His piety is shown also in his bequests to the churches of Bradwell, Pattiswick, and Markshall, parishes adjacent to Coggeshall, and to Stoke Nayland, Clare, Poslingford, Ovington, and Beauchamp St Pauls, over the Essex order, in the district from which the Paycockes originally came. But his greatest care was naturallyfor Coggeshall Church. One of the Paycockes had probably built the north aisle, where the altar was dedicated to St Katherine, and all the Paycocke tombs lay there. Thomas Paycocke left instructions in his will that he should be buried before St Katherine's altar, and made the following gifts to the church: 'Item, I bequeth to the high aulter of Coxhall Chirche in recompence of tithes and all oder thyngs forgoten, Summa iiij li. Item, I bequethe to the Tabernacle of the Trenyte at the high awlter and an other of Seint Margarete in seint Katryne Ile, there as the great Lady stands, for carvyng and gildyng of them summa c. marcs sterlinge. Item, to the reparacons of the Chirch and bells and for my lying in the Chirche summa c. nobles.' He founded a chantry there also and left money to be given weekly to six poor men to attend Mass in his chantry thrice a week.
Of piety and of family pride these legacies to religious houses and to churches speak clearly. Another series of legacies, which takes a form characteristic of medieval charity, bears witness perhaps to Thomas Paycocke's habits. He must often have ridden abroad, to see the folk who worked for him or to visit his friends in the villages round Coggeshall; or farther afield to Clare, first to see the home of his ancestors, then to court Margaret Horrold, his bride, and then, with Margaret beside him, to visit his well-loved father-in-law. Certainly, whether he walked to church in Coggeshall, or whether he rode along the country lanes, he often sighed over the state of the road as he went; often he must have struggled through torrents of mud in winter or stumbled among holes in summer; for in the Middle Ages the care of the roads was a matter for private or ecclesiastical charity, and all except the great highways were likely to be but indifferently kept. Langland, in hisPiers Plowman, mentions the amending of 'wikked wayes' (by which he means not bad habits but bad roads) as one of those works of charity which rich merchants must do for the salvation of their souls. Thomas Paycocke's choice of roads no doubt reflects many a wearisome journey, from which he returned home splashed and testy, to the ministrations of 'John Reyner my man' or 'Henry Briggs my servant', and of Margaret, looking anxiously from her oriel window for his return. In his own town he leaves no less than forty pounds, ofwhich twenty pounds was to go to amend a section of West Street (where his house stood), and the other twenty was 'to be layde on the fowle wayes bitwene Coxhall and Blackwater where as moost nede ys'; he had doubtless experienced the evils of this road on his way to the abbey. Farther afield, he leaves twenty pounds for the 'fowle way' between Clare and Ovington, and another twenty for the road between Ovington and Beauchamp St Pauls.
As his life drew to its close he doubtless rode less often afield. The days would pass peacefully for him; his business flourished and he was everywhere loved and respected. He took pride in his lovely house, adding bit by bit to its beauties. In the cool of the evening he must often have stood outside the garden room and seen the monks from the big abbey fishing in their stewpond across the field, or lifted his eyes to where the last rays of sun slanted on to the lichened roof of the great tithebarn, and on to the rows of tenants, carrying their sheaves of corn along the road; and he reflected, perhaps, that John Mann and Thomas Spooner, his own tenants, were good, steady friends, and that it was well to leave them a gown or a pound when he died. Often also, in his last year or two, he must have sat with his wife in his garden with the dove-house and watched the white pigeons circling round the apple-trees, and smiled upon her bed of flowers. And in winter evenings sometimes he would take his furred cloak and stroll to the Dragon Inn, and Edward Aylward, mine host, would welcome him with bows; and so he would sit and drink a tankard of sack with his neighbours, very slow and dignified, as befitted the greatest clothier of the town, and looking benevolently upon the company. But at times he would frown, if he saw a truant monk from the abbey stolen out for a drink in spite of all the prohibitions of bishop and abbot, shaking his head, perhaps, and complaining that religion was not what it had been in the good old days; but not meaning much of it, as his will shows, and never dreaming that twenty years after his death abbot and monks would be scattered and the King's servants would be selling at auction the lead from off the roof of Coggeshall Abbey; never dreaming that after four hundred years his house would still stand, mellow and lovely, with its carved ceiling and its proudmerchant's mark, when the abbey church was only a shadow on the surface of a field in hot weather and all the abbey buildings were shrunk to one ruined ambulatory, ignobly sheltering blue Essex hay wagons from the rain.
So Thomas Paycocke's days drew to a close amid the peace and beauty of the most English of counties, 'fatt, frutefull and full of profitable thinges,'[15] whose little rolling hills, wych elms, and huge clouded skies Constable loved to paint. There came a day in September when gloom hung over the streets of Coggeshall, when the spinning-wheels were silent in the cottages, and spinners and weavers stood in anxious groups outside the beautiful house in West Street; for upstairs in his bridal chamber, under its noble ceiling, the great clothier lay dying, and his wife wept by his bedside, knowing that he would never see his child. A few days later the cottages were deserted again, and a concourse of weeping people followed Thomas Paycocke to his last rest. The ceremony of his burial befitted his dignity: it comprised services, not only on burial day itself, but on the seventh day after it, and then again after a month had passed. It is given best in the words of his will, for Thomas Paycocke followed the custom of his time, in giving his executors elaborate injunctions for his funeral rites: 'I will myne executors bestowe vpon my buryng daye, vij day and mounthe daye after this manner: At my buriall to have a tryntall of prests and to be at dirige, lawdis, and comendacons as many of them as may be purveyed that day to serve the tryntall, and yf eny lack to make it vpp the vij'th daye. And at the Mounthe daye an oder tryntall to be purveyed hoole of myne executors and to kepe dirige, lawdis and commendacons as is afore reherssed, with iij high massis be note [by note, i.e. with music], oon of the holy gost, an other of owre lady, and an other of Requiem, both buriall, seuenth day and Mounthe daye. And prests beyng at this obseruance iiij d. at euery tyme and childryn at euery tyme ij d., w't torches at the buriall xij, and vj at the vij'th day and xij at the mounthe daye, with xxiij'th or xij smale childryn in Rochettes with tapers in theire honds, and as many as may be of them lett them be my god Childryn, and they to haue vj s. viij d. apece; and euery oder child iiij d. apece; and euery man that holdith torches at euery day he to have ij apece; and euery man,woman and child that holdeth upp hound [hand] at eny of thes iij days to haue j d. apece; And also euery god chyld besyde vj s. viij d. apece; and to the Ryngars for all iij dayes x s.; and for mete, drynke, and for twoo Semones of a doctor, and also to haue a dirige at home, or I be borne to the Chirche summa j li.'
Here is something very different from the modest Thomas Betson's injunction: 'The costes of my burying to be don not outrageously, but sobrely and discretly and in a meane maner, that it may be unto the worship and laude of Almyghty God.' The worthy old clothier was not unmindful of the worship and laud of Thomas Paycocke also, and over £500 in modern money was expended upon his burial ceremonies, over and above the cost of founding his new chantry. Well indeed it was that his eyes were closed in death, ere the coming of the Reformation abolished all the chantries of England, and with them the Paycocke chantry in St Katherine's aisle, which had provided alms for six poor men weekly. Thomas Paycocke belonged to the good old days; in a quarter of a century after his death Essex was already changing. The monks were scattered from the abbey, which stood roofless; the sonorous Latin tongue no longer echoed in the church, nor priests prayed there for the souls of Thomas and his wife and his parents and his father-in-law. Even the cloth industry was changing, and the county was growing more prosperous still with the advent of finer kinds of cloth, brought over there by feat-fingered aliens, the 'new drapery', known as 'Bays and Says'. For as the adage says:
Hops, reformation, bays and beerCame into England all in a year,
and Coggeshall was destined to become more famous still for a new sort of cloth called 'Coxall's Whites', which Thomas Paycocke's nephews made when he was in his grave.[16] One thing, however, did not change; for his beautiful house still stood in West Street, opposite the vicarage, and was the delight of all who saw it. It stands there still, and looking upon it today, and thinking of Thomas Paycocke who once dwelt in it, do there not come to mind the famous words of Ecclesiasticus?
Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us.The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through His greatpower from the beginning...Rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in theirhabitations: All these were honoured in their generations andwere the glory of their times.
CHAPTER II
THE PEASANT BODO
A. Raw Material
1. The Roll of the Abbot Irminon, an estate book of the Abbey of St Germain des Prés, near Paris, written between 811 and 826. SeePolyptyque de l'Abbaye de Saint-Germain des Prés, pub. Auguste Longnon, t. I,Introduction; t. II,Texte(Soc. de l'Hist. de Paris, 1886-95).
2. Charlemagne's capitulary,De Villis, instructions to his stewards on the management of his estates. See Guerard,Explication du Capitulaire 'de Villis'(Acad. des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres,Mémoires, t. XXI, 1857), pp. 165-309, containing the text, with a detailed commentary and a translation into French.
3.Early Lives of Charlemagne, ed. A.J. Grant (King's Classics, 1907). Contains the lives by Einhard and the Monk of St Gall, on which see Halphen, cited below.
4. Various pieces of information about social life may be gleaned from the decrees of Church Councils, Old High German and Anglo-Saxon charms and poems, and Aelfric'sColloquium, extracts from which are translated in Bell's Eng. Hist. Source Books,The Welding of the Race, 449-1066, ed. J.E.W. Wallis (1913). For a general sketch of the period see LavisseHist. de France, t. II, and for an elaborate critical study of certain aspects of Charlemagne's reign (including thePolyptychum) see Halphen,Études critiques sur l'Histoire de Charlemagne(1921); also A. Dopsch,Wirtschaftsentwicklung der Karolingerzeit, Vornehmlich in Deutschland, 2 vols. (Weimar, 1912-13), which Halphen criticizes.
B. Notes to the Text
1. 'Habet Bodo colonus et uxor ejus colona, nomine Ermentrudis, homines sancti Germani, habent secum infantes III. Tenet mansum ingenuilem I, habentem de terre arabili bunuaria VIII et antsingas II, devinea aripennos II, de prato aripennos VII. Solvit ad hostem de argento solidos II, de vino in pascione modios II; ad tertium annum sundolas C; de sepe perticas III. Arat ad hibernaticum perticas III, ad tramisem perticas II. In unaquaque ebdomada corvadas II, manuoperam I. Pullos III, ova XV; et caropera ibi injungitur. Et habet medietatem de farinarium, inde solvit de argento solidos II.' Op. cit., II, p. 78. 'Bodo acolonusand his wife Ermentrude acolona, tenants of Saint-Germain, have with them three children. He holds one free manse, containing eightbunuariaand twoantsingaof arable land, twoaripenniof vines and sevenaripenniof meadow. He pays two silver shillings to the army and two hogsheads of wine for the right to pasture his pigs in the woods. Every third year he pays a hundred planks and three poles for fences. He ploughs at the winter sowing four perches and at the spring sowing two perches. Every week he owes two labour services(corvées)and one handwork. He pays three fowls and fifteen eggs, and carrying service when it is enjoined upon him. And he owns the half of a windmill, for which he pays two silver shillings.'
2.De Villis, c. 45.
3. Ibid. cc. 43, 49.
4. From 'The Casuistry of Roman Meals,' inThe Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, ed. D. Masson (1897), VII, p. 13.
5. Aelfric'sColloquiumin op. cit. p. 95.
6. The Monk of St Gall'sLifeinEarly Lives of Charlemagne, pp. 87-8.
7. Einhard'sLifein op. cit., p. 45.
8. Anglo-Saxon charms translated in Stopford Brook,English Literature from the Beginning to the Norman Conquest(1899), p. 43.
9. Old High German charm written in a tenth-century hand in a ninth-century codex containing sermons of St Augustine, now in the Vatican Library. Brawne,Althochdeutsches Lesebuch(fifth edition, Halle, 1902), p. 83.
10. Another Old High German charm preserved in a tenth-century codex now at Vienna. Brawne, op. cit., p. 164.
11. From the ninth-centuryLibellus de Ecclesiasticis Disciplinis, art. 100, quoted in Ozanam,La Civilisation Chrétienne chez les Francs(1849), p. 312. The injunction however, really refers to the recently conquered and still half-pagan Saxons.
12.Penitentialof Haligart, Bishop of Cambrai, quoted ibid. p. 314.
13.Documents relatifs à l'Histoire de l'Industrie et du Commerce en France, ed. G. Faigniez, t. I, pp. 51-2.
14. See references in Chambers,The Medieval Stage(1913), I, pp. 161-3.
15. For the famous legend of the dancers of Kölbigk, see Gaston Paris,Les Danseurs Maudits, Légende Allemande du XIe Siècle(Paris 1900, reprinted from theJournal des Savants, Dec., 1899), which is aconte renduof Schröder's study inZeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte(1899). The poem occurs in a version of English origin, in which one of the dancers, Thierry, is cured of a perpetual trembling in all his limbs by a miracle of St Edith at the nunnery of Wilton in 1065. See loc. cit., pp. 10, 14.
16. 'Swete Lamman dhin are,' in the original. The story is told by Giraldus Cambrensis inGemma Ecclesiastica, pt. I, c. XLII. SeeSelections from Giraldus Cambrensis, ed. C.A.J. Skeel (S.P.C.K.Texts for Students, No. XI), p. 48.
17. Einhard'sLifein op. cit. p. 45. See also ibid., p. 168 (note).
18. The Monk of St Gall'sLifein op. cit., pp. 144-7.
19. Einhard'sLifein op. cit., p. 39.
20. Ibid., p. 35.
21. Beazley,Dawn of Modern Geography(1897), I, p. 325.
22. The Monk of St Gall'sLifein op. cit., pp. 78-9.
23. See the description in Lavisse,Hist. de France II, pt. I, p. 321; also G. Monod,Les moeurs judiciaires au VIIIe Siècle, Revue Historique, t. XXXV (1887).
24. See Faigniez, op. cit., pp. 43-4.
25. See the Monk of St Gall's account of the finery of the Frankish nobles: 'It was a holiday and they had just come from Pavia, whither the Venetians had carried all the wealth of the East from their territories beyond the sea,--others, I say, strutted in robes made of pheasant-skins and silk; or of the necks, backs and tails of peacocks in their first plumage. Some were decorated with purple and lemon-coloured ribbons; some were wrapped round with blankets and some in ermine robes.' Op. cit., p. 149. The translation is a little loose: the 'phoenix robes' of the original were more probably made out of the plumage, not of the pheasant but of the scarlet flamingo, as Hodgson thinks(Early Hist. of Venice, p. 155), or possibly silks woven or embroidered with figures of birds, as Heyd thinks(Hist. du Commerce du Levant, I, p. 111).
26. The Monk of St. Gall'sLifein op. cit., pp. 81-2.
27. This little poem was scribbled by an Irish scribe in the margin of a copy of Priscian in the monastery of St Gall, in Switzerland, the same from which Charlemagne's highly imaginative biographer came. Theoriginal will be found in Stokes and Strachan,Thesaurus Palæohibernicus(1903) II, p. 290. It has often been translated and I quote the translation by Kuno Meyer,Ancient Irish Poetry(2nd ed., 1913), p. 99. The quotation from theTriads of Irelandat the head of this chapter is taken from Kuno Meyer also, ibid. pp. 102-3.
CHAPTER III
MARCO POLO
A. Raw Material
1.The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, trans. and ed. with notes by Sir Henry Yule (3rd edit., revised by Henri Cordier, 2 vols., Hakluyt Soc., 1903). See also H. Cordier,Ser Marco Polo: Notes and Addenda(1920). The best edition of the original French text isLe Livre de Marco Polo, ed. G. Pauthier (Paris, 1865), The most convenient and cheap edition of the book for English readers is a reprint of Marsden's translation (of the Latin text) and notes (first published, 1818), with an introduction by John Masefield,The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian(Everyman's Library, 1908; reprinted, 1911); but some of the notes (identifying places, etc.) are now out of date, and the great edition by Yule and Cordier should be consulted where exact and detailed information is required. It is a mine of information, geographical and historical, about the East. I quote from the Everyman Edition as Marco Polo, op. cit., and from the Yule edition as Yule, op. cit.
2.La Cronique des Veneciens de Maistre Martin da Canal. InArchivo Storico Italiano, 1st ser., vol. VIII (Florence, 1845). Written in French and accompanied by a translation into modern Italian. One of the most charming of medieval chronicles.
B. Modern Works
1. For medieval Venice see--F.C. Hodgson:The Early History of Venice from the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople(1901); andVenice in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, A Sketch of Venetian History, 1204-1400(1910).P.G. Molmenti:Venice, its Growth to the Fall of the Republic, vols.I and II (The Middle Ages), trans. H.F. Brown (1906); andLa Vie Privée à Venise, vol. I (1895).H.F. Brown:Studies in the History of Venice, vol. I (1907).Mrs Oliphant:The Makers of Venice(1905) is pleasant reading and contains a chapter on Marco Polo.2. For medieval China, the Tartars, and European intercourse with the far East see--Sir Henry Yule's introduction to his great edition of Marco Polo (above).Cathay and the Way Thither: Medieval Notices of China, trans. and ed. by Sir Henry Yule, 4 vols. (Hakluyt Soc., 1915-16). Contains an invaluable introduction and all the best accounts of China left by medieval European travellers. Above all, Oderic of Pordenone (d. 1331) should be read as a pendant to Marco Polo.R. Beazley:The Dawn of Modern Geography, vols. II and III (1897-1906).R. Grousset:Histoire de l'Asie, t. III (3rd edit., 1922), Chap. I. A short and charmingly written account of the Mongol Empires from Genghis Khan to Timour.H. Howarth:History of the Mongols(1876).3. For medieval trade with the East the best book is--W. Heyd:Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Âge, trans., F. Raynaud; 2 vols. (Leipzig and Paris, 1885-6, reprinted 1923).
1. For medieval Venice see--F.C. Hodgson:The Early History of Venice from the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople(1901); andVenice in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, A Sketch of Venetian History, 1204-1400(1910).P.G. Molmenti:Venice, its Growth to the Fall of the Republic, vols.I and II (The Middle Ages), trans. H.F. Brown (1906); andLa Vie Privée à Venise, vol. I (1895).H.F. Brown:Studies in the History of Venice, vol. I (1907).Mrs Oliphant:The Makers of Venice(1905) is pleasant reading and contains a chapter on Marco Polo.
1. For medieval Venice see--
F.C. Hodgson:The Early History of Venice from the Foundation to the Conquest of Constantinople(1901); andVenice in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries, A Sketch of Venetian History, 1204-1400(1910).
P.G. Molmenti:Venice, its Growth to the Fall of the Republic, vols.I and II (The Middle Ages), trans. H.F. Brown (1906); andLa Vie Privée à Venise, vol. I (1895).
H.F. Brown:Studies in the History of Venice, vol. I (1907).
Mrs Oliphant:The Makers of Venice(1905) is pleasant reading and contains a chapter on Marco Polo.
2. For medieval China, the Tartars, and European intercourse with the far East see--Sir Henry Yule's introduction to his great edition of Marco Polo (above).Cathay and the Way Thither: Medieval Notices of China, trans. and ed. by Sir Henry Yule, 4 vols. (Hakluyt Soc., 1915-16). Contains an invaluable introduction and all the best accounts of China left by medieval European travellers. Above all, Oderic of Pordenone (d. 1331) should be read as a pendant to Marco Polo.R. Beazley:The Dawn of Modern Geography, vols. II and III (1897-1906).R. Grousset:Histoire de l'Asie, t. III (3rd edit., 1922), Chap. I. A short and charmingly written account of the Mongol Empires from Genghis Khan to Timour.H. Howarth:History of the Mongols(1876).
2. For medieval China, the Tartars, and European intercourse with the far East see--
Sir Henry Yule's introduction to his great edition of Marco Polo (above).
Cathay and the Way Thither: Medieval Notices of China, trans. and ed. by Sir Henry Yule, 4 vols. (Hakluyt Soc., 1915-16). Contains an invaluable introduction and all the best accounts of China left by medieval European travellers. Above all, Oderic of Pordenone (d. 1331) should be read as a pendant to Marco Polo.
R. Beazley:The Dawn of Modern Geography, vols. II and III (1897-1906).
R. Grousset:Histoire de l'Asie, t. III (3rd edit., 1922), Chap. I. A short and charmingly written account of the Mongol Empires from Genghis Khan to Timour.
H. Howarth:History of the Mongols(1876).
3. For medieval trade with the East the best book is--W. Heyd:Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Âge, trans., F. Raynaud; 2 vols. (Leipzig and Paris, 1885-6, reprinted 1923).
3. For medieval trade with the East the best book is--
W. Heyd:Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Âge, trans., F. Raynaud; 2 vols. (Leipzig and Paris, 1885-6, reprinted 1923).
C. Notes to the Text
1. To be exact, the Flanders galleys which sailed via Gibraltar to Southampton and Bruges were first sent out forty years after 1268--in 1308. Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries they sailed every year, and Southampton owes its rise to prosperity to the fact that it was their port of call.
2. The occasion of the speech quoted was when the imperial representative Longinus was trying to get the help of the Venetians against the Lombards in 568 and invited them to acknowledge themselves subjects of the Emperor. The speech is quoted inEncyclop. Brit., Art.Venice(by H.F. Brown), p. 1002. The episode of the loaves of bread belongs to the attempt of Pipin, son of Charlemagne, to starve out the Rialto in the winter of 809-10. Compare the tale of Charlemagne casting his sword into the sea, with the words, 'Truly, even as this brand which Ihave cast into the sea shall belong neither to me nor to you nor to any other man in all the world, even so shall no man in the world have power to hurt the realm of Venice; and he who would harm it shall feel the wrath and displeasure of God, even as it has fallen upon me and my people.'--See Canale,Cron., c. VIII. These are, of course, all legends.
3. 'Voirs est que la mer Arians est de le ducat de Venise.'--Canale, op. cit., p. 600. Albertino Mussato calls Venice 'dominatrix Adriaci maris.'--Molmenti,Venice, I, p. 120.
4. See some good contemporary accounts of the ceremony quoted in Molmenti,Venice, I, pp. 212-15.
5. During the fatal war of Chioggia between the two republics of Venice and Genoa, which ended in 1381, it was said that the Genoese admiral (or some say Francesco Carrara), when asked by the Doge to receive peace ambassadors, replied, 'Not before I have bitted the horses on St Mark's.'--H.F. Brown,Studies in the Hist. of Venice, I, p. 130.
6. Canale, op. cit., p. 270.
7. 'The weather was clear and fine ... and when they were at sea, the mariners let out the sails to the wind, and let the ships run with spread sails before the wind over the sea'--See, for instance, Canale, op. cit., pp. 320, 326, and elsewhere.
8. Canale, op. cit., cc. I and II, pp. 268-72. Venice is particularly fortunate in the descriptions which contemporaries have left of her--not only her own citizens (such as Canale, Sanudo and the Doge Mocenigo) but also strangers. Petrarch's famous description of Venetian commerce, as occasioned by the view which he saw from his window in the fourteenth century, has often been quoted: 'See the innumerable vessels which set forth from the Italian shore in the desolate winter, in the most variable and stormy spring, one turning its prow to the east, the other to the west; some carrying our wine to foam in British cups, our fruits to flatter the palates of the Scythians and, still more hard of credence, the wood of our forests to the Egean and the Achaian isles; some to Syria, to Armenia, to the Arabs and Persians, carrying oil and linen and saffron, and bringing back all their diverse goods to us.... Let me persuade you to pass another hour in my company. It was the depth of night and the heavens were full of storm, and I, already weary and half asleep, had come to an end of my writing, when suddenly a burst of shouts from the sailors penetrated my ear. Aware of what these shouts should mean from former experience, I rose hastily and went up to the higher windows of this house, which look out upon the port. Oh, what a spectacle, mingled with feelings of pity, of wonder, of fear and of delight! Resting on theiranchors close to the marble banks which serve as a mole to the vast palace which this free and liberal city has conceded to me for my dwelling, several vessels have passed the winter, exceeding with the height of their masts and spars the two towers which flank my house. The larger of the two was at this moment--though the stars were all hidden by the clouds, the winds shaking the walls, and the roar of the sea filling the air--leaving the quay and setting out upon its voyage. Jason and Hercules would have been stupefied with wonder, and Tiphys, seated at the helm, would have been ashamed of the nothing which won him so much fame. If you had seen it, you would have said it was no ship but a mountain, swimming upon the sea, although under the weight of its immense wings a great part of it was hidden in the waves. The end of the voyage was to be the Don, beyond which nothing can navigate from our seas; but many of those who were on board, when they had reached that point, meant to prosecute their journey, never pausing till they had reached the Ganges or the Caucasus, India and the Eastern Ocean. So far does love of gain stimulate the human mind.'--Quoted from Petrarch'sLettere Seniliin Oliphant,Makers of Venice(1905), p. 349; the whole of this charming chapter, 'The Guest of Venice', should be read. Another famous description of Venice occurs in a letter written by Pietro Aretino, a guest of Venice during the years 1527 to 1533, to Titian, quoted in E. Hutton,Pietro Aretino, the Scourge of Princes(1922), pp. 136-7; compare also his description of the view from his window on another occasion, quoted ibid., pp. 131-3. The earliest of all is the famous letter written by Cassiodorus to the Venetians in the sixth century, which is partly translated in Molmenti, op. cit., I, pp. 14-15.
9. The account of the march of the gilds occupies cc. CCLXIII-CCLXXXIII of Canale's Chronicle, op. cit., pp. 602-26. It has often been quoted.
10. Canale, op. cit., c. CCLXI, p. 600.
11. This account of Hangchow is taken partly from Marco Polo, op. cit., bk. II, c. LXVIII: 'Of the noble and magnificent city of Kinsai'; and partly from Odoric of Pordenone,Cathay and the Way Thither, ed. Yule, pp. 113-20.
12. Oderic of Pordenone, who was a man before he was a friar, remarks: 'The Chinese are comely enough, but colourless, having beards of long straggling hair like mousers, cats I mean. And as for the women, they are the most beautiful in the world.' Marco Polo likewise never fails to note when the women of a district are specially lovely, in the same way that that other traveller Arthur Young always notes thelooks of the chambermaids at the French inns among the other details of the countryside, and is so much affronted if waited on by a plain girl. Marco Polo gives the palm for beauty to the women of the Province of Timochain (or Damaghan) on the north-east border of Persia, of which, he says, 'The people are in general a handsome race, especially the women, who, in my opinion, are the most beautiful in the world.'--Marco Polo, op. cit., p. 73. Of the women of Kinsai he reports thus: 'The courtesans are accomplished and are perfect in the arts of blandishment and dalliance, which they accompany with expressions adapted to every description of person, insomuch that strangers who have once tasted of their charms, remain in a state of fascination, and become so enchanted by their meretricious arts, that they can never divest themselves of the impression. Thus intoxicated with sensual pleasures, when they return to their homes they report that they have been in Kinsai, or the celestial city, and pant for the time when they may be enabled to revisit paradise.' Of the respectable ladies, wives of the master craftsmen he likewise says: 'They have much beauty and are brought up with languid and delicate habits. The costliness of their dresses, in silks and jewellery, can scarcely be imagined.'--op. cit., pp. 296, 297-8.
13. Yule, op. cit., II, p. 184.
14. For Prester John see Sir Henry Yule's article 'Prester John' in theEncyclopædia Britannica, and Lynn Thorndike,A History of Magic and Experimental Science(1923), II, pp. 236-45. There is a pleasant popular account in S. Baring Gould,Popular Myths of the Middle Ages(1866-8).
15. For their accounts seeThe Journal of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts, 1253-5, by himself, with two accounts of the Earlier Journey of John of Pian da Carpine, trans. and ed. with notes by W.W. Rockhill (Hakluyt Soc., 1900). Rubruck especially is a most delightful person.
16. This, together with the whole account of the first journey of the elder Polos, the circumstances of the second journey, and of their subsequent return occurs in the first chapter of Marco Polo's book, which is a general introduction, after which he proceeds to describe in order the lands through which he passed. This autobiographical section is unfortunately all too short.
17. As a matter of fact, William of Rubruck had seen and described it before him.
18. For Marco Polo's account of this custom in the province which he calls 'Kardandan', see op. cit., p. 250. An illustration of it from an album belonging to the close of the Ming dynasty is reproduced in S.W. Bushell,Chinese Art(1910), fig. 134.
19. Marco Polo,op. cit., pp. 21-2.
20. A certainPoh-lowas, according to the Chinese annals of the Mongol dynasty, appointed superintendent of salt mines at Yangchow shortly after 1282. Professor Parker thinks that he may be identified with our Polo, but M. Cordier disagrees. See E.H. ParkerSome New Facts about Marco Polos BookinImperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review(1904), p. 128; and H. Cordier,Ser Marco Polo, p. 8. See also Yule,Marco Polo, I, Introd., p. 21.
21. P. Parrenin inLett. Edis., xxiv, 58, quoted in Yule,op. cit., I, Introd., p. II.
22. On Marco Polo's omissions see Yule,op. cit., I, Introd., p. 110.
23. Marco Polo,op. cit., p. 288.
24. On Chao Mêng-fu see S.W. Bushell,Chinese Art(1910), II, pp. 133--59; H.A. Giles,Introd. to the History of Chinese Pictorial Art(Shanghai, 2nd ed., 1918), pp. 159 ff.; the whole of c. VI of this book on the art which flourished under the Mongol dynasty is interesting. See also L. Binyon,Painting in the Far East(1908), pp. 75-7, 146-7. One of Chao Mêng-fu's horse pictures, or rather a copy of it by a Japanese artist, is reproduced in Giles,op. cit., opposite p. 159. See also my notes on illustrations for an account of the famous landscape roll painted by him in the style of Wang Wei.
25. Bushell,op. cit., p. 135.
26.Ibid., pp. 135-6, where the picture is reproduced.
27. For the episode of the mangonels constructed by Nestorian mechanics under the directions of Nicolo and Maffeo see Marco Polo,op. cit., pp. 281-2.
28. Marco Polo,op. cit., bk. III, c. I, pp. 321-3.
29. Ramusio's preface, containing this account, and also the story of how Rusticiano came to write the book at Marco Polo's dictation at Genoa, is translated in Yule,op. cit., I, Introd., pp. 4-8.
30. He mentions these in Marco Polo,op. cit., pp. 136, 138, 344.
31. Yule,op. cit., I, Introd., p. 79.
32. On Rusticiano (who is mistakenly called a Genoese by Ramusio), seeibid., Introd., pp. 56 ff.
33. Paulin Paris, quotedibid., Introd., p. 61.
34.Ibid., Introd., pp. 67-73.
35. Extract from Jacopo of Acqui'sImago Mondi, quotedibid., Introd., p. 54.
36. M. Ch.-V. Langlois inHist. Litt. de la France, XXXV (1921), p. 259. For tributes to Marco Polo's accuracy see Aurel Stein,AncientKhotan(1907) andRuins of Desert Cathay(1912); Ellsworth Huntington,The Pulse of Asia(1910); and Sven Hedin,Overland to India(1910).
37. Yule,op. cit., I, Introd., pp. 106-7.
38. For these later missions and traders see Yule,Cathay and the Way Thither, Introd., pp. cxxxii-iv, and text,passim.
39.Ibid., II, p. 292; and App., p. lxv.
40. Concerning the marginal notes by Columbus see Yule,op. cit., II, App. H, p. 558. The book is preserved in the Colombina at Seville. I must, however, frankly admit that modern research, iconoclastic as ever, not content with white-washing Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine de Medicis, and with reducing Catherine of Siena to something near insignificance, is also making it appear more and more probable that Columbus originally set sail in 1492 to look for the islands of the Antilles, and that, although on his return after his great discovery in 1493 he maintained that his design had always been to reach Cipangu, this was apost hocstory, the idea of searching for Cipangu having probably come from his partner, Martin Pinzon. It is a pity that we do not knowwhenhe made his notes in the edition (the probable date of publication of which was 1485) of Marco Polo's book, which might settle the matter. On the whole question see Henry Vignaud,Études critiques sur la vie de Colomb avant ses découvertes(Paris, 1905) andHistoire de la Grande Enterprise de 1492, 2 vols. (Paris, 1910), and the summary and discussion of his conclusions by Professor A.P. Newton inHistory, VII (1922), pp. 38-42 (Historical RevisionsXX.--'Christopher Columbus and his Great Enterprise.') The idea that a new road to the East was being sought at this time, primarily because the Turks were blocking the old trade routes, has also been exploded. See A.H. Lybyer,The Ottoman Turks and the Routes of Oriental TradeinEng. Hist. Review, XXX (1915), pp.577-88.
CHAPTER IV
MADAME EGLENTYNE
A. Raw Material
1. Chaucer's description of the Prioress in the Prologue to theCanterbury Tales.
2. Miscellaneous visitation reports in episcopal registers. On these registers, and in particular the visitation documents therein, see R.C. Fowler,Episcopal Registers of England and Wales(S.P.C.K. Helps forStudents of History, No. 1), G.G. Coulton,The Interpretation of Visitation Documents(Eng. Hist. Review, 1914), and c. XII of my book, cited below. A great many registers have been, or are being, published by learned societies, notably by the Canterbury and York Society, which exists for this purpose. The most important are the Lincoln visitations, now in the course of publication, by Dr A. Hamilton Thompson,Visitations of Religious Houses in the Diocese of Lincoln, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson (Lincoln Rec. Soc. and Canterbury and York Soc., 1915 ff.); two volumes have appeared so far, of which see especially vol. II, which contains part of Bishop Alnwick's visitations (1436-49); each volume contains text, translation, and an admirable introduction. See also the extracts from Winchester visitations trans. in H.G.D. Liveing,Records of Romsey Abbey(1912). Full extracts from visitation reports and injunctions are given under the accounts of religious houses in the different volumes of the Victoria County Histories (cited as V.C.H.).
3. The monastic rules. SeeThe Rule of St Benedict, ed. F.A. Gasquet (Kings Classics, 1909), and F.A. Gasquet,English Monastic Life(4th ed., 1910).
4. For a very full study of the whole subject of English convent life at this period see Eileen Power,Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535(1922).
B. Notes to the Text
1.The Register of Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter(1307-26), ed. F. Hingeston Randolph (1892), p. 169. The passage about Philippa is translated in G.G. Coulton,Chaucer and His England(1908), p. 181.
2. See the account of expenses involved in making Elizabeth Sewardby a nun of Nunmonkton (1468) inTestamenta Eboracensia, ed. James Raine (Surtees Soc., 1886), III, p. 168; and Power,op. cit., p. 19.
3.Year Book of King Richard II, ed. C.F. Deiser (1904), pp. 71-7; and Power,op. cit., pp. 36-8.
4. G.J. Aungier,Hist. of Syon(1840), p. 385.
5. As at Gracedieu (1440-1),Alnwick's Visit, ed. A.H. Thompson, pp. 120-3.
6. G.J. Aungier,op. cit., pp. 405-9.
7. Translated from John de Grandisson's Register in G.G. Coulton,A Medieval Garner(1910), pp. 312-14.
8.Rule of St Benedict, c. 22.
9.V.C.H. Lincs., II, p. 131.