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Title: Chaucer and His England
Author: Coulton, G. G.
Language: English
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CHAUCER AND HIS ENGLAND
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
FROM ST. FRANCIS TO DANTE.
"A more enlightening picture than any we have yet read."--_Times._
"It will, I hope, be read by every one who wants to know what the
Middle Ages were really like."--DR. RASHDALL in _Independent Review_.
"Extraordinarily vivacious, fresh, and vivid."--MR. C. F. G.
MASTERMAN, M.P., in _Speaker_.
FRIAR'S LANTERN: A Mediæval Fantasia.
"Written with undeniable ability."--_Times._
"Worthy of a place beside the 'Cloister and the Hearth' as a true work
of art."--_Commonwealth._
FATHER RHINE; with 14 Illustrations.
"This is a very pleasant book of journeying."--_Spectator._
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC NEEDS.
"If the 'man in the street,' who and whoever he be, will take the
trouble to read it, his eyes will be opened."--_Times._
MEDIÆVAL STUDIES: Seven Essays mostly reprinted from the monthly and
quarterly reviews.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CHAUCER
PAINTED BY ORDER OF HIS PUPIL THOMAS HOCCLEVE, IN A COPY OF THE LATTER'S
"REGEMENT OF PRINCES." THE HAIR AND BEARD ARE GREY, THE EYES HAZEL: HE HAS
A ROSARY IN HIS LEFT HAND AND A BLACK PENCASE OR PENKNIFE HANGS FROM HIS
NECK]
CHAUCER AND HIS ENGLAND
BY G. G. COULTON, M.A.
AUTHOR OF "FROM ST. FRANCIS TO DANTE," ETC.
WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published in 1908_
PREFACE
No book of this size can pretend to treat exhaustively of all that
concerns Chaucer and his England; but the Author's main aim has been to
supply an informal historical commentary on the poet's works. He has not
hesitated, in a book intended for the general public, to modernize
Chaucer's spelling, or even on rare occasions to change a word.
His best acknowledgments are due to those who have laboured so fruitfully
during the last fifty years in publishing Chaucerian and other original
documents of the later Middle Ages; more especially to Dr. F. J.
Furnivall, the indefatigable founder of the Chaucer Society and the Early
English Text Society; to Professor W. W. Skeat, whose ungrudging
generosity in private help is necessarily known only to a small percentage
of those who have been aided by his printed works; to Dr. R. R. Sharpe,
archivist of the London Guildhall; to Prebendary F. C. Hingeston-Randolph
and other editors of Episcopal Registers; to Messrs. W. Hudson and Walter
Rye for their contributions to Norfolk history; and to Mr. V. B.
Redstone's researches in Chaucerian genealogy. His proofs have enjoyed the
great advantage of revision by Dr. Furnivall, who has made many valuable
suggestions and corrections, but who is in no way responsible for other
possible errors or omissions. The many debts to other writers are, it is
hoped, duly acknowledged in their places; but the Author must here confess
himself specially beholden to the writings of M. Jusserand, whose rare
sympathy and insight are combined with an equal charm of exposition.
He has also to thank Dr. F. J. Furnivall, Messrs. E. Kelsey and H. R.
Browne of Eastbourne, and the Librarian of Uppingham School, for kind
permission to reproduce seven of the illustrations; also the Editor of the
_Home and Counties Magazine_ for similar courtesy with regard to the plan
of Chaucer's Aldgate included in a 16th-century survey published for the
first time in that magazine (vol. i. p. 50).
EASTBOURNE
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE v
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi
CHAPTER I
ENGLAND IN EMBRYO 1
CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH 12
CHAPTER III
THE KING'S SQUIRE 25
CHAPTER IV
THE AMBASSADOR 36
CHAPTER V
THE MAN OF BUSINESS 51
CHAPTER VI
LAST DAYS 64
CHAPTER VII
LONDON CUSTOM-HOUSE 76
CHAPTER VIII
ALDGATE TOWER 93
CHAPTER IX
TOWN AND COUNTRY 104
CHAPTER X
THE LAWS OF LONDON 119
CHAPTER XI
"CANTERBURY TALES"--THE _DRAMATIS PERSONÆ_ 137
CHAPTER XII
"CANTERBURY TALES"--FIRST AND SECOND DAYS 151
CHAPTER XIII
"CANTERBURY TALES"--THIRD AND FOURTH DAYS 160
CHAPTER XIV
KING AND QUEEN 173
CHAPTER XV
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES 188
CHAPTER XVI
HUSBANDS AT THE CHURCH DOOR 202
CHAPTER XVII
THE GAY SCIENCE 217
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GREAT WAR 232
CHAPTER XIX
THE BURDEN OF THE WAR 245
CHAPTER XX
THE POOR 257
CHAPTER XXI
MERRY ENGLAND 272
CHAPTER XXII
THE KING'S PEACE 282
CHAPTER XXIII
PRIESTS AND PEOPLE 294
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION 304
INDEX 317
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
PAGE
MEDIEVAL COCK-FIGHTING, ACTUAL AND METAPHORICAL 18
_From Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes"_
PLANS OF MEDIEVAL DWELLINGS 97
MEDIEVAL MUMMERS 110
_From Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes"_
PILGRIMS IN BED AT INN 139
_From T. Wright's "Homes of other Days"_
THE SQUIRE OF THE "CANTERBURY TALES" 146
_From the Ellesmere MS. (15th century)_
THE MILLER 150
_From the Ellesmere MS._
THE WIFE OF BATH 162
_From the Ellesmere MS._
THE FRIAR 165
_From the Ellesmere MS._
PEACOCK FEAST OF LYNN 177
_From Stothard's Facsimile of the Original Brass_
A KNIGHT AND HIS LADY 203
_From Boutell's "Monumental Brasses"_
A BEVY OF LADIES 220
_From T. Wright's "Womankind in Western Europe"_
LIST OF PLATES
THE HOCCLEVE PORTRAIT OF CHAUCER _Frontispiece_
_From the Painting in "The Regement of Princes"_
FACING PAGE
LONDON BRIDGE, ETC., IN THE 16TH CENTURY 15
_From Vertue's Engraving of Aggas's Map_
WESTMINSTER HALL 32
_From a Photograph by J. Valentine & Sons_
A TRAVELLING CARRIAGE 35
_From the Louterell Psalter_
WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND PALACE IN THE 16TH CENTURY 72
_From Vertue's Engraving of Aggas's Map_
WESTMINSTER ABBEY 73
_From a Photograph by S. B. Bolas & Co._
THE TOWER, WITH LONDON BRIDGE IN THE BACKGROUND 82
_From MS. Roy. 16 F. ii. f. 73_
A TOOTH-DRAWER OF THE 14TH CENTURY 92
_From MS. Roy. VI. E. 6, f. 503 b_
ALDGATE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS, AS RECONSTITUTED IN W.
NEWTON'S "LONDON IN THE OLDEN TIME" 101
A PARTY OF PILGRIMS 148
_From MS. Roy. 18 D. ii. f. 148_
CANTERBURY 170
_From W. Smith's Drawing of 1588. (Sloane MS. 2596)_
EDWARD III. 173
_From his Tomb in Westminster Abbey_
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT 181
_From her Tomb in Westminster Abbey_
SIR GEOFFREY LOUTERELL, WITH HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER 194
_From the Louterell Psalter (Early 14th Century)_
SEAL OF UPPINGHAM SCHOOL 216
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN A 14TH CENTURY CLASSROOM 216
_From MS. Roy. VI. E. 6, f. 214_
WILLIAM OF HATFIELD, SON OF EDWARD III. AND PHILIPPA 224
_From his Tomb in York Minster (1336)_
BODIAM CASTLE, KENT 245
THE PLOUGHMAN 268
_From the Louterell Psalter (Early 14th Century)_
THE CLERGY-HOUSE AT ALFRISTON, SUSSEX, BEFORE ITS RECENT
RESTORATION 298
WESTMINSTER ABBEY--VIEW FROM NEAR CHAUCER'S TOMB 313
_From a Photograph by S. B. Bolas & Co._
CHAUCER AND HIS ENGLAND
CHAPTER I
ENGLAND IN EMBRYO
"O born in days when wits were fresh and clear,
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames!"
Few men could lay better claim than Chaucer to this happy accident of
birth with which Matthew Arnold endows his Scholar Gipsy, if we refrain
from pressing too literally the poet's fancy of a Golden Age. Chaucer's
times seemed sordid enough to many good and great men who lived in them;
but few ages of the world have been better suited to nourish such a
genius, or can afford a more delightful travelling-ground for us of the
20th century. There is indeed a glory over the distant past which is (in
spite of the paradox) scarcely less real for being to a great extent
imaginary; scarcely less true because it owes so much to the beholder's
eye. It is like the subtle charm we feel every time we set foot afresh on
a foreign shore. It is just because we should never dream of choosing
France or Germany for our home that we love them so much for our holidays;
it is just because we are so deeply rooted in our own age that we find so
much pleasure and profit in the past, where we may build for ourselves a
new heaven and a new earth out of the wreck of a vanished world. The very
things which would oppress us out of all proportion as present-day
realities dwindle to even less than their real significance in the long
perspective of history. All the oppressions that were then done under the
sun, and the tears of such as were oppressed, show very small in the
sum-total of things; the ancient tale of wrong has little meaning to us
who repose so far above it all; the real landmarks are the great men who
for a moment moulded the world to their own will, or those still greater
who kept themselves altogether unspotted from it. Human nature gives the
lie direct to Mark Antony's bitter rhetoric: it is rather the good that
lives after a man, and the evil that is oft interred with his bones. The
balance may not be very heavy, but it is on the right side; man's
insatiable curiosity about his fellow-men is as natural as his appetite
for food, which may on the whole be trusted to refuse the evil and choose
the good; and, in both cases, his taste is, within obvious limits, a true
guide. It is a healthy instinct which prompts us to dwell on the beauties
of an ancient timber-built house, or on the gorgeous pageantry of the
Middle Ages, without a too curious scrutiny of what may lie under the
surface; and at this distance the 14th century stands out to the modern
eye with a clearness and brilliancy which few men can see in their own
age, or even in that immediate past which must always be partially dimmed
with the dust of present-day conflicts. Those who were separated by only a
few generations from the Middle Ages could seldom judge them with
sufficient sympathy. Even two hundred years ago, most Englishmen thought
of that time as a great forest from which we had not long emerged; they
looked back and saw it in imagination as Dante saw the dark wood of his
own wanderings--bitter as death, cruel as the perilous sea from which a
spent swimmer has just struggled out upon the shore. Then, with Goethe and
Scott, came the Romantic Revival; and these men showed us the Middle Ages
peopled with living creatures--beasts of prey, indeed, in very many cases,
but always bright and swift and attractive, as wild beasts are in
comparison with the commonplace stock of our fields and farmyards--bright
in themselves, and heightened in colour by the artificial brilliancy which
perspective gives to all that we see through the wrong end of a telescope.
Since then men have turned the other end of the telescope on medieval
society, and now, in due course, the microscope, with many curious
results. But it is always good to balance our too detailed impressions
with a general survey, and to take a brief holiday, of set purpose, from
the world in which our own daily work has to be done, into a race of men
so unlike our own even amid all their general resemblance.
For the England of Edward III. was already, in its main national features,
the England in which we live to-day. "In no country of Europe are the
present-day institutions and manners and beliefs so directly derived from
the social state of five centuries ago."[1] The year 1340, which saw the
abolition of the law of Englishry, was very likely the exact year of
Chaucer's birth; and from that time forward our legislation ceased to
recognize any distinction of races: all natives of England were alike
Englishmen. Sixteen years later it was first enacted that cases in the
Sheriff's Courts of London should be pleaded in English; seven years
later, again, this became in theory the language not only of the King's
law courts, but also to some extent of Parliament; and Nicolas quotes an
amusing instance of two ambassadors to France, a Knight and a Doctor of
Laws, who confessed in 1404 "we are as ignorant of French as of Hebrew."
The contemporary Trevisa apparently attributes this rapid breakdown to the
Great Pestilence of 1349; but even before this the French language must
have been in full decay among us, for at the Parliament which Edward III.
called in 1337 to advise him about declaring war on France, the ambassador
of Robert d'Artois took care to speak "in English, in order to be
understanded of all folk, for a man ever knoweth better what he would say
and propose in the language of his childhood than in any other." Later in
the same year, in the famous statute which forbade all sports except the
longbow, it was further ordained "that all lords, barons, knights, and
honourable men of good towns should be careful and diligent to teach and
instruct their children in the French tongue, whereby they might be the
more skilful and practised in their wars."[2] But Acts of Parliament are
not omnipotent even in the 20th century; and in the 14th they often
represented rather pious aspirations than workaday facts. It was easier to
foster a healthy pastime like archery than to enforce scholastic
regulations which parents and masters were alike tempted to neglect; and
certainly the French language lost ground very rapidly in the latter half
of the century. In 1362 English superseded French as the spoken language
of the law courts; next year the Chancellor opened Parliament in an
English speech; and in 1385 Trevisa complained that boys at
grammar-schools "know no more French than their left heel." The language
lingered, of course. Chaucer's friend and contemporary, Gower, wrote as
much in French as in English. French still kept the upper hand in
Parliament till about fifty years after Chaucer's death, nor did the
statutes cease altogether to be published in that language until the reign
of Henry VIII. But though it was still the Court tongue in Chaucer's time,
and though we do not know that Edward III. was capable of addressing his
Commons in their native tongue, yet Henry IV. took care to claim the
throne before Parliament in plain English;[3] and even before that time
French had already become an exotic, an artificial dialect needing
hothouse culture--no longer French of Paris, but that of "Stratford attë
Bowë."[4] The tongue sat ill on a nation that was already proud of its
insularity and unity. Even while labouring to write in French, Gower
dedicates his work to his country: "O gentile Engletere, a toi j'escrits."
It is not the least of Chaucer's claims on our gratitude that, from the
very first, he wrote for the English people in English--that is, in the
mixed dialect of Anglo-Saxon and Norman-French which was habitually spoken
in London by the upper middle classes of a mingled Norman and Teutonic
population[5]--and that in so doing he laid the foundations of a national
literary language. Much, of course, still remained to be done. Caxton, in
1490, shows us how an Englishman might well be taken for a Frenchman
outside his own country,[6] as in modern Germany a foreigner who speaks
fluently, however incorrectly, passes easily for a German of some remote
and barbarous province. Indeed, English unity in Chaucer's time was as
recent as that of the modern German empire. Men would still go before
bishops and magistrates to purge themselves by a solemn oath from the
injurious suspicion of being Scots, and therefore enemies to the realm;
and a couple of generations earlier the suspected Welshman had found
himself under the same necessity. The articles of peace drawn up in 1274
at Oxford between the northern and Irish scholars "read like a treaty of
peace between hostile nations rather than an act of University
legislation"; and even at the end of Chaucer's life we may find royal
letters "licensing John Russell, born in Ireland, to reside in England,
notwithstanding the proclamation that all Irish-born were to go and stay
in their own country." But the Oxford _Concordia_ of 1274 was the last
which recognized that division of students into "nations" which still
remained so real at Paris and other continental universities; and though
blood still reddened Oxford streets for a century longer in the ancient
quarrel of north and south, yet the "great slaughter" of 1354 was entirely
a town and gown affray.[7]
The foundations of modern England were laid by Edward I., who did more
than any other king to create a national parliament, a national system of
justice, and a national army.[8] Edward III., with far less creative
power, but with equal energy and ambition, inherited the ripe fruits of
his grandfather's policy, and raised England to a place in European
politics which she had never reached before and was seldom to reach again.
"That which touches all," said Edward I., "should be approved by all";
and, though continental sovereigns might use similar language as a subtle
cloke for their arbitrary encroachments, in England the maxim had from the
first a real meaning. The great barons--themselves steadily dwindling in
feudal power--no longer sat alone in the King's councils; by their side
sat country gentlemen and citizens elected to share in the
responsibilities of government; and the clergy, but for their own
persistent separatism, might have sent their chosen representatives to sit
with the rest. Moreover, already in Chaucer's time we find precedents for
the boldest demands of the Long Parliament. The Commons claimed, and for a
time obtained, the control of taxation; and five of Richard II.'s
ministers were condemned as traitors for counselling him to measures which
Parliament branded as unconstitutional. Professor Maitland has well
described the "omnicompetence" of Parliament at this time. Nothing human
was alien to its sphere of activity, from the sale of herrings at Yarmouth
fair and the fashion of citizens' girdles to those great constitutional
questions which remained in dispute for three centuries longer, and were
only settled at last by a civil war and a revolution.
Nor was the judicial system less truly national than the Parliament.
Maitland has pointed out that the years 1272-1290 were more fruitful in
epoch-making legislation than any other period of English history, except
perhaps that which succeeded the Reform Bill of 1832. Chaucer, like
ourselves, lived in an age which was consolidating the great achievements
of two generations past, and looking forward to far-reaching social
changes in the future. Already in his time the Roman Law was outlandish in
England; our land laws were fixed in many principles which for centuries
remained unquestioned, and which are often found to underlie even the
present system. Already under Edward III., as for many centuries
afterwards, men looked upon the main principles of English jurisprudence
as settled for ever, and strove only by a series of ingenious
accommodations to fit them in with the requirements of a changing world.
The framework of the law courts, again, was roughly that of modern
England. The King's judges were no longer clerics, but laymen chosen from
among the professional pleaders in the courts; and here again "one
remarkable characteristic of our legal system is fixed."
In many other ways, too, the kingdom had outgrown its clerical tutelage.
Learning and art had long since ceased to be predominantly monastic; for
at least two centuries before Chaucer's birth they had left the protection
of the cloister, and flourished far more luxuriantly in the great world
than they ever could have done under strictly monastic conditions. True
monasticism was predominantly puritan, and therefore unfavourable to free
development in any direction but that of mystic contemplation; if the
spirit of St. Bernard had lived among the Cistercians, the glories of
Tintern and Rievaulx would have been impossible; and even our cathedrals
and parish churches owed more of their beauties to laymen than to clerics.
So also with our universities, which rose on the ruins of monastic
learning; and in which, despite the fresh impetus received from the
Friars, the lay spirit still grew rapidly under the shelter of the Church.
In the 14th century, when Oxford could show such a roll of philosophers
that "not all the other Nations and Universities of Europe between them
could muster such a list," a growing proportion of these were not
cloistered, but secular clergy. At no earlier time could these latter have
shown three such Oxford doctors as Bradwardine, Richard of Armagh, and
Wycliffe. The General Chapter of the Benedictines strove repeatedly, but
in vain, to compel a reasonable proportion of monks to study at Oxford or
Cambridge.[9] Before the end of Edward III.'s reign, the English
Universities had become far more truly national than at any previous time;
their training and aims were less definitely ecclesiastical, and their
culture overflowed to laymen like Chaucer and Gower.[10] Moreover, the
Inns of Court had become practically lay universities of law: and, quite
apart from Wycliffism, there was a rapid growth not only of the
non-clerical but even of anti-clerical spirit. Blow after blow was struck
at Papal privileges by successive Parliaments in which the representatives
of the lower clergy no longer sat. The Pope's demand for arrears of John's
tribute from England was rejected so emphatically that it was never
pressed again; Parliament repudiated Papal claims of presentation to
vacant benefices, and forbade, under the severest penalties, all
unlicensed appeals to Rome from English courts. It is true that our kings
constantly gave way on these two last points, but only because it was
easier to share the spoils by connivance with the Popes; and these
statutes mark none the less an epoch in English history. In 1371, again,
Edward III. assented to a petition from Parliament which pleaded "inasmuch
as the government of the realm has long been in the hands of the men of
Holy Church, who in no case can be brought to account for their acts,
whereby great mischief has happened in times past and may happen in times
to come, may it therefore please the king that laymen of his own realm be
elected to replace them, and that none but laymen henceforth be
chancellor, treasurer, barons of the exchequer, clerk of privy seal, or
other great officers of the realm." Already the partial sequestration of
the Alien Priories by the three Edwards, and the total suppression and
spoliation of the Templars in 1312, had accustomed men's minds to schemes
of wholesale disendowment which were advocated as earnestly by an
anti-Lollard like Langland[11] as by Wycliffe himself; and indeed this
writer, the most religious among the three principal poets of that age,
was also the most anticlerical. In Edward III.'s reign the Reformation was
already definitely in sight.
In short, Chaucer's lot was cast in an epoch-making age. Then began our
definite claim to the lordship of the sea; Sluys, our first great maritime
victory, the Trafalgar of the Middle Ages, was won in the same year in
which the poet was probably born; six years later we captured Calais, our
first colony; and it was noted even in those days that the Englishman
prospered still more abroad than at home. Never before or since have
English armies been so frequently and so uniformly victorious as during
the first thirty years of Chaucer's life; seldom have our commerce and our
liberties developed more rapidly; and if the disasters which he saw were
no less strange, these also helped to ripen his many-sided genius. The
Great Pestilence of 1349, more terrible than any other recorded in
history; the first pitched battle between Labour and Capital in 1381; the
first formal deposition of an English King in 1327, to be repeated still
more solemnly in 1399; all these must have affected the poet almost as
deeply as they affected the State, notwithstanding the persistency with
which he generally looks upon the brighter side. Professor Raleigh has
wittily applied to him the confession of Dr. Johnson's friend, "I have
tried in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness
was always breaking in." It is difficult, however, not to surmise a great
deal of more or less unwilling philosophy beneath Chaucer's delightful
flow of good-humour. His subtle ironies may tell as plain a tale as other
men's open complaints; and sometimes he hastens to laugh where we might
suspect a rising lump in his throat. But the laugh is there, or at least
the easy, good-natured smile. Where Gower sees an England more hopelessly
given over to the Devil than even in Carlyle's most dyspeptic
nightmares--where the robuster Langland sees an impending religious
Armageddon, and the honest soul's pilgrimage from the City of Destruction
towards a New Jerusalem rather hoped for than seen even by the eye of
faith--there Chaucer, with incurable optimism, sees chiefly a Merry
England to which the horrors of the Hundred Years' War and the Black Death
and Tyler's revolt are but a foil. Like many others in the Middle Ages, he
seems convinced of the peculiar instability of the English character. He
knew that he was living--as all generations are more or less conscious of
living--in an uncomfortable borderland between that which once was, but
can be no longer, and that which shall be, but cannot yet come to pass;
yet all these changes supplied the artist with that variety of colour and
form which he needed; and the man seems to have gone through life in the
tranquil conviction that this was a pleasant world, and his own land a
particularly privileged spot. The England of Chaucer is that of which one
of his most noted predecessors wrote, "England is a strong land and a
sturdy, and the plenteousest corner of the world, so rich a land that
unneth it needeth help of any land, and every other land needeth help of
England. England is full of mirth and of game, and men oft times able to
mirth and game, free men of heart and with tongue, but the hand is more
better and more free than the tongue."[12]
CHAPTER II
BOYHOOD AND YOUTH
"Jeunes amours, si vite épanouies,
Vous êtes l'aube et le matin du coeur.
Charmez l'enfant, extases inouïes
Et, quand le soir vient avec la douleur,
Charmez encor nos âmes éblouies,
Jeunes amours, si vite évanouies!"
VICTOR HUGO
The name _Chaucer_ was in some cases a corruption of _chauffecire_, _i.e._
"chafewax," or clerk in the Chancery, whose duty it was to help in the
elaborate operation of sealing royal documents.[13] But Mr. V. B. Redstone
seems to have shown conclusively that the poet's ancestors were
_chaussiers_, or makers of long hose, and that they combined this business
with other more or less extensive mercantile operations, especially as
vintners. The family, like others in the wine trade, may well have come
originally from Gascony; but in the 13th and 14th centuries it seems to
have thriven mainly in London and East Anglia, and recent research has
definitely traced the poet's immediate ancestry to Ipswich.[14] His
grandfather, Robert Malyn, surnamed le Chaucer, came from the Suffolk
village of Dennington, and set up a tavern in Ipswich. Robert left a
child named John, who was forcibly abducted one night in 1324 by Geoffrey
Stace, apparently his uncle. When Stace "stole and took away by force and
arms--viz. swords, bows, and arrows--the said John," his object was to
settle possible difficulties of succession to a certain estate by forcing
the boy to marry Joan de Westhale; and he pleaded in his justification the
custom of Ipswich, by which "an heir became of full age at the end of his
twelfth year, if he knew how to reckon and measure";[15] but he was very
heavily fined for his breach of the peace. We learn from the pleadings in
this case that John Chaucer was still unmarried in 1328; that he lived in
London with his stepfather, namesake, and fellow-vintner, Richard Chaucer,
and that his patrimony was very small. Richard, dying twenty-one years
later, left his house and his tavern to the Church; but he had very likely
given his stepson substantial help during his lifetime. In any case, John
must have thriven rapidly, for we find him, in 1338, at the age of
twenty-six or thereabouts, among the distinguished company which followed
Edward III. on his journey up the Rhine to negociate an alliance with the
Emperor Louis IV. The Royal Wardrobe Books give many interesting details
of this journey.[16] Queen Philippa accompanied the King half-way across
Brabant, and then returned to Antwerp, where she gave birth to Lionel of
Clarence, the poet's first master. Among the party were also several of
the household of the Earl of Derby, father-in-law to that John of Gaunt
with whom Geoffrey Chaucer's fortunes were to be closely bound. The
travellers had started from Antwerp on Sunday, August 16; and on the
following Sunday a long day's journey brought them within sight of the
colossal choir which, until sixty years ago, was almost all that existed
of Cologne Cathedral. Here the King gave liberally to the building fund;
and here John Chaucer probably stayed behind, since he and his
fellow-citizens had come to promote closer commercial relations between
the Rhine cities and London. The King was towed up the Rhine by sixty-two
boatmen, sat in the Diet at Coblenz as Vicar Imperial, formed a seven
years' alliance with the Emperor, and sent on his five-year-old daughter
Joan to Munich, where she waited many months vainly, but probably without
impatience, for the young Duke of Austria, who was at present bespoken for
her, but who finally turned elsewhere. Meanwhile Edward came back to Bonn,
where he had to pay the equivalent of about £330 modern money for damage
done in a quarrel between the citizens and those of his suite whom he had
left behind--John Chaucer probably included. The Queen met the party again
in Brabant, and they returned to Antwerp after a journey of exactly four
weeks. We meet with several further allusions to John Chaucer among the
London city records. It was very likely he who, in July, 1349, brought a
valuable present from the Bishop of Salisbury to Queen Philippa at
Devizes, at the time when the ravages of the Black Death in London supply
a very probable reason for his absence from town, so that he might well
have had his wife and son with him on this occasion. Certainly it was he
who, with fourteen other principal vintners of the city, assented in 1342
to an ordinance providing that "no taverner should mix putrid and corrupt
wine with wine that is good and pure, or should forbid that, when any
company is drinking wine in his tavern, one of them, for himself and the
rest of the company, shall enter the cellar where the tuns or pipes are
then lying, and see that the measures or vessels into which the wine is
poured are quite empty and clean within; and in like manner, from what tun
or what pipe the wine is so drawn." This salutary ordinance was set at
nought afterwards, as it had been before; but this and other records bear
witness to John Chaucer's standing in his profession.
[Illustration: LONDON BRIDGE, ETC., IN THE 16TH CENTURY
(FROM VERTUE'S ENGRAVING OF AGGAS'S MAP)
THE MOUTH OF THE WALBROOK MAY BE SEEN BETWEEN TWO HOUSES JUST ABOVE THE
RIGHT-HAND COW. THAMES STREET IS THE LONG STREET PARALLEL TO THE RIVER]
Geoffrey Chaucer was probably born about the year 1340, in his father's
London dwelling, which is described in a legal document of the time as "a
certain tenement situate in the parish of St. Martin at Vintry, between
the tenement of William le Gauger on the east and that which once belonged
to John le Mazelyner on the west: and it extendeth in length from the
King's highway of Thames Street southwards, unto the water of Walbrook
northwards."[17] The Water of Walbrook rose in the northern heights of
Hampstead and Highbury, spread with others into the swamp of Moorfields,
divided the city roughly into two halves, and discharged its sluggish
waters into the Thames about where Cannon Street station now stands.
Similar streams, or "fleets," creeping between overhanging houses, are
still frequent enough in little continental towns, and survive here and
there even in England.[18] Stow, writing in Queen Elizabeth's reign,
describes how the lower part of Walbrook was bricked over in 1462, leaving
it still "a fair brook of sweet water" in its upper course; and he takes
pains to assure us that it was not really called after Galus, "a Roman
captain slain by Asclepiodatus, and thrown therein, as some have fabled."
In Chaucer's time it ran openly through the wall between Moorgate and
Bishopsgate, washed St. Margaret's, Lothbury, and ran under the kitchen
of Grocer's Hall, and again under St. Mildred's church; "from thence
through Bucklersbury, by one great house built of stone and timber called
the Old Barge, because barges out of the river of Thames were rowed so far
into this brook, on the back side of the houses in Walbrook Street." In
this last statement, however, Stow himself had probably built too rashly
upon a mere name; for no barges can have come any distance up the stream
for centuries before its final bricking up. The mass of miscellaneous
documents preserved at the Guildhall, from which so much can be done to
reconstitute medieval London, give us a most unflattering picture of the
Walbrook. From 1278 to 1415 we find it periodically "stopped up by divers
filth and dung thrown therein by persons who have houses along the said
course, to the great nuisance and damage of all the city." The "King's
highway of Thames Street," though one of the chief arteries of the city,
cannot have been very spacious in these days, when even Cheapside was only
just wide enough to allow two chariots to pass each other; and when
Chaucer became his own master he doubtless did well to live in hired
houses over the gate of Aldgate or in the Abbey garden of Westminster, and
sell the paternal dwelling to a fellow-citizen who was presumably of
tougher fibre than himself. Yet, in spite of Walbrook and those riverside
lanes which Dr. Creighton surmises to have been the least sanitary spots
of medieval London, the Vintry was far from being one of the worst
quarters of the town. On the contrary, it was rather select, as befitted
the "Merchant Vintners of Gascoyne," many of whom were mayors of the city;
and Stow's survey records many conspicuous buildings in this ward. First,
the headquarters of the wine trade, "a large house built of stone and
timber, with vaults for the storage of wines, and is called the Vintry.
There dwelt John Gisers, vintner, mayor of London and constable of the
town." Here also "Henry Picard, vintner (mayor, 1357), in the year 1363,
did in one day sumptuously feast Edward III., King of England, John, King
of France, David, King of Scots, the King of Cyprus (then all in England),
Edward, Prince of Wales, with many other noblemen, and after kept his hall
for all comers that were willing to play at dice and hazard. The Lady
Margaret, his wife, kept her chamber to the same effect." Picard, as Mr.
Rye points out, was one of John Chaucer's fellow-vintners on Edward III.'s
Rhine journey in 1338.[19] Then there were the Vintner's Hall and
almshouses, which were built in Chaucer's lifetime; the three Guild Halls
of the Cutlers, Plumbers, and Glaziers; the town mansions of the Earls of
Worcester and Ormond, and the great house of the Ypres family, at which
John of Gaunt was dining in 1377 when a knight burst in with news that
London was up in arms against him, "and unless he took great heed, that
day would be his last. With which words the duke leapt so hastily from his
oysters that he hurt both his legs against the form. Wine was offered, but
he could not drink for haste, and so fled with his fellow Henry Percy out
at a back gate, and entering the Thames, never stayed rowing until they
came to a house near the manor of Kennington, where at that time the
princess [of Wales] lay with Richard the young prince, before whom he made
his complaint."
[Illustration: MEDIEVAL COCK-FIGHTING, ACTUAL AND METAPHORICAL
(From Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes")]
Of Chaucer's childhood we have no direct record. No doubt he played with
other boys at forbidden games of ball in the narrow streets, to the
serious risk of other people's windows or limbs; no doubt he brought his
cock to fight in school, under magisterial supervision, on Shrove Tuesday,
and played in the fields outside the walls at the still rougher game of
football, or at "leaping, dancing, shooting, wrestling, and casting the
stone." In winter, when the great swamp of Moorfields was frozen, he
would be sure to flock out with the rest to "play upon the ice; some,
striding as wide as they may, do slide swiftly; others make themselves
seats of ice, as great as millstones; one sits down, many hand in hand to
draw him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall together; some tie bones
to their feet and under their heels, and shoving themselves by a little
piked staff, do slide as swiftly as a bird flieth in the air, or an arrow
out of a cross-bow. Sometime two run together with poles, and hitting one
the other, either one or both do fall, not without hurt; some break their
arms, some their legs, but youth desirous of glory in this sort
exerciseth itself against the time of war."[20] In spring he would watch
the orchards of Southwark put on their fresh leaves and blossoms, and walk
abroad with his father in the evening to the pleasant little village of
Holborn; but he had a perennial source of amusement nearer home than this.
Nearly all the old wall along the Thames had already been broken down, as
the city had grown in population and security, while more ships came daily
to unload their cargoes at the wharves. Here and there stood mighty
survivals of the old riverside fortifications: Montfitchet's Tower
flanking the walls up-stream and the Tower of London down-stream; and
between them, close by Chaucer's own home, the "Tower Royal," in which the
Queen Dowager found safety during Wat Tyler's revolt. But the Thames
itself was now bordered by an almost continuous line of open quays, among
the busiest of which were those of Vintry ward, "where the merchants of
Bordeaux craned their wines out of lighters and other vessels," and
finally built their vaulted warehouses so thickly as to crowd out the
cooks' shops; "for Fitzstephen, in the reign of Henry II., writeth, that
upon the river's side, between the wine in ships and the wine to be sold
in Taverns, was a common cookery or cooks' row." Here, then, Chaucer would
loiter to study the natural history of the English shipman, full of
strange oaths and bearded like the pard. Here he would see not only native
craft from "far by west," but broad-sailed vessels from every country of
Europe, with cargoes as various as their nationalities. Not a stone's
throw from his father's house stood the great fortified hall and wharf of
the Hanse merchants, the Easterlings who gave their name to our standard
coinage, and whose London premises remained the property of Lübeck,
Hamburg, and Bremen until 1853.[21] Chief among the Easterlings at this
time were the Cologne merchants, with whom John Chaucer had specially
close relations; so that the little Geoffrey must often have trotted in
with his father to see the vines and fruit-trees with which these thrifty
Germans had laid out a plot of make-believe Rhineland beside far-off
Thames shore. Often must he have wondered at the half-monastic,
half-military discipline which these knights of commerce kept inside their
high stone walls, and sat down to nibble at his share of "a Dutch bun and
a keg of sturgeon," or dipped his childish beak in the paternal flagon of
Rhenish. Meanwhile he went to school, since his writings show a very
considerable amount of learning for a layman of his time. French he would
pick up easily enough among this colony of "Merchant Vintners of
Gascoyne"; and for Latin there were at least three grammar schools
attached to different churches in London, of which St. Paul's lay nearest
to Chaucer's home. But he probably began first with one of the many clerks
in lower orders, who, all through the Middle Ages, eked out their scanty
income by teaching boys and girls to read; and here we may remember what a
contemporary man of letters tells us of his own childhood in a great
merchant city. "When they put me to school," writes Froissart, "there were
little girls who were young in my days, and I, who was a little boy, would
serve them with pins, or with an apple or a pear, or a plain glass ring;
and in truth methought it great prowess to win their grace ... and then
would I say to myself, 'When will the hour strike for me, that I shall be
able to love in earnest?'... When I was grown a little wiser, it behoved
me to be more obedient; for they made me learn Latin, and if I varied in
repeating my lessons, they gave me the rod.... I could not be at rest; I
was beaten, and I beat in turn; then was I in such disarray that ofttimes
I came home with torn clothes, when I was chidden and beaten again; but
all their pains were utterly lost, for I took no heed thereof. When I saw
my comrades pass down the street in front, I soon found an excuse to go
and tumble with them again."[22] Is not childhood essentially the same in
all countries and in all ages?
The first certain glimpse we get of the future poet is at the age of
seventeen or eighteen. A manuscript of the British Museum containing poems
by Chaucer's contemporaries, Lydgate and Hoccleve, needed rebinding; and
the old binding was found, as often, to have been strengthened with two
sheets of parchment pasted inside the covers. These sheets, religiously
preserved, in accordance with the traditions of the Museum, were found to
contain household accounts of the Countess of Ulster, wife to that Prince
Lionel who had been born so near to the time of John Chaucer's continental
journey, and who was therefore two or three years older than the poet.
Among the items were found records of clothes given to different members
of the household for Easter, 1357; and low down on the list comes Geoffrey
Chaucer, who received a short cloak, a pair of tight breeches in red and
black, and shoes. In these red-and-black hosen the poet comes for the
first time into full light on the stage of history. Two other trifling
payments to him are recorded later on; but the chief interest of the
remaining accounts lies in the light they throw on the Countess's
movements. We see that she travelled much and was present at several great
Court festivities; and we have every right to assume that Chaucer in her
train had an equally varied experience. "We may catch glimpses of Chaucer
in London, at Windsor, at the feast of St. George, held there with great
pomp in connection with the newly founded Order of the Garter, again in
London, then at Woodstock, at the celebration of the feast at Pentecost,
at Doncaster, at Hatfield in Yorkshire, where he spends Christmas, again
at Windsor, in Anglesey (August, 1358), at Liverpool, at the funeral of
Queen Isabella at the Grey Friars Church, London (November 27th, 1358),
at Reading, again in London, visiting the lions in the Tower."[23]
Lionel himself, the romance of whose too brief life was said to have begun
even before his birth,[24] was the tallest and handsomest of all the
King's sons. As the chronicler Hardyng says--
"In all the world was then no prince hym like,
Of his stature and of all semelynesse
Above all men within his hole kyngrike
By the shulders he might be seen doutlesse,
[And] as a mayde in halle of gentilnesse."
His second marriage and tragic death, not without suspicion of poison, may
be found written in Froissart under the year 1368; but as yet there was no
shadow over his life, and in 1357 there can have been few gayer Courts for
a young poet than this, to which there came, at the end of the year, among
other great folk, the great prince John of Gaunt, who was afterwards to be
Chaucer's and Wycliffe's best patron. For all John Chaucer's favour with
the King, the vintner's son could never have found a place in this great
society without brilliant qualities of his own. We must think of him like
his own squire--singing, fluting, and dancing, fresh as the month of May;
already a poet, and warbling his love-songs like the nightingale while
staider folk snored in their beds. His earliest poems refer to an
unrequited passion, not so much natural as positively inevitable under
those conditions. Within the narrow compass of a medieval castle, daily
intercourse was proportionately closer, as differences of rank were more
indelible than they are nowadays; and in a society where neither could
seriously dream of marriage, Kate the Queen might listen all the more
complacently to the page's love-carol as he crumbled the hounds their
messes. The desire of the moth for the star may be sad enough, but it is
far worse when the star is a close and tangible flame. The tale of Petit
Jean de Saintré and the Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry afford the
best possible commentary on Chaucer's Court life.
Heavily as we may discount the autobiographical touches in his early
poems, there is still quite enough to show that, from his twenty-first
year at least, he spent many years of love-longing and unrest, and that
(as in Shakespeare's case) differences of rank added to his despair. It
may well be that the references are to more than one lady; for there is no
reason to suppose that Chaucer's affections were less mercurial than those
of Burns or Heine, whose hearts were often enough in two or three places
at once. But we have no reason to doubt him when he assures us, in 1369,
that he has lost his sleep and his cheerfulness--
I hold it to be a sickness
That I have suffered this eight year,
And yet my boote is never the nere;
For there is physician but one
That may me heal; but that is done.
Her name, he says about the same time, is Bounty, Beauty, and Pleasance;
but her surname is Fair-Ruthless. Again, he tells us how he ran to Pity
with his complaints of Love's tyranny; but, alas!
I found her dead, and buried in an heart....
And no wight wot that she is dead but I.
The cruel fair stands high above him, a lady of royal excellence, humble
indeed of heart, yet he scarce dares to call himself her servant--
Have mercy on me, thou serenest queen,
That you have sought so tenderly and yore,
Let some stream of your light on me be seen,
That love and dread you ever longer the more;
For, soothly for to say, I bear the sore,
And though I be not cunning for to plain,
For Goddës love, have mercy on my pain!
But all is vain, for in the end "Ye recke not whether I float or sink."
Like the contemporary poets of Piers Plowman, Chaucer discovered soon
enough that the high road to wisdom lies through
"Suffer-both-well-and-woe;" and that, before we can possess our souls, we
must "see much and suffer more."[25] There is more than mere graceful
irony in the beautiful lines with which, a few years later, he begins his
"Troilus and Criseyde." He is (he says) the bondservant of Love, one whose
own woes help him to comfort others' pain, or again, to enlist the
sympathy of Fortune's favourite--
But ye lovéres, that bathen in gladness,
If any drop of pity in you be,
Remembreth you on passéd heaviness
That ye have felt, and on th' adversitie
Of other folk, and thinketh how that ye
Have felt that Lovë durstë you displease,
Or ye have won him with too great an ease.
And prayeth for them that be in the case
Of Troilus, as ye may after hear,
That Love them bring in heaven to solace;
And eke for me prayeth to God so dear....
And biddeth eke for them that be despaired
In love, that never will recovered be....
And biddeth eke for them that be at ease,
That God them grant aye good perséverance,
And send them might their ladies so to please
That it to Love be worship and pleasance.
For so hope I my soulë best t' advance,
To pray for them that Lovë's servants be,
And write their woe, and live in charitie.
CHAPTER III
THE KING'S SQUIRE
For I, that God of Lovë's servants serve,
Dare not to Love for mine unlikeliness
Prayen for speed, though I should therefore sterve,
So far am I from this help in darkness!
"Troilus and Criseyde," i., 15
In Chaucer's life, as in the "Seven Ages of Man," the soldier follows hard
upon the lover; he is scarcely out of his 'teens before we find him riding
to the Great War, "in hope to stonden in his lady grace." He fought in
that strange campaign of 1359-60, which began with such magnificent
preparations, but ended so ineffectually. Edward marched across France
from Calais to Reims with a splendid army and an unheard-of baggage train;
but the towns closed their gates, the French armies hovered out of his
reach, and the weather was such that horses and men died like flies. "The
xiii. day of Aprill [1360] King Edward with his Oost lay before the Citee
off Parys; the which was a ffoule Derke day of myste, and off haylle, and
so bytter colde, that syttyng on horse bak men dyed. Wherefore, unto this
day yt ys called blak Monday, and wolle be longe tyme here affter."[26]
Edward felt that the stars fought against him, and was glad to make a less
advantageous peace than he might have had before this wasteful raid.
Chaucer's friend and brother-poet, Eustache Deschamps, recalls how the
English took up their quarters in the villages and convents that crown the
heights round Reims, and watched forty days for a favourable opportunity
of attack. Froissart also tells us how Edward feared to assault so strong
a city, and only blockaded it for seven weeks, until "it began to irk him,
and his men found nought more to forage, and began to lose their horses,
and were at great disease for lack of victuals." It was probably on one of
these foraging parties that Chaucer was cut off with other stragglers by
the French skirmishers; and the King paid £16 towards his ransom.[27] The
items in the same account range from £50 paid towards the ransom of
Richard Stury (a distinguished soldier who was afterwards a
fellow-ambassador of Chaucer's), to £6 13_s._ 4_d._ "in compensation for
the Lord Andrew Lutterell's dead horse," and £2 towards an archer's
ransom.
John Chaucer died in 1366, and his thrifty widow hastened to marry
Bartholomew Attechapel; "the funeral bakemeats did coldly furnish forth
the marriage tables."[28] Geoffrey appears to have inherited little
property from either of them; but it must be remembered that economies
were difficult in the Middle Ages, so that men lived far more nearly up to
their incomes than in modern times; and, again, that a considerable
proportion of a citizen's legacies often went to the Church. The healthy
English and American practice of giving a boy a good start and then
leaving him to shift for himself was therefore even more common in the
14th century than now. This is essentially the state of things which we
find described with amazement, and doubtless with a good deal of
exaggeration, in the "Italian Relation of England" of a century later. The
English tradesmen (says the author) show so little affection towards their
children that "after having kept them at home till they arrive at the age
of seven or nine years at the utmost, they put them out, both males and
females, to hard service in the houses of other people, binding them
generally for another seven or nine years." Thus the children look more to
their masters than to their natural parents, and, "having no hope of their
paternal inheritance," set up on their own account and marry away from
home.[29] From this source (proceeds the Italian) springs that greed of
gain and that omnipotence of money, even in the moral sphere, which are so
characteristic of England. John Chaucer may have left little property to
his son, but he had given him an excellent education, and put him in the
way of making his own fortune; for in 1367 we find him a yeoman of the
King's chamber, and endowed with a life-pension of twenty marks "of our
special grace, and for the good services which our beloved yeoman Geoffrey
Chaucer hath rendered us and shall render us for the future." The phrase
makes it probable that he had already been some little time in the King's
service--very likely as early as the unlucky campaign in which Edward had
helped towards his ransom--and other indications make it almost certain
that he was by this time a married man. Nine years before this, side by
side with Chaucer in the Countess of Ulster's household accounts, we find
among the ladies one Philippa _Pan'_, with a mark of abbreviation, which
probably stands for _panetaria_, or mistress of the pantry. Just as the
Countess bought Chaucer's red-and-black hosen, so she paid "for the making
of Philippa's trimmings," "for the fashioning of one tunic for
Philippa,"[30] "for the making of a corset for Philippa and for the
fur-work," "for XLVIII great buttons of ... [unfortunate gap in the MS.]
... bought in London by the aforesaid John Massingham for buttoning the
aforesaid Philippa's trimmings"; and in each case her steward records the
payment "for drink given to the aforesaid workmen according to the custom
of London." Eight years after this (1366) the Queen granted a life-pension
to her "damoiselle of the chamber," Philippa Chaucer. Six years later,
again, Philippa Chaucer is in attendance upon John of Gaunt's wife; and in
another two years we find her definitely spoken of as the wife of Geoffrey
Chaucer, through whose hands her pension is paid on this occasion, and
sometimes in later years. On the face of these documents the obvious
conclusion would seem to be that the lady, who was certainly _Philippa
Chaucer_ in 1366, and equally certainly _Philippa, wife of Geoffrey
Chaucer_, in 1374, was already in 1366 our poet's wife. The only argument
of apparent weight which has been urged against it is in fact of very
little account when we consider actual medieval conditions. It has been
pleaded that if Chaucer complained in 1366 of an unrequited love which had
tortured him for eight years and still overshadowed his life, he could not
already be a married man. To urge this is to neglect one of the most
characteristic features of good society in the Middle Ages. Even Léon
Gautier, the enthusiastic apologist of chivalry, admits sadly that the
feudal marriage was too often a loveless compact, except so far as the
pair might shake down together afterwards;[31] and conjugal love plays a
very secondary part in the great romances of chivalry. However apocryphal
may be the alleged solemn verdict of a Court of Love that husband and wife
had no right to be in love with each other, the sentence was at least
recognized as _ben trovato_; and nobody who has closely studied medieval
society, either in romance or in chronicle, would suppose that Chaucer
blushed to feel a hopeless passion for another, or to write openly of it
while he had a wife of his own. Dante's Beatrice, and probably Petrarch's
Laura, were married women; and, however strongly we may be inclined to
urge the exceptional and ethereal nature of these two cases, nothing of
the kind can be pleaded for Boccaccio's Fiammetta and Froissart's
anonymous lady-love. Chaucer, therefore, might well have followed the
examples of the four greatest writers of his century. Moreover, in this
case we have evidence that he and Philippa not only began, but continued
and ended with at least a homoeopathic dose of that "little aversion"
which Mrs. Malaprop so strongly recommended in matrimony. His allusions to
wedded life are predominantly disrespectful, or at best mockingly
ironical; and though his own marriage may well have steadied him in some
ways--Prof. Skeat points out that his least moral tales were all written
after Philippa's death in 1387--yet the evidence is against his having
found in it such companionship as might have chained his too errant fancy.
The lives of Burne-Jones and Morris throw unexpected sidelights on that of
the master whom they loved so well; and neither of them seems fully to
have realized how much his own development owed to modern things for which
seventeen generations of men have struggled and suffered since Chaucer's
time. No artist of the Middle Ages--or, indeed, of any but quite recent
times--could have earned by his genius a passport into society for wife
and family as well as himself; nor could anything but a miracle have
unbarred for Chaucer that paradise of splendid work, pure domestic
felicity, and social success which attracts us so much in the life of
Burne-Jones.[32] His wife was probably rather his social superior, and
both would have had in any case a certain status as attendants at Court;
but that was in itself an unhealthy life, and so far as Chaucer's poetry
raised him above his fellow yeomen or fellow squires, so far that special
favour would tend to separate him from his wife. A courtly poet's married
life could scarcely be happy in an age compounded of such social licence
and such galling restrictions: an age when a man might recite the Miller's
and Reve's tales in mixed company, yet a girl was expected not to speak
till she was addressed, to fold her hands when she sat down, to keep her
eyes fixed on the ground as she walked, to assume that all talk of love
meant illicit love, and to avoid even the most natural familiarities on
pain of scandal.[33] We may very easily exaggerate the want of harmony in
the Chaucer household; but everything tends to assure us that his was not
altogether an ideal marriage. When, therefore, he tells us he has long
been the servant of Love, and that he is the very clerk of Love, we need
not suppose any reference here to the lady who had been his wife certainly
for some years, and perhaps for nearly twenty. Prof. Hales, however, seems
to go a good deal too far in assuming that Philippa was in attendance on
Constance, Duchess of Lancaster, while her husband lived snugly in
bachelor apartments over Aldgate.[34]
But who, it may be asked, was this Philippa of the Pantry before she
became Philippa Chaucer? Here again the indications, though tantalizingly
slight, all point towards some connection with John of Gaunt, Chaucer's
great patron. She was probably either a Swynford or a Roet, _i.e._
sister-in-law or own sister to Katherine Roet, who married Sir Thomas
Swynford, and who became in after life first mistress and finally wife to
John of Gaunt. From this marriage were descended the great Beaufort
family, of which the most powerful member, the Cardinal Minister of Henry
VI., speaks in one of his letters of his _cousin_, Thomas Chaucer.[35]
This again is complicated by the doubt which has been thrown on a Thomas
Chaucer's sonship to Geoffrey, in spite of the definite assertion by the
former's contemporary, Gascoigne, Chancellor of Oxford University.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER HALL
(THE GREAT HALL OF THE KING'S PALACE AT WESTMINSTER)]
Meanwhile, however, we are certain that Chaucer was in 1367 a Yeoman of
Edward III.'s Chamber, and that he was promoted five years later to be a
squire in the Royal household. The still existing Household Ordinances of
Edward II. on one side, and Edward IV. on the other, agree so closely in
their description of the duties of these two offices, that we may infer
pretty exactly what they were in Chaucer's time. The earlier ordinances
prescribe that the yeomen "shall serve in the chamber, making beds,
holding and carrying torches, and divers other things which [the King] and
the chamberlain shall command them. These [yeomen] shall eat in the
chamber before the King. And each of them, be he well or ill, shall have
for livery one darre[36] of bread, one gallon of beer, a _messe de
gros_[37] from the kitchen, and yearly a robe in cloth or a mark in money;
and for shoes 4_s._ 8_d._, at two seasons in the year.[38] And if any of
them be sent out of the Court in the King's business, by his commandment,
he shall have 4_d._ a day for his expenses." The later ordinances add to
these duties "to attend the Chamber, to watch the King by course, to go
messages, etc." The yeomen were bedded two by two, apparently on the floor
of the great hall, so that visitors to Westminster Hall may well happen
to tread on the spot where Chaucer nightly lay down to sleep. When he
became a squire, he might either have found himself still on duty in the
King's chamber, or else an "Esquire for the King's mouth," to taste the
food for fear of poison, to carve for the King, and to serve his wine on
bended knee. He still shared a bed with some fellow squire; but they now
shared a servant also and a private room, to which each might bring at
night his gallon or half gallon of ale; "and for winter season, each of
them two Paris candles, one faggot, or else a half of tallwood." Besides
his mess of great meat, he might now take a mess of roast also;[39] his
wages were raised to 7-1/2_d._ per day, and he received yearly "two robes
of cloth, or 40_s._ in money." Moreover, as the Household Book of Edward
IV. adds, "these esquires of household of old be accustomed, winter and
summer, in afternoons and in evenings to draw to Lords Chambers within
Court, there to keep honest company after their cunning, in talking of
Chronicles of Kings, and of other policies, or in piping or harping,
singing, or other acts martial, to help to occupy the Court, and accompany
strangers till the time require of departing." The same compiler looks
back to Edward III.'s time as the crown and glory of English Court life;
and indeed that King lived on a higher scale (as things went in those
days) than any other medieval English King except his inglorious grandson,
Richard II. King John of France might indeed marvel to find himself among
a nation of shopkeepers, and laugh at the thrift and order which
underlay even his Royal cousin's extravagances.[40] But John's son,
Charles the Wise, was destined to earn that surname by nothing more than
by his imitation of English business methods in peace and war; and
meanwhile the longest laugh was with Edward, whose Court swarmed with
French prisoners and hostages. Among the enforced guests were King John
himself, four royal dukes, the flower of the nobility, and thirty-six
substantial citizens sent over by the great towns as pledges for the
enormous war indemnity, which was in fact never fully paid. All these were
probably still at Court when Chaucer first joined it, and few poets have
ever feasted their youthful eyes on more splendid sights than this.
Palaces and castles were filled to overflowing with the spoils of France;
and the prisoners themselves vied with their captors in knightly sports
and knightly magnificence. One of the royal princes had sixteen servants
with him in his captivity; all moved freely about the country on parole,
hawking and hunting, dancing and flouting, rather like guests than
prisoners. Indeed, as Mme. Darmesteter truly remarks, there was a natural
freemasonry between the French nobility and the French-speaking courtiers
of England; and Froissart draws a vivid contrast between our manners and
those of the Germans in this respect. "For English and Gascons are of such
condition that they put a knight or a squire courteously to ransom; but
the custom of the Germans, and their courtesy [to their prisoners] is of
no such sort hitherto--I know not how they will do henceforth--for
hitherto they have had neither pity nor mercy on Christian gentlemen who
fall into their hands as prisoners, but lay on them ransoms to the full
of their estate and even beyond, and put them in chains, in irons, and in
close prison like thieves and murderers; and all to extort the greater
ransom."[41] The French lords added rather to the gaiety of a Court which
was already perhaps the gayest in Europe; a society all the merrier
because it was spending money that had been so quickly won; and because,
in those days of shifting fortune, the shadow of change might already be
foreboded on the horizon. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we may be
captives in our turn. Few of the great leaders on either side escaped
without paying ransom at least once in their lives; and the devil-may-care
of the camp had its direct influence on Court manners. The extravagant and
comparatively inartistic fashions which, at the end of the 14th century,
displaced one of the simplest and most beautiful models of dress which
have ever reigned, were invented, as a contemporary assures us, by "the
unthrifty women that be evil of their body, and chamberers to Englishmen
and other men of war that dwellen with them as their lemans; for they were
the first that brought up this estate that ye use of great purfles and
slit coats.... And as to my wife, she shall not; but the princesses and
ladies of England have taken up the said state and guise, and they may
well hold it if them list."[42] Towards the end of Chaucer's life, when
Richard II. had increased his personal expenses in direct proportion to
his ill-success in war and politics, the English Court reached its highest
pitch of extravagance. The chronicler Hardyng writes--
"Truly I herd _Robert Ireliffe_ say,
_Clerke of the grene cloth_, that to the household
Came every daye, for moost partie alwaye,
Ten thousand folke, by his messes tould,
That followed the hous, aye, as thei would;
And in the kechin three hundred servitours,
And in eche office many occupiours.
"And ladies faire with their gentilwomen,
Chamberers also and lavenders,
Three hundred of them were occupied then:
Ther was greate pride among the officers,
And of al menne far passyng their compeers,
Of riche araye, and muche more costious
Than was before or sith, and more precious."
And he adds a description of Court morals which may well suggest further
reflections on Chaucer's married life.[43]
[Illustration: A TRAVELLING CARRIAGE
(FROM THE LOUTERELL PSALTER)]
But the Court was all that the poet could desire as a school of worldly
manners, of human passion and character, and of gorgeous pageantry. The
King travelled much with his household; a grievous burden indeed to the
poor country folk on whom his purveyors preyed, but to the world in
general a glorious sight. He took with him a multitude of officers already
suppressed as superfluous in the days of Edward IV., "as well Sergeants of
Arms and Messagers many, with the twenty-four Archers before the King,
shooting when he rode by the country, called _Gard Corpes le Roy_. And
therefore the King journied not passing ten or twelve miles a day." Ruskin
traces much of his store of observation to the leisurely journeys round
England with his father in Mr. Telford's chaise; and the young Chaucer
must have gathered from these Royal progresses a rich harvest of
impressions for future use.
CHAPTER IV
THE AMBASSADOR
"Adieu, mol lit, adieu, piteux regards;
Adieu, pain frais que l'on soulait trouver;
Il me convient porter honneur aux lards;
Il convient ail et biscuit avaler,
Et chevaucher un périlleux cheval."
EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS
Although we have nothing important dating from before his thirtieth year,
we know from Chaucer's own words that he wrote many "Balades, Roundels,
and Virelays" which are now lost; or, as he puts it in his last rueful
Retractation, "many a song and many a lecherous lay." These were no doubt
fugitive pieces, often written for different friends or patrons, and put
abroad in their names. Besides these, we know that he translated certain
religious works, including the famous "Misery of Human Life" of Pope
Innocent the Third. Piety and Profanity, prayers and curses, jostle each
other in Chaucer's early life as in the society round him: we may think of
his own Shipman, thoroughly orthodox after his simple fashion, but
silencing the too Puritanical parson with a rattling oath at close range,
and proceeding to "clynken so mery a belle" that we feel a sort of
treachery in pausing to wonder how such a festive tale could be brought
forth for a company of pilgrims as a pill to purge heterodoxy!
The first of his early poems which we can date with any certainty is also
the best worth dating. This is the "Dethe of Blaunche the Duchesse," in
memory of John of Gaunt's first wife, who died in September, 1369. The
poem is obviously immature and unequal, but full of delightful passages,
fresh to us even where the critics trace them to some obvious French
source. Such, for instance, is the beginning of his dream, where he
describes the inevitable May morning--inevitable in medieval verse, but
here and there, when he or his fellow-poets are in their happiest mood, as
fresh again as Nature herself, who is never tired of harping on the same
old themes of sunshine and blue sky and fresh air. He wakes at dawn to
hear the birds singing their matins at his eaves; his bedroom walls are
painted with scenes from the "Romance of the Rose," and broad sunlight
streams through the storied glass upon his bed. He throws open the
casement: "blue, bright, clear was the air, nor in all the welkin was one
cloud." A bugle rings out; he hears the trampling of horse and hounds; the
Emperor Octavian's hunt is afoot--or, in plainer prose, King Edward the
Third's. The poet joins them; a puppy comes up fawning, starting away,
fawning again, until it has led him apart from the rest.
It came and crept to me as low
Right as it haddë me y-knowe,
Held down his head and joined his ears,
And laid all smoothë down his hairs.
I would have caught it, and anon
It fled, and was from me gone;
And I him followed, and it forth went
Down by a flowery greenë went [glade
Full thick of grass, full soft and sweet
With flowerës fele, fair under feet. [many
Here he finds a young knight all in black, mourning by himself. A little
unobtrusive sympathy unlocks the young man's heart. She was "my hap, my
heal, and all my bliss;" "and goodë fairë White she hight." The first
meeting had been as sudden as that of Dante and Beatrice: a medieval
garden-party--"the fairest companye of ladies, that ever man with eye had
seen together in one place," and one among them who "was like none of all
the rout," but who outshone the rest as the sun outshines moon and stars--
For every hair upon her head,
Sooth to say, it was not red;
Nor neither yellow nor brown it was,
Me thoughte most like gold it was.
Her eyes shone with such simple enjoyment of life that "fools" were apt to
read a special welcome in her glance, to their bitter disappointment in
course of time. She disdained the "knakkes smale," the little coquettish
tricks of certain other ladies, who send their lovers half round the
world, and give them but cold cheer on their return. The rest of the
personal description is more commonplace, and (however faithful to
medieval precedent) a little too like some modern sportsman's enumeration
of his horse's points. The course of true love did not run too smoothly
here. On the knight's first proposal, "she saidë 'nay!' all utterly." But
"another year," when she had learned to know him better, she took him to
her mercy, and they lived full many a year in bliss, only broken now by
her death. The poem, which had rather dragged at the beginning, here ends
abruptly, as though Chaucer had tired of it. He has no effectual comfort
to offer in such a sorrow; the hunt breaks in upon their dialogue; King
and courtiers ride off to a long white-walled castle on a hill, where a
bell rings the hour of noon and wakes the poet from his dream.
When we have reckoned up all Chaucer's debts to his predecessors in this
poem--and they are many--there is ample proof left of his own originality.
Moreover, we cannot too often remind ourselves that the idea of copyright,
either legal or moral, is modern. In the scarcity of books which reigned
before the days of printing, the poet who "conveyed" most might well be
the greatest benefactor to mankind. The educated public, so far as such a
body then existed, rather encouraged than reprobated the practice of
borrowing; and the poet, like the modern schoolboy versifier, was
applauded for his skill in weaving classical tags into his own work.
Chaucer differed from his predecessors, and most of his successors, less
in the amount which he borrowed than in the extraordinary vitality and
originality which he infused into the older work. If we had only these
fragments of his early works, we should still understand how Deschamps
praises him as "King of worldly love in Albion"; we should still feel
something of that charm of language which earned the poet his popularity
at Court and his promotion to important offices.
It is well known that medieval society had not developed the minute
sub-divisions of labour which have often been pushed to excess in modern
times. The architect was simply a master-mason; the barber was equally
ready to try his hand on your beard or on a malignant tumour; the King
might choose for his minister a frankly incapable personal favourite, or
send out his most gorgeously accoutred knights on a reconnaissance which
would have been infinitely better carried out by a trained scout.
Similarly, the poets of the 14th century were very frequently sent abroad
as ambassadors; Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio had already set Chaucer this
example, which his friend Eustache Deschamps was soon to follow. The
choice implied, no doubt, a subtle tribute to the power of rhetoric, under
which category poetry was often classed. The rarity of book-learning did
not indeed give the scholar a higher value in general society than he
commands nowadays, or bring more grist to his mill; he and his horse were
commonly lean enough, and his only worldly treasures were his score of
books at his bed's head. But the medieval mind, which persistently
invested lunatics with the highest prophetic qualities, seems to have had
an equally touching faith in poetic clairvoyance at times when common
sense was at fault, and to have called upon a Dante or a Chaucer just as,
in similar emergencies, it called upon particular saints whose
intercession was least invoked in everyday life. Much, of course, is to be
explained by the fact that formal and elaborate public speeches were as
necessary as spectacular display on these embassies; but, even so, we may
wonder that the Ravennati ever entrusted an embassy to Dante, who is
recorded to have been so violent a political partisan that he was capable
of throwing stones even at women in the excitement of discussion. Chaucer,
however, had neither the qualities nor the defects of such headlong
fanaticism; and from the frequency with which he was employed we may infer
that he showed real talents for diplomacy.
His first employment of the kind was in 1370, when, a year after he had
taken part in a second French campaign, he was "abroad in the King's
service" during the summer. Whither he went is uncertain, probably to the
Netherlands or Northern France, since his absence was brief. In 1371 and
1372 he regularly received his pension with his own hands (as the still
extant household accounts of Edward III. show), until November of the
latter year, when he "was joined in a commission with James Pronam and
John de Mari, citizens of Genoa, to treat with the Duke, citizens, and
merchants of Genoa, for the purpose of choosing some port in England where
the Genoese might form a commercial establishment."[44] This journey
lasted about a year, and Chaucer received for his expenses 138 marks, or
about £1400 modern value. The roll which records these payments mentions
that Chaucer's business had taken him to Florence as well as Genoa; and
here, as so often happens in history, a stray word recorded in the driest
of business documents opens out a vista of things in themselves most
romantic.
Of all that makes the traveller's joy in modern Italy, the greater part
was already there for Chaucer to see, with much more that he saw and that
we never shall. The sky, the air, and the landscape were practically the
same, except for denser forests, and, no doubt, fewer lemon and orange
trees. The traveller, it is true, was less at leisure to observe some of
these things, and less inclined to find God's hand in the mountains or the
sea. Chaucer is so far a man of his time as to show no delight in the
sterner moods of Nature; we find in his works none of that true love of
mountain scenery which comes out in the "Pearl" and in early Scottish
poetry; and when he has to speak of Custance's sea-voyages, he expedites
them as briefly and baldly as though they had been so many business
journeys by rail. Deschamps, and the anonymous English poet of fifty years
later, show us how little cause a man had to love even the Channel passage
in the rough little boats of those days, "a perilous horse to ride,"
indeed; rude and bustling sea-folk, plentiful tributes to Neptune, scant
elbow room--
"Bestow the boat, boatswain, anon,
That our pilgrims may play thereon;
For some are like to cough and groan ...
This meanëwhile the pilgrims lie
And have their bowlës fast them by
And cry after hot Malvoisie ...
Some laid their bookës on their knee,
And read so long they might not see:--
'Alas! mine head will cleave in three!'"[45]
Worse passages still were matters of common history; Froissart tells us
how Hervé de Léon "took the sea [at Southampton] to the intent to arrive
at Harfleur; but a storm took him on the sea which endured fifteen days,
and lost his horse, which were cast into the sea, and Sir Hervé of Léon
was so sore troubled that he had never health after." King John of France,
a few years later, took eleven days to cross the Channel,[46] and Edward
III. had one passage so painful that he was reduced to explain it by the
arts of "necromancers and wizards." Moreover, nearly all Chaucer's
embassies came during those evil years after our naval defeat of 1372,
when our fleets no longer held the Channel, and the seas swarmed with
French privateers. Nor were the mountains less hated by the traveller, or
less dangerous in reality, with their rude horse-tracks and ruder
mountain-folk, half herdsmen, half brigands. First there were the Alps to
be crossed, and then, from Genoa to Florence, "the most desolate, the most
solitary way that lies between Lerici and Turbia."[47] But, after all
these difficulties, Italy showed herself as hospitable as the approaches
had been inhospitable:
"Il fait bien bon demeurer
Au doux château de Pavie."[48]
We must not forget these more material enjoyments, for they figure largely
among the impressions of a still greater man, in whose intellectual life
the journey to Italy marks at least as definite an epoch; not the least
delightful passages of Goethe's _Italienische Reise_ are those which
describe his delight in seeing the oranges grow, or the strange fish
brought out of the sea.
For Goethe, the soul of Italy was in its pagan antiquity; but Chaucer
found there a living art and living literature, the noblest in the then
world. The great semicircle of houses standing upon projecting arches
round the harbour of Genoa, which survived to be drawn by Ruskin in their
decay, would at once strike a noble note of contrast to the familiar
wooden dwellings built over Thames shingle at home; everywhere he would
find greater buildings and brighter colours than in our northern air. The
pale ghosts of frescoes which we study so regretfully were then in their
first freshness, with thousands more which have long since disappeared.
Wherever he went, the cities were already building, or had newly built,
the finest of the Gothic structures which adorn them still; and Chaucer
must have passed through Pisa and Florence like a new Æneas among the
rising glories of Carthage. A whole population of great artists vied with
each other in every department of human skill--
"Qualis apes aestate nova per florea rura
Exercet sub sole labor--"
Giotto and Andrea Pisano were not long dead; their pupils were carrying on
the great traditions; and splendid schools of sculpture and painting
flourished, especially in those districts through which our poet's
business led him. Still greater was the intellectual superiority of Italy.
To find an English layman even approaching in learning to Dante, or a
circle of English students comparable to that of Petrarch and Boccaccio,
we must go forward nearly two centuries, to Sir Thomas More and the eve of
the Reformation. Moreover, the stimulus of Dante's literary personality
was even greater than the example of his learning. On the one hand, he
summed up much of what was greatest in the thought of the Middle Ages; on
the other, he heralded modern freedom of thought by his intense
individualism and the frankness with which he asserted his own personal
convictions. More significant even than the startling freedom with which
Dante wielded the keys of heaven and hell is the fundamental independence
of his whole scheme of thought. When he set the confessedly adulterous
Cunizza among the blessed, and cast down so many popes to hell, he was
only following with unusual boldness a fairly common medieval precedent.
But in taking as his chief guides through the mysteries of religion a
pagan poet, a philosopher semi-pagan at the best, and a Florentine lady
whom he had loved on earth--in this choice, and in his corresponding
independence of expression, he gave an impetus to free thought far beyond
what he himself can have intended. Virgil's parting speech at the end of
the "Purgatorio," "Henceforward take thine own will for thy guide.... I
make thee King and High Priest over thyself," conveyed a licence of which
others availed themselves more liberally than the man who first uttered
it. Dante does indeed work out the problem of life for himself, but he
does so with the conclusions of St. Bernard and Hugh of St. Victor, St.
Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura, always before his eyes. Others after
him followed his liberty of thought without starting from the same initial
attachment to the great theologians of the past; and, though Petrarch and
Boccaccio lived and died as orthodox Roman Catholics, yet their appeal to
the literature of antiquity had already begun the secular and even
semi-pagan intellectual movement which goes by the name of the
Renaissance. In short, the Italian intellect of the 14th century afforded
a striking example of the law that an outburst of mysticism always
provokes an equally marked phase of free thought; enthusiasm may give the
first impulse, but cannot altogether control the direction of the movement
when it has once begun. It will be seen later on that Chaucer was no
stranger to the religious difficulties of his age. The ferment of Italian
free thought seems (as Professor ten Brink has remarked) to have worked
effectually upon a mind which "was going through an intense religious
crisis."[49] Dante's mysticism may well have carried Chaucer off his feet
for a time; we probably owe to this, as well as to his regret for much
that had been wasted in his youth, the religious poems which are among the
earliest extant from his pen. "Chaucer's A. B. C.," a rapturous hymn to
the Virgin, strikes, from its very first line, a note of fervour far
beyond its French original; few utterances of medieval devotion approach
more perilously near to Mariolatry than this--"Almighty and all-merciable
Queen"! Another poem of the same period is the "Life of St. Cecilia,"
with its repentant prologue, its hymn to the Virgin translated from Dante,
and its fervent prayer for help against temptation--
Now help, thou meek and blissful fairë maid
Me flemëd wretch in this desert of gall; [banished
Think on the woman Canaanee, that said
That whelpës eaten some of the crumbës all
That from their lordës table been y-fall;
And though that I, unworthy son of Eve
Be sinful, yet accept now my believe....
And of thy light my soul in prison light,
That troubled is by the contagion
Of my body, and also by the weight
Of earthly lust, and false affection:
O haven of refuge, O salvation
Of them that be in sorrow and in distress
Now help, for to my work I will me dress.[50]
But much as Chaucer translated bodily from Dante in different poems, and
mighty as is the impulse which he owns to having received from him, the
great Florentine's style impressed him more deeply than his thought. In
matter, Chaucer is far more akin to Petrarch and Boccaccio, from whom he
also borrowed even more freely. But in style he owes most to Dante, as
Dante himself owes to Virgil. We may clearly trace this influence in
Chaucer's later concentration and perfection of form; in the pains which
he took to bend his verse to every mood, and in the skilful blending of
comedy and tragedy which enabled Chaucer so far to outdo Petrarch and
Boccaccio in the tales which he borrowed from them. Much of this was, no
doubt, natural to him; but neither England nor France could fully have
developed it. His two Italian journeys made him a changed man, an artist
in a sense in which the word can be used of no English poet before him,
and of none after him until the 16th century brought English men of
letters again into close communion with Italian poetry.
Did Chaucer make the personal acquaintance, on this first Italian journey,
of Petrarch and Boccaccio, who were beyond dispute the two greatest living
men of letters in Europe besides himself? His own words in the prologue of
the "Clerk's Tale" would seem to testify to personal intercourse with the
former; and most biographers have assumed that it is not only the
fictitious Clerk, but the real poet, who confesses to have learned the
story of Griselda straight from Petrarch. The latter, as we know from his
own letters, was in the height of his enthusiasm about the tale, which he
had just translated into Latin from the "Decameron" during the very year
of Chaucer's visit; and M. Jusserand justly points out that the English
poet's fame was already great enough in France to give him a ready
passport to a man so interested in every form of literature, and with such
close French connections, as Petrarch. The meeting has been strongly
doubted, partly on the ground that whereas the Clerk learned the tale from
Petrarch "at Padua," the aged poet was in fact during Chaucer's Italian
journey at Arquà, a village sixteen miles off in the Euganean hills. It
has, however, been conclusively proved that the ravages of war had driven
Petrarch down from his village into the fortified town of Padua, where he
lived in security during by far the greater part, at any rate, of this
year; so that this very indication of Padua, which had been hastily
assumed as a proof of Chaucer's ignorance, does in fact show that he
possessed such accurate and unexpected information of Petrarch's
whereabouts as might, of itself, have suggested a suspicion of personal
intercourse.[51] This is admirably illustrated by the story of Chaucer's
relations with the other great Italian, Boccaccio. Since Chaucer certainly
went to Florence, and probably left only a few weeks, or even a few days,
before Boccaccio's first lecture there on Dante; since, again, he copies
or translates from Boccaccio even more than from Petrarch, it has been
naturally suggested that the two must have met. But here we find a curious
difficulty. Great as are Chaucer's literary obligations to the author of
the "Decameron," he not only never mentions him by name, but, on those
occasions where he quotes directly and professes to acknowledge his
authority, he invariably gives some other name than Boccaccio's.[52] It
is, of course, barely conceivable that the two men met and quarrelled, and
that Chaucer, while claiming the right of "conveying" from Boccaccio as
much as he pleased, not only deliberately avoided giving the devil his
due, but still more deliberately set up other false names which he decked
out with Boccaccio's true feathers. But such a theory, which should surely
be our last resort in any case, contradicts all that we know of Chaucer's
character. Almost equally improbable is the suggestion that, without any
grudge against Boccaccio, Chaucer simply found it convenient to hide the
amount of his indebtedness to him. Here again (quite apart from the
assumed littleness for which we find no other evidence in Chaucer) we see
that in Dante's and Petrarch's cases he proclaims his debt with the most
commendable frankness. The third theory, and on the whole the most
probable, is that Chaucer translated from Italian books which, so far as
he was concerned, were anonymous or pseudonymous. Medieval manuscripts
were quite commonly written without anything like the modern title-page;
and, even when the author's name was recorded on the first page, the
frequent loss of that sheet by use left the book nameless, and at the
mercy of any possessor who chose to deck it with a title after his own
fancy.[53] Therefore it is not impossible that Chaucer, who trod the
streets of Boccaccio's Florence, and saw the very trees on the slopes of
Fiesole under which the lovers of the "Decameron" had sat, and missed by a
few weeks at most the bodily presence of the poet, may have translated
whole books of his without ever realizing their true authorship. In those
days of difficult communication, no ignorance was impossible. In 1371 the
King's Ministers imagined that England contained 40,000 parishes, while in
fact there were less than 9000. Chroniclers, otherwise well informed,
assure us that the Black Death killed more people in towns like London and
Norwich than had ever lived in them. Bishop Grandisson of Exeter, one of
the most remarkable prelates of the 14th century, imagined Ireland to be a
more populous country than England. It is perfectly possible, therefore,
that Chaucer and Boccaccio, who were in every way so close to each other
during these twelve months of 1372-3, were yet fated to remain strangers
to each other; and this lends all the more force to the fact that Chaucer
knew Petrarch to have spent the year at Padua, and not at his own home.
It may be well to raise here the further question: Had not Chaucer already
met Petrarch on an earlier Italian journey, which would relegate this of
1372-3 to the second place? In 1368, Lionel of Clarence was married for
the second time to Violante Visconti of Milan. Petrarch was certainly an
honoured guest at this wedding, and Speght, writing in 1598, quotes a
report that Chaucer was there too in attendance on his old master. This,
however, was taken as disproved by the more recent assertion of Nicholas
that Chaucer drew his pension in England "with his own hands" during all
this time. Here again, however, Mr. Bromby's researches have reopened the
possibility of the old tradition.[54] He ascertained, by a fresh
examination of the original Issue Rolls, that the pension was indeed paid
to Geoffrey Chaucer on May 25th, while the wedding party was on its way to
Milan, but the words _into his own hands_ are omitted from this particular
entry. The omission may, of course, be merely accidental; but at least it
destroys the alleged disproof, and leaves us free to take Speght's
assertion at its intrinsic worth. Chaucer's own silence on the subject may
have a very sufficient cause, the reason which he himself puts into the
Knight's mouth in protest against the Monk's fondness for tragedies--
... for little heaviness
Is right enough to many folk, I guess.
I say for me it is a great dis-ease,
Where as men have been in great wealth and ease,
To hearen of their sudden fall, alas!
Few weddings have been more tragic than that of Chaucer's old master. The
Duke, tallest and handsomest of all the Royal princes, set out with a
splendid retinue, taking 457 men and 1280 horses over sea with him. There
were great feasts in Paris and in Savoy by the way; greater still at Milan
on the bridegroom's arrival. But three months after the wedding "my lord
Lionel of England departed this world at Asti in Piedmont.... And, for
that the fashion of his death was somewhat strange, my lord Edward
Despenser, his companion, who was there, made war on the Duke of Milan,
and harried him more than once with his men; but in process of time my
lord the Count of Savoy heard tidings thereof and brought them to one
accord." This, and another notice equally brief, is all that we get even
from the garrulous Froissart about this splendid and tragic marriage, with
its suspicion of Italian poison, at which he himself was present.[55] Why
should not Chaucer have been equally reticent? Indeed, we know that he
was, for he never alludes to a tragedy which in any case must have touched
him very nearly, just as he barely mentions two other far blacker chapters
in his life--the Black Death, and Wat Tyler's revolt. It is still
possible, therefore, to hope that he may have met Petrarch not only at
Padua in 1372-3, but even earlier at the magnificent wedding feast of
Milan.
CHAPTER V
THE MAN OF BUSINESS
"Oh! that any muse should be set upon a high stool to cast up accounts
and balance a ledger."--_Times_
The Italian journey of 1372-3 was far from being Chaucer's last embassy.
In 1376 he was abroad on secret service with Sir John Burley; in February
of next year he was associated on another secret mission with Sir Thomas
Percy, afterwards Earl of Worcester, and Hotspur's partner at the battle
of Shrewsbury; so that our poet, if he had lived only three years longer,
would have seen his old fellow-envoy's head grinning down from the spikes
of London Bridge side by side with "a quarter of Sir Harry Percy."[56] In
April of the same year he was sent to Montreuil with Sir Guichard d'Angle
and Sir Richard Stury, for no less a matter than a treaty of peace with
France. The French envoys proposed a marriage between their little
princess Marie, aged seven, and the future Richard II., only three years
older; a subject upon which the English envoys seem to have received no
authority to treat. So the embassy ended only in a very brief extension of
the existing truce; the little princess died a few months afterwards, and
Chaucer lived to see the great feasts in London twenty-one years later,
when Richard took to second wife Marie's niece Isabella, then only in her
eighth year. In January 1378, our poet was again associated with Sir
Guichard d'Angle and two others on a mission to negotiate for Richard's
marriage with one of poor little Marie's sisters. Here also the
discussions came to nothing; but already in May Chaucer was sent with Sir
Edward Berkeley on a fresh embassy to Italy. This time it was to treat "of
certain matters touching the King's war" with the great English
_condottiere_ Sir John Hawkwood, and with that tyrant of Milan who was
suspected of having poisoned Prince Lionel, and whose subsequent fate
afforded matter for one of the Monk's "tragedies" in the "Canterbury
Tales"--
Of Milan greatë Barnabo Viscount,
God of delight and scourge of Lombardye.
During this journey Chaucer appointed for his agents in England the poet
John Gower and another friend, Richard Forrester, of whom we shall hear
once more. He was home again early in February of the next year; and this,
so far as we know, was the last of his diplomatic missions.
It would take us too far afield to consider all the attendant
circumstances of these later embassies, important as they are for showing
the high estimate put on Chaucer's business talents, and much as they must
have contributed to form that many-sided genius which we find fully
matured at last in the poet of the "Canterbury Tales." But they show us
that he travelled in the best of company and saw many of the most
remarkable European cities of his day; that he grappled, and watched
others grapple, first with the astute old counsellors who surrounded
Charles the Wise, and again with the English adventurer whose prowess was
a household word throughout Italy, and who had married an illegitimate
sister of Clarence's Violante Visconti, with a dowry of a million florins.
These journeys, however, brought him no literary models comparable to
those which he had already found: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio reigned
supreme in his mind until the latest and ripest days of all, when he
became no longer the mere translator and adapter (with however fresh a
genius) of French and Italian classics, but a classic himself, master of a
style that could express all the accumulated observations of half a
century--Chaucer of the English fields and highways, Chaucer of English
men and women, and no other man. The analysis and criticism of the works
which he produced in the years following the first Italian journey belongs
to literary history. It only concerns me here to sum up what the literary
critics have long since pointed out; how full a field of ideas the poet
found in these years of travel, how busily he sucked at every flower, and
how rich a store he brought home for his countrymen. For a hundred and
fifty years, Chaucer was practically the only channel between rough,
strong, unformed English thought and the greatest literature of the Middle
Ages. More still, in him she possessed the poet whom (measuring not only
by beauty of style but by width of range), we must put next to Dante
himself. He was to five generations of Englishmen that which Shakespeare
has been to us ever since.
It is delightful to take stock of these fruitful years of travel and
observation, but more delightful still to follow the poet home and watch
him at work in the dear busy London of his birth. From the time of his
return from the first Italian journey we find him in evident favour at
court. On St. George's day, 1374, he received the grant of a pitcher of
wine daily for life, "to be received in the port of London from the hands
of the King's butler." Such grants were common enough; but they take us
back in imagination to the still earlier times from which the tradition
had come down. St. George's was a day of solemn feasting in the Round
Tower of Windsor; Chaucer would naturally enough be there on his daily
services. Edward, the Pharaoh at the birthday feast, lifted up his head
from among his fellow-servants by a mark of special favour for services
rendered during the past year. But the grant was already in those days
more picturesque than convenient; we soon find Chaucer drawing a
periodical money-equivalent for the wine; and in 1378 the grant was
commuted for a life-pension of about £200 modern value.
Shortly after this grant of wine came a far greater stroke of fortune.
Chaucer was made Comptroller of the Customs and Subsidies, with the
obligation of regular attendance at his office in the Port of London, and
of writing the rolls with his own hand. Those which still exist, however,
are almost certainly copies. Presently he received the grant of a
life-pension from John of Gaunt as well as from the King. His wife also
had pensions from both, so that the regular income of the household
amounted to some £1000 a year of modern money. To this must be added
considerable windfalls in the shape of two lucrative wardships and a large
share of a smuggled cargo of wool which Chaucer had discovered and
officially confiscated. Yet with all this he seems to have lived beyond
his means, and we find him forestalling his pension. In 1382 Chaucer's
financial prosperity reached its climax, for he received another
comptrollership which he might exercise by deputy. Two years later, he was
permitted to appoint a deputy to his first comptrollership also; and in
this same year, 1386, he was elected to sit in Parliament as Knight of the
Shire for the county of Kent. He had already, in 1385, been appointed a
justice of the peace for the same county, in company with Sir Simon
Burley, warden of the Cinque Ports, and other distinguished colleagues.
Indeed, only one untoward event mars the smooth prosperity of these years.
In 1380, Cecilia Chaumpaigne renounced by a formal deed, witnessed among
others by three knights, all claims which she might have against our poet
"_de raptu meo_." _Raptus_ often means simply _abduction_, and it may well
be that Chaucer was simply concerned in just such an attempt upon Cecilia
as had been made upon his own father, who, as it will be remembered, had
narrowly escaped being married by force to Joan de Westhale for the
gratification of other people's private interests. This is rendered all
the more probable by two other documents connected with the same matter
which have been discovered by Dr. Sharpe.[57] It is, however, possible
that the _raptus_ was a more serious affair; and Professor Skeat has
pointed out the coincidence that Chaucer's "little son Lowis" was just ten
years old in 1391. It is true that the poet would, by this interpretation,
have been guilty of felony, in which case a mere deed of renunciation on
Cecilia's part could not legally have settled the matter; but the wide
divergences between legal theory and practice in the Middle Ages renders
this argument less conclusive than it might seem at first sight. It is
certain, however, that abductions of heiresses from motives of cupidity
were so frequent at this time as to be recognized among the crying evils
of society. The Parliament of 1385-6 felt bound to pass a law exacting
that both the abductor and the woman who consented to abduction should be
deprived of all inheritance and dowry, which should pass on to the next of
kin.[58] But medieval laws, as has long ago been remarked, were rather
pious aspirations than strict rules of conduct; and it is piquant to find
our errant poet himself among the commissioners appointed to inquire into
a case of _raptus_, just seven years after his own escapade.[59]
During the twelve years from 1374 to 1386 Chaucer occupied those lodgings
over the tower of Aldgate which are still inseparably connected with his
name. This was probably by far the happiest part of his career, and (with
one exception presently to be noticed) the most productive from a literary
point of view. Here he studied with an assiduity which would have been
impossible at court, and which must again have been far less possible in
his later years of want and sordid shifts. Here he translated Boethius, of
whose philosophical "Consolations" he was so soon to stand in bitter need.
Here he wrote from French, Latin, and Italian materials that "Troilus and
Cressida" which is in many ways the most remarkable of all his works. In
1382 he composed his "Parliament of Fowls" in honour of Richard II.'s
marriage with Anne of Bohemia; then came the "House of Fame" and the
"Legend of Good Women." These two poems, like most of Chaucer's work, are
unfinished, and unequal even as they stand. We cannot too often remind
ourselves that he was no professional _litterateur_, but a courtier,
diplomatist, and man of business whose genius impelled him to incessant
study and composition under conditions which, in these days, would be
considered very unfavourable in many respects. But his contemporaries were
sufficiently familiar with unfinished works of literature. Reading was
then a process almost as fitful and irregular as writing; and in their
gratitude for what he told them, few in those days would have been
inclined to complain of all that Chaucer "left half-told." So the poet
freely indulged his genius during these Aldgate days, turning and
returning the leaves of his French and Italian legendaries, and evoking
such ghosts as he pleased to live again on earth. Whom he would he set up,
and whom he would he put down; and that is one secret of his freshness
after all these centuries.
This period of quiet and prosperity culminates, as has been said, in his
election to the Parliament of 1386 as a Knight of the Shire for Kent. His
contemporary, Froissart, has left us a picture of a specially solemn
parliament held in 1337 to declare war against France, "at the palace of
Westminster; and the Great Hall was all full of prelates, nobles, and
counsellors from the cities and good towns of England. And there all men
were set down on stools, that each might see the King more at his ease.
And the said King was seated like a pontiff, in cloth of Rouen, with a
crown on his head and a royal sceptre in his hand. And two degrees lower
sat prelate, earl, and baron; and yet below them were more than six
hundred knights. And in the same order sat the men of the Cinque Ports,
and the counsellors from the cities and good towns of the land. So when
all were arrayed and seated in order, as was just, then silence was
proclaimed, and up rose a clerk of England, licentiate of canon and civil
law, and excellently provided of three tongues, that is to say of Latin,
French, and English; and he began to speak with great wisdom; for Sir
Robert of Artois was at his side, who had instructed him two or three days
before in all that he should say." Chaucer's Parliament sat more probably
in the Great Chapter House of Westminster, and certainly passed off with
less order and unanimity than Froissart's of 1337, though the main theme
was still that of the French War, into which the nation had plunged so
lightheartedly a generation earlier. In spite of Crécy and Poitiers and a
dozen other victories in pitched battles, our ships had been destroyed off
La Rochelle in 1372 by the combined fleets of France and Castile; since
which time not only had our commerce and our southern seaport towns
suffered terribly, but more than once there had been serious fears for the
capital. In 1377 and 1380 London had been put into a state of defence;[60]
and now, in 1386, it was known that the French were collecting enormous
forces for invasion. The incapacity of their King and his advisers did
indeed deliver us finally from this danger; but, when Chaucer and his
fellow-members assembled on October 1, "it had still seemed possible that
any morning might see the French fleet off Dover, or even at the mouth of
the Thames."[61] The militia of the southern counties was still assembled
to defend the coast, while twenty thousand from the Midlands lay round
London, ill-paid, starving, and beginning to prey on the country; for
Richard II. had wasted his money on Court pleasures or favourites. The
Commons refused to grant supplies until the King had dismissed his
unpopular ministers; Richard retired in a rage to Eltham, and Parliament
refused to transact business until he should return. In this deadlock, the
members deliberately sought up the records of the deposition of Edward
II., and this implied threat was too significant for Richard to hold out
any longer. As a contemporary puts it, "The King would not come to
Parliament, but they sent for the statute whereby the second Edward had
been judged, and under pain of that statute compelled the King to
attend."[62] The Houses then impeached and imprisoned Suffolk, one of the
two unpopular ministers, and put Richard himself under tutelage to a
Council of Reform. Supplies having been voted, the King dismissed his
Parliament on November 28 with a plain warning that he intended to
repudiate his recent promises; and he spent the year 1387 in armed
preparations.
Meanwhile, however, other _protégés_ of his had suffered besides the great
men of whom all the chronicles tell us. The Council of Reform had exacted
from Richard a commission for a month "to receive and dispose of all crown
revenues, to enter the royal castles and manors, to remove officials and
set up others in their stead."[63] Sir Harris Nicolas shows from the rolls
of this Parliament that the commission was issued "for inquiring, among
other alleged abuses, into the state of the Subsidies and Customs; and as
the Commissioners began their duties by examining the accounts of the
officers employed in the collection of the revenue, the removal of any of
those persons soon afterwards, may, with much probability, be attributed
to that investigation." It is not necessary to suppose that Chaucer had
been specially negligent as a man of business, though it may have been so,
and his warmest admirer would scarcely contend that what we know of the
poet's character points to any special gifts of regularity or punctual
order. We know that the men who now governed England made it their avowed
object to remove all creatures of the King; and everything tends to show
that Chaucer had owed his offices to Court favour. At this moment then,
when Richard's patronage was a grave disadvantage, and when Chaucer's
other great protector, John of Gaunt, was abroad in Spain, flying a
wild-goose chase for the crown of Castile--at such a moment it was almost
inevitable that we should find him among the first victims; and already in
December both his comptrollerships were in other men's hands. Even in his
best days he seems to have lived up to his income; and this sudden reverse
would very naturally drive him to desperate shifts. It is not surprising,
therefore, that we soon find him assigning his two pensions to one John
Scalby (May 1, 1388).
But before this Philippa Chaucer had died. In 1386 she was at Lincoln with
her patron, John of Gaunt, and a distinguished company; and there she was
admitted into the Cathedral fraternity, together with Henry of Derby, the
future Henry IV.[64] At Midsummer, 1387, she received her quarter's
pension as usual, but not at Michaelmas; and thenceforward she disappears
from the records. Her death, of course, still further reduced the poet's
already meagre income; but, as Professor Skeat points out, we have every
indication that Chaucer made a good literary use of this period of
enforced leisure and straitened means. In the years 1387 and 1388 he
probably wrote the greater part of the "Canterbury Tales."
Next year came a pleasant change of fortune. The King, after a vain
attempt to reassert himself by force of arms, had been obliged to
sacrifice many of his trustiest servants; and the "Merciless Parliament"
of 1388 executed, among other distinguished victims, Chaucer's old
colleagues Sir Nicholas Brembre and Sir Simon Burley. Richard, with rage
in his heart, bided his time, and gave plenty of rope to the lords who had
reduced him to tutelage and impeached his ministers. Then, when their
essential factiousness and self-seeking had become manifest to the world,
he struck his blow. In May, 1389, "he suddenly entered the privy council,
took his seat among the expectant Lords, and asked, 'What age am I?' They
answered that he had now fulfilled twenty years. 'Then,' said he, 'I am of
full age to govern my house, my servants, and my realm ... for every heir
of my realm who has lost his father, when he reaches the twentieth year of
his age, is permitted to manage his own affairs as he will.'" He at once
dismissed the Chancellor and Treasurer, and presently recalled John of
Gaunt from Spain as a counterpoise to John's factious younger brother, the
Duke of Gloucester.
With one patron thus returned to power, and another on his way, it was
natural that Chaucer's luck should turn. Two months after this scene in
Council he was appointed by Richard II. "Clerk of our Works at our Palace
of Westminster, our Tower of London, our Castle of Berkhampstead, our
Manors of Kennington, Eltham, Clarendon, Shene, Byfleet, Chiltern
Langley, and Feckenham, our Lodges at Hathebergh in our New Forest, and
in our other parks, and our Mews for falcons at Charing Cross; likewise of
our gardens, fish-ponds, mills and park enclosures pertaining to the said
Palace, Tower, Castles, Manors, Lodges, and Mews, with powers (by self or
deputy) to choose and take masons, carpenters and all and sundry other
workmen and labourers who are needed for our works, wheresoever they can
be found, within or without all liberties (Church fee alone excepted); and
to set the same to labour at the said works, at our wages." Our poet had
also plenary powers to impress building materials and cartage at the
King's prices, to put the good and loyal men of the districts on their
oath to report any theft or embezzlement of materials, to bring back
runaways, and "to arrest and take all whom he may here find refractory or
rebellious, and to cast them into our prisons, there to remain until they
shall have found surety for labouring at our Works according to the
injunctions given in our name." That these time-honoured clauses were no
dead letter, is shown by the still surviving documents in which Chaucer
deputed to Hugh Swayn and three others his duties of impressing workmen
and impounding materials, by the constant petitions of medieval
Parliaments against this system of "Purveyance" for the King's
necessities, and by different earlier entries in the Letter-Books of the
City of London. Search was made throughout the capital for fugitive
workmen; they were clapped into Newgate without further ceremony; and one
John de Alleford seems to have made a profitable business for a short
while by "pretending to be a purveyor of our Lord the King, to take
carpenters for the use of the King in order to work at the Castle of
Windsor."[65]
We have a curious inventory of the "dead stock" which Chaucer took over
from his predecessors in the Clerkship, and for which he made himself
responsible; the list ranges from "one bronze image, two stone images
unpainted, seven images in the likeness of Kings" for Westminster Palace,
with considerable fittings for the lists and galleries of a tournament,
and 100 stone cannon balls for the Tower, down to "one broken cable ...
one dilapidated pitchfork ... three sieves, whereof two are crazy."[66]
For all this, which he was allowed to do by deputy, Chaucer received two
shillings a day, or something like £450 a year of modern money.[67]
Further commissions of the same kind were granted to him: the supervision
of the works at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, which was "threatened with
ruin, and on the point of falling to the ground;" and again of a great
scaffold in Smithfield for the Royal party on the occasion of the
tournament in May, 1390. Two months earlier in this same year he had been
associated with his old colleague Sir Richard Stury and others on a
commission to repair the dykes and drains of Thames from Greenwich to
Woolwich, which were "so broken and ruined that manifold and inestimable
damages have happened in times past, and more are feared for the future."
A marginal note on a MS. of his "Envoy to Scogan," written some three
years later, states that the poet was then living at Greenwich; and a
casual remark in the "Canterbury Tales" very probably points in the same
direction.[68] Either in 1390 or 1391 a Geoffrey Chaucer, who was probably
the poet, was appointed Forester of North Petherton Park in Somerset.
But here again we find one single mischance breaking the even tenour of
Chaucer's new-born prosperity. In September, 1390, while on his journeys
as Clerk of the Works, he was the victim of at least two, and just
possibly three, highway robberies (of which two were on one day) at
Westminster, and near "The Foul Oak" at Hatcham. Two of the robbers were
in a position to claim benefit of clergy; Thomas Talbot, an Irishman, was
nowhere to be found; and the fourth, Richard Brerelay, escaped for the
moment by turning King's evidence. He was, however, accused of another
robbery in Hertfordshire, and attempted to save his life by charging
Thomas Talbot's servant with complicity in the crime. This time the
accused offered "wager of battle." Brerelay was vanquished in the duel,
and strung up out of hand.
It is difficult to resist the conviction that Chaucer was by this time
recognized as an unbusiness-like person; for the King deprived him of his
Clerkship in the following June (1391), at a time when we can find nothing
in the political situation to account for the dismissal.
CHAPTER VI
LAST DAYS
"I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art.
I warmed both hands before the fire of life:
It sinks; and I am ready to depart."
W. S. LANDOR
From this time forward Chaucer seems to have lived from hand to mouth. He
had, as will presently be seen, a son, stepson, or foster-son of
considerable wealth and position; and no doubt he had other good friends
too. We have reason to believe that he was still working at the
"Canterbury Tales," and receiving such stray crumbs from great men's
tables as remained the main reward of literature until modern times. In
1391 (if we may judge from the fact that problems in the book are
calculated for that year) he wrote the "Treatise on the Astrolabe" for the
instruction of his ten-year-old son Lewis.[69] It was most likely in 1393
that he wrote from Greenwich the "Envoy" to his friend Henry Scogan, who
was then with the Court at Windsor, "at the stream's head of grace." The
poet urges him there to make profitable mention of his friend, "forgot in
solitary wilderness" at the lower end of the same river; and it is natural
to connect this with the fact that, in 1394, Richard granted Chaucer a
fresh pension of £20 a year for life. But the King's exchequer was
constantly empty, and we have seen that the poet's was seldom full; so we
need not be surprised to find him constantly applying for his pension at
irregular times during the rest of the reign. Twice he dunned his royal
patron for the paltry sum of 6_s._ 8_d._ More significant still is a
record of the Court of Common Pleas showing that he was sued by Isabella
Buckholt for the sum of £14. 1_s._ 11_d._ some time between April 24 and
May 20, 1398; the Sheriff of Middlesex reported that Chaucer had no
possessions in his bailiwick. On May 4 the poet obtained letters of
protection, in which the King alludes formally to the "very many arduous
and urgent affairs" with which "our beloved esquire" is entrusted, and
therefore takes him with "his men, lands, goods, rents, and all his
possessions" under the Royal protection, and forbids all pleas or arrests
against him for the next two years. The recital of these arduous and
urgent affairs is no doubt (like that of Chaucer's lands and rents) a mere
legal form; but the protection was real. Isabella Buckholt pressed her
suit, but the Sheriff returned in October, 1398, and June, 1399, that the
defendant "could not be found." Yet all this time Chaucer was visible
enough, for he was petitioning the King for formal letters patent to
confirm a grant already made by word of mouth in the preceding December,
of a yearly butt of wine from the Royal cellars "for God's sake, and as a
work of charity." This grant, valued at about £75 of modern money, was
confirmed on October 13, 1398, and was the last gift from Richard to
Chaucer. Before twelve months were gone, the captive King had ravelled out
his weaved-up follies before his pitiless accusers in the Tower of London;
and on the very 13th of October, year for year, on which Chaucer had
received his butt of wine from Richard II., a fresh poetical supplication
brought him a still greater favour from the next King. Henry IV. granted
on his own account a pension of forty marks in addition to Richard's; and
five days afterwards we find Chaucer pleading that he had "accidentally
lost" the late King's letters patent for the pension and the wine, and
begging for their renewal under Henry's hand. The favour was granted, and
Chaucer was thus freed from any uncertainty which might have attached to
his former grants from a deposed King, even though one of them was already
recognized and renewed in Henry's letters of October 13.[70]
"King Richard," writes Froissart, "had a greyhound called Math, who always
waited upon the king and would know no man else; for whensoever the king
did ride, he that kept the greyhound did let him loose, and he would
straight run to the king and fawn upon him and leap with his fore feet
upon the king's shoulders. And as the king and the earl of Derby talked
together in the court, the greyhound, who was wont to leap upon the king,
left the king and came to the earl of Derby, duke of Lancaster, and made
to him the same friendly countenance and cheer as he was wont to do to the
king. The duke, who knew not the greyhound, demanded of the king what the
greyhound would do. 'Cousin,' quoth the king, 'it is a great good token to
you and an evil sign to me.' 'Sir, how know you that?' quoth the duke. 'I
know it well,' quoth the king, 'the greyhound maketh you cheer this day as
king of England, as ye shall be, and I shall be deposed. The greyhound
hath this knowledge naturally; therefore take him to you; he will follow
you and forsake me.' The duke understood well those words and cherished
the greyhound, who would never after follow king Richard, but followed the
duke of Lancaster: [and more than thirty thousand men saw and knew
this."[71]] The fickle hound did but foreshadow the bearing of Richard's
dependents in general. The poem in which Chaucer hastened to salute the
new King of a few days breathed no word of pity for his fallen
predecessor, but hailed Henry as the saviour of England, "conqueror of
Albion," "very king by lineage and free election."[72] In the months that
followed, while Chaucer enjoyed his wine and his pension, the King who
first gave them was starving himself, or being starved by his gaolers, at
Pontefract. It must of course be remembered that, while Richard was felt
on all hands to have thrown his splendid chances wantonly away, Henry was
the son of Chaucer's best patron; and indeed the poet had recently been in
close relations with the future King, if not actually in his service.[73]
Still, we know that few were willing to suffer in those days for untimely
faith to a fallen sovereign, and we ourselves have less reason to blame
the many, than to thank the luckier stars under which such trials of
loyalty are spared to our generation. Chaucer's contemporary and
fellow-courtier, Froissart, might indeed write bitterly in his old age
about a people which could change its ruler like an old glove; but
Froissart was at ease in his fat canonry of Chimay; while Chaucer, with a
hundred poets before and since, had chirped like a cricket all through the
summer, and was now face to face with cold and starvation in the winter of
his life.
His own last poems invite us to pause here a moment; for they smack of old
age, infirmities, and disillusions. When he writes now of love, it is in
the tone of Wamba the Witless: "Wait till you come to forty year!" There
is the half-ironical ballad to Rosamond, a young beauty whom he must be
content to admire now from afar, yet upon whom he dotes even so--
Was never pike wallowed in galantine
As I in love am wallowed and y-bound.
Or again the triple roundel to Merciless Beauty, most uncomplimentary in
the outspoken triumph-note of its close--
Since I from Love escapèd am so fat,
I never think to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count him not a bean.
He may answèr, and sayë this or that;
I do no force, I speak right as I mean [I care no whit
_Since I from Love escapèd am so fat,
I never think to be in his prison lean_.
Love hath my name y-struck out of his slate,
And he is struck out my bookës clean
For evermore; there is none other mean.
_Since I from Love escapèd am so fat,
I never think to be in his prison lean;
Since I am free, I count him not a bean!_
Then we have "The Former Age"--a sigh for the Golden Past, and a tear for
the ungrateful Present--
Alas, alas! now may men weep and cry!
For in our days is nought but covetise
And doubleness, and treason, and envý,
Prison, manslaughter, and murder in sundry wise.[74]
Then again a series of four ballads on Fortune, beginning "This wretched
worldës transmutacioun"; a "Complaint of Venus"; the two begging epistles
to Scogan and Henry IV.; a satire against marriage addressed to his friend
Bukton; a piteous complaint entitled "Lack of Steadfastness," and two
moral poems on Gentilesse (true Gentility) and on Truth. The last of these
is not only the most truly poetical of them all, but also the bravest and
most resigned--
Flee from the press, and dwell with Soothfastness ...
That thee is sent, receive in buxomness [obedience
The wrestling for this world asketh a fall [requires, implies
Here is no home, here is but wilderness:
Forth, Pilgrim, forth! Forth, beast, out of thy stall!
Know thy countree, look up, thank God of all;
Hold the high way, and let thy ghost thee lead,
And Truth shall thee deliver, it is no dread.
The bitter complaints against his own times which occur in these later
poems are of the ordinary medieval type; the courage and resignation are
Chaucer's own, and give a strangely modern ring to his words. He had
indeed reached a point of experience at which all centuries are drawn
again into closer kinship, just as early childhood is much the same in all
countries and all ages of the world. There is something in Chaucer's later
writings that reminds us of Renan's "pauvre âme déveloutée de soixante
ans." All through life this shy, dreamy-eyed, full-bodied poet showed
remarkable detachment from the history of his own times. Professor Raleigh
has pointed out that his avoidance of all but the slightest allusions to
even the greatest of contemporary events may well seem deliberate, however
much allowance we may make for the fact that the landmarks of history are,
in their own day, half overgrown by the common weeds of daily life. But,
for all his detachment and his shyness of autobiographical allusions,
there is one unmistakable contrast between his earliest and latest poems:
and we may clearly trace the progress from youthful enthusiasms to the old
man's disillusions. Yet there is no bitterness in Chaucer's old age; we
see in him what Ruskin calls "a Tory of the old school--Walter Scott's
school, that is to say, and Homer's"; loyal to monarchy and deeply
distrustful of democracy, yet never doubting the King's ultimate
responsibility to his people. We see his resignation to the transitory
nature of earthly happiness, even though he cannot quite forgive life for
its disappointments. His later ironies on the subject of love tell their
own tale. No man can mistake them for the jests of him that never felt a
wound; rather, we may see how the old scars had once bled and sometimes
burned still, though there was no reason why a man should die of them. He
anticipates in effect Heine's tragi-comic appeal, "Hate me, Ladies, laugh
at me, jilt me, but let me live!" For all that we have lost or missed, the
world is no mere vale of tears--
But, lord Christ! when that it remembreth me
Upon my youth, and on my jollity,
It tickleth me about mine heartë-root.
Unto this day it doth mine heartë boot
That I have had my world as in my time!
But Age, alas!----
well, even Age has its consolations--
The flour is gone, there is no more to tell,
The bran, as I best can, now must I sell!
There we have, in a couple of lines, the philosophy of Chaucer's later
years--to take life as we find it, and make the best of it. If he had
cared to take up the full burden of his time, there were plenty of themes
for tragedy. The world seemed to grow madder and madder as the 14th
century drew to its close; Edward III.'s sun had gone down in disgrace;
his grandson's brilliant infancy had passed into a childish manhood, whose
wayward extravagances ended only too naturally in the tragedy of
Pontefract; the Emperor Wenceslas was a shameless drunkard, and Charles
VI. of France a raving madman; Pope Urban VI. seemed half crazy, even to
his own supporters.[75] The Great Pestilence and the Papal Schism, the
Jacquerie in France, and the Peasants' Revolt in England, had shaken
society to its foundations; but Chaucer let all these things go by with
scarcely more than a shrug of his shoulders.
To the contemporary authors of Piers Plowman, and in a less degree to John
Gower, the world of that time was Vanity Fair in Bunyan's sense; a place
of constant struggle and danger, in which every honest pilgrim marches
with his back to the flames of the City of Destruction, marks their lurid
glare on the faces of the crowd, and sees the slightest gesture magnified
into shadows that reach to the very stars. To Chaucer the poet it was
rather Thackeray's Vanity Fair: a place where the greatest problems of
life may be brought up for a moment, but can only be dismissed as
insoluble; where humanity is far less interesting than the separate human
beings which compose it; where we eat with them, talk with them, laugh and
weep with them, yet play with them all the while in our own mind; so that,
when at last it draws towards sunset, we have no more to say than "come,
children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for the play is played
out." But behind and beneath Chaucer the poet was Chaucer the man, whose
last cry is recorded at the end of the "Canterbury Tales." Everything
points to a failure of his health for some months at any rate before his
death. The monks of Westminster were no doubt often at his bedside; and,
though he had evidently drifted some way from his early creed, we must
beware of exaggerations on this point.[76] Moreover, even if his
unorthodoxy had been far greater than we have any reason to believe, it
needed a temper very different from Chaucer's to withstand, under medieval
conditions, the terrors of the Unknown and the constant visitations of the
clergy. Indeed, it seems superfluous to offer any explanation or apology
for a document which is, on its face, as true a cry of the heart as the
dying man's instinctive call for his mother. "I beseech you meekly of God"
(so runs the epilogue to the "Parson's Tale") "that ye pray for me that
Christ have mercy on me and forgive me my guilts--and namely [especially]
of my translations and enditings of worldly vanities.... And many a song
and many a lecherous lay, that Christ for His great mercy forgive me the
sin ... and grant me grace of very penitence, confession and satisfaction
to do in this present life, through the benign grace of Him that is King
of Kings and Priest over all Priests, that bought us with the precious
blood of His heart; so that I may be one of them at the day of doom that
shall be saved."
But we are anticipating. The generosity of Henry IV., as we have seen, had
brought Chaucer once again into easy circumstances, and within a few weeks
we find him leasing from the Westminster Abbey "a tenement, with its
appurtenances, situate in the garden of St. Mary's Chapel," _i.e._
somewhere on the site of the present Henry VII.'s chapel, sheltered by the
south-eastern walls of the Abbey church, and "nigh to the White Rose
Tavern"; for in those days the Westminster precincts contained houses of
the most miscellaneous description, which all enjoyed the privilege of
sanctuary. Near this spot, in 1262, Henry III. had ordered pear trees to
be planted "in the herbary between the King's Chamber and the Church."[77]
"He that plants pears, plants for his heirs," says the old proverb; and it
is pleasant to believe that Chaucer enjoyed at least the blossom of this
ancient orchard, if not its fruit. He took the house at a rent of four
marks for as many of the next fifty-three years as his life might last;
but he was not fated to enjoy it for so many weeks. In February, 1400, he
drew an instalment of one of his pensions; in June another instalment was
paid through the hands of one William Somere; and then the Royal
accounts record no more. He died on October 25, according to the
inscription on his tomb, the first literary monument in that part of the
Abbey which has since received the name of Poet's Corner.[78] It is
probable that we owe this fortunate circumstance still more to the fact
that Chaucer was an Abbey tenant than to his distinction as courtier or
poet. When Gower died, eight years later, his body was laid just as
naturally among the Austin Canons of Southwark with whom he had spent his
last years.
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND PALACE IN THE 16TH CENTURY
(FROM VERTUE'S ENGRAVING OF AGGAS'S MAP)
(THE TWO-GABLED HOUSE JUST BELOW HENRY VII'S CHAPEL (E) MIGHT POSSIBLY BE
CHAUCER'S ACTUAL DWELLING)]
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY, AS SEEN FROM THE WINDOWS OF CHAUCER'S
HOUSE
(ON EXTREME RIGHT, PART OF HENRY VII'S CHAPEL, BUILT ON THE SITE OF ST.
MARY'S CHAPEL)]
The industry of Mr. Edward Scott has discovered that this same house in
St. Mary's Chapel garden was let, from at least 1423 until his death in
1434, to Thomas Chaucer, who was probably the poet's son. This Thomas was
a man of considerable wealth and position. He began as a _protégé_ of John
of Gaunt, and became Chief Butler to Richard II., Henry IV., and Henry V.
in succession; Constable of Wallingford Castle, and M.P. for Oxfordshire
in nine parliaments between 1402 and 1429. He was many times Speaker, a
commissioner for the marriage of Henry V., and an Ambassador to treat for
peace with France; fought at Agincourt with a retinue of twelve
men-at-arms and thirty-seven archers; became a member of the King's
Council, and died a very rich man. His only daughter made two very
distinguished marriages; and her grandson was that Earl of Lincoln whom
Richard III. declared his heir-apparent. For a while it seemed likely that
Geoffrey Chaucer's descendants would sit on the throne of England, but the
Earl died in fight against Henry VII. at Stoke. Of the poet's "little son
Lewis" we hear no more after that brief glimpse of his boyhood; and
Elizabeth Chaucy, the only other person whom we can with any probability
claim as Chaucer's child, was entered as a nun at Barking in 1381, John of
Gaunt paying £51 8_s._ 2_d._ for her expenses. It is just possible,
however, that this may be the same Elizabeth Chausier who was received as
a nun in St. Helen's priory four years earlier, at the King's nomination;
in this case the date would point more probably to the poet's sister.
This is not the place for any literary dissertation on Chaucer's poetry,
which has already been admirably discussed by many modern critics, from
Lowell onwards. He did more than any other man to fix the literary English
tongue: he was the first real master of style in our language, and
retained an undisputed supremacy until the Elizabethan age. This he owes
(as has often been pointed out) not only to his natural genius, but also
to the happy chances which gave him so wide an experience of society.
Living in one of the most brilliant epochs of English history, he was by
turns lover, courtier, soldier, man of business, student, ambassador,
Justice of the Peace, Member of Parliament, Thames Conservator, and
perhaps even something of an architect, if he took his Clerkship of the
Works seriously. All these experiences were mirrored in eyes as observant,
and treasured in as faithful a memory, as those of any other English poet
but one; and to these natural gifts of the born portrait-painter he added
the crowning quality of a perfect style. If his writings have been hailed
as a "well of English undefiled," it was because he spoke habitually, and
therefore wrote naturally, the best English of his day, the English of the
court and of the higher clergy. In this he was even more fortunate than
Dante, as he surpassed Dante in variety (though not in intenseness) of
experience, and as he knew one more language than he. When we note with
astonishment the freshness of Chaucer's characters across these five
centuries, we must always remember that his exceptional experience and
powers of observation were combined with an equally extraordinary mastery
of expression. It is because Chaucer's speech ranges with absolute ease
from the best talk of the best society, down to the Miller's broad
buffoonery or the north-country jargon of the Cambridge students, that his
characters seem to us so modern in spite of the social and political
revolutions which separate their world from ours. It will be my aim to
portray, in the remaining chapters, the England of that day in those
features which throw most light on the peculiarities of Chaucer's men and
women.
CHAPTER VII
LONDON CUSTOM-HOUSE
"Forget six counties overhung with smoke,
Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,
Forget the spreading of the hideous town;
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,
And dream of London, small, and white, and clean,
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green;
Think, that below bridge the green lapping waves
Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves,
Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up hill,
And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill,
And treasured scanty spice from some far sea,
Florence gold cloth, and Ypres napery,
And cloth of Bruges, and hogsheads of Guienne;
While nigh the thronged wharf Geoffrey Chaucer's pen
Moves over bills of lading----"
W. MORRIS
There are two episodes of Chaucer's life which belong even more properly
to Chaucer's England; in which it may not only be said that our interest
is concentrated less on the man than on his surroundings, but even that we
can scarcely get a glimpse of the man except through his surroundings.
These two episodes are his life in London, and his Canterbury Pilgrimage;
and with these we may most fitly begin our survey of the world in which he
lived.
The most tranquilly prosperous period of the poet's life was that space of
twelve years, from 1374 to 1386, during which he lived over the tower of
Aldgate and worked at the Customs House, with occasional interruptions of
foreign travel on the King's business. The Tower of London, according to
popular belief, had its foundations cemented with blood; and this was only
too true of Chaucer's Aldgate. It was a massive structure, double-gated
and double-portcullised, and built in part with the stones of Jews' houses
plundered and torn down by the Barons who took London in 1215. But, in
spite of similar incidents here and there, England was generally so free
from civil war that the townsfolk were very commonly tempted to avoid
unnecessary outlay upon fortifications. The traveller in Germany or
Switzerland is often surprised to see even villages strongly walled
against robber barons; while we may find great and wealthy English towns
like Lynn and Cambridge which had little other defence than a ditch and
palisade.[79] Even in fortified cities like London, the tendency was to
neglect the walls--at one period we find men even pulling them gradually
to pieces[80]--and to let the towers or gates for private lodgings. As
early as the last year of Edward I., we find Cripplegate thus let out; and
such notices are frequent in the "Memorials of London Life," collected by
Mr. Riley from the City archives.[81]
Here Chaucer had only half a mile to go to his daily work, by streets
which we may follow still. If he took the stricter view, which held that
gentlefolk ought to begin their day with a Mass, and to hear it fasting,
then he had at least St. Michael's, Aldgate, and All Hallows Stonechurch
on his direct way, and two others within a few yards of his road. If,
however, he was of those who preferred to begin the day with a sop of wine
or "a draught of moist and corny ale," then the noted hostelry of the
Saracen's Head probably stood even then, and had stood since the time of
the Crusades, within a few yards of Aldgate Tower. Close by the fork of
Fenchurch and Leadenhall Streets he would pass a "fair and large-built
house," the town inn of the Prior of Hornchurch. Then, in Fenchurch
Street, the mansion and garden of the Earls of Northumberland, and again,
at the corner of Mart Lane, the manor and garden of Blanch Apleton.
Turning down Mart Lane (now corrupted into _Mark_), the poet would pass
the great chain, ready to be stretched at any moment across the narrow
street, which marked the limits of Aldgate and Tower Street wards. He
would cross Tower Street a few yards to the eastward of "the quadrant
called Galley Row, because galley men dwelt there." These galley men were
"divers strangers, born in Genoa and those parts," whose settlement in
London had probably been the object of Chaucer's first Italian mission,
and who presently prospered sufficiently to fill not only this quadrant,
but also part of Minchin Lane, and to possess a quay of their own. But,
like their cousins the Lombards, these Genoese soon showed themselves
smarter business men even than their hosts. They introduced unauthorized
halfpence of Genoa, called "Galley halfpence"; and these, with similar
"suskings" from France, and "dodkins" from the Low Countries, survived the
strict penalties threatened by two Acts of Parliament, and lasted on at
least till Elizabeth's reign. "In my youth," writes Stow, "I have seen
them pass current, but with some difficulty, for the English halfpence
were then, though not so broad, somewhat thicker and stronger."[82] Stow
found a building on the quay which he identified with their hall. "It
seemeth that the builders of the hall of this house were shipwrights, and
not carpenters;" for it was clinker-built like a boat, "and seemeth as it
were a galley, the keel turned upwards." But this building was probably
later than Chaucer's time. The galley quay almost touched that of the
Custom-House; and here our poet had abundant opportunities of keeping up
his Italian while sampling the "wines of Crete and other sweet wines in
one of the cellars, and red and white wines in the other cellar."[83] His
poems show an appreciation of good vintages, which was no doubt partly
hereditary and partly acquired on the London quays, where he could talk
with these Mediterranean mariners and drink the juice of their native
grapes, remembering all the while how he had once watched them ripening on
those southern slopes--
How richly, down the rocky dell,
The torrent vineyard streaming fell
To meet the sun and sunny waters
That only heaved with a summer swell![84]
When Chaucer began his work in 1374 there was no regular building for the
Customs; the King hired a house for the purpose at £3 a year, and a single
boatman watched in the port to prevent smuggling. In 1383, however, one
John Churchman built a house, which Richard II. undertook to hire for the
rest of the builder's life; this became the first Custom-House, and lasted
until Elizabeth's reign. The lease gives its modest proportions exactly: a
ground floor, in which the King kept his weigh-beams for wool and other
merchandise; a "solar," or upper chamber, for a counting-house; and above
this yet another solar, 38 by 21-1/2 feet, partitioned into "two chambers
and one _garret_, as men call it." For this new house the King paid the
somewhat higher rent of £4. Chaucer was bound by the terms of his
appointment to do the work personally, without substitute, and to write
his "rolls touching the said office with his own hand"; but it is probable
that he accepted these terms with the usual medieval licence. He went
abroad at least five times on the King's service during his term of
office; and the two original rolls which survive are apparently not
written by his hand. His own words in the "House of Fame" show that he
took his book-keeping work at the office seriously; but it is not likely
that the press of business was such as to keep him always at the
counting-house; and he may well have helped his boatman to patrol the
port, which extended down-river to Gravesend and Tilbury. It is at least
certain that, in 1376, he caught John Kent smuggling a cargo of wool away
from London, and so earned prize-money to the value of £1000 in modern
currency. It is certain also that his daily work for twelve years must
have kept him in close daily contact with sea-faring folk, who, from
Homer's days at least, have always provided the richest food for poetry
and romance. The commonest seaman had stirring tales to tell in those
days, when every sailor was a potential pirate, and foreign crews dealt
with each other by methods still more summary than plank-walking.[85]
Moreover, there was even more truth than now in the proverb that "far
fowls have fair feathers"; and the Genoese on Galley Quay had sailed many
seas unknown even to the tempest-tossed shipman of Dartmouth, whose
southern limit was Cape Finisterre. They had passed the Pillars of
Hercules, and seen the apes on the Rock of Gibraltar, and shuddered from
afar at the Great Whirlpool of the Bay of Biscay, which sucked in its
floods thrice daily, and thrice belched them forth again; and into which
about this time "four vessels of the town of Lynn, steering too
incautiously, suddenly fell, and were swallowed up under their comrades'
eyes."[86]
Moreover, the very streets and markets of London then presented a pageant
unquestionably far more inspiring to a man of Chaucer's temperament than
anything that can be seen there to-day. It is easy to exaggerate the
contrast between modern and medieval London, if only by leaving out of
account those subtle attractions which kept even William Morris from
tearing himself away from the much-abused town. It is also undeniable
that, however small and white, Chaucer's London was not clean, even to the
outward eye; and that the exclusive passion for Gothic buildings is to
some extent a mere modern fashion, as it was the fashion two hundred years
ago to consider them a positive eyesore. To some great poet of the future,
modern London may well supply a grander canvas still; but to a writer like
Chaucer, content to avoid psychological problems and take men and things
as they appear on the surface, there was every possible inspiration in
this busy capital of some 40,000 souls, where everybody could see
everything that went on, and it was almost possible to know all one's
fellow-citizens by sight. Some streets, no doubt, were as crowded as any
oriental bazaar; but most of the buying and selling went on in open
market, with lavish expenditure of words and gestures; while the shops
were open booths in which the passer-by could see master and men at their
work, and stop to chat with them on his way. In the absence of catalogues
and advertisements, every man spread out his gayest wares in the sun, and
commended them to the public with every resource of mother-wit or
professional rhetoric. Cornhill and Cheapside were like the Mercato
Vecchio at Florence or St. Mark's Square at Venice. Extremes meet in
modern London, and there is theme enough for poetry in the deeper
contrasts that underlie our uniformity of architecture and dress. But in
Chaucer's London the crowd was almost as motley to man's eye as to God's--
Barons and burgesses and bondmen also ...
Baxters and brewsters and butchers many,
Woolwebsters and weavers of linen,
Tailors and tinkers and tollers in markets,
Masons and miners and many other crafts ...
Of all-kind living labourers leapt forth some,
As dykers and delvers that do their deeds ill,
And drive forth the long day with _Dieu vous sauve, Dame Emme_
Cooks and their knaves cried "Hot pies, hot!
Good griskin and geese! go dine, go!"
Taverners unto them told the same [tale]
"White wine of Alsace and red wine of Gascoyne,
Of the Rhine and of Rochelle, the roast to defye!" [digest.[87]
The very sticks and stones had an individuality no less marked. The
churches, parish and monastic, stood out as conspicuously as they still
stand in Norwich, and were often used for secular purposes, despite the
prohibitions of synods and councils. For even London had in Chaucer's time
scarcely any secular public buildings, while at Norwich, one of the four
greatest towns in the kingdom, public meetings were sometimes held in the
Tolhouse, sometimes in the Chapel of St. Mary's College, in default of a
regular Guildhall. The city houses of noblemen and great churchmen were
numerous and often splendid, and Besant rightly emphasizes this feudal
aspect of the city; but he seems in his enumeration of the lords'
retainers to allow too little for medieval licence in dealing with
figures; and certainly he has exaggerated their architectural magnificence
beyond all reason.[88] But at least the ordinary citizens' and artisans'
dwellings presented the most picturesque variety. Here and there a stone
house, rare enough to earn special mention in official documents; but most
of the dwellings were of timber and plaster, in front and behind, with
only side-gables of masonry for some sort of security against the
spreading of fires.[89] The ground floor was generally open to the
street, and formed the shop; then, some eight or ten feet above the
pavement, came the "solar" or "soller" on its projecting brackets, and
sometimes (as in the Custom House) a third storey also. Outside stairs
seem to have been common, and sometimes penthouses on pillars or cellar
steps further broke the monotony of the street, though frequent enactments
strove to regulate these in the public interest. Of comfort or privacy in
the modern sense these houses had little to offer. The living rooms were
frequently limited to hall and bower (_i.e._ bedroom); only the better
sort had two chambers; glass was rare; in Paris, which was at least as
well-built as London, a well-to-do citizen might well have windows of
oiled linen for his bedroom, and even in 1575 a good-sized house at
Sheffield contained only sixteen feet of glass altogether.[90] Meanwhile
the wooden shutters which did duty for casements were naturally full of
chinks; and the inhabitants were exposed during dark nights not only to
the nuisance and danger of "common listeners at the eaves," against whom
medieval town legislation is deservedly severe, but also to the far
greater chances of burglary afforded by the frailty of their habitations.
It is not infrequently recorded in medieval inquests that the housebreaker
found his line of least resistance not through a window or a door, but
through the wall itself.[91] Moreover, in those unlighted streets, much
that was most picturesque by day was most dangerous at night, from the
projecting staircases and penthouses down to doorways unlawfully opened
after curfew, wherein "aspyers" might lurk, "waiting men for to beaten or
to slayen." These and many similar considerations will serve to explain
why night-walking was treated in medieval towns as an offence
presumptively no less criminal than, in our days, the illegal possession
of dynamite. The 15th-century statutes of Oxford condemn the nocturnal
wanderer to a fine double that which he would have incurred by shooting at
a proctor and his attendants with intent to injure.[92]
[Illustration: THE TOWER, WITH LONDON BRIDGE IN THE BACKGROUND
(FROM MS. ROY. 16 F. ii, f. 73: A LATE 15TH CENTURY MS. OF THE POEMS OF
CHARLES D'ORLÉANS)]
But to return to the inside of the houses. The contract for a well-to-do
citizen's dwelling of 1308 has been preserved, by a fortunate chance, in
one of the city Letter-books. "Simon de Canterbury, carpenter, came before
the Mayor and Aldermen ... and acknowledged that he would make at his own
proper charges, down to the locks, for William de Hanigtone, skinner,
before the Feast of Easter then next ensuing, a hall and a room with a
chimney, and one larder between the said hall and room; and one solar over
the room and larder; also, one oriel at the end of the hall, beyond the
high bench, and one step with a porch from the ground to the door of the
hall aforesaid, outside of that hall; and two enclosures as cellars,
opposite to each other, beneath the hall; and one enclosure for a sewer,
with two pipes leading to the said sewer; and one stable, [_blank_] in
length, between the said hall and the old kitchen, and twelve feet in
width, with a solar above such stable, and a garret above the solar
aforesaid; and at one end of such solar, there is to be a kitchen with a
chimney; and there is to be an oriel between the said hall and the old
chamber, eight feet in width.... And the said William de Hanigtone
acknowledged that he was bound to pay to Simon before-mentioned, for the
work aforesaid, the sum of £9 5_s._ 4_d._ sterling, half a hundred of
Eastern martenskins, fur for a woman's head, value five shillings, and fur
for a robe of him, the said Simon, etc."[93] Read side by side with this
the list of another fairly well-to-do citizen's furniture in 1337. Hugh le
Benere, a Vintner who owned several tenements, was accused of having
murdered Alice his wife.[94] He refused to plead, was condemned to prison
for life, and his goods were inventoried. Omitting the stock-in-trade of
six casks of wine (valued at six marks), the wearing apparel, and the
helmet and quilted doublet in which Hugh had to turn out for the general
muster, the whole furniture was as follows: "One mattress, value 4_s._; 6
blankets and one serge, 13_s._ 6_d._; one green carpet, 2_s._; one torn
coverlet, with shields of sendal, 4_s._; ... 7 linen sheets, 5_s._; one
table-cloth, 2_s._; 3 table-cloths, 18_d._; ... one canvas, 8_d._; 3
feather beds, 8_s._; 5 cushions, 6_d._; ... 3 brass pots, 12_s._; one
brass pot, 6_s._; 2 pairs of brass pots, 2_s._ 6_d._; one brass pot,
broken, 2_s._ 6_d._; one candlestick of latten, and one plate, with one
small brass plate, 2_s._; 2 pieces of lead, 6_d._; one grate, 3_d._; 2
andirons, 18_d._; 2 basins, with one washing vessel, 5_s._; one iron
grating, 12_d._; one tripod, 2_d._; ... one iron spit, 3_d._; one
frying-pan, 1_d._; ... one funnel, 1_d._; one small canvas bag, 1_d._; ...
one old linen sheet, 1_d._; 2 pillows, 3_d._; ... one counter, 4_s._; 2
coffers, 8_d._; 2 curtains, 8_d._; 2 remnants of cloth, 1_d._; 6 chests,
10_s._ 10_d._; one folding table, 12_d._; 2 chairs, 8_d._; one portable
cupboard, 6_d._; 2 tubs, 2_s._; also firewood, sold for 3_s._; one mazer
cup, 6_s._; ... one cup called "note" (_i.e._ cocoanut) with a foot and
cover of silver, value 30_s._; 6 silver spoons, 6_s._"[95]
This implies no very high standard of domestic comfort. The hall, it must
be remembered, had no chimney in the modern sense, but a hole in the roof
to which the smoke went up from an open hearth in the centre of the room,
more or less assisted in most cases by a funnel-shaped erection of lath
and plaster.[96] It is not generally realized what draughts our ancestors
were obliged to accept as unavoidable, even when they sat partially
screened by their high-backed seats, as in old inn kitchens. A man needed
his warmest furs still more for sitting indoors than for walking abroad;
and to Montaigne, even in 1580, one of the most remarkable things in
Switzerland was the draughtless comfort of the stove-warmed rooms. "One
neither burns one's face nor one's boots, and one escapes the smoke of
French houses. Moreover, whereas we [in France] take our warm and furred
_robes de chambre_ when we enter the house, they on the contrary dress in
their doublets, with their heads uncovered to the very hair, and put on
their warm clothes to walk in the open air."[97] The important part played
by furs of all kinds, and the matter-of-course mention of dirt and vermin,
are among the first things that strike us in medieval literature.
But the worst discomfort of the house, to the modern mind, was the want of
privacy. There was generally but one bedroom; for most of the household
the house meant simply the hall; and some of those with whom the rest were
brought into such close contact might indeed be "gey ill to live wi'."[98]
We have seen that, even as a King's squire, Chaucer had not a bed to
himself; and sometimes one bed had to accommodate three occupants. This
was so ordered, for instance, by the 15th-century statutes of the
choir-school at Wells, which provided minutely for the packing: "two
smaller boys with their heads to the head of the bed, and an older one
with his head to the foot of the bed and his feet between the others'
heads." A distinguished theologian of the same century, narrating a
ghost-story of his own, begins quite naturally: "When I was a youth, and
lay in a square chamber, which had only a single door well shut from
within, together with three more companions in the same bed...." One of
these, we presently find, "was of greater age, and a man of some
experience."[99] The upper classes of Chaucer's later days had indeed
begun to introduce revolutionary changes into the old-fashioned common
life of the hall; a generation of unparalleled success in war and commerce
was already making possible, and therefore inevitable, a new cleavage
between class and class. The author of the B. text of "Piers Plowman,"
writing about 1377, complains of these new and unsociable ways (x., 94).
"Ailing is the Hall each day in the week,
Where the lord nor the lady liketh not to sit.
Now hath each rich man a rule to eaten by himself
In a privy parlour, for poor men's sake,
Or in a chamber with a chimney, and leave the chief Hall,
That was made for meals, and men to eaten in."
Few men, however, could afford even these rudiments of privacy; people
like Chaucer, of fair income and good social position, still found in
their homes many of the discomforts of shipboard; and their daily
intercourse with their fellow-men bred the same blunt familiarity, even
beneath the most ceremonious outward fashions. It was not only starveling
dependents like Lippo Lippi, whose daily life compelled them to study
night and day the faces and outward ways of their fellow-men.
But let us get back again into the street, where all the work and play of
London was as visible to the passer-by as that of any colony of working
ants under the glass cases in a modern exhibition. Often, of course, there
were set pageants for edification or distraction--Miracle Plays and solemn
church processions twice or thrice in the year,--the Mayor's annual ride
to the palace of Westminster and back,--the King's return with a new Queen
or after a successful campaign, as in 1357, when Edward III. "came over
the Bridge and through the City of London, with the King of France and
other prisoners of rich ransom in his train. He entered the city about
tierce [9 a.m.] and made for Westminster; but at the news of his coming so
great a crowd of folk ran together to see this marvellous sight, that for
the press of the people he could scarce reach his palace after noonday."
Frequent again were the royal tournaments at Smithfield, Cheapside, and
Westminster, or "trials by battle" in those same lists, when one gentleman
had accused another of treachery, and London citizens might see the
quarrel decided by God's judgment.[100] Here were welcome contrasts to the
monotony of household life; for there was in all these shows a piquant
element of personal risk, or at least of possible broken heads for others.
Even if the King threw down his truncheon before the bitter end of the
duel, even if no bones were broken at the tournament, something at least
would happen amongst the crowd. Fountains ran wine in the morning, and
blood was pretty sure to be shed somewhere before night. In 1396, when the
little French Princess of eight years was brought to her Royal bridegroom
at Westminster, nine persons were crushed to death on London Bridge, and
the Prior of Tiptree was among the dead. Even the church processions, as
episcopal registers show, ended not infrequently in scuffling, blows, and
bloodshed; and the frequent holy days enjoyed then, as since, a sad
notoriety for crime. Moreover, these things were not, as with us, mere
matters of newspaper knowledge; they stared the passer-by in the face.
Chaucer must have heard from his father how the unpopular Bishop Stapledon
was torn from his horse at the north door of St. Paul's and beheaded with
two of his esquires in Cheapside; how the clergy of the cathedral and of
St. Clement's feared to harbour the corpses, which lay naked by the
roadside at Temple Bar until "women and wretched poor folk took the
Bishop's naked corpse, and a woman gave him an old rag to cover his belly,
and they buried him in a waste plot called the Lawless Church, with his
squires by his side, all naked and without office of priest or
clerk."[101] Chaucer himself must have seen some of the many similar
tragedies in 1381, for they are among the few events of contemporary
history which we can definitely trace in his poems--
Have ye not seen some time a palë face
Among a press, of him that hath been led
Toward his death, where as him gat no grace,
And such a colour in his face hath had,
Men mightë know his face that was bestead
Amongës all the faces in that rout?[102]
What modern Londoner has witnessed this, or anything like it? Yet to all
his living readers Chaucer appealed confidently, "Have ye not seen?"
Scores of wretched lawyers and jurors were hunted down in that riot, and
hurried through the streets to have their heads hacked off at Tower Hill
or Cheapside, "and many Flemings lost their head at that time, and namely
[specially] they that could not say 'Bread and Cheese,' but 'Case and
Brode.'"[103] It may well have been Simon of Sudbury's white face that
haunted Chaucer, when the mob forgot his archbishopric in the unpopularity
of his ministry, forgot the sanctity of the chapel at whose altar he had
taken refuge, "paid no reverence even to the Lord's Body which the priest
held up before him, but worse than demons (who fear and flee Christ's
sacrament) dragged him by the arms, by his hood, by different parts of the
body towards their fellow-rioters on Tower Hill without the gates. When
they had come thither, a most horrible shout arose, not like men's shouts,
but worse beyond all comparison than all human cries, and most like to the
yelling of devils in hell. Moreover, they cried thus whensoever they
beheaded men or tore down their houses, so long as God permitted them to
work their iniquity unpunished."[104] De Quincey has noted how such cries
may make a deeper mark on the soul than any visible scene. And here again
Chaucer has brought his own experience, though half in jest, as a parallel
to the sack of Ilion and Carthage or the burning of Rome--
So hideous was the noise, _benedicite!_
Certës, he Jacke Straw, and his meinie
Ne madë never shoutës half so shrill,
When that they woulden any Fleming kill ...[105]
Last tragedy of all--but this time, though he may well have seen, the poet
could no longer write--Richard II.'s corpse "was brought to St. Paul's in
London, and his face shown to the people," that they might know he was
really dead.[106]
Nor was there less comedy than tragedy in the London streets; the heads
grinned down from the spikes of London Bridge on such daily buffooneries
as scarcely survive nowadays except in the amenities of cabdrivers and
busmen. The hue and cry after a thief in one of these narrow streets,
encumbered with show-benches and goods of every description, must at any
time have been a Rabelaisian farce; and still more so when it was the
thief who had raised the hue and cry after a true man, and had slipped off
himself in the confusion. The crowds who gather in modern towns to see a
man in handcuffs led from a dingy van up the dingy court steps would have
found a far keener relish in the public punishments which Chaucer saw on
his way to and from work; fraudulent tradesmen in the pillory, with their
putrid wares burning under their noses, or drinking wry-mouthed the
corrupt wine which they had palmed off on the public; scolding wives in
the somewhat milder "thewe"; sometimes a penitential procession all round
the city, as in the case of the quack doctor and astrologer whose story is
so vividly told by the good Monk of St. Alban's. The impostor "was set on
a horse [barebacked] with the beast's tail in his hand for a bridle, and
two pots which in the vulgar tongue we call _Jordans_ bound round his
neck, with a whetstone in sign that he earned all this by his lies; and
thus he was led round the whole city."[107] A lay chronicler might have
given us the reverse of the medal; some priest barelegged in his shirt,
with a lighted taper in his hand, doing penance for his sins before the
congregation of his own church. The author of "Piers Plowman" knew this
well enough; in introducing us to his tavern company, it is a priest and a
parish clerk whom he shows us cheek-by-jowl with the two least reputable
ladies of the party. The whole passage deserves quoting in full as a
picture of low life indeed, but one familiar enough to Chaucer and his
friends in their day; for it is a matter of common remark that even the
distance which separated different classes in earlier days made it easier
for them to mix familiarly in public. The very catalogue of this tavern
company is a comedy in itself, and may well conclude our survey of common
London sights. Glutton, on his way to morning mass, has passed Bett the
brewster's open door; and her persuasive "I have good ale, gossip" has
broken down all his good resolutions--
Then goeth Glutton in, and great oaths after.
Ciss the seamstress sat on the bench,
Wat the warrener, and his wife drunk,
Tim the tinker, and twain of his knaves,
Hick the hackneyman and Hugh the needler;
Clarice of Cock's Lane, the clerk of the church,
Sir Piers of Prydie and Pernel of Flanders;
An hayward and an hermit, the hangman of Tyburn,
Daw the dyker, with a dozen harlots [rascals
Of porters and pickpurses and pilled tooth-drawers; [bald
A ribiber and a ratter, a raker and his knave [lute-player, scavenger
A roper and a ridingking, and Rose the disher, [mercenary trooper
Godfrey the garlicmonger and Griffin the Welshman,
And upholders an heap, early by the morrow [furniture-brokers
Give Glutton with glad cheer good ale to hansel.[108] [try
[Illustration: A TOOTH-DRAWER OF THE 14TH CENTURY, WITH A WREATH OF PAST
TROPHIES OVER HIS SHOULDER
(FROM MS. ROY. VI. E. 6 f. 503 b)]
CHAPTER VIII
ALDGATE TOWER
"For though the love of books, in a cleric, be honourable in the very
nature of the case, yet it hath sorely exposed us to the adverse
judgment of many folk, to whom we became an object of wonder, and were
blamed at one time for greediness in that matter, or again for seeming
vanity, or again, for intemperate delight in letters; yet we cared no
more for their revilings than for the barking of curs, contented with
His testimony alone to Whom it pertaineth to try the hearts and
reins.... Yet perchance they would have praised and been kindly
affected towards us if we had spent our time in hunting wild beasts,
in playing at dice, or in courting ladies' favours."--The
"Philobiblon" of Bp. R. de Bury (1287-1345).
Even in the 14th century a man's house was more truly his castle in
England than in any country of equal population; and Chaucer was
particularly fortunate in having secured a city castle for his house. The
records show that such leases were commonly granted by the authorities to
men of influence and good position in the City; in 1367 the Black Prince
specially begged the Mayor that Thomas de Kent might have Cripplegate; and
we have curious evidence of the keen competition for Aldgate. The Mayor
and Aldermen granted to Chaucer in 1374 "the whole dwelling-house above
Aldgate Gate, with the chambers thereon built and a certain cellar beneath
the said gate, on the eastern side thereof, together with all its
appurtenances, for the lifetime of the said Geoffrey." There was no rent,
though of course Chaucer had to keep it in repair; in an earlier lease of
1354, the tenant had paid 13_s._ 4_d._ a year besides repairs. The City
promised to keep no prisoners in the tower during Chaucer's tenancy,[109]
but naturally stipulated that they might take possession of their gate
when necessary for the defence of the City. In 1386, as we have already
seen and shall see more fully hereafter, there was a scare of invasion so
serious that the authorities can scarcely have failed to take the gates
into their own hands for a while. Though this need not necessarily have
ended Chaucer's tenancy altogether, yet he must in fact have given it up
then, if not earlier; and a Common Council meeting held on October 4
resolved to grant no such leases in future "by reason of divers damages
that have befallen the said city, through grants made to many persons, as
well of the Gates and the dwelling-houses above them, as of the gardens
and vacant places adjoining the walls, gates, and fosses of the said city,
whereby great and divers mischiefs may readily hereafter ensue." Yet _on
the very next day_ (and this is our first notice of the end of Chaucer's
tenancy) a fresh lease of Aldgate tower and house was granted to Chaucer's
friend Richard Forster by another friend of the poet's, Nicholas Brembre,
who was then Mayor. This may very likely have been a pre-arranged job
among the three friends; but the flagrant violation of the law may well
seem startling even to those who have realized the frequent contrasts
between medieval theory and medieval practice; and after this we are quite
prepared for Riley's footnote, "Within a very short period after this
enactment was made, it came to be utterly disregarded."[110] The whole
transaction, however, shows clearly that the Aldgate lodging was
considered a prize in its way.
That Chaucer loved it, we know from one of the too rare autobiographical
passages in his poems, describing his shy seclusion even more plainly
than the Host hints at it in the "Canterbury Tales." The "House of Fame"
is a serio-comic poem modelled vaguely on Dante's "Comedia," in which a
golden eagle carries Chaucer up to heaven, and, like Beatrice, plays the
part of Mentor all the while. The poet, who was at first somewhat startled
by the sudden rush through the air, and feared lest he might have been
chosen as an unworthy successor to Enoch and Elias, is presently quieted
by the Eagle's assurance that this temporary apotheosis is his reward as
the Clerk of Love--
Love holdeth it great humbleness,
And virtue eke, that thou wilt make
A-night full oft thy head to ache,
In thy study so thou writest
And ever more of Love enditest.
The Ruler of the Gods, therefore, has taken pity on the poet's lonely
life--
That is, that thou hast no tidings
Of Lovë's folk, if they be glad,
Nor of nothing ellës that God made:
And not only from far countree,
Whence no tiding cometh to thee,
But of thy very neighëbores
That dwellen almost at thy doors,
Thou hearest neither that nor this;
For, when thy labour done all is,
And hast y-made thy reckonings,
Instead of rest and newë things
Thou go'st home to thy house anon,
And, all so dumb as any stone,
Thou sittest at another book
Till fully dazed is thy look,
And livest thus as an heremite,
Although thy abstinence is lite.[111] [little
Here we have the central figure of the Aldgate Chamber, but what was the
background? Was his room, as some will have it, such as that to which his
eyes opened in the "Book of the Duchess"?
And sooth to say my chamber was
Full well depainted, and with glass
Were all the windows well y-glazed
Full clear, and not one hole y-crazed, [cracked
That to behold it was great joy;
For wholly all the story of Troy
Was in the glazing y-wrought thus ...
And all the walls with colours fine
Were painted, bothë text and glose, [commentary
And all the Romance of the Rose.
My windows weren shut each one
And through the glass the sunnë shone
Upon my bed with brightë beams....
Those lines were written before the Aldgate days; and the hints which can
be gathered from surviving inventories and similar sources make it very
improbable that the poet was lodged with anything like such outward
magnificence. The storied glass and the frescoed wall were far more
probably a reminiscence from Windsor, or from Chaucer's life with one of
the royal dukes; and the furniture of the Aldgate dwelling-house is likely
to have resembled in quantity that which we have seen recorded of Hugh le
Benere, and in quality the similar but more valuable stock of Richard de
Blountesham. (Riley, p. 123.) Richard possessed bedding for three beds to
the total value of fifty shillings and eightpence; his brass pot weighed
sixty-seven pounds; and, over and above his pewter plates, dishes, and
salt-cellars, he possessed "three silver cups, ten shillings in weight."
Three better cups than these, at least, stood in the Chaucer cupboard; for
on New Year's Day, 1380, 1381, and 1382, the accounts of the Duchy of
Lancaster record presents from John of Gaunt to Philippa Chaucer of
silver-gilt cups with covers. The first of these weighed thirty-one
shillings, and cost nearly three pounds; the second and third were
apparently rather more valuable. We must suppose, therefore, that the
Aldgate rooms were handsomely furnished, as a London citizen's rooms went;
but we must beware here of such exaggerations as the genius of William
Morris has popularized. The assumption that the poet knew familiarly
every book from which he quotes has long been exploded; and it is quite as
unsafe to suppose that the artistic glories which he so often describes
formed part of his home life. There were tapestries and stained glass in
churches for every man to see, and in palaces and castles for the
enjoyment of the few; but they become fairly frequent in citizens' houses
only in the century after Chaucer's death; and it was very easy to spend
an income such as his without the aid of artistic extravagance. Froissart,
whose circumstances were so nearly the same, and who, though a priest, was
just as little given to abstinence, confesses to having spent 2000 livres
(or some £8000 modern English money) in twenty-five years, over and above
his fat living of Lestinnes. "And yet I hoard no grain in my barns, I
build no churches, or clocks, or ships, or galleys, or manor-houses. I
spend not my money on furnishing fine rooms.... My chronicles indeed have
cost me a good seven hundred livres, at the least, and the taverners of
Lestinnes have had a good five hundred more."[112] Froissart's confession
introduces a witty poetical plea for fresh contributions; and if Chaucer
had added a couple of similar stanzas to the "Complaint to his Empty
Purse," it is probable that their tenor would have been much the same:
"Books, and the Taverner; and I've had my money's worth from both!"
[Illustration: 1. GROUND PLAN AND SECTION OF THE CLERGY-HOUSE AT
ALFRISTON--A TYPICAL TIMBER HOUSE OF THE 14TH CENTURY. (For the Hall, see
Chaucer's "Miller's Tale")
2. PLAN OF ALDGATE TOWER AS IT WAS IN CHAUCER'S TIME]
Professor Lounsbury ("Studies in Chaucer," chap. v.) has discoursed
exhaustively, and very judicially, on Chaucer's learning; he shows clearly
what books the poet knew only as nodding acquaintances, and how many
others he must at one time have possessed, or at least have had at hand
for serious study; and it would be impertinent to go back here over the
same ground. But Professor Lounsbury is less clear on the subject which
most concerns us here--the average price of books; for the three volumes
which he instances from the King's library were no doubt illuminated, and
he follows Devon in the obvious slip of describing the French Bible as
"written in the _Gaelic_ language." (II., 196; the reference to Devon
should be p. 213, not 218.) But, at the lowest possible estimate, books
were certainly an item which would have swelled any budget seriously in
the 14th century. This was indeed grossly overstated by Robertson and
other writers of a century ago; but Maitland's "Dark Ages," while
correcting their exaggerations, is itself calculated to mislead in the
other direction. A small Bible was cheap at forty shillings, _i.e._ the
equivalent of £30 in modern money; so that the twenty volumes of Aristotle
which Chaucer's Clerk of Oxford had at his bed's head could scarcely have
failed to cost him the value of three average citizens' houses in a great
town.[113] Among all the church dignitaries whose wills are recorded in
Bishop Stafford's Register at Exeter (1395-1419) the largest library
mentioned is only of fourteen volumes. The sixty testators include a Dean,
two Archdeacons, twenty Canons or Prebendaries, thirteen Rectors, six
Vicars, and eighteen layfolk, mostly rich people. The whole sixty
apparently possessed only two Bibles between them, and only one hundred
and thirty-eight books altogether; or, omitting church service-books, only
sixty; _i.e._ exactly one each on an average. Thirteen of the beneficed
clergy were altogether bookless, though several of them possessed the
_baselard_ or dagger which church councils had forbidden in vain for
centuries past; four more had only their Breviary. Of the laity fifteen
were bookless, while three had service-books, one of these being a knight,
who simply bequeathed them as part of the furniture of his private chapel.
Any similar collection of wills and inventories would (I believe) give the
same results, which fully agree with the independent evidence of
contemporary writers. Bishop Richard de Bury (or possibly the
distinguished theologian, Holcot, writing in his name) speaks bitterly of
the neglect of books in the 14th century. Not only (he says) is the ardent
collector ridiculed, but even education is despised, and money rules the
world. Laymen, who do not even care whether books lie straight or upside
down, are utterly unworthy of all communion with them; the secular clergy
neglect them; the monastic clergy (with honourable exceptions among the
friars) pamper their bodies and leave their books amid the dust and
rubbish, till they become "corrupt and abominable, breeding-grounds for
mice, riddled with worm-holes." Even when in use, they have a score of
deadly enemies--dirty and careless readers (whose various peculiarities
the good Bishop describes in language of Biblical directness)--children
who cry for and slobber over the illuminated capitals--and careless or
slovenly servants. But the deadliest of all such enemies is the priest's
concubine, who finds the neglected volume half-hidden under cobwebs, and
barters it for female finery. There is an obvious element of exaggeration
in the good Bishop's satire; but the Oxford Chancellor, Gascoigne, a
century later, speaks equally strongly of the neglect of writing and the
destruction of literature in the monasteries of his time; and there is
abundant official evidence to prove that our ancestors did not atone for
natural disadvantages by any excessive zeal in the multiplication, use, or
preservation of books.[114]
Chaucer was scarcely born when the "Philobiblon" was written; and already
in his day there was a growing number of leisured laymen who did know the
top end of a book from the bottom, and who cared to read and write
something beyond money accounts. Gower, who probably made money as a
London merchant before he became a country squire, was also a well-read
man; but systematic readers were still very rare outside the Universities,
and Mrs. Green writes, even of a later generation of English citizens, "So
far as we know, no trader or burgher possessed a library."[115]
Twenty-nine years after Chaucer's death, the celebrated Whittington did
indeed found a library; yet this was placed not at the Guildhall, to
which he was a considerable benefactor, but in the Greyfriars' convent.
The poet's bookishness would therefore inevitably have made him something
of a recluse, and we have no reason to tax his own description with
exaggeration.
[Illustration: ALDGATE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS AS RECONSTITUTED IN W.
NEWTON'S "LONDON IN THE OLDEN TIME"
12. ST. MICHAEL'S, ALDGATE; 25. BLANCH APPLETON; 26. ST. CATHERINE,
COLEMAN STREET; 27. NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE; 28. PRIOR OF HORNCHURCH'S
LODGING; 29. SARACEN'S HEAD]
London has never been a silent city, but Chaucer enjoyed at least one of
the quietest spots in it. If (as we have every reason to suppose) the
Ordinance of 1345 was far from putting an end to the nuisances which it
indicates, then Chaucer must have heaved a sigh of relief when he had seen
the Custom-House locked up, and turned his back on Spurrier Lane. The
Spurriers were addicted to working after dark for nefarious ends of their
own; "and further, many of the said trade are wandering about all day,
without working at all at their trade; and then, when they have become
drunk and frantic, they take to their work, to the annoyance of the sick
and of all their neighbourhood, as well as by reason of the broils that
arise between them and the strange folks who are dwelling among them. And
then they blow up their fires so vigorously, that their forges begin all
at once to blaze, to the great peril of themselves and of all the
neighbourhood around. And then too, all the neighbours are much in dread
of the sparks, which so vigorously issue forth in all directions from the
mouths of the chimneys in their forges."[116] We may trust that no such
offensive handiwork was carried on round Aldgate, whither the poet would
arrive about five o'clock in the evening, and sit down forthwith to
supper, as the sun began to slant over the open fields. We may hope, at
least, that he was wont to sup at home rather than at those alluring
cook-shops which alternated with wine-taverns along the river bank; and
that, as he "defyed the roast" with his Gascon wine, Philippa sat and
sipped with him from one of time-honoured Lancaster's silver-gilt cups.
Even if we accept the most pessimistic theories of Chaucer's married
life, we need scarcely doubt that the pair sat often together at their
open window in the twilight--
Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly the evening through.
The sun goes down, a common greyness silvers everything; Epping Forest and
the Hampstead heights stand dim against the afterglow. From beneath their
very windows the long road stretches far into the fading landscape; men
and cattle begin to straggle citywards, first slowly, and then with such
haste as their weariness will permit, for the curfew begins to ring out
from Bow steeple.[117] Chaucer himself has painted this twilight scene in
"Troilus and Criseyde," written during this very Aldgate time. The hero
watches all day long, with his friend Pandarus, at one of the gates of
Troy, for had not Criseyde pledged her word to come back on that day at
latest? Every creature crawling along the distant roads gives the lover
fresh hopes and fresh heart-sickness; but it is sorest of all when the
evening shadows leave most to the imagination--
The day go'th fast, and after that com'th eve
And yet came not to Troilus Criseyde.
He looketh forth by hedge, by tree, by greve, [grove
And far his head over the wall he laid ...
"Have here my truth, I see her! Yond she is!
Have up thine eyen, man! May'st thou not see?"
Pandarus answered, "Nay, so mote I the!
All wrong, by God! What say'st thou, man? Where art?
That I see yond is but a farë-cart."
The warden of the gatës gan to call
The folk which that without the gatës were,
And bade them driven in their beastës all,
Or all the night they musten bleven there; [remain
And far within the night, with many a tear,
This Troilus gan homeward for to ride,
For well he seeth it helpeth nought t' abide.
And far within the night, while the "uncunning porters" sing over their
liquor or snore on their pallets, Chaucer turns and returns the leaves of
Virgil or Ovid, of Dante or the "Romance of the Rose." Does he not also,
to poor Philippa's disgust, "laugh full fast" to himself sometimes over
that witty and ungallant book of satires which contains "of wicked wives
... more legendës and lives than be of goodë wives in the Bible"? It is
difficult to escape from this conviction. His "Wife of Bath" cites the
treatises in question too fully and too well to make it probable that
Chaucer wrote from mere memory. Remembering this probability, and the
practical certainty that, like his contemporaries, Chaucer needed to read
aloud for the full comprehension of what he had under his eyes, we shall
then find nothing unexpected in his pretty plain allusions to reprisals.
Sweet as honey in the mouth, his books proved sometimes bitter in the
belly, like that of the Apocalypse. "Late to bed" suits ill with "early to
rise," and the poet hints pretty plainly that an imperious and somewhat
unsympathetic "Awake, Geoffrey!" was often the first word he heard in the
morning. When the Golden Eagle caught the sleeping poet up to heaven--
At the last to me he spake
In mannës voice, and said "Awake!
And be not so aghast, for shame!"
And called me then by my name
And, for I should the better abraid [rouse
Me dreamed, "Awake!" to me he said
Right in the samë voice and steven [tone
That useth one I couldë neven; [name
And with that voice, sooth for to say'n
My mindë came to me again;
For it was goodly said to me,
So it was never wont to be.
"House of Fame," ii., 47.
CHAPTER IX
TOWN AND COUNTRY
"For never to my mind was evening yet
But was far beautifuller than its day."
BROWNING
"Wherefore is the sun red at even? For he goeth toward hell."
("The Master of Oxford's Catechism" (XV. cent.);
"Reliquiæ Antiquæ," i., 232.)
That which in Chaucer's day passed for rank "sluggardy a-night" might yet
be very early rising by the modern standard; and our poet, sorely as he
needed Philippa's shrill alarum, might still have deserved the character
given to Turner by one who knew his ways well, "that he had seen the sun
rise oftener than all the rest of the Academy put together." It is indeed
startling to note how sunrise and sunset have changed places in these five
hundred years. When a modern artist waxes poetical about the sunrise, a
lady will frankly assure him that it is the saddest sight she has ever
seen; to her it spells lassitude and reaction after a long night's
dancing. Chaucer and his contemporaries lived more in Turner's mood: "the
sun, my dear, that's God!" In the days when a tallow candle cost four
times its weight in beefsteak, when wax was mainly reserved for God and
His saints, and when you could only warm your hands at the risk of burning
your boots and blearing your eyes, then no man could forget his strict
dependence on the King of the East. The poets of the Middle Ages seem to
have been, in general, as insensible to the melancholy beauties of sunset
as to those of autumn. Leslie Stephen, in the first chapters of his
"Playground of Europe," has brought a wealth of illustration and
penetrating comment to show how strictly men's ideas of the picturesque
are limited by their feelings of comfort; and the medieval mind was even
more narrowly confined within its theological limitations. Popular
religion was then too often frankly dualistic; to many men, the Devil was
a more insistent reality than God; and none doubted that the former had
special power over the wilder side of nature. The night, the mountain, and
the forest were notoriously haunted; and, though many of the finest
monasteries were built in the wildest scenery, this was prompted not by
love of nature but by the spirit of mortification. At Sülte, for instance,
in the forest of Hildesheim, the blessed Godehard built his monastery
beside a well of brackish water, haunted by a demon, "who oft-times
affrighted men, women and maidens, by catching them up with him into the
air." The sainted Bishop exorcised not only the demon but the salts, so
that "many brewers brew therefrom most excellent beer ... wherefore the
Bürgermeister and Councillors grant yearly to our convent a hundred
measures of Michaelmas malt, three of which measures are equal in quantity
to a herring-barrel." What appealed to the founders of the Chartreuse or
Tintern was not the beauty of "these steep woods and lofty cliffs," but
their ascetic solitude. When, by the monks' own labours and those of their
servants, the fields had become fertile, so that they now found leisure to
listen how "the shady valley re-echoes in Spring with the sweet songs of
birds," then they felt their forefathers to have been right in "noting
fertile and pleasant places as a hindrance to stronger minds."[118] After
all, the earth was cursed for Adam's sake, and even its apparent beauty
was that of an apple of Sodom. That which Walther von der Vogelweide sang
in his repentant old age had long been a commonplace with moralists--
"The world is fair to gaze on, white and green and red,
But inly foul and black of hue, and dismal as the dead."
Ruskin's famous passage on this subject ("M. P.," iii., 14, 15) is, on the
whole, even too favourable to the Middle Ages; but he fails to note two
remarkable exceptions. The poet of "Pearl," who probably knew Wales well,
describes the mountains with real pleasure; and Gawin Douglas anticipated
Burns by venturing to describe winter not only at some length but also
with apparent sympathy.[119] Moreover, Douglas describes a sunset in its
different stages with great minuteness of detail and the most evident
delight. Dante does indeed once trace in far briefer words the fading of
daylight from the sky; but in his two unapproachable sunsets he turns our
eyes eastwards rather than westwards, as we listen to the vesper bell, or
think of the last quiet rays lingering on Virgil's tomb.[120] The scenic
splendour of a wild twilight seems hardly to have touched him; his soul
turns to rest here, while the hardy Scot is still abroad to watch the
broken storm-clouds and the afterglow. And if Douglas thus outranges even
Dante, he leaves Chaucer and Boccaccio far behind. The freshness and
variety of the sunrises in the "Decameron" is equalled only by the bald
brevity with which the author despatches eventide, which he connects
mainly with supper, a little dancing or music, and bed. It would be
equally impossible, I believe, to find a real sunset in Chaucer;
Criseyde's "Ywis, it will be night as fast," is quite a characteristic
epitaph for the dying day.
On the other hand, however, the medieval sunrise is delightful in its
sincerity and variety, even under the disadvantage of constant
conventional repetition; and here Chaucer is at his best. He may well
have been too bookish to please either his neighbours or her whom Richard
de Bury calls "a two-footed beast, more to be shunned (as we have ever
taught our disciples) than the asp and the basilisk," yet no poet was ever
farther removed from the bookworm. Art he loved, but only next to Nature--
On bookës for to read I me delight,
And to them give I faith and full credence,
And in mine heart have them in reverence
So heartily, that there is gamë none
That from my bookës maketh me to go'n
But it be seldom on the holyday;
Save, certainly, when that the month of May
Is comen, and that I hear the fowlës sing,
And that the flowers 'ginnen for to spring,
Farewell my book and my devotion![121]
Not only was the May-day haunt of Bishop's wood within a mile's walk of
Aldgate; but behind, almost under his eyes, stood the "Great Shaft of
Cornhill," the tallest of all the city maypoles, which was yearly reared
at the junction of Leadenhall Street, Lime Street, and St. Mary Axe, and
which gave its name to the church of St. Andrew Undershaft, whose steeple
it overtopped. How it hung all year under the pentices of a neighbouring
row of houses until the Reformation, and what happened to it then, the
reader must find in the pages of Stow.[122] These May-day festivities,
which outdid even the Midsummer bonfires and the Christmas mummings in
popularity, were a Christianized survival of ancient Nature-worship. When
we remember the cold, the smoke, the crowding and general discomfort of
winter days and nights in those picturesque timber houses; when we
consider that even in castles and manor-houses men's lives differed from
this less in quality than in degree; when we try to imagine especially the
monotony of woman's life under these conditions, doubly bound as she was
to the housework and to the eternal spinning-wheel or embroidery-frame,
with scarcely any interruptions but the morning Mass and gossip with a few
neighbours--only then can we even dimly realize what spring and May-day
meant. There was no chance of forgetting, in those days, how directly the
brown earth is our foster-mother. Men who had fed on salt meat for three
or four months, while even the narrow choice of autumn vegetables had long
failed almost altogether, and a few shrivelled apples were alone left of
last year's fruit--in that position, men watched the first green buds with
the eagerness of a convalescent; and the riot out of doors was
proportionate to the constraint of home life. Those antiquaries have
recorded only half the truth who wrote regretfully of these dying sports
under the growing severity of Puritanism, and they forgot that Puritanism
itself was a too successful attempt to realize a thoroughly medieval
ideal. Fénelon broke with a tradition of at least four centuries when he
protested against the repression of country dances in the so-called
interests of religion.[123] It would be difficult to find a single great
preacher or moralist of the later Middle Ages who has a frank word to say
in favour of popular dances and similar public merry-makings. Even the
parish clergy took part in them only by disobeying the decrees of synods
and councils, which they disregarded just as they disregarded similar
attempts to regulate their dress, their earnings, and their relations with
women. Much excuse can indeed be found for this intolerance in the
roughness and licence of medieval popular revels. Not only the Church, but
even the civic authorities found themselves obliged to regulate the
disorders common at London weddings, while Italian town councils attempted
to put down the practice of throwing on these occasions snow, sawdust,
and street-sweepings, which sometimes did duty for the modern rice and old
shoes; and members of the Third Order of St. Francis were strictly
forbidden to attend either weddings or dances.[124] These and other
similar considerations, which the reader will supply for himself, explain
the otherwise inexplicable severity of all rules for female deportment in
the streets. "If any man speak to thee," writes the Good Wife for her
Daughter, "swiftly thou him greet; let him go by the way"; and again--
"Go not to the wrestling, nor to shooting at the cock
As it were a strumpet, or a giggëlot,
Stay at home, daughter."
"When thou goest into town or to church," says the author of the "Ménagier
de Paris" to his young wife, "walk with thine head high, thine eyelids
lowered and fixed on the ground at four fathoms distance straight in front
of thee, without looking or glancing sideways at either man or woman to
the right hand or the left, nor looking upwards." Even Chaucer tells us of
his Virginia--
She hath full oftentimës sick her feigned,
For that she wouldë flee the companye
Where likely was to treaten of follye--
As is at feastës, revels, and at dances,
That be occasions of dalliances.[125]
These, of course, were exaggerations bred of a general roughness beyond
all modern experience. Even Christmas mumming was treated as an
objectionable practice in London; as early as 1370 we find the first of a
series of Christmastide proclamations "that no one shall go in the streets
of the city, or suburbs thereof, with visor or mask ... under penalty of
imprisonment." Similarly severe measures were threatened against football
in the streets, against the game of "taking off the hoods of people, or
laying hands on them," and against "hocking" or extorting violent
contributions from passers-by on the third Monday or Tuesday after Easter.
But the very frequency of the prohibitions is suggestive of their
inefficiency; and in 1418 the City authorities were still despairingly
"charging on the King's behalf and his City, that no man or person ...
during this holy time of Christmas be so hardy in any wise to walk by
night in any manner mumming plays, interludes, or any other disguisings
with any feigned beards, painted visors, deformed or coloured visages in
any wise, upon pain of imprisonment of their bodies and making fine after
the discretion of the Mayor and Aldermen."[126] Much of this mumming was
not only pagan in its origin but still in its essence definitely
anti-ecclesiastical. When, as was constantly the case, the clergy joined
in the revels, this was a more or less conscious protest against the
Puritan and ascetic ideal of their profession. The rule of life for
Benedictine nuns, to which even the Poor Clares were subjected after a
very brief career of more apostolic liberty, cannot be read in modern
times without a shudder of pity. Not only did the authorities attempt to
suppress all natural enjoyment of life--even Madame Eglantyne's lapdogs
were definitely contraband--but the girls were trammelled at every turn
with the minutely ingenious and degrading precautions of an oriental
harem. That was the theory, the ideal; yet in fact these convent churches
provided a common theatre, if not the commonest, for the riotous and often
obscene licence of the Feast of Fools. To understand the wilder side of
medieval life, it is absolutely necessary to bear in mind the pitiless and
unreal "other-worldliness" of the ascetic ideal; just as we can best
explain certain of Chaucer's least edifying tales by referring, on the
other hand, to the almost idolatrous exaggerations of his "A. B. C."
[Illustration: MEDIEVAL MUMMERS. (From Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes")]
But, however he may have revelled with the rest in his wilder youth, the
elvish and retiring poet of the "Canterbury Tales" mentions the sports of
the townsfolk only with gentle irony. "Merry Absolon," the parish clerk,
who played so prominent a part in street plays, who could dance so well
"after the school of Oxenford ... and with his leggës casten to and fro,"
and who was at all points such a perfect beau of the 'prentice class to
which he essentially belonged--all these small perfections are enumerated
only that we may plumb more accurately the depths to which he is brought
by woman's guile. The May-dance was probably as external to Chaucer as the
Florentine carnival to Browning. While a thousand Absolons were casting to
and fro with their legs, in company with a thousand like-minded giggëlots,
around the Great Shaft of Cornhill, Chaucer had slipped out into the
country. Many other townsfolk came out into the fields--young men and
maidens, old men and children--but Chaucer tells us how he knelt by
himself, worshipping the daisy as it opened to the sun--
Upon the smallë softë sweetë grass,
That was with flowrës sweet embroidered all.
At another time we listen with him to the leaves rustling in undertone
with the birds--
A wind, so small it scarcely might be less,
Made in the leavës green a noisë soft,
Accordant to the fowlës' song aloft.
Or watch the queen of flowers blushing in the sun--
Right as the freshë, reddë rosë new
Against the Summer sunnë coloured is!
But for the daisy he has a love so tender, so intimate, that it is
difficult not to suspect under the flower some unknown Marguerite of flesh
and blood--
... of all the flowers in the mead
Then love I most these flowers white and red
Such as men callen daisies in our town.
To them I have so great affectioun,
As I said erst, when comen is the May,
That in my bed there dawneth me no day
But I am up and walking in the mead,
To see this flower against the sunnë spread; ...
As she that is of allë flowers flower,
Fulfillèd of all virtue and honour,
And ever y-like fair and fresh of hue.
And I love it, and ever y-like new,
And ever shall, till that mine heartë die....
I fell asleep; within an hour or two
Me dreamèd how I lay in the meadow tho [then
To see this flower that I love so and dread;
And from afar came walking in the mead
The God of Love, and in his hand a Queen,
And she was clad in royal habit green;
A fret of gold she haddë next her hair,
And upon that a whitë crown she bare
With fleurons smallë, and I shall not lie,
For all the world right as a daÿsye
Y-crowned is with whitë leavës lite,
So were the fleurons of her coroune white;
For of one pearlë, fine, oriental
Her whitë coroune was y-maked all.
Pictures like these, in their directness and simplicity, show more loving
nature-knowledge than pages of word-painting; and, if they are not only
essentially decorative but even somewhat conventional, those are qualities
almost inseparable from the art of the time. It is less strange that
Chaucer's sunrises should bear a certain resemblance to other sunrises,
than that his men and women should be so strikingly individual. Yet, even
so, compare two or three of his sunrises together, and see how great is
their variety in uniformity. Take, for instance, "Canterbury Tales," A.,
1491, 2209, and F., 360; or, again, A., 1033 and "Book of Duchess," 291,
where Chaucer describes nature and art in one breath, and each heightens
the effect of the other. With all his love of palaces and walled gardens,
though he revels in feudal magnificence and glow of colour and elaboration
of form, he is already thoroughly modern in his love of common
things.[127] Here he has no equal until Wordsworth; it has been truly
remarked that he is one of the few poets whom Wordsworth constantly
studied, and one of the very few to whom he felt and confessed
inferiority. Chaucer's triumph of artistic simplicity is the Nun's
Priest's tale. The old woman, her daughter, their smoky cottage and tiny
garden; the hens bathing in the dust while their lord and master preens
himself in the sun; the commotion when the fox runs away with
Chanticleer--all these things are described in truly Virgilian sympathy
with modest country life. What poet before him has made us feel how
glorious a part of God's creation is even a barn-door cock?
His voice was merrier than the merry orgon
On massë-days that in the churchë go'n ...
His comb was redder than the fine coral,
Embattled as it were a castle wall;
His bill was black, and like the jet it shone,
Like azure were his leggës and his toen;
His nailës whiter than the lily flower,
And like the burnished gold was his colour!
Nothing but Chaucer's directness of observation and truth of colouring
could have kept his work as fresh as it is. Like Memling and the Van
Eycks, he has all the reverence of the centuries with all the gloss of
youth. The peculiar charm of medieval art is its youthfulness and
freshness; and no poet is richer in those qualities than he.
In this, of course, he reflects his environment. Although London was
already becoming in a manner cockneyfied; although she already imported
sea-coal from Newcastle, and her purveyors scoured half England for food,
and her cattle sometimes came from as far as Nottingham, and most of her
bread was baked at Stratford, yet she still bore many traces of the
ruralism which so astonishes the modern student in medieval city life.
Even towns like Oxford and Cambridge were rather collections of
agriculturalists co-operating for trade and protection than a
conglomeration of citizens in the modern sense; and the University Long
Vacation is a survival from the days when students helped in the hay and
corn harvests. And, greatly as London was already congested in comparison
with other English cities, there was as yet no real divorce between town
and country. Her population of about 40,000 was nearly four times as great
as that of any other city in the kingdom; but, even in the most crowded
quarters, the mass of buildings was not yet sufficient to disguise the
natural features of the site. The streets mounted visibly from the river
and Fleet Brook to the centre of the city. St. Paul's was plainly set on a
hill, and nobody could fail to see the slope from the village of Holborn
down the present Gray's Inn Lane, up which (it has lately been argued)
Boadicea's chariot once led the charge against the Roman legions. Thames,
though even the medieval palate found its water drinkable only "in parts,"
still ran at low tide over native shingle and mud; the Southwark shore was
green with trees; not only monasteries but often private houses had their
gardens, and surviving records mention fruit trees as a matter of
course.[128] Outside, there was just a sprinkling of houses for a hundred
yards or so beyond each gate, and then an ordinary English rural
landscape, rather wild and wooded, indeed, for modern England, but dotted
with villages and church towers. Knightsbridge, in those days, was a
distant suburb to which most of the slaughter-houses were banished; and
the districts of St. James and St. Giles, so different in their later
social conditions, both sprang up round leper hospitals in open country.
Fitzstephen, writing in the days of Henry II., describes Westminster as
two miles from the walls, "but yet conjoined with a continuous suburb. On
all sides," he continues, "without the houses of the suburb, are the
citizens' gardens and orchards, planted with trees, both large, sightly,
and adjoining together. On the north side are pastures and plain meadows,
with brooks running through them turning watermills with a pleasant noise.
Not far off is a great forest, a well-wooded chase, having good covert for
harts, bucks, does, boars, and wild bulls. The cornfields are not of a
hungry sandy mould, but as the fruitful fields of Asia, yielding plentiful
increase and filling the barns with corn. There are near London, on the
north side, especial wells in the suburbs, sweet, wholesome, and clear.
Amongst which Holy Well, Clerkenwell, and St. Clement's Well are most
famous, and most frequented by scholars and youths of the city in summer
evenings, when they walk forth to take the air." No doubt in Chaucer's
time the suburbs had grown a little, but not much; it is doubtful whether
the population of England was greater in 1400 than in 1200 A.D. Eastward
from his Aldgate lodgings the eye stretched over the woody flats bordering
the Thames. Northwards, beyond the Bishop's Wood in Stepney parish and the
fen which stretched up the Lea valley to Tottenham, rose the "Great
Forest" of Epping. In a more westerly direction Chaucer might have seen a
corner of the moor which gave its name to one of the London gates, and
which too often became a dreary swamp for lack of drainage; and, above and
beyond, the heaths of Highgate and Hampstead. Riley's "Memorials" contain
frequent mention of gardens outside the gates; it was one of these, "a
little herber[129] that I have," in which Chaucer laid the scene of his
"Legend of Good Women." These gardens seem to have made a fairly
continuous circle round the walls. The richest were towards the west, and
made an unbroken strip of embroidery from Ludgate to Westminster. Nearer
home, however, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and Saffron Hill, and Vine Street,
Holborn, carry us back to the Earl of Lincoln's twenty carefully-tilled
acres of herbs, roses, and orchard-land, or to the still more elaborate
paradise belonging to the Bishop and monks of Ely, whose vineyard and
rosary and fields of saffron-crocus stretched down the slopes of that
pleasant little Old-bourn which trickled into Fleet Brook. Holborn was
then simply the nearest and most suburban of a constellation of villages
which clustered round the great city; and, if the reader would picture to
himself the open country beyond, let him take for his text that sentence
in which Becket's chaplain enumerates the rights of chase enjoyed by the
city. "Many citizens," writes Fitzstephen, "do delight themselves in hawks
and hounds; for they have liberty of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire,
all Chiltern, and in Kent to the water of Cray." The city huntsman was, in
those days, a salaried official of some dignity.
So Chaucer, who had at one gate of his house the great city, was on the
other side free of such green English fields and lanes as have inspired a
company of nature-poets unsurpassed in any language. May we not hope that
his companions in the "little herber," or on his wider excursions, were
sometimes "the moral Gower" or "the philosophical Strode?" And may we not
picture them dining in some country inn, like Izaak Walton and his
contemplative fellow-citizens? Chaucer's friend was probably the Ralph
Strode of Merton College, a distinguished philosopher and anti-Wycliffite
controversialist; and it is noteworthy that a Ralph Strode was also a
lawyer and Common Serjeant to the city, where he frequently acted as
public prosecutor, and that he received for his services a grant of the
house over Aldersgate in the year after Chaucer had entered into
Aldgate.[130] There is no obvious reason to dissociate the city lawyer
from the Oxford scholar, who has also been suggested with some probability
as the author of "Pearl" and other 14th-century poems second only to
Chaucer's. However that may be, "the philosophical Strode" must
unquestionably have influenced the poet who dedicated to him his
"Troilus," and we may read an echo of their converse in Chaucer's own
reflections at the end of that poem on Love and Thereafter--
O youngë freshë folkës, he or she,
In which that love upgroweth with your age,
Repair ye home from worldly vanitie,
And of your heart upcast ye the visage
To that same God that after His image
You made; and think that all is but a fair,
This world, that passeth soon as flowers fair.
But we are wandering, perhaps, too far into the realm of mere
suppositions. With or without philosophical converse in the fields, the
long day wanes at last; and now--
When that the sun out of the south 'gan west
And that this flower 'gan close, and go to rest,
For darkness of the night, the which she dread,
Home to mine house full swiftly I me sped
To go to rest, and early for to rise.
The curfew is ringing again from Bow Steeple; the throng of citizens grows
thicker as they near the gates; inside, the street echoes still with the
laughter of apprentices and maids, while sounds of still more uproarious
revelry come from the wide tavern doors. Soon, however, in half an hour or
so, the streets will be empty; the drinkers will huddle with closed doors
round the embers in the hall; and our poet, as he lays his head on the
pillow, may well repeat to himself those words of Fitzstephen, which he
must surely have read: "The only pests of London are the immoderate
drinking of fools, and the frequency of fires."
CHAPTER X
THE LAWS OF LONDON
"Del un Marchant au jour present
L'en parle molt communement,
Il ad noun Triche plein de guile,
Qe pour sercher del orient
Jusques au fin del occident,
N'y ad cité ne bonne vile
U Triche son avoir ne pile.
Triche en Bourdeaux, Triche en Civile,
Triche en Paris achat et vent;
Triche ad ses niefs et sa famile,
Et du richesce plus nobile
Triche ad disz foitz plus q'autre gent.
Triche a Florence et a Venise
Ad son recet et sa franchise,
Si ad a Brugges et a Gant;
A son agard auci s'est mise
La noble Cité sur Tamise,
La quelle Brutus fuist fondant;
Mais Triche la vait confondant."
GOWER, "Mirour," 25273 ff.
But the picturesque side of things was only the smaller half of Chaucer's
life, as it is of ours. We must not be more royalist than the King, or
claim more for Chaucer and his England than he himself would ever have
dreamed of claiming. That which seems most beautiful and romantic to us
was not necessarily so five hundred years ago. The literature of Chivalry,
for instance, seems to have touched Chaucer comparatively little: he
scarcely mentions it but in more or less open derision. Again, while
Ruskin and William Morris seem at times almost tempted to wish themselves
back to the 14th century for the sake of its Gothic architecture, Chaucer
in his retrospective mood is not ashamed to yearn for a Golden Age as yet
uncorrupted by architects of any description whatever--
No trumpës for the warrës folk ne knew,
Nor towers high and wallës round or square ...
Yet were no palace chambers, nor no halls;
In cavës and in woodës soft and sweet
Slepten this blessed folk withouten walls.[131]
No doubt he would as little have chosen seriously to go back to hips and
haws as Morris would seriously have wished to live in the Middle Ages. But
his words may warn us against over-estimating the picturesque side of his
age. The most important is commonly what goes on under the surface; and
this was eminently true of Chaucer's native London. When we look closely
into the social and political ideals of those motley figures which
thronged the streets, we may see there our own modern liberties in the
making, and note once more how slowly, yet how surely, the mills of God
grind. It was once as hard for a community of a few thousand souls to
govern itself as it is now for a nation; and parts of what seem to us the
very foundations of civilized society were formerly as uncertain and
tentative as Imperial Federation or the International Peace Congress.
The ordinary English town after the Conquest was originally simply part of
a feudal estate: a rather denser aggregation than the ordinary village,
and therefore rather more conscious of solidarity and power. The
householders, by dint of holding more and more together, became
increasingly capable of driving collective bargains, and of concentrating
their numerical force upon any point at issue. They thus throve better
than the isolated peasant; and their growing prosperity made them able to
pay heavier dues to their feudal lords, who thus saw a prospect of
immediate pecuniary gain in selling fresh liberties to the citizens. This
process, which was still in its earlier stages in many towns during
Chaucer's lifetime, was, however, already far advanced in London, which
claimed over other cities a superiority symbolized by the legend of its
origin: Brut, the son of Æneas, had founded it, and named it Troynovant,
or New Troy. But the city had far more tangible claims to supremacy than
this: it had obtained from Henry I.--earlier by nearly a century than any
other--the right of electing its own sheriff and justiciar; and from a
still earlier time than this it had been almost as important politically
as it is now. Mr. Loftie, whose "London" in the "Historic Towns" series
gives so clear a view of its political development, shows us the city
holding out against Canute long after the rest of the kingdom had been
conquered; and making, even after Hastings, such terms with the Conqueror
as secured to the citizens their traditional liberties. Even thus early,
the city fully exemplified the dignity and enduring power of commerce and
industry in an age of undisguised physical force. Its foreign trade was
considerable, and foreign settlers numerous. "Already there was trade with
the Rhine and the Zuyder Zee; and Norman ships, so far back as the days of
Æthelred and even of his father, had brought the wines of the south to
London. The [German] emperor's men had already established their
stafelhof, or steelyard, and traded under jealous rules and almost
monastic discipline, but with such money that to this day 'sterling'
stands beside 'real' as an adjective, for the Royal credit was not better
than that of the Easterling. Some Germans and Danes who did not belong to
the 'Gildhalda Theutonicorum,' as it was called in the 13th century,
settled in the city beside the Normans of the Conquest, the Frenchmen
mentioned in the charter, and the old English stock of law-worthy
citizens."[132]
The example of generosity set by William was followed more or less closely
by all his successors except Matilda, who offended the citizens by
suppressing their chief liberties, and owed her final failure mainly to
the steady support which they therefore gave to Stephen. The prosperity
of London reacted on many other cities, which were gradually enabled to
buy themselves charters after her model. Writing before 1200 A.D.,
Fitzstephen boasted that London traded "with every nation under heaven";
and Matthew of Westminster, a generation later, gives an even more glowing
picture of English commerce; "Could the ships of Tharshish" (he exclaims),
"so extolled in Holy Scripture, be compared with thine?" Our fortunate
insularity, the happy balance of power between King and barons, and
sometimes the wisdom of particular sovereigns, had in fact enabled
commerce to thrive so steadily that it was rapidly becoming a great
political power. Michelet has painted with some characteristic
exaggeration of colour, but most truly in the main, the contrast between
English and French commerce in the half-century preceding Chaucer's birth.
French sovereigns failed to establish any uniform system of weights and
measures, and were themselves responsible for constant tampering with the
coinage; they discouraged the Lombards, interfered with the great fairs,
placed heavy duties on all goods to be bought or sold, and at one time
even formally forbade "all trade with Flanders, Genoa, Italy, and
Provence." All roads and waterways were subject to heavy tolls; "robbed
like a merchant" became a proverbial saying. Meanwhile, our own Edward I.,
though he banished the Jews and allowed his commercial policy to fluctuate
sadly, if judged by a purely modern standard, yet did much to encourage
foreign trade. Edward III. did so consistently; he may, as Hallam says,
almost be called the Father of English Commerce; we have seen how he sent
Chaucer's father to negotiate with the merchants of Cologne, and our poet
himself with those of Genoa. When, in 1364, Charles the Wise proclaimed
freedom of trade for all English merchants in France, this was only one of
the many points on which he paid to English methods the compliment of
close imitation. But, though foreigners were welcome to the English
Government, it was not always so with the English people. Chaucer's
grandfather, in 1310, was one of sixteen citizens whose arrest the King
commanded on account of "certain outrages and despites" done to the Gascon
merchants. The citizens of London specially resented the policy by which
Edward III. took foreign traders under his special protection, and
absolved them from their share of the city taxes in consideration of the
tribute which they paid directly to him.[133] The Flemings, as we have
seen, were massacred wholesale in the rising of 1381; and the Hanse
merchants were saved from the same fate only by the strong stone walls of
their steelyard. But the most consistently unpopular of these strangers,
and the most prosperous, were the Lombards, a designation which included
most Italian merchants trading abroad. These, since the expulsion of the
Jews, had enjoyed almost a monopoly of usury--a hateful term, which, in
the Middle Ages, covered not only legitimate banking, but many other
financial operations innocent in themselves and really beneficial to the
community.[134] Usury, though very familiar to the papal court, was
fiercely condemned by the Canon Law, which would have rendered impossible
all commerce on a large scale, but for the ingrained inconsistency of
human nature. "He who taketh usury goeth to hell, and he who taketh none,
liveth on the verge of beggary"; so wrote an Italian contemporary of
Chaucer's. But there was always here and there a bolder sinner who frankly
accepted his chance of damnation, and who would point to his big belly and
fat cheeks with a scoffing "See how the priest's curses shrivel me up!"
Preachers might indeed urge that, if the eyes of such an one had been
opened, he would have seen how "God had in fact fattened him for
everlasting death, like a pig fed up for slaughter"; but there remained
many possibilities of evasion. For one open rebel, there were hundreds who
quietly compounded with the clergy for their ill-gotten gains. "Usurers'
bodies were once buried in the field or in a garden; now they are interred
in front of the High Altar in churches"; so writes a great Franciscan
preacher. But the friars themselves soon became the worst offenders. Lady
Meed in "Piers Plowman"--the incarnation of Illicit Gain--has scarcely
come up to London when--
"Then came there a confessor, coped as a Friar ...
Then he absolved her soon, and sithen he said
'We have a window a-working, will cost us full high;
Wouldst thou glaze that gable, and grave therein thy name,
Sure should thy soul be heaven to have.'"[135]
In other words, the Canon Law practically compelled the taker of interest
to become a villain, as the old penal laws encouraged the thief to commit
murder. Gower, if we make a little obvious allowance for a satirist's
rhetoric, will show us how ordinary citizens regarded the usurious
Lombards.[136] "They claim to dwell in our land as freely, and with as
warm a welcome, as if they had been born and bred amongst us.... But they
meditate in their heart how to rob our silver and gold." They change (he
says) their chaff for our corn; they sweep in our good sterling coin so
that there is little left in the country. "To-day I see such Lombards come
[to London] as menials in mean attire; and before a year is past, by dint
of deceit and intrigue, they dress more nobly than the burgesses of our
city.... It is great shame that our Lords, who ought to keep our laws,
should treat our merchants as serfs, and quietly free the hands of strange
folk to rob us. But Covetise hath dominion over all things: for bribery
makes friends and brings success: that is the custom in my country." Nor
"in my country" only, but in other lands too; for the best-known firm of
merchants now-a-days is Trick and Co. "Seek from East to the going out of
the West, there is no city or good town where Trick does not rob to enrich
himself. Trick at Bordeaux, Trick at Seville, Trick at Paris buys and
sells; Trick has his ships and servants, and of the noblest riches Trick
has ten times more than other folk. At Florence and Venice, Trick has his
fortress and freedom of trade; so he has at Bruges and Ghent; under his
care too has the noble City on the Thames put herself, which Brutus
founded, but which Trick is on the way to confound...." Why not, indeed,
in an age in which all the bonds of society are loosed? "One [merchant]
told me the other day how, to his mind, that man would have wrought folly
who, being able to get the delights of this life, should pass them by: for
after this life is over, no man knoweth for truth which way or by what
path we go. Thus do the merchants of our present days dispute and say and
answer for the most part."
Much of Gower's complaint about Trick might be equally truly applied to
any age or community; but much was due also to the growth of large and
complicated money transactions, involving considerable speculation on
credit. Gower complains that merchants talked of "many thousands" where
their fathers had talked of "scores" or "hundreds"; and he, like Chaucer,
describes the dignified trader as affecting considerable outward show to
disguise the insecurity of his financial position.[137] Edward III. set
here a Royal example by failing for a million florins, or more than
£4,000,000 of modern money, and thus ruining two of the greatest European
banking firms, the Bardi and Peruzzi of Florence. Undeterred by similar
risks, the de la Poles of Hull undertook to finance the King, and became
the first family of great merchant-princes in England. Operations such as
these opened a new world of possibilities for commerce--vast stakes on the
table, and vast prizes to the winners. Moreover, city politics grew
complicated in proportion with city finance. The mass of existing
documents shows a continual extension of the Londoner's civic authorities,
until the townsfolk were trammeled by a network of byelaws not indeed so
elaborate as those of a modern city, but incomparably more hampering and
vexatious. On this subject, which is of capital importance for the
comprehension of life in Chaucer's time, it would be difficult on the
whole to put the facts more clearly than they have already been put by
Riley on pp. cix. ff. of his introduction to the "Liber Albus." "Such is a
sketch of some few of the leading features of social life within the walls
of London in the 13th and 14th centuries. The good old times, whenever
else they may have existed, assuredly are not to be looked for in days
like these. And yet these were not lawless days; on the contrary, owing in
part to the restless spirit of interference which seems to have actuated
the lawmakers, and partly to the low and disparaging estimate evidently
set by them upon the minds and dispositions of their fellow-men, these
were times, the great evil of which was a superfluity of laws both
national and local, worse than needless; laws which, while unfortunately
they created or protected comparatively few real valuable rights, gave
birth to many and grievous wrongs. That the favoured and so-called _free_
citizen of London even--despite the extensive privileges in reference to
trade which he enjoyed--was in possession of more than the faintest shadow
of liberty, can hardly be alleged, if we only call to mind the substance
of the pages just submitted to the reader's notice, filled as they are
with enactments and ordinances, arbitrary, illiberal, and oppressive:
laws, for example, which compelled each citizen,[138] whether he would or
no, to be bail and surety for a neighbour's good behaviour, over whom
perhaps it was impossible for him to exercise the slightest control; laws
which forbade him to make his market for the day until the purveyors for
the King and the great lords of the land had stripped the stalls of all
that was choicest and best; laws which forbade him to pass the city walls
for the purpose even of meeting his own purchased goods; laws which bound
him to deal with certain persons or communities only, or within the
precincts only of certain localities; laws which dictated, under severe
penalties, what sums, and no more, he was to pay to his servants and
artisans; laws which drove his dog out of the streets, while they
permitted 'genteel dogs' to roam at large: nay, even more than this, laws
which subjected him to domiciliary visits from the city officials on
various pleas and pretexts; which compelled him to carry on a trade under
heavy penalties, irrespective of the question whether or not it was at his
loss; and which occasionally went so far as to lay down rules, at what
hours he was to walk in the streets, and incidentally, what he was to eat
and what to drink. Viewed individually, laws and ordinances such as these
may seem, perhaps, of but trifling moment; but 'trifles make life,' the
poet says, and to have lived fettered by numbers of restrictions like
these, must have rendered life irksome in the extreme to a sensitive man,
and a burden hard to be borne. Every dark picture, however, has its
reverse, and in the legislation even of these gloomy days there are one or
two meritorious features to be traced. The labourer, no doubt, so far as
disposing of his labour at his own time and option was concerned, was too
often treated little better than a slave; but, on the other hand, the
price of bread taken into consideration, the wages of his labour
appear--at times, at least--to have been regulated on a very fair and
liberal scale. The determination, too, steadily evinced by the civic
authorities, that every trader should really sell what he professed to
sell, and that the poor, whatever their other grievances, should be
protected, in their dealings, against the artifices of adulteration,
deficient measures, and short weight, is another feature that commands our
approval. Greatly deserving, too, of commendation is the pride that was
evidently felt by the Londoners of these times in the purity of the waters
of their much-loved Thames, and the carefulness with which the civic
authorities, in conjunction with the Court, took every possible precaution
to preserve its banks from encroachment and its stream from pollution. The
fondness, too, of the citizens of London in former times for conduits and
public fountains, though based, perhaps, upon absolute necessity, to some
extent, is a feature that we miss in their representatives at the present
day."
The words about the purity of the Thames need some modification in the
light of such incidents as those recorded (for instance) in Mr. Sharpe's
calendar of "Letter Book" G, pp. xxvii. ff.;[139] but the most serious
gap in Riley's picture is the absence of any clear allusion to the almost
incredible gulfs which are frequently to be found between 14th-century
theory and practice. We have already seen how openly the city officials
broke their own brand-new resolution about lodgings over the city gates;
and the surviving records of all medieval cities tell the same tale, for
which we might indeed be prepared by the wearisome iteration with which we
find the same enactments re-enacted again and again, as if they had never
been thought of before. As Dean Colet said, when the world of the Middle
Ages was at its last gasp, it was not new laws that England needed, but a
new spirit of justice in enforcing the old laws. Seldom, indeed, had these
become an absolute dead letter--we find them invoked at times where we
should least have expected it--but at the very best they were enforced
with a barefaced partiality which cannot be paralleled in modern civilized
countries even under the most unfavourable circumstances. From Norwich,
one of the greatest towns in the kingdom, and certainly not one of the
worst governed, we have fortunately surviving a series of Leet Court
Rolls, which have been admirably edited by Mr. Hudson for the Selden
Society, and commented on more briefly in his "Records of the City of
Norwich."[140] He shows that, whereas the breach of certain civic
regulations should nominally have been punished by a fine for the first
offence, pillory for the second, and expulsion for the third, yet in fact
there was no pretence, in an ordinary way, of taking the law literally.
"The price of ale was fixed according to the price of wheat. Almost every
housewife of the leading families brewed ale and sold it to her
neighbours, and invariably charged more than the fixed price. The
authorities evidently expected and wished this course to be taken, for
these ladies were regularly presented and amerced every year for the same
offence, paid their amercements and went away to go through the same
process in the future as in the past. Much the same course was pursued by
other trades and occupations. Fishmongers, tanners, poulterers, cooks,
etc., are fined wholesale year after year for breaking every by-law that
concerned their business. In short, instead of a trader (as now) taking
out a license to do his business on certain conditions which he is
expected to keep, he was bound by conditions which he was expected to
break and afterwards fined for the breach. The same financial result was
attained or aimed at by a different method." Moreover, the fines
themselves were collected with the strangest irregularity. "Some are
excused by the Bailiffs without reason assigned; some 'at the instance' of
certain great people wishing to do a good turn for a friend. Again, others
make a bargain with the collector, thus expressed, as for instance, 'John
de Swaffham is not in tithing. Amercement 2_s._ He paid 6_d._, the rest is
excused. He is quit.' Sometimes an entry is marked 'vad,' i.e. _vadiat_,
or _vadiatur_, 'he gives a pledge,' or, 'it is pledged.' The Collector had
seized a jug, or basin, or chair. But by far the larger number of entries
are marked 'd,' i.e. _debet_, 'he owes it.' The Collector had got nothing.
At the end of each (great) Leet is a collector's account of moneys
received and paid in to the Bailiffs or the City Chamberlain in three or
four or more payments. By drawing out a balance sheet for the whole city
in this year it appears that the total amount of all the amercements
entered is £72 18_s._ 10_d._ This is equivalent to more than £1000 at the
present value of money. But all that the Collectors can account for, even
after Easter, is £17 0_s._ 2_d._ It is clear that however efficient the
system was in preventing offences from passing undetected, it did not do
much to deter offenders from repeating them."
The enactments, of course, were still there on the city Statute-book;
and, if an example needed to be made of any specially obnoxious tradesman,
they might sometimes be enforced in all their theoretical rigour. In
general, however, the severity of the written law was scarcely realized
but by men with very tender consciences or with very few friends.
Forestalling in the market was one of the most heinous of civic offences;
yet, while John Doe was dutifully paying his morning orisons, Richard Roe
was "out at cockcrow to buy privately when the citizens were at Mass, so
that by six o'clock, there was nothing left in the market for the good
folk of the town."[141] Not less heinous was the selling of putrid
victuals. Here we do indeed find the theoretical horrors of the pillory
inflicted in all their rigour, but not once a year among the 40,000 people
of London.[142] These cannot have been the only offenders, or even an
appreciable fraction of them; for Chaucer's sarcasm as to the unwholesome
fare provided at cook-shops is borne out even more emphatically by others.
Cardinal Jacques de Vitry tells how a customer once pleaded for a
reduction in price "because I have bought no flesh but at your shop for
these last seven years." "What!" replied the Cook, "for so long a time,
and you are yet alive!" The author of "Piers Plowman" exhorts mayors to
apply the pillory more strictly to--
"Brewsters and bakers, butchers and cooks;
For these are men on this mould that most harm worken
To the poor people that piece-meal buyen:
For they poison the people privily and oft ..."
A lurid commentary on these lines may be found in a presentment of the
twelve jurors at the Norwich leet-court. "All the men of Sprowston sell
sausages and puddings and knowingly buy measly pigs; and they sell in
Norwich market the aforesaid sausages and pigs, unfit for human
bodies."[143]
This, of course, is only one side of city life: the side of which we catch
glimpses nowadays when the veil is lifted at Chicago. Rudimentary and
partial as city justice still was in Chaucer's days, overstrained in
theory and weak-kneed in practice, it was yet a part of real
self-government and of real apprenticeship to higher things in politics,
not only civic but national. The constitution of the city was frankly
oligarchical, yet the mere fact that the citizens should have a
constitution of their own, which they often had to defend against
encroachments by brotherly co-operation, by heavy sacrifices of money, or
even at the risk of bloodshed--this in itself was the thin end of the
democratic wedge in national politics. Rich merchants might, indeed,
domineer over their fellow-citizens by naked tyranny and sheer weight of
money, which (as 14th-century writers assert in even less qualified terms
than those of our own day) controls all things under the sun. But it was
these same men who, side by side with their brothers, the country
squires,[144] successfully asserted in Parliament the power of the purse,
and the right of asking even the King how he meant to spend the nation's
money, before they voted it for his use.
Moreover, it was due enormously to London and the great cities that our
national liberties were safeguarded from the foreign invader. The
considerable advance in national wealth between 1330 and 1430 was partly
due to our success in war. While English cities multiplied, French cities
had even in many cases to surrender into their King's hands those
liberties for which they were now too poor to render the correspondent
services. Yet, even before the first blow had been struck, those wars were
already half-won by English commerce. "The secret of the battles of Crécy
and Poitiers lies in the merchants' counting-houses of London, Bordeaux,
and Bruges."[145] Apart from those habits and qualities which successful
commerce implies, the amount of direct supplies in men and money
contributed by the English towns during Edward's wars can only be fully
realized by reading Dr. Sharpe's admirable prefaces to his "Calendars of
Letter-Books." But a single instance is brief and striking enough to be
quoted here.
Our crushing defeat by the combined French and Spanish navies off La
Rochelle in 1372 lost us the command of the sea until our victory at
Cadzand in 1387; and Chaucer's Merchant rightly voiced the crying need of
English commerce during that time--
He would the sea were kept, for any thing,
Betwixtë Middelburgh and Orëwell.
During those fifteen years the ports of the south coast were constantly
harried by privateers. The Isle of Wight was taken and plundered. The
Prior of Lewes, heading a hastily raised force against the invaders, was
taken prisoner at Rottingdean; and such efforts to clear the seas as were
made on our part were not public, but merely civic, or even private. The
men of Winchelsea and Rye burned a couple of Norman ports, after
plundering the very churches; and the sailors of Portsmouth and Dartmouth
collected a fleet which for a short while swept the Channel. This may be
the reason why Chaucer, writing two years later, makes his bold Shipman
hail from Dartmouth. But, seven years before this raid, a single London
merchant had done still more. A Scottish pirate named Mercer, reinforced
by French and Spanish ships, infested the North Sea until "God raised up
against him one of the citizens of Troynovant." "John Philpot, citizen of
London, a man of great wit, wealth and power, narrowly considering the
default or treachery of the Duke of Lancaster and the other Lords who
ought to have defended the realm, and pitying his oppressed countrymen,
hired with his own money a thousand armed men.... And it came to pass that
the Almighty, who ever helpeth pious vows, gave success to him and his, so
that his men presently took the said Mercer, with all that he had taken by
force from Scarborough, and fifteen more Spanish ships laden with much
riches. Whereat the whole people exulted ... and now John Philpot alone
was praised in all men's mouths and held in admiration, while they spake
opprobriously and with bitter blame of our princes and the host which had
long ago been raised, as is the wont of the common herd in their changing
moods."[146]
Walsingham's final moral here is, after all, that of Chaucer: "O stormy
people, unsad and ever untrue, Aye indiscreet, and changing as a
vane!"[147] English writers seem, indeed, to speak of their countrymen as
especially fickle and inconstant; and there was no doubt more reason for
the charge in those days, when men in general were far more swayed by
impulse and less by reflexion--when indeed the fundamental insecurity of
the social and political fabric was such as to thwart even the ripest
reflexion at every turn. It is striking how short-lived were the London
trading families until after Chaucer's time: no such succession as the
Rothschilds and Barings was as yet possible. Moreover, in civic as in
national politics, it was still possible to lose one's head for the crime
of having shown too much zeal in a losing cause, as the career of
Chaucer's colleague Brembre may testify.[148] Walsingham loses no
opportunity of jeering at the inconstancy of the London citizens; he
portrays their panic during the invasion scare of 1386, and during the
King's suppression of their liberties in 1389-92, with all the superiority
of a monk whose own skin was safe enough in the cloister of St. Alban's.
On this latter occasion the citizens had to pay Richard the enormous fine
of £20,000--or, according to a Malmesbury monk, £40,000--for the
restoration of their privileges; and even then they were glad to welcome
him on his first gracious visit "as an angel of God."[149] But they bided
their time, and Richard was to learn, like other sovereigns before and
since, how heavy a sword the Londoners could throw into the political
scale. Froissart noted that "they ever have been, are, and will be so long
as the City stands, the most powerful of all England"; that what London
thought was also what England thought; and that even a king might find he
had gained but a Pyrrhic victory over them. "For where the men of London
are at accord and fully agreed, no man dare gainsay them. They are of more
weight than all the rest of England, nor dare any man drive them to bay,
for they are most mighty in wealth and in men."[150]
However little Chaucer may have interested himself in his neighbours, here
were things which no poet could help seeing. The real history of Medieval
London is yet to be written; it will be a story of strange contrasts,
gold and brass and iron and clay. But there was a greatness in the very
disquiet and inconstancy of the city; some ideals were already fermenting
there which, realized only after centuries of conflict, have made modern
England what we are proud to see her; and other ideals of which we, like
our forefathers, can only say that we trust in their future realization.
CHAPTER XI
"CANTERBURY TALES"--THE _DRAMATIS PERSONÆ_
"Pilgrims and palmers plighted them together
To seek St. James, and saints in Rome.
They went forth in their way with many wise tales,
And had leave to lie all their life after ...
Hermits on an heap, with hooked staves,
Wenten to Walsingham, and their wenches after;
Great lubbers and long, that loth were to labour,
Clothed them in copes to be knowen from other,
And shaped themselves as hermits, their ease to have."
"Piers Plowman," B., Prol. 46
During those twelve years in Aldgate Tower, Chaucer's genius fought its
way through the literary conventions of his time to the full assertion of
its native originality. He had begun with allegory and moralization, after
the model of the "Roman de la Rose"; shreds of these conventions clung to
him even to the end of the Aldgate period; but they were already outworn.
In "Troilus and Cressida" we have real men and women under all the
classical machinery: they think and act as men thought and acted in
Chaucer's time; and Pandarus especially is so lifelike and individual that
Shakespeare will transfer him almost bodily to his own canvas. In the
"House of Fame" and the "Legend of Good Women" the form indeed is again
allegorical, but the poet's individuality breaks through this narrow mask;
his self-revelations are franker and more direct than at any previous
time; and in each case he wearied of the poem and broke off long before
the end. With the humility of a true artist, he had practised his hand for
years to draw carefully after the old acknowledged models; but these now
satisfied him less and less. His mind was stored with images which could
not be forced into the narrow framework of a dream; he must find a canvas
broad enough for all the life of his time; for the cream of all that he
had seen and heard in Flanders and France and Italy, in the streets of
London and on the open highways of a dozen English counties. Boccaccio,
for a similar scheme, had brought together a company of young Florentines
of the upper class, and of both sexes, in a villa-garden. Chaucer's plan
of a pilgrim cavalcade gave him a variety of character as much greater as
the company in a third-class carriage is more various than that in a
West-end club.
[Illustration: A HOSTELRY AT NIGHT
(From a 15th-century MS. of "Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles" in the
Hunterian Library at Glasgow)]
In earlier ages, a pilgrimage had of course been a very solemn matter,
involving the certainty of great labour and heavy privations, and with
very considerable risk to life or limb. The crusades themselves were
pilgrimages _en masse_, as contemporary chroniclers often remind us. At
the commencement of an undertaking so serious, the pilgrims naturally
sought the blessing of the Church; and there was a special service for
their use. It is probable, however, that Chaucer's pilgrims troubled
themselves as little about this service as about the special pilgrim's
dress, the absence of which appears very plainly from his descriptions of
their costume. For a century at least before he wrote, pilgrimages had
been gradually becoming journeys rather of pleasure than of duty, for
those who could afford the necessary expense which they entailed.
Travelling indeed was not always safe; but when the pilgrim went alone and
on foot he could always protect himself from most evil-doers by taking the
traditional scrip and staff and gown which marked him as sacred; and
often, as in Chaucer's case, a caravan was formed which might well defy
all the ordinary perils of the road. The "mire" and "slough," which
Chaucer more than once mentions, had always been as much a matter of
common routine to everybody, even on his journey from farm to farm or
village to village, as a puncture is to the modern cyclist, or occasional
external traction to the motorist.[151] Moreover, though the inns might
not be what we should call luxurious, they offered abundant good cheer and
good fellowship to all who could pay the price. A certain Count of Poitou
went about in disguise to find what class of his subjects led the
happiest life; he judged at last "that the merchants at fair-time, who go
to taverns and find all the delicacies they can desire ready prepared,
would lead the most delightful life of all, but for this one drawback,
that they must at last settle the score for all that they have
consumed."[152] If, at these inns, the pilgrims often found themselves
packed into great dormitories fitted with berths like a ship's cabin, this
was far less of a change from their ordinary habits than are those
hardships to which modern mountain tourists cheerfully submit on
occasion.[153] Any great change from the ordinary routine marks a bright
spot in most men's minds, even in these days of many amusements and much
locomotion; so that, in proportion as the King's peace grew more effectual
in England, and places of pilgrimage multiplied, and the middle classes
could better afford the expense of time or money, it became as natural to
many people to go to Walsingham or Canterbury for the sake of the pleasant
society as it was to choose a church for the sake of gossip or
flirtation.[154] This is already complained of about 1250 A.D. by Berthold
of Regensburg, one of the greatest mission-preachers of the 13th century.
"Men talk nowadays in church as if it were at market.... One tells what he
has seen on his pilgrimage to Palestine or Rome or Compostella: thou mayst
easily say so much in church of these same pilgrimages, that God or St.
James will give thee no reward therefore." Again, "Many a man journeys
hence to St. James of Compostella, and never hears a single mass on the
way out or back, and then they go with sport and laughter, and some seldom
say even their Paternoster! This I say not to turn pilgrims aside from
Compostella; I am not strong enough for that; but thou mightest earn more
grace by a few masses than for all thy journey to Compostella and back.
Now, what dost thou find at Compostella? St. James's head. Well and good:
that is a dead skull: the better part is in heaven. Now, what findest thou
at home, at thy yard-gate? When thou goest to church in the morning, thou
findest the true God and Man, body and soul, as truly as on that day
wherein He was born of our Lady St. Mary, the ever-Virgin, whose holiness
is greater than all saints.... Thou mayst earn more reward at one mass
than another man in his six weeks out to St. Jacob and six weeks back
again: that makes twelve weeks." "Ye run to St. James, and sell so much at
home that sometimes your wives and children must ever be the poorer for
it, or thou thyself in need and debt all thy life long. Such a man crams
himself so that he comes back far fatter than he went, and has much to say
of what he has seen, and lets no man listen to the service or the sermon
in church." Two other great preachers, Cardinal Jacques de Vitry shortly
before Berthold, and Etienne de Bourbon shortly after him, speak of the
debaucheries which were not unusual on pilgrimages: the latter tells how
pilgrims sometimes sang obscene songs in chorus, and joined in dissolute
dances with the lewd village folk over the very graves in the churchyard;
he seems to speak of the German pilgrims as exceptional in singing
religious songs. All this was a century before Chaucer's journey; and
during those hundred years the institution had steadily lost in grace as
it gained in popularity. The author of "Piers Plowman" not only notes how
many rascals were to be found on pilgrimages, but would apparently have
been glad to see them almost entirely superseded. His professional
pilgrim comes hung round with tokens from a hundred shrines; he has been
at Rome, Compostella, Jerusalem, Sinai, Bethlehem, Babylon, and even in
Armenia; but of "Saint Truth" he has never heard, and can give no help to
those who are in real distress about their souls. An ideal society would
be one in which St. James was sought only by the sick-beds of the poor,
and pilgrims resorted no longer to Rome but to "prisons and poor cottages"
instead. Seventeen years before Chaucer's journey, even a prelate of the
Church dared to raise a similar protest. Archbishop Sudbury (then only
Bishop of London) was met by a band of pilgrims on their way to Becket's
Jubilee. They asked for his blessing; he told them plainly that the
promised Plenary Indulgence would be useless to them unless they went in a
more reverent spirit; and many simple souls were rather pained than
surprised when Wat Tyler's mob, eleven years later, hacked off the head of
so free-thinking an Archbishop on Tower Hill.[155] If this was what
orthodox folk said already, then we need not wonder at Wycliffe's
outspoken condemnation, or that a citizen of Nottingham, as early as 1395,
was compelled under pain of the stake to promise (among other articles) "I
shall never more despise pilgrimage."
Ten years after Chaucer, again, the Lollard Thorpe was tried before
Archbishop Arundel, and painted pilgrimages exactly as Chaucer's Poor
Parson would have described them. "Such fond people waste blamefully God's
goods on their vain pilgrimages, spending their goods upon vicious
hostelries, which are oft unclean women of their bodies.... Also, sir, I
knowe well that when divers men and women will goe thus after their own
willes, and finding out one pilgrimage, they will ordaine with them
before, to have with them both men and women that can well sing wanton
songes, and some other pilgrimes will have with them bagge pipes; so that
everie towne that they come through, what with the noise of their singing,
and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their
Canterburie bels, and with the barking out of dogges after them, that they
make more noise, then if the king came there away, with all his clarions,
and many other minstrels. And if these men and women be a moneth out in
their pilgrimage, many of them shall be an halfe yeare after, great
janglers, tale-tellers, and liers."[156] A century later, we find
Archbishop Warham and the Pope negotiating privately about Becket's
Jubilee in a frankly commercial spirit, while Erasmus publicly held up the
Canterbury Pilgrimage to ridicule; and a few years later again St. Thomas
was declared a traitor, his shrine was plundered, and the pilgrimages
ceased. It may indeed be said that the Canterbury Pilgrimage would not
have been so proper for our poet's dramatic purpose but that most of its
religious earnestness had long since evaporated.
But what a canvas it was in 1387, and how frankly Chaucer utilized all its
possibilities! The opportunity of bringing in any tale which lay nearest
to his heart--for what tale in the world was there that might not come
naturally from one or other of this party?--was only a part of all that
this subject offered, as the poet realized from the very first. Even more
delightful than any of the tales told by Chaucer's pilgrims, is the tale
which he tells us about them all: the story of their journey to
Canterbury. Nowhere within so brief a compass can we realize either the
life of the 14th century on one hand, or on the other that dramatic power
in which Chaucer stands second only to Shakespeare among English poets.
Forget for a while the separate tales of the pilgrims--many of which were
patched up by fits and starts during such broken leisure as this man of
the world could afford for indulging his poetical fancies; while many
others (like the Monk's and the Parson's) are tedious to modern readers in
strict proportion to their dramatic propriety at the moment--forget for
once all but the Prologue and the end-links, and read these through at one
sitting, from the first stirrup-cup at Southwark Tabard to that final
crest of Harbledown where the weary travellers look down at last upon the
sacred city of their pilgrimage. There is no such story as this in all
medieval literature; no such wonderful gallery of finished portraits, nor
any drama so true both to common life and to perfect art. The _dramatis
personæ_ of the "Decameron" are mere puppets in comparison; their
occasional talk seems to us insipid to the last degree of old-world
fashion; Boccaccio's preface and interludes are as much less dramatic than
Chaucer's as their natural background is more picturesque, with its Great
Plague in Florence and its glimpses of the Val d'Arno from that sweet
hill-garden of cypress and stone-pine and olive. Boccaccio wrote for a
society that was in many ways over-refined already; it is fortunate for us
that Chaucer's public was not yet at that point of literary development at
which art is too often tempted into artifice. He took the living men day
by day, each in his simplest and most striking characteristics; and from
all these motley figures, under the artist's hand, grew a mosaic in which
each stands out with all the glow of his own native colour, and with all
the added glory of the jewelled hues around him. The sharp contrasts of
medieval society gave the poet here a splendid opportunity. In days when
the distinctions of rank were so marked and so unforgettable, even to the
smallest details of costume, the Knight's dignity risked nothing by
unbending to familiar jest with the Host; and the variety of characters
which Chaucer has brought together in this single cavalcade is as probable
in nature as it is artistically effective. All moods, from the most
exalted piety down to the coarsest buffoonery, were possible and natural
on a journey religious indeed in essential conception, but which had by
this time become so common and worldly a function that few pilgrims
dreamed of putting off the old Adam until the white walls of Canterbury
came in sight. The plot has in it all the charm of spring, of open-air
travel, and of passing good-fellowship without afterthought; the rich
fields of Kent, the trees budding into their first green, mine ease in
mine inn at night, and over all the journey a far-off halo of sanctity.
On the evening of Tuesday, April 16, 1387, twenty-nine pilgrims found
themselves together in the Tabard at Southwark.[157] This hostelry lay
almost within a stone's throw of Chaucer's birthplace, and within sight of
many most notable London landmarks. Behind lay the priory of St. Mary
Overy, where Gower was now lodging among the friendly and not too ascetic
monks, and where he still lies carved in stone, with his three great books
for a pillow to his head. A few yards further in the background stood
London Bridge, the eighth marvel of the world, with its twenty arches, its
two chapels, its double row of houses, and its great tower bristling with
rebel skulls. Wat Tyler's head was among the newest there on that spring
evening; and in five years the head of Chaucer's Earl of Worcester was to
attain the same bad eminence. Beyond the bridge rose the walls and
guard-towers of the city, the open quays and nodding wooden houses, and a
hundred and fifty church steeples, seldom indeed of any great
architectural pretensions individually, but most picturesque in their
variety, and dominated by the loftiest of all existing European
structures--the wooden spire of old St. Paul's.[158]
[Illustration:
Short was his gown, with sleevës long and wide.
Well could he sit on horse, and fairë ride
THE SQUIRE OF THE "CANTERBURY TALES"
(From the Ellesmere MS. (15th century))]
Nor were the pilgrims themselves less picturesque than the background of
their journey. At the head of the first group the Knight, so fresh from
the holy wars that the grease of his armour still stains his leather
doublet, and that we guess his rank only from the excellence of his steed
and his own high breeding--
And though that he were worthy, he was wise,
And of his port as meek as is a maid.
He never yet no villainy ne said
In all his life, unto no manner wight.
He was a very perfect gentle knight.
Then his son, the Squire, a model of youthful beauty and strength, who had
already struck many a good blow in France for his lady's grace, but who
shows here his gentler side, with yellow curls falling upon the shortest
of fashionable jackets and the longest of sleeves--
Embroidered was he, as it were a mead
All full of freshë flowrës, white and red.
Singing he was, or fluting, all the day;
He was as fresh as is the month of May.
And lastly their single attendant, the nut-headed yeoman forester, with
his suit of Lincoln green, his peacock arrows, and his mighty bow.
After chivalry comes the Church; and first the fine black cloth and snowy
linen of Madam Eglantine and her fellow nun, clean and dainty and demure,
like a pair of aristocratic pussy-cats on a drawing-room hearthrug. Their
male escort, the Nuns' Priest, commands no great reverence from mine Host,
who, however, will presently doff his cap before the Prioress, and address
her with a studied deference even beyond the courtesy which he renders to
the Knight. Her dignified reserve, her natural anxiety to set off a fine
person with more elaboration of costume than the strict Rule permitted,
her French of Stratford attë Bowe, her tenderness to lapdogs and even to
marauding mice, her faultless refinement of behaviour under the ticklish
conditions of a 14th-century dinner-table--all these pardonable luxuries
of a fastidious nature are described with Chaucer's most delicate irony,
and stand in artistic contrast to the grosser indiscipline of the Monk.
This "manly man, to be an abbot able," contemptuously repudiated the
traditional restraints of the cloister, and even the comparatively mild
discipline of those smaller and therefore less rigorous "cells" which the
fiery zeal of St. Bernard stigmatized as "Synagogues of Satan."[159] He
scoffed at the Benedictine prohibition of field sports and of extravagant
dress, and at the old-fashioned theory of subduing the flesh by hard
brainwork or field labour; yet at bottom he seems to have been a good
fellow enough, with a certain real dignity of character; and the
discipline which he so unceremoniously rejected had by this time (as we
may see from the official records of his Order) grown very generally
obsolete. But still more strange to the earlier ideals of his Order was
the next cleric on Chaucer's list, the Friar. Father Hubert is one of
those jovial sinners for whom old Adam has always a lurking sympathy even
when the new Adam feels most bound to condemn them. Essentially
irreligious even in his most effective religious discourse; greedy,
unabashed, as ubiquitous and intrusive as a bluebottle fly, he is yet
always supple and ingratiating; a favourite boon-companion of the country
squires, but still more popular with many women; equally free and easy
with barmaids at a tavern or with wife and daughter in a citizen's hall.
The Summoner and the Pardoner, parasites that crawled on the skirts of the
Church and plied under her broad mantle their dubious trade in sacred
things, had not even the Friar's redeeming features; yet we see at a
glance their common humanity, and even recognize in our modern world many
of the follies on which they were tempted to trade. Two figures alone
among this company go far to redeem the Church--the Scholar and the Poor
Parson. The former's disinterested devotion to scholarship has passed into
a proverb: "gladly would he learn, and gladly teach"--an ideal which then,
as always, went too often hand in hand with leanness and poverty. The
Parson, contentedly poor himself and full of compassion for his still
poorer neighbours, equally ready at time of need to help the struggling
sinner or to "snib" the impenitent rich man, has often tempted earlier
commentators to read their own religious prepossessions into Chaucer's
verse. One party has assumed that so good a priest must have been a
Lollard, or Wycliffe himself; while others have contended (with even less
show of evidence, as we shall presently see) that he represents the
typical orthodox rector or vicar of Chaucer's time. The one thing of which
we may be certain is that Chaucer knew and reverenced goodness when he saw
it, and that he would willingly have subscribed to Thackeray's humble
words, "For myself, I am a heathen and a publican, but I can't help
thinking that those men are in the right." In the Tales themselves, as on
the pilgrimage, a multitude of sins are covered by this ploughman's
brother, of whom it is written that--
Christës lore, and His apostles' twelve,
He taught, and first he followed it him-selve.
[Illustration: A PARTY OF PILGRIMS
(FROM MS. ROY. 18. D. ii. f. 148)]
To summarize even briefly the appearance and character of the remaining
eighteen pilgrims would be too long a task; but it must be noticed how
infallible an eye Chaucer had for just the touch which makes a portrait
live. The Country Squire, looking like a daisy with his fiery face and
white beard; the Sailor, embarrassed with his horse; the Wife of Bath,
"somedeal deaf," and therefore as loud in her voice as in her dress; the
Summoner's scurvy eczema under his thick black eyebrows; the Pardoner's
smooth yellow hair and eyes starting out of his head; the thick-set
Miller, with a red-bristled wart on the end of his nose, and a bullet head
with which he could burst in a door at one charge; and his rival the
slender, choleric Reeve--
Full longë were his leggës and full lean,
Y-like a staff; there was no calf y-seen!
A goodly company, indeed, and much to the taste of Harry Bailey, mine host
of the Tabard, whom we may pretty safely identify with an actual
contemporary and fellow M.P. of Chaucer's.[160] He proposes, therefore,
to be their guide and master of the ceremonies on the road to Canterbury
and back. The pilgrims themselves shall tell tales to shorten the journey,
"drawing cut" for their order; and the teller of the best tale shall, on
their return, enjoy a supper at the expense of the rest--
By one assent
We be accorded to his judgëment;
And thereupon the wine was set anon;
We drunken, and to restë went each one
Withouten any longer tarrying.
A-morrow, when the day began to spring,
Up rose the host, and was our aller cock, [for all of us
And gathered us together in a flock....
[Illustration:
A white coat and a blue hood wearëd he,
A bagpipe well couldë he blow and sound,
And therewithal he brought us out of town.
THE MILLER
(From the Ellesmere MS.)]
CHAPTER XII
"CANTERBURY TALES"--FIRST AND SECOND DAYS
"For lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers
appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the
voice of the turtle is heard in our land."--SOLOMON'S SONG
Here, then, they are assembled on a perfect morning of English spring,
with London streets awakening to life behind them, and the open road in
front. Think of the dayspring from on high, the good brown earth and
tender foliage, smoke curling up from cottage chimneys, pawing steeds,
barking dogs, the cheerful stirrup-cup; every rider's face set to the
journey after his individual mood, when at last the Host had successfully
gathered his flock--
And forth we ride, a little more than pace,
Unto the watering of Saint Thomas.
That is, to the little brook which now runs underground near the second
milestone on the Old Kent Road, remembered only in the name of St. Thomas'
Road and the Thomas à Becket Tavern. Up to this point the party had been
enlivened by the Miller's bagpipe, and Professor Raleigh has justly
pointed out how many musicians there are in Chaucer's company: the Squire;
the Prioress with her psalms, "entuned in her nose full seemëly"; the
Friar, who could sing so well to his own harp; the Pardoner, with his
"Come hither, love, to me," and the Summoner, who accompanied him in so
"stiff" a bass. By St. Thomas' watering, however, either the Miller is out
of breath or the party are out of patience, for here the Host reins up,
and reminds them of their promise to tell tales on the way. They draw
cuts, and the longest straw (whether by chance or by Boniface's sleight of
hand) falls to the one man with whom none other would have disputed for
precedence. The Knight, with ready courtesy, welcomed the choice "in God's
name," and rode on, bidding the company "hearken what I say." Let us not
inquire too closely how far every word was audible to the whole thirty, as
they clattered and splashed along. We may always be sure that enough was
heard to keep the general interest alive, and it may be charitably hoped
that the two nuns were among those who caught least.
The Knight's tale was worthy of his reputation--chivalrous, dignified,
with some delicate irony and many flights of lofty poetry. The Host
laughed aloud for joy of this excellent beginning, and called upon the
Monk for the next turn; but here suddenly broke in--
The Miller, that for-dronken was all pale
So that unnethe upon his horse he sat ... [scarcely
And swore by armës and by blood and bones
'I can a noble talë for the nonce
With which I will now quit the Knightës tale.'
Our Hostë saw that he was drunk of ale
And said, 'abide, Robin, my lievë brother,
Some better man shall tell us first another;
Abide, and let us worken thriftily.'
'By Goddës soul,' quoth he, 'that will not I;
For I will speak, or ellës go my way.'
Our Host answered: 'Tell on, a devil way!
Thou art a fool; thy wit is overcome.'
'Now hearken,' quoth the Miller, 'all and some!
But first I make a protestatioun
That I am drunk, I know it by my soun; [sound
And therefore, if that I misspeak or say,
Wite it the ale of Southwark, I you pray; [blame
For I will tell a legend and a life
Both of a carpenter and of his wife....'
The Reeve (who is himself a carpenter also) protests in vain against such
slander of honest folk and their wives. Robin Miller has the bit between
his teeth, and plunges now headlong into his tale as he had run in old
times against the door--a "churlës tale," but told with consummate
dramatic effect, and recorded by Chaucer with a half-ironical apology--
And therefore every gentle wight I pray
For Goddës love, deem ye not that I say
Of evil intent, but that I must rehearse
Their talës allë, be they better or worse,
Or ellës falsen some of my matère.
And therefore, whoso list it not to hear,
Turn over the leaf and choose another tale.
The Miller's story proved an apple of discord in its small way, but
poetically effective in the variety which it and its fellows lent to the
journey--
Diversë folk diversëly they said,
But for the mostë part they laughed and played;
Nor at this tale I saw no man him grieve,
But it were only Osëwold the Reeve,
who, though chiefly sensible to the slur upon his own profession, lays
special stress on the indecorum of the Miller's proceeding. Some men (he
says) are like medlars, never ripe till they be rotten, and with all the
follies of youth under their grizzling hairs--
When that our host had heard this sermoning,
He gan to speak as lordly as a King:
He saidë 'What amounteth all this wit?
What shall we speak all day of holy writ? [why
The devil made a Reevë for to preach,
And of a cobbler a shipman or a leech!
Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the time,
Lo, Depëford, and it is halfway prime.
Lo Greenëwich, there many a shrew is in;
It were all time thy talë to begin.'
The story records, by way of natural revenge, the domestic misfortunes of
a Miller; and, for all the Reeve's moral indignation, it is as essentially
"churlish" as its predecessor, and as popular with at least one section of
the party--
The Cook of London, while the Reeve spake,
For joy, him thought, he clawed him on the back,
'Ha, ha!' quoth he, 'for Christës passioun,
This Miller had a sharp conclusion ...
But God forbiddë that we stinten here;
And therefore, if that ye vouchsafe to hear
A tale of me, that am a poorë man,
I will you tell as well as ever I can
A little jape that fell in our citie.' [jest
The Host gives leave on the one condition that the tale shall be fresher
and wholesomer than the Cook's victuals sometimes are--
'For many a pasty hast thou letten blood,
And many a Jack of Dover hast thou sold [meat pie
That hath been twyës hot and twyës cold!
Of many a pilgrim hast thou Christës curse,
For of thy parsley yet they fare the worse
That they have eaten with thy stubble-goose;
For in thy shop is many a flyë loose!'
The Cook's "little jape," however, to judge by its commencement, was even
more fly-blown than his stubble-goose. The Miller seemed to have let loose
every riotous element, and to have started the company upon a downward
slope of accelerating impropriety. But this to Chaucer would have been
more than a sin, it would have been an obvious artistic blunder; and when
the ribaldry begins in earnest, the best manuscripts break off with "of
this Cook's tale maked Chaucer no more." In other MSS. the Cook himself
breaks off in disgust at his own story, and tells the heroic tale of
Gamelyn, which Chaucer may possibly have meant to rewrite for the series.
Here end the tales of the first day; incomplete enough, as indeed the
whole book is only a fragment of Chaucer's mighty plan. The pilgrims
probably slept at Dartford, fifteen miles from London.
Next morning the Host seems to have found it hard to keep his team
together; it is ten o'clock when he begins to bewail the time already
wasted, and prays the Man of Law to tell a tale. The lawyer assents in a
speech interlarded with legal French and legal metaphors, and referring at
some length to Chaucer's other poems. He then launches into a formal
prologue, and finally tells the pious Custance's strange adventures by
land and sea. This, if not so generally popular with the company as other
less decorous tales before and after it, enjoyed at least a genuine
_succès d'estime_. Thereupon followed one of the liveliest of all
Chaucer's dialogues. The Host called upon the Parish Priest for a tale,
adjuring him "for Goddës bones" and "by Goddës dignitie." "_Benedicite!_"
replied the Parson; "what aileth the man, so sinfully to swear?" upon
which the Host promptly scents "a Lollard in the wind," and ironically
bids his companions prepare for a sermon.[161] The Shipman, professionally
indifferent to oaths of whatever description, and bold in conscious
innocence of all puritanical taint, here interposes an emphatic veto--
'Nay, by my father's soul, that shall he not,'
Saidë the Shipman; 'here he shall not preach.
He shall no gospel glosen here nor teach. [expound
We believe all in the great God,' quoth he,
'He wouldë sowen some difficultee,
Or springen cockle in our cleanë corn;
And therefore, Host, I warnë thee beforn,
My jolly body shal a talë tell,
And I shall clinken you so merry a bell
That I shall waken all this companye;
But it shall not be of philosophye,
Nor _physices_, nor termës quaint of law,
There is but little Latin in my maw.'
The bluff skipper is as good as his word; his tale is frankly
unprofessional, and its infectious jollity must almost have appealed to
the Parson himself, even though it reeked with the most orthodox
profanity, and showed no point of contact with puritanism except a low
estimate of average monastic morals.
'Well said, by _Corpus Dominus_,' quoth our Host,
'Now longë mayest thou sailë by the coast,
Sir gentle master, gentle mariner! ...
Draw ye no monkës more unto your inn!
But now pass on, and let us seek about
Who shall now tellë first, of all this rout,
Another tale;' and with that word he said,
As courteously as it had been a maid,
'My lady Prioressë, by your leave,
So that I wist I shouldë you not grieve,
I wouldë deemen that ye tellen should
A talë next, if so were that ye would.
Now will ye vouchësafe, my lady dear?'
'Gladly,' quoth she, and said as ye shall hear.
The gentle lady tells that charming tale which Burne-Jones so loved and
adorned, of the little scholar murdered by Jews for his devotion to the
Blessed Virgin, and sustained miraculously by her power. Chaucer loved the
Prioress; and he makes us feel the reverent hush which followed upon her
tale--
When said was all this miracle, every man
So sober was, that wonder was to see,
Till that our Hostë japen then began,
And then at erst he lookëd upon me,
And saidë thus: 'What man art thou?' quoth he;
'Thou lookest as thou wouldest find an hare,
For ever upon the ground I see thee stare.
Approachë near, and look up merrily.
Now ware you, sirs, and let this man have place!
He in the waist is shape as well as I;
This were a puppet in an arm to embrace
For any woman, small and fair of face!
He seemeth elvish by his countenance,
For unto no wight doth he dalliance.
Say now somewhat, since other folk have said;
Tell us a tale of mirth, and that anon....'
Chaucer executes himself as willingly as the rest, and enters upon a
long-winded tale of knight-errantry, parodied from the romances in vogue;
but the Age of Chivalry is already half past. Before the poet has even
finished the preliminary catalogue of his hero's accomplishments--
'No more of this, for Goddës dignitee,'
Quoth our Hostë, 'for thou makest me
So weary of thy very lewedness [folly
That (all so wisely God my soulë bless)
Mine earës achen of thy drasty speech [trashy
Now, such a rhyme the devil I biteche! [commit to
This may well be rhyme doggerel,' quoth he.
Chaucer suffers the interruption with only the mildest of protests, and
proceeds to tell instead "a lytel thing in prose," a translation of a
French translation of a long-winded moral allegory by an Italian
friar-preacher. The monumental dulness of this "Tale of Melibee and of his
wife Prudence" is no doubt a further stroke of satire, and Chaucer must
have felt himself amply avenged in recounting this story to the bitter
end. Yet there was a moral in it which appealed to the Host, who burst
out--
... as I am a faithful man
And by that precious _corpus Madrian_ [St. Mathurin
I haddë liever than a barrel ale
That goodë lief my wife had heard this tale.
For she is nothing of such patience
As was this Melibeus' wife Prudence.
By Goddës bonës, when I beat my knaves,
She bringeth me forth the greatë clubbëd staves,
And crieth 'Slay the doggës every one.
And break them, bothë back and every bone!'
And if that any neighëbour of mine,
Will not in churchë to my wife incline,
Or be so hardy to her to trespass,
When she com'th home she rampeth in my face
And crieth 'Falsë coward, wreak thy wife!
By corpus bones! I will have thy knife,
And thou shalt have my distaff and go spin!'
The Host has plenty more to say on this theme; but presently he remembers
his duties, and calls upon the Monk for a tale, though not without another
long digression on monastic comforts and monastic morals, from the point
of view of the man in the street. The Monk takes all his broad jesting
with the good humour of a man who is used to it, and offers to tell some
tragedies, "of which I have an hundred in my cell." After a few harmless
pedantries by way of prologue, he proceeds to reel off instalments of his
hundred tragedies with the steady, self-satisfied, merciless drone of a
man whose office and cloth generally assure him of a patient hearing.
Here, however, we are no longer in the minster, but in God's own sunlight
and fresh air; the Pilgrim's Way is Liberty Hall; and while Dan Piers is
yet moralizing with damnable iteration over the ninth of his fallen
heroes, the Knight suddenly interrupts him--the Knight himself, who never
yet no villainy ne said, in all his life, unto no manner wight!
'Ho!' quoth the Knight, 'good sir, no more of this!
What ye have said is right enough, ywis [certainly
And muckle more; for little heaviness
Is right enough to many folk, I guess.
I say for me it is a great dis-ease,
Where as men have been in great wealth and ease
To hearen of their sudden fall, alas!
And the contrary is joy and great solace ...
And of such thing were goodly for to tell.'
'Yea,' quoth our Host, 'by Saintë Paulës Bell! ...
Sir Monk, no more of this, so God you bless,
Your tale annoyeth all this companye;
Such talking is not worth a butterflye,
For therein is there no desport nor game.
Wherefore, sire Monk, or Dan Piers by your name,
I pray you heartily, tell us somewhat else;
For surely, but for clinking of your bells
That on your bridle hang on every side,
By Heaven's King, that for us allë died,
I should ere this have fallen down for sleep,
Although the slough had never been so deep ...
Sir, say somewhat of hunting, I you pray.'
'Nay,' quoth this Monk, 'I have no lust to play;
Now let another tell, as I have told.'
Then spake our Host with rudë speech and bold,
And said unto the Nunnës Priest anon,
'Come near, thou Priest, come hither, thou Sir John!
Tell us such thing as may our heartës glad;
Be blithë, though thou ride upon a jade.
What though thine horse be bothë foul and lean?
If it will serve thee, reck thou not a bean;
Look that thine heart be merry evermo!'
The domestic confessor of stately Madame Eglantine is possibly accustomed
to sudden and peremptory commands; in any case, he obeys readily enough
here. "'Yes, sir,' quoth he, 'yes, Host'" ... and proceeds to recount that
tragi-comedy of Reynard and Chanticleer which, well-worn as the plot is,
shows off to perfection many of Chaucer's rarest artistic qualities.
The tale is told, and the Host shows his appreciation by saluting the
Nuns' Priest with the same broad gibes and innuendoes with which he had
already greeted the Monk. Here probably ends the second day; the Pilgrims
would sleep at Rochester, which was in sight when the Monk began his
Tale.
CHAPTER XIII
"CANTERBURY TALES"--THIRD AND FOURTH DAYS
"... quasi peregrin, che si ricrea
Nel tempio del suo voto riguardando,
E spera gia ridir com' ello stea."
"Paradiso," xxxi., 43
On the morning of the third day we find the Physician speaking; he tells
the tragedy of Virginia, not straight from Livy, whom Chaucer had probably
never had a chance of reading, but from its feebler echo in the "Roman de
la Rose." Even so, however, the pity of it comes home to his hearers.
Our Hostë gan to swear as he were wood; [mad
'Harrow!' quoth he, 'by nailës and by blood!
This was a false churl and a false justice! ...
By _Corpus_ bonës! but I have triacle [medicinal syrup
Or else a draught of moist and corny ale,
Or but I hear anon a merry tale,
Mine heart is lost, for pity of this maid.
Thou _bel ami_, thou Pardoner,' he said
'Tell us some mirth, or japës, right anon!'
'It shall be done,' quoth he, 'by saint Ronyon!
But first' (quoth he) 'here at this alë stake
I will both drink and eaten of a cake.'
And right anon the gentles gan to cry
'Nay! let him tell us of no ribaldry....'
'I grant, ywis,' quoth he; 'but I must think
Upon some honest thing, the while I drink.'
The suspicion of the "gentles" might seem premature; but they evidently
suspected this pardon-monger of too copious morning-draughts already, and
the tenor of his whole prologue must have confirmed their fears. With the
cake in his mouth, and the froth of the pot on his lips, he takes as his
text, _Radix malorum est cupiditas_, "Covetousness is the root of all
evil," and exposes with cynical frankness the tricks of his trade. By a
judicious use of "my longë crystal stones, y-crammëd full of cloutës and
of bones," I make (says he) my round 100 marks a year;[162] and, when the
people have offered, then I mount the pulpit, nod east and west upon the
congregation like a dove on a barn-gable, and preach such tales as
this.... Hereupon follows his tale of the three thieves who all murdered
each other for the same treasure. It is told with admirable spirit; and
now the Pardoner, carried away by sheer force of habit, calls upon the
company to kiss his relics, make their offerings, and earn his indulgences
piping-hot from Rome. Might not a horse stumble here, at this very moment,
and break the neck of some unlucky pilgrim, who would then bitterly regret
his lost opportunities in hell or purgatory? Strike, then, while the iron
is hot--
I counsel that our Host here shall begin,
For he is most enveloped in sin!
... Come forth, sir Host, and offer first anon,
And thou shalt kiss my relics every one ...
Yea, for a groat! unbuckle anon thy purse.
'Nay, nay,' quoth he, 'then have I Christë's curse ...
The Host, as his opening words may suggest, answers to the purpose, easy
words to understand, but not so easy to print here in the broad nakedness
of their scorn for the Pardoner and all his works--
This Pardoner answerëd not a word;
So wroth he was, no wordë would he say.
'Now,' quoth our Host, 'I will no longer play
With thee, nor with none other angry man.'
But right anon the worthy Knight began
(When that he saw that all the people lough) [laughed
'No more of this, for it is right enough! [quite
Sir Pardoner, be glad and merry of cheer;
And ye, sir Host, that be to me so dear,
I pray now that ye kiss the Pardoner;
And, Pardoner, I pray thee draw thee near,
And, as we diden, let us laugh and play.'
Anon they kist, and riden forth their way.
[Illustration:
Upon an ambler easily she sat,
Y-wimpled well, and on her head an hat
As broad as is a buckler or a targe;
A foot-mantle about her hippës large,
And on her feet a pair of spurrës sharp.
THE WIFE OF BATH
(From the Ellesmere MS.)]
The thread of the tales here breaks off; and then suddenly we find the
Wife of Bath talking, talking, talking, almost without end as she was
without beginning. Her prologue is half a dozen tales in itself, longer
almost, and certainly wittier, than all the other prologues put together.
The theme is marriage, and her mouth speaks from the abundance of her
heart. Here, indeed, we have God's plenty: fish, flesh, and fowl are set
before us in one dish, not to speak of creeping things: it is in truth a
strong mess, savoury to those that have the stomach for it, but reeking of
garlic, crammed with oaths like the Shipman's talk; a sample of the
Eternal Feminine undisguised and unrefined, in its most glaring contrast
with the only other two women of the party, the Prioress and her
fellow-nun--
Men may divine, and glosen up and down,
But well I wot, express, withouten lie,
God bade us for to wax and multiply;
That gentle text can I well understand.
Eke, well I wot, he said that mine husband
Should leavë father and mother, and takë me;
But of no number mention madë he
Of bigamy or of octogamy,
Why shouldë men speak of it villainy?
The good wife tells how she has outlived five husbands, and proclaims her
readiness for a sixth. The five martyrs are sketched with a master-touch,
and are divided into categories according to their obedience or
disobedience. But, with all their variety of disposition, time and
matrimony had tamed even the most stubborn of them; even that clerk of
Oxford whose earlier wont had been to read aloud nightly by the fire from
a Book of Bad Women--
... And when I saw he wouldë never fine [finish
To readen on this cursed book all night,
All suddenly three leavës have I plight [plucked
Out of his book, right as he read; and eke
I with my fist so took him on the cheek
That in our fire he fell backward adown;
And up he start as doth a wood lioun [mad
And with his fist he smote me on the head,
That in the floor I lay as I were dead ...
But the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love; and when the husband
had been brought, half by violence and half by cajolery, to give his wife
her own way in everything, then--
After that day we never had debate.
God help me so, I was to him as kind
As any wife from Denmark unto Ind.
For all social purposes, as we have said, this was the only woman of the
company; and where there is one woman there are always two men as ready to
quarrel over her as if she were Helen of Troy. Moreover, in this case,
professional jealousies were also at work. Already in the middle of her
prologue the Summoner had fallen into familiar dialogue with this merry
wife; and now, at the end--
The Friar laughed when he had heard all this;
'Now, dame,' quoth he, 'so have I joy or bliss,
This is a long preamble of a tale!'
And when the Summoner heard the Friar gale [cry out
'Lo,' quoth the Summoner, 'Goddës armes two!
A friar will intermit him ever-mo. [interfere
Lo, goodë men, a fly, and eke a frere
Will fall in every dishë and matère.
What speak'st thou of a "preambulation"?
What? amble, or trot, or peace, or go sit down!
Thou lettest our disport in this manère.'
'Yea, wilt thou so, sir Summoner?' quoth the Frere;
'Now, by my faith, I shall, ere that I go,
Tell of a Summoner such a tale or two
That all the folk shall laughen in this place.'
'Now ellës, Friar, I beshrew thy face,' [curse
Quoth this Summoner, 'and I beshrewë me,
But if I tellë tales, two or three,
Of friars, ere I come to Sittingbourne,
That I shall make thine heartë for to mourn,
For well I wot thy patience is gone.'
Our Hostë crièd 'Peace! and that anon;'
And saidë: 'Let the woman tell her tale;
Ye fare as folk that drunken be of ale.
Do, dame, tell forth your tale, and that is best.'
'All ready, sir,' quoth she, 'right as you list,
If I have licence of this worthy Frere.'
'Yes, dame,' quoth he, 'tell forth, and I will hear.'
The lady, having thus definitely notified her choice between the rivals
(on quite other grounds, as the next few lines show, than those of
religion or morality), proceeds to tell her tale on the theme that nothing
is so dear to the female heart as "sovereignty" or "mastery." Then the
quarrel blazes up afresh, and the Friar (after an insulting prologue for
which the Host calls him to order) tells a story which is, from first to
last, a bitter satire on the whole tribe of Summoners. Then the Summoner,
"quaking like an aspen leaf for ire," stands up in his stirrups and claims
to be heard in turn. His prologue, which by itself might suffice to turn
the tables on his enemy, is a broad parody of those revelations to devout
Religious which announced how the blessed souls of their particular Order
(for the Friars were not alone in this egotism) enjoyed for their
exclusive use some choice and peculiar mansion in heaven--under the skirts
of the Virgin's mantle, for instance, or even within the wound of their
Saviour's side. Then begins the tale itself of a Franciscan Stiggins on
his daily rounds, and of the "oldë churl, with lockës hoar," who at one
stroke blasphemed the whole convent, and took ample change out of Friar
John for many a good penny or fat meal given in the past, and for much
friction in his conjugal relations. The whole is told with inimitable
humour, and it is to be regretted that we hear nothing of the comments
with which it was received. At this point comes another gap in Chaucer's
plan.
[Illustration:
His eyen twinkled in his head aright
As do the starrës in a frosty night.
THE FRIAR
(From the Ellesmere MS.)]
Then suddenly our Host calls upon the Clerk of Oxford--
Ye ride as still and coy as doth a maid,
Were newly spousëd, sitting at the board;
This day ne heard I of your tongue a word ...
For Goddës sake, as be of better cheer!
It is no timë for to study here.
The Clerk, thus rudely shaken from his meditations, tells the story of
Patient Griselda, which he had "learned at Padua, of a worthy clerk ...
Francis Petrarch, the laureate poet." The good Clerk softens down much of
that which most shocks the modern mind in this truly medieval conception
of wifely obedience; and, as a confirmed bachelor, he adds an ironical
postscript which is as clever as anything Chaucer ever wrote.[163] We must
revere the heroine, but despair of finding her peer--
Griseld' is dead, and eke her patience,
And both at once burièd in Itayle.
So begins this satirical ballad, and goes on to bid the wife of the
present day to enjoy herself at her husband's expense--
Be aye of cheer as light as leaf on lind, [lime-tree
And let him care and weep, and wring and wail!
The last line rouses a sad echo in one heart at least, for the Merchant
had been wedded but two months--
'Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow,
I know enough, on even and a-morrow'
Quoth the Merchant, 'and so do other more
That wedded be ...'
His tale turns accordingly on the misadventures of an old knight who had
been foolish enough to marry a girl in her teens. Upon this the Host
congratulates himself that _his_ wife, with all her shrewishness and
other vices more, is "as true as any steel." Here ends the third day; the
travellers probably slept at the Pilgrim's House at Ospringe, parts of
which stand still as Chaucer saw it.
Next morning the Squire is first called upon to
... say somewhat of love; for certes ye
Do ken thereon as much as any man.
He modestly disclaims the compliment, and tells (or rather leaves half
told) the story of Cambuscan, with the magic ring and mirror and horse of
brass. Chaucer had evidently intended to finish the story; for the
Franklin is loud in praise of the young man's eloquence, and sighs to mark
the contrast with his own son, who, in spite of constant paternal
"snybbings," haunts dice and low company, and shows no ambition to learn
of "gentillesse." "Straw for your 'gentillessë,' quoth our Host," and
forthwith demands a tale from the Franklin, who, with many apologies for
his want of rhetoric, tells admirably a Breton legend of chivalry and
magic.
Another gap brings us to the Second Nun, who tells the tale of St. Cecilia
from the Golden Legend, with a prefatory invocation to the Virgin
translated from Dante. By the time this is ended the pilgrims are five
miles further on, at Boughton-under-Blee. Here, at the foot of the hilly
forest of Blean, with only eight more miles before them to Canterbury,
they are startled by the clattering of horse-hoofs behind them. It was a
Canon Regular with a Yeoman at his heels.[164] The man had seen the
pilgrims at daybreak, and warned his master; and the two had ridden hard
to overtake so merry a company. While the Canon greeted the pilgrims, our
Host questioned his Yeoman, who first obscurely hinted, and then began
openly to relate, such things as made the Canon set spurs to his horse
and "flee away for very sorrow and shame." The Yeoman is now only too glad
to make a clean breast of it. He has been seven years with this monastic
alchemist, who has fallen meanwhile from one degree of poverty to another;
half-cheat, half-dupe, with a thousand tricks for cozening folk of their
money, but always wasting his own on the search for the philosopher's
stone. Meanwhile, after ruinous expenses and painful care, every
experiment ends in the same way: "the pot to-breaketh, and farewell, all
is go!" The experimenters pick themselves up, look round on the mass of
splinters and the dinted walls, and begin to quarrel over the cause--
Some said it was along on the fire making,
Some saidë Nay, it was on the blowing,
(Then was I feared, for that was mine office,)
'Straw!' quoth the third, 'ye be lewëd and nice [ignorant and foolish
It was not tempered as it ought to be.'
'Nay,' quoth the fourthë, 'stint and hearken me;
Because our fire ne was not made of beech,
That is the cause, and other none, so I theech!' [so may I thrive!
At last the mess is swept up, the few recognizable fragments of metal are
put aside for further use, another furnace is built, and the indefatigable
Canon concocts a fresh hell-broth, sweeping away all past failures with
the incurable optimism of a monomaniac, "There was defect in somewhat,
well I wot." Many of the fraternity, however, are arrant knaves, without
the least redeeming leaven of folly; and the Yeoman goes on to tell the
tricks by which such an one beguiled a "sotted priest" who had set his
heart on this unlawful gain.
By this time the company was come to "Bob Up and Down," which was probably
the pilgrims' nickname for Upper Harbledown. Here our Host found the Cook
straggling behind, asleep on his nag in broad daylight--
'Awake, thou Cook,' quoth he, 'God give thee sorrow!
What aileth thee to sleepë by the morrow?
Hast thou had fleas all night, or art thou drunk?'
The Cook opens his mouth, and at once compels his neighbours to adopt the
latter and less charitable theory. He is evidently in no state for
story-telling; so the Manciple offers himself instead, not without a few
broad jests at his fellow's infirmity--
And with this speech the Cook was wroth and wraw, [indignant
And on the manciple he 'gan noddë fast
For lack of speech; and down the horse him cast,
Where as he lay till that men up him took!
The Manciple, fearing lest the Cook's resentment should prompt some future
revenge in the way of business, pulled out a gourd of wine, coaxed another
draught into the drunken man, and earned his half-articulate gratitude.
Then he told the fable of the crow from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
The tale was ended, and the sun began to sink, for it was four
o'clock.[165] The cavalcade began to "enter at a thorpë's end"--no doubt
the village of Harbledown, the last before Canterbury, famous for the
Black Prince's Well and for the relics of St. Thomas at its leper
hospital. Here at last the pilgrims remember the real object of their
journey. The Host lays aside his oaths (all but one, "Cokkës bones!" which
slips out unawares) and looks round now for the hitherto neglected Parson,
upon whom he calls for a "fable."
This Parson answered all at once
'Thou gettest fable none y-told for me,
For Paul, that writeth unto Timothee,
Reproveth them that weyven soothfastness [depart from
And tellen fables and such wretchedness ...
I cannot gestë "_rum, ram, ruf_" by letter,[166]
Nor, God wot, rhyme hold I but little better;
And therefore if you list--I will not glose--
I will you tell a merry tale in prose
To knit up all this feast, and make an end;
And Jesu, for His gracë, wit me send
To shewë you the way, in this voyage,
Of thilkë perfect, glorious pilgrimage
That hight Jerusalem celestial ...'
Upon this word we have assented soon,
For as us seemed, it was for to doon [right to do
To enden in some virtuous sentence,
And for to give him space and audience.
The Host voices the common consent, reinforcing his speech for once with a
prayer instead of an oath. The Parson then launches out into a treatise on
the Seven Deadly Sins and their remedies, translated from the French of a
13th-century friar. The treatise (like Chaucer's other prose writings)
lacks the style of his verse; but it contains one lively and amusing
chapter of his own insertion, satirizing the extravagance of costume in
his day (lines 407 ff.).
[Illustration:CANTERBVRY FROM W. SMITH'S DRAWING OF 1588. (SLOANE MS.
2596). THE PILGRIMS ENTERED BY THE WEST GATE (NO. 6)]
Long before the Parson had ended, the city must have been in full view
below--white-walled, red-roofed amid its orchards and green meadows, but
lacking that perfect bell-tower which, from far and near, is now the
fairest sight of all. At this point an anonymous and far inferior poet has
continued Chaucer's narrative in the "Tale of Beryn." The prologue to that
tale shows us the pilgrims putting up at the Chequers Inn, "that many a
man doth know," fragments of which may still be seen close to the
Cathedral at the corner of Mercery Lane.[167] Travelling as they did in
force--and especially with such redoubtable champions among their
party--they would no doubt have been able to choose this desirable hostel
without too great molestation; but in favour of less able-bodied pilgrims
the city authorities were obliged to pass a law that no hosteler should
"disturb no manner of strange man coming to the city for to take his inn;
but it shall be lawful to take his inn at his own lust without disturbance
of any hosteler."[168] In the Cathedral itself--
The Pardoner and the Miller, and other lewd sots,
Sought themselves in the church right as lewd goats,
Peerëd fast and porëd high upon the glass,
Counterfeiting gentlemen, the armës for to blase, [blazon
till the Host bade them show better manners, and go offer at the shrine.
"Then passed they forth boisterously, goggling with their heads," kissed
the relics dutifully, saw the different holy places, and presently sat
down to dinner. How the Miller (being accustomed to such sleight of hand)
stole afterwards a bosom-full of "Canterbury brooches"; how uproarious was
the merriment after supper, and how the Pardoner became the hero of a
scandalous adventure--this and much more may be read at length in the
prologue to the "Tale of Beryn." It will already have been noted, however,
that the anonymous poet entirely agrees with Chaucer in laying stress on
what may be called the bank-holiday side of the pilgrimage. That side does
indeed come out with rather more than its due prominence when we thus skip
the separate tales and run straight through the plot of the pilgrims'
journey; but, when all allowances have been made, Chaucer enables us to
understand why orthodox preachers spoke on this subject almost as strongly
as the heresiarch Wycliffe; and, on the other hand, how great a gap was
made in the life of the common folk by the abolition of pilgrimages.
The very fidelity with which the poet paints his own time shows us the
Reformation in embryo. We have in fact here, within the six hundred pages
of the "Canterbury Tales," one of the most vivid and significant of all
scenes in the great Legend of the Ages; and his pilgrims, so intent upon
the present, so exactly mirrored by Chaucer as they moved and spoke in
their own time, tell us nevertheless both of another age that was almost
past and of a future time which was not yet ripe for reality. The Knight
is still of course the most respected figure in such a company; and he
brings into the book a pale afterglow of the real crusades; but the Host
now treads close upon his heels, big with the importance of a prosperous
citizen who has twice sat in Parliament side by side with knights of the
shire. The good Prioress recalls faintly the heroic age of monasticism;
yet St. Benedict and St. Francis would have recognized their truest son in
the poor Parson, upon whom the pilgrims called only in the last resort.
The Monk and the Friar, the Summoner and the Pardoner, do indeed remind us
how large a share the Church claimed in every department of daily life;
but they make us ask at the same time "how long can it last?" Extremes
meet; and the "lewd sots" who went "goggling with their heads," gaping and
disputing at the painted windows on their way to the shrine, were lineal
ancestors to the notorious "Blue Dick" of 250 years later, who made a
merit of having mounted on a lofty ladder, pike in hand, to "rattle down
proud Becket's glassie bones."
[Illustration: EDWARD III. FROM HIS TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY]
CHAPTER XIV
KING AND QUEEN
"Then came there a King; knighthood him led;
Might of the Commons made him to reign."
"Piers Plowman," B., Prol. 112
We have traced the main course of the poet's life, followed him at work
and at play, and considered his immediate environment. Let us now try to
roam more at large through the England of his day, and note the more
salient features of that society, high and low, from which he drew his
characters.
In this age, Chaucer could scarcely have had a better introduction to
Court life than that which fell to his lot. The King whom he served, when
we have made all possible deductions, was still the most imposing
sovereign of the time. Adam Murimuth, a contemporary chronicler not often
given to rhetoric, has drawn Edward III.'s portrait with no more
exaggeration than we must take for granted in a contemporary, and with
such brilliancy that his more picturesque successor, Walsingham, has
transferred the paragraph almost bodily into his own pages. "This King
Edward," writes Adam, "was of infinite goodness, and glorious among all
the great ones of the world, being entitled The Glorious par excellence,
for that by virtue of grace from heaven he outshone in excellence all his
predecessors, renowned and noble as they were. He was so great-hearted
that he never blenched or changed the fashion of his countenance at any
ill-hap or trouble soever that came upon him; a renowned and fortunate
warrior, who triumphed gloriously in battles by sea and land; clement and
benign, familiar and gentle even to all men, both strangers and his own
subjects or dependents; devoted to God, for he held God's Church and His
ministers in the greatest reverence. In temporal matters he was not too
unyielding, prudent and discreet in counsel, affable and gentle in
courtesy of speech, composed and measured in gesture and manners, pitiful
to the afflicted, and profuse in largesse. In times of wealth he was not
immoderate; his love of building was great and discriminating; he bore
losses with moderation; devoted to hawking, he spent much pains on that
art. His body was comely, and his face like the face of a god, wherefrom
so marvellous grace shone forth that whosoever openly considered his
countenance, or dreamed thereof by night, conceived a sure and certain
hope of pleasant solace and good-fortune that day. He ruled his realm
strictly even to his old age; he was liberal in giving and lavish in
spending; for he was excellent in all honour of manners, so that to live
under him was to reign; since his fame was so spread abroad among
barbarous nations that, extolling his honour, they averred that no land
under the sun had ever produced a King so noble, so generous, or so
fortunate; and that, after his death, none such would perchance ever be
raised up for future times. Yet he controlled not, even in old age, the
dissolute lusts of the flesh; and, as is believed, this intemperance
shortened his life." Hereupon follows a painfully involved sentence in
which the chronicler draws a moral from Edward's brilliant youth, the full
midday of his manhood, and the degradation of his declining years.[169]
If the praise of Edward's clemency seems overdrawn to those who remember
the story of the citizens of Calais, we must bear in mind that the
chronicler compares him here with other sovereigns of the time--with his
rival Philippe de Valois, who was scarcely dissuaded from executing Sir
Walter de Mauny in cold blood, despite his safe conduct from the Dauphin;
with Gaston de Foix, who with a penknife in his hand struck at his only
son and killed him; with Richard II., who smote the Earl of Arundel in the
face during the Queen's funeral, and "polluted Westminster Abbey with his
blood"; with Charles the Bad of Navarre, and Pedro the Cruel of Spain.
What even the cleric Murimuth saw, and what Chaucer and his friend
Hoccleve saw still more intimately, was the Haroun al-Raschid who went
about "in simple array alone" to hear what his people said of him; the
"mighty victor, mighty lord" of Sluys, Crécy and Calais; the King who in
war would freely hazard his own person, "raging like a wild boar, and
crying 'Ha Saint Edward! Ha Saint George!'"[170] and who in peace would
lead the revels at Windsor, clad in white and silver, and embroidered with
his motto--
Hay, hay, the whitë swan!
By Goddës soul I am thy man!
If Edward and his sons were renowned for their uniform success in battle,
it was not because they had feared to look defeat in the face. Every one
knows how much was risked and all but lost at Crécy and Poitiers; the
great sea-fight of "Les Espagnols sur Mer" is less known. Froissart excels
himself in this story.[171] We see Edward sailing out gaily, in spite of
the superior numbers of the Spaniards, and bidding his minstrels pipe the
brand-new air which Sir John Chandos had brought back from Germany, while
Chandos himself sang the words. Then, when the enemy came sailing down
upon him with their great embattled ships, the King bade his steersman
tilt straight at the first Spanish vessel, in spite of the disparity of
weight. The English boat cracked under the shock; her seams opened; and,
by the time that Edward had captured the next ship, his own was beginning
to sink. The Black Prince had even a narrower escape; it became evident
that his ship would go down before he could board the enemy; only the
timely arrival of the Earl of Derby saved him; the deck sank almost under
his feet as he climbed the sides of the Spaniard; "and all the enemy were
put overboard without taking any to mercy." The Queen prayed all day at
some abbey--probably Battle--in anguish of heart for the news which came
from time to time through watchers on the far-off Downs. Although Edward
and his sons took horse at once upon their landing, not until two o'clock
in the morning did they find her, apparently in her own castle at
Pevensey: "so the lords and ladies passed that night in great revel,
speaking of war and of love."
Arms and love were equally commemorated in a foundation which was one of
the glories of Edward's reign--the Round Tower of Windsor. Dying chivalry,
like other moribund institutions, broke out now and then into fantastic
revivals of the past. Edward resolved to hold a Round Table at his palace,
and to build a great tower for the purpose. Warrants were sent out to
impress the unhappy labourers throughout six counties; for a short time as
many as 722 men were employed on the work, and the whole Round Tower was
built in ten months of the year 1344.[172] Froissart connects this,
probably too closely, with the Order of the Garter, which seems not to
have been actually founded until 1349, when every household in the country
was saddened by the Great Pestilence. We have here one of the typical
contrasts of those times; both sides of the shield are seen in those
memories of love and war which cling round the Round Tower of Windsor.
Lavish profusion side by side with dirt and squalor; the minstrels clad in
rich cloths taken from the Spaniards; bright eyes and careless merriment
at the Royal board, while the hawks scream down from their perches, and
noble hounds fight for bones among the rushes; silken trains, stiff with
gold, trailing over the nameless defilements of the floor; a King and his
sons, more stately and warlike than any other Royal family; but their
crowns are in pawn with foreign merchants, and they themselves have been
obliged to leave four earls behind as hostages to their Flemish
creditors.[173] Royalty has always its _memento mori_, no doubt, but not
always under the same forms.
[Illustration: THE PEACOCK FEAST
(From the sepulchral brass of Robert Braunche, twice Mayor of Lynn, who
died in 1364. Braunche had the honour of entertaining Edward III., here
distinguished by his crown on the extreme left of the guests. Observe the
attitude of the attendant squire on the extreme right.)]
If Chaucer the poet was fortunate in his Royal master, still more
fortunate was Philippa Chaucer in her namesake, "the good Queen." The
wooing of Edward and Philippa of Hainault is painted lovingly by
Froissart, who was the lady's compatriot and a clerk in her service. In
1326 Queen Isabella of England, who had broken more or less definitely
with her husband, was staying with her eldest boy at her brother's Court
in Paris. But the King of France had no wish to encourage open rebellion;
and Isabella avoided extradition only by fleeing to her cousin, the Count
of Hainault, at Valenciennes. "In those days had Count William four
daughters, Margaret, Philippa, Joan, and Isabel; among whom young Edward
devoted himself most, and inclined with eyes of love to Philippa rather
than to the rest; and the maiden knew him better and kept closer company
with him than any of her sisters. So have I since heard from the mouth of
the good Lady herself, who was Queen of England, and in whose court and
service I dwelt." It was agreed, in reward for the count's hospitality,
that Edward should marry one of the girls; and when Isabella went home to
conquer England in her son's name, the main body of her army consisted of
Hainaulters, and most of the prepaid dowry of the future bride was
consumed by the expenses of the expedition. Then, in 1327, when the
wretched Edward II. had bitterly expiated his follies and crimes in the
dungeon of Berkeley, and the "she-wolf of France" already ruled England in
her son's name, she went through the form of asking whether he would marry
one of the young countesses. "And when they asked him, he began to laugh,
and said, 'Yes, I am better pleased to marry there than elsewhere; and
rather to Philippa, for she and I accorded excellently well together; and
she wept, I know well, when I took leave of her at my departure.'" All
that was needed now was a papal dispensation; for the parties were second
cousins. This was, of course, a mere matter of form--or, rather, of money.
Towards the end of the year Philippa was married by proxy at Valenciennes;
and on December 23 she arrived in London, where there were "great
rejoicings and noble show of lords, earls, barons, knights, highborn
ladies and noble damsels, with rich display of dress and jewels, with
jousts too and tourneys for the ladies' love, with dancing and carolling,
and with great and rich feasts day by day; and these rejoicings endured
for the space of 3 weeks." Edward was at York, resting after his first
Scottish campaign; so "the young queen and her meinie journeyed northwards
until they came to York, where she was received with great solemnity. And
all the lords of England who were in the city came forth in fair array to
meet her, and with them the young king, mounted on an excellently-paced
hackney, magnificently clad and arrayed; and he took her by the hand, and
then embraced and kissed her; and so riding side by side, with great
plenty of minstrels and honours, they entered the city and came to the
Queen's lodgings.... So there the young King Edward wedded Philippa of
Hainault in the cathedral church of St. William [_sic_].... And the king
was seventeen years of age, and the young queen was on the point of
fourteen years.... Thus came the said queen Philippa to England at so
happy a time that the whole kingdom might well rejoice thereat, and did
indeed rejoice; for since the days of queen Guinevere, who was wife to
King Arthur and queen of England (which men called Great Britain in those
days), so good a queen never came to that land, nor any who had so much
honour, or such fair offspring; for in her time, by King Edward her
spouse, she had seven sons and five daughters. And, so long as she lived,
the realm of England enjoyed grace, prosperity, honour, and all good
fortune; nor was there ever enduring famine or dearth in the land while
she reigned there.... Tall and straight she was; wise, gladsome, humble,
devout, free-handed, and courteous; and in her time she was richly adorned
with all noble virtues, and well beloved of God and men."[174]
[Illustration: PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT, FROM HER TOMB IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
(THE FIRST OF THE ROYAL TOMBS WHICH IS AN ACTUAL PORTRAIT)]
So far Froissart, recording events which happened some ten years before
his birth, from the mouths of the actors themselves; writing lovingly, in
his extreme old age, of his first and noblest patroness, and proudly as a
Dane might write thirty years hence of the princess who had come from his
own home to win all hearts in England.[175] From other chroniclers, and
from dry official documents, we may throw interesting sidelights on these
more living memorials. One such document, however, is as living as a page
from Froissart himself, in spite of--or shall we say, because of?--its
essentially business character and the legal caution of phrase in which
the writer has wrapped up his direct personal impressions. The official
register of the ill-fated Bishop Stapledon, of Exeter, so soon to expiate
at the hands of a London mob his loyal ministerial service to Edward
II., is in the main like other episcopal registers--a record of
ordinations, institutions, dispensations, lawsuits, and more or less
unsuccessful attempts to reduce his clergy to canonical discipline.[176]
But it contains, under the date of 1319 (p. 169), an entry which has, so
far as I know, been strangely overlooked hitherto by historians. The Latin
title runs, "Inspection and Description of the Daughter of the Count of
Hainault, Philippa by name." To this a later hand, probably that of the
succeeding bishop, has added: "She was Queen of England, Wife to Edward
III." The document itself, which is in Norman-French, runs as follows:
"The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown.
Her head is clean-shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing
somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of
her face still more narrow and slender than the forehead. Her eyes are
blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it
is somewhat broad at the tip and also flattened, yet it is no snub-nose.
Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat
full, and especially the lower lip. Her teeth which have fallen and grown
again are white enough, but the rest are not so white. The lower teeth
project a little beyond the upper; yet this is but little seen. Her ears
and chin are comely enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body and
lower limbs are reasonably well shapen; all her limbs are well set and
unmaimed; and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is
brown of skin all over, and much like her father; and in all things she is
pleasant enough, as it seems to us. And the damsel will be of the age of
nine years on St. John's day next to come, as her mother saith. She is
neither too tall nor too short for such an age; she is of fair carriage,
and well taught in all that becometh her rank, and highly esteemed and
well beloved of her father and mother and of all her meinie, in so far as
we could inquire and learn the truth." Cannot we here see, through the
bishop's dry and measured phrases, a figure scarcely less living and
attractive than Froissart shows us?
But the register corrects the historian just where we should expect to
find him at fault. "The noble and worthy lady my mistress" would scarcely
have told Froissart how much State policy there had been in the marriage,
true love-match as it had been in spite of all. The old bishop, before
whose face she had trembled, and laughed again behind his back with her
sisters; his invidious comparisons between her first and second teeth; his
business-like collection of backstairs gossip, which some more
confidential maid-of-honour must surely have whispered to her mistress--of
all this the noble lady naturally breathed no syllable to her devoted
clerk. But, apart from the official record in the secret archives of
Exeter diocese, a vague memory of it all was kept alive in men's minds by
that most efficacious of historical preservatives--a broad jest. The
rhyming chronicler Hardyng, whose life overlapped Froissart's and
Chaucer's by several years, records a good deal of Court gossip,
especially about Edward III.'s family. He writes[177]--
"He sent forth then to Hainault for a wife
A bishop and other lordës temporal,
Where, in chamber privy and secret
At discovered, dishevelled also in all,
As seeming was to estate virginal.
Among themselves our lords, for his prudence
Of the bishop asked counsel and sentence.
"Which daughter of the five should be the queen.
Who counselled thus, with sad avisëment
'We will have her with good hippës, I mean,
For she will bear good sons, to mine intent.'
To which they all accorded by assent,
And chose Philippa that was full feminine,
As the bishop most wise did determine.
"But then among themselves they laughed fast ay;
The lords then said [that] the bishop couth
Full mickle skill of a woman alway, [was a good judge
That so could choose a lady that was uncouth; [unknown
And, for the merry words that came of his mouth,
They trowed he had right great experience
Of woman's rule and their convenience."
Later on again, after enumerating the titles and virtues of the sons that
were born of this union, Hardyng continues--
"So high and large they were of all stature,
The least of them was of [his] person able
To have foughten with any creature
Single battaile in actës merciable;
The bishop's wit me thinketh commendable,
So well could choose the princess that them bore,
For by practice he knew it, or by lore."
We need find no difficulty in reconciling Froissart with these other
documents; Edward's was a love-match, but, like all Royal love-matches,
subject to possible considerations of State. The first negotiations for a
papal dispensation carefully avoid exact specification; the request is
simply for leave to marry "one of the daughters" of Hainault; only two
months before the actual marriage does the final document bear Philippa's
name.
The Queen's public life--the scene before Calais, and her (somewhat
doubtful) presence at the battle of Nevile's Cross--belongs rather to the
general history of England; of her private life, as of Chaucer's, a great
deal only flashes out here and there, meteor-wise, from account-books and
similar business documents. We find, for instance, what gifts were given
to the messengers who announced the births of her successive children to
the King; and Beltz, in his "Memorials of the Garter," has unearthed the
name of the lady who nursed the Black Prince.[178] We find Edward building
for his young consort the castle since called Queenborough, the
master-mason on this occasion being John Gibbon, ancestor to the great
historian. At another moment we see the Earl of Oxford, as Chamberlain,
claiming for his perquisites after the coronation Philippa's bed, shoes,
and three silver basins; but Edward redeemed the bed for £1000.[179] This
redemption is explained by divers entries in the Royal accounts; in 1335-6
the King owed John of Cologne £3000 for a bed made "against the
confinement of the Lady Philippa ... of green velvet, embroidered in gold,
with red sirens, bearing a shield with the arms of England and Hainault."
The infant on this occasion was the short-lived William of Hatfield, whose
child-tomb may be seen in York Cathedral. Her carpets for a later
confinement cost £900, but her bed only £1250. And so on to the latest
entries of all--the carving of her tomb at Westminster; the wrought-iron
hearse which the canons of St. Paul's obligingly took from the tomb of
Bishop Northbrooke and sold for that of the Queen at the price of
£600;[180] lastly, the rich "mortuary" accruing to the Chapter of York
Minster, who got for their perquisite the bed on which Philippa had
breathed her last, and had its rich hangings cut up into "thirteen copes,
six tunics and one chasuble."[181]
But here let us turn back to Froissart, who, under the year 1369, turns
suddenly aside from his chronicle of battles and sieges, to pay a
heartfelt tribute to his first benefactress. "Now let us speak of the
death of the gentlest queen, the most liberal and courteous of all who
reigned in her time, my Lady Philippa of Hainault, queen of England and
Ireland: God pardon her and all others! In these days ... there came to
pass in England a thing common enough, but exceedingly pitiful this time
for the king and her children and the whole land; for the good lady the
Queen of England, who had done so much good in her lifetime and succoured
so many knights, ladies, and damsels, and given and distributed so freely
among all people, and who had ever loved so naturally those of her own
native land of Hainault, lay grievously sick in the castle of Windsor; and
her sickness lay so hard upon her that it waxed more and more grievous,
and her last end drew near. When therefore this good lady and queen knew
that she must die, she sent for the king her husband; and, when he was
come into her presence, she drew her right hand from under the coverlet
and put it into the right hand of the king, who was sore grieved in his
heart; and thus spake the good lady: 'My Lord, heaven be thanked that we
have spent our days in peace and joy and prosperity; wherefore I pray that
you will grant me three boons at this my departure.' The King, weeping and
sobbing, answered and said, 'Ask, Lady, for they are granted.' 'My Lord, I
pray for all sorts of good folk with whom in time past I have dealt for
their merchandize, both on this and on that side of the sea, that ye will
easily trust their word for that wherein I am bound to them, and pay full
quittance for me. Next, that ye will keep and accomplish all ordinances
which I have made, and all legacies which I have bequeathed, both to
churches on either side of the sea where I have paid my devotions, and to
the squires and damsels who have served me. Thirdly, my Lord, I pray that
ye will choose no other sepulture than to lie by my side in the Abbey of
Westminster, when God's will shall be done on you.' The King answered
weeping, 'Lady, I grant it you.' Then made the Queen the sign of the true
cross on him, and commended the King to God, and likewise the lord Thomas
her youngest son, who was by her side; and then within a brief space she
yielded up her ghost, which (as I firmly believe) the holy angels of
paradise seized and carried with great joy to the glory of heaven; for
never in her life did she nor thought she any thing whereby she might lose
it."
As the good Queen's beloved bed-hangings were dispersed in fragments among
the Canons of York, so her dying benedictions would seem to have been
scattered no less widely to the winds. One of the servants so tenderly
commended to the King's care was Chaucer's wife; but another was Alice
Perrers, whom Edward had already noted with favour, and who now took more
or less openly the dead Queen's place. Men aged rapidly in those days;
and, as Edward trod the descending slope of life, his manly will weakened
and left little but the animal behind. Philippa was scarcely cold in her
grave when Alice Perrers, decked in her mistress's jewels, was
masquerading at royal tournaments as the Lady of the Sun. Presently she
was sitting openly at the judge's side in the law courts; the King's shame
was the common talk of his subjects; and even the formal protests of
Parliament failed to separate her from the doting old King, from whom on
his death-bed she kept the clergy away until his speech was gone. Then,
having stolen the very rings from his fingers, she left him to a priest
who could only infer repentance from his groans and tears. Thomas of
Woodstock, the Queen's Benjamin, fared not much better. He became the
selfish and overbearing leader of the opposition to Richard II., and was
at last secretly murdered by order of the royal nephew whom he had bullied
more or less successfully for twenty years.
CHAPTER XV
KNIGHTS AND SQUIRES
"'But teach me,' quoth the Knight; 'and, by Christ, I will assay!'
'By St. Paul,' quoth Perkin, 'ye proffer you so fair
That I shall work and sweat, and sow for us both,
And other labours do for thy love, all my lifetime,
In covenant that thou keep Holy Church and myself
From wasters and from wicked men, that this world destroy;
And go hunt hardily to hares and foxes,
To boars and to badgers that break down my hedges;
And go train thy falcons wild-fowl to kill,
For such come to my croft and crop my wheat.'"
"Piers Plowman," B., vi., 24
The theory of chivalry, which itself owes much to pre-Christian morality,
lies at the roots of the modern conception of gentility. The essence of
perfect knighthood was fearless strength, softened by charity and
consecrated by faith. A certain small and select class had (it was held) a
hereditary right to all the best things of this world, and the concomitant
duty of using with moderation for themselves and giving freely to others.
Essentially exclusive and jealous of its privileges, the chivalric ideal
was yet the highest possible in a society whose very foundations rested on
caste distinctions, and where bondmen were more numerous than freemen. The
world will always be the richer for it; but we must not forget that, like
the finest flower of Greek and Roman culture, it postulated a servile
class; the many must needs toil and groan and bleed in order that the few
might have grace and freedom to grow to their individual perfection. In
its finest products it may extort unwilling admiration even from the most
convinced democrat--
"Often I find myself saying, old faith and doctrine abjuring, ...
Were it not well that the stem should be naked of leaf and of tendril,
Poverty-stricken, the barest, the dismallest stick of the garden;
Flowerless, leafless, unlovely, for ninety-and-nine long summers,
So in the hundredth, at last, were bloom for one day at the summit,
So but that fleeting flower were lovely as Lady Maria?"[182]
When, however, we look closer into the system, and turn from theory to
practice, then we find again those glaring inconsistencies which meet us
nearly everywhere in medieval society. A close study even of such a
panegyrist as Froissart compels us to look to some other age than his for
the spirit of perfect chivalry; and many writers would place the palmy
days of knighthood in the age of St. Louis. Here again, however, we find
the same difficulty; for in Joinville himself there are many jarring
notes, and other records of the period are still less flattering to
knightly society. The most learned of modern apologists for the Middle
Ages, Léon Gautier, is driven to put back the Golden Age one century
further, thus implying that Francis and Dominic, Aquinas and Dante, the
glories of Westminster and Amiens, the saintly King who dealt justice
under the oak of Vincennes, and twice led his armies oversea against the
heathen, all belonged to an age of decadence in chivalry. Yet, even at
this sacrifice, the Golden Age escapes us. When we go back to the middle
of the 12th century we find St. Bernard's contemporaries branding the
chivalry of their times as shamelessly untrue to its traditional code.
"The Order of Knighthood" (writes Peter of Blois in his 94th Epistle) "is
nowadays mere disorder.... Knights of old bound themselves by an oath to
stand by the state, not to flee from battle, and to prefer the public
welfare to their own lives. Nay, even in these present days candidates for
knighthood take their swords from the altar as a confession that they are
sons of the Church, and that the blade is given to them for the honour of
the priesthood, the defence of the poor, the chastisement of evil-doers,
and the deliverance of their country. But all goes by contraries; for
nowadays, from the moment when they are honoured with the knightly belt,
they rise up against the Lord's anointed and rage against the patrimony of
the Crucified. They rob and despoil Christ's poor, afflicting the wretched
miserably and without mercy, that from other men's pain they may gratify
their unlawful appetites and their wanton pleasures.... They who should
have used their strength against Christ's enemies fight now in their cups
and drunkenness, waste their time in sloth, moulder in debauchery, and
dishonour the name and office of Knighthood by their degenerate lives."
This was about 1170. A couple of generations earlier we get an equally
unfavourable impression from the learned and virtuous abbot, Guibert of
Nogent. Further back, again, the evidence is still more damning; and
nobody would seriously seek the golden age of chivalry in the 11th
century. It is indeed a mirage; and Peter of Blois in 1170, Cardinal
Jacques de Vitry in 1220, who so disadvantageously contrasted the
knighthood of their own time with that of the past, were simply victims of
a common delusion. They despaired too lightly of the actual world, and
sought refuge too credulously in an imaginary past. Even if, in medieval
fashion, we trace this institution back to Romulus, to David, to Joshua,
or to Adam himself, we shall, after all, find it nowhere more flourishing
than in the first half of the 13th century, imperfectly as its code was
kept even then.
By the end of that century, however, two great causes were at work which
made for the decay of chivalry. Before Dante had begun to write, the real
Crusades were over--or, indeed, even before Dante was born--for the two
expeditions led by St. Louis were small compared with others in the past.
In 1229 the Emperor Frederick II. had recovered from the infidel by
treaty those holy places which Coeur-de-Lion had in vain attempted to
storm; and this had dealt a severe blow to the old traditions. Again,
during the years that followed, the Pope did not hesitate to attack his
enemy the Emperor, even in the Holy Land; so that, while Christian fought
against Christian over Christ's grave, the Turk stepped in and reconquered
Jerusalem (1244). Lastly, his successors, while they regularly raised
enormous taxes and contributions for the reconquest of Palestine,
systematically spent them on their own private ambitions or personal
pleasures. Before the 13th century was out the last Christian fortress had
been taken, and there was nothing now to show for two centuries of
bloodshed. Under these repeated shocks men began to lose faith in the
crusading principle. A couple of generations before Chaucer's birth,
Etienne de Bourbon complained that the upper classes "not only did not
take the cross, but scoffed at the lower orders when they did so" (p.
174). In France, after the disastrous failure of St. Louis's first
expedition, the rabble said that Mahomet was now stronger than
Christ.[183] Edward III. and his rival, Philippe de Valois, did for a
moment propose to go and free the Holy Land in concert, but hardly
seriously. Chaucer's Knight had indeed fought in Asia Minor, but mainly
against European pagans in Spain and on the shores of the Baltic; and,
irreproachable as his motives were in this particular instance, Gower
shows scant sympathy for those which commonly prompted crusades of this
kind.[184]
A still more fatal cause of the decay of chivalry, perhaps, lay in the
growing prosperity of the merchant class. Even distinguished historians
have written misleadingly concerning the ideal of material prosperity and
middle-class comfort, as though it had been born only with the
Reformation. It seems in fact an inseparable bye-product of civilization:
whether healthy or unhealthy need not be discussed here. As the Dark Ages
brightened into the Middle Ages, as mere club-law grew weaker and weaker,
so the longing for material comforts grew stronger and stronger. The great
monasteries were among the leaders in this as in so many other respects.
In 12th-century England, the nearest approach to the comfort of a modern
household would probably have been found either in rich Jews' houses or in
the more favoured parts of abbeys like Bury and St. Albans. Already in the
13th century the merchant class begins to come definitely to the fore. As
the early 14th-century _Renart le Contrefait_ complains--
"Bourgeois du roi est pair et comte;
De tous états portent l'honneur.
Riches bourgeois sont bien seigneurs!"[185]
Italy and the south of France were particularly advanced in this respect;
and Dante's paternal house was probably richer in material comforts than
any castle or palace in England, as his surroundings were in many other
ways more civilized. Even the feudal aristocracy, as will presently be
seen, learned much in these ways from the citizen-class: and, meanwhile, a
slow but sure intermingling process began between the two classes
themselves. First only by way of abuse, but presently by open procedure of
law, the rich plebeian began to buy for himself the sacred rank of
Knighthood. Long before the end of the 13th century, there were districts
of France in which rich citizens claimed knighthood as their inalienable
right. In England, the order was cheapened by Edward I.'s statute of
_Distraint of Knighthood_ (1278), in which some have seen a deliberate
purpose to undermine the feudal nobility. By this law, all freeholders
possessing an estate of £20 a year were not only permitted, but compelled
to become knights; and the superficiality of the strict chivalric ideal is
shown clearly by the facts that such a law could ever be passed, and that
men tried so persistently to evade it. If knighthood had been in reality,
even at the end of the 12th century, anything like what its formal codes
represent, then no such attempt as this could have been made in 1235 by a
King humbly devoted to the Church--for, as early as that year, Henry III.
had anticipated his son's enactments.
Where Royal statutes and popular tendencies work together against an
ancient institution, it soon begins to crumble away; and the knighthood
which Chaucer knew was far removed from that of a few generations before.
We read in "Piers Plowman" that, while "poor gentle blood" is refused,
"soapsellers and their sons for silver have been knights." An Italian
contemporary, Sacchetti, complains that he has seen knighthood conferred
on "mechanics, artisans, even bakers; nay, worse still, on woolcarders,
usurers, and cozening ribalds"; and Eustache Deschamps speaks scarcely
less strongly.[186] Several 14th-century mayors of London were knighted,
including John Chaucer's fellow-vintner Picard, and Geoffrey's colleagues
at the Customs, Walworth, Brembre, and Philipot.
But Brembre and Philipot, Sir Walter Besant has reminded us, were probably
members of old country families, who had come to seek their fortunes in
London.[187] True; but this only shows us the decay of chivalry on another
side. Nothing could be more honourable, or better in the long run for the
country, than that there should be such a double current of circulation,
fresh healthy blood flowing from the country manor to the London
counting-house, and hard cash trickling back again from the city to the
somewhat impoverished manor. It was magnificent, but it was not chivalry,
at any rate in the medieval sense. Gower reminded his readers that even
civil law forbade the knight to become merchant or trader; but the
movement was far too strong to be checked by law. The old families had
lost heavily by the crusades, by the natural subdivision of estates, and
by their own extravagance. Moreover, the growing luxury of the times made
them feel still more acutely the limitation of their incomes; and the
moneylenders of Chaucer's day found their best customers among country
magnates. "The city usurer," writes Gower, "keeps on hire his brokers and
procurers, who search for knights, vavasours and squires. When these have
mortgaged their lands, and are driven by need to borrow, then these
rascals lead them to the usurers; and presently that trick will be played
which in modern jargon is called the _chevisance_ of money.... Ah! what a
bargain, which thus enriches the creditor and will ruin the debtor!"[188]
In an age which knew knight-errantry no longer, nothing but the most
careful husbandry could secure the old families in their former
pre-eminence; and well it was for England that these were early forced by
bitter experience to recognise the essential dignity of honest commerce.
Edward I., under the financial pressure of his great wars, insisted that
he was "free to buy and sell like any other." All the Kings were obliged
to travel from one Royal manor to another, as M. Jusserand has pointed
out, from sheer motives of economy.[189] We have already seen how Edward
III., even in his pleasures, kept business accounts with a regularity
which earned him a sneer from King John of France. The Cistercians, who
were probably the richest religious body in England, owed their wealth
mainly to their success in the wool trade. But perhaps the most curious
evidence of this kind may be found in the invaluable collections from the
Berkeley papers made in the 17th century by John Smyth of Nibley, and
published by the Bristol and Gloucester Archæological Society. We there
find a series of great barons, often holding distinguished offices in
peace or war, but always exploiting their estates with a dogged unity of
purpose which a Lombard might have envied. Thomas I., who held the barony
from 1220 to 1243, showed his business foresight by letting a great deal
of land on copyhold. His son (1243-1281) was "a careful husband, and
strict in all his bargains." This Thomas II., who served with distinction
in twenty-eight campaigns, kept in his own hands from thirteen to twenty
manors, farming them with the most meticulous care. His accounts show that
"when this lord was free from foreign employment, he went often in
progress from one of his manors and farmhouses to another, scarce two
miles asunder, making his stay at each of them for one or two nights,
overseeing and directing the above-mentioned husbandries." Lady Berkeley
went on similar rounds from manor to manor in order to inspect the
dairies. Smyth gives amusing instances of the baron's frugalities, side by
side with his generosity. He followed a policy of sub-letting land in tail
to tenants, calculating "that the heirs of such donees being within age
should be in ward to him, ... and so the profit of the land to become his
own again, and the value of the marriage also to boot": a calculation
which the reader will presently be in a better position to understand. He
"would not permit any freeman's widow to marry again unless she first made
fine with him" (one poor creature who protested against this rule was
fined £20 in modern money); and he fixed a custom, which survived for
centuries on his manors, of seizing into his own hands the estates of all
copyholders' widows who re-married, or were guilty of incontinence. He
vowed a crusade, but never performed it; his grandson paid a knight £100
to go instead of the dead baron. Lady Berkeley's "elder years were weak
and sickly, part of whose physic was sawing of billets and sticks, for
which cause she had before her death yearly bought certain fine hand-saws,
which she used in her chamber, and which commonly cost twopence a piece."
[Illustration: SIR GEOFFREY LOUTERELL WITH HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER
(LOUTERELL PSALTER. EARLY 14TH CENTURY.)]
Maurice III. (1321-1326) continued, or rather improved upon, his father's
exact methods. Thomas III. (1326-1361) was almost as great a warrior as
his grandfather, though less fortunate. Froissart tells in his own
picturesque style how he pressed so far forward at Poitiers as to get
himself badly wounded and taken prisoner, and how the squire who took him
bought himself a knighthood out of the ransom. (Globe ed., p. 127). Even
more significant, perhaps, are the Royal commissions by which this lord
was deputed to raise men for the great war, and to which I shall have
occasion to refer later on. But, amidst all this public business, Thomas
found time to farm himself about eighty manors! Like his grandfather, he
was blessed with an equally business-like helpmeet, for when he was abroad
on business or war, "his good and frugal lady withdrew herself for the
most part to her houses of least resort and receipt, whether for her
retirement or frugality, I determine not." The doubt here expressed must
be merely rhetorical, for Smyth later on records how she had a new gown
made for herself "of cloth furred throughout with coney-skins out of the
kitchen." Indeed, most of the cloth and fur for the robes of this great
household came from the estate itself. "In each manor, and almost upon
each farmhouse, he had a pigeon-house, and in divers manors two, and in
Hame and a few others three; from each house he drew yearly great numbers,
as 1300, 1200, 1000, 850, 700, 650 from an house; and from Hame in one
year 2151 young pigeons." These figures serve to explain how the baronial
pigeons, preying on the crops, and so sacred that no man might touch them
on pain of life or limb, became one of the chief causes which precipitated
the French Revolution. Like his grandfather--and indeed like all feudal
lords, from the King downwards--he found justice a profitable business. He
"often held in one year four leets or views of frankpledge in Berkeley
borough, wherefrom, imposing fourpence and sixpence upon a brewing of ale,
and renting out the toll or profit of the wharfage and market there to the
lord of the town, he drew yearly from that art more than the rent of the
borough."[190] Again, he dealt in wardships, buying of Edward III. "for
1000 marks ... the marriage of the heir of John de la Ware, with the
profits of his lands, until the full age of the heir." He carried his
business habits into every department of life. In founding a chantry at
Newport he provided expressly by deed that the priest "should live
chastely and honestly, and not come to markets, ale-houses, or taverns,
neither should frequent plays or unlawful games; in a word, he made this
his priest by these ordinances to be one of those honest men whom we
mistakenly call _puritans_ in these our days." The accounts of his
tournaments are most interesting, and throw a still clearer light on King
John's sneer. Smyth notes that this lord was a most enthusiastic jouster,
and gives two years as examples from the accounts (1st and 2nd Ed. III.).
Yet, in all the six tournaments which Lord Thomas attended in those two
years, he spent only £90 18_s._, or £15 3_s._ per tournament; and this at
a time when he was saving money at the rate of £450 a year, an economy
which he nearly trebled later on.[191] He evidently knew, however, that a
heavy outlay upon occasion will repay itself with interest, for we find
him paying £108 for a tower in his castle; and, whereas the park fence had
hitherto been of thorn, new-made every three years, Lord Thomas went to
the expense of an oaken paling.
Maurice IV. (1361-1368), "in husbandry his father's true apprentice," not
only made considerable quantities of wine, cider, and perry from his
gardens at Berkeley, but turned an honest penny by selling the apples
which had grown under the castle windows. Warned by failing health, he
tried to secure the fortune of his eldest son, aged fourteen, by marrying
him to the heiress of Lord Lisle. The girl was then only seven, so it was
provided that she should live on in her father's house for four years
after the wedding. Maurice soon died, and Lord Lisle bought from the King
the wardship of his youthful son-in-law for £400 a year--that is, for
about a sixth of the whole revenue of the estates. This young Thomas IV.,
having at last become his own master (1368-1417), "fell into the old
course of his father's and grandfather's husbandries." Among other thrifty
bargains, he "bought of Henry Talbot twenty-four Scottish prisoners, taken
by him upon the land by the seaside, in way of war, as the King's
enemies."[192] He left an only heiress, the broad lands were divided, and
the long series of exact stewards' accounts breaks suddenly off. The heir
to the peerage, Lord James Berkeley, being involved in perpetual lawsuits,
became "a continual borrower, and often of small sums; yea, of church
vestments and altar-goods." Not until 1481 did the good husbandry begin
again.
It is probable that these Berkeleys were an exceptionally business-like
family; but there is similar evidence for other great households, and the
intimate history of our noble families is far from justifying that
particular view of chivalry which has lately found its most brilliant
exponent in William Morris. The custom of modern Florence, where you may
ring at a marble palace and buy from the porter a bottle of the marquis's
own wine, is simply a legacy of the Middle Ages.[193] The English nobles
of Chaucer's day were of course far behind their Florentine brethren in
this particular direction; but that current was already flowing strongly
which, a century later, was to create a new nobility of commerce and
wealth in England.
The direct effect of the great French war on chivalry must be reserved for
discussion in another chapter; but it is pertinent to point out here one
indirect, though very potent, influence. Apart from the business-like way
in which towns were pillaged, the custom of ransoming prisoners imported a
very definite commercial element into knightly life. In the wars of the
12th and early 13th centuries, when the knights and their mounted
retainers formed the backbone of the army on both sides, and were
sometimes almost the only combatants, it is astounding to note how few
were killed even in decisive battles. At Tinchebrai (1106), which gave
Henry I. the whole duchy of Normandy, "the Knights were mostly admitted to
quarter; only a few escaped; the rest, 400 in all, were taken
prisoners.... Not a single knight on Henry's side had been slain." At the
"crushing defeat" of Brenville, three years later, "140 knights were
captured, but only three slain in the battle." At Bouvines, one of the
greatest and most decisive battles of the Middle Ages (1214), even the
vanquished lost only 170 knights out of 1500. At Lincoln, in 1217, the
victors lost but one knight, and the vanquished apparently only two,
though 400 were captured; and even at Lewes (1264) the captives were far
more numerous than the slain.[194] It was, in fact, difficult to kill a
fully-armed man except by cutting his throat as he lay on the ground, and
from this the victors were generally deterred not only by the freemasonry
which reigned among knights and squires of all nations, but still more by
the wicked waste of money involved in such a proceeding. "Many a good
prisoner" is a common phrase from Froissart's pen; and, in recounting the
battle of Poitiers, he laments that the archers "slew in that affray many
men who could not come to ransom or mercy." Though both this and the
parallel phrase which he uses at Crécy leave us in doubt which thought was
uppermost in his mind, yet he speaks with unequivocal frankness about the
slaughter of Aljubarrota: "Lo! behold the great evil adventure that befel
that Saturday; for they slew as many prisoners as would well have been
worth, one with another, four hundred thousand franks!"[195] In the days
when the great chronicler of chivalry wrote thus, why should not Lord
Berkeley deal in Scottish prisoners as his modern descendant might deal in
Canadian Pacifics?
It is, indeed, a fatal misapprehension to assume that a society in which
coin was necessarily scarce was therefore more indifferent to money than
our own age of millionaires and multi-millionaires. The underlying fallacy
is scarcely less patent than that which prompted a disappointed mistress
to say of her cook, "I _did_ think she was honest, for she couldn't even
read or write!" Chaucer's contemporaries blamed the prevalent
mammon-worship even more loudly and frequently than men do now, with as
much sincerity perhaps, and certainly with even more cause. Bribery was
rampant in every part of 14th-century society, especially among the
highest officials and in the Church. Chaucer's satire on the Archdeacon's
itching palm is more than borne out by official documents; and his
contemporaries speak even more bitterly of the venality of justice in
general. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, in an age when the right of
holding courts was notoriously sought mainly for its pecuniary advantages?
In "Piers Plowman," Lady Meed (or, in modern slang, the Almighty Dollar)
rules everywhere, and not least in the law courts. Gower speaks no less
plainly. The Judges (he says) are commonly swayed by gifts and personal
considerations: "men say, and I believe it, that justice nowadays is in
the balance of gold, which hath so great virtue; for, if I give more than
thou, thy right is not worth a straw. Right without gifts is of no avail
with Judges."[196] What Gower recorded in the most pointed Latin and
French he could muster, the people whose voice he claimed to echo wrote
after their own rough fashion in blood. The peasants who rose in 1381
fastened first of all upon what seemed their worst enemies. "Then began
they to show forth in deeds part of their inmost purpose, and to behead in
revenge all and every lawyer in the land, from the half-fledged pleader to
the aged justice, together with all the jurors of the country whom they
could catch. For they said that all such must first be slain before the
land could enjoy true freedom."[197]
CHAPTER XVI
HUSBANDS AT THE CHURCH DOOR
"Io ho uno grandissimo dubbio di voi, ch'io mi credo che se ne salvino
tanti pochi di quegli che sono in istato di matrimonio, che de' mille,
novecento novantanove credo che sia matrimonio del diavolo."--ST.
BERNARDINO OF SIENA, Sermon xix
But we have as yet considered only one side of chivalry. While blushing,
like Gibbon, to unite such discordant names, let us yet remember that the
knight was "the champion of God _and the ladies_," and may therefore
fairly claim to be judged in this latter capacity also.
Even here, however, we find him in practice just as far below either his
avowed ideal or the too favourable pictures of later romance. The feudal
system, with which knighthood was in fact bound up, precluded chivalry to
women in its full modern sense. Land was necessarily held by personal
service; therefore the woman, useless in war, must necessarily be given
with her land to some man able to defend it and her. As even Gautier
admits, the woman was too often a mere appendage of the fief; and he
quotes from a _chanson de geste_, in which the emperor says to a favoured
knight--
"Un de ces jours mourra un de mes pairs;
Toute la terre vous en voudrai donner,
Et la moiller, si prendre la voulez." [femme
Though he is perhaps right in pleading that, as time went on, the
compulsion was rather less barefaced than this, he is still compelled
sadly to acknowledge of the average medieval match in high life that
"after all, whatever may be said, those are not the conditions of a
truly free marriage, or, to speak plainly, of a truly Christian one." From
this initial defect two others followed almost as a matter of course: the
extreme haste with which marriages were concluded, and the indecently
early age at which children were bound for life to partners whom they had
very likely never seen. Gautier quotes from another _chanson de geste_,
where a heroine, within a month of her first husband's death, remarries
again on the very day on which her second bridegroom is proposed and
introduced to her for the first time; and the poet adds, "Great was the
joy and laughter that day!" The extreme promptitude with which the Wife of
Bath provided herself with a new husband--or, for the matter of that,
Chaucer's own mother--is characteristically medieval.
[Illustration: BRASS OF SIR JOHN AND LADY HARSYCK
(From Southacre Church, Norfolk (1384))
(For the lady's cote-hardie and buttons, see p. 27, note 2. Her dress is
here embroidered with her own arms and Sir John's.)]
But child-marriages were the real curse of medieval home-life in high
society. The immaturity of the parents could not fail to tell often upon
the children; and when Berthold of Regensburg pointed out how brief was
the average of life among the 13th-century nobility, and ascribed this to
God's vengeance for their heartlessness towards the poor, he might more
truly have traced the cause much further back. "In days of old," wrote a
_trouvère_ of the 12th century, "nobles married at a mature age; faith and
loyalty then reigned everywhere. But nowadays avarice and luxury are
rampant, and two infants of twelve years old are wedded together: take
heed lest they breed children!"[198] The Church did, indeed, refuse to
recognize the bond of marriage if contracted before both parties had
turned seven; and she further forbade the making of such contracts until
the age of twelve for the girl and fifteen for the boy, though without
daring, in this case, to impugn the validity of the marriage once
contracted. That the weaker should be allowed to marry three years earlier
than the stronger sex is justified by at least one great canon lawyer on
the principle that "ill weeds grow apace"; a decision on which one would
gladly have heard the comments of the Wife of Bath.[199] But "people let
the Church protest, and married at any age they pleased"; for it was
seldom indeed that the ecclesiastical prohibition was enforced against
influence or wealth, and the Church herself, theory apart, was directly
responsible for many of the worst abuses in this matter. Her determination
to keep the whole marriage-law in her own hands, combined with her
readiness to sell dispensations from her own regulations, resulted in a
state of things almost incredible. On the one hand, a marriage was
nullified by cousinship to the fourth degree, and even by the fact of the
contracting parties having ever stood as sponsors to the same child,
unless a papal dispensation had been bought; and this absurd severity not
only nullified in theory half the peasants' marriages (since nearly
everybody is more or less related in a small village), but gave rise to
all sorts of tricks for obtaining fraudulent divorces. To quote again from
Gautier, who tries all through to put the best possible face on the
matter: "After a few years of marriage, a husband who had wearied of his
wife could suddenly discover that they were related ... and here was a
revival, under canonical and pious forms, of the ancient practice of
divorce." It is the greatest mistake to suppose that divorce was a
difficult matter in the Middle Ages; it was simply a question of money, as
honest men frequently complained. The Church courts were ready to "make
and unmake matrimony for money"; and "for a mantle of miniver" a man might
get rid of his lawful wife.[200] An actual instance is worth many
generalities. In the first quarter of the 14th century a Pope allowed the
King and Queen of France to separate because they had _once_ been
godparents to the same child; and at the same time sold a dispensation to
a rich citizen who had _twice_ contracted the same relationship to the
lady whom he now wished to marry. The collocation, in this case, was
piquant enough to beget a clever pasquinade, which was chalked up at
street corners in Paris. John XXII. probably laughed with the rest, and
went on as before.
On the one hand, then, the marriage law was theoretically of the utmost
strictness, though only to the poor man; but, on the other hand, it was of
the most incredible laxity. A boy of fifteen and a girl of twelve might,
at any time and in any place, not only without leave of parents, but
against all their wishes, contract an indissoluble marriage by mere verbal
promise, without any priestly intervention whatever. In other words, the
whole world in Chaucer's time was a vaster and more commodious Gretna
Green.[201] Moreover, not only the civil power, but apparently even the
Church, sometimes hesitated to enforce even such legal precautions as
existed against scandalous child-marriages. A stock case is quoted at
length in the contemporary "Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln" (R.S., pp.
170-177), and fully corroborated by official documents. A wretched child
who had just turned four was believed to be an heiress; a great noble took
her to wife. He died two years later; she was at once snapped up by a
second noble; and on his death, when she was apparently still only eleven,
and certainly not much older, she was bought for 300 marks by a third
knightly bridegroom. The bishop, though he excommunicated the first
husband, and deprived the priest who had openly married him "in the face
of the church," apparently made no attempt to declare the marriage null;
and the third husband was still enjoying her estate twenty years after his
wedding-day. In the face of instances like this (for another, scarcely
less startling, may be found in Luce's "Du Guesclin," p. 139), we need no
longer wonder that our poet's father was carried off in his earliest teens
to be married by force to some girl perhaps even younger; or that in
Chaucer's own time, when the middle classes were rapidly gaining more
power in the state, Parliament legislated expressly against the frequent
offences of this kind.
But the real root of the evil remained; so long as two children might, in
a moment and without any religious ceremony whatever, pledge their persons
and their properties for life, no legislation could be permanently
effectual. From the moral side, we find Church councils fulminating
desperately against the celebration of marriages in private houses or
taverns, sometimes even after midnight, and with the natural concomitants
of riot and excess. From the purely civil side, again, apart from runaway
or irregular matches, there was also the scandalous frequency of formal
child-marriages which were often the only security for the transmission of
property; and here even the Church admitted the thin end of the wedge by
permitting espousals "of children in their cradles," by way of exception,
"for the sake of peace."[202] Let me quote here again from Smyth's "Lives
of the Berkeleys." We there find, between 1288 and 1500, five marriages in
which the ten contracting parties averaged less than eleven years. Maurice
the Third, born in 1281, was only eight years old when he married a wife
apparently of the same age; their eldest child was born before the father
was fifteen; and the loyal Smyth comforts himself by reciting from Holy
Scripture the still more precocious examples of Josiah and Solomon. It
would be idle to multiply instances of so notorious a fact; but let us
take one more case which touched all England, and must have come directly
under Chaucer's notice. When the good Queen Anne of Bohemia was dead, for
whose sake Richard II. would never afterwards live in his palace of Shene,
it was yet necessary for his policy to take another wife. He chose the
little daughter of the French King, then only seven years old, in spite of
the remonstrances of his subjects. The pair were affianced by proxy in
1395; "and then (as I have been told) it was pretty to see her, young as
she was; for she very well knew already how to play the queen." Next year,
the two Kings met personally between Guines and Ardres, the later "Field
of the Cloth of Gold," and sat down to meat together. "Then said the Duc
de Bourbon many joyous and merry words to make the kings laugh.... And he
spake aloud, addressing himself to the King of England, 'My Lord King of
England, you should make good cheer; you have all that you desire and ask;
you have your wife, or shall have; she shall be delivered to you!' Then
said the King of France, 'Cousin of Bourbon, we would that our daughter
were as old as our cousin the lady de St. Pol. She would bear the more
love to our son the King of England, and it would have cost us a heavy
dowry.' The King of England heard and understood this speech; wherefore he
answered, inclining himself towards the King of France (though, indeed,
the word had been addressed to the Duke, since the King had made the
comparison of the daughter of the Comte de St. Pol), 'Fair father, we are
well pleased with the present age of our wife, and we love not so much
that she should be of great age as we take account of the love and
alliance of our own selves and our kingdoms; for when we shall be at one
accord and alliance together, there is no king in Christendom or elsewhere
who could gainsay us.'"[203] The Royal pair proceeded at once to Calais,
and the formal wedding took place three days later in the old church of
St. Nicholas, which to Ruskin was a perpetual type of "the links unbroken
between the past and present."
What kings were obliged to do at one time for political purposes, they
would do at other times for money; and their subjects followed suit. As
one of the authors of "Piers Plowman" puts it, the marriage choice should
depend on personal qualities, and Christ will then bless it with
sufficient prosperity.
"But few folk now follow this; for they give their children
For covetise of chattels and cunning chapmen;
Of kin nor of kindred account men but little ...
Let her be unlovely, unlovesome abed,
A bastard, a bondmaid, a beggar's daughter,
That no courtesy can; but let her be known
For rich or well-rented, though she be wrinkled for elde,
There is no squire nor knight in country about,
But will bow to that bondmaid, to bid her an husband,
And wedden her for her wealth; and wish on the morrow
That his wife were wax, or a wallet-full of nobles!"[204]
Moreover, this picture is abundantly borne out by plain facts and plain
speech from other quarters. Richard II.'s first marriage, which turned out
so happily when the boy of sixteen and the girl of fifteen had grown to
know each other, was, in its essence, a bargain of pounds, shillings, and
pence. A contemporary chronicler, recording how Richard offered an immense
sum for her in order to outbid his Royal brother of France, heads his
whole account of the transaction with the plain words, "The king buys
himself a wife."[205] Gaston, Count of Foix, whom Froissart celebrates as
a mirror of courtesy among contemporary princes, had a little ward of
twelve whose hand was coveted by the great Duc de Berri, verging on his
fiftieth year. But Gaston came most unwillingly to the point: "Yet was he
not unwilling to suffer that the marriage should take place, but he
intended to have a good sum of florins; not that he put forward that he
meant to sell the lady, but he wished to be rewarded for his wardship,
since he had had and nourished her for some nine years and a half,
wherefore he required thirty thousand francs for her."[206] Dr. Gairdner
has cited equally plain language used in the following century by a member
of the noble family of Scrope, whose estate had become much impoverished.
"'For very need,' he writes, 'I was fain to sell a little daughter I have
for much less than I should have done by possibility'--a considerable
point in his complaint being evidently the lowness of the price he got for
his own child." Down to the very lowest rung of the social ladder,
marriage was to a great extent a matter of money; and if we could look
into the manor-rolls of Chaucer's perfect gentle Knight, we should find
that one source of his income was a tax on each poor serf for leave to
take a fellow-bondmaid to his bosom.[207] If, on the other hand, the pair
dispensed with any marriage ceremony, then they must pay a heavy fine to
the archdeacon. Yet, even so, marriage was not business-like enough for
some satirists. Chaucer's fellow-poet, Eustache Deschamps, echoes the
complaint, already voiced in the "Roman de la Rose," that one never buys a
horse or other beast without full knowledge of all its points, whereas one
takes a wife like a pig in a poke.[208] The complaint has, of course, been
made before and since; but Bishop Stapledon's register may testify that
it was seldom less justified than in Chaucer's time.
Such was one side of marriage in the days of chivalry. A woman could
inherit property, but seldom defend it. The situation was too tempting to
man's cupidity; and no less temptation was offered by the equally helpless
class of orphans. A wardship, which in our days is generally an honourable
and thankless burden, was in Chaucer's time a lucrative and coveted
windfall. In London the city customs granted a guardian, for his trouble,
ten per cent. of the ward's property every year.[209] This was an open
bargain which, in the hands of an honourable citizen, restored to the ward
his patrimony with increase, but gave the guardian enough profit to make
such wardships a coveted privilege even among well-to-do citizens.
Elsewhere, where the customs were probably less precisely marked--and
certainly the legal checks were fewer--wardships were treated even more
definitely as profitable windfalls. We have seen how the Baron of Berkeley
paid £10,000 in modern money for a single ward; Chaucer, as we know from a
contemporary document, made some £1500 out of his, and Gaston de Foix a
proportionately greater sum. Moreover, even great persons did not blush to
buy and sell wardships, from the King downwards. The above-quoted Stephen
Scrope, who sold his own daughter as a matter of course, is indignant with
his guardian, Sir John Fastolf, who had sold him to the virtuous Chief
Justice Gascoigne for 500 marks, "through which sale I took a sickness
that kept me a thirteen or fourteen years ensuing; whereby I am disfigured
in my person, and shall be whilst I live." Gascoigne had purchased Scrope
for one of his own daughters. Fastolf bought him back again to avoid such
a _mésalliance_; but the costs of each transfer, and something more, came
out of the hapless ward's estate. "He bought and sold me as a beast,
against all right and law, to mine own hurt more than a thousand marks."
Moreover, the means that were taken to avoid such disastrous wardships
became themselves one of the most active of the many forces which
undermined the strict code of chivalry. A knight, in theory, was capable
of looking after himself; therefore careful and influential parents like
the Berkeleys sought to protect their heirs by knighthood from falling
into wardships as minors, in defiance of the rule which placed the
earliest limit at twenty-one. Thus Maurice de Berkeley (IV.) was knighted
in 1339 at the age of seven, and one of his descendants in 1476 at the age
of five; and Eustache Deschamps complains of the practice as one of the
open sores of contemporary chivalry--
"Et encore plus me confond,
Ce que Chevaliers se font
Plusieurs trop petitement,
Qui dix ou qui sept ans n'ont."[210]
The practice shows equally clearly how hollow the dignity was becoming,
and how little an unprotected child could count upon chivalric
consideration, in the proper sense of the word.
Nor can these bargains in women and orphans be treated as a mere accident;
they formed an integral part of medieval life, and influenced deeply all
social relations. The men who bought their wives like chattels were only
too likely to treat them accordingly. Take from the 14th and early 15th
centuries two well-known instances, which would be utterly inconceivable
in this unchivalrous age of ours. Edward I. hung up the Countess of Buchan
in a wooden cage on the walls of Berwick "that passers-by might gaze on
her"; and when a woman accused a Franciscan friar of treasonable speeches,
the King's justiciar decided that the two should proceed to wager of
battle, the friar having one hand tied behind his back. At the best, the
knight's oath provided no greater safeguard for women than the unsworn but
inbred courtesy of a modern gentleman. When the peasant rebels of 1381
broke into the Tower, and some miscreants invited the Queen Mother to kiss
them, "yet (strange to relate) the many knights and squires dared not
rebuke one of the rioters for acts so indecent, or lay hold of them to
stop them, or even murmur under their breath."[211]
But the strangest fact to modern minds is the prevalence of wife-beating,
sister-beating, daughter-beating. The full evidence would fill a volume;
but no picture of medieval life can be even approximately complete without
more quotations than are commonly given on this subject. In the great
epics, when the hero loses his temper, the ladies of his house too often
suffer in face or limb. Gautier, in a chapter already referred to, quotes
a large number of instances; but the words of contemporary law-givers and
moralists are even more significant. The theory was based, of course, on
Biblical texts; if God had meant woman for a position of superiority, he
would have taken her from Adam's head rather than from his side.[212] Her
inferiority is thus proclaimed almost on the first page of Holy Scripture;
and inferiority, in an age of violence, necessarily involves subjection
to corporal punishment. Gautier admits that it was already a real forward
step when the 13th-century "Coutumes du Beauvoisis" enacted that a man
must beat his wife "only in reason." A very interesting theological
dictionary of early 14th century date, preserved in the British Museum (6
E. VI. 214A), expresses the ordinary views of cultured ecclesiastics.
"Moreover a man may chastise his wife and beat her by way of correction,
for she forms part of his household; so that he, the master, may chastise
that which is his, as it is written in the Gloss [to Canon Law]." Not long
after Chaucer's death, St. Bernardino of Siena grants the same permission,
even while rebuking the immoderate abuse of marital authority. "There are
men who can bear more patiently with a hen that lays a fresh egg every
day, than with their own wives; and sometimes when the hen breaks a pipkin
or a cup he will spare it a beating, simply for love of the fresh egg
which he is unwilling to lose. O raving madmen! who cannot bear a word
from their own wives, though they bear them such fair fruit; but when the
woman speaks a word more than they like, then they catch up a stick and
begin to cudgel her; while the hen, that cackles all day and gives you no
rest, you take patience with her for the sake of her miserable egg--and
sometimes she will break more in your house than she herself is worth, yet
you bear it in patience for the egg's sake! Many fidgetty fellows who
sometimes see their wives turn out less neat and dainty than they would
like, smite them forthwith; and meanwhile the hen may make a mess on the
table, and you suffer her.... Don't you see the pig too, always squeaking
and squealing and making your house filthy; yet you suffer him until the
time for slaughtering, and your patience is only for the sake of his flesh
to eat! Consider, rascal, consider the noble fruit of thy wife, and have
patience; it is not right to beat her for every cause, no!" In another
sermon, speaking of the extravagant and sometimes immodest fashions of
the day, he says to the over-dressed woman in his congregation, "Oh, if it
were my business, if I were your husband, I would give you such a drubbing
with feet and fists, that I would make you remember for a while!"[213]
Lastly, let us take the manual which Chaucer's contemporary, the Knight of
La Tour Landry, wrote for the education of his daughters, and which became
at once one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages.[214] The good
knight relates quite naturally several cases of assault and battery, of
which the first may suffice. A man had a scolding wife, who railed
ungovernably upon him before strangers. "And he, that was angry of her
governance, smote her with his fist down to the earth; and then with his
foot he struck her in the visage and brake her nose, and all her life
after she had her nose crooked, the which shent and disfigured her visage
after, that she might not for shame show her visage, it was so foul
blemished: [for the nose is the fairest member that man or woman hath, and
sitteth in the middle of the visage]. And this she had for her evil and
great language that she was wont to say to her husband. And therefore the
wife ought to suffer and let the husband have the words, and to be
master...."
What was sauce for women was, of course, sauce for children also.
Uppingham is far from being the only English school which has for its seal
a picture of the pedagogue dominating with his enormous birch over a group
of tiny urchins. At the Universities, when a student took a degree in
grammar, he "received as a symbol of his office, not a book like Masters
of the other Faculties, but two to him far more important academical
instruments--a 'palmer' and a birch, and thereupon entered upon the
discharge of the most fundamental and characteristic part of his official
duties by flogging a boy 'openlye in the Scolys.' Having paid a groat to
the Bedel for the birch, and a similar sum to the boy 'for hys labour,'
the Inceptor became a fully accredited Master in Grammar."[215] At home,
girls and boys were beaten indiscriminately. One of the earliest books of
household conduct, "How the Good Wife taught her Daughter," puts the
matter in a nutshell--
"And if thy children be rebèl, and will not them low,
If any of them misdoeth, neither ban them nor blow [curse nor cuff
But take a smart rod, and beat them on a row
Till they cry mercy, and be of their guilt aknow." [acknowledge
[Illustration: SEAL OF UPPINGHAM SCHOOL]
[Illustration: CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN A 14TH-CENTURY CLASSROOM
(FROM MS. ROY. VI. E. 6. f. 214)]
CHAPTER XVII
THE GAY SCIENCE
"Madamë, whilom I was one
That to my father had a king;
But I was slow, and for nothing
Me listë not to Love obey;
And that I now full sore abey....
Among the gentle nation
Love is an occupation
Which, for to keep his lustës save,
Should every gentle heartë have."
GOWER, "Confessio Amantis," Bk. IV
The facts given in the foregoing chapter may explain a good deal in the
Wife of Bath's Prologue that might otherwise be ascribed to wide poetical
licence; but they may seem strangely at variance with the "Knight's Tale"
or the "Book of the Duchess." The contradiction, however, lies only on the
surface. Neither flesh nor spirit can suffer extreme starvation. When the
facts of life are particularly sordid, then that "large and liberal
discontent," which is more or less rooted in every human breast, builds
itself an ideal world out of those very materials which are most
conspicuously and most painfully lacking in the ungrateful reality. The
conventional platonism and self-sacrifice of love, according to the
knightly theory, was in strict proportion to its rarity in knightly
practice. We must, of course, beware of the facile assumption that these
medieval _mariages de convenance_ were so much less happy than ours;
nothing in human nature is more marvellous than its adaptability; and
Richard II., for instance, seems to have bought himself with hard cash as
great a treasure as that which Tennyson's Lord of Burleigh won with more
subtle discrimination. But at least the conditions of actual marriage were
generally far less romantic then than now; and, at a time when the
supposed formal judgment of a Court of Love, "that no married pair can
really be in love with each other," was accepted even as _ben trovato_, it
was natural that highly imaginative pictures of love _par amours_ should
be extremely popular.
Let us consider again for a moment the conditions of life in a medieval
castle. In spite of a good deal of ceremonial which has long gone out of
fashion, the actual daily intercourse between man and woman was closer
there than at present, in proportion as artificial distances were greater.
The lady might stand as high above the squire as the heaven is in
comparison with the earth; but she had scarcely more privacy than on board
a modern ship. They were constantly in each other's sight, yet could never
by any possibility exchange a couple of confidential sentences except by a
secret and dangerous rendezvous in some private room, or by such stray
chances as some meeting on the stairs, some accident which dispersed the
hunting-party and left them alone in the forest, or similar incidents
consecrated to romance. The three great excitements of man's life--war,
physical exercise, and carousing--touched the ladies far less nearly, and
left them ordinarily to a life which their modern sisters would condemn as
hopelessly dull. The daily-suppressed craving for excitement, the nervous
irritability generated by artificial constraint, explain many contrasts
which are conspicuous in medieval manners. Moreover, there were men always
at hand, and always on the watch to seize the smallest chance. The Knight
of La Tour Landry is not the only medieval writer who describes his own
society in very much the same downright words as the Prophet Jeremiah (ch.
v., v. 8). The very _raison d'être_ of his book was the recollection how,
in younger days, "my fellows communed with ladies and gentlewomen, the
which [fellows] prayed them of love; for there was none of them that they
might find, lady or gentlewoman, but they would pray her; and if that one
would not intend to that, other would anon pray. And whether they had good
answer or evil, they recked never, for they had in them no shame nor dread
by the cause that they were so used. And thereto they had fair language
and words; for in every place they would have had their sports and their
might. And so they did both deceive ladies and gentlewomen, and bear forth
divers languages on them, some true and some false, of the which there
came to divers great defames and slanders without cause and reason.... And
I asked them why they foreswore them, saying that they loved every woman
best that they spake to: for I said unto them, 'Sirs, ye should love nor
be about to have but one.' But what I said unto them, it was never the
better. And therefore because I saw at that time the governance of them,
the which I doubted that time yet reigneth, and there be such fellows now
or worse, and therefore I purposed to make a little book ... to the intent
that my daughters should take ensample of fair continuance and good
manners." The tenor of the whole book more than bears out the promise of
this introduction: and the good knight significantly recommends his
daughters to fast thrice a week as a sovereign specific against such
dangers (pp. 2, 10, 14).
[Illustration: WISE AND UNWISE VIRGINS]
We have seen how often women were forbidden attendance at all sorts of
public dances, and even weddings; and how demurely they were bidden to
pace the streets. The accompanying illustration from a 15th-century
miniature given by Thomas Wright ("Womankind in Western Europe," p. 157)
shows on the one hand the formal way in which girls were expected to cross
their hands on their laps as they sat, and on the other hand the licence
which naturally followed by reaction from so much formality. Both sides
come out fully in the Knight's book. We see a girl losing a husband
through a freedom of speech with her prospective fiancé which seems to us
most natural and innocent; while the coarsest words and actions were
permitted to patterns of chivalry in the presence of ladies. A stifling
conventionality oppressed the model young lady, while the less wise virgin
rushed into the other extreme of "rere-suppers" after bedtime with
like-minded companions of both sexes, and other liberties more startling
still.[216] In every generation moralists noted with pain the gradual
emancipation of ladies from a restraint which had always been excessive,
and had often been merely theoretical, though those who regretted this
most bitterly in their own time believed also most implicitly in the
strict virtues of a golden past. Guibert of Nogent contrasts the charming
picture of his own chaste mother with what he sees (or thinks he sees)
around him in St. Bernard's days. "Lord, thou knowest how hardly--nay,
almost how impossibly--that virtue [of chastity] is kept by women of our
time: whereas of old there was such modesty that scarce any marriage was
branded even by common gossip! Alas, how miserably, between those days and
ours, maidenly modesty and honour have fallen off, and the mother's
guardianship has decayed both in appearance and in fact; so that in all
their behaviour nothing can be noted but unseemly mirth, wherein are no
sounds but of jest, with winking eyes and babbling tongues, and wanton
gait.... Each thinks that she has touched the lowest step of misery if she
lack the regard of lovers; and she measures her glory of nobility and
courtliness by the ampler numbers of such suitors." Men were more modest
of old than women are now: the present man can talk of nothing but his
_bonnes fortunes_. "By these modern fashions, and others like them, this
age of ours is corrupted and spreads further corruption." In short, it is
the familiar philippic of well-meaning orators in every age against the
sins of society, and the familiar regret of the good old times. The Knight
of La Tour Landry, again, would place the age of real modesty about the
time of his own and Chaucer's father, a date by which, according to
Guibert's calculations, the growing shamelessness of the world ought long
ago to have worn God's patience threadbare.
Each was of course so far right that he lived (as we all do) in a time of
transition, and that he saw, as we too see, much that might certainly be
changed for the better. These things were even more glaring in the Middle
Ages than now. We must not look for too much refinement of outward manners
at this early date; but even in essential morality the girl-heroines of
medieval romance must be placed, on the whole, even below those of the
average French novel.[217] In both cases we must, of course, make the
same allowance; it would be equally unfair to judge Chaucer's
contemporaries and modern Parisian society strictly according to the
novelist's or the poet's pictures. But in either case the popularity of
the type points to a real underlying truth; and we should err less in
taking the early romances literally than in accepting Ivanhoe, for
instance, as a typical picture of medieval love. No one poet represents
that love so fully as Chaucer, in both its aspects. I say in _both_, and
not in _all_, for such love as lent itself to picturesque treatment had
then practically only two aspects, the most ideal and the most material.
The maiden whose purity of heart and freedom of manners are equally
natural was not only non-existent at that stage of society, but
inconceivable. Emelye is, within her limits, as beautiful and touching a
figure as any in poetry; but her limits are those of a figure in a
stained-glass window compared with a portrait of Titian's. Chaucer himself
could not have made her a Die Vernon or an Ethel Newcome; with fuller
modelling and more freedom of action in the story, she could at best have
become a sort of Beatrix Esmond. But of heavenly love and earthly love, as
they were understood in his time, our poet gives us ample choice. It has
long ago been noted how large a proportion of his whole work turns on this
one passion.[218] As he said of himself, he had "told of lovers up and
down more than Ovid maketh of mention": he was "Love's clerk." His earthly
love we may here neglect, only remembering that it is never merely wicked,
but always relieved by wit and humour--indeed, by wit and humour of his
very best. But his heavenly love, the ideal service of chivalry, deserves
looking into more closely; the more so as his notions are so exactly those
of his time, except so far as they are chastened by his rare sense of
humour.
_Amor, che al gentil cuor ratto s'apprende_--so sings Francesca in Dante's
"Inferno." Love is to every "gentle" heart--to any one who has not a mere
money-bag or clod of clay in his breast--not only an unavoidable fate but
a paramount duty. As Chaucer's Arcite says, "A man must needës love,
maugre his head; he may not flee it, though he should be dead." Troilus,
again, who had come to years of discretion, and earned great distinction
in war without ever having felt the tender passion, is so far justly
treated as a heathen and a publican even by the frivolous Pandarus, who
welcomes his conversion as unctuously as Mr. Stiggins might have accepted
Mr. Weller's--
Love, of his goodness,
Hath thee converted out of wickedness.
But perhaps the best instance is that afforded by the famous medieval
romance of "Petit Jean de Saintré" (chaps, i.-iv.). Jean, at the age of
thirteen, became page to the chivalrous King John of France; as nearly as
possible at the same time as Chaucer was serving the Duchess of Clarence
in the same capacity. One of the ladies-in-waiting at the same Court was a
young widow, who for her own amusement brought Petit Jean formally into
her room. "Madame, seated at the foot of the little bed, made him stand
between her and her women, and then laid it on his faith to tell her the
truth of whatsoever she should ask. The poor boy, who little guessed her
drift, gave the promise, thinking 'Alas, what have I done? what can this
mean?' And while he thus wondered, Madame said, smiling upon her women,
'Tell me, master, upon the faith which you have pledged me; tell me first
of all how long it is since you saw your lady _par amours_?' So when he
heard speech of _lady par amours_, as one who had never thought thereon,
the tears came to his eyes, and his heart beat and his face grew pale, for
he knew not how to speak a single word.... And they pressed him so hard
that he said, 'Madam, I have none.' 'What, you have none!' said the lady:
'ha! how happy would she be who had such a lover! It may well be that you
have none, and well I believe it; but tell me, how long is it since you
saw her whom you most love, and would fain have for your lady?'" The poor
boy could say nothing, but knelt there twisting the end of his belt
between his fingers until the waiting-women pitied him and advised him to
answer the lady's question. "'Tell without more ado' (said they), 'whom
you love best.' 'Whom I love best?' (said he), 'that is my lady mother,
and then my sister Jacqueline.' Then said the lady, 'Sir boy, I intend not
of your mother or sister, for the love of mother and sister and kinsfolk
is utterly different from that of lady _par amours_; but I ask you of such
ladies as are none of your kin.' 'Of them?' (said he), 'by my faith, lady,
I love none.' Then said the lady, 'What! you love none? Ha! craven
gentleman, you say that you love none? Thereby know I well that you will
never be worth a straw.... Whence came the great valiance and exploits of
Lancelot, Gawayne, Tristram, Biron the Courteous, and other Champions of
the Round Table?...'" The sermon was unmercifully long, and it left the
culprit in helpless tears; at the women's intercession, he was granted
another day's respite. Boylike, he succeeded in shirking day after day
until he hoped he was forgotten. But the inexorable lady caught him soon
after, and tormented him until "as he thought within himself whom he
should name, then (as nature desires and attracts like to like), he
bethought himself of a little maiden of the court who was ten years of
age. Then he said, 'Lady, it is Matheline de Coucy.' And when the lady
heard this name, she thought well that this was but childish fondness
and ignorance; yet she made more ado than before, and said, 'Now I see
well that you are a most craven squire to have chosen Matheline for your
service; not but that she is a most comely maiden, and of good house and
better lineage than your own; but what good, what profit, what honour,
what gain, what advantage, what comfort, what help, and what counsel can
come therefrom to your own person, to make you a valiant man? What are the
advantages which you can draw from Matheline, who is yet but a child? Sir,
you should choose a Lady who....'" In short, the lady whom she finally
commends to his notice is her own self. Little by little she teaches the
stripling all that she knows of love; and later on, when she is cloyed
with possession and weary of his absence at the wars, much that he had
never guessed before of falsehood. The story is an admirable commentary on
the well-known lines in Chaucer's "Book of the Duchess," where the Black
Knight says of himself--
... since first I couth
Have any manner wit from youth
Or kindëly understanding [natural
To comprehend in any thing
What love was in mine ownë wit,
Dreadëless I have ever yet [certainly
Been tributary and given rent
To love, wholly with good intent,
And through pleasaunce become his thrall
With good will--body, heart, and all.
All this I put in his servage
As to my lord, and did homage,
And full devoutly prayed him-to,
He should beset mine heartë so
That it plesaunce to him were,
And worship to my lady dear.
And this was long, and many a year
Ere that mine heart was set aught-where,
That I did thus, and knew not why;
I trow, it came me kindëly.
[Illustration: WILLIAM OF HATFIELD, SON OF EDWARD III AND PHILIPPA, FROM
HIS TOMB IN YORK MINSTER (1336)
SHOWING THE DRESS OF A NOBLE YOUTH IN THE MIDDLE OF THE 14TH CENTURY]
If death comes at this moment, then "J'aurai passé par la terre, n'ayant
rien aimé que l'amour." But instead of death comes something not less
sudden and overmastering. To the Black Knight, as to Dante, the Lady of
his Life is revealed between two throbs of the heart--
It happed that I came on a day
Into a placë where I say [saw
Truly the fairest company
Of ladies, that ever man with eye
Had seen together in one place ...
Sooth to sayen, I saw one
That was like none of the rout ...
I saw her dance so comelily,
Carol and sing so sweetëly,
Laugh and play so womanly,
And look so debonairëly,
So goodly speak, and so friendly,
That certes, I trow that nevermore
Was seen so blissful a tresore.
Here at last the goddess of his hopes is revealed in the flesh; no longer
the vague _Not Impossible She_, but henceforward _She of the Golden Hair_.
The revelation commands the gratitude of a lifetime. Having crystallized
upon herself his fluid and floating worship, she is henceforth
conventionally divine; he demands no more than to be allowed to gaze on
her, and in gazing he swoons.
As yet, then, she is his idol, his goddess, on an unapproachable pedestal.
She may be pretty patently the work of his own hands--he has gone about
dreaming of love until his dreams have taken sufficient consistency to be
visible and tangible--but as yet his worship must be as far-off as
Pygmalion's, and he thirsts in vain for a word or a look. Then comes the
second clause of Francesca's creed--_Amor, che a nullo amato amar
perdona_: true love must needs beget love in return. The statue warms to
life; the goddess steps down from her pedestal; the lover forgets now that
he had meant to subsist for life on half a dozen kind looks and kind
words; and at this point the matter would end nowadays--or at least would
have ended a generation ago--in mere prosaic marriage. But here, in the
Middle Ages, it is fifty to one that the fortunes of the pair are not
exactly suitable; or he, or she, or both may be married already. Then
comes the final clause: _Amor condusse noi ad una morte_. Seldom indeed
could the course of true love run smooth in an age of business-marriages;
and the poet found his grandest material in the wreckage of tender
passions and high hopes upon that iron-bound shore.
The large majority of medieval romances, as has long ago been noted,
celebrate illicit love. Therefore the first commandment of the code is
secrecy, absolute secrecy; and in the songs of the Troubadors and
Minnesingers, a personage almost as prominent as the two lovers
themselves, is the "envious," the "spier"--the person from whom it is
impossible to escape for more than a minute at a time, amid the
cheek-by-jowl of castle intercourse--a disappointed rival perhaps, or a
mere malicious busybody, but, in any case, a perpetual skeleton at the
feast. "Troilus and Criseyde," for instance, is full of such allusions,
and perhaps no poem exemplifies more clearly the common divorce between
romantic love and marriage in medieval literature. It is a comparatively
small thing that the first three books of the poem should contain no hint
of matrimony, though Criseyde is a widow, and of noble blood. It would,
after all, have been less of a _mésalliance_ than John of Gaunt's
marriage; but of course it was perfectly natural for Chaucer to take the
line of least poetical resistance, and make Troilus enjoy her love in
secret, without thought of consecration by the rites of the Church. So
far, the poem runs parallel with Goethe's "Faust." But when we come to the
last two books, the behaviour of the pair is absolutely inexplicable to
any one who has not realized the usual conventions of medieval romance.
The Trojan prince Antenor is taken prisoner by the Greeks, who offer to
exchange him against Criseyde--a fighting man against a mere woman.
Hector does indeed protest in open Parliament--
But on my part ye may eft-soon them tell
We usen here no women for to sell.
But the political utility of the exchange is so obvious that Parliament
determines to send the unwilling Criseyde away. What, it may be asked, is
Troilus doing all this time? As Priam's son, he would have had a voice in
the council second only to Hector's, and he "well-nigh died" to hear the
proposition. Yet all through this critical discussion he kept silence,
"lest men should his affection espy!" The separation, he knows, will kill
him; but among all the measures he debates with Criseyde or Pandarus--even
among the desperate acts which he threatens to commit--nothing so
desperate as plain marriage seems to occur to any of the three. The first
thought of Troilus is "how to save her honour," but only in the technical
sense of medieval chivalry, by feigning indifference to her. He sheds
floods of tears; he tells Fortune that if only he may keep his lady, he is
reckless of all else in the world; but, when for a moment he thinks of
begging Criseyde's freedom from the King his father, it is only to thrust
the thought aside at once. The step would be not only useless, but
necessarily involve "slander to her name."[219] And all this was written
for readers who knew very well that the parties had only to swear, first
that they had plighted troth before witnesses, and secondly, that they had
lived together as man and wife, in order to prove an indissoluble marriage
contract. Nor can we ascribe this to any failure in Chaucer's art. In the
delineation of feelings, their natural development and their finer shades,
he is second to no medieval poet, and these qualities come out especially
in the "Troilus." But, while he boldly changed so much in Boccaccio's
conception of the poem, he saw no reason to change this particular point,
for it was thoroughly in accord with those conventions of his time for
which he kept some respect even through his frequent irony.
To show clearly how the fault here is not in the poet but in the false
_point d'honneur_ of the chivalric love-code, let us compare it with a
romance in real life from the "Paston Letters." Sir John Paston's steward,
Richard Calle, fell in love with his master's sister Margery. The Pastons,
who not only were great gentlefolk in a small way, but were struggling
hard also to become great gentlefolk in a big way, took up the natural
position that "he should never have my good will for to make my sister
sell candle and mustard in Framlingham." But the pair had already plighted
their mutual troth; and, therefore, though not yet absolutely married,
they were so far engaged that neither could marry any one else without a
Papal dispensation. Calle urged Margery to acknowledge this openly to her
family: "I suppose, an ye tell them sadly the truth, they would not damn
their souls for us." She at last confessed, and the matter came up before
the Bishop of Norwich for judgment. In spite of all the bullying of the
family, and the flagrant partiality of the Bishop, the girl's mother has
to write and tell Sir John how "Your sister ... rehearsed what she had
said [when she plighted her troth to Calle], and said, if those words made
it not sure, she said boldly that she would make that surer ere that she
went thence, for she said she thought in her conscience she was bound,
whatsoever the words weren. These lewd words grieved me and her grandam as
much as all the remnant." The Bishop still delayed judgment on the chance
of finding "other things against [Calle] that might cause the letting
thereof;" and meanwhile the mother turned Margery out into the street; so
that the Bishop himself had to find her a decent lodging while he kept her
waiting for his decision. But to annul this plain contract needed grosser
methods of injustice than the Pastons had influence to compass, and Calle
not only got his wife at last, but was taken back into the family
service.[220] Troilus and Criseyde, having political forces arrayed
against them, might indeed have failed tragically of their marriage in the
end; but there was at least no reason why they should not fight for it as
stoutly as the prosaic Norfolk bailiff did--if only the idea had ever
entered into one or other of their heads!
Another tacit assumption of the chivalric love-code comes out clearly in
the Knight's Tale, and even goes some way to explain the Franklin's;
though this latter evidently recounts an old Breton lay in which the
perspective is as frankly fantastic as the landscape of a miniature. The
honest commentator Benvenuto da Imola is at great pains to assure us that
Dante's _amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona_ was not an exhaustive
statement of actual fact; and that even the kindest ladies sometimes
remained obdurate to the prayers of the most meritorious suitors. What is
to happen, then? The hero may, of course, sometimes die; but not always;
that would be too monotonous. The solution here, as in so many other
cases, lies in a poetic paraphrase of too prosaic facts. The Duc de Berri,
who was a great connoisseur and a man of the most refined tastes, bought
at an immense sacrifice of money the most delicate little countess in the
market: she, of course, had no choice at all in the matter. At an equal
sacrifice of blood, first Arcite and then Palamon won the equally passive
Emelye, who, when Theseus had set her up as a prize to the better fighter,
could only pray that she might either avoid them both, or at least fall to
him who loved her best in his inmost heart. At a cost of equal suffering,
though in a different way, Aurelius won the unwilling Dorigen--for his
subsequent generosity is beside the present purpose. The reader's
sympathy, in medieval romance, is nearly always enlisted for the pursuing
man. If only he can show sufficient valour, or suffer long enough, he must
have the prize, and the lady is sure to shake down comfortably enough
sooner or later.[221] The idea is not, of course, peculiar to medieval
poetry, but the frequency with which it there occurs supplies another
answer to the main question of this chapter. Why, if medieval marriages
were really so business-like, is medieval love-poetry so transcendental?
It is not, in fact, by any means so transcendental as it seems on the
surface; neither Palamon nor Arcite, at the bottom of all his extravagant
protestations of humble worship, feels the least scruple in making Emelye
the prize of a series of swashing blows at best, and possibly of a single
lucky prod. The chance of Shakespeare's caskets does at least give Portia
to the man whom her heart had already chosen; but the similar chances and
counter-chances of the Knight's Tale simply play shuttlecock with a
helpless and unwilling girl. Under the spell of Chaucer's art, we know
quite well that Palamon and Emelye lived very happily ever afterwards; but
the Knight's Tale gives us no reason to doubt the overwhelming evidence
that, while heroes in poetry conquered their wives with their right arm,
plain men in prose openly bargained for them.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GREAT WAR
"Ce voyons bien, qu'au temps présent
La guerre si commune éprend,
Qu'a peine y a nul labourer
Lequel a son métier se prend:
Le prêtre laist le sacrement, [laisse
Et le vilain le charruer,
Tous vont aux armes travailler.
Si Dieu ne pense à l'amender,
L'on peut douter prochainement
Que tout le mond doit reverser."
GOWER, "Mirour," 24097
Of all the causes that tended in Chaucer's time to modify the old ideals
of knighthood, none perhaps was more potent than the Hundred Years' War.
Unjust as it was on both sides--for the cause of Philippe de Valois cannot
be separated from certain inexcusable manoeuvres of his predecessors on
the French throne--it was the first thoroughly national war on so large a
scale since the institution of chivalry. No longer merely feudal levies,
but a whole people on either side is gradually involved in this struggle;
and its military lessons anticipate, to a certain extent, those of the
French Revolutionary Wars. Even in Froissart's narrative, the greatest
heroes of Crécy are the English archers; and the Welsh knifemen by their
side play a part undreamed of in earlier feudal warfare. "When the Genoese
were assembled together and began to approach, they made a great cry to
abash the Englishmen, but they stood still and stirred not for all that;
then the Genoese again the second time made another fell cry, and stept
forward a little, and the Englishmen removed not one foot; thirdly, again
they cried, and went forth till they came within shot; then they shot
fiercely with their cross-bows. Then the English archers stept forth one
pace and let fly their arrows so wholly together and so thick, that it
seemed snow.... And ever still the Englishmen shot whereas they saw
thickest press; the sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their
horses, and many fell, horse and men.... And also among the Englishmen
there were certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they
went in among the men of arms, and slew and murdered many as they lay on
the ground, both earls, barons, knights and squires, whereof the king of
England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken
prisoners."
Those "certain rascals" did not only kill certain knights, they killed
also the old idea of Knighthood. From that time forward the art of war,
which had so long been practised under the frequent restraint of certain
aristocratic conventions, took a great leap in the direction of modern
business methods. The people were concerned now; and they had grown, as
they are apt to grow, inconveniently in earnest. There is a peculiarly
living interest for modern England in the story of that army which at
Crécy won the first of a series of victories astounding to all
Christendom. Only a few months after Chaucer's unlucky campaign in France,
Petrarch had travelled across to Paris, and recorded his impressions in a
letter. "The English ... have overthrown the ancient glories of France by
victories so numerous and unexpected that this people, which formerly was
inferior to the miserable Scots, has now (not to speak of that lamentable
and undeserved fall of a great king which I cannot recall without a sigh)
so wasted with fire and sword the whole kingdom of France that I, when I
last crossed the country on business, could scarce believe it to be the
same land which I had seen before."[222] The events which so startled
Petrarch were indeed immediately attributable to the business qualities
and the ambitions of two English kings; but their ultimate cause lay far
deeper. During all the first stages of the war, in which the English
superiority was most marked, the conflict was practically between the
French feudal forces and the English national levies. While French kings
ignored the duty of every man to serve in defence of his own home, or
remembered it only as an excuse for extorting money instead of personal
service, Edward III. brought the vast latent forces of his whole kingdom,
and (what was perhaps even more important) its full business energies, to
bear against a chivalry which at its best had been unpractical in its
exclusiveness, and was now already decaying. "Edward I. and III. ... (and
this makes their reigns a decisive epoch in the history of the Middle
Ages, as well as in that of England) were the real creators of modern
infantry. We must not, however, ascribe the honour of this creation only
to the military genius of the two English Kings; they were driven to it by
necessity, the mother of invention. The device which they used is
essentially the same which has been employed in every age by countries of
small extent and therefore of scanty population, viz. compulsory military
service. Although the name of _conscription_ is obviously modern, the
thing itself is of ancient use among the very people who know least of it
nowadays; and it may be proved conclusively that Edward III., especially,
practised it on a great scale. The documentary evidence for this fact is
so plentiful that to draw up the briefest summary of it would be to write
a whole chapter--neither the least interesting nor the least novel, be it
said--of English history; and that is no part of my plan here." So wrote
Siméon Luce, the greatest French specialist on the period, thirty years
ago; but the point which he here makes so clearly has hardly yet been
fully grasped by English writers.[223] It may therefore be worth while to
bring forward here some specimens of the mass of evidence to which Luce
alludes. Compulsory service is, of course, prehistoric and universal; few
nations could have survived in the past unless all their citizens had been
ready to fight for them in case of need; and the decadence of imperial
Rome began with the time when her populace demanded to be fed at the
public expense, and defended by hired troops. In principle, therefore,
even 14th-century France recognized the liability of every citizen to
serve, while England had not only the principle but the practice. Her old
Fyrd, the Anglo-Saxon militia system, was reorganized by Henry II. and
again by Edward I. By the latter's "Statute of Winchester" every
able-bodied man was bound not only to possess arms on a scale
proportionate to his wealth, but also to learn their use. A fresh impulse
was given to this military training by Edward I., who learned from his
Welsh enemies that the longbow, already a well-known weapon among his own
subjects, was far superior in battle to the crossbow. Edward, therefore,
gradually set about training a large force of English archers. Falkirk
(1298) was the first important battle in which the archery was used in
scientific combination with cavalry; Bannockburn (1314) was the last in
which the English repeated the old blunder of relying on mounted knights
and men-at-arms, and allowing the infantry to act as a more or less
disordered mass. While Philippe de Valois was raising money by the
suicidal expedients of taxing bowstrings and ordaining general levies from
which every one was expected to redeem himself by a money fine, Edward
III. was giving the strictest orders that archery should take precedence
of all other sports in England, and that the country should furnish him
all the men he needed for his wars.[224] Of all the documents to which
Luce refers (and which are even more numerous than he could have guessed
thirty years ago) let us here glance at two or three which bring the whole
system visibly before us. In this matter, as in several others, the
clearest evidence is to be found among Mr. Hudson's invaluable gleanings
from the Norwich archives.[225] He has printed and analyzed a number of
documents which show the working of the militia system in the city between
1355 and 1370--that is, at a time when it is generally asserted that we
were conducting the French wars on the voluntary system. In these
documents we find that the Statute of Winchester was being worked quite as
strictly as we are entitled to expect of any medieval statute, and a great
deal more strictly than the average. The city did in fact provide, and
periodically review, an armed force equal in numbers to rather more than
one-tenth of its total population--a somewhat larger proportion, that is,
than would be furnished by the modern system of conscription on the
Continent. Many of these men, of course, turned out with no more than the
minimum club and knife; the next step was to add a sword or an axe to
these primitive weapons, and so on through the archers to the numerous
"half-armed men," who had in addition to their offensive weapons a plated
doublet with visor and iron gauntlets, and finally the "fully-armed," who
had in addition a shirt of mail under the doublet, a neck-piece and
arm-plates, and whose total equipment must have cost some £30 or £40 of
modern money. Mr. Hudson also notes that "it is plain that the Norwich
archers were many of them men of good standing."
Moreover, this small amount of compulsion was found in medieval England,
as in modern Switzerland, to stimulate rather than to repress the
volunteer energies of the nation. Not only did shooting become the
favourite national sport, but many of whom we might least have expected
such self-sacrifice came forward gladly to fight side by side with their
fellow-citizens for hearth and home. In 1346, when the Scots invaded
England under the misapprehension that none remained to defend the country
but "ploughmen and shepherds and feeble or broken-down chaplains," they
found among the powerful militia force which met them many parsons who
were neither feeble nor infirm. Crowds of priests were among those who
trooped out from Beverley and York, and other northern towns, to a victory
of which Englishmen have more real reason to be proud than of any other in
our early history. Marching with sword and quiver on their thigh and the
good six-foot bow under their arm, they took off shoes and stockings at
the town gates and started barefoot, with chants and litanies, upon that
righteous campaign. In 1360, again, when there was a scare of invasion and
all men from sixteen to sixty were called out, then "bishops, abbots, and
priors, rectors, vicars, and chaplains were as ready as the abbots [_sic_]
had been, some to be men-at-arms and some to be archers ... and the
beneficed clergy who could not serve in person hired substitutes." In 1383
priests and monks were fighting even among the so-called crusaders whom
Bishop Despenser led against the French in Flanders.[226]
To have so large a proportion of the nation thus trained for home defence
was in itself a most important military asset, for it freed the hands of
the army which was on foreign service, and enabled it to act without
misgivings as to what might be happening at home. This was in fact the
militia which, while Edward III. was with his great army at Crécy and
Calais, inflicted on the Scottish invaders at Neville's Cross one of the
most crushing defeats in their history, and added one more crowned head to
the collection of noble prisoners in London.[227] But, more than this, it
formed a recruiting-field which alone enabled English armies, far from
their base, to hold their own against the forces of a country which at
that time had an enormous numerical superiority in population. It had
always been doubtful how far the militia was bound to serve abroad. Edward
III. himself had twice been forced to grant immunity by statute (first and
twenty-fifth years), but with the all-important saving clause "except
under great urgency." Such great urgency was in fact constantly pleaded,
and the cities did not care to contest the point. Several calls were made
on Norwich for 120 men at a time, a proportion which, in figures of modern
town population, would be roughly equivalent to 1200 from Northampton,
8000 from Birmingham, and 10,000 from Glasgow. In the year before Crécy
the less populous town of Lynn was assessed at 100 men "of the strongest
and most vigorous of the said town, each armed with breastplate, helmet,
and gauntlets ... for the defence and rescue of Our duchy of Aquitaine."
The drain on London at the same time was enormous, as I have already had
occasion to note in Chapter X. The briefest summary of the evidence
contained in Dr. Sharpe's Letter-Books will suffice here. On the outbreak
of war in 1337, in addition to a considerable tribute of ships, the city
was called upon for a contingent of 500 men--which would be equivalent to
the enormous tribute of 50,000 soldiers from modern London. Presently "the
king ... took occasion to find fault with the city's dilatoriness in
carrying out his orders, and complained of the want of physique in the
men that were being supplied. At the request of John de Pulteneye, who was
then occupying the Mayoral chair for the fourth time, he consented to
accept 200 able-bodied archers at once, and to postpone the selection of
the remainder of the force. At the same time he issued letters patent
declaring that the aid furnished by the city should not become a
precedent. The names of the 200 archers that went to Gascony are set out
in the Letter-Book...." But Royal promises are unstable. Another
contingent of 100 was sent soon after. In 1338 London was ordered to fit
out four ships with 300 men to join the home defence fleet at Winchelsea;
the citizens protested so strongly that this was reduced by a half. In
1340 the King seized all ships of forty tons' burden and raised 300 more
soldiers from London, who took part in the glorious victory of Sluys. In
1342 another levy; in 1344, 400 archers again; in 1346 "the sheriffs of
London were called upon to make proclamation for all persons between the
ages of sixteen and sixty to take up arms and to be at Portsmouth by March
26th"--a command which, however interpreted with the usual elasticity,
must yet have produced several hundred recruits for the army which fought
at Crécy. Next year two ships were demanded with 180 armed men, and two
more again later in the year. In 1350 two London ships with 170 armed men
were raised for the battle of Les Espagnols sur Mer. In 1355, again, 520
soldiers were demanded from the city.
While this was going on in the towns, the Berkeley papers give us similar
evidence of conscription in the counties, though the documents are not
here continuous. In 1332 the Sheriff of Gloucester was bidden to raise 100
men for service in Ireland; next year 500 for Scotland. Three years later
the country was obliged to send 2500 to Scotland, besides the Gloucester
city and Bristol contingents. Then comes the French war. In 1337 and 1338
Lord Berkeley spends most of his time mustering and arraying soldiers for
France. In the latter year, and again in 1339, Edward commissions him to
array and arm _all the able men_ in the country, as others were doing
throughout the kingdom; 563 were thus arrayed in the shire, and Smyth very
plausibly conjectures that the small number is due to Lord Berkeley's
secret favour for his own county. In 1345, when Edward made the great
effort which culminated at Crécy, the county and the town of Bristol had
to raise and arm 622 men "to be conducted whither Lord Berkeley should
direct." And so on until 1347, when there is a significant addition of
plenary powers to punish all refractory and rebellious persons, a riot
having apparently broken out on account of these levies.[228] From this
time forward the scattered notices never refer to levies for service
abroad; but they are still frequent for home defence, and Smyth proudly
records in three folio volumes the numbers of trained and disciplined men
in his own time (James I.), with their "names and several statures," in
the single hundred of Berkeley. The national militia always remained the
most valuable recruiting ground, and kept up that love of archery for
which the English were famous down to Elizabeth's days and beyond; yet,
for purely foreign wars, Edward's frequent drains broke the national
patience before the end of his reign. The evidence from London points most
plainly in this direction. In 1369 at last we find the tell-tale notice:
"It was frequently easier for the City to furnish the King with money than
with men. Hence we find it recorded that at the end of August of this year
the citizens had agreed to raise a sum of £2000 for the king in lieu of
furnishing him with a military contingent." Already by this time the tide
had turned against us in France; not that the few English troops failed to
keep up their superiority in the field, but Du Guesclin played a waiting
game and wore us steadily out. Castle after castle was surprised; isolated
detachments were crushed one by one; reinforcements were difficult to
raise; and before Edward's death three seaports alone were left of all his
French conquests. He had at one time wielded an army almost like
Napoleon's--a mass of professional soldiers raised from a nation in arms.
But, like Napoleon, he had used it recklessly. Such material could not be
supplied _ad infinitum_, and our victories began again only after a period
of comparative rest, when France was crippled by the madness of her King
and divided by internecine feuds.
Edward's conscription, it will be seen, was somewhat old-fashioned
compared with that of modern France and Germany. Men were enrolled for a
campaign partly by bargain, partly by force; and, once enrolled, the wars
generally made them into professional soldiers for life. No doubt
Shakespeare's caricature in the second part of _King Henry IV._ may help
us a little here, so long as we make due allowance for his comic purpose
and the rustiness of the institution in his time. For already in Chaucer's
lifetime there was a great change in our system of over-sea service. As
the sources of conscription began to dry up, the King fell back more and
more upon the expedient of hiring troops: he would get some great captain
to contract himself by indenture to bring so many armed men at a given
time, and the contractor in his turn entered into a number of
sub-contracts with minor leaders to contribute to his contingent. Under
this system a very large proportion of aliens came into our armies; but
even then we kept the same organization and principles as in those earlier
hosts which were really contingents of English militia.
An army thus drawn from a people accustomed to some real measure of
self-government inevitably broke through many feudal traditions; and from
a very early stage in the war we find important commands given to knights
and squires who had fought their way up from the ranks. The most renowned
of all these English soldiers of fortune, Sir John Hawkwood, married the
sister of Clarence's Violante, with a dowry of a million florins; yet he
is recorded to have begun as a common archer. He was probably a younger
son of a good Essex house; but this again simply emphasizes the democratic
and business-like organization of the English army compared with its
rivals. Du Guesclin, though he was the eldest son of one of the smaller
French nobles, found his promotion terribly retarded by his lack of birth
and influence. He was probably the most distinguished leader in France
before he even received the honour of knighthood. At the date of the
battle of Cocherel he had fought with success for more than twenty years,
and was by far the most distinguished captain present; yet he owed the
command on that day only to the rare good fortune that the greatest noble
present recognized his own comparative incapacity, and that the rest
agreed in offering to fight under a man of less social distinction but
incomparably greater experience than any of themselves. In the English
army there would from the first have been no doubt about the real
commander--Hawkwood, perhaps, who was believed to have begun life as a
tailor's apprentice, or Knolles, whom this war had taken from the weaver's
loom.
Even the magnificent Edward, with all his Round Table and his Order of the
Garter, was forced to recognize clearly that war is above all things a
business. In the earlier days he did indeed defy Philippe de Valois to
single combat; but during the campaign of Crécy he made light of the laws
of chivalry. He had penetrated close to Paris; his army was melting away;
provisions were scarce; and the French had broken the bridges in his
rear. At this point Philip sent him a regular chivalric challenge in form
to meet him with his army on a field and a day to be fixed at his own
choice, within certain reasonable limits. Edward returned a misleading
answer, made a corresponding feint with his troops, rapidly rebuilt the
bridge of Poissy, and had crossed to a place of safety before Philip
realized that a clever piece of strategy had been executed under his very
nose and behind the forms of chivalry. Then only did Edward throw off the
mask, and declare his intention of choosing his own place and time for
battle. His Royal great-grandson was even more business-like. When the
French nobles asked Henry V. to give a great tourney in honour of his
marriage, as had always been the custom, he refused in the bluntest and
most soldierly fashion. He and his men, he replied, would be engaged for
the next few weeks at the siege of Sens; if any gallant Frenchman wished
to break a lance or two, he might come and break them there. While this
mimic warfare was at its highest favour in France, the three Edwards had
always kept jealous control over it in England, and constantly forbidden
tournaments without Royal licence. This policy is, no doubt, partly
explained by some deference to ecclesiastical prohibitions, and partly by
the disorders to which jousts constantly gave rise; but we may pretty
safely infer (with Luce) that our kings had little belief in the direct
value of the knightly tournament as a school of warfare, and that here, as
on so many other points, the practical genius of the race broke even
through class prejudices.[229]
It is impossible better to sum up the results of English business methods
in warfare than in the words which are forced reluctantly from M. Luce's
impartial pen. "In my opinion, five or six thousand English archers, thus
drilled and equipped, and supported by an equal number of knifemen, would
always have beaten even considerably larger forces of the bravest chivalry
in the world--at least in a frontal attack and as a matter of sheer hard
fighting. Such, moreover, seems to have been the opinion of Bertrand du
Guesclin, the most renowned captain of the Middle Ages, who never fought a
great pitched battle against a real English army if he could possibly help
it. At Cocherel his adversaries were mostly Gascons, and at Pontvallain he
crushed Knolles's rear-guard by one of those startling marches of which he
had the secret; but he was beaten at Auray and Navarette." Gower might
complain without too poetical exaggeration that the vortex of war swept
away not only the serf from his plough but the very priest from his altar;
yet even Chaucer's Poor Parson may well have conceded that, if we must
have an army at all, we might as well have it as efficient and as truly
national as possible.
[Illustration: BODIAM CASTLE, KENT
BUILT DURING CHAUCER'S LIFETIME BY SIR EDWARD DALYNGRUDGE, WHO HAD FOUGHT
AT CRÉCY AND POITIERS]
CHAPTER XIX
THE BURDEN OF THE WAR
"[Edward], the first of English nation
That ever had right unto the crown of France
By succession of blood and generation
Of his mother withouten variance,
The which me thinketh should be of most substance;
For Christ was king by his mother of Judee,
Which surer side is ay, as thinketh me."
HARDYNG, "Chronicle," 335
It must, however, be admitted that so terrible a weapon in so rough an age
was only too dangerous. When Edward III. found that his cousin of France
not only meant to deal treacherously with him in Aquitaine, but had also
allied himself with our deadly enemies of Scotland, he found a very
colourable excuse for retaliation by raising a claim to the throne of
France. But for the Salic law, which forbade inheritance through a female,
Edward would undoubtedly be, if not the rightful heir, at least nearer
than Philippe de Valois, who now sat on that throne. The Biblical colour
which he gave to his claim by pleading the precedent of "Judee" was of
course the after-thought of some ingenious theologian; the real strength
of Edward's claim lay in his army. To appreciate the strength of Edward's
temptations here, we must imagine modern Germany adding to her other
armaments a navy capable of commanding the seas, a Kaiser fettered by even
less constitutional checks than at present, and sharing with his people
even greater incitements to cupidity. Beyond the prospect, always dazzling
enough to a statesman, of an enormous indemnity and a substantial
increase of territory, medieval warfare offered even to the meanest
English soldier only too probable hopes of riot and booty. Froissart,
though he seldom feels very deeply for the mere people, describes our
first march through the defenceless districts of Normandy in words which
make us understand why this unhappy, unprepared country could only mark
time for the next hundred years, while we, in spite of all our faults and
follies, went on slowly from strength to strength. England, with her own
four or five millions and a little help from Aquitaine, rode roughshod
again and again over the disorganized ten millions north of the Loire;
while the French--even during those thirty years of union which elapsed
between the recovery of Guienne and the murder of the Duke of
Orleans--frequently enough burned our southern seaports, but never
penetrated more than a few miles inland in the face of our shire-levies.
The contrast is in every way characteristic of Chaucer's England, and
Froissart's description is of the deepest significance, not only to the
student of political and social history, but even to the literary
historian. It has been noted that Chaucer's deepest note of pathos is for
the sorrows of the helpless--the irremediable sufferings of those whose
frailty has tempted murder or oppression, and to whom the poet himself can
offer nothing but a tear on earth and some hope of redress in heaven. Let
us remember, then, that Chaucer fought in two French campaigns, identical
in kind and not even differing much in degree from the invasion of 1346
which Froissart describes. "They came to a good port and to a good town
called Barfleur, the which incontinent was won, for they within gave up
for fear of death. Howbeit, for all that the town was robbed, and much
gold and silver there found, and rich jewels; there was found so much
riches, that the boys and villains of the host set nothing by good furred
gowns; they made all the men of the town to issue out and to go into the
ships, because they would not suffer them to be behind them for fear of
rebelling again. After the town of Barfleur was thus taken and robbed
without brenning, then they spread abroad in the country and did what they
list, for there was none to resist them. At last they came to a great and
a rich town called Cherbourg; the town they won and robbed it, and brent
part thereof, but into the castle they could not come, it was so strong
and well furnished with men of war. Then they passed forth and came to
Montebourg, and took it and robbed and brent it clean. In this manner they
brent many other towns in that country and won so much riches, that it was
marvel to reckon it. Then they came to a great town well closed called
Carentan, where there was also a strong castle and many soldiers within to
keep it. Then the lords came out of their ships and fiercely made assault;
the burgesses of the town were in great fear of their lives, wives and
children; they suffered the Englishmen to enter into the town against the
will of all the soldiers that were there; they put all their goods to the
Englishmen's pleasures, they thought that most advantage. When the
soldiers within saw that, they went into the castle; the Englishmen went
into the town, and two days together they made sore assaults, so that when
they within saw no succour, they yielded up, their lives and goods saved,
and so departed. The Englishmen had their pleasure of that good town and
castle, and when they saw they might not maintain to keep it, they set
fire therein and brent it, and made the burgesses of the town to enter
into their ships, as they had done with them of Barfleur, Cherbourg and
Montebourg, and of other towns that they had won on the sea-side.... The
lord Godfrey as marshal rode forth with five hundred men of arms, and rode
off from the king's battle a six or seven leagues, in brenning and exiling
the country, the which was plentiful of everything--the granges full of
corn, the houses full of all riches, rich burgesses, carts and chariots,
horse, swine, muttons and other beasts; they took what them list and
brought into the king's host; but the soldiers made no count to the king
nor to none of his officers of the gold and silver that they did get; they
kept that to themselves.... Thus by the Englishmen was brent, exiled,
robbed, wasted and pilled the good, plentiful country of Normandy.... It
was no marvel though they of the country were afraid, for before that time
they had never seen men of war, nor they wist not what war or battle
meant. They fled away as far as they might hear speaking of the
Englishmen, and left their houses well stuffed, and granges full of corn,
they wist not how to save and keep it." Hitherto Froissart has only
deigned to record the fire and pillage; but the melancholy catalogue now
goes on to Coutances, Saint-Lô, and Caen, where at last the citizens
fought boldly in defence of their unwalled town, "greater than any city in
England except London." In spite of their numbers, and of an obstinate
courage which extorted the admiration of their adversaries, the half-armed
and untrained citizens were at last hopelessly beaten, and the town given
over to the infuriated soldiery; though here Sir Thomas Holland, an old
Crusader, who might have sat for Chaucer's Knight, "rode into the streets
and saved many lives of ladies, damosels, and cloisterers from defoiling,
for the soldiers were without mercy."[230]
At a later stage, when the horrors of civil war were added to those of the
English invasion, the Norman chronicler, Thomas Basin, describes the
fertile country between Loire, Seine, and Somme as a mere wilderness, half
overgrown with brambles and thickets. "Moreover, whatsoever husbandry
there was in the aforesaid lands, was only in the neighbourhood and
suburbs of cities, towns, or castles, for so far as a watchman's eye from
some tower or point of vantage could reach to see robbers coming upon
them; then would the watchman sound the alarm ... on a bell or hunting
horn, or other bugle. Which alarms and incursions were so common and
frequent in very many places, that when the oxen and plough-horses were
loosed from the plough, hearing the watchman's signal, they took flight
and galloped away forthwith of their own accord, by the force of habit, to
their places of refuge; nay, the very sheep and swine had learnt by long
use to do the same." The French Bishop Jean-Jouvenel des Ursins, in 1433,
speaks of the sufferings of his diocese in language too painful and too
direct to be reproduced here.[231]
To realize the full force of these descriptions, it is necessary to
compare them with those of the good monk Walsingham, who drily records how
Edward "attacked, took, sacked, and burnt Caen, and many other cities
after it." It is only when Edward comes back from Calais with his
victorious army that Walsingham waxes eloquent. "Then folk thought that a
new sun was rising over England, for the abundance of peace, the plenty of
possessions, and the glory of victory. For there was no woman of any name,
but had somewhat of the spoils of Caen, Calais, and other cities beyond
the seas. Furs, feather-beds, or household utensils, tablecloths and
necklaces, cups of gold or silver, linen and sheets, were to be seen
scattered about England in different houses. Then began the English ladies
to wax wanton in the vesture of the French women; and as the latter
grieved to have lost their goods, so the former rejoiced to have obtained
them."[232] In an age of brute force, when popes hesitated no more than
kings to shed rivers of blood for a few square miles of territory, when
every sailor was a potential pirate and every baron a potential
highwayman[233]--in such an age as this, no nation could have resisted the
lust of conquest when it had once realized the wealth and supine
helplessness of a neighbour. "The English," wrote Froissart, when old age
had brought him to ponder less on feats of arms and more on eternity, "The
English will never love or honour their king but if he be victorious, and
a lover of arms and war against his neighbours, and especially against
such as are greater and richer than themselves.... Their land is more
fulfilled of riches and all manner of goods when they are at war, than in
times of peace; and therein are they born and ingrained, nor could a man
make them understand the contrary.... They take delight and solace in
battles and in slaughter: covetous and envious are they above measure of
other men's wealth."[234] But when exhausted France could no longer yield
more than a mere livelihood to the armies which overran her, then at last
things found their proper level, and the nation wearied of bloodshed.
"Universal conscription proved then as now the great inculcator of peace.
To the burgher called from the loom and the dyeing pit and the market
stall to take down his bow or dagger, war was a hard and ungrateful
service, where reward and plunder were dealt out with a niggardly hand;
and men conceived a deep hatred of strife and disorder of which they had
measured all the misery."[235]
But, terribly as it might press upon our enemies in those days, when the
private soldier had almost an unrestricted right of pillage, the Statute
of Winchester was none the less necessary to the full development of our
political freedom. Indeed, it is scarcely a paradox to say that those
civic and Parliamentary liberties which made such rapid strides during the
sixty years of Chaucer's lifetime owed as much to this burden of personal
service as to anything else. To begin with, it was a police system also;
and, for by far the greater part of the country, the only police system.
When the hue and cry was raised after a robber or a murderer, all were
then bound to tumble out of doors and join in the chase with such arms as
they had, just as they were bound to turn out and take their share in the
national war. When all the disorders of the 14th century have been counted
up in England, they are as dust in the balance compared with those of
foreign countries. The Peasants' Rising of 1381 astonishes modern
historians in nothing so much as in its sudden rise, its sudden end when
the King had promised redress, and its comparative orderliness in
disorder. But, on second thoughts, does not this seem natural enough among
a people accustomed to rough military discipline, and liable any day to be
arrayed, as they had laboured, side by side?[236] Lastly, we have the
repeated testimony of our most determined enemies to the superiority of
English over French discipline. Bishop des Ursins, in a letter written to
the French Parliament in 1433, describes the worst horrors of the war as
having been committed by French upon French; and he expressly adds, "at
present, things are somewhat amended by the coming of the English." This
modified compliment he repeats again in a letter to Charles VII., adding,
"[the English] did indeed at least keep their assurances once given, and
also their safe conducts"; while the French (as he complains) often made
light of their own engagements.[237] Indeed, the whole array of documents
collected by the astounding diligence of the late subprefect of the
Vatican Library is calculated--we may not say, to make us read with
equanimity the tale of horrors perpetrated by our countrymen in
France--but at least to shift much of the blame from the individuals to
the times in which they lived. The English were not cruel merely because
they were strong; the weaker French were on the whole more cruel; nowhere
has the bitter proverb _Gallus Gallo lupus_ been more terribly justified.
The main difference was that, in an age when a man must needs be hammer or
anvil, our national character and organization, no doubt assisted also by
fortune, enabled us to play the former part. Father Denifle shows very
clearly how even great and good Frenchmen like Des Ursins, living in Joan
of Arc's time, were ashamed of her because she seemed to have failed. The
impulses of actual chivalry--apart from its nominal code--were at best
even more capricious in France than in England. Knightly mercy and
forbearance seldom even professed to include the mere rank and file of a
conquered army. When a place was taken by storm, it was common to ransom
the officers and kill the rest without mercy. Here and there a knight
earns special praise from Froissart by pleading for the lives of the
unhappy privates who had fought as bravely as himself; but I remember no
case of one who actually insisted on sharing the fate of his men. The
Black Prince tarnished his fair fame by the massacre of Limoges; yet in
this he did but follow the example of the saintly Charles de Blois, who
thanked God for victory in the cathedral of Quimper while his men were
making a hell of the captured city. His orisons finished, Charles stayed
the slaughter; and the Black Prince, after watching the butchery of
Limoges from his litter, and turning his face away from women and
children who knelt to implore his mercy, was at last appeased by the manly
spectacle of three French warriors fighting boldly for their lives against
three Englishmen.[238] Their courage saved them, and what we might now
call their conqueror's sporting instincts; just as Queen Philippa's timely
pleading saved the citizens of Calais. All honour to the noble impulse in
both cases; but greater honour still to the manly independence and
discipline which saved our English commonalty from the need of appealing
to a conqueror's mercy; which defended them alike from robbers at home and
Frenchmen over the seas, and left us free to work out our own liberties
without foreign interference. No doubt the Wars of the Roses were partly a
legacy of our unjust aggression in France; but English civil wars have
been among the least disorderly the world has known; in all of them the
citizen-levies have fought stoutly on the side of liberty; and for
centuries after Chaucer's death the national militia was recognized as a
strong counterpoise to the unconstitutional tendencies of the standing
army.
Of all this Froissart recognized little indeed; though we, in the light of
a hundred other documents, can see how all went on under Froissart's eyes.
He saw clearly that this was the most warlike nation in Europe; he saw
also that it was the most democratic; but he seems neither to have traced
any connection here on the one hand, nor on the other to have been
troubled by any sense of contrast; it was not in his genius to look for
causes, but rather to repeat with child-like vivacity what he saw and
heard. Yet for us, to whom nothing in Chaucer's England can be more
interesting than to watch, under the great trees of the forest, the
springing of that undergrowth which was in time to become the present
British people, it is delightful to turn from pictures of mere successful
bloodshed to Froissart's bitter-sweet judgments on the national character.
"Englishmen suffer indeed for a season, but in the end they repay so
cruelly that it may stand as a great warning; for no man may mock them;
the lord who governs them rises and lays him down to rest in sore peril of
his life.... And specially there is no people under the sun so perilous in
the matter of its common folk as they are in England. For in England the
nature and condition of the nobles is very far different from that of the
common folk and villeins; for the gentlefolk are of loyal and noble
condition, and the common people is of a fell, perilous, proud and
disloyal condition: and wheresoever the people would show their fierceness
and their power, the nobles would not last long after. But now for a long
time they have been at good accord together, for the nobles ask nothing of
the people but what is of full reason; moreover none would suffer them to
take aught from him without payment--nay, not an egg or a hen. The
tradesmen and labourers of England live by the travail of their hands, and
the nobles live on their own rents and revenues, and if the kings vex them
they are repaid; not that the king can tax his people at pleasure, no! nor
the people would not or could not suffer it. There are certain ordinances
and covenants settled upon the staple of wool, wherefrom the king is
assisted beyond his own rents and revenues; and when they go to war, that
covenant is doubled. England is best kept of all lands in the world;
otherwise they could by no means live together; and it behoveth well that
a king who is their lord should order his ways after them and bow to their
will in many matters; and if he do the contrary, so that evil come
thereof, bitterly then shall he rue it, as did this king Edward II." "And
men said then in London and throughout England 'we must reform and take a
new ordinance [with our king]; for that which we have had hath brought us
sore weariness and travail, and this kingdom of ours is not worth a straw
without a good head; whereas we have had one as bad as a man can find....
We have no use for a sluggish and heavy king who seeketh too much his own
ease and pleasure; we would rather slay half a hundred of such, one after
the other, than fail to get a king to our use and liking.'" "The King of
England must needs obey his people, and do all their will."[239]
We with our present liberties must not of course take these words of
Froissart's too literally; but they must have conveyed a very definite
and, on the whole, a very true impression to his French contemporaries;
for no language but that of hyperbole could adequately have described the
contrast between their polity and that of England. Moreover, it must be
remembered that Froissart wrote this with the Peasant's Revolt not far
behind him, and the deposition of Richard II. fresh in his mind. The truth
is that the feudal system was already slowly but surely breaking down in
England: our lower classes, with recognized constitutional rights on the
one hand, and on the other hand a rough military organization and
discipline of their own, were, in many ways, far more free in 1389 than
the French peasants of 1789. Chaucer and Froissart always felt at the
bottom of their hearts this coming of the People; it lends a breadth to
their thoughts and colour to their brush even when they paint the gorgeous
pageantry of overripe feudalism; labouring the more earnestly, perhaps, to
record these fleeting hues because of the night which must needs come
before the new day. And how vivid their pictures are! The prologue to the
"Book of the Duchess," the castle garden and the tournament in the
Knight's Tale, Troilus with his knights pacing the aisles of the temple to
gaze on the ladies at their prayers, or riding home under Criseyde's
balcony after the victorious fight: Froissart's stories of the Chaplet of
Pearls, the Court of Gaston de Foix, the Dance of the Wild Men, Queen
Isabella's entry into London--what an enchanted palace of tapestries and
stained glass we have here, and what a school of stately manners! But
time, which takes away so much, brings us still more in compensation; and
without treason to Chaucer or his age we may frankly admit that his
perfect knight is only younger brother to Colonel Newcome, and that
Froissart himself can show us no figure so deeply chivalrous as the
Lawrences or the Havelocks of our later Indian Wars.
CHAPTER XX
THE POOR
"Misuse not thy bondman, the better mayst thou speed;
Though he be thine underling here, well may hap in heaven
That he win a worthier seat, and with more bliss;
For in charnel at the church churls be evil to know,
Or a knight from a knave there; know this in thine heart."
"Piers Plowman," B., vi., 46
It has sometimes been contended in recent years that the Middle Ages
lacked only our smug middle-class comfort; and that, as the upper classes
were nobler, so the poor were healthier and happier then. It is probable
that the latter part of this theory is at least as mistaken as the first:
but the question is in itself more complicated, and we have naturally less
detailed evidence in the poor man's case than in the rich man's. Among the
great, we find many virtues and many vices common to both ages; but a
careful comparison reveals certain grave faults which put the earlier
state of society, as we might expect, at a definite and serious
disadvantage. No gentleman of the present day would dream of striking his
wife and daughters, of talking to them like the Knight of La Tour Landry,
or like the Merchant in the presence of the Nuns, or of selling marriages
and wardships in the open market. All the redeeming virtues in the world,
we should feel, could not put the man who saw no harm in these things in
the front rank of real gentility. Such plain and decisive methods of
differentiation, however, begin to disappear as we descend the social
scale; until, at the very bottom, we find little or no difference in
coarseness of moral fibre between our own contemporaries and Chaucer's.
For it stands to reason that the development of the poor cannot be so
rapid as that of the upper classes. In all human affairs, to him that hath
shall be given; the superior energy and abilities of one family will
differentiate it more and more, as life becomes more complicated, from
other families which still vegetate among the mass; and in proportion as
the wealth of the world increases, the gap must necessarily widen between
the man who has most and the man who has least; since there have always
been a certain number who possess, and are capable of possessing or
keeping, virtually nothing. In that sense, the terrible contrast between
wealth and poverty is undoubtedly worse in our days; but this fact in
itself is as insignificant as it is unavoidable. The tramp on the highroad
is not appreciably unhappier for knowing that his nothingness is
contrasted nowadays with Mr. Carnegie's millions instead of de la Pole's
thousands; and again, until we can find some means of distributing the
accumulations of the rich among the poor without doing far more harm than
good, the community loses no more by allowing a selfish man to lock up his
millions, than formerly when they were only hundreds or thousands. The
securities afforded by modern society for possession and accumulation of
wealth do indeed often permit the capitalist to sweat his workmen
deplorably; but these are the same securities which allow the workman to
sleep in certain possession of his own little savings. While the
capitalist is accumulating money, the foresight and self-restraint of the
workmen enables them to accumulate votes, which in the long run are worth
even more. Much may no doubt be done in detail by keeping in eye the
simpler methods of our ancestors; but no sound principle can be modelled
on an age when nothing prevented capitalists from hoarding but lack of
decent security, when strikes were rare only because of penal laws against
all combinations of workmen, and when the peasant was partly kept from
starving by his recognized market value as the domestic animal of his
master. We could easily remedy many desperate social difficulties--for the
moment at least--if we might reduce half the population of England again
to the status of serfs.
"The social questions of the period cannot be understood, unless we
remember that in 1381 more than half the people of England did not possess
the privileges which Magna Charta secured to every 'freeman.'"[240] The
English serf was indeed some degrees better off than his French brother,
to whose lord the legist Pierre de Fontaines could write in the 13th
century "by our custom there is between thee and thy villein no judge but
only God."[241] The English serf could not be evicted, but neither could
he leave his holding; he was transferred with the estate from master to
master as a portion of the live stock. By custom, as the master had rights
to definite services or money dues from him, so he had definite rights as
against his master; but though in cases of manslaughter or maiming the
serf could appeal to the king's courts, all other cases must be heard in
the manor court, where the lord was judge in his own cause. Let us hear
Chaucer himself on this subject, in his Parson's Tale: "Through this
cursed sin of avarice and covetise come these hard lordships, through
which men be distrained by tallages, customs, and carriages more than
their duty or reason is: and eke take they of their bondmen amercements
which might more reasonably be called extortions than amercements. Of
which amercements, or ransoming of bondmen, some lords' stewards say that
it is rightful, forasmuch as a churl hath no temporal thing that is not
his lord's, as they say. But certes these lordships do wrong that bereave
their bondmen [of] things that they never gave them." In theory, the
Reeve was indeed a sort of foreman, elected by the workers to represent
their interests before their master; but it will be noticed how Chaucer
looks upon him as the lord's servant; and in "Piers Plowman" he is even
more definitely put among the enemies of the people, with beadles,
sheriffs, and "sisours," or jurors.[242] It must be remembered, too, that
the general reliance everywhere on custom rather than on written law, the
difference of customs on various manors, and the petty vexations
constantly entailed even by those which were most certainly recognized,
bred constant discontent and disputes. The heavy fine which the serf owed
for sending his son to school fell, of course, only in very exceptional
cases, and may be set off against the few who were enfranchized in order
to enable them to take holy orders. But the _merchet_, or fine paid for
marriage, must have been a bitter burden, while the _heriot_, or
_mortuary_, is to modern ideas an exaction of unredeemed iniquity. In most
manors, though apparently not in all, the lord claimed by this custom the
best possession left by his dead tenant; and (so long as he had left not
less than three head of live stock) the parish clergyman claimed the
second best. The case of a widow and orphans in a struggling household is
one in which no charity can ever be misplaced; yet here their natural
protectors were precisely those who joined hands to plunder them; and
every parish had its two licensed wreckers, who picked their perquisites
from the deathbeds of the poor.[243] No doubt here, as elsewhere, the
strict law was not always enforced, even though its enforcement was so
definitely to the interest of the stronger party; self-interest, apart
from a fellow-feeling which seldom dies out altogether, prevents a man
from taxing even his horse beyond its powers; but there is definite
evidence that merchets and heriots were no mere theoretical grievance.
Moreover, these were only the worst of a hundred ways in which law and
custom gave the lord a galling, and apparently unreasonable, hold upon the
peasants; and they must needs have chafed against such a yoke as this even
if their position as domestic animals had been more comfortable than it
was. Let us suppose--though this needs better proof than has yet been
advanced--that the serf was as well fed and housed as the modern English
labourer;[244] suppose that he was far more of a real man than his legal
status gave him a right to be; then he must only have smarted all the
more, we may safely say, under his beastlike disabilities. "We are men
formed in Christ's likeness, and we are kept like beasts"; such are the
words which Froissart puts into the serfs' mouths. "To the sentiment"
(comments a modern writer) "there is all the difference between economic
compulsion, apparently the outcome of inevitable conditions, and a legal
dependence upon personal caprice. Even comfortable circumstances, which he
apparently enjoyed, created in the Malmesbury bondman no satisfaction with
his lot. There is a pathetic ring in the words which, in his old age, he
is recorded to have used, that 'if he might bring that [his freedom]
aboute, it wold be more joifull to him than any worlie goode.'" Nor was
this the cry of a single voice only, but also of the whole peasantry of
England at that moment of the Middle Ages when they most definitely
formulated their aims. "The rising of 1381 sets it beyond doubt that the
peasant had grasped the conception of complete personal liberty, that he
held it degrading to perform forced labour, and that he considered freedom
to be his right."[245]
Moreover, the general voice of medieval moralists is here on the peasants'
side. It is true that (in spite of the frequent reminders of our common
parentage in Adam and Eve) few men of Chaucer's day would have agreed with
Wycliffe in objecting on principle to hereditary bondage; but still fewer
doubted that the landlords, as a class, did in fact use their power
unmercifully. "How mad" (writes Cardinal Jacques de Vitry), "how mad are
those men who rejoice when sons are born to their lords!" Many knights (he
says) force their serfs to labour, and give them not even bread to eat.
When the knight does call his men together, as if for war, it is too often
only to prey on the peasant. "Many say nowadays, when they are rebuked for
having taken a cow from a poor peasant: 'Let it suffice the boor that I
have left him the calf and his own life. I might do him far more harm if I
would; I have taken his goose, but left him the feathers.'"
Here, again, is a still more living picture from "Piers Plowman"--
"Then Peace came to Parliament and put up a bill,
How that Wrong against his will his wife had y-taken
And how he ravished Rose, Reginald's leman,
And Margaret of her maidenhood, maugre her cheeks.
'Both my geese and my griskins his gadlings fetchen,
I dare not for dread of him fight nor chide.
He borrowed my bay steed, and brought him never again,
Nor no farthing him-for, for nought I can plead.
He maintaineth his men to murder mine own,
Forestalleth my fair, fighteth in my cheapings, [markets
Breaketh up my barn-door and beareth away my wheat;
And taketh me but a tally for ten quarter oaten;
And yet he beat me thereto, and lieth by my maiden,
I am not so hardy for him up for to look.'
The King knew he said sooth, for Conscience him told."
That this kind of thing was far less common in England than elsewhere, we
have Froissart's and other evidence; but that it was far too common even
in Chaucer's England there is no room whatever to doubt. As M. Jusserand
has truly said, a dozen Parliamentary documents justify the poet's
complaints; and he quotes an extraordinarily interesting case from the
actual petition of the victims.[246]
The time, however, was yet unripe for such far-reaching changes as the
peasants demanded. The circumstances and incidents of their revolt have
been admirably described by Mr. Trevelyan, and lately in more detail by
Prof. Oman; and its main events are prominent in all our histories;
probably no rebellion of such magnitude was ever so sudden in its origin
or its end; all was practically over in a single month. Discontent had, of
course, been seething for years; yet even so definite a grievance as the
Poll Tax of 1381 could not have raised half England in revolt within a few
days, but for a sense of power and a rough discipline among the
working-classes. For more than a century the men who were now so wronged
had been compelled to keep arms, to learn their use, and to muster
periodically under captains of twenties and captains of hundreds. For a
whole generation Edward III. had proclaimed, at frequent intervals, that
he could not meet his enemies without a fresh levy from town and country;
and, under a system which allowed the purchase of substitutes, such levies
fell heaviest on the lower classes. What was more natural than that these
same lower classes should muster now to free the King from his other
enemies--and theirs too, as they thought--incapable, bloodsucking
ministers and unjust landlords? They had only to turn out as on a muster
and march straight upon London, each village contingent picking up others
on the way; and this is exactly what they did.[247] The chroniclers
definitely record their order even in disorder; it was removed by a whole
horizon from the contemporary Jacquerie in France, in which the peasants
rose like wild beasts, with no ideas but plunder, lust, and revenge. These
English rebels resisted manfully at first all temptation to plunder among
the rich houses of London. "If they caught any man thieving, they cut off
his head, as men who hated thieves above all things"--such is the
testimony of their bitter enemy Walsingham. When they gutted John of
Gaunt's palace, nothing was kept of the vast wealth which it contained;
all things were treated as accursed, like the spoils of Jericho. The
rioters were loyal to the King, had a definite policy, and aimed at making
treaties in due form with their enemies. They "had among themselves a
watchword in English, 'With whome haldes you?' and the answer was, 'With
Kinge Richarde and the true comons.'" "They took [Chief Justice Belknap]
and made him swear on the Bible." At Canterbury "they summoned the Mayor,
the bailiffs and the commons of the said town, and examined them whether
they would with good will swear to be faithful and loyal to King Richard
and to the true commons of England or no." "The commons, out of good
feeling to [the King], sent back word by his messengers that they wished
to see him and speak with him at Blackheath." At Mile End they were
arrayed under "two banners, and many pennons," drew out willingly into two
lines at Richard's bidding, and made an orderly bargain with him. In the
final meeting at Smithfield, "the king and his train ... turned into the
eastern meadow in front of St. Bartholomew's ... and the commons arrayed
themselves on the west side in great battles." After Tyler's death, again,
they followed at Richard's command into Clerkenwell fields, where they
were presently surrounded partly by the mercenary troopers of Sir Robert
Knolles, but mainly by the citizen levies, "the wards arrayed in bands, a
fine company of well-armed folks in great strength." The very suddenness
of their collapse is not only perfectly explicable under these
circumstances, but it is just what we might expect in a case where the
conflicting parties have learnt, under some sort of common discipline, the
priceless lesson of give and take, and can see some reason in each other's
claims; the Cronstadt Mutiny is the latest example of this, and perhaps
not the least instructive.[248] Their main claims had been granted by the
King, and, in proportion as the rioters were loyal and orderly at heart,
in the same proportion they must have seen clearly that Wat Tyler's fate
had been thoroughly deserved. No wonder that they cowered now before the
King and his troops, and dispersed peaceably to their homes. Even
Walsingham's satirical account of their arms, with due allowance for
literary exaggeration, is exactly what the most formal documents would
lead us to expect. "The vilest of commons and peasants," he says; "some of
whom had only cudgels, some rusty swords, some only axes, some bows that
had hung so long in the smoke as to be browner than ancient ivory, with
one arrow apiece, many whereof had but one wing.... Among a thousand such,
you would scarce have found one man that wore armour."[249] Compare this
with the actual muster-roll of a Norwich leet, a far richer community than
these villages from which most of the rebels came (Conesford, A.D. 1355).
Out of the 192 mustered, 33 wear defensive armour; 7 only are archers (an
unusually small proportion, of course); 44 turn out with knife, sword,
and bill or hatchet; 108 have only two weapons, which in nine out of ten
cases consist of knife and cudgel. The rioters, of course, would in most
cases have come from this lowest class; and in reading through the Norwich
lists one seems to see the very men who followed after John Ball. "Thomas
Pottage, with knife and cudgel"; "William Mouse, with knife and cudgel";
"Long John, with knife and cudgel"; "Adam Piper and Robert Skut, with
knife and bill"; "John Cosy, Hamo Garlicman, Robert Rubbleyard, John
Stutter, Roger Dauber, William Boardcleaver, William Merrygo, Nicholas
Skip, Alice Brokedish's Servant,"--all with knife and cudgel again.
Gower's mock-heroic catalogue of the rioters' names in the first book of
his "Vox Clamantis" is not so picturesque as these actual muster-rolls.
These, then, were the men before whose face Gower describes his
fellow-landlords as lurking like wild beasts in the woods, feeding on
grass and acorns, and wishing that they could shrink within the very rind
of the trees; the men who a day or two later surged like a sea round
Chaucer's tower of Aldgate, until some accomplice unbarred the gate.
Chroniclers note with astonishment the paralysis of the upper classes all
through this revolt, or at least until Wat Tyler's death; and though
Richard revoked his Royal promise of freedom, and bloody assizes were held
from county to county until the country was sick of slaughter, and
Parliament re-enacted all the old oppressive statutes, yet the landlords
can never entirely have forgotten this lesson. Professor Oman, in his
anxiety to kill the already slain theory that the Revolt virtually put an
end to serfdom, seems hardly to allow enough for human nature; but Mr.
Trevelyan sums the matter up in words as just as they are eloquent: "[The
Revolt] was a sign of national energy, it was a sign of independence and
self-respect in the medieval peasants, from whom three-quarters of our
race, of all classes and in every continent, are descended. This
independent spirit was not lacking in France in the 14th century, but it
died out by the end of the Hundred Years' War; stupid resignation then
took hold of burghers and peasantry alike, from the days when Machiavelli
observed their torpor, down to the eve of the Revolution. The _ancien
régime_ was permitted to grow up. But in England there has been a
continuous spirit of resistance and independence, so that wherever our
countrymen or our kinsmen have gone, they have taken with them the undying
tradition of the best and surest freedom, which 'slowly broadens down from
precedent to precedent.'"[250]
This chapter could not be complete without at least a passing allusion to
the general uncleanliness of medieval life, even in a city like London,
where there was some real attempt at organized scavenging of the streets,
and where the laws commanded strictly "he that will keep a pig, let him
keep it in his own house."[251] Four great visitations of the bubonic
plague occurred in Chaucer's lifetime; the least of them would have been
enough to mark an epoch in modern England. The sixty years of his life are
exceptional, on the other hand, in their comparative freedom from severe
famine; but there hung always over men's lives the shadow of God's
hand--or rather, as they too often felt, of Satan's. During the great
storm of 1362 "beasts, trees and housen were all to-smit with violent
lightning, and suddenly perished; and the Devil in man's likeness spake to
men going by the way"; and a good herald who watched the march past of the
rioters in 1381 "saw several Devils among them; he fell sick and died
within a brief while afterwards."[252]
It has often been noted how little Chaucer refers either to this Revolt
or the Great Pestilence; but the multitude interested him comparatively
little. He felt with the pleasures and pains of the individual poor man;
but with regard to the poor in bulk, he would only have shrugged his
shoulders and said "they are always with us." His Griselda is own sister
to King Cophetua's beggar-maid in the Burne-Jones picture. For all the
real pathos of the story, her rags are draped with every refinement of
consummate art. We believe in them conventionally, but know on reflection
that they are there only to point an artistic contrast. Again, in the
"Nuns' Priest's Tale" the "poure wydwe, somdel stope in age," with her
smoky cottage and the humble stock of her yard, are just the subdued and
tender background which the poet needs for the mock-chivalric glories of
his Chanticleer and Partlet. For glimpses of the real poor, the poor poor,
we must go to "Piers Plowman." Here we find them of all sorts, and at the
top of the scale the Plowman, the skilled agricultural labourer or almost
peasant-farmer--
"I have no penny, quoth Piers, pullets for to buy,
Neither goose nor griskin; but two green cheeses [new
A few curds and cream, and a cake of oats,
And bread for my bairns of beans and of peases.
And yet I say, by my soul, I have no salt bacon;
Not a cockney, by Christ, collops to make, [egg: eggs and bacon
But I have leek-plants, parsley and shallots,
Chiboles and chervils and cherries, half-red ... [onions
By this livelihood we must live till Lammas-time,
And by that I hope to have harvest in my croft,
Then may I dight my dinner as me dearly liketh."
Piers speaks here of a bad year; but even his modest comfort required hard
work of all kinds and in all weathers. As the Ploughman says in another
place--
"I have been Truth's servant all this fifty winter,
Both y-sowen his seed and sued his beasts,
Within and withouten waited his profits.
I dike and I delve, I do what Truth biddeth;
Some time I sow and some time I thresh,
In tailor's craft and tinker's craft, what Truth can devise,
I weave and I wind, and do what Truth biddeth."[253]
[Illustration: THE PLOUGHMAN
FROM THE LOUTERELL PSALTER (EARLY 14TH CENTURY)]
In contrast with Piers stands the great crowd of beggars--soldiers
discharged from the wars, and sturdy vagrants who fear nothing but
labour--"beggars with bags, which brewhouses be their churches," as the
poet writes in the racy style affected in modern times by Mrs. Gamp. The
roads were crowded with wandering minstrels "that will neither swink nor
sweat, but swear great oaths, and find up foul fantasies, and fools them
maken; and yet have wit at will to work, if they would." Lowest of all
(except the outlaws and felons who haunt the thickets and forests) come
the professional tramps--
"For they live in no love, nor no law they holden,
They wed no woman wherewith they dealen,
Bring forth bastards, beggars of kind.
Or the back or some bone they breaken of their children,
And go feigning with their infants for evermore after.
There are more misshapen men among such beggars
Than of many other men that on this mould walken."
But the Great Pestilence had bred yet another class odious to Piers
Plowman--strikers, as they would be called in modern English--the men who
thought their labour was worth more than the miserable price at which
Parliament was constantly trying to fix it under the heaviest penalties.
These were they of whom the Commons complained in 1376 that "they contrive
by great malice prepense to evade the penalty of the aforesaid Ordinances
and Statutes; for so soon as their masters chide them for evil service, or
would fain pay them for their aforesaid service according to the form of
the said Statutes, suddenly they flee and disperse away from their service
and from their own district, from county to county, from hundred to
hundred, from town to town, into strange places unknown to their said
masters, who know not where to find them.... And the greater part of such
runaway labourers become commonly stout thieves, wherefrom robberies and
felonies increase everywhere from day to day, to the destruction of the
aforesaid realm."[254] The worst effect of a law which attempted to fix
wages everywhere and chain the labourer to one master or one parish, was
to drive into rebellion indiscriminately the honest man who wanted to sell
his work in an open market, and the idler who was glad to escape in
company with his betters. No doubt there was a half-truth in the satire on
the pretensions of these labourers for whom the old wages no longer
sufficed, and who, in spite of the law, often managed to enforce their
claim--
"Labourers that have no land to live on, but their hands,
Deigned not to dine to-day on last night's cabbage;
May no penny-ale please them, nor a piece of bacon,
But it be fresh flesh or fish, fried or y-baken,
And that _chaud_ and _plus chaud_ for the chill of their maw."[255]
But sometimes the law too had its way; and for years before the Great
Revolt the countryside swarmed with such Statute-made malefactors,
together with those other outcasts so graphically described in Jusserand's
"Vie Nomade" (Pt. II., c. 2).
Meanwhile there lived and died, in the background, the thousands who, for
all their honest toil, struggled on daily from hand to mouth, knowing no
Bible truth more true than this, that God had cursed the ground for Adam's
sake. These are the true poor--"God's minstrels," as they are called in
"Piers Plowman"; those upon whom our alms cannot possibly be ill-spent--
"The most needy are our neighbours, an we take good heed,
As prisoners in pits and poor folk in cotes
Charged with children and chief lordës rent;
That they with spinning may spare, spend they it in house-hire,
Both in milk and in meal to make therewith papelots
To glut therewith their children that cry after food.
Also themselves suffer much hunger,
And woe in wintertime, with waking a-nights
To rise to the ruel to rock the cradle ...
Both to card and to comb, to clout and to wash
To rub and to reel, and rushes to peel,
That ruth is to read, or in rime to show
The woe of these women that woneth in cotes;
And many other men that much woe suffren,
Both a-hungered and athirst, to turn the fair side outward,
And be abashëd for to beg, and will not be a-known
What them needeth to their neighbours at noon and at even.
This I wot witterly, as the world teacheth,
What other men behoveth that have many children
And have no chattels but their craft to clothe them and to feed
And fele to fong thereto, and few pence taken.
There is payn and penny-ale as for a pittance y-taken,
Cold flesh and cold fish for venison y-baken;
Fridays and fasting-days, a farthing's worth of mussels
Were a feast for such folk, or so many cockles."[256]
How many such cottages did Chaucer, like ourselves, pass on his ride to
Canterbury? In all ages the sufferings of the very poor have been limited
only by the bounds of that which flesh and blood can endure.
CHAPTER XXI
MERRY ENGLAND
"In the holidays all the summer the youths are exercised in leaping,
dancing, shooting, wrestling, casting the stone, and practising their
shields; the maidens trip in their timbrels, and dance as long as they
can well see. In winter, every holiday before dinner, the boars
prepared for brawn are set to fight, or else bulls and bears are
baited. When the great fen, or moor, which watereth the walls of the
city on the north side, is frozen, many young men play upon the ice;
some, striding as wide as they may, do slide swiftly; others make
themselves seats of ice, as great as millstones; one sits down, many
hand in hand to draw him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall
together; some tie bones to their feet and under their heels; and
shoving themselves by a little piked staff, do slide as swiftly as a
bird flieth in the air, or an arrow out of a cross-bow. Sometime two
run together with poles, and hitting one the other, either one or both
do fall, not without hurt; some break their arms, some their legs, but
youth desirous of glory in this sort exerciseth itself against the
time of war."--FITZSTEPHEN'S "Description of London," translated by
John Stow.
Where in the meantime was Merry England? In the sense in which the phrase
is often used, as a mere political or social catchword, it lay for
Chaucer, as for us, in the haze of an imaginary past. Englishmen were even
then more fortunate in their lot than many continental nations; but they
had already serious responsibilities to bear. The glory of that age lies
less in thoughtless merrymaking than in a brave and steady struggle--with
the elements, with circumstances, and with fellow-man. Even in Chaucer's
time Englishmen took their pleasures sadly in comparison with Frenchmen
and Italians. We cannot say that our forefathers enjoyed life less than we
do, but we can certainly say that theirs was a life which we could enjoy
only after a process of acclimatization; and they lacked almost
altogether one of the most valued privileges of modern civilization--the
undisturbed conduct of our own little house and our own small affairs, the
established peace and order under cover of which even an artisan may now
pursue his own hobbies with a sense of personal independence and a
tranquil certitude of the morrow for which Roger Bacon would cheerfully
have sacrificed a hand or an eye. Such tranquillity might conceivably be
bought at the price of nobler virtues, but it is in itself one of the most
justly prized conquests of civilization, and we may seek it vainly in our
past.
However, as life was undoubtedly more picturesque in the 14th century, so
the enjoyment also was more on the surface. Fitzstephen's brief catalogue
of the Londoners' relaxations is charming; and, even when we have made all
allowance for the poetical colours lavished by an antiquary who saw
everything through a haze of distant memory and regret, Stow's
descriptions of city merrymakings are among the most delightful pages of
history. Hours of labour were long,[257] and for village folk there was no
great choice of amusements; yet there is a whole world of delight to be
found in the most elementary field sports. Moreover, the most expansive
enjoyment is often natural to those who have otherwise least freedom;
witness the bank-holiday excitement of our own days and the negro passion
for song and dance. The holy-days on which the Church forbade work
amounted to something like one a week; and though there are frequent
complaints that these were ill kept, equally widespread and emphatic is
the testimony to noisy merriment on them; they bred more drunkenness and
crime, we are assured by anxious Churchmen, than all the rest of the
year.[258] Indeed, it is from judicial records that we may glean by far
the fullest details about the games of our ancestors; and a brilliant
archivist like Siméon Luce, when he undertakes to give a picture of
popular games in the France of Chaucer's day, draws almost exclusively on
Royal proclamations and court rolls.[259]
From the Universities, sacred haunts of modern athleticism, down to the
smallest country parish, we get the same picture of sports flourishing
under considerable discouragement from the powers in being, but
flourishing all the same, and taking a still more boisterous tinge from
the injudicious attempts to suppress them altogether. "Alike in the
Universities and out of them," writes Dr. Rashdall on the subject of
games, "the asceticism of the medieval ideal provoked and fostered the
wildest indulgence in actual life." Even chess was among the "noxious,
inordinate, and unhonest games" expressly forbidden to the scholars of New
College by William of Wykeham's Statutes,[260] and indeed throughout the
Middle Ages this was a pastime which led to more gambling and quarrels
than most others. A very curious quarrel at cudgel-play outside the walls
of Oxford is recorded in the "Munimenta Academica" (Rolls Series, p. 526).
At Cambridge it was forbidden under penalty of forty pence to play tennis
in the town. At Oxford we find four citizens compelled to abjure the same
game solemnly before the vice-chancellor; and readers both of Froissart
and of the preface to "Ivanhoe" will remember violent feuds arising from
it.[261] In 1446 the Bishop of Exeter, while pleading that he has always
kept open the doors of the cathedral cloisters at all reasonable times,
adds, "at which times, and in especial in time of divine service,
ungodly-ruled people (most customably young people of the said Commonalty)
within the said cloister have exercised unlawful games, as the top, queke,
penny-prick, and most at tennis, by the which all the walls of the said
cloister have been defouled and the glass windows all to-burst."[262]
As early as 1314, the laws of London forbade playing at football in the
fields near the city; and this was among the games which, by Royal
proclamation of 1363, were to give place to the all-important sport of
archery. Others forbidden at the same time were quoits, throwing the
hammer, hand-ball, club-ball, and golf. Indeed, from this ancient and
royal game down to leap-frog and "conquerors," nearly all our present
sports were familiar, in more or less developed forms, to our ancestors.
In 1332, Edward III. had to proclaim "let no boy or other person, under
pain of imprisonment, play in any part of Westminster Palace, during the
Parliament now summoned, at bars [_i.e._ prisoners' base] or other games,
or at snatch-hood"; and John Myrc instructs the parish clergy to forbid to
their parishioners in general all "casting of ax-tree and eke of stone ...
ball and bars and suchlike play" in the churchyard.[263] Wrestling, again,
was among the most popular sports, and one of those which gave most
trouble to coroners. The two great wrestling matches in 1222 between the
citizens of London and the suburbans ended in a riot which assumed almost
the dignity of a rebellion. Fatal wrestling-bouts, like fatal games of
chess, are among the stock incidents of medieval romance; whether the
enemy was to be got rid of through the hands of a professional champion
(as in the quasi-Chaucerian "Tale of Gamelyn") or by such foul play as is
described in the Pardoner's Tale--
Arise, as though thou wouldest with him play,
And I shall rive him through the sidës way,
While that thou strugglest with him as in game;
And with thy dagger look thou do the same.
Moreover, the same tragedy might only too easily be played
unintentionally, as in the ballad of the "Two Brothers"--
They warsled up, they warsled down
Till John fell to the ground;
A dirk fell out of Willie's pouch,
And gave him a deadly wound.
Or, as it is recorded in the business-like prose of an assize-roll:
"Richard of Horsley was playing and wrestling with John the Miller of
Tutlington; and by mishap his knife fell from its sheath and wounded the
aforesaid John without the aforesaid Richard's knowledge, so that he died.
And the aforesaid Richard fled and is not suspected of the death; let him
therefore return if he will, but let his chattels be confiscated for his
flight. (N.B. He has no chattels)."[264] In this same assize-roll, out of
forty-three accidental deaths, three were due to village games, and three
more to sticks or stones aimed respectively at a cock, a dog, and a pig,
but finding their fatal billet in a human life. Ecclesiastical
disciplinarians endeavoured frequently, but with indifferent success, to
put down the practice of wrestling in churchyards, with the scarcely less
turbulent miracle-plays or dances, and the markets which so frequently
stained the holy ground with blood. Even the State interfered in the
matter of churchyard fairs and markets "for the honour of Holy Church";
but they went on gaily as before. Dances, as I have already had occasion
to note, were condemned with a violence which is only partially explained
even by Chaucer's illuminating lines about the Parish Clerk--
In twenty manners could he skip and dance,
(After the School of Oxenfordë, though,)
And with his leggës casten to and fro.[265]
To quote here again from Dr. Rashdall, "William of Wykeham found it
necessary for the protection of the sculpture in the Chapel reredos to
make a Statute against dancing or jumping in the Chapel or adjoining Hall.
His language is suggestive of that untranslatable amusement now known as
'ragging,' which has no doubt formed a large part of the relaxation of
students--at least of English students--in all ages. At the same College
there is a comprehensive prohibition of all 'struggling, chorus-singing,
dancing, leaping, singing, shouting, tumult and inordinate noise, pouring
forth of water, beer, and all other liquids and tumultuous games' in the
Hall, on the ground that they were likely to disturb the occupants of the
Chaplain's chamber below. A moderate indulgence in some of the more
harmless of these pastimes in other places seems to be permitted."[266]
In this, the good bishop was only following the very necessary precedent
of many prelates before him. As early as 1223, when the reform of the
friars had stimulated a great effort to put down old abuses throughout the
Church, Bishop Poore of Salisbury and his diocesan council decreed "we
forbid the holding of dances, or base and unhonest games which provoke to
lasciviousness, in the churchyard.... We forbid the proclaiming of
scot-ales in church by layfolk, or by priests or clerks either in or
without the church." Similar prohibitions are repeated by later councils
with an emphasis which only shows their inefficiency. The University of
Oxford complained to Henry V. in 1414 that fairs and markets were held
"more frequently than ever" on consecrated ground; and the Visitation of
1519 among churches appropriated to York Cathedral elicited the fact that
football and similar games were carried on in two of the churchyards.
These holy places sometimes witnessed rougher sports still; especially
cathedral cemeteries during the great processions of the ecclesiastical
year. "Moreover," writes Bishop Grosseteste in a circular letter to all
his archdeacons, "cause it to be proclaimed strictly in every church that,
when the parishes come in procession for the yearly visitation and homage
to the Cathedral church, no parish shall struggle to press before another
parish with its banners; since from this source not only quarrels are wont
to spring, but cruel bloodshed." Bishop Giffard of Worcester was compelled
for the same reason to proclaim in every church of his diocese "that no
one shall join in the Pentecostal processions with a sword or other kind
of arms"; and a similar prohibition in the diocese of Ely (1364) is based
on the complaint that "both fights and deaths are wont to result
therefrom." Even more were the minds of the best clergy exercised by the
corpse-wakes in churches, which "turned the house of mourning and prayer
into a house of laughter and excess"; and again by "the execrable custom
of keeping the 'Feast of Fools,' which obtains in some churches," and
which "profanes the sacred anniversary of the Lord's Circumcision with the
filth of lustful pleasures"; yet here again the tenacity of popular custom
baffled even the most vigorous prelates.[267]
We must not pass away from popular amusements without one glance at these
above-mentioned scot-ales, which were probably relics of the Anglo-Saxon
semi-religious drinking-bouts. In the later Middle Ages they appear as
forerunners of the modern bazaar or religious tea; a highly successful
device for raising money contributions by an appeal to the convivial
instincts of a whole parish or district. In the early 13th century we find
them denounced among the methods employed by sheriffs for illegal
extortion; and about the same time they were very frequently condemned
from the religious point of view. The clergy were not only forbidden to be
present at such functions, but also directed to warn their parishioners
diligently against them, "for the health of their souls and bodies," since
all who took part at such feasts were excommunicated. But the custom died
hard; or rather, it was probably rebaptized, like so many other relics of
paganism; and the change seems to have taken place during Chaucer's
lifetime. In 1364 Bishop Langham of Ely was still fulminating against
scot-ales; in 1419, if not before, we find an authorized system of
"church-ales" in aid of the fabric. These were held sometimes in the
sacred edifice itself; more often in the Church Houses, the rapid
multiplication of which during the 15th century is probably due to the
equally rapid growth of church-ales. The puritanism of the 13th century
was by this time somewhat out of fashion; parish finances had come far
more under the parishioners' own control; and it was obviously convenient
to make the best of these time-honoured compotations, as of the equally
rough-and-ready hock-day customs, in order to meet expenses for which the
parish was legally responsible. Earnest Churchmen had, all through this
century, more important abuses to combat than these quasi-religious
convivialities; and we find no voice raised against church-ales until the
new puritanism of the Reformation. The Canons of 1603 forbade, among other
abuses, "church ale drinkings ... in the church, chapel, or churchyard."
While Bishop Piers of Bath and Wells testified that he saw no harm in
them, the puritan Stubbes accused the participants of becoming "as drunk
as rats, and as blockish as brute beasts." No doubt the truth lies between
these extremes; but church-ales must not be altogether forgotten when we
read the numerous medieval testimonies to the intimate connection between
holy days and crime.[268]
Perhaps the most widespread and most natural of all country sports was
that of poaching. As Dr. Rashdall has pointed out, it was especially
popular at the two Universities, where the paucity of authorized
amusements drove the students into wilder extremes. We have also abundant
records of clerical poachers; and in 1389 Richard II. enacted at the
petition of the Commons "that no priest or clerk with less than ten pounds
of yearly income should keep greyhounds, 'leetes' or other hunting dogs,
nor ferrets, nets, or snares." The same petition complained that
"artificers and labourers--that is to say, butchers, cobblers, tailors,
and other working-folk, keep greyhounds and other dogs; and at the time
when good Christians are at church on holy-days, hearing their divine
services, these go hunting in the parks, coney-covers, and warrens
pertaining to lords and other folk, and destroy them utterly." It was
therefore enacted that no man with an income of less than forty shillings
should presume to keep hunting dogs or implements.
But in spite of squires and church synods, the working-man did all he
could to escape, in his own untutored fashion, from the dullness of his
working days. Every turn of life, from the cradle to the grave, was seized
upon as an excuse for rough-and-ready sports. When a witness wishes to
give a reason for remembering a christening on a certain day, he testifies
to having broken his leg in the baptismal football match. Bishops
struggled against the practice of celebrating marriages in taverns, lest
the intending bride and bridegroom should plight their troth in liquor;
and weddings in general were so uproarious as to be sometimes ruled out as
too improper not only for a monk's attendance but even for that of serious
and pious layfolk. Similar survivals of barbaric sports clung to the
funeral ceremonies--the _wakë-pleyes_ of Chaucer's Knight's Tale; and
Archbishop Thoresby's constitutions of 1367 seem to speak of wrestling
matches held even in the church by the side of the dead man's bier. Such
things could scarcely have happened without some clerical connivance; and
in fact, the sporting parson was as common in Chaucer's as in Fielding's
day. The hunting Monk of his "Prologue" is abundantly vouched for by the
despairing complaints of ecclesiastical disciplinarians; and the parish
parson, so often a peasant by birth, constantly set at naught the
prohibitions of his superiors, to join with tenfold zest in the least
decorous pastimes of his village flock. While archbishops in council
legislated repeatedly and vainly against the hunting and tavern-haunting
priest, swaggering about with a sword at his side or the least decent of
lay doublets and hosen on his limbs, the homely Lollard satirist vented
his scorn on this Parson Trulliber, who contrasted so startlingly with
Chaucer's Parson Adams--
For the tithing of a duck
Or of an apple, or of an ey [egg
They make man swear upon a book;
Thus they foulen Christës fay. [faith
Such bearen evilly heaven's key;
They may assoil, and they may shrive,
With mennës wivës strongly play,
With truë tillers sturt and strive [struggle
At the wrestling, and at the wake,
And chiefë chanters at the ale;
Market-beaters, and meddling-make,
Hopping and hooting with heave and hale.
At fairë fresh, and at wine stale;
Dine, and drink, and make debate;
The seven sacraments set a-sale;
How keep such the keys of heaven gate?
("Political Poems" (R.S.), i., 330).
CHAPTER XXII
THE KING'S PEACE
"Accident plays a greater part in the fourteenth century than perhaps
at any other epoch.... At bottom society was neither quite calm nor
quite settled, and many of its members were still half
savage."--JUSSERAND, "English Wayfaring Life."
The key to these contrasts, and much else that we are slow to imagine in
medieval life, lies in the comparative simplicity of that earlier
civilization. We must indeed beware of exaggerating this simplicity; there
were already many complex threads of social development; again, the subtle
tyranny of custom and opinion has in all primitive societies a power which
we find it hard to realize. But certainly work and play were far less
specialized in Chaucer's day than in ours; far less definitely sorted into
different pigeon-holes of life. The drinking-bouts and rough games which
scandalized the reformers of the 13th century had once been religious
ceremonies themselves; and the two ideas were still confused in the
popular mind. If, again, Justice was so anxious to forbid popular sports,
this was partly because some of her own proceedings still smacked strongly
of the primeval sporting instinct for which her growing dignity now began
to blush. The scenic penances of the pillory and cucking-stool were among
the most popular spectacles in every town; and a trial by battle "till the
stars began to appear" must often have been a better show than a
tournament, even without such further excitement as would be afforded by
the match between a woman and a one-armed friar, or the searching of a
bishop's champion for the contraband prayers and incantations sewn under
his clothes, or the miracle by which a defeated combatant, who was
supposed to have been blinded and emasculated in due course of justice,
was found afterwards to be perfectly whole again by saintly intercession.
Still more exciting were the hue and cry after a felon, his escape to some
sanctuary, and his final race for life or "abjuration of the realm." What
vivid recollections there must have been in Chaucer's family, for
instance, of his great-uncle's death under circumstances which are thus
drily recorded by the coroner (November 12, 1336): "The Jurors say that
Simon Chaucer and one Robert de Upton, skinner, ... after dinner,
quarrelled with one another in the high street opposite to the shop of the
said Robert, in the said parish, by reason of rancour previously had
between them, whereupon Simon wounded Robert on the upper lip; which John
de Upton, son of Robert, perceiving, he took up a 'dorbarre,' without the
consent of his father, and struck Simon on the left hand and side, and on
the head, and then fled into the church of St. Mary of Aldermari-chirche;
and in the night following he secretly escaped from the same. He had no
chattels. Simon lived, languishing, till the said Tuesday, when he died of
the blows, early in the morning.... The Sheriffs are ordered to attach the
said John when he can be found in their bailiwick, ..." There was an
evident sporting element in this race for sanctuary, and the subsequent
secret escape; and we cannot help feeling some sympathy with the son whose
dorbarre had intervened so unwisely, yet so well. But this affair, except
for its Chaucerian interest, is commonplace; to realize the true humours
of criminal justice one needs to read through a few pages of the records
published by the Surtees Society, Professors Maitland and Thorold Rogers,
Dr. Gross, and Mr. Walter Rye. We may there find how Seman the hermit was
robbed, beaten, and left for dead by Gilbert of Niddesdale; how Gilbert
unluckily fell next day into the hands of the King's serjeant, and the
hermit had still strength enough to behead his adversary in due form of
law, the Northumberland custom being that a victim could redeem his stolen
goods only by doing the executioner's dirty work; how, again, Thomas the
Reeve wished to chastise his concubine with a cudgel, but casually struck
and killed the child in her arms, and the jury brought it in a mere
accident; how an unknown woman came and bewitched John of Kerneslaw in his
own house one evening, so that the said John used to make the sign of the
cross over his loins when any man said _Benedicite_; how in a fit of fury
he thrust the witch through with a spear, and her corpse was solemnly
burned, while he was held to have done the deed "in self-defence, as
against the Devil;" or, again, how Hugh Maidenlove escaped from Norwich
Castle with his fellow sheep-stealer William the Clerk, and carried him
stealthily on his back to the sanctuary of St. John in Berstreet, by
reason that the said William's feet were so putrefied by the duress of the
prison that he could not walk.[269] Let us take in full, as throwing a
more intimate light on law and police, another case with a different
beginning and a different ending to Simon Chaucer's (November 6, 1311).
"It came to pass at Yelvertoft ... that a certain William of Wellington,
parish chaplain of Yelvertoft, sent John his parish clerk to John
Cobbler's house to buy candles, namely a pennyworth. But the same John
would not send them without the money; wherefore the aforesaid William
waxed wroth, took a stick, and went to the house of the said John and
broke in the door upon him and smote this John on the fore part of the
head with the same stick, so that his brains gushed forth and he died
forthwith. And [William] fled hastily to the Church of Yelvertoft....
Inquest was made before J. of Buckingham by four neighbouring townships,
to wit, Yelverton, Crick, Winwick and Lilbourne. They say on their oath as
aforesaid, that they know no man guilty of John's death save the said
William of Wellington. He therefore came before the aforesaid coroner and
confessed that he had slain the said John; wherefore he abjured the realm
of England in the presence of the said four townships brought together
[for this purpose]. And the port of Dover was assigned to him."[270]
This "abjuration of the realm," a custom of English growth, which our
kings transplanted also into Normandy, was one of the most picturesque
scenes of medieval life. It was designed to obviate some of the abuses of
that privilege of sanctuary which had no doubt its real uses in those days
of club-law. What happened in fact to William of Wellington, we may gather
not only from legal theorists of the Middle Ages, but from the number of
actual cases collected by Réville.[271] The criminal remained at bay in
the church; and no man might as yet hinder John his clerk from bringing
him food, drink, or any other necessary. The coroner came as soon as he
could, generally within three or four days at longest; but he might
possibly be detained for ten days or more, and meanwhile (to quote from an
actual case in 1348) "the parish kept watch over him ... and the coroner
found the aforesaid William in the said church, and asked him wherefore he
was there, and whether or not he would yield himself to the King's peace."
The matter was too plain for William to deny; his confession was duly
registered, and he took his oath to quit the realm within forty days.[272]
Coming to the gate of the church or churchyard, he swore solemnly before
the assembled crowd: "Oyez, oyez, oyez! Coroner and other good folk: I,
William de Wellington, for the crime of manslaughter which I have
committed, will quit this land of England nevermore to return, except by
leave of the kings of England or their heirs: so help me God and His
saints!" The coroner then assigned him a port, and a reasonable time for
the journey; from Yelverton it would have been about a week. His bearing
during this week was minutely prescribed: never to stray from the
high-road, or spend two nights in the same place; to make straight for his
port, and to embark without delay. If at Dover he found no vessel ready to
sail, then he was bound daily to walk into the sea up to his knees--or,
according to stricter authorities, up to his neck--and to take his rest
only on the shore, in proof that he was ready in spirit to leave the land
which by his crimes he had forfeited. His dress meanwhile was that of a
felon condemned to death--a long, loose white tunic, bare feet, and a
wooden cross in his hand to mark that he was under protection of Holy
Church.
Such abjurations were matters of common occurrence; yet Dover beach was
not crowded with these unwilling pilgrims. A few, of course, were
overtaken and slain on the way, in spite of their sacred character, by the
friends of the murdered man. But many more must have reflected that, since
they would find neither friends nor welcome abroad, there was less risk in
taking their chance as runaways at home. If caught, they were liable to be
strung up out of hand; but how many chances there must have been in the
fugitive's favour! and, even in the last resort, some plausible excuse
might possibly soften the captors' hearts. One criminal, who might
possibly even have rubbed shoulders with Chaucer in London, pleaded that
he had taken sanctuary and been torn from the altar. This was disproved,
and he took refuge in a convenient dumbness. For such afflictions the
Middle Ages knew a sovereign remedy, and he was led forthwith to the
gallows. Here he found his tongue again, and pleaded clergy; but he failed
to read his neck-verse, and was hanged. Often the miserable homesick
wanderers came back and tried to save their lives by turning approvers
against fellow-criminals. In 1330 Parliament had to interfere, and ruled
that John English [_Lengleyse_], who three years before had slain the
Mayor of Lynn, taken sanctuary, and abjured the realm, could not now be
suffered to purchase his own pardon by accusing others.
What happened, it may be asked, if William refused either to acknowledge
his guilt or to stand his trial, and simply clung to the sanctuary? At
least half the criminals thus refused; and here even theory was uncertain.
If, at the end of his forty days of grace, the lay authorities tore him
from the altar, then they were pretty sure of excommunication from the
bishop. The lawyers held, therefore, that it was for the Ordinary, the
Archdeacon, the Parson, to expel this man who had outstayed even the
ecclesiastical welcome; but we all know the risk of dragging even a
good-tempered dog from under a chair where he has taken refuge; and how
could the poor bishop be expected to deal with this desperado? The matter
was thus, like so many others, left very much to chance. The village did
its best to starve the man out, and meanwhile to watch him night and day.
One offending William, whose forty days had expired on August 12, 1374,
held out against this blockade until September 9, when he fled. Then there
was a hue and cry of the whole village; he might indeed run the gauntlet
and make good his escape, leaving his quondam neighbours to prove before
the justices that they had done all they could, or to pay a fine for their
negligence. Often, however, a stick or stone would bring him down at close
quarters, or an arrow from afar; then in a moment he was overpowered and
beheaded, and that chase was remembered for years as the greatest event in
Yelvertoft.
There was indeed one gross irregularity in the case of Sir William de
Wellington, but an irregularity which modern readers will readily pardon.
Becket had given his life for the freedom of the Church as he conceived
it, and especially for the principle that no cleric should be punished by
the lay courts for any offence, however heinous. The death of "the holy
blissful martyr" did indeed establish this principle in theory; and, with
the most powerful corporation in the world to protect it, it was, in fact,
kept far more strictly than most legal theories. William, therefore, after
dashing John the Cobbler's brains upon the floor, might well have found it
necessary to take refuge in the church from the blind fury of summary and
illegal vengeance; but he need not have abjured the realm. In theory he
had simply to confess his offence, or to stand his trial and suffer
conviction from the King's judges; then the bishop's commissary stepped
forward and claimed the condemned clerk in the name of the Church. The
bishop, disregarding the verdict of the jury, would try him again by the
primitive process of compurgation; that is, would bid him present himself
with a specified number of fellow-clergy or persons of repute, who would
join William in swearing on the Bible to his innocence. In this particular
case William would probably have failed to find proper compurgators, and
the bishop might, if he had chosen, have imprisoned him for life. But this
involved very considerable expense and responsibility; it was a more
invidious and costly matter than to prosecute nowadays for alleged illegal
practices, and the documents show us very clearly that only the smallest
fraction of these criminous clerks were imprisoned for any length of time.
Indeed, for any such strict system, the episcopal prisons would have
needed to be ten times their actual size. Equally seldom do we find
notices of the next drastic punishment in the bishop's power--the total
degradation of the offender from his Orders, after which the lay judges
might punish him unchallenged for his second crime. Many of the guilty
parties did, in fact, "purge" themselves successfully, and were thus let
loose on society as before; this we have on the unimpeachable testimony of
the Oxford Chancellor Gascoigne, even if it were not sufficiently evident
from the records themselves. The notoriously guilty received more or less
inadequate punishments, and were sometimes simply shunted on to another
diocese, a shifting of responsibility which was practised even by the
strictest of reforming prelates. The curious reader may trace for himself,
in the English summaries from Bishop Giffard's register, the practical
working of these clerical privileges.[273] First, there are frequent
records of criminous clerks handed over to the bishop, in the ordinary
routine, by the lay justices. Sometimes the bishop had to interfere in a
more summary fashion, as when he commissioned four rural deans "to cause
Robert, rector of the Church of the Blessed Mary in the market of Bristol,
to be released, he being suspected of homicide having fled to the church,
and having been besieged here; and to excommunicate all who should oppose
them" (49). Robert had not yet gone through any formal trial; the bishop
apparently rescued him merely from the fury of the people; but, even if he
had been tried and condemned by the King's courts, he had still a liberal
chance of escape. A few pages further in the register (79) we find a
declaration "that whereas William de Capella, an acolyte, was accused and
condemned for the death of John Gogun of Pershore, before the justices
itinerant at Worcester, and was on demand of the bishop's commissary
delivered up by the same justices, the same William being afterwards
examined before the sub-prior of Worcester and Geoffrey de Cubberlay,
clerk, solemnly declared that he was in nowise guilty; and at length upon
proclamations, no one opposing, with four priests, two sub-deacons, and
six acolytes, his compurgators, he was admitted to purgation and declared
innocent of the said crime; and after giving security to answer any
accusers if required, he was permitted to depart freely. And it is
forbidden under pain of anathema to any one to lay such homicide to the
charge of the said William." Sometimes, however, the scandal was too
notorious; and, though no mere layman had the least legal right to
interfere with the bishop's own private justice, the King would apply
pressure in the name of common sense. So on page 408 we find a "letter
from King Edward I. to John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, desiring
him to refuse purgation to Robert de Lawarre, a clerk accused of theft and
homicide and in the gaol of Worcester;" and a few months later the same
strenuous champion of justice sent a more general warning to the Bishop of
Worcester, "forbidding him to take the purgation of clerks detained in his
prison, whose crimes are notorious; but with regard to others he may take
such purgation" (410). The system was, indeed, notoriously faulty, and did
much to encourage that venality in the clerical courts which moved
Chaucer's laughter and the indignation of his contemporaries. The clergy,
says Gower, are judges in their own cause, and each shields the other: "My
turn to-day; to-morrow thou shalt do the like for me." In vain did
councils decree year after year that they should bear no arms; rectors (as
we have seen in Chapter VIII.) imperturbably bequeathed their formidable
daggers by will, and duly registered the bequest in the Bishop's court. "O
Priest, answer to my call; wherefore hast thou so long a knife dangling at
thy belt? art thou armed to fight in God's quarrel or the devil's?... The
wild beast in rutting-season becomes fiercer and more wanton; if ever he
be thwarted, forthwith he will fight and strike; and that is the same
cause why the priests fight when they turn to lechery like beasts; they
wander idly everywhere seeking and hunting for women, with whom they
corrupt the country."[274] A century later the Commons pressed the King
for fresh and more stringent laws to remedy the notorious fact that "upon
trust of the privilege of the Church, divers persons have been the more
bold to commit murder, rape, robbery, theft, and other mischievous deeds,
because they have been continually admitted to the benefit of the clergy
as often as they did offend in any of the [aforesaid]."
This petition of the Commons and the Act which resulted from it, had
already often been anticipated by the rough-and-ready justice of the
people themselves. In 1382, the citizens of London took these matters into
their own hands, and Chaucer had probably seen more than one unchaste
priest marched with his guilty partner to the common lock-up in Cornhill,
to the accompaniment of derisive music, and amid the jeers of the
populace. Eight years after his death, the city authorities began to keep
a regular record of such cases, and "Letter-Book," I, "contains some
dozens of similar charges, mostly against chaplains celebrating in the
city, temp. Henry IV. to Henry VI."[275] This lynch-law is abundantly
explained by the very disproportionate numbers of criminous clerks whom we
often find recorded in coroners' or assize rolls, and who were frequently
no mere shavelings, but priests and substantial incumbents.[276] In 1200
these men were almost above the law; in 1600 they were amenable to justice
as though they had not been anointed with oil; in 1400 it depended (as in
London and in this Yelvertoft case) whether the popular indignation was
strong enough to beat down the clerical privilege.
"Accident plays a more important part in the 14th century than in any
other age," and in many ways England was no doubt the merrier for this.
Prosaic and uniform modern Justice, bewigged as well as blindfolded,
could no more have been foreseen by Chaucer than railways or life
insurance. First of all, there was the chance of bribing the judge in the
regular and acknowledged way of business.[277] Then, the prospect of a
Royal pardon; Edward III. more than once proclaimed such a general
amnesty; and a petition of the Commons in 1389, forthwith embodied in an
Act of Parliament, is eloquent on the "outrageous mischiefs and damages
which have befallen the Realm because treasons, murders, and rapes of
women are too commonly perpetrated; and all the more so because charters
of pardon have been too lightly granted in such cases." The terms of the
petition and bill, and the heroic measures of remedy, are sufficiently
significant of the state of things with which the reformers had to
contend.[278]
Moreover, justice offered at every point a series of splendid
uncertainties, and a thousand giddy turns of fortune's wheel. Apart from
the practical impunity of the powerful, even the poorest felon had more
chances in his favour than the modern plutocrat; for there is no higher
prize than a man's own life, and no American millionaire enjoys facilities
for homicide equal to those of our 14th-century villagers. Such
regrettable incidents, as reckoned from the coroners' rolls, were from
five to forty times more frequent then than in our days--it depends
whether we count them as mere manslaughters or, according to the stricter
idea of modern justice, as downright murders. No doubt stabbing was never
so frequent or so systematic in England as at Naples; but thousands of
worthy Englishmen might have cried with Chaucer's Host, "for I am
perilous with knife in hand!" Many readers have doubtless noted how, in
this very passage, Harry Bailey reckons as probable punishment for
homicide not the gallows, but only outlawry--
I wot well she will do me slay some day
Some neighëbour, and thennë go my way....
The fact is that judicial statistics of the Middle Ages show the murderer
to have had many more chances of survival than a convicted thief. The
Northumberland Roll of 1279 (to choose a typical instance) gives 72
homicides to only 43 accidental deaths. These 72 deaths were brought home
to 83 culprits, of whom only 3 are recorded to have been hanged. Of the
remainder, 69 escaped altogether, 6 took sanctuary, 2 were never
identified, 1 pleaded his clergy, 1 was imprisoned, and 1 was fined. To a
mind of any imagination, such bare facts will often open wider vistas than
a great deal of so-called poetry. There can be no truer commentary on the
"Tale of Gamelyn" or the "Geste of Robin Hood" than these formal assize
rolls. The justice's clerk drones on, with damnable iteration, paragraph
after paragraph, "Alan Fuller ... and he fled, and therefore let him be
outlawed; chattels he hath none"; "Patrick Scot ... fled ... outlawed";
"William Slater ... fled ... outlawed"; but all the while we see the broad
sunshine outside the windows, and hear the rustle of the forest leaves,
and voices whisper in our ear--
He must needës walk in wood that may not walk in town.
* * * * *
In summer, when the shaws be sheen,
And leaves be large and long,
It is full merry in fair forest
To hear the fowlës' song.
CHAPTER XXIII
PRIESTS AND PEOPLE
"Charity is a childlike thing, as Holy Church witnesseth;
As proud of a penny as of a pound of gold,
And all so glad of a gown of grey russet
As of a coat of damask or of clean scarlet.
He is glad with all glad, as girls that laughen all,
And sorry when he seeth men sorry; as thou seest children ...
Laugh when men laughen, and lower where men low'ren....
And in a friar's frock he was found once,
But that is far and many years, in Francis' time;
In that suit since too seldom hath he been found."
"Piers Plowman," B., xvii., 296, 352
When the greatest Pope of the 13th century saw in his dream a vision of
St. Francis propping the tottering church, both he and the saint augured
from this happy omen a reformation more sudden and complete than was
actually possible. Church historians of all schools have often seemed to
imply that if St. Francis had come back to earth on the first or second
centenary of his death, he would have found the Church rather worse than
better; and certainly Chaucer's contemporaries thought so. It is probable
that in this they were mistaken; that the higher life was in fact
unfolding no less surely in religion than in the State, but that men's
impatience of evils which were only too obvious, and a restlessness bred
by the rapid growth of new ideas, tempted them to despair too easily of
their own age. The failure of the friars became a theme of common talk, as
soon as enough time had gone by for the world to realize that Francis and
Dominic had but done what man can do, and that there was as yet no visibly
new heaven or new earth. Wycliffe himself scarcely inveighed more
strongly against many of the worst abuses in the Church than Bonaventura a
century before him--Bonaventura, the canonized saint and Minister General
of the Franciscans, who as a boy had actually seen the Founder face to
face. The current of thought during those hundred years is typified by
Dante and the author of "Piers Plowman." Dante, bitterly as he rebuked the
corruptions of the age, still dreamed of reform on conservative lines. In
"Piers Plowman" it is frankly recognized that things must be still worse
before they can be better. The Church is there described as already
succumbing to the assaults of Antichrist, aided by "proud priests more
than a thousand"--
'By Mary!' quoth a cursed priest of the March of Ireland,
'I count no more conscience, if only I catch silver,
Than I do to drink a draught of good ale!'
And so said sixty of the same country,
And shotten again with shot, many a sheaf of oaths,
And broad hookèd arrows, '_God's heart!_' and '_God's nails!_'
And had almost Unity and Holy Church adown.
Conscience cried 'Help, clergy,[279] or else I fall
Through imperfect priests and prelates of Holy Church.'
Friars heard him cry, and camen him to help;
But, for they knew not their craft, Conscience forsook them.
One friar, however, is admitted, Brother "Creep-into-Houses," but he turns
out the worst traitor of all, benumbing Contrition by his false
absolutions--
Sloth saw that, and so did Pride,
And came with a keen will Conscience to assail.
Conscience cried oft, and bade Clergy help him,
And also Contrition, for to keep the gate.
'He lieth and dreameth,' said Peace, 'and so do many other;
The friar with his physic this folk hath enchanted,
And plastered them so easily, they dread no sin.'
'By Christ!' quoth Conscience then, 'I will become a pilgrim,
And walken as wide as all the world lasteth
To seek Piers the Plowman;[280] that Pride may be destroyed,
And that friars have a finding,[281] that for need flatteren,
And counterplead me, Conscience. Now, Kind me avenge
And send me hap and heal, till I have Piers the Plowman.'
And sith he cried after grace, till I gan awake.
So ends this dreamer on the Malvern Hills, and so thought many more good
Christians of Chaucer's time. It would be tedious even to enumerate the
orthodox authorities which testify to the deep corruption of popular
religion in the 14th century. Two books of Gower's "Vox Clamantis" (or
one-third of the whole work) are devoted to invectives against the Church
of his time; and he goes over the same ground with equal minuteness in his
"Mirour de l'Omme." The times are out of joint, he says, the light of
faith grows dim; the clergy are mostly ignorant, quarrelsome, idle, and
unchaste, and the prelates do not correct them because they themselves are
no better. The average priests do the exact opposite of what Chaucer
praises in his Poor Parson; they curse for tithes, and leave their sheep
in the lurch to go mass-hunting into the great towns. If, again, they stay
unwillingly in the villages, then instead of preaching and visiting they
waste their own time and the patrimony of the poor in riot or debauchery;
nay, the higher clergy even encourage vice among the people in order to
gain money and influence for themselves. Their evil example among the
multitude, and the contempt into which they bring their office among the
better laity, are mainly responsible for the decay of society. Of monks
and nuns and friars, Gower writes even more bitterly; the monks are
frequently unchaste; nuns are sometimes debauched even by their own
official visitors, and the friars seriously menace the purity of family
life. In short, the reign of Antichrist seems to be at hand; if the world
is to be mended we can only pray God to reform the clergy. Wycliffe
himself wrote nothing more bitter than this; yet Gower was a whole
horizon removed from anti-clericalism or heresy; he hated Lollardy, and
chose to spend his last days among the canons of Southwark. Moreover, in
the next generation, we have an equally scathing indictment of the Church
from Gascoigne, another bitter anti-Wycliffite and the most distinguished
Oxford Chancellor of his generation. St. Catherine of Siena, who knew Rome
and Avignon only too well, is proportionately more vehement in her
indignation. Moreover, the formal records of the Church itself bear out
all the gravest charges in contemporary literature. The parish churches
were very frequently reported as neglected, dirty, and ruinous; the very
service books and most necessary ornaments as either dilapidated or
lacking altogether; priests and people as grossly irreverent.[282]
Wherever we find a visitation including laity and clerics alike, the
clergy presented for unchastity are always numerous out of all proportion
to the laity; sometimes more than ten times as numerous. Episcopal
registers testify plainly to the difficulty of dealing with monastic decay
and to the neglect of proper precautions against the intrusion of unworthy
clerics into benefices. Many of the anti-Lollard Articles solemnly
presented by the University of Oxford to the King in 1414 might have been
drawn up by Wycliffe himself. These pillars of the Church pray Henry V.,
who was known to have religion so much at heart, to find some remedy for
the sale of indulgences, the "undisciplined and unlearned crowd which
daily pressed to take sacred orders"; the scandalous ease with which
"illiterate, silly, and ignorant" candidates, even if rejected by the
English authorities, could get ordained at the Roman court; the system
which allowed monasteries to prey upon so many parishes; the pardoners'
notorious frauds, the irreverence of the people at large, the embezzlement
of hospital endowments, the debasement of moral standards by flattering
friar-confessors, and lastly the numbers and practical impunity of
fornicating monks, friars, and parish priests. As early as 1371, the
Commons had petitioned Edward III. that, "whereas the Prelates and
Ordinaries of Holy Church take money of clergy and laity in redemption of
their sin from day to day, and from year to year, in that they keep their
concubines openly ... to the open scandal and evil example of the whole
commonalty," this system of hush-money should now be put down by Royal
authority; that the ordinary courts of justice should have cognizance of
such cases; and that such beneficed clergy as still persisted in
concubinage should be deprived of their livings.[283]
To comment fully on Chaucer's clerical characters in the light of other
contemporary documents would be to write a whole volume of Church history;
but no picture of that age could be even roughly complete without such a
summary as I have just given. We must, of course, discount to some extent
the language of indignation; but, to understand what it was that drew such
bitter words from writers of such acknowledged gravity, we must try to
transport ourselves, with our own common human feelings, into that strange
and distant world. So much of the old framework of society was either
ill-made or long since outworn; a new world was struggling to grow up
freely amid the mass of dying conventions; the human spirit was surging
vehemently against its barriers; and much was swept boisterously away.
[Illustration: THE CLERGY-HOUSE AT ALFRISTON, SUSSEX, BEFORE ITS RECENT
RESTORATION
(FOR PLAN AND SECTION SEE P. 97)]
Think for a moment of the English boy as we know him; for in most
essentials he was very much the same even five hundred years ago. At
fifteen or sixteen (or even at an earlier age, if his family had
sufficient influence) he might well receive a fat rectory or canonry.
Before the Black Death, an enormous proportion of the livings in lay
advowson were given to persons who were not in priest's orders, and often
not in holy orders at all.[284] The Church theoretically forbade with the
utmost severity this intrusion of mere boys into the best livings; but all
through the Church the forbidden thing was done daily, and most
shamelessly of all at the Papal court. A strong bishop in the 13th century
might indeed fight against the practice, but with slender success. Giffard
of Worcester, a powerful and obstinate prelate, attempted in 1282 to
enforce the recent decree of the Ecumenical Council of Lyons, and declared
the rectory of Campden vacant because the incumbent had refused for three
years past to qualify himself by taking priest's orders. After four years
of desperate litigation, during which the Pope twice intervened in a
half-hearted and utterly ineffectual fashion, the Bishop was obliged to
leave the case to the judgment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose
court enjoyed a reputation for venality only second to that of Rome. Other
bishops seem to have given up all serious attempts to enforce the decree
of the Council of Lyons; Stapeldon of Exeter, for instance, permitted
nearly three-quarters of the first presentations by laymen to be made to
persons who were not in priest's orders; and he commonly enjoined, after
institution, that the new rector should go forthwith and study at the
University. To appreciate the full significance of this, we must remember
that boys habitually went up to Oxford in those days at from thirteen to
sixteen, and that the discipline there was of almost incredible laxity.
The majority of students, after inscribing their names on the books of a
master whose authority over them was almost nominal, went and lodged where
they chose in the town. At the time when Chaucer might have gone to Oxford
there were, perhaps, 3000 students; but (apart from the friaries and
collegiate provision for a few monks) there were only five colleges, with
accommodation in all for something less than eighty students. Only one of
these was of stone; not one was yet built in that quadrangular form which,
adopted in Chaucer's later days by New College, has since set the pattern
for both Universities; and the discipline was as rudimentary as the
architecture. A further number of students were accommodated in "Halls" or
"Hostels." These had originally been ordinary private houses, rented by
two or more students in common; and the Principal was simply an older
student who made himself responsible for the rent. Not until thirty years
after Chaucer's death was it enacted that the Principal must be a B.A. at
least; and since we find that at Paris, where the same regulation was
introduced about the same time, it was necessary even fifty years later to
proceed against women who kept University halls, it is quite probable that
the salutary statute was frequently broken at Oxford also. The government
of these halls was entirely democratic, and only at a later period was it
possible even to close the gates on the students at night. These boys
"were in general perfectly free to roam about the streets up to the hour
at which all respectable citizens were in the habit, if not actually
compelled by the town statutes, of retiring to bed. They might spend their
evenings in the tavern and drink as much as they please. Drunkenness is
rarely treated as a University offence at all.... The penalties which are
denounced and inflicted even for grave outrages are seldom severe, and
never of a specially schoolboy character." "It is necessary to assert
emphatically that the religious education of a bygone Oxford, in so far as
it ever had any existence, was an inheritance not from the Middle Ages but
from the Reformation. In Catholic countries it was the product of the
Counter-reformation. Until that time the Church provided as little
professional education for the future priest as it did religious
instruction for the ordinary layman."[285] The only religious education
was that the student, like other citizens, was supposed to attend Mass
regularly on Sundays and holy days, and might very likely know enough
Latin to follow the service. But the want of proper grounding in Latin was
always the weak point of these Universities; it is probable that at least
half the scholars left Oxford without any degree whatever; and we have not
only the general complaints of contemporaries, but actual records of
examinations showing that quite a considerable proportion of the clergy
could not decently construe the language of their own service-books.
How, indeed, should the ordinary idle man have learned anything to speak
of, under so rudimentary a system of teaching and discipline? Gower
asserts as strongly as Wycliffe that the beneficed clergy escaped from
their parishes to the University as to a place of riot and
self-indulgence. If Exeter was a typical diocese (and there seems no
reason to the contrary) there must have been at any given time something
like six hundred English rectors and vicars living at the Universities
with the licence of their bishops; and the Registers show definite traces
of others who took French leave. Here, then, was a society in which boys
were herded together with men of middle or advanced age, and in which the
seniors were often the least decorous.[286] No doubt the average boy
escaped the company of those "chamberdekyns," of whom the Oxford
authorities complained that "they sleep all day, and prowl by night about
taverns and houses of ill fame and occasions of homicide"; no doubt it was
only a small minority at Cambridge of whom men complained to Parliament
that they scoured the country in gangs for purposes of robbery and
blackmail. But the average man cared no more for learning then than now,
and had far fewer opportunities of study. The athleticism which is the
refuge of modern idleness was severely discouraged by the authorities,
while the tavern was always open. The Bishop himself, by instituting this
boy in his teens, had given his approval to the vicious system which gave
the prizes of the Church to the rich and powerful, and left a heavy
proportion of the parish work to be done by a lower class of hireling
"chaplains." These latter (who, like Chaucer's Poor Parson, were mostly
drawn from the peasant class) were willing to accept the lowest possible
wages and the smallest possible chance of preferment for the sake of a
position which, at the worst, put them far above their father or their
brothers; and meanwhile the more fortunate rectors, little controlled
either by their bishops or by public opinion, drifted naturally into the
position of squarsons, hunters, and farmers. The large majority were
precluded from almost all intellectual enjoyments by their imperfect
education and the scarcity of books. The regular and healthy home life,
which has kept so many an idle man straight in the world, was denied to
these men, who were professionally pledged to live as the angels of God,
while they stood exposed to every worldly temptation. The consequence was
inevitable; orthodox writers for centuries before the Reformation
complained that the real fount and origin of heresy lay in the evil lives
of the clergy. In outlying districts like Wales, probably also in Ireland,
and certainly in parts of Germany, clerical concubinage was systematically
tolerated, and only taxed for the benefit of the bishop's or archdeacon's
purse. The reader has already seen that this same system was often
practised in England, though with less cynical effrontery.
CHAPTER XXIV
CONCLUSION
"Although the style [of Chaucer] for the antiquity may distaste you,
yet as under a bitter and rough rind there lieth a delicate kernel of
conceit and sweet invention."--HENRY PEACHAM, "The Compleat
Gentleman," 1622
Into this state of things suddenly came the "Black Death" of 1348-9, the
most terrible plague that ever raged in Christendom. This was at once
hailed by moralists as God's long-delayed punishment upon a society rotten
to the core. At first the world was startled into seriousness. Many of the
clergy fought the plague with that self-sacrificing devotion which, in all
denominations, a large fraction of the Christian clergy has always shown
at similar moments. But there is no evidence to show that the priests died
in sensibly larger proportions than their flocks; and many contemporary
chroniclers expressly record that the sick were commonly deserted even by
their spiritual pastors. After the first shock was over, the multitude
relapsed into a licence proportionate to their first terror--a reaction
described most vividly by Boccaccio, but with equal emphasis by other
chroniclers. Many good men, in their bitter disappointment, complained
that the world was grown more careless and irreligious than before the
Plague; but this can hardly be the verdict of most modern students who
look carefully into the mass of surviving evidence.
To begin with, the Black Death dealt a fatal blow to that old vicious
system of boy-rectors. Half the population perished in the plague, half
the livings went suddenly begging; and in the Church, as on the farm,
labour was at a sudden premium. Such curates as survived dropped naturally
into the vacant rectories; and, side by side with Acts of Parliament
designed to keep the labourer down to his old wages, we find
archi-episcopal decrees against the "unbridled cupidity" of the clergy,
who by their pernicious example encouraged this demand of the lower
classes for higher wages. The incumbent, who ought to be only too thankful
that God has spared his life, takes advantage of the present stress to
desert his parish and run after Mass-money.[287] Chaplains, again, are
"not content with their competent and accustomed salaries," which, as a
matter of fact, were sometimes no higher than the wages of a common archer
or a farm bailiff. But the economic movement was irresistible; and the
Registers from this time forward show an extraordinary increase in the
number of priests instituted to livings. In the same lists where the
priests were formerly only thirty-seven per cent. of the whole, their
proportion rises during and after the Pestilence to seventy-four per cent.
The Black Death did in one year what the Ecumenical Council of Lyons had
conspicuously failed to do, though summoned by a great reforming Pope and
inspired by such zealous disciplinarians as St. Bonaventura and his
fellow-Franciscan, Eudes Rigaud of Rouen.
Again, the shock of the Pestilence, the complete desertion of so many poor
country benefices by the clergy, and the scandal generated by this quarrel
over wages between chaplains and their employers, naturally threw the
people back very much upon their own religious resources. The lay control
over parish finances in 15th-century England, which, limited as it was,
still excites the wonder of modern Catholicism, probably dated from this
period. Men no longer gave much to monks, or even (in comparison with past
times) to friars; but they now devoted their main religious energies to
beautifying and endowing their own parish churches, which became far
larger and more richly furnished in the 15th century than in the 13th.
Moreover, Abbot Gasquet is probably right in attributing to the Black
Death the rise of a new tone in orthodox religious feeling, which "was
characterized by a [more] devotional and more self-reflective cast than
previously." There was every probability of such a religious change; all
earnest men had seen in the plague the chastening hand of God; and in the
end it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which were
exercised thereby.
But this bracing process could not possibly, under the circumstances of
the time, work entirely on the lines of orthodox conservatism. When we
count up the forces that produced Wycliffism--the notorious corruption of
the papal court, its unpopular French leanings, the vast sums drawn from
England by foreign ecclesiastics, the unpopularity of the clergy at home,
the growth of the English language and national spirit--among all these
causes we must not forget to note that Wycliffe and his contemporaries, in
their early manhood, had struggled through a year of horrors almost beyond
modern conception. They had seen the multitude run wild, first with
religious fanaticism and then with blasphemous despair; had watched all
this volcanic matter cool rapidly down into dead lava; and were left to
count one more abortive reform, and re-echo the old despairing "How long,
O Lord!" "Sad to say, it seemeth to many that we are fallen into those
unhappy times wherein the lights of heaven seem to be turned to darkness,
and the stars of heaven are fallen upon the earth.... Our priests are now
become blind, dark, and beclouded ... they are now darker than the
laity.... Lo, in these days there is neither shaven crown on their head,
nor religious decency in their garments, nor modesty in their words, nor
temperance in their food, nor shamefastness in their gestures, nor even
chastity in their deeds."[288] Such is the cry of an orthodox contemporary
of Wycliffe's; and words like these explain why Wycliffe himself became
unorthodox against his will. If he had died at the age of fifty or
thereabouts, towards the beginning of Chaucer's business career, posterity
would have known him only as the most distinguished English philosopher of
his time. The part which he played in later life was to a great extent
forced upon him by the strong practical sense which underlay his
speculative genius. Others saw the faults of religion as clearly, and
exposed them as unmercifully, as he. But, while they were content to end
with a pious "Well, God mend all!" Wycliffe was one of those in whom such
thoughts lead to action: "Nay, by God, Donald, we must help Him to mend
it!" No doubt there were errors in his teaching, and much more that was
premature; otherwise the authorities could never have managed so nearly to
exterminate Lollardy. On the other hand, it is equally certain that
Wycliffe gave a voice to feelings widespread and deeply rooted in the
country. Orthodox chroniclers record their amazement at the rapid spread
of his doctrines. "In those days," says Knighton, with picturesque
exaggeration, "that sect was held in the greatest honour, and multiplied
so that you could scarce meet two men by the way whereof one was not a
disciple of Wycliffe." Walsingham speaks of the London citizens in general
as "unbelieving towards God and the traditions of their fathers,
supporters of the Lollards."[289] In 1395 the Wycliffite opinions were
openly pleaded before Parliament by two privy councillors, a powerful
Northamptonshire landlord, and the brother of the Earl of Salisbury; the
bishops had to recall Richard II. in hot haste from Ireland to deal with
this open propaganda of heresy. Ten years after Chaucer's death, again, a
Bill was presented by the Commons for the wholesale disendowment of
bishoprics and greater monasteries, "because of priests and clerks that
now have full nigh destroyed all the houses of alms within the realm." The
petitioners pleaded that, apart from the enormous gain to the finances of
the State, and to a proposed new system of almshouses, it would be a
positive advantage to disendow idle and luxurious prelates and monks, "the
which life and evil example of them hath been so long vicious that all the
common people, both lords and simple commons, be now so vicious and
infected through boldship of their sin, that scarce any man dreadeth God
nor the Devil." The King and the Prince of Wales, however, would not
listen either to this proposal or to those upon which the petitioners
afterwards fell back, that criminous clerks should be dealt with by the
King's courts, and that the recent Act for burning Lollards should be
repealed.[290]
The Lollard movement in the Parliament of 1395 was led by Chaucer's old
fellow-ambassador, Sir Richard Stury, the "valiant ancient knight" of
Froissart's chronicles; and Chaucer himself has often been hailed, however
falsely, as a Wycliffite. The mere fact that he speaks disparagingly of
the clergy simply places him side by side with St. Bernard, St.
Bonaventura, and St. Catherine of Siena, whose language on this subject is
sometimes far stronger than his. As a fellow-protégé of John of Gaunt,
Chaucer must often have met Wycliffe in that princely household; he
sympathized, as so many educated Englishmen did, with many of the
reformer's opinions; but all the evidence is against his having belonged
in any sense to the Lollard sect. The testimony of the poet's own writings
has been excellently summed up in Chap. VI. of Professor Lounsbury's
"Studies in Chaucer." In early life our hero seems to have accepted as a
matter of course the popular religion of his time. His hymn to the Virgin
even outbids the fervour of its French original; and in the tales of
miracles which he versified he has taken no pains to soften down touches
which would now be received with scepticism alike by Protestants and by
the papal commissioners for the revision of the Breviary. (Tales of the
"Second Nun," "Man of Law," and "Prioress.") Even then he was probably
among the many who disbelieved in tales of Jewish ritual murder, though
not sufficiently to deter the artist in him from welcoming the exquisite
pathos of the little scholar's death. But his mind was naturally critical;
and it was further widened by an acquaintance with many cities and many
men. The merchants and scholars of Italy were notorious for their
free-thinking; and we may see in the unpriestly priest Froissart the
sceptical habit of mind which was engendered in a 14th-century
"intellectual" by a life spent in courts and among men of the world. It is
quite natural, therefore, to find Chaucer scoffing openly at several small
superstitions, which in many less sceptical minds lived on for
centuries--the belief in Arthur and Lancelot, in fairies, in magic, in
Virgilian miracles, in pagan oracles and gods, in alchemy, and even in
judicial astrology. These last two points, indeed, supply a very close
analogy to his religious views. It is difficult to avoid concluding, from
his very intimate acquaintance with the details of the pursuit, that he
had himself once been bitten with the craze for the philosopher's stone.
Again, if we only looked at his frequent poetical allusions to judicial
astrology, we should be driven to conclude that he was a firm believer in
the superstition; but in the prose "Astrolabe," one of his latest and
most serious writings, he expressly repudiates any such belief.
The analogy from this to his expressions on religious subjects is very
close. At first sight we might judge him to have accepted to the last,
though with growing reserve and waning enthusiasm, the whole contemporary
system of doctrines and practices which Wycliffe in later life so
unreservedly condemned. But one or two passages offer startling proof to
the contrary. Take the Prologue to the "Legend of Good Women"--
A thousand timës have I heard men tell
That there is joy in heaven and pain in hell,
And I accordë well that it is so.
But natheless yet wot I well also
That there is none dwelling in this countree
That either hath in heaven or hell y-be,
He may of it none other wayës witen [know
But as he hath heard said or found it written,
For by assay there may no man it prove.
And, again, the reflections which he adds upon the death of Arcite,
without the least authority from the original of Boccaccio--
His spirit changèd house, and wentë there,
As I came never, I can not tell where:
Therefore I stint, I am no divinister; [stop
Of soulës find I not in this register,
Nor list me those opinions to tell
Of them, though that they writen where they dwell.
It is difficult to believe that the man who gratuitously recorded those
two personal impressions, without the least excuse of artistic necessity,
was a perfectly orthodox Catholic. It is more than possible that he would
not have accepted in cold blood all the consequences of his words; but we
may see plainly in him that sceptical, mocking spirit to which the
contemporary Sacchetti constantly addresses himself in his sermons. This
was indeed one of the most obvious results of the growing unpopularity of
the hierarchy, intensified by the shock of the Black Death. That great
crisis had specially stimulated the two religious extremes. Churches grew
rapidly in size and in splendour of furniture, while great lords built
themselves oratories from which they could hear Mass without getting out
of bed. The Pope decreed a new service for a new Saint's Day, "full of
mysteries, stuffed with indulgences," at a time when even reasonable men
began to complain that the world had too many. Richard II. presented his
Holiness with an elaborate "Book of the Miracles of Edward late King of
England"--that is, of the weak and vicious Edward II., whose attempted
canonization was as much a political job as those of Lancaster and
Arundel, Scrope and Henry VI.; and this popular canonization ran so wild
that men feared lest the crowd of new saintlings should throw Christ and
His Apostles into the shade. On the other side there was the "new
theology," which had grown up, with however little justification, from the
impulse given by orthodox and enthusiastic friars--pantheistic doctrines,
minimizing the reality of sin; denials of eternal punishment; attempts to
find a heaven for good pagans and Jews.[291] Even in the 13th century,
willingly or unwillingly, the friars had raised similar questions; a
Minister-General had been scandalized to hear them debating in their
schools "whether God existed"; and Berthold of Ratisbon had felt bound to
warn his hearers against the subtle sophism that souls, when once they
have been thoroughly calcined, must reach a point at which anything short
of hell-fire would feel uncomfortably chilly. This is the state of mind
into which Chaucer, like so many of his contemporaries, seems to have
drifted. He had no reasoned antagonism to the Church dogmas as a whole; on
the contrary, he was keenly sensible to the beauty of much that was
taught. But the humourist in him was no less tickled by many popular
absurdities; and he had enough philosophy to enjoy the eternal dispute
between free-will and predestination. As a boy, he had knelt unthinkingly;
as a broken old man, he was equally ready to bow again before Eternal
Omnipotence, and to weep bitterly for his sins. But, in his years of ripe
experience and prosperity and conscious intellectual power, we must think
of him neither among the devout haunters of shrines and sanctuaries nor
among those who sat more austerely at the feet of Wycliffe's Poor Priests;
rather among the rich and powerful folk who scandalized both Catholics and
Lollards by taking God's name in vain among their cups, and whetting their
worldly wit on sacred mysteries. We get glimpses of this in many
quarters--in the "Roman de la Rose," for instance, but still more in
Sacchetti's sermons and the poem of "Piers Plowman." Here the poet
complains, after speaking of the "gluttony and great oaths" that were then
fashionable--
"But if they carpen of Christ, these clerks and these layfolk [discuss
At the meat in their mirth, when minstrels be still,
Then tell they of the Trinity a tale or twain
And bringen forth a bald reason, and take Bernard to witness,
And put forth a presumption to prove the sooth.
Thus they drivel at their dais the Deity to know,
And gnawen God with the gorge when the gut is full ...
I have heard high men eating at the table
Carpen, as they clerkës were, of Christ and His might
And laid faults upon the Father that formed us all,
And carpen against clerkës crabbed words:--
'Why would our Saviour suffer such a worm in His bliss
That beguiled the Woman and the Man after,
Through which wiles and words they wenten to hell,
And all their seed for their sin the same death suffered?
Here lieth your lore,' these lords 'gin dispute.
'Of that ye clerks us kenneth of Christ by the Gospel ... [teach
Why should we, that now be, for the works of Adam
Rot and be rent? reason would it never ...'
Such motives they move, these masters in their glory,
And maken men to misbelieve that muse much on their words."[292]
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY
VIEW FROM NEAR CHAUCER'S TOMB]
More unorthodox still were those whom Walsingham would have made partly
responsible for the horrors of the Peasants' Revolt. "Some traced the
cause of these evils to the sins of the great folk, whose faith in God was
feigned; for some of them (it is said) believed that there was no God, no
sacrament of the altar, no resurrection from the dead, but that as a beast
dies so also there is an end of man."
There is, of course, no such dogmatic infidelity in Chaucer. Even if he
had felt it, he was too wise to put it in writing; as Professor Lounsbury
justly says of the two passages quoted above, "the wonder is not that they
are found so infrequently, but that they are found at all." Yet there was
also in Chaucer a true vein of religious seriousness. "Troilus and
Criseyde" was written not long before the "Legend of Good Women"; and as
at the outset of the later poem he goes out of his way to scoff, so at the
end of the "Troilus" he is at equal pains to make a profession of faith.
The last stanza of all, with its invocation to the Trinity and to the
Virgin Mary, might be merely conventional; medieval literature can show
similar sentiments in very strange contexts, and part of this very stanza
is translated from Dante. But however Chaucer may have loved to let his
wit play about sacred subjects "at meat in his mirth when minstrels were
still," we can scarcely fail to recognize another side to his mind when we
come to the end of those "Troilus" stanzas which are due merely to
Boccaccio, and begin upon the translator's own epilogue--
O youngë freshë folkës, he or she
In which ay love up-groweth with your age,
Repair ye home from worldly vanitee ...
"Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for the play is
played out." But, though we have nothing of the reformer in our
composition; though we are for the most part only too frankly content to
take the world as we find it; though, even in their faith, our
fellow-Christians make us murmur, "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
though we most love to write of Vanity Fair, yet at the bottom of our
heart we do desire a better country, and confess sometimes with our mouth
that we are strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
Indeed, if our poet had not been keenly sensible of the beauty of
holiness, then the less Chaucer he! As it is, he stands the most
Shakespearian figure in English literature, after Shakespeare himself. Age
cannot wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety. We venerate him
for his years, and he daily startles us with the eternal freshness of his
youth. All springtide is here, with its green leaves and singing-birds;
aptly we read him stretched at length in the summer shade, yet almost more
delightfully in winter, with our feet on the fender; for he smacks of all
familiar comforts--old friends, old books, old wine, and even, by a
proleptic miracle, old cigars. "Here," said Dryden, "is God's plenty;" and
Lowell inscribed the first leaf of his Chaucer with that promise which the
poet himself set upon the enchanted gate of his "Parliament of Fowls"--
Through me men go into the blissful place
Of the heart's heal and deadly woundës' cure;
Through me men go unto the well of Grace,
Where green and lusty May doth ever endure;
This is the way to all good aventure;
Be glad, thou Reader, and thy sorrow off-cast,
All open am I, pass in, and speed thee fast!
INDEX
A
Abjuration of the Realm, 285
Aldersgate, 117
Aldgate, 30, 56, 76, 77, 93 ff., 116, 117;
tower, 78, 266
All Hallows Stonechurch, 77
Angle, Sir Guichard de, 51
Anne of Bohemia, Queen, 56, 208
Antwerp, 13, 14
Archery, 232, 235, 236, 240
Architecture, 119
Arundel, Archbishop, 142
" Earl, 311
Attechapel, Bartholomew, 26
B
Badlesmere, Lord, 297
Banastre, Katherine, 184
Becket, St. Thomas à, 142, 143, 169, 288
Bedfellows, 87, 140
Belknap, Chief Justice, 264
Berkeley, the family of, 52, 179, 195 ff., 239, 240
Bishopsgate, 15
Black Death, 304
Black Prince, 17, 176
Blanch Apleton, 78
Blanche, Duchess of Lancaster, 37
Blountesham, Richard de, 96
Boccaccio, 47, 48
Books, cost of, 99
Boughton-under-Blee, 167
Brembre, Sir Nicholas, 60, 94, 135, 193
Brerelay, Richard, 63
Bribery, 200
Bristol, 239, 240
Buckholt, Isabella, 65
Bucklersbury, 16
Bukton, 68
Burley, Sir John, 51
Burley, Sir Simon, 54, 60
Burne-Jones, 29
C
Cadzand, 133
Caen, 77;
siege of, 248, 249
Calais, 10, 174, 183
Cambridge, 8, 77, 274, 302
Canterbury, 76, 140, 143, 145, 167, 169, 170, 271, 297
Chandos, Sir John, 175
Charing Cross Mews, 61
Charles V. of France, 33, 52, 122
" VI. of France, 70
" de Blois, 252
Chaucer, Geoffrey, and Aldgate, 56, 93 ff., 101;
his aloofness, 69, 95;
his birth, 3, 15;
and Boccaccio, 47;
and books, 95 ff.;
his childhood, 17;
clerk of Love, 222;
his Clerkship of Works, 60;
his Comptrollership, 54;
at Court, 173;
at the Custom House, 76, 79;
and Dante, 43, 74;
his death and tomb, 73;
in debt, 54, 59, 64, 65;
his debt to Dante, 45;
his family, 12;
his favour from Henry IV., 66;
his freshness, 114;
at Greenwich, 62;
his house at Westminster, 72;
his last poems, 68;
his literary development, 137;
in London, 53;
loses Clerkship, 63;
loses Comptrollership, 58;
in love, 22;
his love of Nature, 112;
and Lynn, 15;
his marriage, 27;
optimistic, 10;
origin of name, 12;
his originality, 39, 45;
as page, 21;
in Parliament, 56;
his pathos, 246;
and Petrarch, 46, 48;
his philosophy, 70;
and Piers Plowman, 71;
his raptus, 54;
and religion, 44, 149, 309 ff.;
his retractation, 72;
robbed, 63;
as royal yeoman, 27, 31;
as squire, 32;
his times, 1;
his travels, 35, 40 ff., 51;
in war, 25;
his wide experiences, 74;
his wife's death, 59;
and wine, 79;
and women, 119;
his writings, 36, 56, 64;
and Wycliffe, 308
Chaucer, Elizabeth, 74
" John, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 193
" Lowys, 55, 64, 73
" Philippa, 27, 28, 29, 30, 59, 96, 101, 103, 104, 178
" Richard, 13
" Robert Malyn le, 12, 13
" Simon, 283, 284
" Thomas, 31, 73
Chaumpaigne, Cecilia, 54, 55
Chausier, Elizabeth, 74
Cheapside, 16, 81, 88, 89, 90
Child-marriages, 198, 204, 206, 207
Children beaten, 215
Chiltern Hills, 117
Chimneys, 86
Chivalry, decay of, 190;
golden age of, 189;
and marriage, 202;
theory of, 188
Church, buildings decayed, 297;
corruption of, 296;
talking in, 140
Churchman, John, 79
Clarence, Lionel of, 13, 21, 22, 48, 49, 52
Clergy, and hunting, 280, 281;
in Parliament, 7;
unpopular, 306, 308;
youth of, 299
Clerical, criminals, 288 ff.;
education, 300 ff.;
immunity, 288 ff.;
influence, decay of, 8 ff.;
morality, 156, 157, 159, 197, 281, 291, 296, 297, 298, 303
Clerkenwell, 264
Comfort, ideal of, 191, 192, 257
Compostella, 140, 141, 142
Compurgation, 289
Conscription, 234 ff.;
and liberty, 251, 253, 263;
and peace, 250
Constance, Duchess of Lancaster, 30
Contrasts, 176
Cornhill, 81, 107, 112, 291
Crécy, 232, 233, 238, 239, 240, 242
Crime and punishment, 283
Cripplegate, 77, 93, 94
Crusades, decay of, 190
D
Dancing, 108
Dartford, 154
Dartmouth, 133, 134
David, King of Scots, 17
Dennington, 13
Despenser, Bishop, 237
" Edward, 49
Dilapidation, 297
Divorce, 205
Douglas, Sir James, 238
Dovecotes, manorial, 196
Du Guesclin, Bertrand, 241, 242, 244
E
Eavesdroppers, 83
Edward I., 6, 77, 122, 194, 213, 234, 235, 290
" II., 179, 254, 297, 311
" III., 4, 6, 9, 10, 13, 14, 16, 25, 26, 27, 32, 33, 35, 38, 42,
53, 59, 70, 88, 122, 123, 126, 133, 172 ff., 191, 194, 197,
234, 235, 237, 238, 240 ff., 249, 263, 275, 292, 298;
bankrupt, 126;
his character, 173;
his court, 33;
his marriage, 178;
his Rhine journey, 13
England, growing wealth of, 126;
unsettled state, 67
English, commerce, 122 ff.;
democratic, 253;
fickleness of, 134;
language, 3 ff.;
language in Chaucer's poems, 74;
in war, 244, 254
Epping, 116
Exeter, 99, 182, 301
F
Fastolf, Sir John, 211, 212
Florence, 40, 42, 43, 48
Food of the poor, 268
Foreigners in England, 123
Forrester (Forster), Richard, 52, 94
Frederick II., Emperor, 190
Free-thought, 44, 125, 309 ff.
French and English nobles, 33;
language, decay of, 3 ff.
Friars, 294, 298;
and usury, 124
G
Games, 109, 272 ff., 275
Gascoigne, Chief Justice, 211, 212
Gaston, Count of Foix, 175, 209, 211
Gauger, William le, 15
Gaunt, John of, 13, 17, 22, 30, 37, 54, 59, 60, 73, 74, 96, 227, 264, 308
Genoa, 40, 42, 78, 122
Giffard, Bishop, 278, 299
Gisers, John, 16
Glass windows, 83
Gloucester, Thomas, Duke of, 60, 186, 187, 239
Gower, John, 52, 73, 117, 145
Gravesend, 80
Greenwich, 62, 64
H
Hampstead, 116
Harbledown, 169
Hatfield, William of, 184
Hawkwood, Sir John, 52, 242
Henry II., 235
" III., 72, 193
" IV., 4, 59, 66, 67, 68, 72, 73
" V., 73, 243, 278, 297
" VI., 311
Heriot, 260
Highgate, 116
Hoccleve, 73, 175
Holborn, 19, 115, 117
Holidays, 273
Holland, Sir Thomas, 248
Home life, 84, 96, 104, 218
Hornchurch, Prior of, 78
Hospitals, and bad meat, 132
I
Infidelity, 313
Inns, 139
Invasion of England threatened, 94
Ipswich, 12, 13
Irreverence, 140, 141, 157, 275, 276, 277 ff., 297, 298
Isabella, Queen, 21, 51, 178
Isle of Wight, 133
J
Jean de Saintré, 23, 223
John XXII., Pope, 206
John, King of France, 17, 32, 33, 41, 194, 197, 223
Justice, 282 ff.;
and money, 197, 200
K
Kent, John, 80
Knighthood, of boys, 212;
cheapening of, 193;
decay, 242;
imperfect, 252;
and trade, 194, 210, 211
Knightsbridge, 115
Knolles, Sir Robert, 265
L
La Rochelle, battle of, 133
Lancaster, Thomas of, 311
Langham, Bishop, 279
Laws and penalties, 129
Lisle, Lord, 198
Lollardy, popularity of, 306
London, its byelaws, 126;
citizens' furniture, 85;
city walls, 77;
its churches, 82;
and country, 114, 193;
its Custom House, 79;
gardens, 115;
gate dwellings, 93;
growth of, 121;
its houses, 82, 84;
and Lollardy, 307;
population of, 115;
power of, 135;
sanitation, 267;
sports, 275;
its streets, 81, 84, 88;
suburbs, 116;
view of, 145;
water, 128
London Bridge, 51, 145
Louis, St., 190, 191
Love, and chivalry, 217 ff.;
earthly and heavenly, 222;
in M. A., 22, 28 ff.
Ludgate, 93, 116
Lynn, 15, 17, 77, 80, 193, 238
M
Manslaughter, 292;
and punishment, 283
Marriage, ceremonies, 109;
of children, 198, 204, 206, 207;
and chivalry 202;
and the Church, 204;
and irreverence, 281;
laws lax, 206;
and love, 227;
and money, 195, 206, 209 ff., 227.
Massingham, John, 28
Mauny, Walter de, 175
May-day, 107
Mazelyner, John le, 15
Mercenary troops, 241
Mercer, 134
Merchants, tricks of, 125
Merchet, 260
Michael, St., Aldgate, 77
Mile End, 264
Militia, 240;
and liberty, 253
Money, power of, 99, 132, 191, 200, 258
Moorfields, 15, 18
Moorgate, 15
Morris, William, 29, 81
Mortuary, 260
Murder, 89
N
Nations at universities, 6
Nature in the Middle Ages, 104
Neville's Cross, 183, 238
Newcastle coal, 114
Newgate, 61, 93
Norfolk pilgrimages, 140
Northbrooke, Bishop, 184
Norwich, 48, 82, 129, 131, 236, 238, 265, 284
O
Oaths, 155, 163, 169
Ospringe, 167
Oxford, 6, 8, 84, 115, 274, 278, 300, 301
P
Paris, 83, 233, 300
Parliament, growth of, 7, 9, 132;
power of, 58
Paston, the family of, 229
Peasants' Revolt, 261 ff.
Peckham, Archbishop, 290
Percy, Sir Harry, 51
" Henry, 17
" Sir Thomas, 51
Perjury, 201
Perrers, Alice, 186
Petrarch, Francis, 48, 50, 166
Pevensey, 176
Philippa of Hainault, Queen, 13, 14, 33, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184,
185, 253;
description of, 181
Philippe de Valois, King of France, 174, 191, 235, 242, 243, 245
Philpot or Philipot, John, 134, 193
Picard, Sir Henry, 16, 17, 193
Piers, Bishop, 279
Pilgrimage, decay of, 138 ff., 171
Pillory, 131
Pisa, 43
Police, 251
Poor and rich, 257 ff.
Poore, Bishop, 277
Portsmouth, 133, 239
Priests and people, 260
Privacy, want of, 88
Processions, 88;
and bloodshed, 278
Punishment, corporal, 213 ff.;
public, 91
Purgation, 289
R
Ransoms, 198, 200, 233
Reims, 25
Rich and poor, 176, 254, 257 ff.
Richard II., 7, 17, 32, 34, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 60, 65, 66, 67, 73, 79,
88, 90, 135, 175, 187, 208, 209, 217, 255, 264, 266, 280, 308, 311
Rochester, 159
Roet, Katherine, 30
Rottingdean, 133
Rye, 133
S
Saint Mary Aldermary, 283
Sanctuary, 283 ff.
Scalby, John, 59
Scarborough, 134
Schools, 20
Scogan, Henry, 64, 68
Scrope, Archbishop, 311
" Stephen, 211, 212
Serfs, 259
Sluys, 10
Smithfield, 62, 88, 264
Somere, William, 73
Southampton, 249
Southwark, 19, 115
Stace, Thomas, 13
Stapledon, Bishop, 89, 299
Stepney, 116
Stodey, John de, 193
Stratford bread, 114
Strikers, clerical, 305
Strode, Ralph, 117, 118
Stury, Sir Richard, 26, 51, 62, 308
Sudbury, Archbishop, 90, 142
Swaffham, John de, 130
Swynford, Sir Thomas, 30
T
Tavern company, 92
Thoresby, Archbishop, 281
Thorpe, 142
Tottenham, 116
Tournaments, 88, 197;
forbidden, 243
Town and country, 115, 120
Trades' Unions, 270
Travel, dangers of, 41
Tyler, Wat, 19, 142, 145, 264, 265
U
Ulster, Countess of, 21, 27
University, 6, 8;
discipline, 300 ff.;
and sports, 274, 277, 280
Upton, John de, 283
" Robert de, 283
Urban VI., Pope, 70
Usury, 194
V
Vintry Ward, 15, 16
Violante Visconti, 48
W
Wager of Battle, 213, 282
Wages of workmen, 269
Walbrook, 15, 16
Walworth, 193
War, conscription and liberty, 133, 242, 246, 251, 253, 255;
the Hundred Years', 232;
losses in, 199;
private, 133;
ravage of, 246 ff.
Wardships, 195, 197, 211
Warham, Archbishop, 143
Wells, 87
Wenceslas, Emperor, 70
Westhale, Joan de, 13, 55
Westminster, 16, 32, 33, 57, 60, 63, 64, 88, 89, 115, 116, 184, 189
Winchelsea, 133, 239, 249
Windsor, 21, 53, 61, 62, 64, 96, 175, 176, 185
Women, beaten, 213;
emancipation of, 220;
life of, 107;
manners of, 109, 219 ff.
Woodstock. See _Gloucester_
Worcester, 289, 290
Wycliffe, 8, 10, 22, 306, 307, 308, 310;
and serfage, 262
Wykeham, William of, 274, 277
Y
York, 179, 184
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Jusserand, "Hist. Litt.," L. III., ch. i., and the Preface to his
"Vie Nomade"; also chap. xix. of Prof. Tout's volume in the "Political
Hist. of Engd." It is nearly one hundred and fifty years since Tyrwhitt
showed, by abundant quotations, the stages by which English fought its way
to final recognition as the national language.
[2] Froissart, ed. Luce, i., 359, 402. There was in 1444 a similar attempt
to keep up Latin and French among the Benedictine monks, since from
ignorance of one or the other language "they frequently fall into shame."
Reynerus, "De Antiq. Benedict," p. 129.
[3] "He chalenged in Englyssh tunge" ("Chronicles of London," ed.
Kingsford, p. 43, where the exact form of words used by Henry is recorded;
cf. Dymock's challenge, ibid., p. 49).
[4] It is difficult to go altogether with Prof. Skeat in his repudiation
of the sense commonly attached to this phrase (note on Prologue, i., 126).
Chaucer seems to say that the Prioress (_a_) knew French, but (_b_) only
French of Stratford, just as he explains that the parish clerk (_a_) could
dance, but (_b_) only after the School of Oxenford. For this Oxford
dancing, see Dr. Rashdall's "Universities of Europe," ii., 672.
[5] For the most interesting account of this fusion, see Jusserand, "Hist.
Litt.," p. 236. (Bk. III., ch. i.)
[6] "English Garner," 15th century, ed. A. W. Pollard, p. 240; J. R.
Green's "Short History," p. 291. "And one of them named Sheffield, a
mercer, came into a house and asked for meat, and especially he asked
after eggs; and the goodwife answered that she could speak no French, and
the merchant was angry, for he also could speak no French, but would have
had eggs, and she understood him not. And then at last another said, that
he would have 'eyren'; then the goodwife said that she understood him
well. Lo, what should a man in these days now write, eggs or eyren?"
[7] See the cases given in full by Thorold Rogers, "Oxford City
Documents," pp. 168, 170, 173, and H. Rashdall's "Universities of Europe,"
ii., 363, 369, 403.
[8] See the articles by Prof. Maitland and Mr. A. L. Smith in vol. ii. of
"Social England."
[9] Cf. Reynerus, "De Antiq. Benedict," pp. 107, 136, _425_, _468_, 595.
The pages in italics contain startling lists of defaulting abbeys and
priories.
[10] See Gower's "Vox Clamantis," Bk. III., c. 28, for a description of
the worldly aims of the 14th-century universities.
[11] It seems extremely probable, to say the least, that the poem of Piers
Plowman was by more than one hand; but, in any case, the authors were
contemporaries, and seem to have held very much the same views; so that it
is still possible for most purposes of historical argument to quote the
poem under the traditional name of Langland.
[12] Bartholomæus Anglicus (Steele, "Mediæval Lore," 1905), p. 86.
[13] Besant quotes accounts recording (_inter alia_) a gift of wine to the
"Chaucer" on the occasion of a mayoral procession, but apparently without
realizing its significance. ("Mediæval London," i., 303.)
[14] Mr. V. B. Redstone, in _Athenæum_, No. 4087, p. 233, and _East
Anglian Daily Times_, April 8, 1908, p. 5, col. 7. It is not my aim, in
this chapter, to trouble the reader with discussions of doubtful points,
but rather to present what is certainly known, or may safely be inferred
about Chaucer's life.
[15] At Wycombe, too, "every citizen from twelve years old could serve on
juries for the town business." Mrs. Green, "Town Life," i., 184. I shall
have occasion in the next chapter to note how early men began life in
those days.
[16] Pauli, "Pictures of Old England," chap. v.
[17] "Life Records," iv., 232. The industry of Mr. Walter Rye has
collected a large number of documentary notices which establish a probable
connection of some kind between Chaucer and Norfolk; but the evidence
seems insufficient as yet to prove Mr. Rye's thesis that the poet was born
at Lynn; and in default of such definite evidence, it is safer to presume
that he was born in the Thames Street house. (_Athenæum_, March 7, 1908;
cf. "Life Records," iii., 131.)
[18] At Rouen, Caudebec, and Gisors, for instance, are very exact
counterparts of the Walbrook, except that the overhanging houses are a
century or two later, and proportionately larger.
[19] The illustration on page 177 represents a similar royal banquet--the
celebrated Peacock Feast of Lynn. Robert Braunche, mayor, entertained
Edward there _circa_ 1350, and caused the event to be immortalized on his
funeral monument. Henry Picard himself was King's Butler at Lynn in 1350
(Rye, _l. c._).
[20] Fitzstephen, in Stow, p. 119.
[21] See "The Hanseatic Steelyard," in Pauli's "Pictures," chap. vi.
[22] "Oeuvres," ed. Buchon, vol. iii., pp. 479 ff.; cf. Lydgate's
account of his own schooldays, in "Babees Book," E.E.T.S., p. xliii.
[23] Prof. Hales, in "Dict. Nat. Biog."
[24] See the Queen's vow before the outbreak of the Hundred Years' War, in
Wright's "Political Poems," R.S., p. 23.
"Alors dit la reine: 'Je sais bien que piecha [il y a longtemps
Que suis grosse d'enfant, que mon corps sentit la,
Encore n'a t-il guère qu'en mon corps se tourna;
Et je voue et promets à Dieu qui me créa....
Que jamais fruit de moi de mon corps n'istera, [sortira
Si m'en aurez menée au pays par delà.'"
[25] "P. Plowman," B., x., 157, and xi., 402.
[26] "Chronicles of London," ed. Kingsford, p. 13.
[27] These sums should be multiplied by about fifteen to bring them into
terms of modern currency.
[28] The poet's grandmother was married at least thrice. Did he find hints
for the "Wife of Bath" in his own family?
[29] Quoted by Dr. Furnivall on p. xv. of his introduction to "Manners and
Meals" (E.E.T.S., 1868).
[30] This tunic would, no doubt, be a cote-hardie, or close-fitting bodice
and flowing skirt in one line from neck to feet; it may be seen, buttons
and all, on the statuette of Edward III.'s eldest daughter which adorns
his tomb in Westminster Abbey.
[31] "La Chevalerie," Nouvelle Edition, pp. 342, 345 ff.
[32] See the author's "From St. Francis to Dante," 2nd ed., pp. 350 ff.
[33] That tales like these were read before ladies appears even from
Bédier's judicial remarks in Petit de Juleville's "Hist. Litt.," vol. ii.,
p. 93; and I have shown elsewhere that these represent rather less than
the facts. ("From St. Francis to Dante," 2nd ed., pp. 358, 359.) For
girls' behaviour, see T. Wright's "Womankind in Western Europe," pp. 158,
159; "Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour," chap. 124 ff.; or "La Tour
Landry," E.E.T.S., pp. 2, 175 ff.
[34] "House of Fame," Bk. II., l. 108; "Troilus," Bk. III., l. 41; Prof.
Hales, in "Dict. Nat. Biog."
[35] "Life Records," IV., Doc. No. 286.
[36] "Dole," "ration."
[37] "Mess of great meat," _i.e._ from one of the staple dishes, excluding
such special dishes as would naturally be reserved for the King or his
guests.
[38] The legal tariff in the City of London at this time for shoes of
cordwain (Cordova morocco) was 6_d._, and for boots 3_s._ 6_d._ Cowhide
shoes were fixed at 5_d._, and boots at 3_s._ Riley, "Liber Albus," p. xc.
[39] This was exactly the commons of a chaplain of the King's chapel
("Life Records," ii., 15). The Dean of the Chapel was dignified with "two
darres of bread, one pitcher of wine, two messes de grosse from the
kitchen, and one mess of roast." Some of this, no doubt, would go to his
servant. All the King's household, from the High Steward downwards (who
might be a knight banneret), were allowed these messes from the kitchen as
well as their dinners in hall.
[40] "This same year [1359] the King held royally St. George Feast at
Windsor, there being King John of France, the which King John said in
scorn that he never saw so royal a feast, and so costly, made with tallies
of tree, without paying of gold and silver" ("Chronicles of London," ed.
1827, p. 63). Queen Philippa received for this tournament a dress
allowance of £3000 modern money (Nicolas, "Order of the Garter," p. 41).
[41] Froissart, ed. Luce, vol. v., p. 289, ff. Walsingham ("Hist. Ang.,"
an. 1389) bears equally emphatic testimony to the good natural feeling
existing between the English and French gentry.
[42] "Knight of La Tour-Landry," E.E.T.S., p. 30 (written in 1371-2).
[43] Eustache Deschamps, whose life and writings often throw so much light
on Chaucer's, shows us the difficulties of married men at court, and says
outright--
"Dix et sept ans ai au Satan servi
Au monde aussi et à la chair pourrie,
Oublié Dieu, et mon corps asservi
A cette cour, de tout vice nourrie."
(Sarradin, "Eustache Deschamps," pp. 92 ff., 104, 160.)
[44] Quoted by Nicolas from Rymer's "Foedera" new ed., iii., 964.
[45] E.E.T.S., "Stacions of Rome," etc., p. 37. (The whole English poem
describes a journey to Spain; but as yet the pilgrims are not out of the
Channel.)
[46] Froissart (Globe ed.), pp. 83, 134; "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 206, 213.
[47] Dante, "Purg.," iii., 49.
[48] Sarradin, "Deschamps," pp. 67, 69.
[49] "Hist. of Eng. Lit.," vol. ii., p. 57, trans. W. C. Robinson.
[50] "Cant. Tales," G., 57 ff. It will be noted how ill the phrase "son of
Eve" suits the Nun's mouth. In this, as in other cases, Chaucer simply
worked one of his earlier poems into the framework of the "Canterbury
Tales."
[51] See a correspondence in the _Athenæum_, Sept. 17 to Nov. 26, 1898
(Mr. C. H. Bromby and Mr. St. Clair Baddeley), and Mr. F. J. Mather's two
articles in "Modern Language Notes" (Baltimore), vol. xi., p. 210, and
vol. xii., p. 1.
[52] See Dr. Koch's paper in "Chaucer Society Essays," Pt. IV.
[53] Froissart's great poem of Méliador thus became anonymous for nearly
five centuries, and was only identified by the most romantic chance in our
own generation.--Darmesteter, "Froissart," chap. xiii.
[54] _Athenæum_, as above.
[55] Froissart, ed. Buchon, i. 546, 555; Darmesteter, p. 32.
[56] C. L. Kingsford, "Chronicles of London," p. 63.
[57] Chaucer Soc., "Life Records," iv., p. xxx.
[58] "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 357: Statutes of Parliament, Ric. II., an. 6,
c. 6. The preamble complains that such "malefactors and raptors of women
grow more violent, and are in these days more rife than ever in almost
every part of the kingdom," and it implies that married women were
sometimes so carried off. Cf. Jusserand, "Vie Nomade," p. 85, and "Piers
Plowman," B. iv., 47--
"Then came Peace into Parliament, and put forth a bill,
How wrong against his will had his wife taken,
And how he ravished Rose, Reginald's love," etc., etc.
[59] "Life Records," iv., p. xxxv.
[60] Riley, "Memorials," pp. 410, 445.
[61] Oman, "England, 1377-1485," p. 100.
[62] "Eulog. Hist.," iii. 359.
[63] Ibid., 360.
[64] That is, they contributed to maintain the Minster, and were admitted
to a share of the spiritual benefits earned by "all prayers, fastings,
pilgrimages, almsdeeds, and works of mercy" connected therewith. Edward
III., and at least three of his sons, were already of the fraternity of
Lincoln, and Richard II., with his queen, were admitted the year after
Philippa Chaucer.
[65] Riley, "Memorials," pp. 271, 285, 321. The Masons' regulations given
on p. 281 of the same book are interesting in connection with Chaucer's
work; but still more so are the documents in "York Fabric Rolls" (Surtees
Soc.), pp. 172, 181.
[66] "Life Records," iv. 282, 283.
[67] A well-to-do youth could be boarded at Oxford for 2_s._ a week, and
it was reckoned that the whole expenses of a Doctor of Divinity could be
defrayed for thrice that sum, or half Chaucer's salary. (Riley,
"Memorials," p. 379; Reynerus, "de Antiq. Benedict," pp. 200, 596.)
[68] A. 3907. "Lo Grenewych, ther many a shrewe is inne."
[69] "Little Lowys my son, I aperceive well by certain evidences thine
ability to learn sciences touching numbers and proportions; and as well
consider I thy busy prayer in special to learn the treatise of the
Astrelabie." Excusing himself for having omitted some problems ordinarily
found in such treatises, Chaucer says, "Some of them be too hard to thy
tender age of X. year to conceive."
[70] "Life Records," iv., Nos. 250, 270, 277. The great significance of
this fact is obscured even by such excellent authorities as Prof. Skeat,
Prof. Hales, and Mr. Pollard, who all follow Sir Harris Nicolas in
misinterpreting the last of these three documents. Chaucer had not lost,
as they represent, Henry's own letters patent of only five days before,
but Richard's patents for the yearly £20 and the tun of wine. It is quite
possible that Chaucer may have been obliged to leave them in pledge
somewhere, or that they were momentarily mislaid; but it is natural to
suspect that the poet would not so lightly have reported them as lost
unless it had been to his obvious interest to do so. We must remember the
trouble and expense constantly taken by public bodies, for instance, to
get their charters ratified by a new king.
[71] Globe ed., p. 464; Buchon, iii., 349.
[72] "Complaint to his Purse," last stanza.
[73] "Life Records," iv., p. xlv. In 1395 or 1396 Chaucer received £10
from the clerk of Henry's great wardrobe, to be paid into Henry's hands.
[74] Though the subject-matter of this poem is mainly taken from Boethius,
yet it evidently has the translator's hearty approval, and is in tune with
many more of his later verses.
[75] Michelet, "Hist. de France," Liv. VI., _ad fin._ A cardinal explained
the extreme violence of Urban VI.'s words and actions by the report "that
he could not avoid one of two things, lunacy or total collapse; for he
never ceased drinking, yet ate nothing." Baluze, "Vit. Pap. Aven.," vol.
i., col. 1270. Compare Walsingham's tone with regard to the Pope, "Hist.
Angl.," an. 1385.
[76] Chaucer's religious belief will be more fully discussed in Chapter
XXIV.
[77] W. R. Lethaby, "Westminster Abbey," 1906, p. 2.
[78] Stow (Routledge, 1893, p. 414) seems to imply that the poet was first
buried in the cloister, but this is an obvious error. Dr. Furnivall has
pointed out a line of Hoccleve's which certainly seems to imply that the
younger poet was present at his master Chaucer's death-bed. We may also
gather from Hoccleve's account of his own youth many glimpses which tend
to throw interesting sidelights on that of Chaucer (Hoccleve's Works,
E.E.T.S., vol. i., pp. xii., xxxi.).
[79] This was occasionally the case even in Normandy until the English
invasion. The great city of Caen, for instance, was still unwalled in
1346. ("Froissart," ed. Buchon, p. 223.) A piece of London Wall may still
be found near the Tower at the bottom of a small passage called Trinity
Place, leading out of Trinity Square. It rises about twenty-five feet from
the present ground-level.
[80] Riley, "Memorials," p. 79. This was in 1310.
[81] See pp. 50, 59, 79, 95, 115, 127, 136, 377, 387, 388, 489. My
frequent references to this book will be simply to the name of Riley.
[82] Ed. Morley, pp. 154-157.
[83] Riley, p. 270.
[84] From his first Italian journey Chaucer returned on May 23, 1373; but
his second was during the summer and early autumn of 1378. (May 28 to
Sept. 19.)
[85] "Cant. Tales," Prol. i., 400.
[86] Walsingham, "Hist. Angl.," an. 1406, _ad fin._
[87] "P. Plowman," B. Prol., 216. The French words in italics were the
first line of a popular song. Gower has an equally picturesque description
in his "Mirour de l'Omme," 25,285 ff.
[88] "London was, in very truth, a city of Palaces. There were, in London
itself, more palaces than in Venice and Florence and Verona and Genoa all
together." "Medieval London," i., 244, where the context shows that the
author refers not only to royal residences, but still more to noblemen's
houses.
[89] This was at least the theoretical provision of the regulation of
1189, known as Fitz Alwyne's Assize, which is fully summarized and
annotated in the "Liber Albus," ed. Riley (R.S.), pp. xxx. ff. We know,
however, that similar decrees against roofs of thatch or wooden shingles
were not always obeyed.
[90] "Menagier de Paris," i., 173; Addy, "Evolution of English House," p.
108; cf. "Piers Plowman's Creed," i., 214.
[91] An earthen wall is mentioned in Riley, p. 30. The slight structure of
the ordinary house appears from the fact that the rioters of 1381 tore so
many down, and that the great storm of 1362 unroofed them wholesale.
(Walsingham, an. 1381, and Riley, p. 308.) Compare the hook with wooden
handle and two ropes which was kept in each ward for the pulling down of
burning houses. ("Liber Albus," p. xxxiv.)
[92] Cooper, "Annals of Cambridge," an. 1445; Rashdall, "Universities of
Europe," ii., 413. Cf. the "common nightwalkers" and "roarers" in Riley,
pp. 86 ff.
[93] Riley, p. 65. See the specifications for some three-storied houses of
a century later quoted by Besant. "Medieval London," i., 250. The furs
here specified may well have come to £3 or £4 more (see Rogers,
"Agriculture and Prices," pp. 536 ff.). The fur for an Oxford warden's
gown varied from 26_s._ 8_d._ to 83_s._
[94] Besant, _loc. cit._, i., 257, mistakenly calls Hugh a "craftsman,"
and gives from his imagination a quite untrustworthy description of the
inquest, the house, and the shop. He had evidently not seen the
supplementary notice in Sharpe's "Letter Book," F.
[95] Riley, p. 199; cf. Sharpe, "Letter Books," F, pp. 19, 113. A list of
furniture left by a richer citizen, apparently incomplete, is given in
Riley, p. 123, and another on p. 283, but this is difficult to separate
with certainty from his stock-in-trade. The inventory of a well-to-do
Norman peasant-farmer is given by S. Luce, "Du Guesclin," p. 51. Here the
strictly domestic items are only "four frying-pans, two metal pots, four
chests, three caskets, two feather-beds, three tables, a bedstead, an iron
shovel, a gridiron, a [trough?], and a lantern." This was in 1333.
[96] Addy, "Evolution of English House," pp. 112 ff. "A chamber with a
chimney" was the acme of medieval comfort. "P. Plowman," B., x., p. 98,
and "Crede," 209.
[97] "Oeuvres," ed. Buchon, p. 646. A century later, Thomas Elwood's
Memoirs show that an English squire's family needed their warm caps as
much indoors as outside.
[98] Cf. the affair in the hall of Wolsingham Rectory in 1370. Raine,
"Auckland Castle," p. 38.
[99] A. F. Leach, "English Schools before the Reformation," p. 10; "Dame
Alice Kyteler" (Camden Soc.), introd., p. xxxix. The choir-boys, it may be
noted in passing, had only half an hour of playtime daily.
[100] It is interesting to note that, when Chaucer was Clerk of the Works
to Richard II., he superintended the erection of scaffolds for the King
and Queen on the occasion of one of these Smithfield tournaments.
[101] "French Chron. of London" (Camden Soc.), p. 52; cf. Walsingham, an.
1326.
[102] "C. T.," B., 645.
[103] "Chronicles of London," ed. Kingsford, p. 15.
[104] Walsingham, an. 1381.
[105] "C. T.," B., 4583.
[106] "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 387.
[107] Walsingham, an. 1382; Riley, p. 464.
[108] "P. Plowman," C., vii., 352 ff. For Clarice and Peronel, see Prof.
Skeat's notes, _ad loc._, and cf. Riley, pp. 484, 566, and note 3.
[109] Newgate, Ludgate, and Cripplegate were regular prisons at this time;
but Besant is quite mistaken in saying that all gate-leases provide "that
they may be taken over as prisons if they are wanted" ("Medieval London,"
i., 163). A Cripplegate lease (Riley, p. 387) has naturally such a
provision; the others are silent or (like Chaucer's) definitely promise
the contrary.
[110] P. 489; cf. "Life Records," IV., xxxiv. Michaelmas Day fell in 1386
on a Saturday.
[111] Bk. II., lines 122 ff.
[112] Darmesteter, "Froissart," p. 112.
[113] Riley, pp. 194, 285, 338; cf. Mr. W. Hudson's "Parish of St. Peter
Permountergate" (Norwich, 1889), pp. 21, 45, 60.
[114] Cf. the present writer's "From St. Francis to Dante," 2nd ed., pp.
6, 160, 167, 380, where proof is adduced from episcopal registers that
even large and rich monasteries had often no scriptorium, and many monks
could not write their own names.
[115] "Town Life," ii., 84.
[116] Riley, p. 226. Cf. the similar complaint of a poet against
blacksmiths in "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," i., 240.
[117] Nominally, the great gate was shut at the hour of sunset, and only
the wicket-gate left open till curfew; but regulations of this kind were
generally interpreted with a good deal of laxity.
[118] Busch, "Lib. Ref.," p. 408; Gilleberti Abbatis, "Tract. Ascet.,"
VII., ii., § 3.
[119] See Oskar Dolch, "The Love of Nature in Early English Poetry;"
Dresden, 1882.
[120] "Purg.," xxvi., 4; viii., 1; iii., 25; cf. xvii., 8, 12.
[121] "Legend of Good Women," Prol., 30 ff.
[122] "Survey," ed. Morley, 1893, p. 163.
[123] "Monsieur le curé, ... ne dansons pas; mais permettons à ces pauvres
gens de danser. Pourquoi les empêcher d'oublier un moment qu'ils sont
malheureux?"
[124] Riley, 571. I have dealt fully with this subject in my "Medieval
Studies," Nos. 3 and 4.
[125] "Babees Book," E.E.T.S., p. 40; "Ménagier de Paris," i., 15; "C.
T.," C., 62.
[126] Sharpe's "Letter Book" G., pp. 274, 303; Riley, pp. 269, 534, 561,
571, 669. In the country, "hocking" was often resorted to for raising
church funds. See Sir John Phear's "Molland Accounts" (Devonshire Assn.,
1903), pp. 198 ff.
[127] Cf. "C. T.," E., 2029; F., 908; "Parl. Foules," 121. For his
personal love of trees, etc., see "C. T.," A., 2920; "Parl. Foules," 175,
201, 442.
[128] Cf. Riley, pp. 7, 116, 228, 280, 382, 487, 498.
[129] "Herbarium," green and shady spot.
[130] Riley, 388, and _passim_.
[131] "Aetas Prima," l. 23 ff.
[132] Loftie, p. 26.
[133] "Letter Book," G., pp. iii. ff., where there is a very interesting
case of a Florentine merchant.
[134] It is easy to understand how Jews themselves came back to England
under the guise of Lombards. We know enough, from many other sources, of
the evils which followed from the inconsistent efforts to outlaw all
takers of interest, to appreciate the truth which underlay the obvious
exaggerations of the Commons in their petition to the King in 1376. "There
are in our land a very great multitude of Lombards, both brokers and
merchants, who serve no purpose but that of ill-doing: moreover, several
of those which pass for Lombards are Jews and Saracens and privy spies;
and of late they have brought into our land a most grievous vice which it
beseems us not to name" ("Rot. Parl.," vol. ii., p. 352, § 58).
[135] Benvenuto da Imola, "Comentum," vol. i., p. 579; Etienne de Bourbon,
p. 254; Nicole Bozon, pp. 35, 226; "Piers Plowman," B., iii., 38; cf.
Gower, "Mirour," 21409.
[136] "Mirour," 25429 ff., 25237 ff., 25915. Mr. Macaulay remarks that
Gower seems to deal more tenderly with his own merchant-class than with
other classes of society; but his blame, even with this allowance, is
severe.
[137] "Mirour," 25813. The emphasis which he lays on carpets and curtains
shows how great a luxury they were then considered.
[138] "In justice, however, to these centuries, it must be remarked, that
they received the institutions of Frankpledge as an inheritance from Saxon
times" (Riley).
[139] "To these writs return was made [in 1354] to the effect that the
civic authorities had given orders for butchers to carry the entrails of
slaughtered beasts to the Flete and there clean them in the tidal waters
of the Thames, instead of throwing them on the pavement by the house of
the Grey Friars." Again: "Although this order [of 1369] was carried out
and the bridge destroyed, butchers continued to carry offal from the
shambles to the riverside; and this nuisance had to be suppressed in
1370." But the whole passage should be read in full.
[140] Vol. I., cxxxviii. ff. and 365 ff.
[141] Mrs. Green, "Town Life," ii., 55.
[142] Between 1347 and 1375, for instance, there are only 23 cases of
pillory in all.
[143] It is pertinent to note in this connection the medieval custom of
giving condemned meat to hospitals. Mr. Wheatley ("London," p. 196) quotes
from a Scottish Act of Parliament in 1386, "Gif ony man brings to the
market corrupt swine or salmond to be sauld, they sall be taken by the
bailie, and incontinent, without ony question, sall be sent to the leper
folke; and, gif there be na lepper folke, they sall be destroyed all
utterlie." At Oxford in the 15th century, there was a similar regulation
providing that putrid or unfit meat and fish should be sent to St. John's
Hospital. ("Munimenta Academica" (R.S.), pp. 51, 52). Here is a probable
clue to the tradition that medieval apprentices struck against salmon more
than twice a week. See _Athenæum_, August 27 and September 3, 1898.
[144] Besant insists very justly on the blood-kinship between the leading
citizens and the country gentry. ("Medieval London," i., 218 ff.) He shows
that a very large majority of Mayors, Aldermen, etc., were country-born,
and of good family.
[145] Michelet, "Hist. de France," l. i., ch. i.
[146] John Philpot, it may be noted, was at this very time one of the
Collectors of Customs under Chaucer's Comptrollership.
[147] "C. T.," E., 995.
[148] The violent scenes of the years 1381-1391 are summarized in
Wheatley's "London" (Medieval Towns), pp. 236-9. Among the victims of an
unsuccessful cause were even Sir William Walworth and Sir John Philpot.
[149] Walsingham, an. 1392; "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 368.
[150] Ed. Luce, vol. i., pp. 224, 243, 249.
[151] Cf. Mrs. Green, _loc. cit._, ii., 31. "In 1499 a glover from
Leighton Buzzard travelled with his wares to Aylesbury for the market
before Christmas Day. It happened that an Aylesbury miller, Richard Boose,
finding that his mill needed repairs, sent a couple of servants to dig
clay 'called Ramming clay' for him on the highway, and was in no way
dismayed because the digging of this clay made a great pit in the middle
of the road ten feet wide, eight feet broad, and eight feet deep, which
was quickly filled with water by the winter rains. But the unhappy glover,
making his way from the town in the dusk, with his horse laden with
panniers full of gloves, straightway fell into the pit, and man and horse
were drowned. The miller was charged with his death, but was acquitted by
the court on the ground that he had had no malicious intent, and had only
dug the pit to repair his mill, and because he really did not know of any
other place to get the kind of clay he wanted save the highroad."
[152] Etienne de Bourbon, p. 411.
[153] T. Wright, "Homes of other Days," pp. 345 ff., whence I borrow the
accompanying illustration from a MS. of the 15th century, representing the
outside and inside of an inn. Incidentally, it illustrates also the common
medieval phrase "naked in bed." Mrs. Green ("Town Life," ii., 33) quotes
the grateful entry of a citizen in his public accounts "Paid for our bed
there (and it was well worth it, witness, a featherbed) 1_d._"
[154] There were _seventy_ places of pilgrimage in Norfolk alone (Cutts,
"Middle Ages," p. 162). For churches as trysting-places for lovers or
gossips we have evidence on many sides, _e.g._ the lovers of the
"Decameron" (Prologue and Epilogue), and the custom of "Paul's Walk" which
lasted long after the Reformation.
[155] Berthold v. Regensburg, "Predigten," ed. Pfeiffer, i., 448, 459,
493; Et. de Bourbon, p. 167; "Piers Plowman," B., v., 527, C., v., 123;
Wharton, "Anglia Sacra," i., 49, 50.
[156] "Wyclif's Works," ed. Arnold, i., 83; cf. other quotations in
Lechler; "Wiclif," Section x., notes 286, 288; Jusserand, "Vie Nomade," p.
296; Foxe (Parker Soc.), vol. iii., p. 268.
[157] Chaucer himself tells us the day in the "Man of Lawe's Prologue";
Prof. Skeat has accumulated highly probable evidence for the year 1387
(vol. iii., p. 373, and vol. v., p. 75).
[158] About 520 feet from the ground, according to Hollar, but more
probably a little short of 500 feet. (H. B. Wheatley, "London," p. 333.)
It must be remembered also how high the cathedral site rises above the
river.
[159] Bern. Ep. 25; cf. "Liber Guillelmi Majoris," p. 478.
[160] Skeat, v., p. 129. "In the subsidy Rolls (1380-1) for Southwark,
occurs the entry 'Henri Bayliff, Ostyler ... 2_s._' In the Parliament held
at Westminster (1376-7) Henry Bailly was one of the representatives for
that borough, and again, in the Parliament at Gloucester, 2, Rich. II.,
the name occurs."
[161] The too strict avoidance of oaths had long been authoritatively
noted as suggesting a presumption of heresy; here (as in so many other
places) Chaucer admirably illustrates formal and official documents.
[162] About £1000 in modern money.
[163] "Its unsuitableness to the Clerk has often been noticed," writes Mr.
Pollard; but surely those who find fault here have forgotten the obvious
truth voiced by the Wife of Bath, "For trust ye well, it is impossible
that any clerk will speakë good of wives."
[164] This highly dramatic addition of the Canon and his Yeoman is
probably an afterthought of Chaucer's, who had very likely himself
suffered at the hands of some such impostor.
[165] There is, as Prof. Skeat points out, an inconsistency here in the
text. We can see from Group H., l. 16 that Chaucer had at one time meant
the Manciple's tale to be told in the morning; yet now when it is ended he
tells us plainly that it is four in the afternoon (Group I., 5).
[166] An allusion to the alliterative verse popular among the common folk,
like that of "Piers Plowman."
[167] It was mostly destroyed by fire in 1865. Most writers on Canterbury,
misled by the ancient spelling, call the inn "Chequers of the Hope."
_Hope_, as Prof. Skeat has long ago pointed out, is simply _Hoop_, a part
of the inn sign. Cf. Riley, "Memorials of London," pp. 497, 524; and
"Hist. MSS. Commission," Report v., pt. i., p. 448.
[168] Mrs. Green, "Town Life," ii., 33.
[169] A. Murimuth, ed. Hog., p. 225.
[170] Walsingham, an. 1349; Hoccleve, E.E.T.S., vol. iii., p. 93.
[171] Ed. Buchon, i., 286; ed. Luce, iv., 327.
[172] Longman, "Edward III.," i., 225, 413.
[173] Longman, "Edward III.," vol. i., pp. 147, 157, 178.
[174] Ed. Buchon, i., 12, 34; ed. Luce, i., 284-287.
[175] Cf. Darmesteter, "Froissart," p. 16, and Froissart, ed. Buchon, p.
512. "The good queen Philippa was in my youth my queen and sovereign. I
was five years at the court of the King and Queen of England. In my youth
I was her clerk, serving her with fair ditties and treatises of love; and,
for the love of the noble and worthy lady my mistress, all other great
lords--king, dukes, earls, barons and knights, of whatsoever country they
might be--loved me and saw me gladly and gave me much profit."
[176] I cannot refrain here from calling attention to the extraordinary
historical value of the eight volumes of Exeter registers published by
Prebendary Hingeston-Randolph, who in this department has done more for
historical students, during the last twenty-five years, than all the
learned societies of the kingdom put together.
[177] Ed. 1812, p. 317. The text of this book is frequently corrupt; but
the evident sense of these ungrammatical lines 3-5 is that the envoys were
allowed to watch the unsuspecting damsels from some hidden coign of
vantage. It will be noted that Hardyng speaks of _five_ daughters; there
had been five, but the eldest was now dead.
[178] Ed. 1841, p. 206. She was Katherine, daughter to Sir Adam Banastre.
Miss Strickland asserts that the Queen, contrary to the custom of medieval
ladies in high life, nursed the infant herself. She gives no reference,
and her authority is possibly Joshua Barnes's "Life of Edward III."
(1688), p. 44, where, however, references are again withheld. The Black
Prince was born June 15, 1330, when the King would have been 19 and the
Queen just on 16 years old according to Froissart; but Edward was in fact
only 17, and Bishop Stapledon's reckoning would make the Queen about the
same age.
[179] Throughout this chapter I multiply the ancient money by fifteen, to
bring it to modern value.
[180] Such acts of vandalism were far more common in the Middle Ages than
is generally imagined; a good many instances are noted in the index of my
"From St. Francis to Dante."
[181] Devon, "Issues of the Exchequer," pp. 144, 153, 155, 199; "York
Fabric Rolls," p. 125; cf. 154. It was one of the privileges of the
Archbishops of York to crown the Queen. For the mortuary system, see my
"Priests and People in Medieval England." (Simpkins. 1_s._)
[182] Clough, "Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich."
[183] "Mon. Germ. Scriptt.," xxxii., 444.
[184] "Mirour," 23893 ff.
[185] Lénient, "Satire en France" (1859), p. 202.
[186] Sacchetti, "Novelle," cliii.; Ste-Palaye, "Chevalerie," ii., 80.
[187] Mr. Rye (_l. c._) points out how frequent was the interchange
between London and Lynn. Another colleague of John Chaucer's, John de
Stodey, Mayor and Sheriff of London, had been formerly a taverner at Lynn.
[188] "Mirour," 7225: Cf. "Piers Plowman," C., vii., 248. Readers of
Chaucer's "Prologue" will remember this mysterious word "chevisance" in
connection with the Merchant. Its proper meaning was simply _bargain_: the
slang sense will be best understood from a Royal ordinance of 1365 against
those who lived by usury; "which kind of contract, the more subtly to
deceive the people, they call _exchange_, or _chevisance_."
[189] "Vie Nomade," pp. 33, 46.
[190] These were, of course, fines for breaches of the assize of ale, as
in the Norwich cases already mentioned.
[191] In 1347 his total income was £2460, out of which he saved £1150. In
the two other years given by Smyth he saved £659 and £977. Some knights
even made a living by pot-hunting at tournaments. See Ch.-V. Langlois, "La
Vie en France au M. A.," 1908, p. 163.
[192] Cf. a similar instance in Riley, p. 392.
[193] The Shillingford Letters show us the Bishop and Canons of Exeter
selling wine in the same way at their own houses (p. 91).
[194] Oman, "Art of War in the Middle Ages," 380 ff.
[195] Buchon, i., 349, 431; Globe, 349.
[196] "Mirour," 24625. Cf. the corresponding passage in the "Vox
Clamantis," Bk. VI. According to Hoccleve, "Law is nye flemëd [= banished]
out of this cuntre;" it is a web which catches the small flys and gnats,
but lets the great flies go (_Works_, E.E.T.S., iii., 101 ff.).
[197] Walsingham, an. 1381. The evil repute of jurors is fully explained
by Gower, "Mirour," 25033. According to him, perjury had become almost a
recognized profession.
[198] Gautier, _loc. cit._, p. 352.
[199] Lyndwood, "Provinciale," ed. Oxon., p. 272.
[200] "Piers Plowman," B., xv., 237, and xx., 137.
[201] Pollock and Maitland, "History of English Law," vol. i., p. 387;
Lyndwood, "Provinciale," pp. 271 ff. It is the more necessary to insist on
this, because of a serious error, based on a misreading of Bishop Quivil's
injunctions. The bishop does, indeed, proclaim his right and duty of
_punishing_ the parties to a clandestine marriage; but, so far from flying
in the face of Canon Law by threatening to _dissolve_ the contract, he
expressly admits, in the same breath, its binding force.--Wilkins, ii.,
135.
[202] Wilkins, "Concilia," i., 478.
[203] Froissart, Buchon, iii., 235, 258.
[204] "Piers Plowman," C., xi., 256. Gower speaks still more strongly, if
possible, "Mirour," 17245 ff. Chaucer's friend Hoccleve makes the same
complaint (E.E.T.S., vol. iii., p. 60), and these practices outlasted the
Reformation. The curious reader should consult Dr. Furnivall's "Child
Marriages and Divorces" (E.E.T.S., 1897).
[205] "Adam of Usk," p. 3; cf. "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 355 (where the price
is given as 22,000 marks), and 237, where the negotiations for another
Royal marriage are described with equally brutal frankness.
[206] Froissart, Buchon, ii., 758.
[207] "Paston Letters," 1901, Introd., p. clxxvi.; cf. for example,
Thorold Rogers' "Hist. of Ag. and Prices," ii., 608. "Megge, the daughter
of John, son of Utting," pays only 1_s._ for her marriage; but "Alice's
daughter" pays 6_s._ 8_d._; and so on to "Will, the son of John," and
"Roger, the Reeve," who each pay 20_s._ That is, it was possible for the
lord of the manor to squeeze £20 in modern money out of a single peasant
marriage.
[208] Sarradin, "Deschamps," p. 256.
[209] Riley, p. 379. It must, however, be remembered that the ordinary
rate of interest then was twenty per cent. Thus Robert de Brynkeleye
receives the wardship of Thomas atte Boure, who had a patrimony of £300
(14th-century standard). With this Robert trades, paying his twenty per
cent. for the use of it, so that he has to account for £1080 at the heir's
majority. Of this he takes £120 for keep and out-of-pocket expenses, and
£390 for his trouble, so that the ward receives £570. The Royal Household
Ordinances of Edward II.'s reign provide for the maintenance of wards
until "they have their lands, or the king have given _or sold_
them."--"Life Records," ii., p. 19.
[210] Ste-Palaye, _loc. cit._, i., 64 ff.; ii., 90. This rule of age, like
all others, had, however, been broken from the first. As early as 1060,
Geoffrey of Anjou knighted his nephew Fulk at the age of 17; and such
incidents are common in epics. Princes of the blood were knighted in their
cradles.
[211] Walsingham, ann. 1307, 1381; "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 189, 389. The
woman avoided the battle only by withdrawing her accusation.
[212] Gower, "Mirour," 17521.
[213] "Prediche Volgari," ii., 115, and iii., 176.
[214] I quote from the 15th-century English translation published by the
E.E.T.S. (pp. 25, 27, 81; cf. 23, 95; the square bracket is transferred
from p. 23). Between 1484 and 1538 there were at least eight editions
printed in French, English, and German.
[215] Rashdall, "Universities of Europe," ii., 599.
[216] Pp. 8, 18, 33, 36, 156, 207, 217, 218, and _passim_.
[217] "Most of the girls in our 'Chansons de Geste' are represented by our
poets as horrible little monsters, ... shameless, worse than impudent,
caring little whether the whole world watches them, and obeying at all
hazards the mere brutality of their instincts. Their forwardness is not
only beyond all conception, but contrary to all probability and all
sincere observation of human nature." Gautier, _l. c._, p. 378.
[218] There is a very interesting essay on "Chaucer's Love Poetry" in the
_Cornhill_, vol. xxxv., p. 280. It is, however, a good deal spoiled by the
author's inclusion of many works once attributed to the poet, but now
known to be spurious.
[219] Bk. IV., ll. 152, 158, 367, 519, 554, 564.
[220] "Paston Letters" (ed. Gairdner, 1900), ii., 364; iv., ccxc.
[221] Few tales illustrate more clearly the woman's duty of accepting any
knight who made himself sufficiently miserable about her, than that of
Boccaccio, which Dryden has so finely versified under the name of Theodore
and Honoria. Equally significant is one of the "Gesta Romanorum" (ed.
Swan., No. XXVIII.).
[222] Quoted by S. Luce, "Bertrand du Guesclin," 1882, p. 124.
[223] The essentially compulsory foundation of Edward III.'s armies, for
at least a great part of his reign, seems to have been overlooked even by
Prof. Oman in his valuable "Art of War in the Middle Ages."
[224] Froissart, ed. Luce, i., 401. It was at this time that Edward also
proclaimed the duty of teaching French for military purposes, as noted in
Chap. I. of this book.
[225] "Norwich Militia in the 14th Century" (Norfolk and Norwich Arch.
Soc.), vol. xiv., p. 263.
[226] Knighton (R.S.), ii., 42, 44, 109.
[227] The Scots themselves had found out long before this who were their
most formidable enemies. Sir James Douglas had been accustomed to cut off
the right hand or put out the right eye of any archer whom he could catch.
[228] Compare the interesting case in Gross, "Office of Coroner," p. 74.
Two conscripts, on their way to join the army, chanced to meet at Cold
Ashby the constable who was responsible for their being selected; they ran
him through with a lance and then took sanctuary. It is significant that
they were not hanged, but carried off to the army; the King needed every
stout arm he could muster.
[229] Tournaments not infrequently gave rise to treacherous murders and
vendettas, as in the case of Sir Walter Mauny's father (Froissart,
Buchon., i., 199). Compare also the scandal caused by the women who used
to attend them in men's clothes (Knighton, ii., p. 57). Luce, however,
very much overstates the Royal objections to jousts (pp. 113, 141). He
evidently fails to realize what a large number of authorized tourneys were
held by Edward III.
[230] Froissart, Globe, 94-97.
[231] Denifle, "La Désolation des Eglises," etc., vol. i., pp. 497, 504,
514. Two pages from English chroniclers are almost as bad as any of the
iniquities printed in Father Denifle's book, viz. the sack of Winchelsea
(Knighton, ii., 109) and Sir John Arundel's shipload of nuns from
Southampton (Walsingham, an. 1379; told briefly in "Social England," illd.
ed., vol. ii. p. 260).
[232] Cf. Knighton, ii., 102.
[233] Green, "Town Life," i., 130. "At the close of the 14th century a
certain knight, Baldwin of Radington, with the help of John of Stanley,
raised eight hundred fighting men 'to destroy and hurt the commons of
Chester'; and these stalwart warriors broke into the abbey, seized the
wine, and dashed the furniture in pieces, and when the mayor and sheriff
came to the rescue nearly killed the sheriff. When in 1441 the Archbishop
of York determined to fight for his privileges in Ripon Fair, he engaged
two hundred men-at-arms from Scotland and the Marches at sixpence or a
shilling a day, while a Yorkshire gentleman, Sir John Plumpton, gathered
seven hundred men; and at the battle that ensued, more than a thousand
arrows were discharged by them."
[234] Ed. Luce, i., 213, 214; cf. 312.
[235] Mrs. Green, _l. c._, i., 131.
[236] This point is treated more fully in the next chapter.
[237] Denifle, _l. c._, pp. 497, 504.
[238] "More than three thousand men, women, and children were beheaded
that day. God have mercy on their souls, for I trow they were martyrs."
Froissart (Globe), 201.
[239] Ed. Luce, pp. 214, 249, 337.
[240] Trevelyan, "England in the Age of Wycliffe," 1st Edn., p. 195.
[241] "Conseil" (in Appendix to Ducange's "Joinville"), chap. xxi., art.
8. The writer insists strongly, at the same time, on the lord's
responsibility to God for his treatment of a creature so helpless.
[242] C., iii., 177. For the Reeve's duties, see Smyth, "Berkeleys," vol.
ii., pp. 5, 22.
[243] "Those who demand such mortuaries are like worms preying on a
corpse" (Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, quoted in Lecoy de La Marche, "Chaire
Française," p. 388). Having already, in my "Medieval Studies" and my
"Priests and People," dealt more fully with this and several points
occurring in the succeeding chapters, I can often dispense with further
references here.
[244] This is admirably discussed by Mr. Corbett in chap. vii. of "Social
England."
[245] Froissart, Buchon, ii., 150. Leadam, "Star Chamber" (Selden Soc.),
p. cxxviii. Trevelyan, _l. c._, p. 185.
[246] Vitry, "Exempla," pp. 62, 64; "P. P.," A., iv., 34 (cf. Lecoy., _l.
c._, 387); Jusserand, "Epopée Mystique," 114; and "Vie Nomade," 81, 261,
269.
[247] Walsingham, an. 1381; cf. the record in Powell, "Rising in East
Anglia," p. 130. The rioters compelled the constable of the hundred of
Hoxne to contribute ten conscripted archers to their party.
[248] It must be remembered that the loyal soldiers also had shown in this
matter a pusillanimity which contrasted remarkably with their behaviour in
the French wars; Walsingham notes this with great astonishment. The
quotations are from the "Chronicle of St. Mary's, York," in Oman, Appendix
V., pp. 188-200.
[249] An. 1381; cf. "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 353. The original of both these
descriptions seems to be Gower, "Vox Clam." i., 853 ff.
[250] _L. c._, p. 255.
[251] The first general Sanitation Act for England was that of the
Parliament held at Cambridge in 1388, and is generally ascribed to the
filth of that ancient borough.
[252] "Chronicles of London" (4to., 1827), p. 65. "Eulog. Hist." iii.,
353.
[253] C., ix., 304; B., v., 549. It will be noted how nearly this diet
accords with that of the widow and her daughter in Chaucer's "Nuns'
Priest's Tale"; cf. Langlois, "La Vie en France au M-A.," p. 122.
[254] "Rot. Parl." ii., 340.
[255] _L. c._, C., ix., 331.
[256] _L. c._, C., x., 71 ff. "Papelots" = porridge; "ruel" = bedside;
"woneth" = dwell; "witterly" = surely; "and fele to fong," etc. = "and
many [children] to clutch at the few pence they earn; under those
circumstances, bread and small beer is held an unusual luxury." "Pittance"
is a monastic word, meaning extra food beyond the daily fare.
[257] An Act of 1495 provided that "from the middle of March to the middle
of September work was to go on from 5 a.m. till between 7 and 8 p.m., with
half an hour for breakfast, and an hour and a half for dinner and for the
midday sleep. In winter work was to be during daylight. These legal
ordinances were not perhaps always kept, but they at least show the
standard at which employers aimed" ("Social England," vol. ii., chap.
vii.).
[258] Bishop Grosseteste asserted that honest labour on holy days would be
far less sinful than the sports which often took their place. "Epp."
(R.S.), p. 74.
[259] "La France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans" (1890), 95 ff. The essay
describes a state of things very similar to what we may gather from
English records.
[260] "Universities of Europe," ii., 669 ff.
[261] Cooper, "Annals of Cambridge," an. 1410; "Munim. Acad." (R.S.), 602;
Riley, 571; Strutt (1898), p. 49.
[262] "Shillingford Letters," p. 101. _Queke_ was probably a kind of
hopscotch, and _penny-prick_ a tossing game; both enjoyed an evil repute,
according to Strutt.
[263] "Rot. Parl." ii., 64; Myrc., E.E.T.S., i., 334.
[264] "Northumberland Assize Rolls," p. 323. There is another fatal
wrestling-bout in the same roll (p. 348), another in the similar Norfolk
roll analysed by Mr. Walter Rye in the _Archæological Review_ (1888), and
another exactly answering to John and Willie's case in Prof. Maitland's
"Crown Pleas for the County of Gloucester," No. 452.
[265] "C. T.," A., 3328. Etienne de Bourbon has no doubt that "the Devil
invented dancing, and is governor and procurator of dancers"; and he
explains the popular proverb, that God's thunderbolt falls oftener on the
church than on the tavern, by the notorious profanations to which churches
were subjected. ("Anecdotes," pp. 269, 397.)
[266] _L. c._ ii., 672.
[267] Wilkins, "Concilia," i., 600; iii., 61, 68, 365; "York Fabric
Rolls," 269 ff; Grosseteste, "Epp." (R.S.), pp. 75, 118, 161; Giffard's
"Register" (Worcester), p. 422; and Cutts, "Parish Priests," p. 122.
[268] Wilkins, i., 530, 719; iii., 61 and _passim_; _Archæological
Journal_, vol. xl., pp. 1 ff; "Somerset Record Society," vol. iv.
[269] Eight men died in Northampton gaol between Aug. 1322 and Nov. 1323
(Gross, p. 79). The jury casually record: "He died of hunger, thirst, and
want."... "Want of food and drink, and cold."... "Natural death."...
"Hunger and thirst and natural death." One is really glad to think that so
small a proportion of criminals ever found their way into prison.
[270] Gross, "Office of Coroner," p. 69.
[271] "Eng. Hist. Rev.," vol. 50.
[272] This still allowed him to migrate to another part of the King's
dominions--_e.g._ Ireland, Scotland, Normandy.
[273] Worcestershire Record Society.
[274] Gower, "Mirour," 20125, 20653.
[275] Riley, 567; cf. Preface to "Liber Albus," p. cvii., and Walsingham,
an. 1382.
[276] Cf. Mr. Walter Rye's articles in "Norf. Antq. Misc.," vol ii., p.
194, and _Archæological Review_ for 1888, p. 201.
[277] The complaints which meet us in Gower and "Piers Plowman" on this
score are more than borne out by the "Shillingford Letters" (Camden Soc.,
1871). The worthy Mayor of Exeter reports faithfully to his
fellow-citizens what bribes he gives, and to whom.
[278] Chaucer's pupil Hoccleve speaks almost equally strongly on the
mischief of such pardons ("Works," E.E.T.S., vol. iii., pp. 113 ff).
[279] _Clergy_ is of course here used in the common medieval sense of
_learning_; it does not refer to any body of men.
[280] _I.e._ the type of perfect religion, "the Christ that is to be."
[281] Be "found" or provided for, so that they need no longer to live by
begging and flattery.
[282] This was very commonly the case even in the greatest cathedrals:
typical reports may be found in the easily accessible "York Fabric Rolls"
(Surtees Soc.). With regard to Canterbury, a strange legend is current to
the effect that Lord Badlesmere was executed in 1322 for his irreverent
behaviour in that cathedral. Apart from the extraordinary inherent
improbability of any such story, the execution of Lord Badlesmere is one
of the best known events in the reign. He was hanged for joining the Earl
of Lancaster in open rebellion against Edward, against whom he had fought
at Boroughbridge.
[283] Wilkins, iii., 360 ff; "Rot. Parl." ii., 313. I have given fuller
details and references in the 8th of my "Medieval Studies," "Priests and
People" (Simpkins, 1_s._).
[284] Taking eight test-periods, which cover four dioceses and a space of
nearly forty-five years, I find that, before the Black Death, scarcely
more than one-third of the livings in lay gift were presented to men in
priest's orders--the exact proportion is 262 priests to 452 non-priests.
[285] Rashdall, "Universities of Europe," ii., 613, 701. Merely to reckon
the number of years theoretically required for the different degrees, and
to argue from this to the solid education of the medieval priest (as has
sometimes been done), is to ignore the mass of unimpeachable evidence
collected by Dr. Rashdall. Only an extremely small fraction of the
students took any theological degree whatever.
[286] The list of indictments for grave offences in "Munim. Acad." (R.S.),
vol. ii., contains a very large proportion of graduates, chaplains, and
masters of Halls; and Gerson frequently speaks with bitter indignation of
the number of Parisian scholars who were debauched by their masters.
[287] In Chaucer's words--
He set ... his benefice to hire
And left his sheep encumbred in the mire,
And ran to London, unto Saintë Paul's
To seeken him a chanterie for souls.
The Archbishop's decree may be found in the "Register of Bp. de Salopia,"
p. 639; cf. 694 (Somerset Record Society).
[288] Quoted from a MS. collection of 14th-century sermons by Ch.
Petit-Dutaillis in "Etudes Dédiées à G. Monod.," p. 385.
[289] Knighton (R.S.), ii., 191; at still greater length on p. 183.
Walsingham, ann. 1387, 1392; cf. "Eulog. Hist.," iii., 351, 355.
[290] Kingsford, "Chronicles of London," p. 64; Walsingham, an. 1410.
[291] "P. Plowman," B., xv., 383: Jusserand, "Epop. Myst.," p. 217. See
especially the remarkable words of Chaucer's contemporary, the banker
Rulman Merswin of Strassburg, quoted by C. Schmidt, "Johannes Tauler," p.
218. After setting forth his conviction that Christendom is now (1351) in
a worse state than it has been for many hundred years past, and that evil
Christians stand less in God's love than good Jews or heathens who know
nothing better than the faith in which they were born, and would accept a
better creed if they could see it, Merswin then proceeds to reconcile this
with the Catholic doctrine that none can be saved without baptism. "I will
tell thee; this cometh to pass in manifold hidden ways unknown to the most
part of Christendom in these days; but I will tell thee of one way....
When one of these good heathens or Jews draweth near to his end, then
cometh God to his help and enlighteneth him so far in Christian faith,
that with all his heart he desireth baptism. Then, even though there be no
present baptism for him, yet from the bottom of his heart he yearneth for
it: so I tell thee how God doth: He goeth and baptiseth him in the baptism
of his good yearning will and his painful death. Know therefore that many
of these good heathens and Jews are in the life eternal, who all came
thither in this wise."
[292] "P. Plowman," B., x., p. 51; cf. Langlois, _l. c._, pp. 211, 264-5.
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