of the world to the year 410 A.D., and this excellent
book earned the surname of the Christian Sallust.
The Greek language, the existence of which was henceforward inseparable




-i I




d,~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ 




BATTLE OF JONATHAN AGAINST BACCIDE.I
Embattled castle and military uniforms of the xyth century. Miniature 01 J. Fouquet, taken from the
History of the Jews. By Josephus, translated from the Greek into French. M. S. of the xvtb century.




,     I
I. 
I,.,




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


457


from the empire of the East, was perpetuated, with most of its essential
qualities, in a mass of historical works written in Greek, down to the capture
of Constantinople by Mahomet II.; but the Latin language, on the contrary,
had been subjected to the inevitable mixture of the national idioms of all the
barbaric peoples which had collected in different parts of the Roman empire.
The Latin language, though more and more corrupted and changed, continued
none the less to be the official language of the clergy and of the higher civil
administration. Nothing but Latin was spoken at the court of Odoacer, King
of the Heruli, and at the court of Theodoric, King of the Goths. Thus books
of political rather than of religious history continued to be written in Latin.
It was in this semi-barbarous tongue that the Western historians of the sixth
and seventh centuries compiled their Chronicles, while the Greek historians
were publishing excellent Histories after the style of Polybius and Dion
Cassius: Agathias the Scholastic, the History of the Reign of Justinian;
Procopius of Cmesarea, secretary to Belisarius, the History of his Time;
Theophylactus Simocatta, the History of the Emperor Maurice, &c.
The Latin Chronicles, composed during this dreary epoch of the Middle
Ages, are none the less valuable and interesting. The most ancient of them
relates to France, or rather to the part of Gaul occupied by the Franks: that
of Marius of Autun, Bishop of Avenche, in Helvetia. It begins with the
reign of Avitus in 455, and terminates in 581: written in a clear and simple
style, it relates more especially to the reign of Gontran, King of Burgundy,
and contains some accurate information as to the geography of Gaul. It had
been written to serve as a sequel to the Abridgment of the Universal History
compiled by Prosper of Aquitaine, and is in consequence dry and concise, like
most Chronicles of the time. Cassiodorus, the minister of King Theodoric,
gave freer scope to his rhetoric in a voluminous History of the Goths, of
which we possess only an excellent abridgment ("De Gothorum Origine et
Rebus Gestis ") by Jornandes, Bishop of Ravenna, who also composed a short
Universal History. St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville, who died in 636, also wrote
a Chronicle from the time of Adam, and a History of the Goths, the Vandals,
the Suevi, and the Visigoths, amidst whom he had passed his life.
The most ancient and valuable record of French history is the great work
of Gregory of Tours, who in his "Histoire Ecclesiastique des Francs" gave
a faithful description of the events in which he took part.   Born in
Auvergne, of a patrician family which had produced several senators and
3 N




458


CHRONICLES. HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


prelates, he was brought up by his uncle, St. Gall, Bishop of Clermont, and
was himself made Bishop of Tours in 573. The esteem in which he was held
at the court of Chilperic and Fredegonde enabled him to play a conspicuous
part in the political affairs of the Merovingian monarchy; he had been mixed up
in the most secret transactions of Chilperic's reign, and was conversant with all
the details of the deadly struggle between the rival Queens, Fredegonde and
Brunehaut. This, no doubt, was the reason which induced him to write his


Fig. 356 -Equestrian Statue of Clovis, King of the Franks (465-511), by Erwin de Steinbach
(Thirteenth Century), placed over the Western Portico of Strasburg Cathedral.


History. His book, commencing with the origin of France, embraces a period
of 174 years, from the establishment of the Franks in Gaul about the year
429. The first part of this History is written after Sidonius Apollinaris, St.
Remy, Bishop of Rheims, the "Acts of the Saints," and, above all, after oral
tradition (Fig. 356). With regard to the events of the last fifty years
recorded in his History, Gregory of Tours writes what he had himself seen, or




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS. 


459


what he had ascertained from trustworthy sources. He was not, perhaps, a
man of very deep learning, but he was endowed with judgment and intelligence. He possessed, moreover, the qualities which are so often wanting
in historians-good faith, candour, and the desire to be impartial.  His
style, though by no means correct and almost uncouth, is not devoid of
colour, though simple and artless, and some of his descriptions are traced
with great power. Gregory of Tours, who had read Virgil, Sallust, and
Pliny, doubtless sought to imitate them in an age when the study of literature
was almost extinct. Nor is he to be blamed for introducing into his W*A
the legends and miracles of which all his contemporaries were full.


Fig. 357.-The Seven Saints of Brittany.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving from the "Chroniques
de Bretagne," by Alain Bouchard (Paris, Galliot du Pre, 1514, in 4to).-In the Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.


This work, priceless and unique of its kind, was more often to be found in
the libraries of the monasteries than in the archives of the Merovingian kings,
and it must have had a great notoriety upon the death of its author in 593,
for the best historian of the seventh century, Fredegaire, surnamed the
Scholastic, continuing his history borrowed from Eusebius, Julius Africanus,
and other Greek and Latin chroniclers, composed for the third book of this
Chronicle an analytical abridgment of Gregory of Tours' book. Fredegaire,
who was apparently a Burgundian, brought his story up to his death in 660.




460o


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


The fifth book of this work contains some very valuable information concerning the reigns of Clotaire II., Dagobert I., and Clovis the younger. The
author states in his preface that he relates what he has either seen, or heard
from persons in whom he can place reliance, or taken from standard works.
It is the only historical record of what took place in France during that
obscure period.
It is difficult to give an explanation for the scarcity of contemporary
Chronicles in the seventh and eighth centuries, when we remember that the
bishops were the true guardians of history, and that monks in all the large
monasteries made a point of collecting in chronological order the principal
events of civil and religious history. It is true that these Chronicles were
diffuse and loosely put together, and in these monastic Chronicles more space
is devoted to the internal affairs of the community than to public occurrences,
of which only vague rumours often reached them. Some of these Chronicles
are nevertheless valuable (Fig. 357), on account of the scarcity of historical
documents relating to early ages; and amongst the mass of them which have
been published we may cite as the most interesting those of Moissac,
Fontenelle, St. Medard de Soissons, Fleury-sur-Loire, St. Gall, and St.
Bertin. Nor do we know anything as to the names of the authors who wrote
the daily chronicles, the diary as we should say, of the ordinary incidents
which occurred in the households of the King and of the nobility, except that
two of those who succeeded Fredegaire in his work say that their labours
were undertaken, the one by order of Childebrand, uncle of Pepin d'IHristal,
mayor of the palace, the other by order of Nibelung, son of Childebrand, who
were anxious to possess annals of the First Race. There is reason for believing
that many of the Chronicles were lost in the wars and devastations of these
barbarous epochs, in the course of which most of the towns and monasteries
were burnt and put to sack. This is to be regretted, for, as Lacurne de St.
Palaye observes, " No age was so barbarous but what the French felt how
useful might be the knowledge of their history, in order to stimulate men,
by the example of their forefathers, to lead virtuous and honourable lives."  It
must not be supposed, however, that the ancient Asiatic and Northern peoples
who had successively invaded Europe during the fifth and sixth centuries had
no history. Their history, although not committed to writing, consisted of
warlike and religious songs, which were transmitted from generation to
generation, and which dated from a very remote period. These were the




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


46 


national songs which Charlemagne had collected from the mouths of their
descendants, who had become merged in the native populations of his empire.
It was from the national songs, also, of the ancient Britons, of the Saxons,
and of the Anglians that the Venerable Bede drew the materials for his
Ecclesiastical History of England, composed by him in the Monastery of
Jarrow, near Durham, where he died in 735.
Charlemagne is credited with the honour of having instituted the monastic
chronicles which were ordered to be preserved in all monastic foundations
formed by the crown.  In each of these it was the monk who was most


Fig. 358.-Coronation of Charlemagne.-Miniature from the " Chroniques de St. Denis."
Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.


distinguished for his learning and uprightness who was intrusted with the
duty of enregistering in chronological order the events of each reign; and, at
the death of the King, his notes served for the compilation of a Chronicle
which was deposited in the archives of the monastery. The famous Abbey of
St. Denis doubtless possessed, in preference to all other monasteries, the
privilege of thus composing the posthumous history of the Kings (Fig. 358),
with a degree of religious authority reminding one of the judgment of the
dead in ancient Egypt, and of keeping the dep6t of these national archives,
which were so famous throughout the Middle Ages. One of the oldest of




462


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


English historians relates that the kings had in constant attendance at their
court certain men of letters who were intrusted with the task of recording
their memorable sayings and doings, in order to transmit them, after their
death, to posterity. Eginhard, the secretary (notaries) of Charlemagne, held
this confidential post, and he was also selected by that monarch to supervise
the education of the heirs to his throne. It was, no doubt, in order to acquit
himself of this task that the learned favourite of the Emperor retired into the
Monastery of Selingstadt, where he arranged the materials for his Life of
Charlemagne. This work, the best of all those which he has left, was
apparently composed in imitation of Suetonius's Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
In reading it one can easily see that the author was a member of the Pauline
Academy, and that, in spite of his rugged and faulty style, he endeavoured to
imitate the historical writers of ancient Rome.
It is strange that the historical monuments of Charlemagne's epoch should
be so few, for that sovereign was fond of literature, and encouraged those who
cultivated it, and he must have followed with interest the progress of
historical study. Hie may not, however, have cared to be the subject of
works which he could not himself revise, and, as a matter of fact, most of the
Chronicles treating of his reign are posterior to his death (814). There is no
evidence that any of the distinguished scholars whom he had collected about
him were ordered to write his own history. During his meals he had
read to him the historical songs of the nations of the North and of Germany
(cantilence historicce), which he had got together as materials for a history of
the past, and he probably listened with not less interest to the songs of the
bards who celebrated his warlike achievements in poems which were written
in the vulgar tongue, but which were afterwards translated into Latin, and
finally paraphrased into chansons de geste in the language of the twelfth
century. But, excepting Eginhard, there were no scribes or secretaries in the
palace intrusted with the duty of writing, under the Emperor's supervision,
the official record of his public and private life.
Charlemagne had been long in his grave when the monk of St. Gall,
generally believed to be a man named Necker, published in two books, after
the evidence of two contemporaries, Priest Werinbert and Chevalier Adalbert,
a Chronicle (" De Gestis Caroli Magni ") which he dedicated to Charles the
Fat, Emperor of Germany. This Chronicle, composed a hundred and seventy
years after the Emperor's death, and the author of which glorified his memory,




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


463




is very valuable, in spite of the exaggerations with which it teems. It is
written in an artless and attractive style, and serves at least to counterbalance
0
]|St~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.t
_?
I.
0
E
QQ
cC
Oi~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~~~~ m~~~~~~~2
~ urrt~#iq2 CD
t\/r p~~~~~~~~~~~a~~~~a~~~~lu~~~~~L~~~~u ~ ~ ~ ~   F~~~~~~91
gc,- ~!5 ~~m n
ro7                  k~~~~~~~~~~~~~


the false Chronicle of Archbishop Turpin, which, though looked upon as
reliable in the Middle Ages, is a tissue of falsehood. This latter Chronicle,
attributed to the Archbishop of Rheims, who holds such a prominent place in




464


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


romances of chivalry, relates the fabled expedition of Charlemagne and his
paladins into Spain. It is in two distinct parts: the first five chapters were
written in the middle of the eleventh, and the others in the beginning of the
twelfth century. Here is the place to speak of the beautiful "Chanson de
Roland," but there is no need to mention the narrative of the pseudoPhilomene concerning the doings of Charlemagne at Narbonne and at
Carcassonne, and his fabled expedition to the Holy Land to restore the
Patriarch of Jerusalem, whom the Arabs had driven out (Fig. 359).
Eginhard and Paul Diacre are the only trustworthy historians of the reign
of Charlemagne. Paul Warnefride, surnamed Diacre, because he had taken
deacon's orders, was secretary to the Lombard king, Didier, and afterwards
lived at the court of Charlemagne before he went into the Monastery of
Monte Cassini, where he completed his History of the Lombards (" De Gestis
Langobardorum") and his Abridgment of Roman History. It would be a
mistake to suppose that barbarism, which appeared to have been arrested in
its onward progress during the reign of Charlemagne, resumed its sway in
the troubled reigns which followed.  There was a rapid addition to the
number of historians, who made their voices heard even in this (tenth) century
of disorder and social transition. Every reign, every epoch, and every abbey
had its chroniclers. In the ninth century, Ermold le Noir, Abbot of Aniane,
wrote the Life of Louis the Debonnaire; and Nithard, a soldier and grandson
of Charlemagne, who was born in 790 and died in 858, wrote a history of the
quarrels and strife which took place amongst the sons of that sovereign.
The tenth century produced many good historians in nearly every country
of Europe. In Italy, Luitprand, Bishop of Cremona, and twice ambassador
at Constantinople, wrote the History of contemporary Germany (862 to 984);
Witikind, monk of an abbey near Paderborn, wrote the Annals of the
Imperial House under the Othos; and Dudon, Canon of St. Quintin, undertook the History of the early Dukes of Normandy. There was an abundance of
historians, in fact; and while Abbon, Abbot of the old Benedictine monastery
of Fleury-sur-Loire (died in 933) described in epic verse the siege of Paris by
the Normans ("De Bello Parisiacae Urbis")-a siege of which he was an eyewitness-Flodoard, Canon of Rheims, who died in 966, wrote some local
Chronicles, in which are recorded many events of general interest.
Most of the numerous historians of the eleventh century were prelates
and monks, among whom may be mentioned Dithmar, Bishop of Merseburg




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


465


in 1009, author of a Chronicle of Germany from 876 to 1018; Raoul Glaber,
monk of Cluny, whose Chronicle, extending from 900 to 1046, is one of the most
interesting produced during the Middle Ages; and Aimoin, of Villefranche
in Perigord (died in 1008), who had a well-deserved reputation in the history
school of the Benedictines at Fleury-sur-Loire, and who spent part of his life
in composing, after documents preserved in that celebrated abbey, a History
of the Merovingian kings, which he himself brought down to the reign of
Clovis, and which his successors, also Benedictine monks, continued to the


Fig. 360.-Coronation of the Great Khan, First King of Tartary.-Miniature fiom the "Fleur
des Histoires de ]a Terre d'Orient," compiled by Brother Haycon or Hayton (Hethoum), Lord
of Cort, Cousin-German of the King of Armenia.-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In
the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
year 654. This is a well-arranged history, and one in which the Chronicles
have been fused with a view to logical sequence. Thegan, Archbishop of
Treves, composed, much upon the same plan, a Life of Louis the Debonnaire;
and Helgaud, a monk at Fleury-sur-Loire, an abridged Life of King Robert.
It was not till the close of the twelfth century that the vulgar tongue
passed from popular poetry into history, and while it was in its first hesitating
3 o




466


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, AEMOIRS.


utterances, the historians, all of whom were clerks and monks, did not
abandon the use of Latin, in which they recorded, without stopping to weigh
their probability, the wildest stories and legends (Fig. 360).  But the
Crusades, the first of which dates from 1096, gave a fresh impulse to historical
writing, and for a century and a half there was a long succession of historians
of the Crusades, who described them in various languages, but principally


Fig. 361.-Alfonso X., the Wise, King of Castile <1252-1284), the supposed Author of the famous
"Cronica de Espafia."- Votive Statue in the Toledo Cathedral. - After the "Iconografia
Espafiola," by Carderera.
in Latin (Fig. 361). These historians relate, for the most part, facts of which
they were themselves witnesses, and some of them import into their works the
pious enthusiasm which animated those who took part in the Crusades. Each
of these writers has his special characteristics, from Guibert de Nogent, who




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, IMEMOIRS.


467


wrote the History of the first Crusade, down to William of Tyr. Amongst
those who wrote in Latin we may mention Bernard the Treasurer, Albert of
Aix, Jacques de Vitry, Robert the Monk, Foucher of Chartres, and Odon de
Deuil. There are also two French historians of the fourth and last Crusade,
both of whose names have become household words-Villehardouin and the
Sire de Joinville.
But, before speaking of the French historians who brought about a
complete change in the form of historical works, we must refer to the Greek
and Latin writers, and also to a few historians in the vulgar tongue, who
'I;'II
Fig. 362.-" How the Duc d'Alanron took the said Town of Alanqon."-Miniature from the
"Vigiles de Charles VII.," by Martial d'Auvergne.-Manuscript dated 1484 (No. 5054).-In
the National Library, Paris.
contributed not a little to the revival of historical science. Cedrenus and
Zonoras, like most of the historians of the Middle Ages, commenced with the
creation of the world, and brought their Chronicles down to their own day,
the one to 1057, the other to 1118.     Another Greek historian, Nicetas
Choniates, commenced his Annals, of which there were twenty-one books, with
the death of Alexis Comnenus, and terminated them with the death of the
Emperor Baldwin. The Latin historians were so numerous that a mere list
of their names would fill more than ten pages, and the only writers we need




468


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMiOIRS.


allude to are William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Roger of
Hoveden, in England; Otho of Frisingen, Otfrid of Viterbo, and Conrad of
Lichtenau, in Germany; Leon, Cardinal of Ostia, in Italy; and Roderick
Ximenes, in Spain (Fig. 361). Of the Chronicles in the vulgar tongue the
most remarkable is that of Nestor, written in the Slav tongue in a monastery
at Kieff about 1116. To the historians who succeeded these in the various
countries of Europe we have not space to allude, and it is the less necessary to
do so as their names are scarcely remembered.
We must not, however, pass over the universal Chronicle of Matthew
Paris, who was a monk and historian in the Benedictine Abbey of St. Albans,
in the diocese of Lincoln, and who gave the title of "Historia Major
Anglorum" to his history of the English, composed from the various
Chronicles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Matthew Paris is certainly
one of the most remarkable historians of the Middle Ages, and his great work
concerns not less France than England, especially with regard to the latter
part, in which he described, after what he himself had witnessed, the events
occurring between 1235 and his death in 1259. At this time the best
historians were to be found in France, and their numbers continued to
increase when they had created a school of history, which became of the
more importance as Latin was gradually replaced by French in general
conversation. As early as the middle of the twelfth century, fifty years
before Villehardouin, in his Chronicle of the conquest of Constantinople,
had proved that the vulgar idiom was well suited to works of history, Suger,
Minister of State under Louis VI. and Louis VII., had, it is said, perceived
that this idiom, which had long been in general use at court and among
the upper classes, might be employed to advantage in the Royal Chronicles,
which had been compiled for the last three centuries at the Abbey of
St. Denis, where he died in 1152, and of which he was abbot. This fact
is not absolutely certain, but Suger, who had written in Latin, though of a
somewhat obscure style, the Life of Louis the Fat and part of the Life of
Louis the Young, deserves to be given a prominent place in the list of
French historians.
The Latin Chronicles of the royal Abbey of St. Denis had long been
famous, and there were deposited the most valuable manuscripts of French
history.
The writers of the romances and chansons de geste, with a view of obtaining




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


469


greater credence for their works of imagination, did not scruple to declare
that they had derived their estoires (stories) from the archives of St. Denis.
(See chapter on Romances.)   The author of the prose romance, "Beufve
d'Antonne," says, "Materials for a narrative of the deeds of King Charles
Martel are to be found in the Chronicles of Beufve d'Antonne and elsewhere,
as also at St. Denis, where there is nothing but chronicle." The author of
the romance in verse, " Doolin de Mayence," says:"Les saiges clers d'adonc, par leur senifiance,
En firent les Croniques qui sont de grant vaillance,
Et sont en l'abbaie de Saint-Denys en France;
Puis, ont este estraites, par moult bele ordonnance,
De latin en roman.". 
The first historical romances were originally given as history in rhyme, and
the jugglers, who visited the chateaux and the plenary courts to recite and
chant the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table and other lays
already alluded to, taught their credulous and uneducated hearers as much as
any of these nobles cared to learn concerning ancient history. The romances
of "Rou" and "Brut," of "Godfrey de Bouillon," and a host of others of a
kindred sort, composed in verse, were accepted as documents of unimpeachable veracity. The result was that the true historians, in order to prevent
the jugglers from having a monopoly of public favour, invented metrical
histories, which did, in fact, effect that purpose. In this way Guillaume
Guiart set to rhyme a Chronicle (from 1165 to 1306) which he entitled the
"Branche des Royaulx Lignages;" Godfrey de Paris composed a Chronicle,
of his time, under the reign of Philippe le Bel; and Philippe Mouskes a
Universal History consisting. of thirty-two thousand lines, and relating the
history of Flanders from the earliest ages to the end of the thirteenth century.
These metrical Chronicles had a special class of readers among the lovers of
poetry, and two centuries later the lawyer-poet Martial d'Auvergne still
further perfected the metrical Chronicle by composing the "Vigiles du Roi
Charles VII." (Figs. 362 and 363), one of the best histories of that prince;
while his contemporary, Guillaume Cretin, precentor and canon at the SainteChapelle of Vincennes, set to work at rhyming the Chronicles of France from
Charlemagne to FranCois I.
Geoffroy, Sire de Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne, who had taken




470


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


an active part in the fourth Crusade, furnished a model for prose history in
his Chronicle, or rather Memoir, upon the conquest of Constantinople by the
crusaders in 1202. It is surprising to find in so ancient a work such a
faithful and spirited account of the great events which this nobleman, who
was a warrior and a statesman as well, had seen happen. His work is, so to
speak, the starting-point for those private memoirs which have always been
highly appreciated in France, and of which there has been a large supply
ever since. The Chronicle of the Sire de Joinville, written more than seventy
years after that of Villehardouin, also belongs to the category of private
memoirs, though the worthy knight, who composed it in his old age, had
Fig. 363.-" How the Comte de Foix took strong Places in Guienne."-Miniature from the "Vigiles
de Charles VII., by Martial d'Auvergne.-Manuscript dated 1484 (No. 5,054).-In the
National Library, Paris.
intended to write the Life of St. Louis rather than a history of his own. He
had not assuredly the keen penetration of Villehardouin, but unconsciously
he has written one of the most exquisite works in the ancient literature of
France. He was not a writer, yet he surpasses all the writers of his day by
the charm, the grace, the sensibility, and the piquant artlessness of his
narrative (Fig. 364).
These excellent Memoirs, written by eye-witnesses of unquestionable
authority, had not, however, at the time they appeared, the amount of
success which their authors may well have expected. They remained in
the archives of the Sire de Villehardouin in Romania, and in those of the




d"T~zn~r/-T "  TT rC.rVI "T " C, A rL-TA rz- r" 


C'HiKr UlV tL CL, tlo 1  U  I1LO, IVllol Ul:,K.       47 I1
Chateau de Joinville, only a few copies being circulated at the French court,
and amongst the noblemen who possessed a library. Yet the Sire de Joinville had written these Memoirs at the request of Queen Jeanne, wife of
Philippe le Bel, and when they were printed in the sixteenth century the
original manuscript was no longer to be found. Other statesmen and soldiers
also compiled their Memoirs, which, remaining buried in the archives of their
castles, were destroyed, like so many other manuscripts, during the wars of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  The Latin Chronicles in the monasteries
and the churches suffered less from the pillage and burning which became
the fate of so many castles and fortified towns. Thus there remain a
number of these Latin Chronicles, most of which have never been published,
fi l 
Fig. 364.-The Envoys from the Soudan, having at their head a little old Man walking on Crutches,
come to propose Terms of Ransom to the captive Crusaders.-After a Miniature from the
" Credo," by Joinville.-Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century, formerly belonging to the
National Library, Paris, but at present in England.
but the existence of which proves how the taste for history had spread since
the twelfth century. The clerks, monks, priests, savants, and doctors would
have considered themselves disgraced if they had written in any other
language than Latin; the nobles, the warriors, the politicians, the poets, and
the middle classes only used the vulgar tongue to narrate events in which
they had taken part, or which they had witnessed. It may, therefore, be
considered as certain that from this period there was a very marked distinction between general histories and personal memoirs, the latter being nearly
always in French, and the former in Latin.




472


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


At the same time an abridged French edition was being prepared, in the
Abbey of St. Denis, of the Chronicles of France, and this edition was modified
to keep pace with the changes in the language. This is how it came to
pass that there were several different versions of these Chronicles. It would
appear, according to some verses attributed to Mathieu de Vendome, Abbot
of St. Denis in the thirteenth century, and placed at the head of the oldest
manuscripts of these Chronicles, that they were translated into French by his
order, about 1274, under the title of "Roman des Rois."      These verses are
explanatory of the profit to be derived from reading the Chronicles:-.." L'on ne doit ce livre mespriser ne despire (decrier),
Qui est fait des bons princes dou regne et de l'empire.
Qui sovent i voudroit estudier et lire,
Bien puet snavoir qu'il doit eschiver et eslire (esquiver et choisir).
Et dou bien et dou mal puet chascun son prou (profit) faire:
Par l'exemple des bons se doit-on au bien traire (tirer);
Par les faits des mauvais qui sont tout le contraire,
Se doit chascun dou mal esloingner et retraire (retirer);
Mains bons enseignements puet-on prendre en ce livre."...
M. Paulin Paris, who has published a very excellent edition of this work,
says of it with truth, "The Chronicles of St. Denis are probably the most
glorious monument of history ever raised in any language or by any people,
with the exception of the Bible." These Chronicles, which were not in reality
published until the fifteenth century, but which as early as the fourteenth had
been shown to kings and great personages, appear to have been regarded with
almost religious veneration as the Golden Book of the Church and of the
French monarchy. When foreign sovereigns came to the French court they
asked to be allowed to see and to handle this venerable book.        Upon a
manuscript of these Chronicles belonging to the Duc de Berry, brother of
Charles V., may be read the following marginal note:-" The which book the
said Seigneur de Berry had taken from the Church of St. Denis to show to
the Emperor Sigismond (in 1415), and also to copy." King Charles V. had
previously had several copies taken, illustrated with miniatures, and he always
had a copy open upon his desk, by the side of the Bible.
The monks of St. Denis continued to write in Latin an official account of
each reign, according to the privileges of their royal abbey. These accounts
took the form of very detailed annals, all the materials for which had been




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


473


collected with scrupulous care, and which were put together by the best
writers in the community. It was in this fashion that Guillaume de Nangis
wrote the Life of St. Louis and of Philip the Bold, as Rigord did that of
Philip Augustus. The Lives of the latter's successors, down to Charles VI.,
were also written upon the same plan-that is to say, in great detail-by


Fig. 365.-Betrothal Interview between the Archduke Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy at
Ghent, April 18th, 1477.-Miniature from the " Chroniques de Flandre."-Manuscript of the
Fifteenth Century (No. 13,073).-In the Burgundy Library, Brussels.


monks who remained anonymous, and whose works are said to have disappeared when the Abbey of St. Denis was three times pillaged between 1410
and 1429 by the Burgundians, the Armagnacs, and the English. There is
some reason, however, for thinking that the monks themselves had concealed
3 P




47+


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


or destroyed their original works, in which the history of the deadly wars
between France and England, as well as of the civil wars and political
factions of the fourteenth century, was narrated in too indignant and sorrowful terms. All that remains to us of these valuable Chronicles of the Kings
of France from Louis VIII. to Charles V. is the general History of the
reign of Charles VI., which gives us a very favourable idea of what the rest
must have been. Nor do we even know who were the authors of this History,
the last which was written in Latin.
From the time of Charles VII. there was an official chronicler of France
amongst the monks of St. Denis, and the first who held this post was Jean
Chartier, younger brother of the royal poet, Alain Chartier. We owe to him
an excellent Chronicle of the reign of Charles VII., written in French, but too
much abridged; and it is supposed that this was the last Chronicle compiled
under the supervision of the Chapter of St. Denis; for Jean Castel, appointed
chronicler of France after Jean Chartier, was a monk of St. Martin des
Champs, and became Abbot of St. Maur des Fosses. At his death in 1482,
all his manuscripts were placed in a casket and transferred to St. Denis, but
Louis XI. ordered that the said manuscripts, which doubtless related to the
history of his reign, should be returned to his Seal Office. Jean d'Auton,
Abbot of Angle, succeeded Jean Castel as Chronicler-Royal in the reign of
Louis XII., while Jean Mace held that office under Francois I. The Valois
were not content with having one chronicler, and henceforward there were
three Histriographers of France in place of the chronicler of the King,
and this post, the salary of which was raised from 1,200 to 2,400 livres
(francs) in 1610, was held by Pierre Paschal, Bernard du Haillan, and Pierre
Mathieu.
The "Chroniques de France " or "de Saint Denis," written in French,
stopped at the end of the reign of Charles VII.; and this great historical
work long retained its renown, notwithstanding the fables which envelop the
cradle of the monarchy, and trace it back to Francus, son of Hector, who is
said to have settled in Gaul after the fall of Troy. The religious legends, the
lives of the saints, and the miracles which we find interspersed in the history
of the first two races, represent the spirit of the age in which these annals
were put together, and are not documents to be set on one side, though they
have very erroneously been looked upon as discrediting the simple and honest
compilation in which they are embodied. But it must nevertheless be allowed




i




I
I~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~~
t~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0
I
0




II


SIEGE OF A TOWN DEFENDED BY THlE BURGUNDIANS
UNDER CHARLES VI.
Miniature taken from the Chroniques of Monstrelet; Paris, YWrard, (about 1500 A D.)
in~-fo&:o. (Edition upon vellum). In the library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot.




I       #
I)    ), 
I.  ~




CHRONZ(CLES; HISTORIES, MEMOIRSS, 7


4-75


that, for the fourteenth and part of the fifteenth century, the " Chroniques de
St. Denis, notwithstanding the moderation and precision with which they were
compiled, are not equal to the Chronicles of Froissart, or even of Mlonstrelet.
Jean Froissart (Fig. 368) is certainly one of the most attractive of
historia~ns; he is more the chronicler of the chevaliers than the historian
of the fourteenth century. Born at Valenciennes about 1337, the son of
a painter of armorial bearings, and himself no doubt an heraldic writer, he
as a youth attached himself to the Church, and notwithstanding his position
as clerk, soon took to travelling about Europe. He was also a poet and a
musician, and this gained him admittance to the houses of the nobles, and
afterwards to all the courts of Europe. He began by rewriting after his own
Ontffulff~~rtMwMjjwite nut(u                    ni
in (ou     MM        9Xnrnj.Auts
~~mnnt~v    ~uef3            ICeu~j  ti~t t'cuu cri ro
Fig. 366.-Fragment of the "1Genealo,4y oF the Kings of France and of England."-Manluscript of
the Fifteenth Century. —IJn the National Library, Paris.
fancy the dull and involved Chronicle of Jean Lebel, Canon of Lie'ge, but,
being dissatisfied with his first version, he put it into another shape, and
throughout his life perfected it and added to it what he had learned in the
course of his travels. As he himself says, " Wherever I went, I questioned
the aged chevaliers and esquires who had been engaged in the wars, and who
could tell me all about them, and also the ancient heralds, in order to verify
and control what I had heard. Thus did I compose the high and noble
history." His history is a vivid, animated, and picturesque Chronicle, and
the only fault to be found with it is that it contains a few repetitions and
mistakes. Froissart i's very happy in the variety of tone which he has given
to this picture, in which are portrayed festivals of the court, gatherings of




476 -


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEJIOIRS.


the chevaliers, and tournaments, as well as sieges, feats of arms, and battles.
His narrative is interlarded with amusing anecdotes and witty dialogue, and
his immense Chronicle, of which there are several different texts, extends
without a break from 1326 to 1400. HIe was a very laborious and honest
writer, remarkable for his impartiality; and Michel de Montaigne speaks of
him as " the worthy Froissart, who has always been frank and artless, who, if
he makes a mistake, never hesitates to acknowledge and correct it as soon as
it is pointed out to him, and who gives the various rumours which were
current, and the different accounts he has heard. It is the raw material for
history, and every one can profit by it according to his understanding."
Like Froissart, Enguerrand de IMonstrelet and Georges Chastelain, who
were simultaneously engaged in continuing his Chronicles by adding thereto
the history of their time, both belonged to Flanders and to the court of the
Duke of Burgundy, where historians were encouraged as well as poets and
artists.  Monstrelet (Fig. 369), born in 1390, may, perhaps, have known
Froissart, who died subsequently to 1410, and he may even have received his
advice when he began to write Chronicles. He was not a poet, but a jurisconsult and archivist, and he held the posts of Provost of Cambray and
Bailiff of Walincourt. He drew up a Chronicle which began where that of
Froissart left off, and he interpolated into it a great number of original pieces
to make up for what might be wanting in the way of talent in his own
work. Georges Chastelain, while alive, had a much greater reputation than
Monstrelet; but his Chronicle, which has only recently been printed, and an
important part of which has not as yet been found, was almost unknown, as
he had written it exclusively for Philippe le Bon, whose secretary and official
chronicler he became after having undertaken several diplomatic missions in
France and England. This long Chronicle extended from 1419 to 1474, and
is mainly remarkable for the clear and impartial judgment, the discernment,
and the elevated style of the writer.
The number of historical works written in French multiplied so rapidly
in the course of the fourteenth century that the Royal Library of the Louvre,
the inventory of which was taken by the keepers of the library at the death
of Charles V., contained more than two hundred manuscript volumes in folio
and in quarto, historical works, most of them magnificently bound in wooden
boards covered with silk and with silver clasps. Amongst these works were
several French translations of Livy, Julius Cosar, Valerius Maximus, Lucan,




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


477


Fig. 367.-Entry of Charles VII. into Rouen in 1450 —Miniature from    Manuscript of the
Fifteenth Century, containing the Account of the Hundred Years' War, which terminated in
1450 by the entry of Charles VII. into Rouen. Binding with the Arms of Anne of Brittany,
Wife of Louis XII.-In the Collection of M. L. Double, Paris.




478


CHROiNICLES, HISTORIES, IMEMAOIRS.


Suetonius, and other Latin writers, undertaken by order of King Charles V.
There were six handsome copies of the " Chroniques de France;" four or five
of Vincent de Beauvais' "M iroir Historial;" eight Lives of St. Louis, comprising, doubtless, that written by Joinville; various Histories and Chronicles
of events beyond the seas ("Chroniques d'Outre Mer," as they were called); five
or six Chronicles of the Popes and the Emperors; a number of Lives of the
Fathers and of the Saints; a few foreign Chronicles translated into French
(Fig. 366); narratives of battles and of war, &c. But in these inventories


Fig. 368.-Portrait of Froissart, after a Red Chalk Drawing preserved in the
Town Library, Arras.
there is not a single work of history written in Latin.   Most of the
manuscripts had been acquired at great expense by Charles V., who read
them or had them read to him, and who appended his autograph to each one.
They were seized or purchased in 1425 by the Duke of Bedford, who took
them to England, where they were either destroyed or dispersed, and the
library of the French kings in the Louvre had to be reformed.
The fondness of Charles V. for the study of history did much to aid the




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


479


I
/ ct 
F,
- rjo-OU
tew*w           azoff
w


Fig 369.-King Charles VII., upon quitting iRouen, sets out to besiege the Town of Ilarfleur.
-Miniature from the "1 Chroniques de Mlonstrelet."-Manuseript of the Fifteenth Century
(No. 2,679).-In the National Library, Paris.
prog~ress of that branch of literature. That sovereign, a friend of literature
and of men of letters, like his two brothers, the Due de Berry and the




480


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, JMEMOIRS.


Due d'Anjou, did not confine himself to the composition of sumptuous volumes
of history, bien escripts et histories, with rich bindings, for he had in his
household several translators-amongst others, Jean de Vignay and Laurent
du Premier-Fait-to whom he gave orders what Latin or Italian works he
wished to have translated into French; but he had no chronicler holding an
official title, and he allowed the monks of St. Denis to continue their task of
writing in Latin the history of his reign-a history which has not, unfortunately, been preserved. It is nevertheless from this reign that dates the
personal history of each King of France, written in French by the chroniclers
of the King's household. Christina de Pisan, who was at once a poetess, a
philosopher, and an historian (Figs. 371 and 372), was the daughter of Thomas
de Pisan, astrologer to Charles V., and she was therefore enabled, owing to
her personal position at court, to collect all the particulars for the "Livre des
Faits et Bonnes lAoeurs du Roi Charles V.," which she did not terminate
until 1404. At this period the poet Eustache Deschamps was royal chronicler,
and he was engaged in writing a History of the reign of Charles VI., which,
interrupted probably by the wars of that time, never appeared, though some
traces of,i may, perhaps, be found in the curious History published under the
name of "Jouvenel des Ursins."  The author of this latter work was not an
official chronicler, for he held the dignity of Archbishop of Rheims, and he
was concerned in many of the stirring events which he describes. After him
we have, as mentioned above, a true French chronicler in Jean Chartier,
though his description of the reign of Charles VII. and of the doings of Joan
d'Arc has not the fire which it might have possessed.
During each reign the official chronicler of France prepared the materials
for a history of the sovereign, but this history was not necessarily written,
much less published. Thus Louis XI. appears to have systematically hindered
his chronicler from completing the events of his reign, and that which
appeared towards the end of the fifteenth century with the inappropriate
title of "Chronique Scandaleuse du Roy Louis XI.," and under the name of
Jean de Troyes, was merely the outline of the work compiled by Pierre
Desrey, of Troyes, chronicler of France under Louis XI., and the only reason
for entitling this Chronicle scandalous was that it was published without the
royal assent. After Pierre Desrey, Andre de la Vigne wrote, partly in prose
and partly in verse, the "Vergier d'HIonneur," with reference to the bold
expedition of Charles VIII. for the conquest of Naples. The wars of the




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MIEMOIORS.


Fig. 370.-Fabled Origin of the Burgundy Cross.- tienne, a legendary King of Burgundy,
makes a Pilgrimage to St. Victor of Marseilles, to whom he has carried the Cross of
St. Andrew, out of gratitude to St. Mary Magdalene, who had raised him and his Mother
from the Dead. This Cross afterwards figured in the Shield of the House of Burgundy.Miniature from the "Chroniques de Bourgogne."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In
the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
3 Q




482           CHRONSICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.
French in Italy during the reign of Louis XII. were recorded by Jean
d'Auton, who, in his character of chronicler of France, compiled a very
complete Chronicle, the style of which, however, was pedantic and involved.
This deplorable style was brought into fashion by the historians of the court
of Burgundy, and especially by Canon Jean Molinet, the historiographer of
Margaret of Austria, who governed the Low Countries (Fig. 365). Francois I.,
Henri II., and their successors, down to Henri IV., also had their chroniclers
and historiographers, who received their salaries without ever publishing the
result of their labours. One of these historiographers, Pierre Paschal, had
made a great stir about a History of France, which, year after year, he was
upon the point of publishing, yet when he died in 1565 there were not more
than twenty pages of it found among his papers.
History, as it extended its domain, gradually increased in variety of tone
and style. Upon the one hand the lives of warriors and statesmen were
related by the heralds, the esquires, and the secretaries, who lived in their
houses and had witnessed the events which they described; while upon the
other hand these warriors, statesmen, and courtiers themselves wrote or
dictated to their secretaries and servants the memoirs of their time. These
private Chronicles and Memoirs, so varied and so interesting, some of which
are anonymous, show that their various authors were animated by the desire
of outdoing one another by a description of the stirring events in which they
had participated. The ancient Chronicle of the Constable Bertrand Duguesclin
was doubtless compiled by one of his companions in arms, and the "Chronique
de la Pucelle" must have been written by a clerk attached to the religious
service of Joan of Arc, and who had followed her from her entry into Orleans,
when besieged by the English, to the coronation of Charles VII. at Rheims.
Guillaume Gruel, who wrote the History of Arthur III., Comte de Richemont,
Duke of Brittany, was chronicler to the latter prince; Jean d'Oronville, who
wrote the life and heroic deeds of Louis II., Due de Bourbon, great-grandson
of St. Louis, was secretary to a prince of the house of Bourbon under
Charles VII.; but we do not know who was the author of the History of
Jean le Maingre, surnamed Boucicaut, Marshal of France; and it has only
recently been discovered that Jean Lefevre de St. Remy, King-at-arms of the
Golden Fleece, composed the Chronicle of the good Chevalier Jean de Lalaing,
which had always been attributed to Georges Chastelain. We have never
known the name of the "Loyal Servitor " who was secretary to the Chevalier




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


483


Bayard; but the " History of the Deeds, Achievements, Triumphs, and Prowess
of the good Chevalier, who is without Fear and without Reproach, the gentle
Seigneur de Bayard," is rightly regarded as the historical masterpiece of the
time of Francois I.
The best of the Memoirs of which the Sire de Joinville had, so to speak,
furnished the model are those rewritten at the end of the fifteenth century
by Philippe de Commines (Fig. 373), and published in 1524 and 1528 under


Fig. 371.-3-iniature from the " Livre de Faits d'Armes et de Chevalerie," by Christina de Pisan.Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.


the title of "Chroniques."  M. Ludovic Lalanne has pointed out with great
truth that he was the first Frenchman to write the history of his time with
the profundity, the discernment, and impartiality of a man who had passed
his life in public affairs. The style of these Memoirs, though rather tortuous
and wordy, is not lacking in vigour and intensity. In addition to the
Memoirs of Louis XI.'s favourite, we can do no more than mention the
Chronicle-memoirs of Pierre Fenin, Mathieu de Coucy, Olivier de la Marche




484


CHIROCICL ES, HISTORIES, MEMIOIRS.


(Fig. 374), and Jacques du Clercq, all of whom were attached to the court of
Burgundy in the fifteenth century. The sixteenth century possessed a brilliant
series of Memoirs, from those of the Sire de Fleurange, of Martin du Bellay,
and of the Seigneur de Vieilleville (compiled by his secretary, Carloix), in the
reigns of Francois I. and Henri II., to the Memoirs of Gaspard de SaulxTavannes, Montluc, Castelnau, and Marguerite de Valois during the rest of
the century. The Memoirs of Brant6me were the last of the Valois dynasty,


Fig. 372.-Miniature from the " Livre de Faits d'Armes et de Chevalerie," by Christina de Pisan.Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century.-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.
and are in striking contrast to the "EIconomies Royales," or the political
Memoirs in which the Due de Sully described the reign of Henri IV.
But the sixteenth century cared most for long historical works and
books of general history.     The "Chroniques de St. Denis" had fallen
into undeserved discredit since the reign of Louis XII., which king had
brought back with him from Verona an Italian historian who wrote in Latin




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.


485


-Paolo Emilio, or Paulus }-Emilius, as he was then called-and commissioned
him to rewrite in rhetorical style the History of France, which Robert Gaguin
had obscured with the jargon of scholasticism. His work, "De Rebus Gestis
Francorum," was highly appreciated by the Humanists, but it had not the
success of Gaguin's Chronicle, which was reprinted ten times, and translated
into French by the indefatigable Pierre Desrey. The booksellers had ordered
from the above, and from several other writers, different historical compilations


Fig. 373.-Portrait of Philippe de Commines, after a Red Chalk Drawing preserved in the
Town Library, Arras.
entitled the " Mer des Histoires," the " Rosier Historial," &c. The chroniclers
and historiographers of France, who turned out so many bulky volumes that
one might imagine they had written with both hands, nearly all composed
their universal History of France; and one of the first efforts in this direction
was that made by Nicole Gilles, notary and secretary of the King, who had
no little success, for the "Annals and Chronicles " of this old historian, who
died in 1503, went through numerous editions until the end of the sixteenth




486


CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, IMEMOIRS.


century, thanks to the additions and supplements written by Belleforest and
Gabriel Chapuis. But this work was soon eclipsed by the more complete
Histories published almost simultaneously by the King's historiographers,
Bernard Girard, Sieur du Haillan, Francois de Belleforest, and Jean de


Fig. 374.-Death presiding over Battles.-Miniature from the "Chevalier d6libere," by Olivier
de la Mlrche.-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (No. 173).-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.


Serres. The folios succeeded each other with amazing rapidity, yet they did
no more than keep pace with the curiosity of the public, who read every line
of these ponderous volumes. There was a sort of historical fever, which was
only aggravated by interminable incidents of the civil wars recorded by the




CHRONICLES, HISTORIES, MEMOIRS.48


487


Protestant writers, La Popelinie're, Jean de Laval, Agrippa d'Aubigne6. A
great historian, the Polybius and Tacitus of France, President JacquesAnguste de Thou, wrote an excellent Political History of France, but it
has the fault of being too prolix, and of being written in enigmatic Latin
instead of in the language of his contemporaries, Michel de Montaigne and
IHenri IV.
Fig. 37~5.-The Arms of Henry V. of Fngland, joined to those of Catherine de Valois, his Wife,
Daughter of Charles YI.-From a Missal which belonged to Charles VI.-In the Library of
MI. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Paris.




THE DRAMA.
Disappearance of the Ancient Theatre.-First Essays of the Christian Theatre.-Pious Representations in the Churches.-The Latin Drama of Irosvitha.-The Mystery of Adam.-The
Great Mysteries.-Progress of the Theatre in Europe.-Brothers of the Passion in Paris.Public Representations.-The Mystery of St. Louis.-Comedy since the Thirteenth Century.
     -Jean de la Halle.-The Farce de Pathelin.-The Bazoche.-The Enfants sans Souci.-The
Theatre in Spain and in Italy.-Creation of the Literary Theatre, in the Sixteenth Century,
in France.
j _i-^-2              CTING     on  the  example    of  M. Charles
Louandre, who has written a very useful
treatise upon the origin of the dramatic art,
we will divide the history of the Theatre
}/  ""'I  "  "      into four distinct periods.     As he says,
during the first period-that is to say, from
__ l        the dawn of Christianity to the seventh century-the Greco-Roman traditions reigned
supreme.    During the second period, from,, VT 7the seventh to the twelfth century, the profane element gave way to Christian inspiration; the theatre, in the
modern acceptation of the term, disappeared altogether, and, absorbed
in the ceremonial of public worship, preserved nothing but the Latin
language as a souvenir of Rome.    In the twelfth, and still more during
the next two centuries, the sanctuary ceased to have a monopoly of
scenic representations; the priests and the monks were gradually
driven from the stage by professional actors, and though Christian
thought was still the dominating feature in the great dramatic compositions of the time, some of them bore traces of the spirit of raillery which
afterwards prevailed. And in the sixteenth century dramatic art underwent its definite transformation, and, by an alliance of Greco-Roman traditions and Christian inspiration, it became at once chivalrous, religious,
satirical, national, and classic.




THE DRAMA.


489


Beyond the comedies of Plautus and of Terence (Figs. 376 to 380) and the
tragedies of Seneca, which doubtless continued to be played in some of the
towns of the old Roman world where correct Latin was still spoken, we know of
nothing except a few feeble attempts at Christian drama, such as Christ
Suffering, attributed to Gregory Nazianzen; Susan, now extinct, which is
said to have been written by John Damascenus; a Dialogue between Adam
and Eve in the earthly Paradise," &c.; and it is quite possible that these
dramas were not written for the stage. Christianity had condemned all kinds
C(7  I   \
Fig. 376.-The Slave and the Lawyer.-Representative Characters of the Ancient Theatre, from
the Comedies of Terence.-Manuscript of the Tenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.
of theatrical representations: tragedies, comedies, pantomimes, and circensian
games. The amphitheatres, which, with the pagan temples, constituted the
principal ornaments of the Roman cities, were, like the temples, abandoned
as the new faith spread. It is true that Chilperic, King of the Franks,
constructed in 577 a circus at Paris, and another at Soissons; but the dramatic
art being at that time unknown in Gaul, these buildings were merely arenas,
in which appeared buffoons, dancers, and performing dogs and horses, and in
which were still given the combats of wild animals. The theatre disappeared
in the shipwreck of ancient society.


3 R




490


THE DRAIMA.


From the seventh to the tenth century are to be found in contemporary
documents two kinds of scenic representations-the one nomad and popular,
the other religious and permanent; the former connected more or less with
the traditions of paganism, the second betokening vague aspirations of a new
and essentially Christian art. The nomad and popular representations were
given by histrions, who exchanged this name of reproach first for that of
chanteurs, and afterwards for that of jugglers (jongleurs), which was given
them by the public, and which they retained throughout the Middle Ages.
Fig. 377.-The Old Man and the Maid-servant.-Representative Characters of the Ancient
Theatre, from the Comedies of Terence.-Manuscript of the Tenth Century.-In the National
Library, Paris.
Mounted upon common trestles, and surrounded by buffoons, mimics, and
musicians, who accompanied their utterances with gestures, grimaces, and
wind or stringed instruments, they declaimed or sang-it can scarcely be said
acted-serious or comic plays. About the ninth century, however, as far as
can be ascertained from  certain passages in historians of that time, the
performances of the jugglers, who mostly took their repertory from   the
legends of the saints, assumed a certain dramatic character. Plain narrative




I~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0~~~~~~~~~
I ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




r~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




THE ANCIENT THEATRE.
Miniature from the Tdrence, of Charles VI, M. S. executed at the biginning of the
XVlh century. No 25. B. L. L. Arsenal Library, Paris.




f,




THE DRAM U9A.


491


was succeeded by dialogue, and several singers at once represented, or rather
intoned, religious scenes, which were called urbanc cantilence, or, as we may
translate it, songs intended to be sung in the streets. These may have been
theatrical pieces, but it is quite certain that the Church forbade her clergy to
take part in, or even to witness them.
Nevertheless there were given in the churches at this period, upon the
principal festivals, regular dramatic representations, which appear to have


f, -1 o 0/\tA 0
V ~-Ik IA~  I 'r t*V 


Fig. 378.-The Parasite and the Soldier.-Representative Characters of the Ancient Theatre, from
the Comedies of Terence.-Manuscript of the Tenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.


formed an integral part of the service, and the clergy in these representations,
which they had the sole charge of, acted the principal episodes in the life of
Christ. For instance, at Christmas, the manger, the shepherds, the magi, and
even the star which led them to Bethlehem were represented at the mass, and
it is in the conversational shape of certain parts of the service celebrated at
the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost that are to be found the
origin of the Mystery-plays and JIiracle-plays of the Middle Ages.




492


THE DRAMA.


Yet, while taking into account these representations, which long held a
place in Catholic liturgy, it may be affirmed that from the sixth to the tenth
century there was not throughout Europe either a theatre or any theatrical
works in the strict acceptation of the word.
To Hrosvitha, a nun in the Convent of Gandersheim, and a native of Saxony,
belongs the honour of having composed the first dramatic works worthy of
the name; and though these works are crude and barbarous, they are none
the less very interesting from an artistic point of view. It is said that she
was the authoress of six Latin dramas imitated from Terence, which were
represented before the nuns of her abbey, in their chapter-house, about the
end of the tenth century. The dominant idea in her dramas is the glorification of chastity, and it must be said that this primitive drama, rude and
imperfect as it may appear, contains passages which would be admired in the
greatest masters of the ancient and of the modern stage.
From the eleventh to the thirteenth century it was the custom to celebrate
in the porches of churches, and even within the sacred building, dramatized
services, in which the principal parts were played by the clergy, from the
canon to the deacon, and which were used as an introduction to, and adornment of, the holy liturgy. One of these services, entitled Mystery of the
Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, has come down to us, with the particulars of the way in which it was got up, and the music pricked. Three
deacons, arrayed in dalmaticas, and their heads covered with veils "like
women," says the text, and representing the three Marys, advanced, with
vases in their hands, to the middle of the choir: with their heads bent
downwards, they proceeded to the desk, singing the anthem, " Who shall roll
away for us the stone from the tomb of the sepulchre? "  A chorister-boy,
"after the manner of an angel," arrayed in a white alb and holding a palmbranch, addressed them this question: "Whom seek ye here?" to which
the three deacons replied, " We seek Jesus of. Nazareth."  Thus the mystery
of the resurrection seemed to be accomplished in the presence of the people,
before whose eyes were unfolded the majestic scenes of the gospel.
Henceforward a new kind of scenic dialogue was formed under the name
of Mystery, and a new era opened for theatrical art. Written solely in Latin
at first, the mystery was gradually put into the vulgar tongue, so as to be
understood by the general public, and this led to the creation of certain pieces
calledfarcitures, half Latin, half French, upon solemn subjects. It was not




THtE DR AMA.


493


until the thirteenth century that Latin disappeared altogether; but the three
kinds of play adopted from that time, the Latin mystery, the mystery farce
(or a combination of Latin and French), and the mystery altogether in
French, were represented simultaneously until the migration of the drama
from the ceremonies and processions of the Church to the public streets and
squares of the city-until, in fact, it exchanged its religious for a secular
character.
It is no easy matter, amidst the chaos of theatrical productions in the


Fig. 379.-Bacchis and the Fisherman.-Representative Characters of the Ancient Theatre, from
the Comedies of Terence.-Manuscript of the Tenth Century.-In the National Library, Paris.
Middle Ages, to distinguish precisely between them, and to lay down the
special principles of each dramatic school. It may, however, be said that the
mystery is the representation of a fact taken from the Bible, as the Miracle is
the representation of a fact borrowed from the legends of the saints, male or
female, especially from the story of their martyrdom. It is worthy of remark,
at the same time, that the title of Mystery, originally very limited in its
application, was afterwards applied to compositions very different from those
to which this name was at first given. It was even applied to dramatic works,




494


THE DRAM1AA.


the subjects of which were taken from the traditions of chivalry, such as the
Mystere de Berte, the 7fystere d'Amis et d'Amile, and the Mystere de Griselidis,
played in 1395; or to the pagan and mythological traditions, such as the
lMystere de la Destruction de Troie, played in 1459; or even to the events of
contemporary history, such as the Mystere du Siege d'Orlans, played either
during the lifetime of Joan of Arc, or soon after her death.
With a few rare exceptions, the mysteries and the miracles were composed
by priests or by monks, which is to be attributed to the fact that the members of the clergy, generally better educated than the laity, considered the
representation of sacred pieces as the most practical means of educating
their flocks, who welcomed instruction in this attractive form all the more
heartily because, during these semi-barbarous periods, their towns were
continually laid waste or menaced by the triple scourge of battle, plague,
and famine.
There is a rather long list of the authors of miracle-plays and mysteryplays from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The first of these authors is
Hilaire, disciple of Abelard, who composed, under the title of Ludi (plays),
pieces in dialogue, imitated from the Old and the New Testaments. The last
name in the list, at the close of the fifteenth century, is that of the "very
eloquent and very scientific " and still more prolific doctor, Jehan Michel,
Bishop of Angers, author of the celebrated Mystery of the Passion, which
another Jehan Michel, his brother or nephew, revised and had represented in
his native city. The oldest vestige of dramatic art in France is, beyond
doubt, a lystery of Adam and Eve, written in French about the middle of the
twelfth century, which we discovered in 1845 in a manuscript at the Tours
Library, and which was published for the first time by Victor Luzarche in
1854. This mystery or drama is the most characteristic type of the dramatic
representations which were held at the church porticos.
The piece entitled Representaeio Ade (Representation of Adam) is divided
into three acts or parts, which are accompanied by a chorus, and terminate in
an epilogue. The first act comprises man's fall; the second the murder of
Abel; and the third the appearance of the prophets to announce the advent of
the Saviour. At intervals the chorus sings Latin verses, and the epilogue
consists of a sermon upon the necessity of penitence. The manuscript
containing this Bible mystery is all the more curious because it gives the
complete stage arrangements for playing it. The whole is preceded by a




THE D RAMA.


495


short summary not only of the theatrical decorations and the dress of all the
actors, but also as to their attitude and gestures, and the way in which they
are to play their parts. We will give a brief analysis of the first act, in


I
I


Fig. 380.-The Cook.-Miniature from the Terence of Charles VI.-Manuscript of the early part of
the Fifteenth Century (No. 25, B.L).-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.
which appear four persons: Figura (or God in human form), Adam, Eve, and
the Devil. The first scene opens in the Garden of Eden, which is placed upon




4-96                               THLE DRAMA.
an eminence, and is bright with sweet-smelling flowers and frui't-trees. God
is represented as wearing a dalmatica, Adam a red tunic, and Eve a peplum
of white silk. It is to be remarked that whenever God quits the stage, he
goes back into the church-a fact which indicates to us precisely the place
where the representation was held. The opening part of the scene is as follows,
after the original text in old French:
"FIGURA.
Adam!1
ADAM.
Sire!
FIGURA.
Pourme' te ai
De limo terre.
ADAM.
Ben le sai.
FIGURA.
Je t'ai fourme' 'a mun. semblant,
A m'irage: ne t'ai fait de terre.
Ne m' devez jamais mover guerre
ADAM.
Non ferai-je, mais to crerrai:Mun creatur obeirai.
FIGURA.
Je t'ai dun6 bon compainun:
Ce est ta femme, Eva a noun;
Ce est ta femme, e tun pareil.
Tu li deis estro bien fbie (fid&le.
Tu aime lui, e elo aime toi:
Si serez ben ambdui (tous deux) de moi.
El' beit it tun comandemnent,
E vus amnbedeus it mun talent.
Do ta coste je l'ai fourm6e:
N'est pas estrange, de toi est nde.
Jo la plasmai (cer'ai) de ton cors.
Do toi eissit, non pas de fors.
Tu la gouverne par raison;
N'ait entre vus ja' ten~on (querelle);
Mais grant amor, grand conservage:
Tel soit la lei do mariage."


God, after having thus addressed Adam and Eve, withdraws, leaving them




THE DRAMA.                            497
to walk about the garden, playing innocently (honeste delectantes).  The
demons approach them, and show Eve the fruits of the tree of good and evil.
The Devil then appears, and counsels Adam to pluck the forbidden fruit.
Adam angrily repels him, and the Devil then addresses himself to Eve, who
makes but a feeble resistance to his tempting. Adam compels the Devil to go
away, but the latter is seen assuming the form of a serpent (a mechanical
serpent, artificiose compositus as it was called, appeared upon the stage), which
crawls close to the tree of good and evil. Eve yields to the crafty advice of
Satan, plucks the apple, and offers it to Adam, who, after refusing to take it,
eventually eats part of it. He at once sees his fault, and hides in a bush, in
order to take off his festal garments (solemnes vestes) and assume a costume of
leaves. Eve and himself, concealed in a corner of Paradise, are afraid to
appear before God, who is seen walking arrayed in pontifical robes. He
calls to Adam in Latin, "Adam, ubi es?"    At length the two culprits
appear, ashamed and repentant, mutually accusing one another. God drives
them from Paradise, informing them of all the sorrows which await them on
earth.  An angel, robed in white and waving a flaming sword, stations
himself at the gate of Paradise. In the last scene Adam and Eve are
laboriously tilling the ground and sowing corn, but during their sleep the
Devil plants thorns and thistles among the wheat. When they awake and
behold the Devil's work, they prostrate themselves in the dust, beat their
breasts, and abandon themselves to despair. The Devil calls together the
demons, who load Adam and Eve with chains, and drive them to the brink of
hell, into which the two sinners are precipitated, amidst the 'laughter and
yells which issue from the flaming abyss. This is the analysis of the first act,
which forms a complete play of itself, and which embodies the three elements
of tragedy, pantomime, and opera.
The dramatic movement which took place in France in the twelfth century
was not peculiar to that country.  In the year 1110 the Norman poet
Geoffroy had played at Dunstable, in Bedfordshire, the Miracle de St.
Catherine, which was very much admired by the Anglo-Normans. Mention
is made in a Chronicle of Frioul of the representation of a Latin mystery in
1218. In Germany the Passion Play was given in the Cathedral of Vienna,
and the Sepulchre of Our Lord in the heart of. Bohemia about 1437. Long
before this, Armorican Brittany had provided the faithful with a mystery
written in the national dialect upon the Life of St. Nonne, which certain
3s




498


THE DRAMA.


critics hold to be of earlier date than the twelfth century, and which is still
represented in the country districts of Brittany.
These dramas-French, German, English, Italian, and Breton-all composed in the same spirit of fervent piety, were produced at almost the same
time in all countries, and in almost the same shape. They were conceived,
written, and played by priests or by monks. But the laymen in course of
time competed with the clergy for theatrical representations, and it may be
said that the whole of Christendom then took part in the performance of
the mysteries and the miracles.
In most European countries, notably in France, from the twelfth century,
each art or trade was organized as a religious association (confrerie) as soon as
it had constituted itself into an industrial or trade corporation. Having their
origin in local feeling and political emancipation, these associations were in
many instances dramatic companies, enjoying the favour of the magistracy
and clergy of the town. Moreover, all classes of the population were invited
to take parts in the public representations of these great sacred dramas, in
which as many as six hundred persons sometimes figured. The Church, so
severe at first with regard to the secular theatre, relaxed her regulations in
this respect, and encouraged those who took part, as actors or spectators, in
these edifying spectacles, which revived the principal facts of Bible history,
and popularised the triumph of the Christian religion. The municipalities,
for their part, encouraged and remunerated the authors and the actors, and
had numerous copies taken of these pious compositions, the official text of
which was deposited in the archives of the town.
As long as the mysteries and miracles preserved their exclusively liturgical
character, the persons who figured in them as actors were not considered to
exercise any special profession, but rather a sort of religious function. Thus,
from the fourteenth century, the champions of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception, which had not as yet been proclaimed by the Church, formed
dramatic associations for the purpose of propagating this dogma by playing
the Mysteries of Our Lady, composed in honour of the Virgin Mary, who
conceived without sin (Fig. 381). Amongst these confreres, all of whom
wore the ecclesiastical dress as a symbol of their clerical origin, there were
some who entitled themselves "Brothers of the Passion," and they soon
established a permanent theatre in the village of St. Maur-des-Fosses, near
Paris, in 1398.  This theatre was almost at once closed by order of the




THE DRAMAA.


499


Provost of Paris, doubtless at the request of the clergy of the capital, who
complained that their parishioners neglected the Church services to go and
see the play of the Brothers of the Passion. But four years afterwards
King Charles VI. accorded them letters patent, dated December 4th, 1402,
and they were no longer interfered with in the exercise of their vocation.
After having obtained, by these letters patent, permission to continue their
plays and to show themselves, even in theatrical costume, in the streets of
Paris, they obtained from the monks of the Trinity Hospital (in the Rue St.
Denis, opposite the Rue Grenetat), a long low room, in which they opened
the first permanent and covered theatre which was founded in Paris, and here
Fig. 381.-The Hermit forces Robert le Diable to declare his Identity.-Miniature from the
" Miracle de Nostre-Dame et de Robert le Dyable."-Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century.
-In the National Library, Paris.
they gave representations every Sunday and fete day from twelve to five in
the afternoon.
Long after this the mysteries and miracles continued to be represented
in the provinces, the places selected being consecrated ground and graveyards.
The Synodic Statutes of Orleans even show that the representation of scenic
play stook place in the cathedral, probably in front of the portico, as late as
1525 and 1587. The same was the case all over Europe up to the middle of
the sixteenth century. Under the pontificate of Innocent VIII., about 1490,
Lorenzo de' Medici, upon the occasion of the marriage of his daughter to a




500


THE DRAMA.


nephew of the Pope, himself composed a Mystery of St. Joihn and St. Paul,
which he had represented by several members of his family inside one of the
Florence churches.
The people of the Middle Ages, from the very fact that their existence
was more monotonous than that of the people of the present day, were all the
more ready to seize an opportunity for amusement, and the solemn representations of the mysteries were amongst their most cherished enjoyments. The
entrance of the King or Queen into a town, the birth of a prince or princess, the
court festivals, as well as the ecclesiastical solemnities and the feasts of the
Church, were an excuse for these popular spectacles. The representations,
prepared a long time beforehand, were announced by the public crier, like
the royal and municipal decrees, at the most frequented places of the town. The
spectators, who had not to pay anything for witnessing the play, did not seat
themselves promiscuously, but each person according to his rank and station.
The nobles or dignitaries occupied platforms, upon which, as the representations
lasted a long time, they sometimes had their meals served, like the old Romans
upon the balconies of the amphitheatre or circus. The plain bourgeois and
the lower classes occupied places, either seated or standing, upon the bare
earth or the pavement, as the case might be, the men being to the right, and
the women to the left, the same as in church. The local clergy, in order to
let their congregations have an opportunity of witnessing the whole spectacle,
advanced or put back the hour of divine service. In fact, the fondness of the
public for these spectacles was so great that the houses were left almost
deserted, and armed watchmen paced the silent streets to protect the property
of the inhabitants while the representation was taking place.
There were not as yet any permanent theatres in the towns, but the
dimensions of the temporary theatres erected were regulated according to the
number of actors who had to appear upon the stage. As a matter of course,
when, as in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the only pieces represented
were episodical dramas, such as the  iiracles de Notre-Dame, these theatres
were not nearly so large or so complicated as when there came to be represented the great poems or mystery-plays of the Old Testament, the Passion,
and the Acts of the Apostles. The theatre and the platforms used for these
public representations, which often lasted several days, must have been of
immense dimensions, and have entailed considerable expense.
M. Charles Magnin, in his work upon theatrical archeology, says, "The




THE DRAMA.


5or


Miracles de Notre-Dame did not require more than two stories or stalls, the
one raised above the other. The upper story represented Paradise, in which
were seated upon a throne God and the Virgin, surrounded by their celestial
court. The lower story was reserved for the human scenes, and divided by
partitions and tapestry into as many chambers or compartments as there were
different places to represent. The upper story (Heaven) communicated with
the lower (Earth) by means of two spiral staircases placed at each side of the
stage. It was by these that descended and reascended in procession God,
the Virgin, and the Angels, when they manifested themselves to the inhabitants of Earth. The floor of the theatre, the area, or, as it would now
be called, the pit, was formed of the turf of a meadow or graveyard;"
unless, that is to say, the town in which the representation was to take place
possessed the remains of some ancient theatre, in which case it was utilised
for the occasion. This indirect use of the pagan theatres for the religious
plays of the Middle Ages took place all over Europe before the Brothers
of the Passion and other similar associations had acquired permanent and
covered buildings. In about the middle of the fifteenth century the permanent and provisional theatres increased in size in proportion as the framework of the mystery-plays represented in them became enlarged. To the two
primitive stories were superadded a number of compartments intended to
represent in perspective, upon different planes and at different elevations,
Heaven, Hell, the World, Jerusalem, Egypt, Rome, the house of St. Joseph,
&c. The actors, while they were upon the stage, moved into one of these
compartments, designated by placards or inscriptions, every time that the
place in which the scene was laid changed, and, after having "done their
play," they leisurely resumed their place upon the raised seats of the theatre.
As far as can be judged by the few documents relating to this subject,
there were two kinds of scenery; the one kind painted as in the present
day, the other constructed of wood, or even stone, which had a regularly
embossed surface. Moreover, as the spectators would often have experienced
much difficulty in following the plot amidst the host of persons who appeared
upon the stage, and the frequent change from one place to another, the author
always offered in an explanatory prologue some general notices which enabled
them to understand what was going on. He would say, for instance, "We
are about to narrate the blessed Resurrection. Let us first arrange the stage
accordingly. Here the Cross, and there the Tomb.... Hell will be on this




502


THE DRAMA.


side; the house upon the other; then Heaven.... Caiaphas will take his
place here, and with him the Jewish people; next, Joseph of Arimathea..
In the fourth compartment will be seen Nicodemus.... We shall also represent the town of Emmaus, in which Jesus Christ was entertained."
In addition to these prologues addressed to the public by the author or by
the "director of the play," we meet in some of the mysteries with short sermons
in prose delivered by priests, who appeared upon the stage in their stoles to
excite the devotion of the actors and audience. Sometimes even a high mass
would be held just before the representation, as a preparation for witnessing
a piece in which was to be given an episode in the life of our Lord (Fig.
382) or the martyrdom of some saint. When these religious dramas were
still played in the churches they generally terminated with a Te Deum or a
Magnificat, sung by the principal actor when he reached the end of his part.
As a rule, the play was not begun until all the actors who were to appear in
it had "done the show," as it was called, either on foot, or on horseback, or
in a carriage; that is to say, had exhibited in the streets not only the costumes
to be worn, but the engines or mechanical contrivances to be used on the
stage. The representation once begun, the actors who were not required on
the stage were compelled, in the intervals, to remain in view of the audience,
seated upon benches placed at each side of the theatre, for the "slips" were
not then invented to increase the optical illusion by favouring the entry or
egress of the players. The unity of time was altogether disregarded, as well
as the unity of place. Thus, for instance, in representing the history of
Notre-Dame, a child of four or five years old would take the part of Mary in
the beginning of the piece, and would be succeeded, as the play progressed, by
another girl fifteen or sixteen years old, who would in her turn be succeeded by a third person to represent Mary when married to Joseph, and the
mother of Jesus. The result of this triple change was that the spectators had
before them upon the benches three incarnations of one and the same person,
each of a different age, appearance, and dress.
It may be guessed that there was no great accuracy with regard to dress
in these representations. The playwrights and actors, or dramatic poets, who
represented the funeral of Julius Caesar with choristers bearing the crucifix
and holy water, did not trouble themselves about historical and archaeological
truth. But, excepting these primitive errors, it may safely be said that the
theatre of the fifteenth century was little inferior, in point of splendour and




---— ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-      E~
--- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ -


— C --- —--------
Z --- —- ___
 --- —


-


" --- 0- 
Fig. 382.-Scenes at the Birth and in the Childhood of Jesus, as they were represented in the "Mystere de la Conception," by Jehan Michel.-Large Chest
of the Fourteenth Century, of Carved Wood, in which were kept the Ecclesiastical Vestments and the Church Ornaments.




5~o


THE DRAMA.


magnificence, to the modern stage. There were some very quaint costumes
assigned by tradition to certain parts. Thus the devils were always in black,
and the angels in white, blue, and red; while, as the priestly garment was
looked upon as the most worthy of respect, God was always represented with
cope and stole, and a bishop's mitre or a pope's tiara. The actors who had to
represent the dead dressed " as souls;" that is to say, they covered themselves
with a veil-white for the saved, red or black for the lost. In the 2i.stere da
Vieux Testament, in which it was desired to represent the blood of Abel shed
by Cain, the actor who had to represent this blood was wrapped in a large
red cloak, and writhed at the feet of the murderer, crying, "Vengeance!"
The mysteries, some of which contained seventy or eighty thousand lines,
would have taken several consecutive weeks to play through, so that, in order
to give players and the public breathing-time, an interval of several days
was given after each representation, and when the play was resumed the
attendance was as numerous as at the beginning. As M. Louandre justly
observes, "Could it be otherwise? The public beheld in a living and
animated form the world of the past and of the future, the Paradise of their
first parents, and the Paradise in which they would one day contemplate their
God. They looked at all this with the eyes of faith, and the influence of this
sacred drama was not a triumph of art, but a miracle of belief. Of art, in
fact, there were but a few flashes in these compositions, at once barbarous and
artless, and in which were reflected the real and the fantastic world, sacred
history and profane."
The miracles, which contained, like the mysteries, so many touching and
graceful passages, are filled with singular details, which the careful historian
should on no account overlook. This simple-minded and confused accumulation of dissonant ideas did not exclude the shrewd humour which we find in
all the French poems of the fifteenth century. It is a mistake, therefore, to
say that the miracles contained neither satires on manners nor allusions to
contemporary events, and numerous instances might be cited in contradiction.
Thus, in the miracles composed and played in the reign of Charles VI., Queen
Isabeau of Bavaria, and her brother-in-law, the Duke of Orleans, are severely
assailed; the court, too, is very roughly handled; the military party is
inveighed against; and even the clergy do not always escape. In many
parts of these popular pieces the noble inspiration of the poet bursts forth
beneath the coarse envelope of an as yet imperfect language. It will be




THE DRAMA.50


505


sufficient to cite, as a model of sombre and tragic force, the following dialogue
between Judas and the Demon:
"LE DAMON.
Meschant, que veulx-tua qu'on te fasse?
A quel port veulx-tu aborder?
JUDAS.
Jo no sais. Je n'ai oeil en face
Qui ose lea Oieulx regarder.
LB DAMON.
Si de mon nom veulx demander,
Briefvement en auras demonstrance.
JUDAS.
D'oii viens-tu?
LB DAMON.
Du parfond d'eafer.
JUDAS.
Quel est ton nom?
LB DAMON.
De'sespe'rance.
JUDAS.
Terribilite' de 'vengeance!
Horribilite' de dangier!
Approche et me donne 8116geance,
Se mort peut mon deuji alle'gier.
LE DAMON.
In striking contrast with this grand scene between Judas and the Demon,
we will quote a model of gracefulness and artlessness —the Shepherd's scene
in the great JLydtery of the Passion, by the brothers Arnold Greban, a
mystery far superior to that which Jehan Michel composed on the sameK
subject:3 T




5o6


506          ~~~THE DRAMA.


" UN ]BERGER.
Est-il liesse plus serie (jole plus sereiine)
Que de regarder ces beaux champs
Et ces doulx aignelets paissans,
Saultans 'a la belle praerie?
SECOND ]BERGER.
On parle de grand seignourie,
D'avoir donjons, palais puissans;
Est-il liesse plus serie
Quo de regarder ceB beaux champs,
Et ces doulx aignelets paissans,
Saultans 'a la belle praerie?
TROISIAME BERGER.
En gard.ant leurs brebiettes,
Pasteurs ont bon temps:
Ils jouent de leuns musettes,
Liez (joyeux) et esbatans;
LA dient leuns ebansennettes,
La' sont les doulces bengerettes
Qui vent bien chantans,
Et belles fleurettes
Pasteurs ont ben teinps!"
Nothing     can  be more     touching    than   the scene    from   the ]Wyste're de
St. Louis, in    which    Enguerrand      de  Couchy, the      savage   hunter, having
surprised three youths shooting at his rabbits, hands them over without
remorse to the executioner. The latter, with his assistant's help, at once
hangs them to the gibbet, not, however, without manifesting a feeling of pity
which forms the most striking contrast with the unflinching severity of his
sinister profession:
"DEUXILME ENFANT.
(-Apri8 que le premier a itj~ pendu.).,,He'las! que dirent
Nes nobles parens, quand sauront
Nostre mnert tre's-dure et am~rc P
TROISA#ME ENFANT.
Je plainis men pe're.
DETJXAME ENFANT.
Et moi, ma mare.




THE DRAMA.


507


ENGUERRAND, au bourreau.
Meshui (d present) depesche-le, paillart!
(Le bourreau lejette, c'est-a-dire le pend.)
LE BOURREAU.
Le voila depesche soudain.
L'autre?
LE VALET.
Je le tiens par la main.
I1 est tendre comme rosee,
Le jeune enfant.
LE BOURREAU, at son valet.
Tay-toi! Tay-toi!
A l'enfant:
Mon amy, muntez apres moi,
Et pens 'z a Dieu!"
Thus all styles are to be found mixed up the one with the other in the
great dramas of the Middle Ages, which are at once mystic and grotesque,
sombre and joyous, trivial and solemn.   Men, angels, earthly kings, and the
King of kings pass in turn before the audience, and for several centuries
all the theatrical compositions which appear by the side of the sacred are
only, so to speak, detached chapters-branches, to employ the term then in use.
Tragedy did not exist in the Middle Ages, and it is a mistake to imagine
that the Provencal poets or troubadours, Arnaut Daniel, Anselme Faidit, and
Berenger de Parasol were the principal factors of tragedy in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries. This form of dramatic composition did not assume
definite shape until the middle of the sixteenth century, when Baif and
Thomas Sibilet produced a few imitations of the Greek tragedies, and when
Jodelle represented, in 1552, Cleopatra, which must be considered as the first
French tragedy in verse.
Comedy had already been in existence for a considerable period, for it
may be said that the vein of comedy is essentially Gallic, and the nearer we
come to the Renaissance, the faster does this vein expand itself upon our
stage, which has continued to be without a rival in the way of tragedy as
of comedy.    In the thirteenth century, Adam de la Hale, nicknamed the
Hunchback of Arras, produced the first French comedy, called the Jeu de
Mariage d'Adam, or the Jeu de la Feucilee, and the first comic opera, a sort
of pastoral, entitled Le Jeu de Robin et de Mlfarion, of which he composed the




508


THE DRAMA.


words and music. These two ancient pieces, as well as the famous Farce
de Pathelin (Figs. 383 and 384), which dates from the second half of the
fifteenth century, and which long enjoyed a universal reputation, are in all
respects very remarkable productions. If the author of the Farce de Pathelin
were known, his name would rank beside that of Moliere.
The comic pieces of the Middle Ages, which were called jeux, soties, or
farces, are for the most part notable for their fund of humour and gaiety.


Fig. 383.-Pathelin taking the Piece of Cloth
which he steals from the Draper.


Fig. 384.-Pathelin pleading for the Shepherd
before the Judge.


Fac-similes of Wood Engravings of the " Farce de Pathelin" (Gothic Edition, Paris, Germain
Beneaut, 1490, in 4to).
They may be considered, according to the taste of the present day, rather too
broad, but we must make allowance for the time, as these crude expressions
did not offend the taste of the age, and passed muster with the most polished
court in Europe. The Moralites stand midway between the farces, of which
they possess the satirical spirit, and the mysteries, of which they imitate to a
certain extent the moral and religious tendencies. They were not more than




THE DRAMA.


509


a portrayal, sometimes even a criticism, upon the Church in its human and
temporal aspects; canons, bishops, cardinals, and even popes are not spared,
and the actor-that is to say, the author-shows no mercy in his condemnation
of the vices and faults which he can discern in them. The moralite also


Fig. 385.-The Actor (Author) listening to the Personification of his Thought.-Miniature from
the " Chevalier delib6re," by Olivier de la Marche.-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century
(No. 173, B.L.).-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.
deals with the kings and temporal nobility, and, often assuming a political
character, calls them to account for their public or private conduct. Sometimes, again, a fact taken from the sacred books, or some idea occurring to the




510


THE DRAMA.


poet, furnishes the theme for a sort of moralite which may be described as
legendary.  For instance, the Histoire de l'Elfant Prodigue, the Laz d'Amour
Divin, the listoire de Ste. Sutzanne, exemplaire de toutes femmes sages et de
tons les bons juges, are moralites in which religious mysticism is allied to
the teachings of practical wisdom, and the characters in which-Envy Reason,
and Good Renown-are introduced into the plot, like the Chorus of ancient
tragedy, to control, judge, and appreciate the respective position of the
personages in the drama, into which the author then introduces a sort of
dialogue, or moral and allegorical poem, similar to the Chevalier delibere of
Olivier de la Marche (Fig. 385).
The soties, farces, and moralites were never put upon the stage with
the splendour of the mysteries, and save with a few exceptions, the number
Fig. 386.-Portrait of Clement Marot.-Fac-simile of an Engraving by Leonard Gaultier, from
the Series known as " Chronologie collee."-In the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot,
Paris.
of the personages introduced was always very small. Moreover, a capital
difference is to be established between these two kinds of spectacle, viz. that
the mysteries were represented, so to speak, by everybody and for everybody,
under the patronage of the Church, whereas the farces, soties, and moralites
were played for a special public by private companies of laymen, who were, no
doubt, regular comedians.
The jugglers and tale-tellers, who were many of them authors of satirical
and amusing poems, which they went about reciting from place to place, to the
accompaniment of the violin, might be regarded as the first actors of secular
pieces; for not only did they sojourn in the castles of the nobles to recite
their poems, but they performed plays in character, which were in reality
scenic romances and dialogues, such as the metrical tale, "Aucassin and




THE DRAMA.


511


Nicolette." After the jugglers came various literary and dramatic associations, some of them stationary in Paris or some large city, whilst others
travelled through the provinces, who are only known to us by their theatrical
names, such as the Enfants sans Souci, the Bazochiens, the Enfants de la [Mere
Sotte, the Mere Folle de Dijon, &c. It has been said, but without sufficient
authority, that the Chambers of Rhetoric, which also represented comic pieces,
existed in Belgium and Flanders as early as the thirteenth century. Whatever may be the truth as to this assertion, it is certain that Antwerp possessed
two Chambers of Rhetoric, and Ghent four; and the theatrical taste of the
Flemish and the Belgians was carried so far that their communal companies
Fig. 387.-Token of Pierre el Dru, Printer of Gringore's Poetry at the Sign of the " Merre Sotte,"
near "the End of Nostre-Dame Bridge" (Paris, 1505).
of archers and crossbow-men sought relaxation from their military exercises
in dramatic entertainments, and eventually became regular comedians.
The festivals of Christmas and Epiphany, the Carnival, and a few local
solemnities were annually celebrated in Paris and in the principal French
towns by burlesque representations, often degenerating into scandal, given by
the Bazoche, which consisted of the law licentiates and all the young men
belonging to the courts of justice.  The Enfants de la Mere Sotte and the
Enfants sans Souci did not long form two separate and distinct troupes, and
several of the best poets of the time-amongst others, Francois Villon and
Clement Marot (Fig. 386)-were actors in both of these troupes.     Another




512


THE DRAMA.


excellent poet, Pierre Gringore, herald-at-arms to the Duke of Lorraine, was
the principal author and the manager of the troupe named Enfants sans Souci,
the members of which, recruited amongst the wealthy bourgeois families, had
set up in opposition to the Brothers of the Passion.   Gringore's theatre,
established close to what are now the Paris markets, was in great vogue
during the reign of Louis XII., and his representations generally took place
during the Carnival. The pieces in his repertory, though interlarded with
sharp hits at the higher clergy and the court of Rome, were for the most part
somewhat severe upon the score of morality, for he had taken as his motto,
"Raison partout, rien que raison" (Reason everywhere, nothing but reason).
The people had a keen liking for spectacles of every kind during the
}Middle Ages, and always turned out in crowds to witness the cavalcades,
pomps, and processions which accompanied the tournaments, plenary courts,
and feudal ceremonies. In a history of the theatre it is necessary, therefore, to mention the plays in dumb-show, the allegories, and the pantomimes,
which were principally represented upon the occasion of a royal visit, or of
public rejoicings in celebration of some great local or political event. (See, in
the volume on "Manners, Customs, and Dress," chapter on Ceremonial.)  Then,
again, there was the Dance of Death, known as the Danse Macabre, which in
the fifteenth century was one of the spectacles which produced the greatest
effect upon the common people (Fig. 388). It is almost certain that at first
this Danse Macabre was a sort of pantomime, a compound of music and
singing; and in 1424, the English, then masters of Paris, had it publicly
performed in the Cemetery of the Innocents, to celebrate their victory at
Verneuil.
Another pantomime, but of a less lugubrious kind, was offered to the
people of Paris in 1313, by order of Philippe le Bel, in honour of the reception of his two sons into the Order of Chivalry. Godefroy de Paris, a
rhyming chronicler of the time, describes it as follows:
"Vit-on Dieu, sa Mere rire...
Nostre Seigneur manger des pommes,...
Et les Anges au paradis...
Et les Ames dedans chanter...
Enfer y fut noir et puant,
Diables y ot plus de cent."...


In 1437, when Charles VII. entered Paris, a representation was given of




TYEZL DRA MA.53


5 1 3


the Combat, of the Sereni Capital i&n"~ againl'st the Thlre~e Theological Vwrttues anld
the, Foutr Cardinal Virtues. When. Charles the Bold entered a town in the
Netherlands a sort of tableaut virant called the Judgmnent qf Par-is was given
in his honour. Ini the famous entertainments at R~ouen in 1550, in honour of


Fig. 388.-The Actor (Author), conducted by Fresh-Memrnoy, is shown the Burial-places of the
Chevaliers, Kings, and Emperors.-Miiniature from the "1Chevalier d6libe're."-Manuscript of
the Fifteenth Century (No. 173, B. L.).-In the Arsenal Library.


the entry of King Henry II., there were represented at the same time Faith
and Virtue, Olympus and the Parliamient of Normandy, the, Muses, and all
Kings of France from Pharamond's time. Thus all epochs and all kinds of
3 U




514


THE DRAMA.


belief were put under contribution by the inventors of pantomimes, so as to
give more attraction and splendour to these spectacles, which were solely
intended to gratify the eye.
Up to the middle of the sixteenth century, the farces, soties, and moralites
continued to attract the public, and the scenic tradition of the Middle Ages
was still much the same as it had been two centuries previously. But in 1541
the Paris Parliament forbade the actors who represented the Mystery of tlhe
Acts of the Apostles to open their theatre upon saints' days and Sundays, and'
even upon certain week-days. This was the origin of a hot dispute, in which
the Provost of Paris and the King himself intervened, and which terminated,
after many delays and difficulties, by a definite authorisation granted to the
actors, who took up their quarters at the H6tel de Bourgogne, in the Rue
Francoise. The ancient privileges of the Brothers of the Passion were
confirmed by a decree of the Parliament dated November 19th, 1548, upon
the express condition that "for the future they shall play only secular,
lawful, and decent subjects, and no longer introduce into their plays anything
touching the mysteries or religion." The miracles, the mysteries, and the
moralites were accordingly eliminated from their repertory. The Brothers
of the Passion, who had the right to represent grandes histoires par personnages
(narratives with the characters in them personated), such as the Destruction of
Troy the Great, by Jacques Millet (Fig. 389), abandoned their dramatic
undertaking, and ceded their play-room and privileges to a troupe of regular
actors who gave there representations of tragedy and comedy. The Hotel de
Bourgogne, over the principal entrance to which was still retained a sculptured
bas-relief with the instruments of Christ's Passion, became the cradle of the
Theatre Francais.
Thus exiled from the capital, the mysteries took refuge in the provinces,
where they held possession of the stage, in some few towns, for the whole of
the sixteenth century, competing for public favour with the buffoons and
mountebanks who attended the fairs (Fig. 390). The farces and soties
had also been proscribed. In 1516 the Bazochiens were forbidden by
parliamentary decree, and by order of the Provost of Paris, to make any allusion to the royal family in the pieces which they represented. In 1536 they
were forbidden to " exhibit spectacles or writings taxing or noting (blaming
or criticizing) any person whatsoever." Two years later they were compelled
to submit their pieces to the censorship of Parliament before putting them




THE DRAMA.


575


upon the stage; and, as the satirical boldness of these pieces continued to
increase, the clerks of the Bazoche who did not conform to this order were
threatened with the gibbet.  Such severities were necessarily fatal to the
soties, and at about the end of the sixteenth century they disappeared
altogether.
These restrictions upon the liberty of the stage-the establishment of
dramatic censure, and the prohibition of pieces representing sacred subjectsaccelerated the disappearance of the ancient drama, and there then dawned a


Fig. 389.-The Abduction of Helen.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving from the " Istoire de la
Destruction de Troye la Grant, mise par Personnaiges," by Master Jacques Millet (Paris,
Jehan Driart, 1498, in folio, Goth.).-In the Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris.


new period in dramatic art all over Europe. By the side of the mysteries,
which were still represented in Spain under the names of autos sacramentales,
appeared the brilliant dramas of Calderon and Lope de Vega.  Shakspeare
at the same time appeared upon the English stage, and in Italy Machiavelli's
Mandragora revealed a modern Aristophanes.     At the court of Leo X.
classic tragedy revived in Trissino's Sophonisba. In France, too, where there
was a reawakening of the souvenirs of ancient Greece and Rome, Sibilet,




5i6


THE DRAM JA.


Guillaume Bouchet, and Lazare de Baif translated Sophocles and Euripides;
Octavian de St. Gelais, Bonaventure des Pe)riers, and Charles Estienne
translated Terence into prose and verse; and Ronsard had scarcely terminated
his university studies when he translated into verse the Plutus of Aristophanes,
and he and several of his fellow-students played at the Boncourt College,
where he had been a student. This is a favourable opportunity for pointing
out that with this new kind of dramatic pieces there appeared a new class of
actors; for the university students, under the direction of their teachers,
played in the improvised theatres of their colleges, and were even admitted
occasionally to play before the court. The same thing occurred in England,
as is shown by a passage in Hamleet; and there were university theatres in
Germany, upon which were represented the Latin comedies of Reuchlin and
Conrad Celtes, imitations of the Farce de Pathelin and other French soties.
Tradition and imitation successively held the upper hand, and tragedy
was at first, and for a considerable time, preferred far above comedy. The
authors of the first classic tragedies-Etienne, Jodelle, Jacques de la Taille,
Charles Toustain, and Jacques Grevin-minutely observed the traditions of the
Greek drama, conforming themselves to the rules as to unity of time and
place, interspersing the dialogues with lyric choruses, and resisting, so to
speak, every kind of innovation, as from Robert Garnier (Fig. 391), who
produced the first piece in 1573, down to Rotrou, who definitely marked the
starting-point of modern tragedy, the ideas of the tragic poets are framed
after the same pattern, just as their Alexandrines are cast in the same
mould.   For two centuries the French were all for tragedy, though the
tragic writers, when inventing a subject of their own, did not limit themselves to Greece and to Rome. Pierre Mathieu's Esther and Vashti, and
P. Bardou's St. Jacques, remind one, so far as the subject is concerned, of the
mysteries; but the composition and form of these pieces did not outstep
the rules of rhetoric, and French tragedy not unfrequently introduced upon
the stage, within the limit of these well-defined rules, French subjects and
personages even while living, as, for instance, Joan of Arc, Coligny, the
Guises, the League, &c.
The old comic plays, which were cultivated with more or less success at the
Hotel de Bourgogne by Pierre Leloyer, Remy Belleau, Honore d'Urfe, Pierre
Larivey, and others, developed into comedies, tragi-comedies, pastorals, fables
bocagyres (fables of the gross), and plaisants deris (waggish sayings).  Some of




t — — *-_-h-L=
------ --
= —4 -

I: __
 ----
t --- —F ---- 1--c=-I~ ---
' ----i --- —
I-
C-77


I                J ---
- -1
- — Ii — - -
_=-7 —


C- - -
-d=


r J.I G/i
~~- -—  --- — J
- — -
x - ---


I —
7-Z   - ",   - I  - 
15-. ~ i —s,   ~-~  ~- --
~-~ —~-Z~e


Lo V7 % W"


r
\ V';rl L/).  I`F8Leb P%4,;"=j;
Z                                  \t\sr~gPa~BBaW-E_
--CI-QCIL- -.. ---
-p ---
Lr-C
 — -Uc
2`CrSr ____
-----—,,
--,h~ ----k-
-C —-` ---~
--
i23 -U1
— srv STI — Chj
1
dl&-iZF7PjI -j- rf.5;"
A~*,, —~RCSp


Fig. 390.-The Stage of a Mountebank Seller of Drugs.-After a Coloured Drawing in Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, preserved in
the Town Library, Cambrai.


— c




Si8


THE DRAMA.


the poets, too, who had succeeded at tragedies, also tried their hand at the
less serious style. First of all they imitated Menander and Plautus, and
in many cases produced works full of amusing situations and witty sayings,
and with dialogues in verse remarkable for their ease, not less than for
their animation and brilliancy. It must be allowed that the comedies of the
sixteenth century are not less broad in their language than the Greek and
Roman comedies; but, as one of the best writers of the time, Pierre de Larivey
of Champagne, remarks in one of his prologues, "If any man should be
of opinion that there is an occasional departure from propriety, I beg him to
remember that, in order to express correctly the fashions and tendencies
of the present day, the acts and the words must be of corresponding wantonness." The authors of that period composed their comedies after the models
which they had before their eyes, and in representing the corrupt morals of
Fig. 391.-Portrait of Robert Garnier.-Fac-simile of an Engraving by Leonard Gaultier, from
the Series called "Chronologie collee," in the Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris.
their time they did not offend either the eyes or the ears of their audience.
Besides, these pieces did not go nearly so far as the Italian comedies, such as
the Abuses of the Sienna Academy, translated into French, and Ariosto's
Supposes, also translated into French, and represented all over the country.
The Italian comedy had also come into favour since the performance at Lyons
of Bibiena's Calandra, which was represented there in 1548, before the court,
by some Italian actors, whom Catherine de' Medicis had sent for. But the
first Italian troupe which settled in Paris had been brought from Venice, in
1577, by order of King Henry III., who allowed them to give their representations in the Hotel du Petit-Bourbon. This troupe became sedentary,
and Italian comedy, the repertory of which surpassed in licentiousness and
extravagance the farces of the old French drama, remained in existence in
Paris, almost without interruption, to the close of the seventeenth century.




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


The Oratorical Genius of the Gauls.-The Origin of the French Bar.-Christian Oratory in the
First Centuries.-Gallo-Roman Oratory.-Preachers and Missionaries.-Orators of the
Crusades.-St. Bernard and St. Dominic.-Pleadings at the Bar under Louis XI.-Po]itical
Oratory under Charles VI.-Popular Preachers.-Orators of the Reformation.-Orators of the
League.-Parliamentary Harangues.-Oratory in the States-General.-Military Oratory.
HE veneration in which all the great men of
antiquity have held the gift of eloquence,"
says M. Louandre, of whose treatise, as in
the previous chapter, we avail ourselves with
reference to this subject, "the historical
prestige attaching to the names of pagan
orators, the victories gained by the generals
who were able to address their soldiers, and
s  po esthe influence acquired by the demagogues
who knew how to captivate the attention
of the crowd, show that in the ancient
world it was not merely literary renown,
but a share in the direction of state affairs which resulted from the art de bien
dire" (the art of speaking).   But, at the close of the first century of the
Christian era, this marvellous art, which had reached so high a pitch of
perfection in the flourishing periods of Athens and Rome, fell into complete
decadence, and the three following centuries possessed nothing but turgid and
insipid spouters.  Rhetoric took the place of inspiration, and if oratory was
still professed in the Greek and Roman schools, the pedantic mode of teaching
produced only rhetoricians. Thus all that remains of that period is panegyrics
and congratulatory harangues; for the sole aim of these rhetoricians was to
flatter the emperors and the great, obtain favour, and guard themselves
against disgrace. Amongst them may be mentioned Claudius Mamertinus




520


CIVIL. ANVD RELIGIOUS ORA TOR.


Major and Mamertinus Minor, Nazarius, Drepanius, and several Gauls from
Aquitaine.
Eloquence had from the earliest period been held in great honour amongst
the Gauls. The ancient Gauls paid worship to Hercules, of whom they had
made the god of speech, and whom they represented in allegory as attacking
men with golden chains issuing from his mouth. Thus the art of oratory was
in their esteem the highest of all, and they were very fond of hearing good
speeches. This will explain why the Emperor Claudius instituted at Lyons
oratorical jousts, the defeated in which were compelled to efface with the
tongue their unsuccessful speeches, under penalty of being cast into the
Rhone.   Juvenal and St. Jerome (Fig. 392) are agreed in recognising the
natural talent of the Gallic race for speaking. In the principal towns of
Gaul-at Toulouse, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Treves, Besancon, and Autun-there
existed public schools of oratory, which produced thousands of orators, or
rather of rhetoricians, but which left no permanent record of civil or purely
literary eloquence. The reason was that a new stamp of eloquence, such as
paganism had never been able to inspire, was suddenly called into being with
the Christian religion. The pagan rhetoricians were awed into silence, like
the oracles of the false gods, at its first accents, and the pulpit of sacred
oratory henceforward stood alone in the midst of the ancient Forum.
For centuries the art of oratory had no annals in political life, and
speaking, which held such a large place in the records of ancient history,
does not occupy more than a few pages in the histories of the early ages of
the French monarchy. Gregory of Tours, in his "History of the Francs,"
makes it sufficiently clear that the warriors of these barbarian times set more
store by deeds than by words. King Clovis, when urging his warriors to
undertake fresh conquests, merely said to them, "It pains me to see the
Arians in possession of a part of Gaul. Let us march against them, with the
aid of God, and after we have vanquished them let us reduce the country into
our power." And the Franks forthwith prepared to undertake the campaign.
Mummolus, Count of Auxerre, and patrician of the troops of King Gontran,
said to the Saxons, who, after having devastated all the land which they had
overrun, were about to cross the Rhone to invade the kingdom of Sigebert,
"You have depopulated the land of the King my master, carried off the crops
and the cattle, delivered the houses to the flames, cut down the olive-trees,
and rooted up the vines. You shall not set foot upon the other side of the




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


52 I


stream until you have made compensation to those whom you have reduced to
misery. If you refuse, the weight of my sword shall be felt by you, by your
wives, and by your children, to avenge the wrong done to the King my
master." This proud utterance is full of simplicity, but it no way resembles
the allocutions addressed by the generals of Greece and of Rome to their
soldiers-allocutions of real eloquence, in which was united to beauty of
diction the power of moving and carrying away popular feeling.
In certain circumstances, however, the Gauls must have employed the


Fig. 392. —St. Jerome and two Cardinals.-Miniature from the "Petit Traite de la Vanite des
Choses Mondaines."-Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (No. 30, Sc. and A.).-In the
Arsenal Library, Paris.
gift of speaking with success, but we possess no written record of their civil
oratory. This oratory they undoubtedly employed in judicial pleadings, even
at the time when the Germans and the Franks were established in Gaul. The
Franks, who did not hesitate to assume the language, and even to imitate the
customs, of the peoples whom they had subjected, found the Gallo-Roman bar
in regular practice in the sixth century, and far from fettering an institution
which, as has been ingeniously suggested by a modern historian, appeared to
3x




522


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


them like a mimic battle-field, they were the first to declare that the profession of barrister was a noble one, and they soon sought to obtain admission to
it, by asking to be given the title of advocate, or aLoue, to the churches and
monasteries-offices which compelled them not only to defend by force
ecclesiastical territory and privileges, but also to protect them, when necessary,
by word of mouth, at the pleas wherein were publicly debated questions at
issue, in presence of the leudes, or of the richest and most influential freemen
of the district. This is all we know on the subject, and even when we come
down to Charlemagne's reign there is nothing extant except a few capitularies
which regulate the administration of justice, but which make no allusion to
the speeches of the barristers. In fact, the doings of the French bar (to use
a modern term) are involved in complete obscurity until the reign of St. Louis,
though we are told that the advocates of the Church were enjoined to be
conversant with the law, to be gentle and peaceable, to fear God, and to love
their country.
This decadence was the natural consequence of the promulgation of the
barbarian laws which took the place of the Roman Code. The accused had no
need of an advocate when, in order to prove their innocence, they had to
submit to the ordeal of fire, red-hot iron, or boiling oil. Speech was of no
use in quarrels and disputes which were decided by duel. The best advocate
was the man who could wield the sword with the greatest skill, and it was not
until after the abolition of the duel and of the ordeals by fire that the bar
resumed its normal existence. We must, therefore, look back through many
centuries of barbarism, in order to behold the triumph of Christian eloquence
in Europe (Fig. 393).
It would be interesting to read the speeches and sermons of the first
apostles of Christianity in the West, but they were not preserved until the
end of the fourth century, when the edicts of Constantine enabled the
Christian Church to raise its voice against the then expiring paganism. It is
in this fourth century that is to be found the cradle of Christian eloquence,
delivered in Greek by St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of
Nyssa, St. Epiphanius, St. Dionysius, St. John Chrysostom; in Syriac by St.
Ephrem; and in Latin by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome. " The
sublime proportions of Christian oratory," says Villemain, " seem to increase
at the other kinds fade away." And after citing the orators named above,
he adds, "Their genius alone remains erect amidst the decay of the empire.




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


523


They look like founders surrounded by ruins." Nothing could damp the
zeal of these apostolic spirits, and Chrysostom  has revealed to us the
secret of their undaunted consistency and courage when he exclaims, in


HT             V Tl^  R- W      TrRrIaNlVMHILVUWPRH
Fig. 393.-Allegorical Composition, representing the different Degrees of University Teaching. —
Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the "3 Margarita Philosophica" (Bale Edition, in 4to,
1508).


presence of the great whose vices he condemned, and of the princes whose
power he braved, "All earthly terrors are contemptible in my sight. I
disdain all worldly goods, and do not fear poverty; I do not desire riches,




524


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


and I do not dread death; I only wish to live in order to save your
souls."
From its birth the Gallic Church was associated in this great work of
oratorical proselytism. In the fourth century the preachers were already
numerous, and their inspired word had an immense influence upon the faithful (Fig. 394). We can estimate the authority which the Catholic pulpit
must have possessed when we read the Greek sermons ascribed to Eusebius,
of Emesa in Syria-sermons which are now said to have been delivered in
Gaul.  His oratory is of a very simple kind, and yet these primitive
preachers, whose very names are unknown, had vividly in their minds the
recollections of pagan literature when they related the spiritual combats of a
saint, or the blood-stained struggles of a martyr. In one of these sermons
upon the resurrection of Christ, God made man is compared to Antaeus, son
of the Earth, and like that giant, whom mythology represents as struggling
with Hercules, the Saviour is represented as only touching the ground, the
better to triumph over Sin, the father of Death. In another sermon the
preacher depicts Tartarus as in a state of consternation, and the black
wardens of the obscure prisons as struck with dismay at the arrival of the
Son of God, "who comes there to command, and not to suffer."
These ancient sermons form, together with the legends of the saints, the
most important part of the literature of the barbarous ages. From the fourth
to the seventh century, in Roman Gaul, the Church had no lack of brilliant
orators (Fig. 395). In the first rank stood St. Hilary of Poitiers, whom
St. Jerome surnamed the " Rhone of eloquence," so rapid and majestic was
his speech, and St. Martin of Tours, who was the most perfect model of
Christian charity; he who said to his congregation, which consisted of herdsmen and shepherds, " See this sheep which has come back from the shearing.
She has fulfilled the commands of the gospel; she has given part of her
garments to clothe the naked. Go ye and do likewise." And he set them
an example by dividing his cloak, and giving half to a poor man who was
shivering with cold. In the fifth century appeared St. Eucher, whose learning was as great as his eloquence; St. Paulinus, who has left us a magnificent
sermon upon almsgiving; St. Hilary, St. Mamertus, and St. Valerian, whose
speeches are filled with the purest sentiments of Christianity, ardent love
for his neighbour, and boundless charity. In the sixth century we have
the famous St. Csesarius of Arles, who, while preaching the purest and most




i~~~~~~~~~
*C
12Q11<ffi      ~72


-s  f
bk..

---— i _ I.I-vI—.- --— 1        -----
i__
-— CL__ -__
— A ---I---— ' --- F-.),. jll~~g C
I, 1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~l


iI


-' 1__
IZ_


Fig. 394.-Preaching of an Apostle of Christianity.-After a Picture painted upon Wood, attributed
to Fra Angelico.-In the late Collection of M. Quedeville, Paris.




526


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


consolatory doctrines of morality, inveighed with telling force of language
against the heathen superstitions which were again raising their heads, and
the heresies which were assailing the dogmas of the Christian faith. Iis
utterances, full of unction and gentleness, are remarkable, even in his severest
strictures upon the adversaries of the Church, for their kindness of tone,
which was very well calculated to win souls to the Divine cause. He speaks
of the most daring heretics as "stars fallen from the sky, which God may
perchance recall to the firmament, and to which He may restore the primitive
brightness of their twinkle."
In the same century, St. Germain, Bishop of Auxerre; St. Remi, Bishop
of Rheims; and St. Avit, Bishop of Vienne, occupy, with St. Caesarius, a
prominent place in the history of religious oratory.  Sidonius Apollinaris
says of St. Remi that he equalled, and even surpassed, every orator of his day.
In the course of his episcopal career, which extended over seventy-two years,
he had many opportunities of demonstrating the influence of his speech;
amongst others, when preaching upon the Passion before King Clovis and the
Franks, who had not yet been baptized into the Church, he depicted the
sufferings of our Lord with such pathetic force that Clovis, laying his hand to
his sword, exclaimed, "Had but my Franks and I been there! "
Preaching, in the early ages of the Church, was the special attribute
of the bishops. In some cases they would travel about the country, like the
modern missionaries; in others they remained stationary in their episcopal
sees. Most of them preached two or three times a day. The sermon was
delivered from the steps of the altar, except when it was preached in the
graveyard, or from the church porch. Sometimes an animated conversation
would take place between the preacher and his audience, and it would even
happen that the new converts, whose savage passions could ill brook the
severe injunctions of Christian morality, interrupted the sermon by their
murmurs, and abruptly left the church. Upon one such occasion St. Hilary
of Poitiers, seeing that his congregation prepared to withdraw in order not
to hear his chiding voice, ordered the doors of the church to be shut, and
said, in indignant tones, "You refuse to hear the Divine word now. But
when you are in hell, do you suppose, miserable sinners, that you will be
able to leave when you feel so disposed?"  These words restored silence and
order in the congregation. The religious eloquence, which had such a great
hold over rebellious and depraved natures, owed scarcely anything to art, and




I ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~~ ~
P~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




I




Iloom
THE PREACHING OF St STEPHEN.


Fresco painting, by Fra Angelico, in the chapel of Nicholas V, at the Vatican; xvIb century.




t I,.~ I.  I I t
i 




Fig. 395.-Pope Gregory I., surnamed Gregory the Great (540-604), one of the most eloquent
founded by St. Gregory the Great.
L                                      o




528


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY


everything to the Divine inspirations of faith, to the noble impulses of the
human conscience, and, above all, to the ardour of Christian feeling.
The invasions, which were continually letting loose a fresh torrent of
barbarians into Gaul, the intestine struggles of conquerors and invaders,
and the laborious transformation of pagan society had in nowise checked
the impulse of Christian proselytism. It was then that Ireland, which had
not long since received the Gospel revelation conveyed to that country by
St. Patrick, in her turn supplied a noble band of missionaries who preached
the Christian religion. Amongst them shone in the first rank (540-615),
St. Columba, the founder of the Monastery of Luxeuil, whose utterances,
bearing the impress of the most burning zeal, were marked by a vehemence
of ideas which anticipated, so to speak, his words. In one of his sermons
he exclaims, "Oh, fragile life! Thou art the way, and not the life. Thou
startest from sin to arrive at death. An arid road, long for some, short for
others; sometimes dreary, and sometimes pleasant, but alike rapid for all;
many follow thee, without asking whither thou leadest. Human life is a
thing to dread, and it is beset by dangers; it passes like a bird, like a shadow,
like an image, like nothing." One might imagine that Dante had this passage
in his mind when he began to write his "Divine Comedy." These Irish
missionaries made, especially in Northern Gaul, numerous disciples, who also
devoted themselves to preaching the Gospel. They were to be met with
everywhere, in the towns and the country districts, travelling from place to
place on donkeys, preaching as they went, and stopping at the houses on the
road. The people humbly saluted them as they passed, the rich and the
great esteemed it an honour to accord them hospitality, and even kings were
proud to give a seat at table to these holy men, who, as a hagiographer has
said, "placed beside the master of the house, and amidst the pleasures of the
festive board, served also to the guests the wholesome food of the Divine
word."
Germany, like Gaul, was visited by these Catholic missionaries from
Ireland. The most celebrated of them was St. Boniface (675-755), whom
Michelet described as " a hero who crossed the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea
so often that he was, as it were, the connecting link between nations. It was
through him that the Franks came to an understanding with Rome and the
other Germanic tribes. He it was who attached these nomad tribes to the soil
by means of religion and civilisation, and unwittingly prepared the way for




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


529


the armies of Charlemagne, as the missionaries of the sixteenth century
opened America to the armies of Spain."
Preaching was not the sole arena in which religious oratory had to do
battle. The Councils, which were, so to speak, the guardians of the sacred
deposit of orthodox faith, and to which the Middle Ages owe, even in the


Fig. 396.-Preaching of the first Missionary Apostles.-After a Tapestry in Tournay Cathedral,
made at Arras in 1402.
civil order, the wisest of their laws-these Councils, which have been so happily
termed the Champs de Mai of the Church, offered to ecclesiastical speakers a
vast field for the display of what ability they might possess.        Whatever
subject was laid before these illustrious assemblies was carefully studied, and
3 Y




530


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


often gave rise to eloquent debates. Unfortunately nothing is extant of these
discussions except the text of the decrees which they had prepared. It seems
that spoken utterances were less easily preserved in these periods of social
renovation, for we possess but few records of religious oratory dating from
Charlemagne's reign, though we know that such celebrated preachers as
Alcuin, St. Anscaire, St. Agobard, Radbert, Hincmar, Raban Maurus, &c.,
must have delivered many sermons worth recording. But scholasticism was
already in course of formation, and the spontaneous outbursts of the heart
were kept under by the subtleties of the mind. The priest was lost in the
rhetorician, and it needed the imperious force of circumstances to revive
the ardour and enthusiasm of early times; as, for instance, at the period of
the Norman invasions, when the bishops preached a holy war against the
Northern forces with a patriotic eloquence which has not been forgotten.
This irresistible power of speech was all the more strange because, during
the tenth century, which was justly called the "iron age of the Church,"
more than one clerk frankly admitted, when a holy book was shown to him,
that he did not know how to read (nescio literas). The year 1000, which
was expected to bring with it the day of judgment, was drawing near,
and all public and private contracts were dated from " the time near to the
end of the world." The Christian preachers mourned, amidst the lamentations
and sobs of the people, the coming death of. the human race. In all the
churches homilies were pronounced upon the Antichrist and the resurrection
of the dead. When the dreaded epoch had passed by, religious fervour was
again displayed, and out of gratitude to God new churches were built, in
which the preachers announced the holy enterprise of the Crusades.
It may be said that the Crusades created a new kind of religious eloquence,
which filled the whole world during the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth
centuries. This eloquence was represented by two different kinds of orators,
both working to the same end, but by different means. There were the true
apostles, full of faith and enthusiasm, who travelled all over Europe preaching
the holy war against the infidels and the oppressors of Christianity in the
East; and there were the priests, and more especially the monks, who
proclaimed, in the churches and in the cloisters, that the time had come for
the clergy and the religious orders to abandon a life of contemplation, in
order to form the great army of Christ, and go to Palestine to deliver his
tomb by dispossessing the Saracens of Jerusalem.  Religious eloquence never




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


531


wielded a wider influence than then. The whole West answered to the appeal
with one voice, " Dieu le volt! "
The two great orators of the first Crusade were Peter the Hermit and Pope
Urban II. The former was the people's orator, for he traversed the land
upon his mule, cross in hand, preaching, weeping, and beating his breast.
It was Pope Urban II. who, at the Council of Clermont, brought to a climax
the resolution in favour of the Crusade by the warmth of his utterances. As
contemporary Chronicles have it, "Those who heard him preach believed
that they heard the heavenly trumpet." His speech was answered with the
unanimous shout, "Dieu le veut! "  Thus thousands of pilgrims started for
the East with no other hope or thought save of obtaining remission for their
sins and an eternal recompense. It was Christian eloquence, too, which,
during the hardships of this distant expedition, sustained the courage of
Godfrey de Bouillon and his companions. (See, in volume on " Military and
Religious Life," the chapter on Crusades.)
The second Crusade was resolved upon in 1146 at the assembly of Vezelay,
which St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, had convoked by order of Louis VII.
Suger, the King's minister, had endeavoured to get the new Crusade adjourned
in the interests of the State, but St. Bernard protested, in the name of the
Church and of the national honour, that it was necessary to avenge the recent
disasters of Christians. The eloquence of the Abbot of Clairvaux prevailed
over that of St. Denis, and Suger was compelled to abandon his opposition to
the popular movement. St. Bernard, inflamed by a holy zeal, at once set out
to raise armies by the mere power of his word. Wherever he went the
churches and the public places of assembly were not large enough to contain
the excited crowds which pressed around him, and he then preached from
rude platforms erected for the purpose in the middle of the fields. When he
was addressing the clerks and doctors he spoke in Latin, only employing the
vulgar or Romanic tongue to address the people; and so great was the respect
felt for him that when he preached at Mayence, Cologne, and Spires, his
hearers, though they could not understand a word of what he said, were
inflamed by the enthusiasm of his gestures, and flew to arms as eagerly as
the French crusaders.
The same enthusiasm was reproduced a century later, when Foulques
de Neuilly was authorised by Pope Innocent III. to preach the Crusade of
1198. "When Foulques opened his mouth to preach," relates the chronicler




532


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


Jacques de Vitry, who was himself an eminent preacher, "it was God who
conferred upon him his persuasive accents.  Those who had heard him
struggled to get a piece from his garments, and he was compelled to have a
new frock every day. He was obliged to provide himself with a stout stick,
with which he kept off the crowd which would otherwise have suffocated
him. They did not murmur at the wounds inflicted by the blows which he
dealt them, and, in the ardour of their faith, they licked their own blood, as if


Fig. 397.-Portrait of Pope Honorius III. (1216-1227), who exhorted Louis VIII. to undertake
the Crusade against the Albigenses, and instituted in 1216 the Order of Dominican Friars.Fresco Painting upon Gold Ground in Mosaic, in the ancient Basilica of St. Paul-without-theWalls, Rome.
it had been sanctified because made to flow by this man of God." Foulques
had all the outspoken boldness of the popular preachers of the end of the
fifteenth century, sparing no man in his criticisms and anathemas. One day,
when preaching before Richard, King of England, he exclaimed, "I advise
you, in the name of God, to marry as quickly as possible your three daughters,
lest some evil befall you."  " You are mistaken," rejoined the King; " I have




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


533


no daughters."  "I tell you that you have three," said the preacher; "they
are Pride, Avarice, and Luxury." Whereupon, the King, addressing himself
to the barons, said, "I give Pride to the Templars, Avarice to the Cistercian
monks, and Luxury to my grand feudatories." We need merely mention,
after Foulques de Neuilly, of other doctors who preached the Crusade with
no less success, Geoffroy of Bordeaux, Hildebert of Le Mans, Jean de
Bellesme, Amedee of Lausanne, Eudes of Chateauroux, Geboin of Troyes,
Jean de Nivelle, and Robert of Arbrissel.


Fig. 398.-Portrait of Gregory IX. (1227-1241), the eloquent Defender of the Rights and
Privileges of the Holy See.-Fresco Painting upon Gold Ground in Mosaic, in the ancient
Basilica of St. Paul-without-the-Walls, Rome.


Sacred oratory, which in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did wonders
in the way of raising armies, almost instantaneously, for the Crusade, had to
combat in those days the profane oratory of the heretics. These heretics
seemed to derive encouragement from the brilliant triumphs of the orators of
the Church. All rebellions and religious insurrections had their beginning
in mischievous addresses, which had but too great influence upon weak and




534


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


fanatical minds. Thus Pierre de Bruys ventured to deny the Real Presence,
and condemned the custom of praying for the dead; and Eon issued from the
heart of Armorica, declaring that he had come to judge the quick and the
dead. In other places we had the publicains of Flanders and Burgundy, who
endeavoured to revive the monstrous doctrines of Manicheism, the Valdenses,
and the Albigenses, dissenters half religious, half political, who, after having
preached humility and renunciation of worldly goods, found more response
among the lower classes by preaching the cessation of manual labour, the
overthrow of ecclesiastical authority, and the community of goods. As each
schismatic orator arose, he was at once opposed by an orthodox orator, who
became the eloquent champion of the Church (Figs. 399 and 400). St. Bernard
fought in the first rank, taking for his motto the maxim of Christian charity,
"Let us persuade, but not constrain." He was supported by Pierre de
Castelnau; Cardinal d'Albano; Jacques de Vitry; Arnauld, Abbot of Clairvaux; and William, Archdeacon of Paris. But the most eloquent of the
Catholic orators was the Spaniard St. Dominic, founder of the order of
Dominican Friars (Fig. 399). Dominic, who preached for ten years in the
southern provinces of France, and who never showed any mercy to heresy,
was one of the most heroic soldiers of the Church militant. His irresistible
eloquence produced such a prodigious effect upon his contemporaries that
the people believed that he was the direct exponent of the heavenly will.
According to some, flames issued from his mouth when he spoke; according
to others, the church bells rang of themselves when he was about to preach;
and it was also affirmed that during one of his sermons a statue of the Virgin
had been seen to lift out its arm, as if to threaten the hearers who did not
hearken to his words.
Nothing remains to us of these celebrated denunciations of heresy, nor of
the sermons preached in favour of the Crusades; they were all delivered
extempore, and were never committed to writing. But we have a somewhat
large number of those belonging to the theological and mystical school, and
which were, therefore, carefully prepared beforehand. Here, again, we have
St. Bernard, surrounded this time by Hugues and Richard de St. Victor,
Abelard, and Maurice de Sully, Bishop of Paris (Fig. 400). With Abelard,
notably in his Latin discourses to the "Virgins of the Paraclete," we have
the dialectician always ready to call in the authority of philosophy in support
of the authority of the Church. With St. Bernard, upon the other hand, we




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


535


can always hear muttering, behind the long-drawn sighs of asceticism, the
internal convulsions of the human soul. Metaphysics, psychology, a profound
sentiment of the realities of earthly life, fiery denunciations of the indolence


ganctueB   omintctt.
Fig. 399.-The Glories of the Order of St. Dominic.-Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the
Fifteenth Century, from the " Meditationes," by Turrecremata (Rome, M. Gallus, 1478, in
folio).-In the Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris.
of the monks, and theological arguments, all are to be found in the magnificent
sermons of St. Bernard. The sermons of Hugues and Richard de St. Victor, like
those of Isaac, Abbot of St. Etoile, reflect in a more chaste style the warm aspirations of the piety of the cloister and the purest ecstasies of a contemplative life.




536


CIVIL A D RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


Sacred oratory had attained its apogee in the sermons of the twelfth
century (Fig. 401), from which time it began to suffer from the intrusion of
scholasticism, of the formula, and of vague subtleties. We may say that
it already had begun its downward progress towards the decay into which
it fell before the end of the thirteenth century. Numerous abuses, too, crept
into the ecclesiastical system. Not only did certain simoniacal clerks make
money of their sermons, but mere laymen vied with them in making a trade
of preaching, and offered to take the place of the priests upon payment of a
certain sum. Associations of preachers, having no religious character, were
formed for the purpose of farming, so to speak, a parish, or even a diocese,
undertaking to supply as many preachers as might be wanted. The Church
would not countenance so scandalous a proceeding, but her most strenuous
efforts were not always sufficient to prevent these acts of simony. Many
priests and curates excused themselves for having allowed them upon the
ground of their incapacity to preach themselves. Some talented preachers
who had remained true to their mission, then conceived the idea of composing
manuals, or grades, in which the priests could obtain the materials for composing their sermons. The most esteemed of these preachers' manuals were
those of Humbert de Romans and Alain of Lille.
While this decadence of pulpit oratory was taking place, the art of
speaking, with regard to politics, jurisprudence, and scholastic teaching, had
come under the favourable influences of the intellectual progress which, from
the twelfth century, was universal in all spheres of civil society. History
has not, unfortunately, preserved any written record of the efforts of
eloquence which accompanied the establishment of communes, the drawing
up of charters of franchise, or the reunion of local and general assemblies, at
which were present the elected representatives of the nobility, clergy, and
bourgeoisie; in a word, all the struggles of an incipient liberty against the
trammels of the feudal system. The oratory of the bar was doubtless still
enveloped in the fetters of scholasticism, and the advocates of the first*
Parliaments are only known to us through the severe satires of which they
were made the subjects.     An eminent theologian, Pierre Le Chantre,
reproaches them with having extorted money from both sides, with having
betrayed the cause of the widow and the orphan, with having employed their
talents in prolonging and multiplying suits, and inventing all manner of
cavils to obscure the truth and prevent the triumph of right.  Another




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATOR1Y


537


theologian denounces their unbounded avarice, and indignantly declares that
by their venality they have discredited a profession once so glorious.
St. Louis endeavoured to reform the abuses of the bar; the Jews, heretics,
and excommunicated persons were all excluded; and afterwards men of
evil lives, and those who had been sentenced to punishments entailing the
stamp of infamy, were expelled. The King himself arranged the rules as to
pleadings, enjoining the advocates to expose their case with the utmost


Fig. 400.-Sacred Oratory, represented by a Bishop, a Doctor of Theology, and a Clerk.-The
Supplicant goes upon her Knees before them.-After a Miniature from the " Petite Traicte de
la Vanite des Choses Mondaines," composed in 1466.-Manuscript of the period (No. 30, Sc.
and A).-In the Arsenal Library, Paris.
possible clearness and concision; only to take honourable causes; to be
moderate and courteous towards their opponents, using no insulting language,
not distorting the text of the decrees and customs, or making use of any false
allegations, the whole under pain of being deprived of the title of advocate
and the right of following their profession. This severe discipline, the
tradition of which has been in part perpetuated to the present day, restored
3 z




538


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


a portion of its lustre to the French bar, amongst the members of which, at this
epoch, may be cited Pierre de Fontaines; Gui Foulques, or Fouquet, who
afterwards entered holy orders and became Pope Clement IV.; and Yves of
Brittany, whose Christian virtues caused him to be placed amongst the
number of saints, and whom the advocates adopted as their patron. The
study of jurisprudence had certainly revived, but there was not the same
revival in the art of oratory; and the advocates, upon leaving the schools in
which were taught dialectics, logic, and philosophy, lost themselves in endless
discussions bristling with Latin quotations, and utterly devoid of method,
simplicity, and true eloquence.
The profession had nevertheless acquired great importance, owing to the
reforms introduced by St. Louis into the judicial institutions. The bar of the
fourteenth century can boast of having produced Pierre de Cugnieres, Arnaud
de Corbie, Regnault d'Acy, and others who exercised an influence upon public
affairs due in part to their oratorical talent. Jean de Meheye, for instance,
distinguished himself by the way in which he discharged the functions of
advocate-general in the trial of Philippe le Bel's unhappy minister, Enguerrand de Marigny (1315); and Francois Bertrand, selected in 1329 to defend
the ecclesiastical jurisdictions against the encroachments of the nobility,
acquitted himself of this task with so much zeal and discretion that the court
of Rome rewarded him with the cardinal's hat. These great political trials
awoke a general sentiment of curiosity. The imposing spectacle presented
by a sitting of Parliament under such circumstances always attracted a
numerous attendance. The nobles quitted their hunting parties at home to
assist at the pleadings; but the ladies, even those of the highest rank, scrupulously abstained from appearing in the Parliament. The talent of the
advocates had much to do with the popularity of these judicial tournaments,
and a well-known formulary of the courts, entitled the "Style of the
Parliament," enumerates the professional qualities of a good advocate,
which were as follows: —" He need possess a noble carriage, have an open and
good-humoured physiognomy, not affect a presumptuous assurance, demean
himself soberly before the tribunal, speak in a loud and clear voice," and so
forth. In spite of this good advice, many advocates justified by their conduct
the bad opinion of the public conveyed in the popular proverb, "Much
eloquence, little conscience."
But with the fifteenth century the field was opened to every species of




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.                     539
exaggeration born out of the political dissensions which occurred during the
reign of Charles VI. The preachers became the principal agents of the two
parties in presence (Fig. 403), known as the Armagnaces and the Burgundians.
In 1402, one of these preachers named Courtecuisse, in the pay of the Duke


-''


Fig. 401.-Flemish Doctor haranguing the People in the open Street (Fifteenth Century).Miniature of Manuscript from the " Chroniques de Hainaut."-In the Burgundy Library,
Brussels.


of Burgundy, solemnly declared from the pulpit that the King's brother, the
Duke of Orleans, was the partisan and supporter of the schismatics.  In




540


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


1405, Jacques Legrand, an Augustine monk, preaching before Queen Isabeau
of Bavaria, exhorted her to exchange her sumptuous attire for a plain dress,
and walk through the streets of Paris to hear what the people said of her.
In another sermon, preached before the court at the Hotel St. Pol, the same
preacher boldly reproached Charles VI. with having caused the tears and the
groans of the people. But in 1408, Jean Sans-Peur, Duke of Burgundy, had
his enemy, the Duke of Orleans, assassinated, and he convoked at the residence
of the King, who was insane, a numerous congregation, in whose presence the
Grey Friar, Jean Petit, pronounced a solemn justification of the murder and of
the murderer. In this set discourse, which was indirectly addressed to the
whole of France, Jean Petit, after a pompous eulogy of the Duke of Burgundy,
had the audacity to set forth his reasons for taking up the Duke of Burgundy's
defence. He said, "The first of these reasons is that I am compelled by the
oath which I took three years ago to serve him. The second is that he,
seeing how poorly I was paid, has given me a large pension each year, to
assist me in keeping up my schools, from which pension I have been able
to defray a large part of my expenses, and shall continue to do so, if it still
please his grace." After this fulsome exordium the orator set forth the
division of his speech, comprising a major, in four parts, to prove: 1st, that
covetousness is the mother of all evils; 2nd, that it leads to apostasy; 3rd,
that it makes subjects disloyal and untrue to their sovereign; 4th, that it is
lawful to kill apostates, traitors, and disloyal subjects. This fourth point,
composed of eight principal truths, eight corollaries, and twelve syllogisms,
formed the capital object of the discourse. Jean Petit had recourse to all
the quibbles of dialectics to justify the murderer and glorify the murder.
He invoked the examples of Lucifer, Absalom, and Athaliah in support of
his detestable doctrines; he showed, finally, that the Duke of Orleans had
fallen into the sin of covetousness by trying to usurp the crown; that he
was, therefore, an apostate, a traitor, a disloyal subject, guilty of high treason;
and that the man who had killed him had done what was praiseworthy in
the sight of God and of man.
This disgraceful discourse so excited public curiosity that Jean Petit had
to pronounce it over again upon the following day from a platform erected
upon the square in front of Notre-Dame, in presence of an enormous crowd.
Nevertheless, the widow of the murdered man, Valentine of Milan, had
obtaned permission from King Charles VI. to have herself and her children




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


541


represented by an advocate of the courts named Jean Cousinot, who replied
with dignity to the apologist of assassination, and who created a profound
impression upon the audience when he appealed upon behalf of the blood
which had been shed to the justice of the King of France. This great
criminal trial was destined to remain pending before the tribunal of public
opinion until the unpunished murderer was in his turn assassinated, fifteen
years later, under the eyes of the heir to the throne. This catastrophe did
not give rise to any oratorical debate, and Jean Petit had no imitator. But a
Fig......-.............t of.Jerome.aF.................HUv. O  
Fig. 402.-Portlrait of Jerome Savonarola.-Reduced Fac-simile of the Engraving of Leonardo da
Vinci in Vienna Museum (Albertine Collection).
few years later, in another political trial, more memorable and more worthy
of notice, a new kind of eloquence was suddenly revealed in an unlettered
young girl, who drew her inspiration solely from her conscience and her
heart. In this trial, during which every rule of justice was disregarded or
violated, Joan of Arc, taken prisoner by the English, had no advocate to
assist her, and all her defence was confined to her replies to the interrogatories of her accusers. The judges, or rather the torturers, the most hardened




542             CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORIY
of the doctors of the school, were more than once touched and confounded as
they listened to the proud and simple utterances of their prisoner; and Joan
of Arc, cruelly accused of imaginary crimes, returned with a smile upon her
face to her prison, saying to her gaolers, who looked upon her as a sorceress,
"Do not be afraid; I shall not fly away; I am not an angel."  Her replies,
so simple, and yet so telling, often sublime, and always true, are not the least
striking evidence of her Divine mission.
In the meanwhile the art of oratory seemed to authorise the most extreme
license of speech. The same speaker could venture, without fear of discredit,
to support in turn the most diametrically opposed doctrines. So willed it that
sphinx of the schools called Dialectics, and these contradictory statements
did not strike any one as being blamable. Thus all speakers, whether of
the bar or of the pulpit, were considered to be inviolable, and no one ever
thought of calling any of them to account for what they had said. Even
Louis XI., despot as he was, did not dare to interfere with the utterances of
the preachers. The latter had not the same immunity in Italy which they
enjoyed in France, for they were kept under control not only by the ecclesiastical, but by the civil authorities. Thus Jerome Savonarola (Fig. 402),  E
whose original, abundant, and indomitable eloquence had led him to attack
the greatest and most powerful of human institutions, was more than once
compelled to quit the pulpit, and after having been interdicted, and even
excommunicated, he was imprisoned by order of the Seigniory of Florence,
and condemned to be burnt alive as a heretic (May 23rd, 1498).
The oratory of the bar was more restrained and dignified. In truth, the
involved and sententious prolixity of the lawyers did not deserve the name of
oratory, and their pedantic language, bristling with subtleties borrowed from
scholasticism, was not calculated to move or to carry away their hearers. We
must, however, cite a few pleaders who, like Jacques Marechal, La Vacquerie,
and Antoine Duprat, combined with the science of the jurisconsult force, and
in some cases elegance, of diction. But most of the preachers, who affected
a sort of rough and uncouth eloquence appealing to popular intelligence,
belonged to the trivialist school which Gabriele Barletta had created at
Naples, where his burlesque sermons had an extraordinary success. It was
after this jack-pudding type that the art of preaching was everywhere
reduced to this one axiom: " Nescit predicare qui nescit barlettare " (" No one
knows how to preach if he cannot imitate Barletta "). Barletta's example was,




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


543


therefore, followed, and even outdone, by his imitators, amongst whom were
Geyler in Germany, and Robert Messier, Guillaume Pepin, Michel Menot,
and Olivier Maillard in France. These preachers, who were none the less
pious and sincere, went to the greatest lengths in their sermons, the Latin
context of which was interspersed with words and phrases in the vulgar
tongue, into which they foisted pell-mell proverbs, songs, jokes, apologues,
and ill-timed pleasantries. But their audiences were not, as a rule, particular
in this respect, and when Olivier Maillard was going to preach at his parish


Fig. 403.-Sermon upon the Vanity of Human Things.-The Actor (or Author) instructs the
Supplicant opposite the Shop of a Goldsmith and MIoney-changer.-Fac-simile of a Miniature
from the "Petite Traict6 de la Vanit6 des Choses Mondaines," composed in 1466.Manuscript of the Period. -In the Arsenal Library, Paris.
of St. Jean-en-Greve the church was crowded by daybreak.           No preacher
ever produced so potent an effect. At first his hearers laughed at his satirical
allusions, but they were in the end subdued and stirred by his eloquence,
which had its root in the most ardent faith.
Olivier Maillard, whose sermons preached in Paris re-echoed throughout
France, afterwards travelled through the provinces, and preached in the




544


CIVIL A ND RELIGIOUS ORA TORY.


different patois. At Toulouse he repeated in the local dialect his  General
Confession," which he had first delivered in Poitevin at Poitiers; and at
Bruges, in 1502, he repeated a Savoy bergeronette which he had delivered from
the Toulouse pulpit at Whitsuntide. Michel Menot was not so poetic as
IMaillard, but he denounced the vices and follies of all classes of society. At
Tours, preaching in a medley of Latin and French, he exclaimed, " Oh, city
of Tours, pride dishonours thy daughters! The wife of a shoemaker wears a
tunic like that of a duchess. People who have twenty pounds a year keep
horses and dogs; those who have fifty are friends with the nobles, and keep
their town and country house." Then, addressing himself to the ladies who
always came in late to church, "It is now nine o'clock (A.M.), and you are
Fig. 404.-Portrait of Claude Despence.  Fig. 405.-Portrait of the Cardinal de Lorraine.
Fac-simile of Line Engravings by Ltonard Gaultier, in the Series called "Chronologie collee."
In the Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris.
still in bed. Forty horses might have been bedded up while all your pins
were being put in their places. When you are at your toilette you resemble
the cobbler who requires a lot of pieces to put his work together. And if,
while the priest is elevating the Host above the altar, some young dandy
presents himself at her seat, Madame, in compliance with the customs of the
nobility, must rise and offer him her hand! Let such privileges be put down
without form or ceremony" (Fig. 403).
The fiery Luther, for all his double merits as a theologian and a man of
letters, belonged, as an eloquent preacher, to the popular school, and he
himself said, "I preach as simply as possible, so as to be understood by the
common people, by the children, and by the servants. I do not preach for the
learned; they have their books."  The most powerful agency of the Reforma



CIVIL A:ND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


545


tion was, in fact, preached and brought within the comprehension of the
people. Calvin, Theodore de Beze, and the leaders of Protestantism at
Geneva were also indefatigable preachers, but they did not do more than
Fig. 406.-Portrait of Sixtus Quintus (1521-1590).-Reduced Fac-simile of a contemporary
Etching, by an unknown Italian Artist.
paraphrase, and that rather drily, the text of the Gospel; and, taking as a
principle that the Word of God had no need of profane ornamentation, they
did not seek to move men's hearts, or appeal to their imaginations. The


4 A




546


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


Catholic preachers who rose in all directions to defend the Church against the
efforts of the Protestants were, for the most part, unequal to their mission, for
a few only, such as Claude Despence and the Cardinal de Lorraine (Figs.
404 and 405), distinguished themselves by real oratorical talent. Many others,
such as Vigor and Seneschal, were only remarkable for the violence and
hastiness of their rejoinders. It may be said that by the end of the sixteenth
century true religious eloquence had disappeared, and then were renewed in
France the pulpit scandals of the epoch of the Burgundians and the
Armagnacs. The preachers of the League, who claimed to be inspired and
authorised by Pope Sixtus Quintus (Fig. 406), went to excesses which not
even the disorders of that time could excuse.
But we may turn from this unedifying spectacle to consider what was the
Fig. 407.-Portrait of  Fig. 408.-Portrait of Pibrac.  Fig. 409.-Portrait of
B. Dumesnil.                                         J. Faye.
Fac-simile of Line Engravings by Leonard Gaultier, from the Series known as " Chronologie
collee."-In the L'brary of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris.
condition of civil oratory during this troubled period. The bar, as it shook
off the yoke of scholasticism, had gradually undergone a complete literary
transformation. The classic renaissance of the sixteenth century naturally
made its influence first felt in the courts, but unfortunately the advocates
were addicted to prolix discourses, and to an unstinting use of the flowers of
rhetoric. From the year 1550 the reopening of the sessions of the Parliament,
after its annual vacations, was made the occasion for harangues carefully
prepared. In 1557 Baptiste Dumesnil delivered an oration upon Asconius
Pedianus, while in the following year Guy du Faur de Pibrac spoke, being succeeded by Jacques Faye (Figs. 407 to 409), and the illustrious Jacques-Auguste




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


547


de Thou. In 1585 Jacques Mangot spoke "for three consecutive hours, and
was as fresh at the finish as at the beginning of his discourse," says Estienne
Pasquier. These harangues were printed, and they were considered "more
agreeable to read" than to listen to. Advocates and magistrates alike
distinguished themselves, and the names of Seguier, Dumoulin, the first of
the Lamoignons, Lemaitre, Cujas, Chopin, Brisson, and Pithou (Figs. 410 to
414), shed a lustre upon the history both of the Parliament and the bar. If
their discourses are not literary and oratorical masterpieces, they are at all
events, as regards logical argument, sentiment, and sincerity, worthy of all
praise. There is instinct in them, at all times, a consistent tradition of honour
and virtue, from Jean de la Vacquerie, First President of the Paris Parliament,
boldly replying to the threats of Louis XI., "Sire, we come to remit our
Fig. 410.-Portrait of  Fig. 411.-Portrait of C. Dumoulin.  Fig. 412.- Portrait of
P. Seguier.                                        G. Lemaltre.
Fac-simile of Line Engravings by Leonard Gaultier, from the Series called " Chronologie
collee."-In the Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris.
functions into your hands, and to suffer what it may be your good pleasure to
inflict upon us, rather than offend our consciences," to the Chancellor Olivier
enjoining the members of the Normandy Parliament (Oct. 8th, 1550), as he
showed them the crucifix, to "remember, as you fulfil your charges, that He
to whom all hearts are open is in your midst; He to whom you will have to
render an account of your judgments, and whose sentence is inevitable, even
if you escape the hand of the King and of justice."
Parliamentary eloquence became in a degree political when the great
magisterial bodies addressed themselves to the sovereign, who generally
listened to them with deference. But political eloquence had freer course in




548


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORA'ORY.


the grave circumstances which led to the convocation of the States-General,
when the deputies of the orders which represented the nation deliberated with
closed doors as to the wording of the Cabiers, in which they expressed the
resolutions which were afterwards submitted to the King in the shape of
plaints, doleances, and remonstrances.  These deliberations often gave rise to
harangues in Latin or French, which enabled the speaker to indulge in very
high-flown eloquence. It was thus that, at the States-General of Tours in 1484,
one of the representatives of the Burgundy nobility, Philippe Pot, Seigneur of
La Roche, pronounced a Latin speech, in which he enunciated with great
boldness and logic political doctrines which were not understood until two
centuries afterwards.  "Royalty," he said, "is a duty, and not an hereditary
privilege, and it should not always pass, like property, to the nearest relatives.
Fig. 413.-Portrait of  Fig. 414.-Portrait of P. Pithou.  Fig. 415. —Portrait of
J. Cujas.                                          M. de P'Hospital.
Fac-sinile of Line Engravings by Leonard Gaultier, from the Series called " Chronologie
collee."-In the Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paiis.
The State, deprived of a chief, will, it may be objected, remain exposed to
accident and disorder. Not at all, for its safety may be left in the hands of
the Assembly of the three orders, not to govern it themselves, but to select
persons capable of governing. Originally the suffrage of the people, who
were the masters, created kings, and the people selected the most virtuous
and the most able. Each nation, in selecting a king, acted in its own interest
and for its own advantage; for princes are made princes not to prey upon the
people, but to make them richer and improve their condition. The kings who
fail to do so are tyrants and bad shepherds, because they devour their sheep;
thus they are wolves, and not shepherds."




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


549


At the Orleans States-General, in 1560, the Chancellor of France, Michel
de l'Hospital (Fig. 415) opened the first sitting with a very powerful speech,
in which he declared, as Philippe Pot had done, that institutions such as the
States-General were very useful to the monarchy, and that the Kings of
France could not do better, in certain circumstances, than consult their
subjects. After enumerating all the ills which desolated the kingdom, torn
as it was by civil and religious wars, he advised the Crown to combat this
social anarchy by wise tolerance and well-conceived reforms. "We have,"
he declared, "been like the captains who assailed their enemies with all
Fig. 416.-Portrait of Henri III.-Reduced Fac-simile of an Engraving by Gaultier.-In the
Library of M. Firmin-Didot, Paris.
their forces, leaving thus our homes unprotected.  It is for us, fortified
with virtue and morality, to assail the enemy with the arms of charity,
prayer, persuasion, and God's Word." These words were uttered nine years
before the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Later the kings presided in person
at the opening of the States-General, and delivered a speech. These speeches
have been preserved, and, amongst others, those of Henri III. (Fig. 416)
to the States-General of Blois in 1576 and 1588.    Mezeray relates that
Henri III., who spoke well, was very fond of delivering these speeches, and




550


CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


also that his unpremeditated replies to the ambassadors and deputies whom
he received were much better than their set speeches.
Henri IV. did not convoke the States-General during his reign, but he
found other opportunities for showing that he could speak as readily and
with greater sincerity than his predecessor in public assemblies. He
possessed the true kind of political eloquence, inasmuch as he was able to
persuade and stir his hearers in a few words. Take, for instance, his brief
unstudied speech at a meeting of the Notables of Rouen (1596): "I have
not called you together, as my predecessors did, for you to ratify my will,
Fig-... 417.-"How Gergeau was taken."-Miniature from the "Vigilea a:oi harle....I.
Fig. 417. —":tow Gergeau was taken."-Miniature from the "Vigiles du Roi Charles VII."
French Manuscript of 1484 (No. 5,054).-In the National Library, Paris.
but to receive your advice, to put confidence in it and to follow it, and to
place myself in your hands-a thing which is not often done by kings,
grey-headed men, or victorious soldiers."
Henri IV. also excelled- in military eloquence. In the early ages of the
monarchy it was not the generals who stimulated the enthusiasm of their
soldiers, but the soldiers who stimulated their own enthusiasm by warlike
songs or cries, in which were embodied the names of their respective chiefs.
History, however, has enregistered the speech delivered to his army by
Philip Augustus, before the battle of Bovines (August 27th, 1214), and there




CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORATORY.


551


is reason for believing that this speech, as recorded by the chroniclers, is
quite authentic. It forms a singular mixture of energy, simplicity, and confidence, which is much to be admired when we remember what a coalition of
foreign princes had been formed to overthrow the French King.  Philip
Augustus said, " Behold Otho the excommunicated and his adherents. The
money with which they have equipped themselves was stolen from the
poor and from the churches. We fight for our God, our liberty, and our
honour. Sinners as we are, let us have confidence in the Lord, and we shall
vanquish our enemies." And when some of the soldiers murmured against
having to fight on a Sunday, the King added, "The Maccabeus family, dear
to the Lord, did not hesitate to affront the enemy, and the Lord blessed their
arms."  The captains and generals, carried away by their enthusiasm,
exclaimed, "And you, the elect of God, bless our arms! " The army, falling
upon its knees, repeated the cry.
Two centuries later, the example of military eloquence was set, not by a
King of France, but by a plain peasant girl, and Joan of Arc's simple
language exercised even greater influence over those who heard her. When
Charles VII. ordered the Duc d'Alencon to accompany Joan of Arc to the
siege of Jargeau, which was held by the English, the latter, addressing
the Duke, exclaimed, "Forward, gentle duke, to the assault! The hour is
at hand when God wills. He bids us press forward, and He will aid us..... Art thou afraid, gentle duke? You know that I promised your wife to
bring you back safe and sound." The assault once begun, she mounted upon
a ladder, from which she was thrown to the ground by a large stone, and the
French thought she had been killed. But she rose to her feet, and, waving
her banner, cried, " Forward, friends! Our Lord has condemned the English;
we have them in our power." And the town was taken by assault (Fig. 417).
It was not for another century and a half that such eloquent accents were
heard from the mouth of a sovereign. Henri IV. had accepted the challenge
of battle offered him by the Duc de Mayenne in the plains of Ivry, upon the
banks of the Eure (August 14th, 1590). When about to have the charge
sounded, he addressed his soldiers as follows:-" My companions, you are
Frenchmen. If you lose your colours, do not lose sight of my plumes; you
will find that they are always in the path of honour."  During this memorable combat it was rumoured that the King had been wounded, and the army
began to give way. Henri galloped up to them, and shouted in loud tones,




5 52


552      ~CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS ORA TORY.


" Look at me;, I am full of life; be you full of honour! " And, when victory
had declared itself in his favour, he passed along the ranks of his troops, who
were massacring the fugitives, and said to them in beseeching tones, " My
children, spare the French! " This generous utterance shows that military
oratory needs but a few words to make its influence felt. Henri IV. was at
once the most eloquent of warriors and of statesmen.
Fig 4 18.-Fragmnent of a Binding of G. Duirand's "Rationale."-Manuscript of the Fourteenth
Century.-In the Library of Al. Firmin-IDidot, Paris.
THE ENI1).


P~RINTED BY A RTUE AND) (O., LIMITED, c1TY HUAD, LONDOS4.




I ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~










I




0




t,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1 
S,_




,wr'




DO NOT REMOVE
OR
MUTILATE CARD




~- '$p"L*""""PBsaUaLllru -Y~Ulrll IUI"P"4L"DUPBC*yLI11111111 I! i 11L!!1!!L!I1!1!! I Y1!!!1 I!l~IPI!1I LYIYLIIIIILLrrllSPsBQIPOXE*IUIUIPIDi~
--                                    -
~
111111111111 1181 111 111111:,= = _
1!1!11?11?!1 11191 111 1111111 I
11111111 11 111111111 1 111111111111 11111 111 11111 1
I! IIII!IIII IiIilIIIIIII 1IIe III j
IIIIIIIIIII -II 1~1 1111111
111111111 111111111111
11111111 11 11~11~~11 1 IIIIII~II~II III B III hill i ~ -
"" 1111111111111111111 IIIIIIIIIIII ~11I 111 11111~1
II
~- --—  lflt    f- ----R-l;