Chapter IX · [a] (continued 3)

I have already had occasion to relate the severe persecution which nearly exterminated the Albigenses of Languedoc at the close of the twelfth century, and involved the counts of Toulouse in their ruin. The Catharists, a fraternity of the same Paulician origin, more dispersed than the Albigenses, had previously sustained a similar trial. Their belief was certainly a compound of strange errors with truth; but it was attended by qualities of a far superior lustre to orthodoxy, by a sincerity, a piety, and a self-devotion that almost purified the age in which they lived.[b] It is always important to perceive that these high moral excellences have no necessary connexion with speculative truths; and upon this account I have been more disposed to state explicitly the real Manicheism of the Albigenses; especially as Protestant writers, considering all the enemies of Rome as their friends, have been apt to place the opinions of these sectaries in a very false light. In the course of time, undoubtedly, the system of their Paulician teachers would have yielded, if the inquisitors had admitted the experiment, to a more accurate study of the Scriptures, and to the knowledge which they would have imbibed from the church itself. And, in fact, we find that the peculiar tenets of Manicheism died away after the middle of the thirteenth century, although a spirit of dissent from the established creed broke out in abundant instances during the two subsequent ages.

We are in general deprived of explicit testimonies in tracing the revolutions of popular opinion. Much must therefore be left to conjecture; but I am inclined to attribute a very extensive effect to the preaching of these heretics. They appear in various countries nearly during the same period, in Spain, Lombardy, Germany, Flanders, and England, as well as France. Thirty unhappy persons, convicted of denying the sacraments, are said to have perished at Oxford by cold and famine in the reign of Henry II. In every country the new sects appear to have spread chiefly among the lower people, which, while it accounts for the imperfect notice of historians, indicates a more substantial influence upon the moral condition of society than the conversion of a few nobles or ecclesiastics.[c]

But even where men did not absolutely enlist under the banners of any new sect, they were stimulated by the temper of their age to a more zealous and independent discussion of their religious system. A curious illustration of this is furnished by one of the letters of Innocent III. He had been informed by the bishop of Metz, as he states to the clergy of the diocese, that no small multitude of laymen and women, having procured a translation of the gospels, epistles of St. Paul, the psalter, Job, and other books of Scripture, to be made for them into French, meet in secret conventicles to hear them read, and preach to each other, avoiding the company of those who do not join in their devotion, and having been reprimanded for this by some of their parish priests, have withstood them, alleging reasons from the Scriptures, why they should not be so forbidden. Some of them too deride the ignorance of their ministers, and maintain that their own books teach them more than they can learn from the pulpit, and that they can express it better. Although the desire of reading the Scriptures, Innocent proceeds, is rather praiseworthy than reprehensible, yet they are to be blamed for frequenting secret assemblies, for usurping the office of preaching, deriding their own ministers, and scorning the company of such as do not concur in their novelties. He presses the bishop and chapter to discover the author of this translation, which could not have been made without a knowledge of letters, and what were his intentions, and what degree of orthodoxy and respect for the Holy See those who used it possessed. This letter of Innocent III., however, considering the nature of the man, is sufficiently temperate and conciliatory. It seems not to have answered its end; for in another letter he complains that some members of this little association continued refractory and refused to obey either the bishop or the pope.[d]

In the eighth and ninth centuries, when the Vulgate had ceased to be generally intelligible, there is no reason to suspect any intention in the church to deprive the laity of the Scriptures. Translations were freely made into the vernacular languages, and perhaps read in churches, although the acts of saints were generally deemed more instructive. Louis the Debonair is said to have caused a German version of the New Testament to be made. Otfrid, in the same century, rendered the gospels, or rather abridged them, into German verse. This work is still extant, and is in several respects an object of curiosity.[e] In the eleventh or twelfth century we find translations of the Psalms, Job, Kings, and the Maccabees into French.[f] But after the diffusion of heretical opinions, or, what was much the same thing, of free inquiry, it became expedient to secure the orthodox faith from lawless interpretation. Accordingly, the council of Toulouse in 1229 prohibited the laity from possessing the Scriptures; and this precaution was frequently repeated upon subsequent occasions.[g]

The ecclesiastical history of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries teems with new sectaries and schismatics, various in their aberrations of opinion, but all concurring in detestation of the established church.[h] They endured severe persecutions with a sincerity and firmness which in any cause ought to command respect. But in general we find an extravagant fanaticism among them; and I do not know how to look for any amelioration of society from the Franciscan seceders, who quibbled about the property of things consumed by use, or from the mystical visionaries of different appellations, whose moral practice was sometimes more than equivocal. Those who feel any curiosity about such subjects, which are by no means unimportant, as they illustrate the history of the human mind, will find them treated very fully by Mosheim. But the original sources of information are not always accessible in this country, and the research would perhaps be more fatiguing than profitable.

Lollards of England.

I shall, for an opposite reason, pass lightly over the great revolution in religious opinion wrought in England by Wicliffe, which will generally be familiar to the reader from our common historians. Nor am I concerned to treat of theological inquiries, or to write a history of the church. Considered in its effects upon manners, the sole point which these pages have in view, the preaching of this new sect certainly produced an extensive reformation. But their virtues were by no means free from some unsocial qualities, in which, as well as in their superior attributes, the Lollards bear a very close resemblance to the Puritans of Elizabeth's reign; a moroseness that proscribed all cheerful amusements, an uncharitable malignity that made no distinction in condemning the established clergy, and a narrow prejudice that applied the rules of the Jewish law to modern institutions.[i] Some of their principles were far more dangerous to the good order of society, and cannot justly be ascribed to the Puritans, though they grew afterwards out of the same soil. Such was the notion, which is imputed also to the Albigenses, that civil magistrates lose their right to govern by committing sin, or, as it was quaintly expressed in the seventeenth century, that dominion is founded in grace. These extravagances, however, do not belong to the learned and politic Wicliffe, however they might be adopted by some of his enthusiastic disciples.[k] Fostered by the general ill-will towards the church, his principles made vast progress in England, and, unlike those of earlier sectaries, were embraced by men of rank and civil influence. Notwithstanding the check they sustained by the sanguinary law of Henry IV., it is highly probable that multitudes secretly cherished them down to the era of the Reformation.

Hussites of Bohemia.

From England the spirit of religious innovation was propagated into Bohemia; for though John Huss was very far from embracing all the doctrinal system of Wicliffe, it is manifest that his zeal had been quickened by the writings of that reformer.[m] Inferior to the Englishman in ability, but exciting greater attention by his constancy and sufferings, as well as by the memorable war which his ashes kindled, the Bohemian martyr was even more eminently the precursor of the Reformation. But still regarding these dissensions merely in a temporal light, I cannot assign any beneficial effect to the schism of the Hussites, at least in its immediate results, and in the country where it appeared. Though some degree of sympathy with their cause is inspired by resentment at the ill faith of their adversaries, and by the associations of civil and religious liberty, we cannot estimate the Taborites and other sectaries of that description but as ferocious and desperate fanatics.[n] Perhaps beyond the confines of Bohemia more substantial good may have been produced by the influence of its reformation, and a better tone of morals inspired into Germany. But I must again repeat that upon this obscure and ambiguous subject I assert nothing definitely, and little with confidence. The tendencies of religious dissent in the four ages before the Reformation appear to have generally conduced towards the moral improvement of mankind; and facts of this nature occupy a far greater space in a philosophical view of society during that period, than we might at first imagine; but every one who is disposed to prosecute this inquiry will assign their character according to the result of his own investigations.

Institution of chivalry.

But the best school of moral discipline which the middle ages afforded was the institution of chivalry. There is something perhaps to allow for the partiality of modern writers upon this interesting subject; yet our most sceptical criticism must assign a decisive influence to this great source of human improvement. The more deeply it is considered, the more we shall become sensible of its importance.

There are, if I may so say, three powerful spirits which have from time to time moved over the face of the waters, and given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind. These are the spirits of liberty, of religion, and of honour. It was the principal business of chivalry to animate and cherish the last of these three. And whatever high magnanimous energy the love of liberty or religious zeal has ever imparted was equalled by the exquisite sense of honour which this institution preserved.

Its origin.

It appears probable that the custom of receiving arms at the age of manhood with some solemnity was of immemorial antiquity among the nations that overthrew the Roman empire. For it is mentioned by Tacitus to have prevailed among their German ancestors; and his expressions might have been used with no great variation to describe the actual ceremonies of knighthood.[o] There was even in that remote age a sort of public trial as to the fitness of the candidate, which, though perhaps confined to his bodily strength and activity, might be the germ of that refined investigation which was thought necessary in the perfect stage of chivalry. Proofs, though rare and incidental, might be adduced to show that in the time of Charlemagne, and even earlier, the sons of monarchs at least did not assume manly arms without a regular investiture. And in the eleventh century it is evident that this was a general practice.[p]

This ceremony, however, would perhaps of itself have done little towards forming that intrinsic principle which characterized the genuine chivalry. But in the reign of Charlemagne we find a military distinction that appears, in fact as well as in name, to have given birth to that institution. Certain feudal tenants, and I suppose also alodial proprietors, were bound to serve on horseback, equipped with the coat of mail. These were called Caballarii, from which the word chevaliers is an obvious corruption.[q] But he who fought on horseback, and had been invested with peculiar arms in a solemn manner, wanted nothing more to render him a knight. Chivalry therefore may, in a general sense, be referred to the age of Charlemagne. We may, however, go further, and observe that these distinctive advantages above ordinary combatants were probably the sources of that remarkable valour and that keen thirst for glory, which became the essential attributes of a knightly character. For confidence in our skill and strength is the usual foundation of courage; it is by feeling ourselves able to surmount common dangers, that we become adventurous enough to encounter those of a more extraordinary nature, and to which more glory is attached. The reputation of superior personal prowess, so difficult to be attained in the course of modern warfare, and so liable to erroneous representations, was always within the reach of the stoutest knight, and was founded on claims which could be measured with much accuracy. Such is the subordination and mutual dependence in a modern army, that every man must be content to divide his glory with his comrades, his general, or his soldiers. But the soul of chivalry was individual honour, coveted in so entire and absolute a perfection that it must not be shared with an army or a nation. Most of the virtues it inspired were what we may call independent, as opposed to those which are founded upon social relations. The knights-errant of romance perform their best exploits from the love of renown, or from a sort of abstract sense of justice, rather than from any solicitude to promote the happiness of mankind. If these springs of action are less generally beneficial, they are, however, more connected with elevation of character than the systematical prudence of men accustomed to social life. This solitary and independent spirit of chivalry, dwelling, as it were, upon a rock, and disdaining injustice or falsehood from a consciousness of internal dignity, without any calculation of their consequences, is not unlike what we sometimes read of Arabian chiefs or the North American Indians.[r] These nations, so widely remote from each other, seem to partake of that moral energy, which, among European nations far remote from both of them, was excited by the spirit of chivalry. But the most beautiful picture that was ever portrayed of this character is the Achilles of Homer, the representative of chivalry in its most general form, with all its sincerity and unyielding rectitude, all its courtesies and munificence. Calmly indifferent to the cause in which he is engaged, and contemplating with a serious and unshaken look the premature death that awaits him, his heart only beats for glory and friendship. To this sublime character, bating that imaginary completion by which the creations of the poet, like those of the sculptor, transcend all single works of nature, there were probably many parallels in the ages of chivalry; especially before a set education and the refinements of society had altered a little the natural unadulterated warrior of a ruder period. One illustrious example from this earlier age is the Cid Ruy Diaz, whose history has fortunately been preserved much at length in several chronicles of ancient date and in one valuable poem; and though I will not say that the Spanish hero is altogether a counterpart of Achilles in gracefulness and urbanity, yet was he inferior to none that ever lived in frankness, honour, and magnanimity.[s]

Its connexion with feudal service.

This connexion broken.

In the first state of chivalry, it was closely connected with the military service of fiefs. The Caballarii in the Capitularies, the Milites of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were landholders who followed their lord or sovereign into the field. A certain value of land was termed in England a knight's fee, or in Normandy feudum loricæ, fief de haubert, from the coat of mail which it entitled and required the tenant to wear; a military tenure was said to be by service in chivalry. To serve as knights, mounted and equipped, was the common duty of vassals; it implied no personal merit, it gave of itself a claim to no civil privileges. But this knight-service founded upon a feudal obligation is to be carefully distinguished from that superior chivalry, in which all was independent and voluntary. The latter, in fact, could hardly flourish in its full perfection till the military service of feudal tenure began to decline; namely, in the thirteenth century. The origin of this personal chivalry I should incline to refer to the ancient usage of voluntary commendation, which I have mentioned in a former chapter. Men commended themselves, that is, did homage and professed attachment to a prince or lord; generally indeed for protection or the hope of reward, but sometimes probably for the sake of distinguishing themselves in his quarrels. When they received pay, which must have been the usual case, they were literally his soldiers, or stipendiary troops. Those who could afford to exert their valour without recompense were like the knights of whom we read in romance, who served a foreign master through love, or thirst of glory, or gratitude. The extreme poverty of the lower nobility, arising from the subdivision of fiefs, and the politic generosity of rich lords, made this connexion as strong as that of territorial dependence. A younger brother, leaving the paternal estate, in which he took a slender share, might look to wealth and dignity in the service of a powerful count. Knighthood, which he could not claim as his legal right, became the object of his chief ambition. It raised him in the scale of society, equalling him in dress, in arms, and in title, to the rich landholders. As it was due to his merit, it did much more than equal him to those who had no pretensions but from wealth; and the territorial knights became by degrees ashamed of assuming the title till they could challenge it by real desert.

Effect of the crusades on chivalry.

This class of noble and gallant cavaliers serving commonly for pay, but on the most honourable footing, became far more numerous through the crusades; a great epoch in the history of European society. In these wars, as all feudal service was out of the question, it was necessary for the richer barons to take into their pay as many knights as they could afford to maintain; speculating, so far as such motives operated, on an influence with the leaders of the expedition, and on a share of plunder, proportioned to the number of their followers. During the period of the crusades, we find the institution of chivalry acquire its full vigour as an order of personal nobility; and its original connexion with feudal tenure, if not altogether effaced, became in a great measure forgotten in the splendour and dignity of the new form which it wore.

Chivalry connected with religion.

The crusaders, however, changed in more than one respect the character of chivalry. Before that epoch it appears to have had no particular reference to religion. Ingulfus indeed tells us that the Anglo-Saxons preceded the ceremony of investiture by a confession of their sins, and other pious rites, and they received the order at the hands of a priest, instead of a knight. But this was derided by the Normans as effeminacy, and seems to have proceeded from the extreme devotion of the English before the Conquest.[t] We can hardly perceive indeed why the assumption of arms to be used in butchering mankind should be treated as a religious ceremony. The clergy, to do them justice, constantly opposed the private wars in which the courage of those ages wasted itself; and all bloodshed was subject in strictness to a canonical penance. But the purposes for which men bore arms in a crusade so sanctified their use, that chivalry acquired the character as much of a religious as a military institution. For many centuries, the recovery of the Holy Land was constantly at the heart of a brave and superstitious nobility; and every knight was supposed at his creation to pledge himself, as occasion should arise, to that cause. Meanwhile, the defence of God's law against infidels was his primary and standing duty. A knight, whenever present at mass, held the point of his sword before him while the gospel was read, to signify his readiness to support it. Writers of the middle ages compare the knightly to the priestly character in an elaborate parallel, and the investiture of the one was supposed analogous to the ordination of the other. The ceremonies upon this occasion were almost wholly religious. The candidate passed nights in prayer among priests in a church; he received the sacraments; he entered into a bath, and was clad with a white robe, in allusion to the presumed purification of his life; his sword was solemnly blessed; every thing, in short, was contrived to identify his new condition with the defence of religion, or at least of the church.[u]

And with gallantry.

To this strong tincture of religion which entered into the composition of chivalry from the twelfth century, was added another ingredient equally distinguishing. A great respect for the female sex had always been a remarkable characteristic of the Northern nations. The German women were high-spirited and virtuous; qualities which might be causes or consequences of the veneration with which they were regarded. I am not sure that we could trace very minutely the condition of women for the period between the subversion of the Roman empire and the first crusade; but apparently man did not grossly abuse his superiority; and in point of civil rights, and even as to the inheritance of property, the two sexes were placed perhaps as nearly on a level as the nature of such warlike societies would admit. There seems, however, to have been more roughness in the social intercourse between the sexes than we find in later periods. The spirit of gallantry which became so animating a principle of chivalry, must be ascribed to the progressive refinement of society during the twelfth and two succeeding centuries. In a rude state of manners, as among the lower people in all ages, woman has not full scope to display those fascinating graces, by which nature has designed to counterbalance the strength and energy of mankind. Even where those jealous customs that degrade alike the two sexes have not prevailed, her lot is domestic seclusion; nor is she fit to share in the boisterous pastimes of drunken merriment to which the intercourse of an unpolished people is confined. But as a taste for the more elegant enjoyments of wealth arises, a taste which it is always her policy and her delight to nourish, she obtains an ascendency at first in the lighter hour, and from thence in the serious occupations of life. She chases, or brings into subjection, the god of wine, a victory which might seem more ignoble were it less difficult, and calls in the aid of divinities more propitious to her ambition. The love of becoming ornament is not perhaps to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman has received from nature to give effect to those charms that are her defence; and when commerce began to minister more effectually to the wants of luxury, the rich furs of the North, the gay silks of Asia, the wrought gold of domestic manufacture, illumined the halls of chivalry, and cast, as if by the spell of enchantment, that ineffable grace over beauty which the choice and arrangement of dress is calculated to bestow. Courtesy had always been the proper attribute of knighthood; protection of the weak its legitimate duty; but these were heightened to a pitch of enthusiasm when woman became their object. There was little jealousy shown in the treatment of that sex, at least in France, the fountain of chivalry; they were present at festivals, at tournaments, and sat promiscuously in the halls of their castle. The romance of Perceforest (and romances have always been deemed good witnesses as to manners) tells of a feast where eight hundred knights had each of them a lady eating off his plate.[x] For to eat off the same plate was an usual mark of gallantry or friendship.

Next therefore, or even equal to devotion, stood gallantry among the principles of knighthood. But all comparison between the two was saved by blending them together. The love of God and the ladies was enjoined as a single duty. He who was faithful and true to his mistress was held sure of salvation in the theology of castles though not of cloisters.[y] Froissart announces that he had undertaken a collection of amorous poetry with the help of God and of love; and Boccace returns thanks to each for their assistance in the Decameron. The laws sometimes united in this general homage to the fair. "We will," says James II. of Aragon, "that every man, whether knight or no, who shall be in company with a lady, pass safe and unmolested, unless he be guilty of murder."[z] Louis II., duke of Bourbon, instituting the order of the Golden Shield, enjoins his knights to honour above all the ladies, and not to permit any one to slander them, "because from them after God comes all the honour that men can acquire."[a]

The gallantry of those ages, which was very often adulterous, had certainly no right to profane the name of religion; but its union with valour was at least more natural, and became so intimate, that the same word has served to express both qualities. In the French and English wars especially, the knights of each country brought to that serious conflict the spirit of romantic attachment which had been cherished in the hours of peace. They fought at Poitiers or Verneuil as they had fought at tournaments, bearing over their armour scarves and devices as the livery of their mistresses, and asserting the paramount beauty of her they served in vaunting challenges towards the enemy. Thus in the middle of a keen skirmish at Cherbourg, the squadrons remained motionless, while one knight challenged to a single combat the most amorous of the adversaries. Such a defiance was soon accepted, and the battle only recommenced when one of the champions had lost his life for his love.[b] In the first campaign of Edward's war some young English knights wore a covering over one eye, vowing, for the sake of their ladies, never to see with both till they should have signalized their prowess in the field.[c] These extravagances of chivalry are so common that they form part of its general character, and prove how far a course of action which depends upon the impulses of sentiment may come to deviate from common sense.

It cannot be presumed that this enthusiastic veneration, this devotedness in life and death, were wasted upon ungrateful natures. The goddesses of that idolatry knew too well the value of their worshippers. There has seldom been such adamant about the female heart, as can resist the highest renown for valour and courtesy, united with the steadiest fidelity. "He loved," says Froissart of Eustace d'Auberthicourt, "and afterwards married lady Isabel, daughter of the count of Juliers. This lady too loved lord Eustace for the great exploits in arms which she heard told of him, and she sent him horses and loving letters, which made the said lord Eustace more bold than before, and he wrought such feats of chivalry, that all in his company were gainers."[d] It were to be wished that the sympathy of love and valour had always been as honourable. But the morals of chivalry, we cannot deny, were not pure. In the amusing fictions which seem to have been the only popular reading of the middle ages, there reigns a licentious spirit, not of that slighter kind which is usual in such compositions, but indicating a general dissoluteness in the intercourse of the sexes. This has often been noticed of Boccaccio and the early Italian novelists; but it equally characterized the tales and romances of France, whether metrical or in prose, and all the poetry of the Troubadours.[e] The violation of marriage vows passes in them for an incontestable privilege of the brave and the fair; and an accomplished knight seems to have enjoyed as undoubted prerogatives, by general consent of opinion, as were claimed by the brilliant courtiers of Louis XV.

Virtues deemed essential to chivalry.

But neither that emulous valour which chivalry excited, nor the religion and gallantry which were its animating principles, alloyed as the latter were by the corruption of those ages, could have rendered its institution materially conducive to the moral improvement of society. There were, however, excellences of a very high class which it equally encouraged. In the books professedly written to lay down the duties of knighthood, they appear to spread over the whole compass of human obligations. But these, like other books of morality, strain their schemes of perfection far beyond the actual practice of mankind. A juster estimate of chivalrous manners is to be deduced from romances. Yet in these, as in all similar fictions, there must be a few ideal touches beyond the simple truth of character; and the picture can only be interesting when it ceases to present images of mediocrity or striking imperfection. But they referred their models of fictitious heroism to the existing standard of moral approbation; a rule, which, if it generally falls short of what reason and religion prescribe, is always beyond the average tenor of human conduct. From these and from history itself we may infer the tendency of chivalry to elevate and purify the moral feelings. Three virtues may particularly be noticed as essential in the estimation of mankind to the character of a knight; loyalty, courtesy, and munificence.

Loyalty.

The first of these in its original sense may be defined, fidelity to engagements; whether actual promises, or such tacit obligations as bound a vassal to his lord and a subject to his prince. It was applied also, and in the utmost strictness, to the fidelity of a lover towards the lady he served. Breach of faith, and especially of an express promise, was held a disgrace that no valour could redeem. False, perjured, disloyal, recreant, were the epithets which he must be compelled to endure who had swerved from a plighted engagement even towards an enemy. This is one of the most striking changes produced by chivalry. Treachery, the usual vice of savage as well as corrupt nations, became infamous during the vigour of that discipline. As personal rather than national feelings actuated its heroes, they never felt that hatred, much less that fear of their enemies, which blind men to the heinousness of ill faith. In the wars of Edward III., originating in no real animosity, the spirit of honourable as well as courteous behaviour towards the foe seems to have arrived at its highest point. Though avarice may have been the primary motive of ransoming prisoners instead of putting them to death, their permission to return home on the word of honour in order to procure the stipulated sum—an indulgence never refused—could only be founded on experienced confidence in the principles of chivalry.[f]

Courtesy.

Liberality.

A knight was unfit to remain a member of the order if he violated his faith; he was ill acquainted with its duties if he proved wanting in courtesy. This word expressed the most highly refined good breeding, founded less upon a knowledge of ceremonious politeness, though this was not to be omitted, than on the spontaneous modesty, self-denial, and respect for others, which ought to spring from his heart. Besides the grace which this beautiful virtue threw over the habits of social life, it softened down the natural roughness of war, and gradually introduced that indulgent treatment of prisoners which was almost unknown to antiquity. Instances of this kind are continual in the later period of the middle ages. An Italian writer blames the soldier who wounded Eccelin, the famous tyrant of Padua, after he was taken. "He deserved," says he, "no praise, but rather the greatest infamy for his baseness; since it is as vile an act to wound a prisoner, whether noble or otherwise, as to strike a dead body."[g] Considering the crimes of Eccelin, this sentiment is a remarkable proof of generosity. The behaviour of Edward III. to Eustace de Ribaumont, after the capture of Calais, and that, still more exquisitely beautiful, of the Black Prince to his royal prisoner at Poitiers, are such eminent instances of chivalrous virtue, that I omit to repeat them only because they are so well known. Those great princes too might be imagined to have soared far above the ordinary track of mankind. But in truth, the knights who surrounded them and imitated their excellences, were only inferior in opportunities of displaying the same virtue. After the battle of Poitiers, "the English and Gascon knights," says Froissart, "having entertained their prisoners, went home each of them with the knights or squires he had taken, whom he then questioned upon their honour what ransom they could pay without inconvenience, and easily gave them credit; and it was common for men to say, that they would not straiten any knight or squire so that he should not live well and keep up his honour."[h] Liberality, indeed, and disdain of money, might be reckoned, as I have said, among the essential virtues of chivalry. All the romances inculcate the duty of scattering their wealth with profusion, especially towards minstrels, pilgrims, and the poorer members of their own order. The last, who were pretty numerous, had a constant right to succour from the opulent; the castle of every lord, who respected the ties of knighthood, was open with more than usual hospitality to the traveller whose armour announced his dignity, though it might also conceal his poverty.[i]

Justice.

Valour, loyalty, courtesy, munificence, formed collectively the character of an accomplished knight, so far as was displayed in the ordinary tenor of his life, reflecting these virtues as an unsullied mirror. Yet something more was required for the perfect idea of chivalry, and enjoined by its principles; an active sense of justice, an ardent indignation against wrong, a determination of courage to its best end, the prevention or redress of injury. It grew up as a salutary antidote in the midst of poisons, while scarce any law but that of the strongest obtained regard, and the rights of territorial property, which are only rights as they conduce to general good, became the means of general oppression. The real condition of society, it has sometimes been thought, might suggest stories of knight-errantry, which were wrought up into the popular romances of the middle ages. A baron, abusing the advantage of an inaccessible castle in the fastnesses of the Black Forest or the Alps, to pillage the neighbourhood and confine travellers in his dungeon, though neither a giant nor a Saracen, was a monster not less formidable, and could perhaps as little be destroyed without the aid of disinterested bravery. Knight-errantry, indeed, as a profession, cannot rationally be conceived to have had any existence beyond the precincts of romance. Yet there seems no improbability in supposing that a knight, journeying through uncivilized regions in his way to the Holy Land, or to the court of a foreign sovereign, might find himself engaged in adventures not very dissimilar to those which are the theme of romance. We cannot indeed expect to find any historical evidence of such incidents.

Resemblance of chivalrous to eastern manners.

The characteristic virtues of chivalry bear so much resemblance to those which eastern writers of the same period extol, that I am a little disposed to suspect Europe of having derived some improvement from imitation of Asia. Though the crusades began in abhorrence of infidels, this sentiment wore off in some degree before their cessation; and the regular intercourse of commerce, sometimes of alliance, between the Christians of Palestine and the Saracens, must have removed part of the prejudice, while experience of their enemy's courage and generosity in war would with those gallant knights serve to lighten the remainder. The romancers expatiate with pleasure on the merits of Saladin, who actually received the honour of knighthood from Hugh of Tabaria, his prisoner. An ancient poem, entitled the Order of Chivalry, is founded upon this story, and contains a circumstantial account of the ceremonies, as well as duties, which the institution required.[k] One or two other instances of a similar kind bear witness to the veneration in which the name of knight was held among the eastern nations. And certainly the Mohammedan chieftains were for the most part abundantly qualified to fulfil the duties of European chivalry. Their manners had been polished and courteous, while the western kingdoms were comparatively barbarous.

Evils produced by the spirit of chivalry.

The principles of chivalry were not, I think, naturally productive of many evils. For it is unjust to class those acts of oppression or disorder among the abuses of knighthood, which were committed in spite of its regulations, and were only prevented by them from becoming more extensive. The licence of times so imperfectly civilized could not be expected to yield to institutions, which, like those of religion, fell prodigiously short in their practical result of the reformation which they were designed to work. Man's guilt and frailty have never admitted more than a partial corrective. But some bad consequences may be more fairly ascribed to the very nature of chivalry. I have already mentioned the dissoluteness which almost unavoidably resulted from the prevailing tone of gallantry. And yet we sometimes find in the writings of those times a spirit of pure but exaggerated sentiment; and the most fanciful refinements of passion are mingled by the same poets with the coarsest immorality. An undue thirst for military renown was another fault that chivalry must have nourished; and the love of war, sufficiently pernicious in any shape, was more founded, as I have observed, on personal feelings of honour, and less on public spirit, than in the citizens of free states. A third reproach may be made to the character of knighthood, that it widened the separation between the different classes of society, and confirmed that aristocratical spirit of high birth, by which the large mass of mankind were kept in unjust degradation. Compare the generosity of Edward III. towards Eustace de Ribaumont at the siege of Calais with the harshness of his conduct towards the citizens. This may be illustrated by a story from Joinville, who was himself imbued with the full spirit of chivalry, and felt like the best and bravest of his age. He is speaking of Henry count of Champagne, who acquired, says he, very deservedly, the surname of Liberal, and adduces the following proof of it. A poor knight implored of him on his knees one day as much money as would serve to marry his two daughters. One Arthault de Nogent, a rich burgess, willing to rid the count of this importunity, but rather awkward, we must own, in the turn of his argument, said to the petitioner; My lord has already given away so much that he has nothing left. Sir Villain, replied Henry, turning round to him, you do not speak truth in saying that I have nothing left to give, when I have got yourself. Here, Sir Knight, I give you this man and warrant your possession of him. Then, says Joinville, the poor knight was not at all confounded, but seized hold of the burgess fast by the collar, and told him he should not go till he had ransomed himself. And in the end he was forced to pay a ransom of five hundred pounds. The simple-minded writer who brings this evidence of the count of Champagne's liberality is not at all struck with the facility of a virtue that is exercised at the cost of others.[m]

Circumstances tending to promote it.

There is perhaps enough in the nature of this institution and its congeniality to the habits of a warlike generation to account for the respect in which it was held throughout Europe. But several collateral circumstances served to invigorate its spirit. Besides the powerful efficacy with which the poetry and romance of the middle ages stimulated those susceptible minds which were alive to no other literature, we may enumerate four distinct causes tending to the promotion of chivalry.

Regular education for knighthood.

The first of these was the regular scheme of education, according to which the sons of gentlemen from the age of seven years, were brought up in the castles of superior lords, where they at once learned the whole discipline of their future profession, and imbibed its emulous and enthusiastic spirit. This was an inestimable advantage to the poorer nobility, who could hardly otherwise have given their children the accomplishments of their station. From seven to fourteen these boys were called pages or varlets; at fourteen they bore the name of esquire. They were instructed in the management of arms, in the art of horsemanship, in exercises of strength and activity. They became accustomed to obedience and courteous demeanour, serving their lord or lady in offices which had not yet become derogatory to honourable birth, and striving to please visitors, and especially ladies, at the ball or banquet. Thus placed in the centre of all that could awaken their imaginations, the creed of chivalrous gallantry, superstition, or honour must have made indelible impressions. Panting for the glory which neither their strength nor the established rules permitted them to anticipate, the young scions of chivalry attended their masters to the tournament, and even to the battle, and riveted with a sigh the armour they were forbidden to wear.[n]

Encouragement of princes. Tournaments.

It was the constant policy of sovereigns to encourage this institution, which furnished them with faithful supports, and counteracted the independent spirit of feudal tenure. Hence they displayed a lavish magnificence in festivals and tournaments, which may be reckoned a second means of keeping up the tone of chivalrous feeling. The kings of France and England held solemn or plenary courts at the great festivals, or at other times, where the name of knight was always a title to admittance; and the masque of chivalry, if I may use the expression, was acted in pageants and ceremonies fantastical enough in our apprehension, but well calculated for those heated understandings. Here the peacock and the pheasant, birds of high fame in romance, received the homage of all true knights.[o] The most singular festival of this kind was that celebrated by Philip duke of Burgundy, in 1453. In the midst of the banquet a pageant was introduced, representing the calamitous state of religion in consequence of the recent capture of Constantinople. This was followed by the appearance of a pheasant, which was laid before the duke, and to which the knights present addressed their vows to undertake a crusade, in the following very characteristic preamble: I swear before God my Creator in the first place, and the glorious Virgin his mother, and next before the ladies and the pheasant.[p] Tournaments were a still more powerful incentive to emulation. These may be considered to have arisen about the middle of the eleventh century; for though every martial people have found diversion in representing the image of war, yet the name of tournaments, and the laws that regulated them, cannot be traced any higher.[q] Every scenic performance of modern times must be tame in comparison of these animating combats. At a tournament, the space enclosed within the lists was surrounded by sovereign princes and their noblest barons, by knights of established renown, and all that rank and beauty had most distinguished among the fair. Covered with steel, and known only by their emblazoned shield or by the favours of their mistresses, a still prouder bearing, the combatants rushed forward to a strife without enmity, but not without danger. Though their weapons were pointless, and sometimes only of wood, though they were bound by the laws of tournaments to strike only upon the strong armour of the trunk, or, as it was called, between the four limbs, those impetuous conflicts often terminated in wounds and death. The church uttered her excommunications in vain against so wanton an exposure to peril; but it was more easy for her to excite than to restrain that martial enthusiasm. Victory in a tournament was little less glorious, and perhaps at the moment more exquisitely felt, than in the field; since no battle could assemble such witnesses of valour. "Honour to the sons of the brave," resounded amidst the din of martial music from the lips of the minstrels, as the conqueror advanced to receive the prize from his queen or his mistress; while the surrounding multitude acknowledged in his prowess of that day an augury of triumphs that might in more serious contests be blended with those of his country.[r]

Privileges of knighthood.

Both honorary and substantial privileges belonged to the condition of knighthood, and had of course a material tendency to preserve its credit. A knight was distinguished abroad by his crested helmet, his weighty armour, whether of mail or plate, bearing his heraldic coat, by his gilded spurs, his horse barded with iron, or clothed in housing of gold; at home, by richer silks and more costly furs than were permitted to squires, and by the appropriated colour of scarlet. He was addressed by titles of more respect.[s] Many civil offices, by rule or usage, were confined to his order. But perhaps its chief privilege was to form one distinct class of nobility extending itself throughout great part of Europe, and almost independent, as to its rights and dignities, of any particular sovereign. Whoever had been legitimately dubbed a knight in one country became, as it were, a citizen of universal chivalry, and might assume most of its privileges in any other. Nor did he require the act of a sovereign to be thus distinguished. It was a fundamental principle that any knight might confer the order; responsible only in his own reputation if he used lightly so high a prerogative. But as all the distinctions of rank might have been confounded, if this right had been without limit, it was an equally fundamental rule, that it could only be exercised in favour of gentlemen.[t]

The privileges annexed to chivalry were of peculiar advantage to the vavassors, or inferior gentry, as they tended to counterbalance the influence which territorial wealth threw into the scale of their feudal suzerains. Knighthood brought these two classes nearly to a level; and it is owing perhaps in no small degree to this institution that the lower nobility saved themselves, notwithstanding their poverty, from being confounded with the common people.

Connexion of chivalry with military service.

Knights-bannerets and bachelors.

Lastly, the customs of chivalry were maintained by their connexion with military service. After armies, which we may call comparatively regular, had superseded in a great degree the feudal militia, princes were anxious to bid high for the service of knights, the best-equipped and bravest warriors of the time, on whose prowess the fate of battles was for a long period justly supposed to depend. War brought into relief the generous virtues of chivalry, and gave lustre to its distinctive privileges. The rank was sought with enthusiastic emulation through heroic achievements, to which, rather than to mere wealth and station, it was considered to belong. In the wars of France and England, by far the most splendid period of this institution, a promotion of knights followed every success, besides the innumerable cases where the same honour rewarded individual bravery.[u] It may here be mentioned that an honorary distinction was made between knights-bannerets and bachelors.[x] The former were the richest and best accompanied. No man could properly be a banneret unless he possessed a certain estate, and could bring a certain number of lances into the field.[y] His distinguishing mark was the square banner, carried by a squire at the point of his lance; while the knight-bachelor had only the coronet or pointed pendant. When a banneret was created, the general cut off this pendant to render the banner square.[z] But this distinction, however it elevated the banneret, gave him no claim to military command, except over his own dependents or men at arms. Chandos was still a knight-bachelor when he led part of the prince of Wales's army into Spain. He first raised his banner at the battle of Navarette; and the narration that Froissart gives of the ceremony will illustrate the manners of chivalry and the character of that admirable hero, the conqueror of Du Guesclin and pride of English chivalry, whose fame with posterity has been a little overshadowed by his master's laurels.[a] What seems more extraordinary is, that mere squires had frequently the command over knights. Proofs of this are almost continual in Froissart. But the vast estimation in which men held the dignity of knighthood led them sometimes to defer it for great part of their lives, in hope of signalizing their investiture by some eminent exploit.

Decline of chivalry.

These appear to have been the chief means of nourishing the principles of chivalry among the nobility of Europe. But notwithstanding all encouragement, it underwent the usual destiny of human institutions. St. Palaye, to whom we are indebted for so vivid a picture of ancient manners, ascribes the decline of chivalry in France to the profusion with which the order was lavished under Charles VI., to the establishment of the companies of ordonnance by Charles VII., and to the extension of knightly honours to lawyers, and other men of civil occupation, by Francis I.[b] But the real principle of decay was something different from these three subordinate circumstances, unless so far as it may bear some relation to the second. It was the invention of gunpowder that eventually overthrew chivalry. From the time when the use of fire-arms became tolerably perfect the weapons of former warfare lost their efficacy, and physical force was reduced to a very subordinate place in the accomplishments of a soldier. The advantages of a disciplined infantry became more sensible; and the lancers, who continued till almost the end of the sixteenth century to charge in a long line, felt the punishment of their presumption and indiscipline. Even in the wars of Edward III., the disadvantageous tactics of chivalry must have been perceptible; but the military art had not been sufficiently studied to overcome the prejudices of men eager for individual distinction. Tournaments became less frequent; and, after the fatal accident of Henry II., were entirely discontinued in France. Notwithstanding the convulsions of the religious wars, the sixteenth century was more tranquil than any that had preceded; and thus a large part of the nobility passed their lives in pacific habits, and if they assumed the honours of chivalry, forgot their natural connexion with military prowess. This is far more applicable to England, where, except from the reign of Edward III. to that of Henry VI., chivalry, as a military institution, seems not to have found a very congenial soil.[c] To these circumstances, immediately affecting the military condition of nations, we must add the progress of reason and literature, which made ignorance discreditable even in a soldier, and exposed the follies of romance to a ridicule which they were very ill calculated to endure.

The spirit of chivalry left behind it a more valuable successor. The character of knight gradually subsided in that of gentleman; and the one distinguishes European society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as much as the other did in the preceding ages. A jealous sense of honour, less romantic, but equally elevated, a ceremonious gallantry and politeness, a strictness in devotional observances, a high pride of birth and feeling of independence upon any sovereign for the dignity it gave, a sympathy for martial honour, though more subdued by civil habits, are the lineaments which prove an indisputable descent. The cavaliers of Charles I. were genuine successors of Edward's knights; and the resemblance is much more striking, if we ascend to the civil wars of the League. Time has effaced much also of this gentlemanly, as it did before of the chivalrous character. From the latter part of the seventeenth century its vigour and purity have undergone a tacit decay, and yielded, perhaps in every country, to increasing commercial wealth, more diffused instruction, the spirit of general liberty in some, and of servile obsequiousness in others, the modes of life in great cities, and the levelling customs of social intercourse.[d]

Literature.

It is now time to pass to a very different subject. The third head under which I classed the improvements of society during the four last centuries of the middle ages was that of literature. But I must apprise the reader not to expect any general view of literary history, even in the most abbreviated manner. Such an epitome would not only be necessarily superficial, but foreign in many of its details to the purposes of this chapter, which, attempting to develop the circumstances that gave a new complexion to society, considers literature only so far as it exercised a general and powerful influence. The private researches, therefore, of a single scholar, unproductive of any material effect in his generation, ought not to arrest us, nor indeed would a series of biographical notices, into which literary history is apt to fall, be very instructive to a philosophical inquirer. But I have still a more decisive reason against taking a large range of literary history into the compass of this work, founded on the many contributions which have been made within the last forty years in that department, some of them even since the commencement of my own labour.[e] These have diffused so general an acquaintance with the literature of the middle ages, that I must, in treating the subject, either compile secondary information from well-known books, or enter upon a vast field of reading, with little hope of improving upon what has been already said, or even acquiring credit for original research. I shall, therefore, confine myself to four points: the study of civil law; the institution of universities; the application of modern languages to literature, and especially to poetry; and the revival of ancient learning.

Civil law.

The Roman law had been nominally preserved ever since the destruction of the empire; and a great portion of the inhabitants of France and Spain, as well as Italy, were governed by its provisions. But this was a mere compilation from the Theodosian code; which itself contained only the more recent laws promulgated after the establishment of Christianity, with some fragments from earlier collections. It was made by order of Alaric king of the Visigoths about the year 500, and it is frequently confounded, with the Theodosian code by writers of the dark ages.[f] The code of Justinian, reduced into system after the separation of the two former countries from the Greek empire, never obtained any authority in them; nor was it received in the part of Italy subject to the Lombards. But that this body of laws was absolutely unknown in the West during any period seems to have been too hastily supposed. Some of the more eminent ecclesiastics, as Hincmar and Ivon of Chartres, occasionally refer to it, and bear witness to the regard which the Roman church had uniformly paid to its decisions.[g]

The revival of the study of jurisprudence, as derived from the laws of Justinian, has generally been ascribed to the discovery made of a copy of the Pandects at Amalfi, in 1135, when that city was taken by the Pisans. This fact, though not improbable, seems not to rest upon sufficient evidence.[h] But its truth is the less material, as it appears to be unequivocally proved that the study of Justinian's system had recommenced before that era. Early in the twelfth century a professor named Irnerius[i] opened a school of civil law at Bologna, where he commented, if not on the Pandects, yet on the other books, the Institutes and Code, which were sufficient to teach the principles and inspire the love of that comprehensive jurisprudence. The study of law, having thus revived, made a surprising progress; within fifty years Lombardy was full of lawyers, on whom Frederic Barbarossa and Alexander III., so hostile in every other respect, conspired to shower honours and privileges. The schools of Bologna were pre-eminent throughout this century for legal learning. There seem also to have been seminaries at Modena and Mantua; nor was any considerable city without distinguished civilians. In the next age they became still more numerous, and their professors more conspicuous, and universities arose at Naples, Padua, and other places, where the Roman law was the object of peculiar regard.[k]

There is apparently great justice in the opinion of Tiraboschi, that by acquiring internal freedom and the right of determining controversies by magistrates of their own election, the Italian cities were led to require a more extensive and accurate code of written laws than they had hitherto possessed. These municipal judges were chosen from among the citizens, and the succession to offices was usually so rapid, that almost every freeman might expect in his turn to partake in the public government, and consequently in the administration of justice. The latter had always indeed been exercised in the sight of the people by the count and his assessors under the Lombard and Carlovingian sovereigns; but the laws were rude, the proceedings tumultuary, and the decisions perverted by violence. The spirit of liberty begot a stronger sense of right; and right, it was soon perceived, could only be secured by a common standard. Magistrates holding temporary offices, and little elevated in those simple times above the citizens among whom they were to return, could only satisfy the suitors, and those who surrounded their tribunal, by proving the conformity of their sentences to acknowledged authorities. And the practice of alleging reasons in giving judgment would of itself introduce some uniformity of decision and some adherence to great rules of justice in the most arbitrary tribunals; while, on the other hand, those of a free country lose part of their title to respect, and of their tendency to maintain right, whenever, either in civil or criminal questions, the mere sentence of a judge is pronounced without explanation of its motives.

The fame of this renovated jurisprudence spread very rapidly from Italy over other parts of Europe. Students flocked from all parts of Bologna; and some eminent masters of that school repeated its lessons in distant countries. One of these, Placentinus, explained the Digest at Montpelier before the end of the twelfth century; and the collection of Justinian soon came to supersede the Theodosian code in the dominions of Toulouse.[m] Its study continued to flourish in the universities of both these cities; and hence the Roman law, as it is exhibited in the system of Justinian, became the rule of all tribunals in the southern provinces of France. Its authority in Spain is equally great, or at least is only disputed by that of the canonists;[n] and it forms the acknowledged basis of decision in all the Germanic tribunals, sparingly modified by the ancient feudal customaries, which the jurists of the empire reduce within narrow bounds.[o] In the northern parts of France, where the legal standard was sought in local customs, the civil law met naturally with less regard. But the code of St. Louis borrows from that treasury many of its provisions, and it was constantly cited in pleadings before the parliament of Paris, either as obligatory by way of authority, or at least as written wisdom, to which great deference was shown.[p] Yet its study was long prohibited in the university of Paris, front a disposition of the popes to establish exclusively their decretals, though the prohibition was silently disregarded.[q]

Its introduction into England.

As early as the reign of Stephen, Vacarius, a lawyer of Bologna, taught at Oxford with great success; but the students of scholastic theology opposed themselves, from some unexplained reason, to this new jurisprudence, and his lectures were interdicted.[r] About the time of Henry III. and Edward I. the civil law acquired some credit in England; but a system entirely incompatible with it had established itself in our courts of justice; and the Roman jurisprudence was not only soon rejected, but became obnoxious.[s] Every where, however, the clergy combined its study with that of their own canons; it was a maxim that every canonist must be a civilian, and that no one could be a good civilian unless he were also a canonist. In all universities, degrees are granted in both laws conjointly; and in all courts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, the authority of Justinian is cited, when that of Gregory or Clement is wanting.[t]

The elder civilians little regarded.

I should earn little gratitude for my obscure diligence, were I to dwell on the forgotten teachers of a science that attracts so few. These elder professors of Roman jurisprudence are infected, as we are told, with the faults and ignorance of their time; failing in the exposition of ancient law through incorrectness of manuscripts and want of subsidiary learning, or perverting their sense through the verbal subtleties of scholastic philosophy. It appears that, even a hundred years since, neither Azzo and Accursius, the principal civilians of the thirteenth century, nor Bartolus and Baldus, the more conspicuous luminaries of the next age, nor the later writings of Accolti, Fulgosius, and Panormitanus, were greatly regarded as authorities; unless it were in Spain, where improvement is always odious, and the name of Bartolus inspired absolute deference.[u] In the sixteenth century, Alciatus and the greater Cujacius became, as it were, the founders of a new and more enlightened academy of civil law, from which the latter jurists derived their lessons. The laws of Justinian, stripped of their impurer alloy, and of the tedious glosses of their commentators, will form the basis of other systems, and mingling, as we may hope, with the new institutions of philosophical legislators, continue to influence the social relations of mankind, long after their direct authority shall have been abrogated. The ruins of ancient Rome supplied the materials of a new city; and the fragments of her law, which have already been wrought into the recent codes of France and Prussia, will probably, under other names, guide far distant generations by the sagacity of Modestinus and Ulpian.[x]

Public schools established by Charlemagne.

The establishment of public schools in France is owing to Charlemagne. At his accession, we are assured that no means of obtaining a learned education existed in his dominions;[y] and in order to restore in some degree the spirit of letters, he was compelled to invite strangers from countries where learning was not so thoroughly extinguished. Alcuin of England, Clement of Ireland, Theodulf of Germany, were the true Paladins who repaired to his court. With the help of these he revived a few sparks of diligence, and established schools in different cities of his empire; nor was he ashamed to be the disciple of that in his own palace under the care of Alcuin.[z] His two next successors, Louis the Debonair and Charles the Bald, were also encouragers of letters; and the schools of Lyons, Fulda, Corvey, Rheims, and some other cities, might be said to flourish in the ninth century.[a] In these were taught the trivium and quadrivium, a long-established division of sciences: the first comprehending grammar, or what we now call philology, logic, and rhetoric; the second, music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.[b] But in those ages scarcely anybody mastered the latter four; and to be perfect in the three former was exceedingly rare. All those studies, however, were referred to theology, and that in the narrowest manner; music, for example, being reduced to church chanting, and astronomy to the calculation of Easter.[c] Alcuin was, in his old age, against reading the poets;[d] and this discouragement of secular learning was very general; though some, as for instance Raban, permitted a slight tincture of it, as subsidiary to religious instruction.[e]

University of Paris.

Abelard.

About the latter part of the eleventh century a greater ardour for intellectual pursuits began to show itself in Europe, which in the twelfth broke out into a flame. This was manifested in the numbers who repaired to the public academies or schools of philosophy. None of these grew so early into reputation as that of Paris. This cannot indeed, as has been vainly pretended, trace its pedigree to Charlemagne. The first who is said to have read lectures at Paris was Remigius of Auxerre, about the year 900.[f] For the two next centuries the history of this school is very obscure; and it would be hard to prove an unbroken continuity, or at least a dependence and connexion of its professors. In the year 1100 we find William of Champeaux teaching logic, and apparently some higher parts of philosophy, with much credit. But this preceptor was eclipsed by his disciple, afterwards his rival and adversary, Peter Abelard, to whose brilliant and hardy genius the university of Paris appears to be indebted for its rapid advancement. Abelard was almost the first who awakened mankind in the ages of darkness to a sympathy with intellectual excellence. His bold theories, not the less attractive perhaps for treading upon the bounds of heresy, his imprudent vanity, that scorned the regularly acquired reputation of older men, allured a multitude of disciples, who would never have listened to an ordinary teacher. It is said that twenty cardinals and fifty bishops had been among his hearers.[g] Even in the wilderness, where he had erected the monastery of Paraclete, he was surrounded by enthusiastic admirers, relinquishing the luxuries, if so they might be called, of Paris, for the coarse living and imperfect accommodation which that retirement could afford.[h] But the whole of Abelard's life was the shipwreck of genius; and of genius, both the source of his own calamities and unserviceable to posterity. There are few lives of literary men more interesting or more diversified by success and adversity, by glory and humiliation, by the admiration of mankind and the persecution of enemies; nor from which, I may add, more impressive lessons of moral prudence may be derived.[i] One of Abelard's pupils was Peter Lombard, afterwards archbishop of Paris, and author of a work called the Book of Sentences, which obtained the highest authority among the scholastic disputants. The resort of students to Paris became continually greater; they appear, before the year 1169, to have been divided into nations;[k] and probably they had an elected rector and voluntary rules of discipline about the same time. This, however, is not decisively proved; but in the last year of the twelfth century they obtained their earliest charter from Philip Augustus.[m]

University of Oxford.

The opinion which ascribes the foundation of the university of Oxford to Alfred, if it cannot be maintained as a truth, contains no intrinsic marks of error. Ingulfus, abbot of Croyland, in the earliest authentic passage that can be adduced to this point,[n] declares that he was sent from Westminster to the school at Oxford, where he learned Aristotle, with the first and second books of Tully's Rhetoric.[o] Since a school for dialectics and rhetoric subsisted at Oxford, a town of but middling size and not the seat of a bishop, we are naturally led to refer its foundation to one of our kings, and none who had reigned after Alfred appears likely to have manifested such zeal for learning. However, it is evident that the school of Oxford was frequented under Edward the Confessor. There follows an interval of above a century, during which we have, I believe, no contemporary evidence of its continuance. But in the reign of Stephen, Vacarius read lectures there upon civil law; and it is reasonable to suppose that a foreigner would not have chosen that city, if he had not found a seminary of learning already established. It was probably inconsiderable, and might have been interrupted during some part of the preceding century.[p] In the reign of Henry II., or at least of Richard I., Oxford became a very flourishing university, and in 1201, according to Wood, contained 3000 scholars.[q] The earliest charters were granted by John.

University of Bologna.

Encouragement given to universities.

If it were necessary to construe the word university in the strict sense of a legal incorporation, Bologna might lay claim to a higher antiquity than either Paris or Oxford. There are a few vestiges of studies pursued in that city even in the eleventh century;[r] but early in the next the revival of the Roman jurisprudence, as has been already noticed, brought a throng of scholars round the chairs of its professors. Frederic Barbarossa in 1158, by his authentic, or rescript, entitled Habita, took these under his protection, and permitted them to be tried in civil suits by their own judges. This exemption from the ordinary tribunals, and even from those of the church, was naturally coveted by other academies; it was granted to the university of Paris by its earliest charter from Philip Augustus, and to Oxford by John. From this time the golden age of universities commenced; and it is hard to say whether they were favoured more by their sovereigns or by the see of Rome. Their history indeed is full of struggles with the municipal authorities, and with the bishops of their several cities, wherein they were sometimes the aggressors, and generally the conquerors. From all parts of Europe students resorted to these renowned seats of learning with an eagerness for instruction which may astonish those who reflect how little of what we now deem useful could be imparted. At Oxford, under Henry III., it is said that there were 30,000 scholars; an exaggeration which seems to imply that the real number was very great.[s] A respectable contemporary writer asserts that there were full 10,000 at Bologna about the same time.[t] I have not observed any numerical statement as to Paris during this age; but there can be no doubt that it was more frequented than any other. At the death of Charles VII. in 1453, it is said to have contained 25,000 students.[u] In the thirteenth century other universities sprang up in different countries; Padua and Naples under the patronage of Frederic II., a zealous and useful friend to letters,[x] Toulouse and Montpelier, Cambridge and Salamanca.[y] Orleans, which had long been distinguished as a school of civil law, received the privileges of incorporation early in the fourteenth century, and Angers before the expiration of the same age.[z] Prague, the earliest and most eminent of German universities, was founded in 1350; a secession from thence of Saxon students, in consequence of the nationality of the Bohemians and the Hussite schism, gave rise to that of Leipsic.[a] The fifteenth century produced several new academical foundations in France and Spain.

A large proportion of scholars in most of those institutions were drawn by the love of science from foreign countries. The chief universities had their own particular departments of excellence. Paris was unrivalled for scholastic theology; Bologna and Orleans, and afterwards Bourges, for jurisprudence; Montpelier for medicine. Though national prejudices, as in the case of Prague, sometimes interfered with this free resort of foreigners to places of education, it was in general a wise policy of government, as well as of the universities themselves, to encourage it. The thirty-fifth article of the peace of Bretigni provides for the restoration of former privileges to students respectively in the French and English universities.[b] Various letters patent will be found in Rymer's collection, securing to Scottish as well as French natives a safe passage to their place of education. The English nation, including however the Flemings and Germans,[c] had a separate vote in the faculty of arts at Paris. But foreign students were not, I believe, so numerous in the English academies.

If endowments and privileges are the means of quickening a zeal for letters, they were liberally bestowed in the last three of the middle ages. Crevier enumerates fifteen colleges founded in the university of Paris during the thirteenth century, besides one or two of a still earlier date. Two only, or at most three, existed in that age at Oxford, and but one at Cambridge. In the next two centuries these universities could boast, as every one knows, of many splendid foundations, though much exceeded in number by those of Paris. Considered as ecclesiastical institutions it is not surprising that the universities obtained, according to the spirit of their age, an exclusive cognizance of civil or criminal suits affecting their members. This jurisdiction was, however, local as well as personal, and in reality encroached on the regular police of their cities. At Paris the privilege turned to a flagrant abuse, and gave rise to many scandalous contentions.[d] Still more valuable advantages were those relating to ecclesiastical preferments, of which a large proportion was reserved in France to academical graduates. Something of the same sort, though less extensive, may still be traced in the rules respecting plurality of benefices in our English church.

Causes of their celebrity.

Scholastic philosophy.

This remarkable and almost sudden transition from a total indifference to all intellectual pursuits cannot be ascribed perhaps to any general causes. The restoration of the civil, and the formation of the canon law, were indeed eminently conducive to it, and a large proportion of scholars in most universities confined themselves to jurisprudence. But the chief attraction to the studious was the new scholastic philosophy. The love of contention, especially with such arms as the art of dialectics supplies to an acute understanding, is natural enough to mankind. That of speculating upon the mysterious questions of metaphysics and theology is not less so. These disputes and speculations, however, appear to have excited little interest till, after the middle of the eleventh century, Roscelin, a professor of logic, revived the old question of the Grecian schools respecting universal ideas, the reality of which he denied. This kindled a spirit of metaphysical discussion, which Lanfranc and Anselm, successively archbishops of Canterbury, kept alive; and in the next century Abelard and Peter Lombard, especially the latter, completed the scholastic system of philosophizing. The logic of Aristotle seems to have been partly known in the eleventh century, although that of Augustin was perhaps in higher estimation;[e] in the twelfth it obtained more decisive influence. His metaphysics, to which the logic might be considered as preparatory, were introduced through translations from the Arabic, and perhaps also from the Greek, early in the ensuing century.[f] This work, condemned at first by the decrees of popes and councils on account of its supposed tendency to atheism, acquired by degrees an influence, to which even popes and councils were obliged to yield. The Mendicant Friars, established throughout Europe in the thirteenth century, greatly contributed to promote the Aristotelian philosophy; and its final reception into the orthodox system of the church may chiefly be ascribed to Thomas Aquinas, the boast of the Dominican order, and certainly the most distinguished metaphysician of the middle ages. His authority silenced all scruple's as to that of Aristotle, and the two philosophers were treated with equally implicit deference by the later schoolmen.[g]

This scholastic philosophy, so famous for several ages, has since passed away and been forgotten. The history of literature, like that of empire, is full of revolutions. Our public libraries are cemeteries of departed reputation, and the dust accumulating upon their untouched volumes speaks as forcibly as the grass that waves over the ruins of Babylon. Few, very few, for a hundred years past, have broken the repose of the immense works of the schoolmen. None perhaps in our own country have acquainted themselves particularly with their contents. Leibnitz, however, expressed a wish that some one conversant with modern philosophy would undertake to extract the scattered particles of gold which may be hidden in their abandoned mines. This wish has been at length partially fulfilled by three or four of those industrious students and keen metaphysicians, who do honour to modern Germany. But most of their works are unknown to me except by repute, and as they all appear to be formed on a very extensive plan, I doubt whether even those laborious men could afford adequate time for this ungrateful research. Yet we cannot pretend to deny that Roscelin, Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Ockham, were men of acute and even profound understandings, the giants of their own generation. Even with the slight knowledge we possess of their tenets, there appear through the cloud of repulsive technical barbarisms rays of metaphysical genius which this age ought not to despise. Thus in the works of Anselm is found the celebrated argument of Des Cartes for the existence of a Deity, deduced from the idea of an infinitely perfect being. One great object that most of the schoolmen had in view was, to establish the principles of natural theology by abstract reasoning. This reasoning was doubtless liable to great difficulties. But a modern writer, who seems tolerably acquainted with the subject, assures us that it would be difficult to mention any theoretical argument to prove the divine attributes, or any objection capable of being raised against the proof, which we do not find in some of the scholastic philosophers.[h] The most celebrated subjects of discussion, and those on which this class of reasoners were most divided, were the reality of universal ideas, considered as extrinsic to the human mind and the freedom of will. These have not ceased to occupy the thoughts of metaphysicians.[i]

But all discovery of truth by means of these controversies was rendered hopeless by two insurmountable obstacles, the authority of Aristotle and that of the church. Wherever obsequious reverence is substituted for bold inquiry, truth, if she is not already at hand, will never be attained. The scholastics did not understand Aristotle, whose original writings they could not read;[k] but his name was received with implicit faith. They learned his peculiar nomenclature, and fancied that he had given them realities. The authority of the church did them still more harm. It has been said, and probably with much truth, that their metaphysics were injurious to their theology. But I must observe in return that their theology was equally injurious to their metaphysics. Their disputes continually turned upon questions either involving absurdity and contradiction, or at best inscrutable by human comprehension. Those who assert the greatest antiquity of the Roman Catholic doctrine as to the real presence, allow that both the word and the definition of transubstantiation are owing to the scholastic writers. Their subtleties were not always so well received. They reasoned at imminent peril of being charged with heresy, which Roscelin, Abelard, Lombard, and Ockham did not escape. In the virulent factions that arose out of their metaphysical quarrels, either party was eager to expose its adversary to detraction and persecution. The Nominalists were accused, one hardly sees why, with reducing, like Sabellius, the persons of the Trinity to modal distinctions. The Realists, with more pretence, incurred the imputation of holding a language that savoured of atheism.[m] In the controversy which the Dominicans and Franciscans, disciples respectively of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, maintained about grace and freewill, it was of course still more easy to deal in mutual reproaches of heterodoxy. But the schoolmen were in general prudent enough not to defy the censures of the church; and the popes, in return for the support they gave to all exorbitant pretensions of the Holy See, connived at this factious wrangling, which threatened no serious mischief, as it did not proceed from any independent spirit of research. Yet with all their apparent conformity to the received creed, there was, as might be expected from the circumstances, a great deal of real deviation from orthodoxy, and even of infidelity. The scholastic mode of dispute, admitting of no termination and producing no conviction, was the sure cause of scepticism; and the system of Aristotle, especially with the commentaries of Averroes, bore an aspect very unfavourable to natural religion.[n] The Aristotelian philosophy, even in the hands of the Master, was like a barren tree that conceals its want of fruit by profusion of leaves. But the scholastic ontology was much worse. What could be more trifling than disquisitions about the nature of angels, their modes of operation, their means of conversing, or (for these were distinguished) the morning and evening state of their understandings?[o] Into such follies the schoolmen appear to have launched, partly because there was less danger of running against a heresy in a matter where the church had defined so little—partly from their presumption, which disdained all inquiries into the human mind, as merely a part of physics—and in no small degree through a spirit of mystical fanaticism, derived from the oriental philosophy and the later Platonists, which blended itself with the cold-blooded technicalities of the Aristotelian school.[p] But this unproductive waste of the faculties could not last for ever. Men discovered that they had given their time for the promise of wisdom, and been cheated in the bargain. What John of Salisbury observes of the Parisian dialecticians in his own time, that, after several years' absence, he found them not a step advanced and still employed in urging and parrying the same arguments, was equally applicable to the period of centuries. After three or four hundred years, the scholastics had not untied a single knot, nor added one unequivocal truth to the domain of philosophy. As this became more evident, the enthusiasm for that kind of learning declined; after the middle of the fourteenth century few distinguished teachers arose among the schoolmen, and at the revival of letters their pretended science had no advocates left, but among the prejudiced or ignorant adherents of established systems. How different is the state of genuine philosophy, the zeal for which will never wear out by length of time or change of fashion, because the inquirer, unrestrained by authority, is perpetually cheered by the discovery of truth in researches, which the boundless riches of nature seem to render indefinitely progressive![q]

Yet, upon a general consideration, the attention paid in the universities to scholastic philosophy, may be deemed a source of improvement in the intellectual character, when we compare it with the perfect ignorance of some preceding ages. Whether the same industry would not have been more profitably directed if the love of metaphysics had not intervened, is another question. Philology, or the principles of good taste, degenerated through the prevalence of school-logic. The Latin compositions of the twelfth century are better than those of the three that followed—at least on the northern side of the Alps. I do not, however, conceive that any real correctness of taste or general elegance of style was likely to subsist in so imperfect a condition of society. These qualities seem to require a certain harmonious correspondence in the tone of manners before they can establish a prevalent influence over literature. A more real evil was the diverting of studious men from mathematical science. Early in the twelfth century several persons, chiefly English, had brought into Europe some of the Arabian writings on geometry and physics. In the thirteenth the works of Euclid were commented upon by Campano,[r] and Roger Bacon was fully acquainted with them.[s] Algebra, as far as the Arabians knew it, extending to quadratic equations, was actually in the hands of some Italians at the commencement of the same age, and preserved for almost three hundred years as a secret, though without any conception of its importance. As abstract mathematics require no collateral aid, they may reach the highest perfection in ages of general barbarism; and there seems to be no reason why, if the course of study had been directed that way, there should not have arisen a Newton or a La Place, instead of an Aquinas or an Ockham. The knowledge displayed by Roger Bacon and by Albertus Magnus, even in the mixed mathematics, under every disadvantage from the imperfection of instruments and the want of recorded experience, is sufficient to inspire us with regret that their contemporaries were more inclined to astonishment than to emulation. These inquiries indeed were subject to the ordeal of fire, the great purifier of books and men; for if the metaphysician stood a chance of being burned as a heretic, the natural philosopher was in not less jeopardy as a magician.[t]

Cultivation of the new languages.

Division of the Romance tongue into two dialects.

Troubadours of Provence.

A far more substantial cause of intellectual improvement was the development of those new languages that sprang out of the corruption of Latin. For three or four centuries after what was called the Romance tongue was spoken in France, there remain but few vestiges of its employment in writing; though we cannot draw an absolute inference from our want of proof, and a critic of much authority supposes translations to have been made into it for religious purposes from the time of Charlemagne.[u] During this period the language was split into two very separate dialects, the regions of which may be considered, though by no means strictly, as divided by the Loire. These were called the Langue d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc; or in more modern terms, the French and Provençal dialects. In the latter of these I know of nothing which can even by name be traced beyond the year 1100. About that time Gregory de Bechada, a gentleman of Limousin, recorded the memorable events of the first crusade, then recent, in a metrical history of great length.[x] This poem has altogether perished; which, considering the popularity of its subject, as M. Sismondi justly remarks, would probably not have been the case if it had possessed any merit. But very soon afterwards a multitude of poets, like a swarm of summer insects, appeared in the southern provinces of France. These were the celebrated Troubadours, whose fame depends far less on their positive excellence than on the darkness of preceding ages, on the temporary sensation they excited, and their permanent influence on the state of European poetry. From William count of Poitou, the earliest troubadour on record, who died in 1126, to their extinction, about the end of the next century, there were probably several hundred of these versifiers in the language of Provence, though not always natives of France. Millot has published the lives of one hundred and forty-two, besides the names of many more whose history is unknown; and a still greater number, it cannot be doubted, are unknown by name. Among those poets are reckoned a king of England (Richard I.), two of Aragon, one of Sicily, a dauphin of Auvergne, a count of Foix, a prince of Orange, many noblemen and several ladies. One can hardly pretend to account for this sudden and transitory love of verse; but it is manifestly one symptom of the rapid impulse which the human mind received in the twelfth century, and contemporaneous with the severer studies that began to flourish in the universities. It was encouraged by the prosperity of Languedoc and Provence, undisturbed, comparatively with other countries, by internal warfare, and disposed by the temper of their inhabitants to feel with voluptuous sensibility the charm of music and amorous poetry. But the tremendous storm that fell upon Languedoc in the crusade against the Albigeois shook off the flowers of Provençal verse; and the final extinction of the fief of Toulouse, with the removal of the counts of Provence to Naples, deprived the troubadours of their most eminent patrons. An attempt was made in the next century to revive them, by distributing prizes for the best composition in the Floral Games of Toulouse, which have sometimes been erroneously referred to a higher antiquity.[y] This institution perhaps still remains; but even in its earliest period it did not establish the name of any Provençal poet. Nor can we deem these fantastical solemnities, styled Courts of Love, where ridiculous questions of metaphysical gallantry were debated by poetical advocates, under the presidency and arbitration of certain ladies, much calculated to bring forward any genuine excellence. They illustrate, however, what is more immediately my own object, the general ardour for poetry and the manners of those chivalrous ages.[z]

Their poetical character.

The great reputation acquired by the troubadours, and panegyrics lavished on some of them by Dante and Petrarch, excited a curiosity among literary men, which has been a good deal disappointed by further acquaintance. An excellent French antiquary of the last age, La Curne de St. Palaye, spent great part of his life in accumulating manuscripts of Provençal poetry, very little of which had ever been printed. Translations from part of this collection, with memorials of the writers, were published by Millot; and we certainly do not often meet with passages in his three volumes which give us any poetical pleasure.[a] Some of the original poems have since been published, and the extracts made from them by the recent historians of southern literature are rather superior. The troubadours chiefly confined themselves to subjects of love, or rather gallantry, and to satires (sirventes), which are sometimes keen and spirited. No romances of chivalry, and hardly any tales, are found among their works. There seems a general deficiency of imagination, and especially of that vivid description which distinguishes works of genius in the rudest period of society. In the poetry of sentiment, their favourite province, they seldom attain any natural expression, and consequently produce no interest. I speak, of course, on the presumption that the best specimens have been exhibited by those who have undertaken the task. It must be allowed, however, that we cannot judge of the troubadours at a greater disadvantage than through the prose translations of Millot. Their poetry was entirely of that class which is allied to music, and excites the fancy or feelings rather by the power of sound than any stimulancy of imagery and passion. Possessing a flexible and harmonious language, they invented a variety of metrical arrangements, perfectly new to the nations of Europe. The Latin hymns were striking, but monotonous, the metre of the northern French unvaried; but in Provençal poetry, almost every length of verse, from two syllables to twelve, and the most intricate disposition of rhymes, were at the choice of the troubadour. The canzoni, the sestine, all the lyric metres of Italy and Spain were borrowed from his treasury. With such a command of poetical sounds, it was natural that he should inspire delight into ears not yet rendered familiar to the artifices of verse; and even now the fragments of these ancient lays, quoted by M. Sismondi and M. Ginguené, seem to possess a sort of charm that has evaporated in translation. Upon this harmony, and upon the facility with which mankind are apt to be deluded into an admiration of exaggerated sentiment in poetry, they depended for their influence. And however vapid the songs of Provence may seem to our apprehensions, they were undoubtedly the source from which poetry for many centuries derived a great portion of its habitual language.[b]

Northern French poetry and prose.

It has been maintained by some antiquaries, that the northern Romance, or what we properly call French, was not formed until the tenth century, the common dialect of all France having previously resembled that of Languedoc. This hypothesis may not be indisputable; but the question is not likely to be settled, as scarcely any written specimens of Romance, even of that age, have survived.[c] In the eleventh century, among other more obscure productions, both in prose and metre, there appears what, if unquestioned as to authenticity, would be a valuable monument of this language; the laws of William the Conqueror. These are preserved in a manuscript of Ingulfus's History of Croyland, a blank being left in other copies where they should be inserted.[d] They are written in an idiom so far removed from the Provençal, that one would be disposed to think the separation between these two species of Romance of older standing than is commonly allowed. But it has been thought probable that these laws, which in fact were nearly a repetition of those of Edward the Confessor, were originally published in Anglo-Saxon, the only language intelligible to the people, and translated, at a subsequent period, by some Norman monk into French.[e]

The use of a popular language became more common after the year 1100. Translations of some books of Scripture and acts of saints were made about that time, or even earlier, and there are French sermons of St. Bernard, from which extracts have been published, in the royal library at Paris.[f] In 1126, a charter was granted by Louis VI. to the city of Beauvais in French.[g] Metrical compositions are in general the first literature of a nation, and even if no distinct proof could be adduced, we might assume their existence before the twelfth century. There is however evidence, not to mention the fragments printed by Le Bœuf, of certain lives of saints translated into French verse by Thibault de Vernon, a canon of Rouen, before the middle of the preceding age. And we are told that Taillefer, a Norman minstrel, recited a song or romance on the deeds of Roland, before the army of his countrymen, at the battle of Hastings in 1066. Philip de Than, a Norman subject of Henry I., seems to be the earliest poet whose works as well as name have reached us, unless we admit a French, translation of the work of one Marbode upon precious stones to be more ancient.[h] This De Than wrote a set of rules for computation of time and an account of different calendars. A happy theme for inspiration without doubt! Another performance of the same author is a treatise on birds and beasts, dedicated to Adelaide, queen of Henry I.[i] But a more famous votary of the muses was Wace, a native of Jersey, who about the beginning of Henry II.'s reign turned Geoffrey of Monmouth's history into French metre. Besides this poem, called le Brut d'Angleterre, he composed a series of metrical histories, containing the transactions of the dukes of Normandy, from Rollo, their great progenitor, who gave name to the Roman de Rou, down to his own age. Other productions are ascribed to Wace, who was at least a prolific versifier, and, if he seem to deserve no higher title at present, has a claim to indulgence, and even to esteem, as having far excelled his contemporaries, without any superior advantages of knowledge. In emulation, however, of his fame, several Norman writers addicted themselves to composing chronicles, or devotional treatises in metre. The court of our Norman kings was to the early poets in the Langue d'Oil, what those of Arles and Toulouse were to the troubadours. Henry I. was fond enough of literature to obtain the surname of Beauclerc; Henry II. was more indisputably an encourager of poetry; and Richard I. has left compositions of his own in one or other (for the point is doubtful) of the two dialects spoken in France.[k]

Norman romances and tales.

If the poets of Normandy had never gone beyond historical and religious subjects, they would probably have had less claim to our attention than their brethren of Provence. But a different and far more interesting species of composition began to be cultivated in the latter part of the twelfth century. Without entering upon the controverted question as to the origin of romantic fictions, referred by one party to the Scandinavians, by a second to the Arabs, by others to the natives of Britany, it is manifest that the actual stories upon which one early and numerous class of romances was founded are related to the traditions of the last people. These are such as turn upon the fable of Arthur; for though we are not entitled to deny the existence of such a personage, his story seems chiefly the creation of Celtic vanity. Traditions current in Britany, though probably derived from this island, became the basis of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin prose, which, as has been seen, was transfused into French metre by Wace.[m] The vicinity of Normandy enabled its poets to enrich their narratives with other Armorican fictions, all relating to the heroes who had surrounded the table of the son of Uther.[n] An equally imaginary history of Charlemagne gave rise to a new family of romances. The authors of these fictions were called Trouveurs, a name obviously identical with that of Troubadours. But except in name there was no resemblance between the minstrels of the northern and southern dialects. The invention of one class was turned to description, that of the other to sentiment; the first were epic in their form and style, the latter almost always lyric. We cannot perhaps give a better notion of their dissimilitude, than by saying that one school produced Chaucer, and the other Petrarch. Besides these romances of chivalry, the trouveurs displayed their powers of lively narration in comic tales or fabliaux, (a name sometimes extended to the higher romance,) which have aided the imagination of Boccace and La Fontaine. These compositions are certainly more entertaining than those of the troubadours; but, contrary to what I have said of the latter, they often gain by appearing in a modern dress. Their versification, which doubtless had its charm when listened to around the hearth of an ancient castle, is very languid and prosaic, and suitable enough to the tedious prolixity into which the narrative is apt to fall; and though we find many sallies of that arch and sprightly simplicity which characterizes the old language of France as well as England, it requires, upon the whole, a factitious taste to relish these Norman tales, considered as poetry in the higher sense of the word, distinguished from metrical fiction.