Book 4 — INDEX (continued 3)

[390] Vita Brunonis, caps. 4, 6.

[391] Vita Brunonis, cap. 8.

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

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

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

[395] Migne 141, col. 1229.

[396] See Froumundus, Ep. 9, 11, 13 (Migne 141, col. 1288 sqq.). A number of his poems are published by F. Seiler, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, Bd. 14, pp. 406-442.

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

[398] Mon. Ger. Scriptores, v. 134 sqq. (Migne, Pat. Lat. 146, col. 1027 sqq.).

[399] Vita Hermanni (Migne 143, col. 29).

[400] The writings of Hermannus Contractus are in Migne, Pat. Lat. 143. The poem is reprinted from Du Meril’s Poésies populaires; a more complete text is in Bd XI. of the Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum.

[401] Ante, Chapter XII., 1.

[402] Prantl, Ges. Logik, ii. 83.

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

[404] Liber visionum.

[405] Othloh’s works are all in tome 146 of Migne’s Patrologia Latina.

[406] Ante, Chapter XII. 11.

[407] Ante, Chapters VIII., IX.

[408] Printed in Migne, Pat. Lat. 139, col. 871 sqq. and elsewhere. For editions see Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, 6th ed. i. 485.

[409] Post, Chapter XVI.

[410] Cf. Taylor, Ancient Ideals, chaps. xv., xvi.; Classical Heritage, chaps. ii., iii.

[411] Hosea i.-iii.

[412] Sulpicius Severus, Epist. iii.

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

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

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

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

[417] Cf. Classical Heritage, p. 123 sqq.

[418] Augustine, Epp. 155, c. 13.

[419] Ante, Chapter V.

[420] Ante, Chapter IX.

[421] Alcuin, Ep. 40 (Migne, Pat. Lat. 100, col. 201).

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

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

[424] See Taylor, Classical Heritage, chap. x. sec. 2.

[425] See Classical Heritage, p. 267, and cf. ibid. chap. ix. sec. 1.

[426] See post, Chapter XXXII. II.

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

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

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

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

These lines carry that same yearning of the simple soul for heaven, its home, which was expressed, some centuries before, in Otfried’s Evangelienbuch (ante, Chapter IX.). The words and their connotations (augenweide, wünneclich) are utterly German. Yet the author lived in a literary atmosphere of translation from the French.

[430] Post, Chapter XXV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[437] Ante, Chapter XIV.

[438] See Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, etc., passim, and Bd. II. 464 (Halle, 1892).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[446] Peter Damiani, Opusc. xi., Dominus vobiscum, cap. 19 (Migne 145, col. 246).

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

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

[449] De perfectione monachi, cap. 8 (Migne 145, col. 303).

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

[451] De ins. ord. eremitarum, cap. 26 (Migne 145, col. 358). On the distraction from the vita contemplativa involved in an abbot’s duties see Damiani’s verses, De abbatum miseria, ante, Chapter XI. IV.

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

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

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

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

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

[453] The Vita Romualdi is printed in Migne 144, col. 950-1008.

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

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

[456] Vita Romualdi, cap. 13.

[457] Ibid. cap. 20.

[458] Vita Romualdi, cap. 51.

[459] Vita Romualdi, cap. 35.

[460] Ibid. cap. 40.

[461] Ibid. cap. 45.

[462] Vita, caps. 49, 50.

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

[464] Vita Romualdi, cap. 64.

[465] Cf. Sackur, Die Cluniacenser, i. 328 note.

[466] Vita Romualdi, 69.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[475] See, e.g., Vacandard, o.c. chap. i.

[476] Post, Chapter XLIII.

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

[478] E.g. Ep. 107.

[479] Ep. 2.

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

[481] Ep. 112 (the entire letter). The Latin of this letter is given post, Chapter XXXI.

[482] Ep. 111.

[483] Ep. 152, ad Innocentium papam, A.D. 1135.

[484] Ep. 170, ad Ludovicum. Written in 1138.

[485] Ep. 191.

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

[487] Ep. 196, ad Guidonen; cf. Ep. 195 (A.D. 1140). See for the Latin of this letter post, Chapter XXXI.

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

[489] Ep. 101, ad religiosos; cf. also Ep. 136.

[490] Ep. 300.

[491] Vita prima, lib. vii. cap. 15.

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

[493] Ep. 144, ad suos Clarae-Vallenses.

[494] Vita prima, lib. iii. cap. 7.

[495] Sermo xxvi. in Cantica.

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

[497] Ante, Chapter XVI.

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

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

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

[501] Love, fear, joy, sorrow.

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

[503] Sermo xx. in Cantica.

[504] Sermo lxxix. in Cantica.

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

[506] Post, Chapter XIX.

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

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

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

[509] These songs (none of which survive) were apparently in the langue d’oïl and not in the langue d’oc. The phrases used by the biographers are lingua francigena (1 Cel. i. 7) and lingua gallica (III. Soc. iii.) or gallice cantabat (Spec. perf. vii. 93).

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

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

[512] III. Soc. v. par. 13, 14.

[513] III. Soc. vi. par. 20.

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

[515] III. Soc. viii.; 1 Cel. ix.

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

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

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

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

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

[519] 1 Cel. xi.

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

[521] Spec. perf. 69; 2 Cel. iii. 124; III. Soc. 25.

[522] Francisci admonitiones, xx.

[523] Spec. perf. 62; 2 Cel. iii. 71.

[524] Spec. perf. 61; see 1 Cel. 19.

[525] 2 Cel. iii. 81; Spec. perf. 39.

[526] Spec. perf. 50.

[527] Spec. perf. 54; 2 Cel. iii. 84.

[528] Spec. perf. 44.

[529] Spec. perf. 64; III. Soc. 39; 2 Cel. iii. 83; cf. Admon. iii.

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

[531] III. Soc. xii. 50, 51.

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

[533] Spec. perf. 25; 2 Cel. iii. 22.

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

[535] Spec. perf. 93; 2 Cel. iii. 67.

[536] Spec. perf. 34.

[537] Cf. Spec. perf. 108; 2 Cel. 132.

[538] Spec. perf. 27, 28, 33; cf. 2 Cel. i. 15; ibid. iii. 30 and 36.

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

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

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

[542] Spec. perf. 113.

[543] 1 Cel. xxi. 58.

[544] 1 Cel. cap. xxviii.

[545] 1 Cel. cap. xxix.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[547] Translated from the text as given in E. Monaci’s Crestomazia italiana dei primi secoli. Substantially the same text is given in Spec. perf. 120.

[548] The mediaeval term apex mentis is not inapt.

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

[550] Ante, Chapter XIII. II.

[551] Neither Othloh’s visions, nor those to be recounted, were narratives of voyages to the other world. The name of these is legion. They begin in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, and continue through the Middle Ages—until they reach their apotheosis in the Divina Commedia. See post, Chapter XLIII.

[552] Migne, Pat. Lat. 195.

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

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

[554] Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis opera Spicilegio Solesmensi parata, p. 523; cf. ibid. p. 561; also Ep. 27 of Hildegard in Migne 197, col. 186.

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

[556] Pitra, o.c. 394, 395.

[557] By visio as used here, Hildegard refers to the general undefined light—the umbra viventis lucis, in which she saw her special visions.

[558] Pitra, o.c. 332.

[559] This is from the prologue to the Scivias, Pitra, o.c. 503, 504 (Migne 197, 483, 484). Guibert in his Vita speaks of Hildegard as indocta and unable to penetrate the meaning of Scripture nisi cum vis internae aspirationis illuminans eam juvaret, Pitra, o.c. 413. Compare Hildegard’s prooemium to her Life of St. Disibodus (Pitra, o.c. 357) and the preface to her Liber divinorum operum (Migne 197, 741, 742).

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

[561] Pitra, o.c. pp. 1-244.

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

[563] Ibid. p. 13.

[564] Pitra, o.c. p. 24.

[565] Ibid. p. 51 sqq.

[566] Pitra, o.c. p. 92 sqq.

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

[568] Pitra, o.c. pp. 230-240. I am not clear as to Hildegard’s ideas of Purgatory, for which she seems to have no separate region. In the case of sinners who have begun, but not completed, their penances on earth, the punishments described work purgationem, and the souls are loosed (ibid. p. 42). In Part III. of the work we are considering, the paragraphs describing the punishments are entitled De superbiae, invidiae, inobedientiae, infidelitatis, etc., poenis purgatoriis (ibid. p. 130). But each paragraph is followed by one entitled De poenitentia superbiae, etc., and the poenitentia referred to is worked out with penance in this life. Consequently it is not quite clear that the word purgatoriis attached to poenis signifies temporary punishment to be followed by release.

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

[569] This is the view expounded so grandly by Hugo of St. Victor in his De sacramentis, post, Chapter XXVIII.

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

[571] Migne 197, col. 437 sqq. Cf. St. Bernard, Sermo xix. in Cantica.

[572] Migne 197, col. 449.

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

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

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

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

Bobertag, Erzählende Dichtungen des späteren Mittelalters, p. 46 (Deutsche Nat. Litt.).

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

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

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

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

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

[582] I am drawing from her Vita by her contemporary, Thomas of Cantimpré, Acta SS., Bollandi, t. 21 (t. 3 of June), p. 234 sqq.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[592] Cf. ii. 22.

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

[594] i. 13.

[595] ii. 4.

[596] iii. 1, 10.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[604] Post, Chapter XXVI.

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

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

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

[608] Reg. vis. p. 9.

[609] R. V. p. 10.

[610] R. V. p. 18.

[611] R. V. pp. 19-20.

[612] R. V. p. 222.

[613] R. V. p. 379.

[614] R. V. p. 154.

[615] See e.g. R. V. pp. 159, 162, 395-396.

[616] R. V. p. 109.

[617] R. V. p. 73.

[618] R. V. pp. 43-45.

[619] R. V. p. 607.

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

[621] The above is drawn from the “Vita Sancti Engelberti,” by Caesar of Heisterbach, in Boehmer, Fontes rerum Germanicarum, ii. 294-329 (Stuttgart, 1845). E. Michael, Culturzustände des deutschen Volkes während des 13ⁿ Jahrhunderts, ii. 30 sqq. (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1899), has an excellent account drawn mainly from the same source.

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

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

[624] Dialogus miraculorum, iii. 2. Similar stories are told in ibid. iii. 3, 15, 19.

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

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

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

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

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

[630] Étienne de Bourbon, o.c. p. 119.

[631] Étienne de Bourbon, o.c. p. 83.

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

[633] Parma edition, p. 3.

[634] P. 31.

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

[636] These qualities led Salimbene to accept the teachings of Joachim and the Evangelium eternum (post, pp. 510 sqq.).

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

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

[639] Pp. 90-93.

[640] He whose Regesta we have read, ante Chapter XX.

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

[642] Post, Chapter XXII.

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

[644] From Novati, o.c. pp. 415, 416. Cf. pp. 97 sqq. of the Parma ed.

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

[646] Pp. 104-109.

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

[648] P. 225.

[649] Pp. 179, 180.

[650] P. 324.

[651] See Bourgain, La Chaire française au XII^e siècle; Lecoy de la Marche, La Chaire française au XIII^e siècle.

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

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

[654] Gesta regum Anglorum, iii. (Migne 179, col. 1213).

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

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

[657] Cf. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 202-216.

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

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

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

[661] See Gautier, La Chevalerie, p. 256 sqq.; Du Cange, under the word “Miles.”

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

[663] On this blow, called in Latin alapa, in French accolée, in English accolade, see Du Cange under “Alapa,” and Gautier, o.c. pp. 246-247, and 270 sqq.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[670] Chaps. 33, 35.

[671] Chaps. 40, 41.

[672] Chap. 42.

[673] Chaps. 46, 48.

[674] Chap. 62 Latin regula and chap. 14 of French regle.

[675] Chap. 51.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[682] On these poems see Pigeonneau, Le Cycle de la Croisade (St. Cloud, 1877); Paulin Paris, in Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. 22, pp. 350-402, and ibid. vol. 25, p. 507 sqq.; Gaston Paris, “La Naissance du chevalier au Cygne,” Romania, 19, p. 314 sqq. (1890).

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

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

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

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

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

[688] Froissart, i. 210.

[689] Froissart, i. 220.

[690] Froissart, i. 290.

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

[692] On the chansons de geste see Gaston Paris, Littérature française au moyen âge; Leon Gautier in Petit de Julleville’s Histoire de la langue et de la littérature française, vol. i.; more at length Gautier, Épopées nationales, and Paulin Paris in vol. 22 of L’Histoire littéraire de France; also Nyrop, Storia dell’ epopea francese nel medio evo. Ample bibliographies will be found in these works.

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

[694] Leon Gautier, in his Chevalerie, makes the chansons de geste his chief source.

[695] 1006-1016.

[696] 1051 sqq. and 1700 sqq.

[697] 1851-1868.

[698] 1940-2023.

[699] 2164 sqq.

[700] Raoul de Cambrai, cited by Gautier, Chevalerie, p. 75.

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

[702] See Gaston Paris, Lit. française, etc., chaps. iii. and v.; and Émile Littré in vol. 22 of the Histoire littéraire de la France. For examples of these romans, see Langlois, La Société française au XIII^e siècle d’après dix romans d’aventure (2nd ed., Paris, 1904).

[703] Chrétien, Cligés, line 201 sqq.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[710] On Provençal poetry see Diez, Poesie der Troubadours (2nd ed. by Bartsch, Leipzig, 1883); id., Leben und Werke der Troubadours; Justin H. Smith, The Troubadours at Home (New York and London, 1899); Ida Farnell, Lives of the Troubadours (London).

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

[712] On this work see Gaston Paris, Romania, xii. 524 sqq. (1883); id. in Journal des savants, 1888, pp. 664 sqq. and 727 sqq.; also (for extracts) Raynouard, Choix des poésies des Troubadours, ii. lxxx. sqq.

[713] On origins and sources see, generally, Gaston Paris, Tristan and Iseult (Paris, 1894), reprinted from Revue de Paris of April 15, 1894; W. Golther, Die Sage von Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 1887).

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

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

[716] Paulin Paris, Romans de la Table Ronde, iv. 280 sqq.

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

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

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

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

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

[720] As in Chrétien’s Cligés, 6751 sqq., when Cligés is crowned emperor and Fenice becomes his queen, then: De s’amie a feite sa fame—but he still calls her amie et dame, that he may not cease to love her as one should an amie. Cf. also Chrétien’s Erec, 4689.

[721] See also Gawain’s words to Ivain when the latter is married—in Chrétien’s Ivain, 2484 sqq.

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

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

[724] The Fisher King (roi pêcheur) was the regular title of the Grail kings. See e.g. Pauline Paris, Romans de la Table Ronde, t. i. p. 306.

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