Volume 3 — CHAPTER XXVII GENERAL CONDITION OF EUROPE FROM THE VIII. TO THE XVI. CENTURY 700–1500 (continued 2)

With moral degeneracy came also intellectual decrepitude. A scanty but inestimable remnant of the vast stores of learning which had instructed and delighted the Pagan world had been rescued from the hands of the ruthless barbarian and preserved on the shores of the Bosphorus. But the scarcity of writing materials and the ignorance and prejudice of the unlettered ecclesiastics into whose hands many of these treasures fell insured their destruction. Great numbers of the productions of classic authors were erased from the precious parchment to make room for the legendary miracles of fictitious saints. Others perished by mould and mildew in the dripping vaults of monasteries and churches. Near the Cathedral of St. Sophia there stood in the eighth century a great basilica of unique and elegant design called the Octagon. It was approached by eight magnificent porticos supported by pillars of white marble. The edifice itself displayed the taste and skill of the Grecian architect, whose type, while suggestive of the decline of an art once carried to a perfection without parallel, was, even in its decadence, superior to the masterpieces of all other nations. Erected by Constantine the Great for purposes of religious worship, Julian had consecrated it to literature, had deposited within its halls his extensive library, and had established there an academy in imitation of the famous Museum founded by the Ptolemies at Alexandria. Here a corps of teachers, maintained at the expense of the state, imparted instruction gratuitously on all branches of theology and the arts. The library was open to every student of whatever creed or nationality. A number of expert calligraphists and scholars were constantly employed in adding to the collection, or in reproducing manuscripts that had been damaged by abuse or neglect. The professors of this university—the only institution worthy of the name in the entire realm of the empire—were held in the highest reverence. Sometimes their opinions were taken on important questions of law and diplomacy. Often their mediation was solicited by the heads of contending factions. By the pre-eminence of their acquirements and the weight attaching to their decisions, they averted many a national catastrophe. The incumbents of the most exalted places in the Church were frequently taken from their ranks. During the season of its prosperity no institution of learning outside of the dominions of the khalifs wielded such a salutary influence or was regarded with such respect and homage by all classes of mankind as the Octagon of Constantinople. In the reign of Zeno, when it was consumed by fire, this famous edifice contained a library of a hundred and twenty thousand volumes. Among the treasures lost in the conflagration was a wonderful manuscript of the works of Homer, more than one hundred feet long, composed of serpent skins inscribed with characters of gold. Restored by the emperors to some degree of its former splendor, Leo the Isaurian, who, after repeated interviews, had failed to convert to his iconoclastic views the teachers of the University, determined to effectually silence those who had so signally refuted his arguments. Secretly, and during the night, an immense quantity of combustibles was distributed about the building, the torch was applied, detachments of troops prevented all attempts at rescue, and the assembled wisdom and learning of the Byzantine Empire perished in one indiscriminate ruin. From this inexcusable act of vandalism dates the disappearance of many of the greatest works of the poets, philosophers, and historians of antiquity. What the iconoclast had begun the crusader completed. The storming of the capital by the Latins dealt another destructive blow to literature. The martial fanaticism of the West saw nothing to admire and much to execrate in the immortal productions of Pagan genius. The ignorant monks who followed in the train of the Count of Flanders and the Marquis of Montferrat showed scant consideration to such of the classics as fell into their hands. The precious remains that survived this age of violence, superstition, and intellectual apathy rested uncared for and forgotten in the seclusion of private libraries and the sacred recesses of the cloister until they were resurrected by the insatiable demand for knowledge which distinguished the people of Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

In every phase of social as well as of intellectual life, the national inferiority of the Byzantine was manifest. He could copy with a fair degree of skill, but he could not originate. He absorbed little and created almost nothing. The works of art in which he took most pride were rather indebted for their value to the nature of their materials than to the labor and ingenuity that had produced them. In the style of ornamentation,—especially as regards the pattern of textile fabrics and the settings of jewels,—the Syrian taste, which delighted in floral designs and the forms of grotesque animals, predominated. There was little in the work of the Byzantine sculptor to call to mind the simplicity and delicacy that pre-eminently distinguished the exquisite products of the Attic chisel. Yet its imitative tendency induced the genius of the Eastern Empire to borrow from all its neighbors, and especially from Greece, whose art had greatly retrograded even before the accession of Constantine. The adoption of Christianity as the religion of the state was most unfavorable to sculpture, which was associated by the ignorant with the representation and worship of the gods of antiquity. The term “Byzantine,” as applied to decoration, is most comprehensive, and, employed by writers at will, has become indefinite. When examples of this style possess marked characteristics, however, and can readily be identified, they show clearly the impress of foreign influence, resulting commercial activity, and intimate diplomatic relations of the Greek Empire with nations of the most discordant customs and religious traditions. The mural designs in mosaic peculiar to Constantinople were reproduced in temples dedicated to the ceremonial of widely different creeds, as the Mosque of Cordova, the Church of St. Mark at Venice, and the Cathedral of St. Isaac at St. Petersburg.

The division of society into castes was the most serious and insurmountable impediment to progress encountered by the people of the Greek Empire. Public opinion was voiced by the court at the instigation of the clergy. There was one law for the members of the imperial household and another for all who did not enjoy that adventitious privilege. What was a crime in the citizen was scarcely considered an error in the patrician. The tradesmen, who to some extent constituted a middle class, were not wealthy or influential enough to own slaves,—a criterion of social importance,—and in nine cases out of ten sympathized with, if they did not actually support, the claims of the rabble. The cultivator of the soil, uncertain whether he would be permitted to enjoy the fruit of his labors, through the rapacity of the imperial officials or the relentless fury of the barbarians, pursued his useful vocation to little purpose. In a region proverbial for fertility, under a sky unusually favorable to the husbandman, there was no uniformity in the amount of the yield, no certainty of even a moderate harvest. Under the same atmospheric conditions a year of famine often succeeded a year of the greatest abundance. The most lucrative branch of commerce was the slave-trade. The Saracen pirates, who swarmed in the Mediterranean, exchanged their captives in the markets of Byzantium for Baltic amber, Chinese silks, Arabian spices, and Indian jewels. These slaves, both male and female, were sold to Jews, who disposed of them to the Moslems of Persia, Egypt, Mauritania, and Spain. The manufacture of eunuchs was not only a profitable industry, but was often resorted to with a view to the future political or ecclesiastical promotion of the unfortunate subject. Parents mutilated their children in the hope that they might rise to the administration of important dignities in the palace or the Church. Unsuccessful aspirants to the throne were compelled to undergo this painful and dangerous operation, and were then confined for life in some secluded monastery. The abject degeneracy of the nation further revealed itself by the infliction of even more inhuman and revolting punishments. Political conspirators were flayed alive. Vivisection was practised upon criminals not sufficiently adroit or wealthy to escape the vigilance of the magistrate. Offenders guilty of public sacrilege were scourged, crucified, or burnt. With the intellectual debasement indicated by the enjoyment of human suffering were mingled the most puerile superstitions. Every class of society, from the emperor to the peasant, was a firm believer in visions, omens, auguries. The flight of birds was observed, the entrails of a slaughtered animal examined with an eagerness never surpassed by that of the votaries of Paganism. The occurrence of an inauspicious event, an unusual dream, an apparent prodigy, overwhelmed the unhappy Byzantine with dismay. Still tinctured with the idolatrous superstition of his fathers, he secretly placed gifts upon the defaced altars of ruined temples, consulted the silent oracles, endeavored to propitiate the neglected gods by nocturnal sacrifices. Belief in the evil-eye was universal, a delusion not extinct even in our day among the more ignorant peasantry of Italy, who think that the possession and exercise of this mysterious power is one of the prerogatives of the Pope. In such a community the charlatans who thrive by the weakness of mankind were not wanting. Astrologers were considered necessary appendages to the grandeur of the imperial court. They abounded in every quarter of the city, and were regarded by the populace with feelings of mingled fear and veneration. Even members of the priesthood, terrified by some unfamiliar natural phenomenon, which their ignorance suggested might portend an imminent calamity, did not hesitate to openly visit these impostors.

To the hands of these two great powers, the Papacy of Rome and the Empire of the Greeks, were virtually intrusted the destinies of the vast and constantly increasing population of Europe. Their evil influence over the minds of men was incalculable. What the unprincipled methods and insolent pretensions of the former failed to effect was supplied by the political duplicity of the latter. While often apparently at variance, they were in reality, though unconsciously, seeking to compass a common end,—the moral, social, and intellectual degradation of humanity. No conceptions of honor, consistency, generosity, or patriotism affected the policy of either. Is it surprising that under such circumstances and with such masters the society of the Christian world should have remained for many centuries absolutely stagnant, without advancement in the arts, without incentives to literary effort, without exertion in the fascinating domain of science, almost without the consolation of hope beyond the grave? When we consider the boundless opportunities for good in the grasp of these two great enemies of human progress, and the energy and ability employed by one of them especially to stifle all inquiry and every aspiration for mental improvement, we may realize the extent of the darkness which enveloped the society of Europe for nearly a thousand years, and appreciate the efforts of the Mohammedan nations, whose self-instructed genius illumined with such a brilliant light the path of civilization and knowledge.

The most pernicious and debasing conditions of Byzantine society prevailed to even a greater degree in the brutalized communities of Central and Western Europe. In no country of that continent did there exist a firmly established or legally constituted government. The authority of the sovereign was nominal and complimentary,—obeyed when it was more convenient to do so than to dispute it, and practically recognized under protest. The order of succession was perpetually violated. Ambitious vassals overturned thrones won by the valor of great chieftains, or ruled with despotic power in the names of their feeble progeny. Anarchy prevailed throughout those provinces whose population was not intimidated by the immediate presence of the court. Property and life were at the mercy of banditti in the pay and under the protection of powerful nobles, who complacently shared the spoils and the infamy of these highway plunderers. The savage and absurd customs imported by barbarians from the forests of Germany and Britain usurped the office of laws approved by the wisdom and practice of Roman jurisprudence. The decay of that science under the later emperors, and especially under the system established by Constantine, must be attributed to the increasing interest in religious doctrines and theological controversy, which ignored the talents and ambition once exercised in the profession of the civil law. The priest had become the successful rival of the advocate, and ecclesiastical preferment was prized more highly by the educated than the triumphs of judicial learning and forensic eloquence. The arm of the strongest determined the justice of a cause without the formalities of evidence and argument. A graduated tariff of compensation for bodily injury existed, and any offence could be expiated by the payment of a stipulated sum. The imposition and collection of taxes were not regulated by any established principles, and the obvious rules of political economy were violated in the application and enforcement of the fiscal regulations. Amidst the universal disorder, the Church lost no opportunity to increase her acquisitions and consolidate her power. She encouraged the continuance of the incredible ignorance and inhumanity of the age. She resolutely set her face against every attempt of the laity to shake off the fetters imposed upon it by violence and superstition. She punished with atrocious severity the slightest manifestation to question the genuineness of her pretensions or the validity of her canons.

The warlike and pugnacious spirit of an age governed by force affected even a profession generally associated with the offices of mercy and peace. For centuries among the Saxons it was the bishop and not the king who conferred the distinction of knighthood. In martial assemblies no difference existed in the appearance of the prelate and the warrior. The panoply and weapons of the field were often also a feature of ecclesiastical convocations. Godfrey, Archbishop of Narbonne, presided in complete armor over councils called to determine points of religious doctrine. The Bishop of Cahors, in Provence, refused to say mass unless his sword and gauntlets had been previously deposited on the altar. The Treasurer of the Cathedral of Nevers appeared in the choir armed to the teeth and with his hawk upon his wrist. In Languedoc, during the thirteenth century, it was the practice of priests to settle questions in dispute by fisticuffs.

After the destruction of the Roman Empire, the first attempt to reorganize society was made by the institution of the Feudal System. It was an instance of the selection of the lesser of two evils. In consideration of protection, the vassal paid homage to his lord and promised him military and other services under certain ill-defined conditions. Defective and susceptible of enormous abuses as this arrangement was, it alleviated to some degree the misery of the lower orders. Its jurisdiction was coextensive with the dominions formerly embraced by the empire of Charlemagne. The temptation it held out to oppression more than neutralized the benefits it occasionally conferred. It organized and perpetuated the most vexatious of thraldoms, the tyranny of caste. It appropriated all property in the soil, and a person not of noble birth or ecclesiastical distinction was doomed to the humiliating dependence of vassalage or serfdom. The nominal liberty originally enjoyed by the descendants of the ancient Roman colonists was easily forfeited by the non-payment of taxes, whose amount was regulated by the caprice of the lord; the failure to perform military service or even the neglect to observe obligations of trifling importance of themselves was sufficient to reduce the offender to a condition of servitude.

The serfs were divided into two principal classes, known to the technical jargon of the law as villains in gross and villains regardant. The authority of the lord over both of these was absolute and irresponsible; the former were attached to his person and, like other chattels, could be sold or otherwise disposed of; the latter belonged to the soil and could under no circumstances be alienated. In every case villains were inventoried and valued as beasts of burden. They experienced all the hardships that greed and malice could invent or cruelty inflict. Not only were they exposed to the violence and rapacity of their superiors, but they were subject to the exaction of certain privileges which could only have been tolerated in an age wholly devoid of the principles of honor, justice, and decency. A conveyance for the transfer of a fief scarcely deigned to mention the wretched creatures who in the eye of the law formed a part of the glebe, and one from which the latter derived its principal value. The avarice of unfeeling lords compelled the peasant to labor throughout the night and to share the lodgings of the cattle. Around his neck was soldered a metal collar, sometimes of brass, often of silver, on which were engraved his name and that of his master. His manhood was entirely destroyed; he possessed no rights, enjoyed no liberties, participated in no diversions. His identity was lost, his very being was merged into the soil on whose surface he toiled from early childhood until released by death. No more pathetic and forlorn example of the deplorable effects of human tyranny and human suffering exists than that presented by the life of the villain regardant of the Middle Ages.

The code of seignioral rights which governed the lord in the relations he maintained with his vassals is one of the most curious and remarkable collections in the entire system of jurisprudence. Voluminous treatises have been written upon it. Dictionaries have been compiled in explanation of the obscure and technical terms by which its customs are designated. The abuse of its prerogatives has led to more than one event whose effects have been experienced in the fall of empires, the institution of anarchy, the weakening of religious sentiment, the destruction of social order.

By the provisions of this code, whose authority was usually presumed to be based upon charters or capitularies conferred by reigning monarchs, the suzerain, always an individual of noble lineage or clerical importance, was invested with all the powers of despotism, so far as the jurisdiction of his estates was concerned. The infliction of the death penalty was within his discretion. He could impose taxes at will, and there was no check upon his rapacity except that suggested by considerations of private interest. The rights of legalized plunder were multiplied to an astonishing degree—for every important action of life, for the performance of every labor, for every change of condition, for birth, death, marriage, for the gathering of harvests, for the construction of buildings, for the keeping of animals, permission was required and a contribution demanded. The virtue of the female serf was absolutely at the mercy of her lord. She was the subject of the most flagitious and degrading section in this code of infamy. The charters or the prescriptive regulations of many fiefs conceded to the lord the exercise of certain prior rights over the bride of a vassal. Where such a privilege existed, none of any rank who owed homage to prince or noble were exempt from its enforcement. Known in different countries by various names,—in France, as Cuissage; in Italy, as Cazzagio; in Flanders, as Bednood; in Germany, as Reit-Schot; in England, as Maidenrent,—it was one of the most widely diffused of all feudal exactions. The gentlemen of the clergy practised it most assiduously; they were among the first to adopt and the last to relinquish it. This odious privilege attached to the estates of most of the great abbeys and sees of Catholic Europe. Its exertion might be commuted for a sum of money, but this was a matter entirely dependent on the caprice of him who enjoyed it. In different localities the interpretation of the general law which sanctioned its use was, by common consent, enlarged, and its indiscriminate infliction was not infrequently imposed upon the serfs of a neighbor as a penalty for trespass and other misdemeanors. Modern propriety will not tolerate the enumeration of the curious and revolting details concerning the “Droit de prélibation,” with which the ancient charters of mediæval times are filled. The evils resulting from this custom frequently aroused the indignation of even the meek and plodding villain, and incited him to assassination and rebellion. It is an extraordinary circumstance, however, that the victim most nearly affected by the operation of this iniquitous law, which had a direct tendency permanently to impair domestic happiness and cast a stigma upon the offspring of every family, never complained of its hardships. Among all the remonstrances and memorials presented during the Middle Ages to monarchs and legislative bodies which have been preserved, and many of which are signed by women, not a single instance can be found where a female vassal requested the abolition of a custom whose continuance was a constant menace to her modesty and virtue.

The essential principles of feudalism were territorial and martial. The right to receive homage implied the possession of real property and the privilege of private warfare. The soldier was the controlling power in the state. Questions affecting the integrity or loyalty of an individual, the liability for civil forfeiture or criminal punishment, the settlement of a boundary, the vindication of personal honor, were referred, not to a judicial tribunal to be determined by the application of well-established rules and precedents, but to the wager of battle. In cases where heresy was suspected, other and even more absurd tests, such as the ordeals by fire and water, were adopted. No rational ideas existed for the ascertainment of truth or the dispensation of justice. Every nation was subject to a haughty and cruel aristocracy, whose tyranny was sometimes tempered and sometimes aggravated by the influence of the clerical order, as its interests or its passions at the time might dictate. Whenever a rebellious spirit was evinced by the peasantry, and the authority of the barons was not strong enough to suppress it, bands of foreign mercenaries and outlaws were enlisted, who were paid with the effects of the serfs which had escaped the rapacity of the suzerain. The maintenance of a system which countenanced the settlement of private feuds by the sword and admitted the virtual independence of the nobles was, of course, inimical to the dignity and power of the sovereign. In France the seignioral fiefs bestowed by charters numbered five thousand, and their lords exercised jurisdiction over thirty thousand villages. There were abbeys whose domains were tilled by as many as twenty thousand serfs attached to the glebe. This enumeration did not include the villains in gross, who sometimes exceeded in number all the other retainers and dependents of the lords. The greater portion of the vast territory administered by the hierarchy under the customs of feudalism was obtained from wealthy pilgrims and crusaders, who sacrificed their earthly possessions to the thrifty priesthood for a trifle in the vain expectation of securing a celestial inheritance. By means of this folly, as well as through the effects of ecclesiastical oppression and torture, France lost thirty-three per cent. of its population during the thirteenth century. In Saxon England the peasants had absolutely no guaranty of protection. Their property was appropriated and their persons enslaved by the petty kings and piratical chieftains who contended in incessant warfare for control of the affairs of Britain. The conquest by the Normans was productive of little improvement. A tyranny of race and caste arose, aggravated by the worst features of the Feudal System, and the despised and humiliated Saxon was degraded almost to the level of a brute. During this unhappy epoch the law of force was paramount throughout Europe. The moral influence exerted by the clergy through the medium of superstitious fear afforded the only instance where obedience was not dependent upon the sword. Where the privileges of feudalism were combined with the exactions of sacerdotal avarice and intolerance, the lot of the serf was indeed grievous. But in cases that did not compromise the prestige or affect the revenues of the hierarchy, the Church not infrequently interposed to protect the victim of aristocratic persecution and injustice. The savage baron, all but omnipotent elsewhere, dared not invade the hallowed precincts of her sanctuary. Under the beneficent shadow of her altar the fugitive peasant was safe from the vengeance of his oppressor. By the tender of her mediation in the quarrels of powerful chieftains, peace was re-established over extensive provinces where anarchy and implacable hatred had long held sway. And it was by her aid, combined with the efforts of the outraged Third Estate, and encouraged by monarchs whose prerogatives had been usurped, that the offensive and cruel rights of feudalism were finally abolished. The Crusades struck a fatal blow at the system by impoverishing the lords through the alienation of their estates and the consequent overthrow of their power. For this service, if for no other, posterity owes to the priesthood an incalculable debt of gratitude. So firmly rooted were many of the practices of the Feudal System that to this day they have not been entirely eradicated. Ceremonies unquestionably derived from seignioral privileges are still observed in remote districts of France and Italy. The statutes of England and her colonies have not yet been purged of provisions and terms which suggest to the legal antiquary the mutual obligations of vassal and suzerain.

The relative position of nations in the scale of barbarism or civilization is largely determined by the nature of their tastes and favorite occupations, by their pastimes, by the means which they invent or adopt to add to the comforts and conveniences of daily life. During the greater portion of the period under consideration in this chapter, the existence of the people of Europe, without distinction of rank or resources, was a purely animal one. The necessities of the fortress, the camp, and the hovel were easily supplied. Articles of the simplest construction and most inexpensive materials, whose uses must have occurred spontaneously to the most unimaginative mind, and are now considered indispensable in every household, were unknown. The castle of the noble partook of all the forbidding characteristics of a prison. Its frowning donjon, its impassable moat, its embattled walls, its jealously guarded portals, were suggestive of tyranny and disorder. The interior was not more inviting. The halls were cold and cheerless; the gloomy chambers, into whose damp recesses the rays of the sun struggled with difficulty through narrow, unglazed windows, the stone seats, the massive furniture and mildewed tapestry were typical of the coarse simplicity and unsettled condition of society in that age. The banqueting hall, where hospitality was dispensed on state occasions with rude magnificence, was at almost every meal the scene of gluttony and uncontrolled inebriety.

The decorations and their surroundings exhibited the greatest possible incongruity. Hangings of silk and velvet embroidered with gold were suspended against whitewashed walls. Plate of the precious metals was served upon tables of rough and uneven boards. The mailed foot of the knight and the dainty slipper of the chatelaine reposed upon undressed flags, whose coldness was somewhat counteracted by a covering of straw or fragrant herbs. In the viands abundance was considered rather than excellence of flavor, which, however, on extraordinary occasions was supposed to be supplied by the use of rose-water profusely sprinkled over every dish. The repast, where incredible quantities of food were consumed, was characterized by coarse jests and barbaric revelry. The favorite beverage was beer, often brewed in the castle and indulged in to disgusting excess; for through its potency the festivities became the fatal cause of indescribable libertinism and sanguinary encounters. The guests were served by squires and pages, youths of rank, who, inmates of the castle, acquired there a knowledge of arms as well as an acquaintance with the more doubtful accomplishments of gaming and amorous intrigue. The intimate associations and domestic character of mediæval society arising from a sparse population removed all suspicion of menial service from this duty, which was considered highly honorable, and was gladly performed by the proudest noble at the board of his royal suzerain.

The amusements of the feudal lord were confined to war or its substitute, the chase. In the intervals of peace the tournament supplied the necessary practice in arms as well as the military pomp and excitement of the field. One of the favorite diversions of both the nobility and the wealthier clergy was flying the falcon. An extraordinary importance attached to the possession and use of these birds of prey. Property in them was inviolate. They were inseparably connected with the aristocratical or personal privileges of the owner, and could not be alienated, even with his consent, for the ransom of their master. Persons of plebeian station were not permitted to purchase or keep them. They were universally recognized symbols of suzerainty. Kings, bishops, abbots, ladies never went abroad without these birds upon their fists. Warriors carried them in battle. Prelates deposited them in the chancel while they recited the service of the altar. The regulations of falconry constituted a science only to be mastered after months of assiduous study. The education of these birds required the exertion of great skill and boundless patience. Each falcon was carried upon a glove which could not be used for any other. It bore the arms of the master, and was often embroidered with gold and ornamented with jewels. In many kingdoms the office of Grand Falconer was one of the greatest distinction and importance. In France the emoluments of this dignitary were eighty thousand francs a year, and gentlemen of rank eagerly competed for the subordinate employments at his disposal.

The supreme ambition of baronial life was the fame that attached to martial deeds and romantic adventure. The first care of the noble was to secure himself against the treachery and violence of his neighbors. His castle, perched upon a lofty eminence, was furnished with every device to render it impregnable. The most incessant vigilance was adopted to provide against surprise. In front of the gateway, or projected from the summit of the keep and overhanging the moat, was a gibbet, a significant reminder to malefactors of the consequences of violated law or resisted oppression. By the over-scrupulous, immunity was purchased from the Church with the proceeds of the spoliation of the helpless. On all sides—in the bloody traditions of the moated stronghold, with its subterranean dungeons and its instruments of torture; in the license of the armored troop that rode down the ripening harvest and levied blackmail on the trader and the pilgrim; in the perpetual labors of the uncomplaining serf; in the outraged modesty of weeping womanhood; in the summary execution of suspected offenders against feudal privilege,—everywhere were visible the brutalizing effects of unrestrained cruelty and irresponsible power.

But with all their defects, the baronial institutions of mediæval times bestowed upon society advantages that in some measure compensated for the evil which they too often occasioned. The military tastes of the age gave rise to the laws of chivalry and the institution of knighthood, whence in turn were derived graces and amenities of social intercourse hitherto unpractised by the savage warriors of Gallic and Saxon Europe.

The tournament was, as might be imagined, the most popular of the diversions of the Middle Ages. From far and near multitudes flocked to the scene of martial skill and splendor. The town where it was held presented the aspect of an immense fair. For leagues around the country was dotted with tents, and with pavilions surmounted by the pennons of the chivalry of many lands. The retinues of prince and noble not infrequently assumed the dimensions of an army. The followers of Gottfried, Duke von Löwen, at Trazignies in 1169 numbered three thousand. At a tournament near Soissons in 1175, Count Baldwin von Hennegau appeared with an escort of a hundred knights and twelve hundred esquires. The blazons of the most ancient and celebrated houses of Europe were conspicuous in the vast encampment. Kings frequently held their courts within its precincts. All classes were in holiday garb. The magnificence of the spectacle was enhanced by gorgeously caparisoned horses, damascened harnesses, waving plumes, many colored silks, sparkling jewels, the parade of men-at-arms, the pomp of marching squadrons, the resplendent charms of female beauty. The contest, repeatedly, but without effect, prohibited by the edicts of Pope and Council, was conducted with all the ferocity of battle. The thirst of blood predominated over every other sentiment. It was not an unusual occurrences for scores of knights to be carried lifeless from the lists after one of these fierce encounters.

The point of honor which inspired the conduct of the mediæval champion of distressed innocence and avenger of privileged oppression had no existence among the most civilized races of antiquity. The individuality implied by its exercise could not be comprehended by communities whose members, while capable of renouncing every tie of kindred in behalf of the interests of the state and of undergoing the most severe privations to sustain the national supremacy, were prevented by the peculiar circumstances of their surroundings from appreciating the qualities which ennobled even the vices of the knight of the Middle Ages. Without this prominent and compensating feature the condition of society during the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries would have been one of unredeemed and unequivocal barbarism.

The coarse though abundant fare of the castle board, the more delicate but still far from dainty viands of the monastic refectory, the boisterous amusements which occupied the leisure and menaced the safety of the participants, the drunken revels of gluttonous banquets, the incessant perils of domestic warfare, to which baron and monk were alike exposed, were suggestive of absolute happiness and luxury when contrasted with the conditions under which was sustained the miserable existence of the serf. His habitation was shared by beasts of burden, the companions of his daily and nightly toil. Composed of unhewn logs or of sticks wattled with rushes, thatched with straw and plastered with mud, its primitive and defective construction afforded little security against the vicissitudes of the climate or the inclemency of the seasons. Through a hole in the centre of the roof the smoke emerged and the storm descended; the walls were blackened with soot; the earthen floor was covered with a trampled litter of hay, mingled with bones and the decaying fragments of many a repast which the occupants had never taken the trouble to remove. Of furniture there was almost none; a bench, perhaps, and a table of unsmoothed planks answered the simple requirements of the hapless villain. He reposed upon a heap of straw with a block of wood for a pillow; the few culinary utensils he possessed were of the rudest description, and had been fashioned by the hand of the owner. No provision was made for the decencies of life or the safeguards of virtue, which were indeed unknown; the family occupied a common apartment, and often a single bed, while the grunting of swine and the lowing of oxen, which animals ranged at will through the dwelling, were sounds too familiar to disturb the slumbers of the drowsy household. The accumulated filth of years, combined with indescribable personal neglect and revolting customs, attracted and multiplied swarming multitudes of every species of vermin. The garments of the peasant, usually of skins, descended uncleansed and unchanged from father to son through many generations, bearing in their contaminated folds the germs of pestilence and death. Where the circumstances of the serf were not sufficiently prosperous to afford even this protection against the weather, his shivering limbs were wrapped with ropes of straw. His head was uncovered, often even in the depth of winter. The most obvious precautions of hygiene were neglected; the simplest precepts of medical science had not yet penetrated to the isolated communities of Western Europe or were sedulously discountenanced by the interests of superstition; and the plague, assisted by favorable climatic conditions, as well as by the physical debasement and the fears of the people, at each visitation numbered its victims by myriads. With game in every grove and fish in every stream, the famishing peasant was often reduced to appease his hunger with unwholesome roots and bark when the meal of chestnuts and acorns, his most luxurious fare, was wanting. The severity of the forest laws visited upon the poacher, even when impelled by the pangs of starvation to trespass on the seignioral demesnes, the most barbarous of punishments. Around the monastery and the castle were visible the signs of unskilled and reluctant cultivation; but not far away was a wilderness diversified with vast forests, majestic rivers, and pestilential marshes. Intercommunication was irregular and limited to populous districts; many villages of no inconsiderable dimensions were as completely separated from the outside world as if they stood on islands in the midst of the ocean. Barter of commodities necessarily prevailed in the almost entire absence of money; there was no opportunity for the establishment of trade; no incitement to agricultural industry; no work for the artisan. The accumulation of property was effectually discouraged through the incapacity of the laborer to retain or enjoy it when his hopes were constantly frustrated by the insinuating artifices of the priest or the significant threats of the noble. The extortions of the inexorable tax-receiver, the inhumanity of licensed hirelings, the enormities countenanced by baronial tyranny, carried dismay into every hamlet. Epidemics appeared without warning, and spread with mysterious and appalling rapidity; the death-rate was frightful; fatal symptoms developed almost with the first attack, while in the ignorance of rational treatment the application of relics and the mummeries of the clergy proved signally ineffectual to avert what was considered the vengeance of Heaven.

Confined in the lazar-house with hundreds of his fellow-sufferers or banished to a lonely hut, far from the haunts of men, the hapless leper dragged out his melancholy existence in pain, in disgrace, in penury. The law declared him civilly dead. With a ceremony not less solemn than that performed over the remains of a Christian actually deceased, the priest announced his final separation from the society of mankind. His body was enveloped in a shroud. He was laid upon a bier. With the repetition of the legal formula which consigned him to a life of odium and sorrow, a few garments and necessary utensils were placed in his hands. He was forbidden to eat with any person but a leper; to wash his hands in running water; to give away any object he had touched; to frequent places of public resort; even to enter the house of a relative or a friend. With his shoulders covered with a tattered scarlet mantle,—a danger-signal, visible from afar,—hideous to the sight, emaciated to a skeleton, and horribly scarred with disease, he crouched by the wayside, sounding his rattle to arouse the compassion and solicit the charity of the passer-by. Deprived of civil rights and debarred from invoking the protection of the law, he was, however, not wholly an outcast, for with the exclusion from these privileges he became the ward and vassal of the Church. So loathed and dreaded was his malady—often considered a divine penalty for crime or sacrilege—that no physician could be induced to employ the scanty medical science of the day for the alleviation of his sufferings; and, even if wealthy, he was abandoned to the suspicious ministrations of wizards, barbers, and charlatans. Shunned as accursed and repulsive during his lifetime, when dead he was unceremoniously buried under the floor of his hovel.

The segregation of lepers in the Middle Ages, as a measure of public safety, was productive of singular results in subsequent times. The disease, which at different periods seems to have been both infectious and contagious, gradually disappeared. But the prejudice attaching to the posterity of the unfortunate outcasts, formerly cut off from all intercourse with their fellow-men, and who formed isolated communities, still remained. The origin of that prejudice was completely forgotten. The people in their ignorance attributed the cause of their enmity to religious differences. It was believed that the objects of their unreasoning aversion were variously sprung from the Goths, the Jews, the Saracens, the Albigenses. Modern research, however, has definitely established the fact that the former pariahs of Southwestern Europe, known in Languedoc and Gascony as Capots and Gahets, in Brittany as Cacous, in the Pyrenees as Cagots, in Spain as Agotes, were the descendants of mediæval lepers. A century has hardly elapsed since these victims of popular antipathy have been divested of that suspicion of uncleanness which was their ancient and unhappy heritage.

In the disorganized state of society which everywhere prevailed, facilities for the profitable and friendly intercourse which promote the intelligence and contribute to the temporal welfare of nations could not exist. Even in provinces of the same country the professional robber and the bandit noble united to imperil the life and seize the merchandise of the trader. The courses of the old Roman highways, unused for centuries, concealed by rubbish and sometimes overgrown with forests, had been utterly lost. There was no provision made by the state for the protection of commerce, and the universal insecurity discouraged the schemes of private enterprise. The mortality resulting from habitual violation of the most obvious sanitary laws, from the use of insufficient and innutritious food, from the hardships of incessant toil, and from daily exposure to the elements, effectually retarded the increase of population. That district was fortunate indeed where even a uniform standard was preserved. In many localities in kingdoms where modern civilization has achieved her most signal triumphs, a solitary shepherd pasturing his flock, or a tottering hovel standing in the centre of a dismal waste, alone proclaimed the presence of man.

The condition of the towns, where an improvement in the manner of living might reasonably have been expected, was in but few respects superior to that of the scattered villages and isolated settlements of the country. Even the main thoroughfares were narrow, tortuous, and dirty. Without drainage or adequate municipal supervision, they were receptacles for the refuse of the household and the offensive carcasses of dead and decaying animals. Even as late as the reign of Francis I., the hogs belonging to the monks of St. Anthony, who asserted and exercised special privileges for the animals sacred to their patron, wandered at will through the fashionable quarters of the metropolitan city of Paris. From the overhanging balconies filthy slops were dashed, without warning, upon the head of the unwary passer-by. By night, daring criminals, secure from the risk of punishment, plied their lawless calling in these dismal and unlighted lanes. He who ventured, unattended, to thread the maze of alleys that wound through even the most frequented quarters of great cities did so at peril of his life. Each corner formed a convenient lair for the lurking assassin. The projecting gables of the houses aided in obscuring the gloomy footways. As the citizen stood in constant fear of robbers, his dwelling was always barred and silent. No light was visible anywhere save the flickering gleam in the lantern carried by the trembling pedestrian, always on his guard against some prowling assailant. Sometimes the mud was so deep that locomotion was impossible for the bearers of sedans, and women were carried from place to place upon the backs of porters, as the narrow and crooked streets precluded the use of vehicles drawn by horses. In the habitations of even those considered wealthy, a general air of discomfort was prevalent. The apartments were dark, ill-ventilated, and unclean. In the windows plates of horn and sheets of oiled paper supplied the place of glass, which was practically unknown. No carpet covered the floors, which were strewn with rushes. The foul surroundings assisted materially in the propagation of fevers and the spread of contagion. Provision for frequent ablution, so conducive to personal comfort as well as to immunity from disease, was unheard of. In many of the most populous capitals of Europe not a single public bath could be found. The attire of the prosperous burgher and merchant was prescribed by sumptuary laws dictated by the jealous spirit of the aristocracy, who could not tolerate a display of plebeian splendor to which their own resources were unable to attain. Their garments were limited to coarse woollen stuffs, whose cut and fashion were regulated according to the capricious decisions of the court. The use of golden ornaments and jewels, so indispensable to the gratification of female vanity, was prohibited to the wives and daughters of their households, who were also restricted to a sombre and unattractive garb. In some instances this contemptible exercise of authority went still further. It dictated the quantity and quality of the food and the beverages to be consumed at the table of the citizen, the description and the price of the light which illumined his home and of the fuel that warmed him. If he had anything to sell, he was paid by his superiors in the product of a debased coinage or with counterfeit money, whose manufacture was everywhere prosecuted with comparative impunity.

Drunkenness was so prevalent in England during the reign of Edgar that restrictions were placed upon the quantity of liquor to be consumed,—the amount allowed each guest being indicated by a mark on the side of the cup or the drinking-horn. The observance of these tyrannical and senseless ordinances was secured by a harassing system of espionage and informers, and their violation was punished by ruinous fines and by condemnation to the stocks or the pillory. The publication and enforcement of sumptuary laws necessarily prevented the development of commerce, already greatly retarded by the prevalent barbarism and poverty of the age. Countries enjoying unlimited natural resources of soil, minerals, timber, and water-power, and whose noble streams only required a portion of the energy and enterprise of man to bring the fertile regions they traversed into intimate contact with the humanizing influences and exquisite products of the highest civilization, were as backward as the savage kingdoms of central Africa are to-day.

A good index of the force of the bigoted prejudice and public intolerance of the time is discernible in the treatment universally received by the Jew. He was the financier, the physician, the merchant, the broker, the scholar of the Middle Ages. He managed with eminent success the fiscal departments of vast empires and kingdoms. In the great catastrophes which overwhelmed entire nations,—amidst the want and despair occasioned by earthquakes, wars, famine, pestilence,—his shrewdness and his resources always afforded relief to the suffering induced by the prevalent evils, although it must be confessed rarely without exorbitant compensation. His medical talents and surgical skill brought him under the ban of the clergy as a dealer in magic; but neither the statutes of Parliament nor the anathemas of priests could deprive him of the protection and friendship of orthodox monarchs, or of even the Sovereign Pontiff himself. True to the adventurous and acquisitive character of his race, he introduced the knowledge and use of foreign commodities in lands rarely trodden by the foot of the stranger, defying the storms of sea and ocean, braving alike the unprincipled rapacity of the noble, the violence of the highwayman, the perils of remote and unexplored solitudes. In maritime cities he established depôts for the importation and exchange of every description of merchandise. His credit and his tact enabled him to negotiate loans for improvident princes, which, more than once, saved distressed nations from bankruptcy. Amidst the multifarious variety of his occupations, he found time for the recreation derived from the pursuits of literature. In this sphere, as in all others to which he devoted his talents, he attained to the highest distinction. In philosophy, in astronomy, in chemistry, in mathematics, his opinions were regarded by his contemporaries with the reverence attaching to oracles. His poetry and his eloquence delighted such courts as those of Cordova and Bagdad; his erudition instructed and his genius illumined schools like those of Salerno, Montpellier, and Narbonne.

How then did society reward such inestimable benefits? Alas! for the credit of humanity, it must be confessed that the intolerance fostered by centuries of hatred obliterated every generous impulse, every sentiment of gratitude. The remembrance of the decision of the Sanhedrim, the story of the sacrifice on Calvary, extinguished in the minds of the fanatical populace the sense of any subsequent obligation. The anniversary of that tremendous event was the signal for insult and outrage. The most heinous accusations, many of them extravagant and improbable in their very nature, were brought by popular clamor, instigated by ecclesiastical malice, against the defenceless Hebrew. His commercial relations with the East had introduced the leprosy. The plague was caused by poison which he had thrown into the wells. The meat he sold was sometimes whispered to be human flesh; and the milk he dealt in not yielded by the cow, but drawn from the breasts of the females of his household. He kidnapped children, whose blood he made use of in the concoction of magical potions. On Good Friday, aided by his kinsmen, he re-enacted the tragedy of Golgotha, the victim being a Christian youth who played, perforce, the rôle of the Saviour, and who, with unavailing struggles and lamentations, endured the humiliation and agony of the Crucifixion. Kings, merely by proclamation, appropriated the Jews of their realms as the absolute property of the crown. Then, by virtue of this arbitrary proceeding, they confiscated the possessions of these victims of royal avarice, under pretence of fines or ransom. Under these significant circumstances it requires no extraordinary degree of discernment to perceive that the wealth of the Jews was the principal cause of their persecution. By their talents and industry they had reached the highest posts in the learned professions; had monopolized the trade; had controlled, to a greater or less extent, the policy of every government in Christendom. Under Charlemagne and Louis le Debonnair their condition was more prosperous than under succeeding monarchs for eight hundred years. In every walk of life they received the consideration merited by their commanding abilities. Their influence was unrivalled. They maintained royal state. Great concessions were made to their convenience and religious prejudices. Their prosperity excited the envy of the rabble. Their influence with the monarch enraged the courtiers. The clergy, whose profits were reduced by their enterprise and whose monopolies they antagonized by their insinuating arts, regarded them with the double hatred engendered by imperilled temporal interests and ferocious bigotry. Among every class and rank their superior intelligence was believed to be due to sacrilegious bargains with the powers of darkness. The prejudice attaching to their name and religion always afforded a specious pretext for persecution. In every Christian kingdom they were the objects of popular execration. They were unceremoniously robbed by the government. They were banished without notice. Their debtors were encouraged to repudiate contracts made with them. The officials of the Inquisition took exquisite pleasure in burning Hebrews, always selecting the most wealthy for its victims. Of the one hundred and sixty thousand persons burnt or disciplined during the twenty-eight years comprising the administrations of Torquemada and Ximenes as Inquisitors-General, the majority were of that unfortunate race. The cause of a Jew was prejudged before every tribunal, and it was often difficult for him to obtain a hearing, and still more to secure the protection to which he was legally entitled. Under such intolerable oppression it is not strange that he should, by the adoption of unprincipled methods and by the exaction of enormous usury, have endeavored to compensate himself, in some degree, for the degradation and hardships he was compelled to undergo. This course, however, only intensified the popular hatred until the term Jew was considered the epitome of all dishonor, deceit, and unprincipled villany. These discreditable prejudices, dictated by general ignorance and by the sacerdotal malice of the Middle Ages, are still, it is well known, far from being eradicated even by the superior understanding and liberal opinions of the twentieth century.

The universal distress which afflicted the peasantry, as well as the poorer classes of the cities, is revealed by the inhumanity with which they were accustomed to treat their offspring. Robbed and oppressed by both priest and baron, and barely able to eke out a miserable existence by themselves, they regarded the birth of an infant as a domestic calamity. Parents deliberately abandoned their children in unfrequented places to perish by starvation or to be torn to pieces by birds of prey. Many were drowned like puppies. Some were buried alive. Others were deposited at the doors of churches and convents, where they were often killed by dogs. The extent of the evil, as well as the prevalent immorality existing in a single country, may be inferred from the fact that the Hospital of Santa Cruz, founded by Cardinal Mendoza of Spain in the sixteenth century, received and sheltered during twenty years more than thirteen thousand foundlings.

The great epidemics that from time to time raged throughout Europe afford glimpses of the life and character of the people not readily obtained from other sources. Medical science recognizes to-day that the principal causes of such visitations are private uncleanness and the accumulation of filth in public places. During the Middle Ages, the regulations of sanitary police were wholly unknown. On every side heaps of garbage and putrefying offal met the eye and offended the nostrils. The necessity for the thorough ventilation and drainage of dwellings was unsuspected. The prejudice against bathing, which universally existed, was partly due to the example of the clergy, who were not supposed to have time to spare from their sacred duties to care for their persons, and partly due to contempt for the Mohammedans, whose lustrations were a peremptory religious duty. As Christianity spread, the practice of ablution gradually declined. The Roman thermæ, one of the wonders of the capital, were at first abandoned and afterwards utilized as quarries for the palace and the cathedral. A general idea prevailed that the ceremony of baptism removed all necessity for the subsequent application of water to the body. Filth became a test of devotion, and, following the example of their spiritual guides, the multitude came finally, by the natural law of association, to regard the unsavory manifestations of personal neglect as prima-facie evidence of Christian orthodoxy. Thus, sanctioned by public opinion and confirmed by ecclesiastical authority, a stigma was placed upon cleanliness, and a premium offered for corporeal foulness and offensive surroundings. Those who violated the established custom were in danger of being denounced as heretics. It was one of the most serious accusations against the Emperor Frederick II. that he was addicted to the frequent use of the bath. Among the upper classes of society, the unpleasant consequences of untidy habits were in a measure neutralized by the excessive use of strong perfumes, such as musk, civet, and ambergris. Among the lower orders many of the physical conditions of life were indescribable. In the vicinity of towns, as well as of isolated habitations, equal negligence of the laws of health prevailed. From the moat, with its stagnant waters reeking with the refuse of the castle, to the vast marshes, with their exhalations poisoning the air around the hut of the shepherd, the atmosphere was charged with the miasma of death. When to the effects of such surroundings were added the depressing influences of contagion and terror, the results were appalling. The plague of the sixth century, whose course raged unchecked from the Bosphorus to the Atlantic, desolated entire countries; the Black Death of the fourteenth carried off seventy-five million persons, one-half the inhabitants of Christendom. So favorable to the spread of the pestilence were the climatic conditions of the country and the personal habits of the people of England that the majority of them perished in a few months by a single visitation of this dreadful epidemic. It so diminished the population that the pursuits of mechanical industry were seriously and permanently affected. Wages became higher than ever before, and legislation concerning the vexed question of the mutual rights of employer and employed was inaugurated, a question which has not been settled to the present day. The vicinity of the dying and the dead carried with it almost certain infection. Even the extraordinary brilliancy of the eyes of patients suffering from delirium was supposed, in conformity with the prevailing superstition, to convey a malignant and fatal influence upon all within the range of their glances. The air was so tainted that domestic animals, cattle, horses, sheep, even the birds, died by hundreds of strange and fatal distempers. The mortality was so great in some districts that the helpless convalescents were unable to perform the burial rites for their friends and neighbors. Ships encumbered with the corpses of their crews drifted about in the ocean without sailor or helmsman. Men became insane through fright, and thousands committed suicide. The wealthy flocked to the churches and poured their gold upon the altars; but for once ecclesiastical avarice was forgotten, and the timid priests, through dread of the scourge, often refused the proffered treasure. As a result of the universal consternation inspired by the calamity, negligent and hasty interment was, in many instances, responsible for the rapid propagation of the pestilence. Multitudes of corpses, covered only with a thin layer of earth, were placed in shallow trenches. Others were cast into the rivers, to be in time lodged against their banks, fresh sources of contagion and death. Through all these scenes of physical and mental agony no scientific medical aid was available. The few skilled Jewish practitioners, who, graduates of the schools of the Moslem, had ventured into the dangerous precincts of Christian courts, were looked upon with suspicion as professors of sorcery and members of a proscribed and accursed race. In the South of France it was unlawful to consult them or to receive their prescriptions. No correct theories were entertained concerning the cause and prevention of disease, even by the intelligent and educated. The malady was attributed to the active intervention of the devil or his agents, and the sick were bound and brought, dozens at a time, to the Church as the most suitable place for exorcism, where, in general, their sufferings were speedily terminated by agony and neglect. There was no comfort for the terrified but the whispers of the confessional; no resource for the pest-stricken sufferer but the Host and the reliquary. Indeed, it was but natural that these should be appealed to for succor, for it had long been assiduously taught that Divine wrath was the immediate cause of all physical misfortune. The pestilence was now considered a tremendous judgment for the derelictions of mankind. The ravings of insanity and delirium were declared to be due to possession by demons, only to be relieved by bell, book, and candle, and all the manifold impostures of sacerdotal mummery. During the continuance of the plague the Church prospered amazingly, as she always does prosper by the woes and the misery of mankind. Her gains were far greater than during the Crusades. The zeal of the devout, the superstitious fear and remorse of the wicked, alike paid enormous tribute to her rapacity. Valuable estates were devised by dying penitents to her ministers. Sumptuous cathedrals were raised and endowed by the grateful piety of those who attributed their recovery to the intercession of her saints. Monasteries and chapels were founded by those whom her prayers were supposed to have rescued from the very jaws of death. The portable wealth of empires poured daily into her treasury. But all these sacrifices, all this generosity, all this religious display, afforded no perceptible relief. If they proved anything, they demonstrated effectually the worthlessness of cure by the resorting to shrines and the application of relics. The pestilence ceased its ravages on account of the want of material, not because its progress was stayed by priestly intercession. But while its violence abated and its characteristic symptoms disappeared, its effects remained, and it bequeathed a frightful legacy to posterity. Although respectable medical authority has contended for a different origin of the disease, there can be little doubt in the minds of those who have thoroughly familiarized themselves with the subject that syphilis is either the result of a recrudescent form of leprosy or of a modified morbid condition developed from the plague. Such is a portion of the foul inheritance for which the twentieth century is indebted to the ignorance, the filth, and the superstition of the Middle Ages.

Wretched as was the physical condition of the people of Europe, their moral state was even more deplorable. The revolting characteristics and manners of the clergy have already been considered in these pages. Under such instructors, whose admonitions were so palpably at variance with their unholy lives, it cannot be wondered at that society was permeated with treachery and hypocrisy. It is one of the most remarkable of mental phenomena that man should earnestly solicit the intercession of the members of a sacred profession with Heaven, while at the same time he demonstrates unequivocally by his actions that he has no respect for their calling and no faith in their prayers. Such was largely the case of the Roman Catholics of the Dark Ages. They lavished their wealth with unstinted profusion upon the Church. They greeted her ministers with servile tokens of respect and homage. They sought her advice in worldly affairs; they obeyed her oppressive edicts; they voluntarily relinquished their natural rights at her despotic bidding. But when opportunity offered, the insincerity of these professions became unmistakably evident. In the midst of the apparent blind and devoted subserviency to the principles of a debased religion, ancient Pagan ideas were constantly manifesting themselves. The worship of fairies, often scarcely concealed, was widespread throughout the Christian world. The knight placed far more confidence in his armor, consecrated by heathen ceremonies, than in the reliquary that was attached to his saddle-bow or the Agnus Dei suspended about his neck. The anxious housewife on the eve of a feast preferred to address her petitions to some popular and beneficent Pagan spirit, accustomed to good living and luxury, than to a female saint with whom abstinence was a duty, and whose life had been passed amidst the privations of the convent or the hermitage.

The death of a pope was hailed with indecorous joy in every quarter of Rome. The election of a new pontiff was the signal for disorder, riot, massacre. Yelling mobs filled the streets, singing impious and obscene songs. The most indecent actions were perpetrated in the face of open day. The papal palace was repeatedly sacked and its precious contents destroyed. The mansions of the cardinals and the nobility were plundered. It was not safe for these dignitaries to appear in public until the popular excitement had subsided, and the death of the spiritual sovereign of the Christian world was often concealed until his successor had been chosen, in order to prevent the scenes of anarchy certain to result if this precaution was not taken. So far from conceding divine attributes to the pontifical character, the Roman populace habitually and openly derided its pretensions to infallibility. It not infrequently interfered with the freedom of the conclave and, intimidating the cardinals, dictated the selection of a pope. If such was the disrespect manifested by the inhabitants of the papal capital towards the head of the Church, little courtesy could be expected by his ecclesiastical subordinates anywhere. The veneration they claimed by reason of their calling was offered only by the more ignorant of the masculine sex and by women. The latter, more weak and credulous in their nature, were the bulwark of superstition, as indeed they have always been in every age. But with the educated the case was far different. As has been already remarked, the ecclesiastic was represented in the most popular writings of the time as a foolish, licentious, and degraded hypocrite. Public opinion would not have tolerated this holding up the sacerdotal profession to derision had there not been ample provocation for such a course. There are good reasons for believing that the awkward and disgraceful predicaments of profligate clerks described in the entertaining pages of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, Boccaccio, Poggio, the Queen of Navarre, and similar collections were actual occurrences. It is indisputable that many of these tales were obtained from the archives of religious houses and the humorous traditions of monastic life. The existence of universal corruption among the regular clergy indicated by these satirical authors receives a significant illustration from the fact that they invariably include the nunnery and the brothel in the same category, and indiscriminately designate the heads of these establishments by the title of “abbess.”

In the religious festivals and dramatic representations there also appeared conspicuous indications of the prevalent irreverence and mockery of the age. The most solemn and awful events of sacred history were absurdly burlesqued amidst the jeers of a scoffing and delighted mob. The grotesque features of these ceremonies were a survival of the Roman Saturnalia not yet extinct among the less enlightened peasantry of Europe. The most holy mysteries of the Church were parodied in obscene and sacrilegious scenic exhibitions. The actors in these profane representations were selected from the lower orders of the priesthood. They assumed the characters of popes, cardinals, bishops. Sometimes they were dressed in the vestments and equipped with the insignia of their rank,—the tiara, the mitre, the crosier, the crucifix; but often they donned the parti-colored attire of the professional fool and jester and carried his truncheon. The mass was celebrated in due form, but accompanied with a thousand extravagant and often indecent gestures by these privileged buffoons. Men entirely nude were conducted into the churches and deluged with pailfuls of holy water. Old shoes burned in the censers filled the atmosphere with a sickening stench. A repast was spread upon the altar, and all who desired regaled themselves while the representative of the celebrant recited the impressive service of the Church. In the mean time, the aisles were swarming with maskers, whose coarse jests and lascivious contortions evoked the applause and laughter of the audience. Men gambled within the rail of the chancel. Every excess was indulged in without check or remonstrance during the continuance of these festivals. Debauchery ran riot even in the most holy places. Priests, stripped of their clerical vestments, danced half-naked in the streets. The bells were removed from the church-towers and concealed. During the Feast of Asses, a donkey with his rider was conducted into the choir, and the responses of the congregation were made in imitation of the unmelodious voice of that useful but proverbially stupid animal. In this instance, sausages seasoned with garlic supplied the place of frankincense. In the celebration of another festival, a fox, dressed in the habiliments of the Papacy, was carried in state by an escort of mock cardinals. A quantity of poultry was distributed at intervals in the streets through which this singular procession was to pass, and when the fox, dropping his tiara and trailing his purple robes in the dust, occasionally attempted to seize a hen, the delighted multitude fairly rent the air with acclamations.

The dramas, known under the name of miracle and moral plays, were often fully as depraved in tone and as demoralizing in effect as the festivals. They owed their origin to the lively imagination and love of spectacular display characteristic of the Greeks of Constantinople. In some instances, the actors represented Scriptural personages, in others the virtues and vices of an allegory. The greatest incongruities of locality, time, and character were introduced without question or criticism. With the absurdities of the plot were mingled impious sentiments and vulgar witticisms. Notwithstanding the coarseness and profanity of these dramas, their value in controlling the minds of the impressionable populace was fully recognized by the hierarchy. Generally enacted by members of the priesthood, funds were appropriated from the treasury of the Church for their celebration, and indulgences granted to induce pilgrims to attend them.

The dramatic spectacles of the Middle Ages were, however, not confined to representations of a nominally religious character. As early as the tenth century, the plays of the nun Hrotswitha were enacted in monasteries and convents for the amusement of their inmates. These productions, imitations of the comedies of Terrence, far surpassed the latter in freedom of language and action. Their coarseness is such that they will not bear translation. The poems of the same author, whose life was ostensibly devoted to pious thoughts and communion with the saints, are even more extraordinary. The sentiments they express and the scenes they depict are the last which the reader would ordinarily expect to find in compositions proceeding from such a source, and must have been suggested by an extensive and varied experience.

These things, necessarily transitory in their character, have vanished with the gross ignorance and credulity of mediæval life. But more permanent memorials, carved upon the corbels, capitals, and architraves of edifices dedicated to divine worship, disclose more forcibly, if possible, the want of reverence for the rites of the Church, and the callous indifference of the priesthood to what cannot be construed otherwise than as a deliberate insult to religion. Monks, priests, and bishops in full canonicals are depicted with the attributes of cunning and filthy animals, such as foxes, wolves, asses, and baboons. The hog is a favorite subject, and seems to have been considered by the medieval sculptor as possessing traits peculiarly applicable to delineations of monastic life and character. These grotesque caricatures are frequently interspersed with indescribable obscenities. A partial explanation of their occurrence may be found in the fact that they were sculptured by the monks themselves. The latter were the only class of their age skilled in the practice of the mechanical arts. In their order was centred the architectural as well as the literary knowledge of the time. They built and decorated their own churches and abbeys. It is difficult to reconcile the spirit which could conceive and execute such representations with that which could endure their publicity, especially in the temples of God. For the fact is only too well established that mediæval churchmen were far from being noted for toleration. Still, the ruling sentiments of society in those days were far different from those which obtain in ours. Its standard of morality was lower, but, at the same time, it was evidently not disposed to conceal its favorite vices. One thing, however, is certain, the failings of the clergy were so open and notorious as to have become a common jest, in whose merriment even the subjects themselves were not ashamed to participate. It is not a pleasing reflection upon the state of public morals that its teachers had not only become insensible to contempt for their violation of human and divine laws, but encouraged and even rewarded the preservation of their monstrous vices in imperishable materials for the amazement and disgust of posterity.

With the fall of the Roman Empire the knowledge of letters, in common with every other accomplishment, had departed. From the time of Charlemagne, no instruction was accessible save that transmitted through the doubtful medium of ecclesiastical institutions. That monarch had imparted a great impulse to learning by the foundation of academies; by attracting to his court the wisdom of other lands; by the appointment of monastic chroniclers; and by the encouragement of the Jews. As it was the policy of the Church to keep the masses in ignorance, the scanty and general information to be derived from that source was restricted to members of the privileged classes. The general and incredible abasement of the people in those times may be inferred from the fact that so late as 1590, when a mouse had devoured the sacramental wafer in one of the churches of Italy, it was gravely discussed by an ecclesiastical council convoked for that purpose, in the presence of a pious and wondering audience, whether the Holy Ghost had entered the animal or not, and if the demands of religion required that it should be killed or be made an object of worship!

Many of the priesthood could neither read nor write, and, having memorized the service by rote, celebrated mass like so many parrots, as ignorant of what they were saying as their stolid congregations. Bishops made their marks upon important documents with their fingers dipped in sacramental wine. The books used in the service were more esteemed for their pecuniary value than on account of the precepts they contained. Their golden, jewel-studded covers often attracted the cupidity of the brethren, who defaced, pawned, or bodily abstracted the volumes as opportunity offered or their carnal necessities required. Almost incredible difficulties attended the dissemination of learning. In addition to the hostility, negligence, and incapacity of the clergy, who were its privileged custodians, great expense was involved in the manufacture of books. Parchment was generally of wretched quality and commanded extravagant prices. The supply to be obtained by the erasure of ancient manuscripts was limited, and, in the universal decline of the arts, the knowledge of its preparation had been lost. The skins which were brought to the monasteries were required to be cleaned and smoothed by the writers themselves before they could be rendered available. The time required for the completion of a book was a serious impediment to the scholar. The transcription and illumination of a manuscript often consumed years of arduous labor. With the Hebrews, the copying of the Scriptures was a proceeding not less solemn than the invocation of the sacred name of Jehovah. The materials were prepared, with every precaution, by the orthodox of the Jewish faith. The most dextrous and pious calligraphists were employed. Every other occupation was abandoned until this holy task—whose performance was considered as not less important than the celebration of the rites of the synagogue—had been completed.

As a rule, the productions of the scribe and the illuminator were considered too valuable to be used for any other than religious purposes. The donation was accompanied with the ceremony of music and prayer as the missal, often enclosed in an exquisite golden casket, was deposited upon the altar.

It was only through political or pecuniary necessity, or to obtain the favor of royalty, that these specimens of art were allowed, even temporarily, to leave the hands of their owners. In 1190 the Bishop of Ely pawned with the Jews of Cambridge thirteen volumes, to aid in obtaining the ransom of Richard Cœur de Lion. To secure the loan of a single missal, a king of France was compelled to give a bond, with his nobles as sureties, and to deposit with the cathedral chapter a quantity of plate of enormous value. One of the kings of Northumberland gave a productive estate for a copy of the Gospels. The Elector of Bavaria offered a city in exchange for a manuscript, and was refused. The illuminated romance of chivalry, worth more than its weight in gold, was the most highly prized possession of the opulent baron. So valuable, in fact, were these treasures that those destined for public inspection were fastened to the walls with massive chains, and guardians were appointed to turn over the leaves. Peter de Nemours, Bishop of Paris, on his departure for the Crusade, presented to the Abbey of St. Victor “his great library, consisting of eighteen volumes;” a gift at that time worth a prince’s ransom. It will be seen from these examples that during the Middle Ages books were not always at the command of the greatest princes, and a collection of a few hundred volumes was a marvel; that of Queen Isabella contained two hundred and one, of which sixty-seven were treatises on theology. Other circumstances contributed to their scarcity. Written usually in a learned language, it required a special education to read them, to say nothing of their composition. The expensiveness of writing materials prevented many from acquiring familiarity with the use of the pen. The dimensions of leaves designed for various purposes were established by law, but the original sizes into which a sheepskin could be folded have been preserved in the quartos, octavos, and duodecimos of the modern bookseller. As a menace to the irreverent and the dishonest, the author frequently appended to his manuscript a malediction on whomsoever should steal or mutilate the product of his industry. The donor also added his imprecations upon the head of the borrower when the book was presented to a church or monastery. As the modern languages of Europe were not formed, communication by other than oral means was not possible among the uneducated; and the art of writing was in some localities entirely lost. With the great mass of the people the word “library” was understood to mean the Holy Scriptures; they were ignorant of the existence of any other books. The immense advantages accruing to the clergy from the habitual use of an idiom unfamiliar to the vulgar, as well as from the monopoly of the simplest rudiments of knowledge, were not lost upon these shrewd observers of human nature. The church became the point whence royal edicts were promulgated and where commercial bargains were concluded. Proclamations were issued at its doors. Contracts were entered into before its altar. Oaths were taken upon the Scriptures and the crucifix. The Host was used in the detection of criminals and in the solemnization of treaties. Land was conveyed by the mere transfer of a twig or a clod of earth in the presence of clerical witnesses. The cross still traced upon legal documents by the hands of the illiterate, in lieu of a signature, is a suggestive reminiscence of an age when the potency of ecclesiastical influence was recognized in every important transaction of life.

The persecution of learning was systematized and maintained, first, by the creation of theological odium, and subsequently by the institution of such tribunals as the Holy Office; not through a desire to preserve a becoming reverence for religious worship, but from a consciousness of the inability of the existing system to withstand the examination of reason. Heresy was a convenient and ever available pretext for crushing that independence of thought which threatened the integrity of doctrine or the permanence of sacerdotal supremacy. The Inquisition was, when its real object is considered, as has already been stated, a temporal rather than an ecclesiastical device. Its unspeakable atrocities and their effects are too well known to require description. In refutation of its claim as a means of moral purification may be introduced the indisputable fact that during the period of its greatest power the worst atheists, blasphemers, and criminals in Europe were to be found masquerading in the cowl and the surplice. The outrages it committed on humanity must be regarded as the legitimate results of the papal system, which, inheriting to a great extent the organization, the prestige, and the traditions of imperial authority, encouraged, by immunity purchased with corruption and by the profligate example of the Holy See, the neglect of every duty and the commission of every crime.

The exercise of the faculties of the human mind in the Dark Ages, when they were permitted to develop and be employed for the benefit of the Church,—their only profitable patron,—are eminently suggestive of the capacity which it possessed when afforded encouragement. The cathedrals, the carvings, and the missals, which, in their respective departments of art, far surpass the efforts of modern times, are appropriate examples of the scope and fertility of mediæval genius.

I have now endeavored to depict the general and more striking features which distinguished society during the Middle Ages coincident with the period of the Hispano-Arab domination. The description, from the limited space allotted to the subject, is necessarily imperfect. Volumes might still be composed on the events and customs of that dismal period whose most prominent characteristic is the intellectual degradation of mankind. The reader cannot have failed to remark, in every instance—whether merely the trifling incidents of private life were affected or whether the interests of extensive kingdoms were involved—the incessant interference as well as the unquestioned predominance of the ecclesiastical power. He cannot but respect, if he is unable to admire, the commanding genius of an organization which could appropriate and utilize with success the profound policy, the consummate skill, the incomparable talents for administration, the heartless selfishness, of its political exemplar and religious prototype, the Roman Empire. He may turn with disgust from its crimes and its horrors; from papal grandeur built upon forgery and maintained by fraud and torture; from the shamelessness of monastic life; from the duplicity of a system which could avail itself of the uncertain caprices and hideous brutality of barbarian kings; from the repulsive chronicles of famous churchmen, with their long catalogue of appalling cruelties, their obscene and portentous legends. But while disapproving of its methods, he must admit its eminent adaptability to secure the end at which it aimed, and acknowledge that since the institution of society no government has ever exercised such a powerful influence over the bodies and minds of men as the Papacy. From that influence no potentate, however great, was free. The reputation of many a mediæval monarch and statesman with posterity is based, in reality, not upon talents and merit, but upon the standing and relations he maintained during his lifetime with the sacerdotal order.

In the universal ignorance of mankind, the familiar phenomena of nature contributed to the ascendency of unprincipled charlatans, who based their hopes of success and its necessary incidents, wealth, power, and glory, on the invention and sedulous propagation of falsehood. The personification of everything material and immaterial, the globe of the earth, the sparkling orbs of the visible heavens, the sudden and often unexpected effects of the action of the imponderable agents, the most ordinary operation of nature’s laws, were classed as supernatural manifestations, were engrafted upon religion and received the obsequious homage of fear and superstition. The wily ecclesiastic never forgot that

Gnomes, witches, goblins, those imaginary denizens of the spiritual world whose weird and mischievous antics were so well authenticated as to strike the simple masses with terror and to cause even the learned to shudder when their sins had not been removed by the godly solace of confession and absolution, were enlisted as the allies of the politic Church. By the aid of such auxiliaries and the ability to profit by every phase of human weakness and every incitement to human ambition, she has maintained her authority even under the most discouraging circumstances until her achievements in defiance of law and progress, arduous as they seem, are even less remarkable than the apparently eternal duration of her empire.