A Literary History of the English People Part 26

sends to the Pope in 1317, among other gifts, a golden ewer and basin, studded with translucid enamels, supplied by Roger de Frowyk, a London goldsmith, for the price of one hundred and forty-seven pounds, Humphrey de Bohun, who died in 1361, said his prayers to beads of gold; Edward III. played chess on a board of jasper and crystal, silver mounted. The miniaturists represent Paradise on the margin of missals, or set forth in colours some graceful legend or fantastic tale, with knights, flowers, and b.u.t.terflies.[433] In spite of foreign wars, local insurrections, the plague that returns periodically, 1349, 1362, 1369, 1375, the great uprising of the peasantry, 1381, the troubles and ma.s.sacres which followed, art prospers in the fourteenth century, and what chiefly characterises it is that it is all a-smile.

That such things were coeval is not so astonis.h.i.+ng as it may seem. Life was still at that time so fragile and so often threatened, that the notion of its being suddenly cut off was a familiar one even from childhood. Wars, plagues, and ma.s.sacres never took one unawares; they were in the due course of things, and were expected; the possibility of such misfortunes saddened less in prospective than it does now that they have become less frequent. People were then always ready to fight, to kill, and to be killed. Games resembled battles, and battles games: the favourite exercises were tournaments; life was risked for nothing, as an amus.e.m.e.nt. Innumerable decrees[434] forbade those pastimes on account of the deaths they caused, and the troubles they occasioned; but the amus.e.m.e.nt was the best available, and the decrees were left un.o.bserved.

Edward starts on his war to France, and his knights, following his example, take their falconers and their hounds along with them, as though they were going to a hunt.[435] Never was felt to a greater degree what Rabelais terms "the scorn of fortuitous things." Times have changed, and until we go back to a similar state of affairs, which is not impossible, we come into the world with ideas of peace and order, and of a life likely to be a long one. We are indignant if it is threatened, very sad when the end draws near; with more lasting happinesses we smile less often. Froissart paints in radiant colours, and the subject of his pictures is the France of the Hundred Years' War.

The "merry England" of the "Cursor Mundi" and after is the England of the great plagues, and of the rising of the peasants, which had two kings a.s.sa.s.sinated out of four. It is also the England whose Madonnas smile.

In architecture the English favour the development of that kind of special Gothic of which they are the inventors, the Perpendicular, a rich and well-ordered style, terrestrial, practical, pleasant to look upon. No one did more to secure it a lasting fame than the Chancellor of Edward III. and of Richard II., William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, the restorer of Windsor, founder of New College at Oxford, the greatest builder of the century.[436] The walls and vaulted roofs of chapels are thick inlaid with ornaments; broad windows let in different coloured lights through their stained-gla.s.s panes; golden-haired angels start from the cornices; architecture smiles too, and its smile, like that of the Madonnas, is half religious and half mundane.

Less care is taken to raise strong houses than formerly; among the numerous castles with which the land bristles may be seen, in the distant valley where the ancient town of St. David's lies screened, a bishop's palace that would have suited neither William de Longchamp nor Hugh de Puiset, a magnificent dwelling, without towers of defence, or moats, or drawbridges, an exceptional dwelling, built as though the inhabitants were already secure of the morrow.[437]

The outside is less rude, and the inside is adorned and enriched; life becomes more private than it used to be; existence less patriarchal and more refined; those who still cling to old customs complain that the rich man dines in a chamber with a chimney, and leaves the large hall which was made for men to take their meals in together.[438] The walls of these chambers with chimneys are painted or covered with hangings; tapestries represent (as do those of Edward II.) the king surrounded by his n.o.bles,[439] or (like those of the Black Prince) the "Pas de Saladin," or "sea-sirens," with a border of "swans with ladies' heads,"

in other words, chimeras, "and ostrich feathers"; or, again, like those of Sir John Falstofe, in the following century, the adoration of the shepherds, a hawking scene, the siege of Falaise (taken in 1417), a woman playing the harp near a castle, "a giant piercing a boar with a spear": all of which are the more noticeable as they are nothing but literature put into colours or embroidery.[440]

The conveniences and elegancies of the table are now attended to; cooks write out their recipes in English; stewards draw up in the same language protocols concerning precedence, and the rules which a well-trained servant should observe. Such a one does not scratch his head, and avoids sneezing in the dish; he abstains from wiping the plates with his tongue, and in carving takes the meat in his left hand and the knife in his right, forks being then unknown; he gives each one his proper place, and remembers "that the Pope hath no peere." When the master dresses, he must be seated on a chair by the fire, a "kercheff"

is spread over his shoulders, and he is "curteisly" combed with an ivory comb; he is rinsed "with rose-watur warme"; when he takes a bath the air is scented with herbs hanging from the ceiling. When he goes to bed the cats and dogs which happen to be in his room should be driven away, or else a little cloth provided for them.

The food is rich and combines extraordinary mixtures. Hens and rabbits are eaten chopped up with pounded almonds, raisins, sugar, ginger, herbs dipped in grease, onions and salt; if the mixture is not thick enough, rice flour is added, and the whole coloured with saffron. Cranes, herons, and peac.o.c.ks are cooked with ginger. Great attention is paid to outward appearance and to colour; the dishes must be yellow or green, or adorned with leaves of gold and silver, a fas.h.i.+on still preserved in the East. Elaborate cakes, "subtleties" as they were then termed, are also served; they represent:

Maydon Mary that holy virgyne And Gabrielle gretynge hur with an Ave.[441]

People adorn their bodies as well as their houses; luxury in dress is carried to such an excess that Parliament finds it necessary to interfere, and forbids women of the lower cla.s.ses to wear any furs except cat and rabbit.[442] Edward III. buys of master Paul de Monteflor gowns for the queen, in "stuffs from over the sea," to the enormous amount of 1,330 pounds. He himself wears a velvet waistcoat, on which he has caused golden pelicans to be embroidered by William Courtenay, a London embroiderer. He gives his mistress Alice Perrers 21,868 large pearls, and thirty ounces of smaller ones. His daughter Margaret receives from him two thousand pearls as a wedding present; he buys his sister Alienor a gilded carriage, tapestried and embroidered, with cus.h.i.+ons and curtains of silk, for which he pays one thousand pounds.[443] At that time one might for the same sum have bought a herd of sixteen hundred oxen.

The sense of beauty, together with a reverence for and a wors.h.i.+p of it, was spreading among the nation whose thoughts shortly before used to run in quite different lines. Attention is paid to physical beauty, such as it had never received before. Men and women wear tight garments, showing the shape of the figure. In the verses he composed for his tomb at Canterbury, the Black Prince mourns over "his beauty which has all gone." Richard II., while still alive, has graven on his tomb that he was "corpore procerus."[444] The taste of the English for finery becomes so well known, that to them is ascribed, even in France, the invention of new fas.h.i.+ons. Recalling to his daughters, in order to teach them modesty, that "the deluge in the time of Noah happened for the pride and disguises of men, and mostly of women, who remodelled their shapes by means of gowns and attire," the Knight de la Tour Landry gives the English ladies the credit, or rather the discredit, of having invented the immeasurable head-dresses worn at that day. It is an evil sign; in that country people amuse themselves too much: "In England many there are that have been blamed, the report goes, I know not whether it is wrongly or rightly."[445]

Owing to the attention paid to physical beauty in England, sculptors now begin--a rare thing at that time--to have living models, and to copy the nude. In the abbey of Meaux, "Melsa," near Beverley, on the banks of the Humber, was seen in the fourteenth century a sight that would have been rather sought for by the banks of the Arno, under the indulgent sky of Italy. The abbot Hugh of Leven having ordered a new crucifix for the convent chapel, the artist "had always a naked man under his eyes, and he strove to give to his crucifix the beauty of form of his model."[446]

One last trait may be added to the others: not only the beauty of live beings, but that also of inanimate things is felt and cared for, the beauty of landscapes, and of trees. In 1350-1 the Commons complain of the cutting down of the large trees overshadowing the houses, those large trees, dear already to English hearts, and point out in Parliament the loss of this beauty, the great "damage, loss, and blemish" that results from it for the dwellings.[447]

In nearly every respect, thus, the Englishman of to-day is formed, and receives his chief features, under the Angevin princes Edward III. and Richard II.: practical, adventurous, a lover of freedom, a great traveller, a wealthy merchant, an excellent sailor. We have had a glimpse of what he is; let us now listen to what he says.

FOOTNOTES:

[384] "De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae," book iii. treatise ii.

chap. xv. (Rolls, vol. ii. p. 385.) No fine if the defunct is English: "Pro Anglico vero et de quo constari possit quod Anglicus sit, non dabitur murdrum."

[385] "Statutes of the Realm," 14 Ed. III. chap. 4.

[386] "Si rex fuerit litteratus, talis est.... Forma juramenti si Rex non fuerit litteratus: Sire, voilez vous graunter et garder ... les leys et les custumes ... &c." "Statutes of the Realm," _sub anno_ 1311, vol.

i. p. 168.

[387] "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. iii. p. 422; see below, p. 421.

[388] Ralph Higden, "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 158. "Haec quidem nativae linguae corruptio provenit hodie multum ex duobus quod videlicet pueri in scolis contra morem caeterarum nationum, a primo Normannorum adventu derelicto proprio vulgari, construere gallice compelluntur; item quod filii n.o.bilium ab ipsis cunabulorum crepundiis ad gallic.u.m idioma informantur. Quibus profecto rurales homines a.s.similari volentes ut per hoc spectabiliores videantur, francigenare satagunt omni nisu."

[389] "A volume of Vocabularies, from the Xth to the XVth Century," ed.

Thomas Wright, London, 1857, 4to, pp. 143 ff. See also P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xiii. p. 502.

[390]

Vus avet la levere et le levere E la livere et le livere.

La levere si enclost les dens; Le levre en boys se tent dedens, La livere sert en marchaundye, Le livere sert en seynt eglise.

[391] Apostrophe of judge John de Moubray, Easter session, 44 Ed. III., "Year-books of Edward I.," ed. Horwood (Rolls), 1863 ff., vol. i. p.

x.x.xi. Judge Hengham interrupts a counsel, saying: "Do not interpret the statute in your own way; we know it better than you, for we made it."--"Ne glosez point le statut; nous le savoms meuz de vous, qar nous le feimes." _Ibid._

[392] "Grosso modo et idiomate quocunque communiter intelligibili factum proponant." "Munimenta Academica" (Rolls), p. 77.

[393] "Pur ce qe monstre est souventefoitz au Roi par prelatz, ducs, counts, barons et toute la commune, les grantz meschiefs qe sont advenuz as plusours du realme de ce qe les leyes, custumes et estatutz du dit realme ne sont pas conuz communement en mesme le realme, par cause q'ils sont pledez, monstrez et juggez en lange Franceis q'est trop desconue en dit realme, issint qe les gentz qi pledent ou sont empledez en les courtz le Roi et les courtz d'autres n'ont entendement ne conissance de ce q'est dit por eulx ne contre eulx par lour sergeantz et autres pledours...." that henceforth all plaids "soient pledetz, monstretz, defenduz, responduz, debatuz et juggez en la lange engleise; et q'ils soient entreez et enroullez en latin." 36 Ed. III., stat. i. chap. 15, "Statutes of the Realm." In spite of these arrangements, the accounts of the pleas continued to be transcribed in French into the "Year-books,"

of which several have been published in the collection of the Master of the Rolls. Writing about the year 1300, the author of the Mirror of Justice had still made choice of French as being the "language best understood by you and the common people."

[394] "Chroniques," ed. Luce, vol. i. p. 306.

[395] "Polychronicon" (Rolls), vol. ii. p. 159 (contains the Latin text of Higden and the English translation of Trevisa).

[396]

And I can no Frenche in feith but of the ferthest ende of Norfolke.

"Visions," ed. Skeat, text B, pa.s.sus v. line 239. The MS. DD 12.23 of the University Library, Cambridge, contains "a treatise on French conjugations." It does not furnish any useful information as regards the history of French conjugations; "it can only serve to show how great was the corruption of current French in England in the fourteenth century."

P. Meyer, "Romania," vol. xv. p. 262.

[397] The amba.s.sadors are: "Thomas Swynford, miles, custos castri villae Calisii et Nicholaus de Rysshetoun, utriusque juris professor." They admit that French is the language of treatises; but Latin was used by St. Jerome. They write to the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy: "Et quamvis treugae generales inter Angliam et Franciam per Dominos et Principes temporales, videlicet duces Lancastriae et Eboraci necnon Buturiae ac Burgundiae, bonae memoriae, qui perfecte non intellexerunt latinum sicut Gallic.u.m, de consensu eorumdem expresso, in Gallico fuerunt captae et firmatae, litterae tamen missivae ultro citroque transmissae ... continue citra in Latino, tanquam idiomate communi et vulgari ext.i.terunt formatae; quae omnia habemus parata ostendere, exemplo Beati Ieronimi...." In no wise touched by this example, the French reply in their own language, and the amba.s.sadors, vexed, acknowledge the receipt of the letter in somewhat undiplomatic terms: "Vestras litteras scriptas in Gallico, n.o.bis indoctis tanquam in idiomate Hebraico ... recipimus Calisii." "Royal and Historical Letters," ed. Hingeston, 1860 (Rolls), vol. i. pp. 357 and 397. A discussion of the same kind takes place, with the same result, under Louis XIV. See "A French Amba.s.sador at the Court of Charles II.,"

p. 140.

[398] "Doulz francois qu'est la plus bel et la plus gracious language et plus n.o.ble parler, apres latin d'escole, qui soit ou monde, et de tous gens mieulx prisee et amee que nul autre.... Il peut bien comparer au parler des angels du ciel, pour la grant doulceur et biaultee d'icel."

"La maniere de Langage," composed in 1396, at Bury St. Edmund's, ed.

Paul Meyer, "Revue Critique," vol. x. p. 382.

[399] Middle of the fourteenth century, ed. Aungier, Camden Society, 1884, 4to.

[400] As an example of a composition showing the parallelism of the two vocabularies in their crude state, one may take the treatise on Dreams (time of Edward II.), published by Wright and Halliwell, which begins with the characteristic words: "Her comensez a bok of Swevenyng."

"Reliquiae Antiquae."

[401] London, 1882.

[402] See a list of such words in Earle, "Philology of the English Tongue," 5th edition, Oxford, 1892, 8vo, p. 84. On the disappearance of Anglo-Saxon proper names, and the subst.i.tution of Norman-French names, "William, Henry, Roger, Walter, Ralph, Richard, Gilbert, Robert," see Grant Allen, "Anglo-Saxon Britain," ch. xix., Anglo-Saxon Nomenclature.

[403] "Troilus," iii. stanza 191.

[404] Earle's "Philology of the English Tongue," 5th ed., Oxford, 1892, p. 379.

[405] _Ibid._ p. 377.

[406] See the series of the statutes of _Provisors_ and _Praemunire_, and the renewals of the same (against presentations to benefices by the Pope and appeals to the Court of Rome), 25 Ed. III. st. 6; 27 Ed. III. st. 2; 3 Rich. II. chap. 3; 12 Rich. II. chap. 15; 13 Rich. II. st. 2, chap. 2; 16 Rich. II. chap. 5. All have for their object to restrict the action of the Holy See in England, conformably to the desire of the Commons, who protest against these appeals to the Roman Court, the consequences of which are "to undo and adnul the laws of the realm" (25 Ed. III.

1350-1), and who also protest against "the Court of Rome which ought to be the fountain-head, root, and source of holiness," and which from coveteousness has a.s.sumed the right of presenting to numberless benefices in England, so much so that the taxes collected for the Pope on this account "amount to five times as much as what the king gets from all his kingdom each year." Good Parliament of 1376, "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 337; see below, p. 419.

[407] Year 1340, 14 Ed. III., "Rotuli Parliamentorum," vol. ii. p. 104.

[408] "Sicut lex justissima, provida circ.u.mspectione sacrorum principum stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur...." Rymer, "Foedera," 1705, vol. ii. p. 689. This Roman maxim was known and appealed to, but not acted upon in France. See Commines, "Memoires," book v. chap. xix.