Note n — Chapter IX · [a]

Le Grand d'Aussy has given us, in the fifth volume of his Fabliaux, several of the religious tales by which the monks endeavoured to withdraw the people from romances of chivalry. The following specimens will abundantly confirm my assertions, which may perhaps appear harsh and extravagant to the reader.

There was a man whose occupation was highway robbery; but whenever he set out on any such expedition, he was careful to address a prayer to the Virgin. Taken at last, he was sentenced to be hanged. While the cord was round his neck he made his usual prayer, nor was it ineffectual. The Virgin supported his feet "with her white hands," and thus kept him alive two days, to the no small surprise of the executioner, who attempted to complete his work with strokes of a sword. But the same invisible hand turned aside the weapon, and the executioner was compelled to release his victim, acknowledging the miracle. The thief retired into a monastery, which is always the termination of these deliverances.

At the monastery of St. Peter, near Cologne, lived a monk perfectly dissolute and irreligious, but very devout towards the Apostle. Unluckily he died suddenly without confession. The fiends came as usual to seize his soul. St. Peter, vexed at losing so faithful a votary, besought God to admit the monk into Paradise. His prayer was refused; and though the whole body of saints, apostles, angels, and martyrs joined at his request to make interest, it was of no avail. In this extremity he had recourse to the Mother of God. "Fair lady," he said, "my monk is lost if you do not interfere for him; but what is impossible for us will be but sport to you, if you please to assist us. Your Son, if you but speak a word, must yield, since it is in your power to command him." The Queen Mother assented, and, followed by all the virgins, moved towards her Son. He who had himself given the precept, Honour thy father and thy mother, no sooner saw his own parent approach than he rose to receive her; and taking her by the hand inquired her wishes. The rest may be easily conjectured. Compare the gross stupidity, or rather the atrocious impiety of this tale, with the pure theism of the Arabian Nights, and judge whether the Deity was better worshipped at Cologne or at Bagdad.

It is unnecessary to multiply instances of this kind. In one tale the Virgin takes the shape of a nun, who had eloped from the convent, and performs her duties ten years, till, tired of a libertine life, she returns unsuspected. This was in consideration of her having never omitted to say an Ave as she passed the Virgin's image. In another, a gentleman, in love with a handsome widow, consents, at the instigation of a sorcerer, to renounce God and the saints, but cannot be persuaded to give up the Virgin, well knowing that if he kept her his friend he should obtain pardon through her means. Accordingly she inspired his mistress with so much passion that he married her within a few days.

These tales, it may be said, were the production of ignorant men, and circulated among the populace. Certainly they would have excited contempt and indignation in the more enlightened clergy. But I am concerned with the general character of religious notions among the people: and for this it is better to take such popular compositions, adapted to what the laity already believed, than the writings of comparatively learned and reflecting men. However, stories of the same cast are frequent in the monkish historians. Matthew Paris, one of the most respectable of that class, and no friend to the covetousness or relaxed lives of the priesthood, tells us of a knight who was on the point of being damned for frequenting tournaments, but saved by a donation he had formerly made to the Virgin. p. 290.