FOOTNOTES:

A Peasant's House

Pushing back the heavy door, after lifting the wooden latch, one enters a single large room; the timbers and walls thereof are completely blackened by soot. There is really only one apartment. Here everything in the household life seems to go on. The floor is of earth pounded hard. Upon it are playing several very dirty, half-naked children, come over to visit "grandmother,"and just now they are chasing two squealing little pigs under the great oak table near the center. One makes no account of a duck leading her goslings in at the door in hopes of scraps from the dinner. A hen is setting on eggs in a box near the great fireplace.

Jeanne has just kindled a lively fire of vine branches and dry billets. She is proud that her house contains many convenient articles not found with all the neighbors. By the fireplace is an iron pot hanger, a shovel, large fire tongs, a copper kettle, and a meat hook. Next to the fireplace is an oven, in case she does not wish to use that at the castle and yet will pay the baron's fee. On the other side of the fireplace is an enormous bed, piled with a real mountain of feather mattresses—we do not discuss their immunity from vermin. In this one bed a goodly fraction of Georges' entire family, male and female, old and young, have been able to sleep; of course, with their heads usually pointing in opposite directions. If a stranger chances to spend the night, it will be hospitable to ask him to make "one more" in that selfsame bed!

If the goodman takes us about his establishment we shall find that, in addition to various stools and benches, he owns a ladder, a mortar and pestle for braying corn, a mallet, some crudely shaped nails, a gimlet, a very imperfect saw, fishing lines, hooks, and a basket. He is fortunate enough also to own a plow, and, in addition, a scythe, an iron spade, a mattock, a pair of large shears, a handy knife, and a sharpening stone. He has replaced the stolen oxen with another pair and owns a two-wheeled wagon with a harness of thongs and ropes. Besides the oxen, there are three milch cows in his barn, and he has a hennery and pigpen. The place seems also to abound with long, lean cats, very wild, who gain aliving by hunting the numerous rats and mice which lurk in the dense thatch of the roofs.

A LABORER, THIRTEENTH CENTURYA LABORER, THIRTEENTH CENTURYRestored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from the manuscript of Herrade of Landsberg.

A LABORER, THIRTEENTH CENTURYRestored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from the manuscript of Herrade of Landsberg.

A LABORER, THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Restored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from the manuscript of Herrade of Landsberg.

Georges himself wears a blouse of dirt-colored cloth, or sometimes of sheepskin, fastened by a leathern belt. In cold weather he has a mantle of thick woolen homespun, now also dirt color, to his knees. He has a pair of very heavy leathern boots, although not seldom he goes on short walks barefoot. The lower part of his body is covered by a pair of loose woolen trousers which once were blue. Very seldom, save in storms, does he wear any headdress; then he produces a kind of cap of the same dirty woolen as his coat. As for gloves, he never wears them except when hedging. Jeanne's costume is much the same, with a few changes to make it suitable for women. In her chest she has, however, a green bliaut of Flanders wool made somewhat in imitation of those she has seen at the castle, and it even is beautified with red and purple embroidery. This bliaut she wears with pride on great festival days, and in it, despite the envious hopes of her daughters and daughters-in-law, she expects at last to be buried.

Very Poor Peasants

Georges' house is considerably better than many others. Some of his neighbors live in mere cabins that are barely weather tight. They are made of crossed laths stuffed with straw or grass, and have no chimney.The smoke from the hearth escapes through a small hole in the roof (where the thatch is very liable to take fire) or merely through the door. None of these houses has glass windows. Georges fastens his few openings with wooden shutters, but poor Alard near by has to close his apertures by stuffing them up with straw, if it is too cold to leave them open. Alard, too, is without a bed. His family sleep on thin pallets of straw laid on the ground, with a few ragged blankets. There are plenty of peasants who have not even the straw.

PEASANT SHOESPEASANT SHOESTwelfth century (abbey church of Vézelay)

PEASANT SHOESTwelfth century (abbey church of Vézelay)

PEASANT SHOES

Twelfth century (abbey church of Vézelay)

A REAPERA REAPERFrom the doorway of the cathedral of Amiens.

A REAPERFrom the doorway of the cathedral of Amiens.

A REAPER

From the doorway of the cathedral of Amiens.

Alard inevitably has no cows, no oxen or cart, no plow, and only a few rude tools. He and his are barely able to satisfy the provost's men by grinding field labor, and have still enough grain laid up to carry them till the next harvest. If it is a little too dry, a little too wet, if, in short, any one of a number of untoward things happen, by next spring he, with his bent and bony wife and his five lean children, will all be standing at the castle or abbey gate with so many other mendicants to cry their "Bread! For the love of Christ, a little bread!"

The peasants marry as early as do the nobility. Of the moral condition of many of them it is best to say little. Good Father Étienne, the parish priest, spends much of his time first in baptizing infants of unacknowledged paternity, and then in running down their presumptive fathers and forcing the latter to provide for their children's upkeep. But a girl can often indulge in amazing indiscretions and later find some self-respecting peasant willing to marry her.

Every girl looks forward to her marriage as the climax of life. If she hopes to find a husband in the coming year, she will dance around a bonfire, then cast some pins into a bubbling fountain. If these are thrown to the surface it is a sign the right swain will come along. When drawing water from a well, if she can throw into it an egg cracked upon the head of some companion, she can see in the water the image of her future husband. As for the young men, when one of them decides he wishes to marry a certain girl, he often comes to her parents, presenting a leathern bottle of wine. If they drink of the same his suit is accepted. However, if he is uncertain of his reception by the maiden herself, he invites himself to dinner at her home. If at the end she serves him with a dish of walnuts, it is a clear token that he is rejected. He had better slink away.

A MARRIAGE IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURYA MARRIAGE IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURYFrom a manuscript of the Bibliothèque nationale (Bordier et Charton).

A MARRIAGE IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURYFrom a manuscript of the Bibliothèque nationale (Bordier et Charton).

A MARRIAGE IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

From a manuscript of the Bibliothèque nationale (Bordier et Charton).

On the wedding day, if the bride has always been sage and modest, the neighbors present her with a white hen, but her mother gives her a piece of fine cloth, to make a gala dress which will serve ultimately for ashroud. At the ceremony itself the great question is, "How will the wedding ring slip on?" If easily the bride will be docile. If it goes on tightly she will rule her husband!

Hard Toil and Ignorance

A PLOWA PLOWRestored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from a manuscript of the thirteenth century at the Seminary of Soissons.]

A PLOWRestored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from a manuscript of the thirteenth century at the Seminary of Soissons.]

A PLOW

Restored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from a manuscript of the thirteenth century at the Seminary of Soissons.]

The peasants need every kind of public and private holiday. On ordinary days toil begins at gray dawn and usually continues until dusk. There are no eight-hour laws; even the "nooning" is short, although sometimes there is time taken out in hot weather for a siesta during the afternoon. The women labor in the fields as hard as do the men. Children begin weeding, digging, and carrying when very little. Their help is so important that many peasants look on large families as assets of so much unpaid field labor, rather than as liabilities which they must clothe and feed until the children reach maturity. Education is almost unknown. One or two very bright boys from the village somehow have been caught by the churchmen and trained for the priesthood. There is even a story of a lad born in a neighboring seigneury who thus rose to be a bishop! But such cases are veryexceptional. In the whole village by St. Aliquis, FatherÉtienneis the only person who understands the mysteries of reading and writing, except two assistants of the provost, who have to keep accounts for the baron.

It is very hard for great folk to understand such teachings of the Church as that "all men are brethren." "Doubtless it is true," Adela and Alienor have often told each other, that "God created man in His own image," but how is it possible that God should have the image of most of the villeins on the seigneury? Are not so many of them like the peasant described in the epic "Garin"? "He had enormous hands and massive limbs. His eyes were separated from each other by a hand's breadth. His shoulders were large, his chest deep, his hair bristling, and his face black as a coal. He went six months without bathing. Nothing but rain water had ever touched his face."

The manners of these people are equally repulsive. Countless ballads as well as monks' sermons and treatises represent your typical villein as incessantly discontented, scolding about the weather, which is always too wet or too dry, treating his wife like an animal, hauling her about by the hair. Lately at the castle a jongleur told this anecdote: "A certain peasant showered his wife with blows on principle. 'She must have some occupation,' said he, 'while I work in the field. If she is idle she will think of evil things. If I beat her she will weep the whole day through, and so will pass the time. Then when I return in the evening she will be more tender.'" According to other stories, however, many peasants are clever, aggressive, and insolent—well able to care for themselves.

Filthy Habits of Peasants

The castle folk and the burghers are none too careful in sanitary matters, but even to them the peasants aredisgustingly filthy. They relate in Pontdebois this story: "Once a villein, leading some donkeys, went down the lane of the perfumer's shops. Instantly he fainted at the unaccustomed odor. They brought him to, however, by holding a shovel full of manure under his nose." Another story (told at the monastery) has it that the devil has refused to receive more villeins into hell because they smell so vilely!

In the village you soon find many typical peasant characters, and nearly all of them are bad. There is the surly fellow who will not even tell a traveler the way. There is the malcontent villein who mutters enviously whenever he sees a knight riding out hawking; there is the mad fool who reviles God, saints, Church, and nobility; there is the talkative villein who is always arguing bad causes before the provost's court and inciting his neighbors to senseless litigation, there is the honest simpleton who wandered up to Pontdebois and got his pockets picked while gaping at the sculptures on the portal of the cathedral; finally, there are the misers, the petty speculators in grain (who pray for a famine), and all the tribe of poachers. Certainly there are also a great number of hard-working, honest folk who bow respectfully when Messire Conon rides by and who pay their taxes without grumbling. Such give prosperity to the seigneury; but it is the rascals who ever thrust themselves into prominence.

The St. Aliquis villeins seem doltish and dirty enough, but they are nothing to those existing in Flanders. Some monks have recently returned thence after doing business for their order. They tell with horror that in summertime Flemish peasants are seen around their villages, taking their ease, with no more clothes on than when they were born. When the monks remonstrated,the rough answer was: "How is this your business? You make no laws for us." It is pitiful (say the monks) that any seigneur should tolerate such things on his fief, for the peasants are such sodden creatures they cannot of themselves be expected to know better.

If the knights exploit the peasants, the clergy do so hardly less. It is notoriously hard for the bishop's tithe collector to secure the quota of pigs, hens, eggs, wheat, vegetables, etc., which everybody knows that the villein owes to the Church after or upon the same time he satisfies the collectors for the baron. Indeed, certain impious villeins complain, "The tithe is worse than the imposts and thecorvées." The monkish preachers have to be constantly threatening these sinners who pay their tithes slowly. The Church tithe is the property of God. "It is the tax you owe to God, a sign of his universal dominion." Those who withhold it not merely imperil their souls, but God will send them "drought and famine," punishing them alike in this world and the next.

Villeins too often wickedly insist on working on Sundays and holy days. The peasants complain there are so many saints' days that it is hard to keep track of them, but if only they would go to Church on Sundays when the priest announces the next holy days they could avoid this sin. Worse still are the peasants who, when they see their fellows going dutifully to mass, hide under the hedges, then slip away to rob the unguarded orchards.

Gross Oppression by Knights

It seems certain, therefore, that God has no such love for villeins as he has for gentle knights and their dames. The knights display their superiority by always reminding their peasants of their condition. With some barons, to flog their villein for most trifling offenses is about as common as for them to eat their dinners. Even Cononhas plenty of use for his riding whip. Unless the blows are very brutal the average peasant takes this as all in the day's work. He merely trades out his own blows upon his wife and children. Indeed, it is commonly said that most villeins are so numb mentally they never can comprehend the simplest orders unless they are driven home with stripes. In time of war the fate of the peasants is, as we have seen, far worse than this. Whatever a feud means to the contending parties, to their villeins it means houses and crops burned, fruit trees girdled, young girls dragged off to a life of infamy, and probably the massacre of many peasants in cold blood. One of the reasons the nobles delight so in war is because it is seldom that they have to endure its real anguish and horror; but in the churches the non-nobles pray, "Grant us to peace" quite as fervently as they beseech, "Save us from famine"—and with equal justice.

The monkish preachers who make a business of scolding sometimes denounce high-born oppressors of the villeins. One monk thus cries out, "All that the peasant amasses in one year of stubborn toil, the noble devours in an hour. Not content with his lawful revenues, he despoils them by illicit exactions. As wolves devour carrion while the crows croak overhead, awaiting their share of the feast, so when knights pillage their subjects the provosts (their agents) and others of the hellish crew rejoice at the prospect of devouring the remainder." Or again: "Ye nobles are ravening wolves; therefore shall ye howl in hell," for you "despoil your subjects and live on the blood and sweat of the poor." (Jacques of Vitry.) Nevertheless, the selfsame preachers accuse the peasants of the cardinal sins of avarice and of shunning labor. Only rarely are the villeins comforted by being told that if they work faithfully and bring upa proper family they are morally on equality "with a cleric who chants all day in a church."

On the St. Aliquis fiefs, and, indeed, on many others, these grosser abuses do not obtain, but nowhere are the villeins exempt from one evil which they must meet with dumb resignation—the seigneurial hunts.[81]Conon and his guests never hesitate at going with horses and hawks or hounds straight across plowed and seeded fields or even over standing grain. This is the lord's absolute right, and protest is impossible. The hunters, too, are entitled, if far from home, to stop at the peasants' huts and demand food and fodder, perhaps for a large party. If payment is made, it is merely out of charity. Greater evils still may come from the depredations of the wild game, if the fields are close to the hunting preserves. Villeins cannot harm any deer nibbling the young sprouts. They can only scare them away—and the cunning creatures soon grow daring. A wild boar can root up a dozen little farm plots before the baron can find leisure to chase him down. Upon some fiefs the peasants can arrange to pay an extra fee to their lord, in return for which he keeps only rabbits near their fields; but the hunt of a single rabbit, if the flying wretch doubles in among the corn, may ruin a family.

On the other hand, the penalties for poaching, for "killing messire's game," are terrible. It is probably safer on St. Aliquis'—as on any other fief—to risk killing a traveler than killing a fawn or even a hare. The law is pitilessly enforced by the foresters. Maître Denis will tell you he has hanged more stout fellows for poaching than for any other two crimes put together.

Futile Peasant Revolts

Do the villeins ever revolt? Sometimes, when they are driven to desperation by extreme misery; when theyfind a clever leader; when circumstances are peculiarly favorable. Then may come the sudden burning of manor houses and small fortalices; the massacre of their inmates; and other brutish deeds of tardy retaliation. The rebels are likely to boast, as did some insurgent peasants in Normandy in the eleventh century: "We have been weak and insane to bend our necks for so long. For we are strong-handed men, and solider and stouter limbed than the nobles will ever be. For everyone of them there are a hundred of us!"

Such revolts always have a single end. The ignorant peasants submit to no discipline. They cannot use the knight's weapons if they capture them. They cannot organize. If they seize a castle, the liquor in the cellars lays them out helpless through a week of orgy. The seigneurs instantly rally and with their great horses hunt down the rebels as creatures worse than wolves. The vengeance then taken on the insurgents is such that every ear that hears thereof must tingle. Perhaps along a league of roadway a corpse will be swinging from every tree. Such measures effectively discourage rebellion save under most exceptional circumstances. Even with atrocious seigneurs it is usually best to bow to the will of God and merely to pray for deliverance.

Georges' and Alard's mental horizons can be imagined. They have on rare occasions been as far as Pontdebois, although some of their neighbors have passed a lifetime without even that privilege. They have only the most limited, one might say only the most animal, hopes and fears. Their ideas of such things as the king's court, Paris, and the various Christian and Infidel lands are a jumble of absurd notions. "Religion" means a few prayers, a few saints' stories, as told in the church, the miracle plays at Christmas, and a fear lestby failing in proper respect to monks and priests they will be eternally tormented in worse torture chambers than old Baron Garnier's.

The villeins, of course, have their own rustic holidays, full of rough sports—wrestling, throwing weights, archery, and also cockfighting and bull baiting. The best of entertainment is when two blindfolded men, each carrying a cudgel, try to kill a goose or pig let loose in an inclosure. The whole village roars to see them belabor each other. During the wedding festivities, to show their dutiful esteem for Alienor and Olivier, the peasants had arranged a special ceremony in their honor. Four blindfolded men were led about the neighborhood, preceded by two men, one playing an oboe, the other carrying a red banner whereon a pig was painted. After this noisy merrymaking a real pig was produced, and before an august company of most of the castle folk the four champions "attacked the pig." They hit one another so hard, that one was picked up almost dead. The pig became the property of the villein who had managed to pound the life out of the creature just as in mercy Alienor was about to beg that the contest end.

Despite grievances and grumblings, the average peasants are loyal, somewhat after the manner of dumb dogs, to their seigneurs. Conon and Adela command the real affection of their villeins because of acts of charity, but even Baron Garnier had been treated with an astonishing faithfulness. Many a knight has owed his life or honor to humble dependents whom he has not treated so well as his horses or hounds. It is the toiling thousands in the little thatched huts that make possible the wedding feasts, the adubbements, the tourneys, and the spectacular battles. Some day the exploitation will cease—but not in the thirteenth century.

FOOTNOTES:[76]This cleric, Jacques of Vitry, may have written a few years later than the presumable date of this narrative, but it represents entirely the orthodox viewpoint ofA.D.1220.[77]It has been estimated that the rural population of France in the thirteenth century was almost as great as in the twentieth. There was probably a decided falling off, in the fourteenth century, thanks to the Black Death (1348) and the ravages of the Hundred Years' War.[78]By 1220 these wholesale famines were really becoming matters of tradition, thanks to better transportation and better methods of agriculture. Very lean years, almost ruinous to the peasantry, remained, however, as extremely grim possibilities.[79]In Brittany, and, somewhat less generally in Normandy, most of the peasants at this time were free. In Champagne and central France there were still so many serfs that very possibly the peasants of St. Aliquis were more fortunate than the majority of the villeins on neighboring baronies. The advantages of the free peasants over the serfs have, however, been somewhat exaggerated.[80]The list of curiouscorvéesrequired of peasants on various seigneuries is a long one. On one fief they were expected to beat the water of the castle moat to stop the noise of the frogs whenever the mistress was sick. Or on certain specified occasions they had to perform some absurd service: to hop on one leg, to kiss the latch of the castle gate, go through some drunken horseplay in the lord's presence, or sing a broad song in the presence of his lady.[81]See page67.

[76]This cleric, Jacques of Vitry, may have written a few years later than the presumable date of this narrative, but it represents entirely the orthodox viewpoint ofA.D.1220.

[77]It has been estimated that the rural population of France in the thirteenth century was almost as great as in the twentieth. There was probably a decided falling off, in the fourteenth century, thanks to the Black Death (1348) and the ravages of the Hundred Years' War.

[78]By 1220 these wholesale famines were really becoming matters of tradition, thanks to better transportation and better methods of agriculture. Very lean years, almost ruinous to the peasantry, remained, however, as extremely grim possibilities.

[79]In Brittany, and, somewhat less generally in Normandy, most of the peasants at this time were free. In Champagne and central France there were still so many serfs that very possibly the peasants of St. Aliquis were more fortunate than the majority of the villeins on neighboring baronies. The advantages of the free peasants over the serfs have, however, been somewhat exaggerated.

[80]The list of curiouscorvéesrequired of peasants on various seigneuries is a long one. On one fief they were expected to beat the water of the castle moat to stop the noise of the frogs whenever the mistress was sick. Or on certain specified occasions they had to perform some absurd service: to hop on one leg, to kiss the latch of the castle gate, go through some drunken horseplay in the lord's presence, or sing a broad song in the presence of his lady.

[81]See page67.

Even upon a well-ordered seigneury the number of the poor, disabled, and generally miserable is great. Despite the contempt displayed by the great for the lowly, the Feudal Age is not lacking in pretty abundant charity or rather in almsgiving. The haughtiest cavalier feels it his duty to scatter copper obols when he goes among the poor, though doubtless he tells his squire to fling the coins merely to "satisfy this hungry rabble." Among the virtues of Conon and Adela is the fact that they throw the money with their own gentle hands. This somehow adds to the donative's value.

The present season is prosperous at St. Aliquis. Furthermore, there has just been such an open house at the castle that one would expect even the most luckless to be satiated for a while. Nevertheless, the very day after the guests have departed Adela is informed that there are more than thirty people before the drawbridge, chanting their "Alms! For the sake of Christ, alms!" The baroness, suppressing a sigh, quits her maids, to whom she is just assigning their weaving, and goes to the bailey. With her attends lay-brother Gensenius, an assistant to Father Grégoire, who acts as castle almoner. The crowd contains many familiar faces. Yonder old man on one leg, the blind woman led by a little girl, the lad with a withered arm, the woman disfigured bygoiter, the widow whose husband was slain in a brawl, leaving her with eight children, the harmless idiot—all these Adela immediately recognizes. But the excitement of the fêtes has attracted others whom she and Brother Gensenius scan closely. This melancholy fellow on crutches possibly can run very fast if he sees that the provost's men are after him. His companion, who seems covered with sores and who claims to be on a pilgrimage to a healing shrine, is clearly a scamp and malingerer. Right before the baroness a strange woman falls down foaming at the mouth, as if she had epilepsy. Gensenius shakes his crafty head. "She is the same impostor," he whispers, "who tried her trick with a bit of soap yesterday in the village."

So the sheep gradually are separated from the goats. Some of the charlatans are chased away. Some of those who receive loaves of bread and broken meat are perhaps no more deserving than the rejected. But dare one really be too critical? After all, the reason why great folk give to beggars is to cancel sins. If the beggars are undeserving, that hardly diminishes the credit with the saints for Conon and Adela. It would be calamitous if there were suddenly to be no poor, worthy or unworthy, for how then, by parting with some of their abundance, could the rich buy peace for their souls? Fortunately, however, there is no such danger. Our Lord has directly said, "The poor ye have always with you," a most comforting word of Scripture. Poverty, then, is a blessed institution even for the fortunate in this world; it enables them to procure entrance to heaven by acts of charity. As for persons who are needy, of course, if they bear their lot with Christian resignation they accumulate a blessed stock of indulgence which will cut short their durance in purgatory.

Physical Severity of Mediaeval Life

The morning dole is a regular feature at St. Aliquis, as at every other castle and monastery. The amount of food given away is really very great. But there is next to no attempt on the part of the average seigneury really to remedy this mendicancy—to devise honest work within the capacities of the blind or the lame; to give systematic relief to the widow; to put the idiot lad in some decent institution. Every premium is placed upon the idlers, the impostors, and the low-browed rogues who prefer anything to honest toil. In the times of real famine, even, the temptation to cease prematurely struggling against hard times and to lapse into beggardom is very dangerous. Despite, therefore, much genuine kindness on the part of many donors, charity in the Feudal Age is allowed more than ordinarily to cover a multitude of sins—alike those of the givers and the receivers. Upon the St. Aliquis barony there is an astonishing number of unabashed drones and parasites.

These miserable folk, however, have some excuse. Conditions of life in the Feudal Age, even for the cavaliers, are very severe. Men and women begin the duties of life young, mature young, grow old young. Henry II of Anjou and England was only forty-seven when they began to call him "old." Philip Augustus was only fifteen when he was capable of assuming the actual duties of a responsible monarch. Many a baron is gray headed at forty. When he is fifty his sons may often be intriguing to supplant their superannuated father. If this is true of the nobility, what of the toiling peasantry? We have seen how Georges and Jeanne are aged before their time.

Grinding toil by weakening the body, of course, leaves it exposed to many ordinary diseases. But certainly conditions in castle and village open the doors to extraordinaryplagues as well. The age is happily ignorant of sanitary precautions which more sophisticated mortals will consider a matter of course. The peasants "almost live on the manure heap." The clergy (though not themselves so uncleanly) seldom preach the virtues of bathing; indeed, their discourses on "despising the body" apparently discourage the practice. It is hard to keep meat any length of time unless it is salted, and the vast amounts of salt meat consumed everywhere are direct promoters of scurvy and gangrene. We have seen that nearly all the clothing worn close to the body is woolen. This retains filth, is hard to wash, and irritates the skin, another cause for frequent dermal diseases—scrofula, the itch, and things even worse.

Fearful Plagues and Mortality

A LEPERA LEPERHolding in his hand the bones with which these unfortunates were compelled to signal their approach from a distance. From a window in the cathedral of Bourges (thirteenth century).

A LEPERHolding in his hand the bones with which these unfortunates were compelled to signal their approach from a distance. From a window in the cathedral of Bourges (thirteenth century).

A LEPER

Holding in his hand the bones with which these unfortunates were compelled to signal their approach from a distance. From a window in the cathedral of Bourges (thirteenth century).

Leprosy is a terrible scourge. Its nature is misunderstood. Often severe but curable cases of eczema are confounded therewith, and harmless victims are condemned to a death in life—perpetual banishment to filthy cabins in the woods. Cholera and smallpox every now and then break out in a neighborhood, and they are almost always fatal. Nothing really can be done to check them except to pray to the saints. Such diseases are (say the best informed) communicated "in the air"; consequently any ordinary isolation is useless. On the whole, they ravage the villages more than they do the castles, though hardlybecause the castle folk are able to take more effective physic. Yet often enough a baron and his entire family may be swept away. Very seldom is it suggested that pure water, cleanliness, and rational schemes of isolation can accomplish much to defeat the apparent desire of heaven to devastate an entire duchy.

Other diseases are fearfully common. The sufferers from nervous complaints make up small armies. The general terrors and wars of the times, the brooding fears of the devil, hell, and the eternal torment, the spectacle of the fearful punishments, and, on the other hand, the sheer ennui of life in many castles and in certain ill-ruled convents, drive men and women out of their wits. Such sufferers are lucky if they are treated with kindness and are not, as being "possessed of devils," clapped in a dungeon.

Finally, it should be said that lucky is the mother who does not have one-third to one-half of all her offspring die in the act of birth. Every entrance of a babe into the world is a dice throwing with death, even if the mid-wife is clever. Once born, the children are likely to be so injured in the initiatory process that they will be physically imperfect or dangerously weakened. This is true even in the royal families; how much more true in the peasant huts! It is not surprising that the average man of the Feudal Ages can give and sustain hard blows. Only the strongest have been able to survive the ordeals of birth and childhood.

To fight these dangers, one must invoke both human and divine aid. Good Christians usually feel that the healing saints avail more than do physicians or wise women. If you have indigestion, invoke St. Christopher; if dropsy, St. Eutropius; if fever, St. Petronila; for the pest, St. Roch; for insanity, St. Mathurin; forkidney complaint, St. René; for cramps, St. Crampan—and so with many other ills. Nevertheless, one need not trust solely to prayers. Only great people, however, employ regular physicians (mires). Villeins commonly have in a "good woman," much better than a sorcerer. The breath of an ass drives poison from a body. The touch of a dead man's tooth cures toothache. If you have a nosebleed, seize the nose with two straws shaped like a cross. If the itch troubles you, roll yourself naked in a field of oats. Georges, the peasant, will tell you that such remedies seldom fail.

A local professor of the healing art is Maître Denis, the executioner. Since he knows so well how to mutilate bodies, he ought to be able to understand the converse process of curing them. He has wide reputation as a healer of broken bones, and he often sells his patients a panacea for multifarious ills—"the fat of a man just hung."

There is at least this to be said for the peasants: the science oftheirhealers will agree almost as much with that of later physicians as does that of the contemporary "physicians" themselves. The Church has not given any too great encouragement to medicine. The mighty St. Ambrose has said that the proper healing is by prayers and vigils. Only clerics of the inferior orders are allowed to study medical science, and the dissection of dead bodies is decidedly discountenanced.[82]

At the castle the ordinary functionary to abate bodily ills is Maître Louis, the baron's barber. When not scraping chins, he was very likely giving the castle folk their monthly bleedings, without which it is very hardto keep one's health. The bleedings take place, if possible, in the great hall near the fire, and are undergone regularly by both sexes. When the St. Aliquis forces are called to war, Maître Louis goes with them as barber-surgeon, and he really has considerable skill in setting fractures and cauterizing and salving wounds, as well as with a few powerful drugs—mostly purgatives—which probably help those of his patients who have the strongest constitutions to recover.

Professional Physicians

When one of the baron's own family is seriously sick, it is usual to send to Pontdebois for a professional physician. About two years ago Conon himself fell into a fever. They brought to him Maître Payen, who claimed to have learned his art asmireby travel among the schools of medicine—at Salerno in Sicily, at Montpellier in the Languedoc country, and even at Cordova among the Infidels, although the baron swore angrily (after he was gone) that he had never been nearer any of these places than Paris.

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DOCTORA THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DOCTORRestored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale.

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DOCTORRestored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale.

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DOCTOR

Restored by Viollet-Le-Duc, from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque nationale.

Maître Payen was sprucely dressed half as a priest, half as a rich burgher. He wore elegant furs. He talked very learnedly of "febrifuges" and "humors," and kept repeating, "Thus says Avincenna, the prince of Spanish physicians," or, "Thus says Albucasis, the infallible follower of Avincenna." If Conon had suffered from some easily discoverable malady, probably Maître Payen could have suggested a fairly efficient means of cure. He was not without shrewdness,and in his chest was a whole arsenal of herbs and drugs. He had also efficient salves, although he had never heard the word "antiseptic." But the baron had picked up one of those maladies which baffled easy diagnosis. Maître Payen, therefore, fussed about, clearly betraying his bewilderment, then struck a professional attitude and announced oracularly, "The obstruction to health is in the liver."

"Nay," groaned the baron, "it is in the head that I feel so wretched."

"That is foolish," retorted themire, crushingly: "Beware of that word 'obstruction,' because you do not understand what it signifies."[83]

He next muttered certain cabalistic words; said that the baron should be glad that his liver was affected, because that was the seat of honor, and that upon recovery his honor would be enlarged. The spleen was the seat of laughter, while the lungs fanned the heart. Payen then talked of remedies. Perhaps the urine of a dog would be best, or the blood of a hegoat; but these were only villein remedies. Messire, the patient, was a great noble and needed noble remedies, suitable for his rank. He would therefore (since the liver was affected) give him the dried and pulverized liver of a toad. And so he left his medicines, took a gold piece, and departed.

That night Conon was delirious, but Adela, who, like every mistress of a castle, had perforce learned much of nursing, applied cold cloths to his body, while Father Grégoire prayed to the saints. The next morning, because of the cloths, the saints, or toad's liver, the fever abated. Perhaps it had merely run its natural course.After the baron recovered he would curse terribly at mention of Maître Payen. He would be ready enough to cry "amen!" to the saying of the monk Guy of Provins, "they (the physicians) kill numbers of the sick, and exhaust themselves to find maladies for everybody. Woe to him who falls into their power! I prefer a capon to all their mixtures!" The monk concedes, indeed, that certain physicians are useful, but that it is because of the confidence which they inspire rather than thanks to their medicines that they effect cures.

Healing Relics and Processions

When next Conon falls sick, he vows that he will trust simply to Maître Louis or even to Maître Denis, although he may consent to send for a Lazarist monk, a member of the great monastic order which makes a specialty of healing the sick. For although these truly noble monks (who combine worldly wisdom with an equal amount of piety) treat especially leprosy, they are gradually turning their attention to diseases in general. If he cannot get a Lazarist, he will be likely to hire in an astrologer to discover a remedy by consulting the stars; or Father Grégoire may organize a "healing procession" of all the monks, clerks, and pious laymen whom he can muster. With solemnity they will carry the whole stock of saints' relics in the neighborhood to the sick seigneur, and lay them devoutly upon his abdomen. This remedy was tried in Paris some time ago to cure Prince Louis, the king's heir, and he recovered promptly. Similar assistance is available for a great seigneur like Conon.

Not always, indeed, will even the saints' relics avail. When the time had come for the good Lady Odelina, Conon's mother, they postponed extreme unction to the final moment, because after that ceremony the sickperson has really no right to get well. The hair falls out and the natural heat is diminished. The moment breath quitted the noble dame's body, the servants ran furiously through the castle, emptying every vessel of water lest the departing soul should be drowned therein. The dead body was also watched carefully until burial, lest the devil should replace it in its coffin with a black cat, and likewise lest a dog or cat should run over the coffin and change the corpse into a vampire. Conon and Adela are not convinced of these notions, but do not dispute them with the servitors.

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY BURIAL SCENEA THIRTEENTH-CENTURY BURIAL SCENEFrom an English manuscript (Schultz).

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY BURIAL SCENEFrom an English manuscript (Schultz).

A THIRTEENTH-CENTURY BURIAL SCENE

From an English manuscript (Schultz).

Next the body was carefully embalmed. The heart was removed, to be buried at a nunnery whereof Lady Odelina had been the patroness. A waxen death mask was made of the face, and the body was laid out on a handsome bed with black hangings. A temporary altar was set up in the apartment that masses might be said there, and one or two of Conon's vassals or squires remained on guard night and day, fully armed, while round the bed blazed two or three scores of tall candles.

Funeral Customs

The interment took place in the abbey church, in thetransept where rested so many of the St. Aliquis stock. They laid upon the Lady Odelina's breast a silver cross engraved with the words of absolution; and in the heavy stone casket also were buried four small earthen pots, each of which had contained some of the incense burned during the funeral ceremony. Finally, when the rites were over, Conon employed a cunning sculptor to make a life-size marble effigy of his mother, to rest upon the slab covering her tomb—an effigy which, by the dignity and genuine peace of form and face, was long to express how truly noble had been his gracious mother.

Common folk cannot have marble caskets and effigies, but even poor peasants are graced with decidedly elaborate funerals. When a person of the least consequence in the village dies, a crier goes down all the lanes, ringing a bell and calling out the name of the deceased, adding, "Pray God for the dead." Peasants of quality are likely to be laid away in plaster coffins, although the poorest class of villeins are wrapped only in rags and tossed into shallow pits.

Still worse is the fate of those who die excommunicated by the Church or of suicides. These unfortunates cannot even be buried in holy ground. Their bodies are often exposed, to be torn by the dogs and crows. Sometimes, however, a hardened sinner repents sufficiently on his deathbed to be restored to the graces of religion. But in this case his body is frequently burned, all laden with iron or brazen fetters. The idea is thus to mortify the body, even after the breath of life has departed, and so to abate those fires in purgatory assuredly awaiting for all save great saints, who can pass straight to heaven, or the numerous reprobates whose guilt requires not temporary, but eternal torment.

FOOTNOTES:[82]As a result of this attitude, such a distinguished and genuinely learned scholar as Albert the Great is said to have confounded tendons and nerves.[83]A mediæval medical treatise deliberately advises the use of this argument to silence patients when the physicians cannot make a diagnosis, yet must say something.

[82]As a result of this attitude, such a distinguished and genuinely learned scholar as Albert the Great is said to have confounded tendons and nerves.

[83]A mediæval medical treatise deliberately advises the use of this argument to silence patients when the physicians cannot make a diagnosis, yet must say something.

All the folk of St. Aliquis are Christians. Nobody, far and wide, except a few Jews in Pontdebois, openly dissents from the Catholic religion, denies the validity of the creeds, or refuses a certain outward conformity to the Church practices. The age is not greatly interested in improving the general moral and social condition of the common people. The common people even are not always interested in this themselves. Each peasant prays for "just treatment" and for good luck. Otherwise, castle and village alike accept as a kind of natural law the immutability of society. God has established the various orders and gradations. All that one can ask is that each man shall accept the condition assigned to him and live in it efficiently and happily.

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